doollee banner
The Playwrights Database
contact doollee


Neal Bell

NEAL BELL

  
Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    The Gersh Agency, NY  represented by Carl Mulert

Neal Bell. Neal Bell's plays -- including Two Small Bodies, On the Bum and Spatter Pattern -- have appeared at Playwrights Horizons in New York, and at regional Theatres including the Mark Taper Forum, Denver Center Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville and Berkeley Rep. the recipient of grants from the Nea, Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations, Mr. Bell has also received an Obie award for sustained excEllence in playwriting. Mr. Bell is currently teaching in the Theater Studies department at Duke University.

Buy Plays with Doollee

Each page of doollee.com has links to play/book outlets, either directly to the Publisher, through Stageplays.com and Amazon to the second hand and 1st editions of AbeBooks. These links will automatically take you to the relevant area obviating the need for further search.
AbeBooks.co.uk   AbeBooks.com   Stageplays.com   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.ca
whether you are a Playwright who wishes to make their entry definitive, an unlisted Playwright or a User with a tale to tell - we want to hear from you.
download WORD submission template

below is a list of Neal Bell's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Cold Sweat         Drive         Elsewhere         Monster         No One You Know         On the Bum, Or the Next Train Through         Operation Midnight Climax         Out the Window         Raw Youth         Ready For the River         Shadow Of Himself         Sleeping Dogs         Somewhere in the Pacific         Spatter Pattern: Or, How I Got Away With It         therese Raquin         Time / Unstuck         Time-Piece, A         Two Small Bodies         What Will I Do When You're Gone?         Will You Accept the Charges?

Cold Sweat

Synopsis:
Frustrated in her attempts to deal honestly with terminal patients, Dr. Alice Franklin is dismissed from one hospital and moves on to another, only to find herself faced once again with the same dilEmma-a cancer patient who is held hostage to the fervent beliefs of her husband, a faith healer who is convinced that there is really no such thing as death. all those close to Alice also seem to draw her further into a confrontation with mortality: her Father is dying; her relationship with her mother grows more strained as a result; and she begins an affair with another doctor just as he learns that he too has cancer. Alice writes a successful book about her work with the terminally ill and, in a series of spare, sharply drawn scenes, she is brought face-to-face with such complex issues as life after death, New age medicine, and euthanasia, as well as the realization that her increasingly radical approach to these subjects could have a harmful effect on her life and career. She remains throughout, however, a cons

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1988   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Bibliographies/VN_drama_bib.php

Top of Page Top of Page

Drive

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Ten Minute Plays From Actors Theatre Of Louisville, Vol 3, Samuel French NY   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Ten Min

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Elsewhere

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Monster

Synopsis:
a stage adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Neal Bell's Monster takes a disturbing yet poignant look at one man's obsession with creating life, and the destructive after-effects of abandoning his creation.

Notes:
Based on "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley

1st Produced:
-     2004

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

No One You Know

Synopsis:
A married couple

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

On the Bum, Or the Next Train Through

Synopsis:
In the waning days of the 1930s Great Depression, an out-of-work actress hits the road again, after her first New York show collapses before it can open. Through the Federal theatre Project, eleanor's landed an acting job in the kind of tiny town she'd hoped to escape forever. So she hops a train to Bumfork-meeting suspicious tramps and angry railroad cops-to perform in an innocuous pageant-in-verse by a stuffy local authoress, about the Great Flood that destroyed the town fifty years before. While rehearsing at an abandoned farm, eleanor meets and falls in love with Frank, an out-of-work, unhappily married man, who's more and more disillusioned with the world around him. Or maybe he's seen more of the truth-his version of which he teaches to eleanor. With an irate government-inspector on his way to sniff out any traces of bias in the upcoming pageant, eleanor discovers the very political truth beneath the rhyming couplets of the pageant-that the Great Flood was the fault of greedy local fat-cats (who built a

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Comedy Drama Comedy

Parts:
Male:  9            Female:  3            Other:  1g

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Operation Midnight Climax

Synopsis:
the scene is a small control room, where three CIa agents are closeted behind a two-way mirror, taping the offstage actions of a fourth agent, a young woman who is having a prearranged passionate liaison with a suspected drug pusher. Ostensibly they are gathering information on the narcotics trade, but as they swap anecdotes and information the fact of their own moral decadence becomes increasingly evident. the men represent three contrasting faces of espionage: One is coldly authoritative; another, an older man, approaches his work with humorous detachment; while the third, an eager trainee, is learning the business "from the ground up." When the fourth agent, the woman, joins the others, the play takes on a special urgency. She, beautiful and seductive, had been romantically involved with the two older men, and she now seeks revenge for their complicity in the downfall of her father, a former colleague destroyed by drugs. In the end, however, she cannot wield the power she has over them for she, like the ot

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Out the Window

Synopsis:
Pandora's box is opened when a young man awakens in a wheelchair atop a kitchen table. How did he get there? What happened last night? and will his girlfriend tell him the truth? This comic tale of hope and devotion is co-winner of the 1990 Heideman award for aTL's "best of the shortest" National Ten-Minute Play Contest.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Samuel French, Inc. in More Ten-Minute Plays from Actors Theatre of Louisville and by Smith & Kraus in 20/20: Twenty One-act Plays from the Twenty Year History of the Humana Festival of New American Plays,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Ten Min

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Raw Youth

Synopsis:
Sam, a young former policeman who has been drummed out of the force because of suspected corruption, is approached by his father, Mel, to act as a gay decoy to entrap a reportedly homosexual congressman. Mel, a convicted confidence man, is cooperating with the FBI in the hope of having the charges against him dropped, and he has long been aware of his son's bisexuality-a knowledge which, until now, has been a source of concern and dismay for him. Sam, embittered and empty but still hopeful of regaining his father's love, agrees to the scam, and the trap is set. But Congressman Gary proves to be much more than just an easy mark, and the sudden, unexpected bond that occurs between him and Sam becomes increasingly poignant with the congressman's growing realization and resigned acceptance of the manner in which he has been used. He too has lost a son, but somehow, in Sam, he has found him again. as the play ends Mel, strolling on the beach with Sam, also comes to realize that the love of a Father for his son tra

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama. - - Gay, full length

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Ready For the River

Synopsis:
the Drama begins on the site of the foreclosed farm of Doris, her estranged husband, Jim, and her daughter, Lorna. as Doris and Lorna reminisce about life before the foreclosure, they witness Jim take a shotgun, stalk and shoot the banker who came with the foreclosure notice. Doris and Lorna flee the scene, fearing the same fate. On the highway, as mother and daughter relentlessly drive, the question Lorna asks, "How far away is far enough?" is also telltale of the stormy relationship between the scenes blur reality, memories and dreams create powerful descriptions of lives as desolate as the abandoned farms of the heartland. along the way, Lorna and Doris have some strange company in the car, including the son of the dead banker and also what seems to be the dead banker himself. after a series of stops and close calls, mother and daughter arrive exhausted at a motel where they learn that they are free of the threat of violence. With this news, Doris must face the fact that the independence she and Lorna fina

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  2            Other:  male roles can BF doubled

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Shadow Of Himself

Shadow Of Himself
Moving backwards and forwards in time Shadow of Himself combines a retelling of the ancient epic of Gilgamesh (where an arrogant king first fights, then loves, then loses his only friend to the land of the Dead) with the story of two soldiers in the modern world, caught up in the terror of battle.

Notes:
Commissioned by the Civilians, written by playwright Neal Bell

1st Produced:
Duke Department Of Theater Studies, Durham, Nc     01 Mar 2007

Organisations:

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
80-90 min Comedy/Mythic Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Sleeping Dogs

Synopsis:
the play begins on the roof of a Manhattan office building where Park, a hard-driving (and dishonest) insurance executive, and Sling, his protege, are discussing the dire trouble Park has gotten them, and the company, into by selling policies to bogus clients (Judge Crater, Jimmy Hoffa, amelia earhart, to name a few) and then pocketing the proceeds after declaring them dead. Sling, who confides that his wife is pregnant and he is suffering from terminal brain cancer, is also the holder of one of Park's worthless policies, an aggregation of problems which he solves by leaping from the roof-only to turn up later in the play as a grisly ghost who communes with Park's dissatisfied suburban wife, Sally. But, for Park, the more pressing concern is to retrieve a collection of incriminating computer discs which are locked up in his sealed office, a maneuver which involves a burnt-out, sleazy private detective and Park's brash, sexy secretary (who is not overly pleased to find her own name on one of Park's phony polic

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Black Comedy Comedy

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Somewhere in the Pacific

Somewhere in the Pacific
takes place on a troop ship at the end of World War II. the ship's captain is haunted by the death of his son in battle; the young Marines under his command are terrified and restless as they are stalked by an invisible enemy. Sex and violence underpin every interaction
- press release

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Atlantic Stage 2
330 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011     2008

Organisations:
Potomac Theatre Project

1st Published:
in Plays From Playwrights Horizons, Volume 2, Broadway Play Pub; first edition (October 1, 2010)   978-0881453713

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Spatter Pattern: Or, How I Got Away With It

Synopsis:
In Neal Bell's Spatter Pattern: or, How I Got away With It, a screenwriter becomes entangled in the life of a university professor under investigation for a grisly murder. What begins as self-interest soon gives way to empathy, and a bond between men from seemingly opposite worlds inexorably deepens.
- nytheatre.com

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Atlantic Stage 2
330 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011     10 Jul 2011

Organisations:
Potomac Theatre Project

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

therese Raquin

Synopsis:
a dark, surreal exploration of the human subconscious, therese Raquin tells the tale of a young woman trapped by circumstance, whose desperate stabs at freedom only drive her further towards her own destruction. Told through a stream of short scenes, alternately comic and horrific, the play fluidly combines images of beauty and brutality
Press Release

Notes:
adapted from the novel by emile Zola

1st Produced:
Looking Glass Theatre, NY     2007

Organisations:
City attic Theatre

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Time / Unstuck

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
written by Neal Bell And Bathsheba Doran

1st Produced:

Organisations:
ensemble Studio Theatre and Horse Trade

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Time-Piece, A

Time-Piece, A
a man haunted by his past falls into the memory of a seminal moment in his relationship with his Father and faces what happened in the two hours wiped from his memory during one sweltering night in August fifteen years prior.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Tough acts To Follow, alamo Square,    978-0962475160

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play One act. - - Gay, one act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Two Small Bodies

Synopsis:
estranged from her husband, and working as a cocktail waitress, eileen has perhaps neglected her two small children-whose disappearance has brought about a visit by the tough-talking Lt. Brann. Obviously suspicious, the detective plays a cat-and-mouse game with eileen, suggesting that the children may have been kidnapped; or perhaps gruesomely murdered; or perhaps are safely with their father; or may have become victims of the dissolute life style which he attributes to eileen. Comprised of a series of contiguous, interconnected scenes, the play pursues the growing love/hate relationship which begins to build ominously between the tired, conservative-minded police officer, and the voluptuous woman who both intrigues and repels him. He drops by at odd hours of the day and night; he is sometimes sympathetic and confiding; sometimes hard and abrasive; until, at last, he drives her to confess. then, in a startling turnabout, the detective tells eileen that the bodies of the children have been found and the vagran

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

What Will I Do When You're Gone?

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Market Theatre

1st Published:
in Boston Theatre Marathon of Ten Minute Plays Volume 4, Bakers Plays,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
play Ten Min

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Will You Accept the Charges?

Synopsis:
audience members enter one of several phone booths, pick up the receiver and listen to a three-minute play unfold in conversation

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Phone Play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page