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Vernon Cole Smith

VERNON COLE SMITH  (1936 - )

 Nationality:    USA
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    n/a


The playwright is an Award-Winning (Venice Film Festival) former Madison Avenue copywriter and two time finalist in the prestigious Nicholl Fellowships, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences annual screenwriting competition and the creator of a best-selling line of Teddy Bears. He comes to his work as a playwright via an unusual route. It began when at 11 he was taken to meet Einstein who colored his imagination by inspiring him how to see and think outside the box. Rebellious by nature, progressive jazz began to fascinate him some years later and he took to hanging out in dimly lit cellar clubs with Dizzie Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk etc. who were expressing musically what Einstein had taught him years before. Although his ambitions had always lay in motion pictures, it wasn't until after returning home from the service, where he served as a correspondent, that they became focused on writing for the theater. An old friend appearing on Broadway introduced him to the Stanislavski method of acting whereby an actor brings life to a character by digging deep inside both the character and himself. Here he thought was yet another system of thinking outside the box by first delving deep inside making him wonder if the "method" could also be applied to creating a character by writing him from the inside. Studies with Stella Adler, Bobbie Lewis, Dale Wasserman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest; Man From La Mancha) led him to become a protege of legendary director, teacher and Group Theater founder Harold Clurman. It was through Clurman's inspiration that the playwright found his own writer's voice which some have since described as "etched in acid." The themes he explores in his plays and screenplays are raw, urgent Dramas with comedic relief speaking to contemporary issues founded on larger universal canvases. aka Vernon Goldsmith

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below is a list of Vernon Cole Smith's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

 Candy         Chosen One, The         Comes Winter         Coney Island         Danny's Bet         Falling Pieces         Glued         Home Cooking         Honor: The Secret Life of Sir Arthur Coinan Doyle         Jager         Life!         Porn Queen of Park Avenue, The

Candy

Synopsis:
Two young advertising copywriters fearful of losing their jobs learn a lesson in survival from an aging movie star fallen on hard times.

Notes:
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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 One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Chosen One, The

Synopsis:
An obsessed New York cop desperately searching for his missing family becomes invested with divine powers and discovers a far darker secret than he'd bargained for.

Notes:
*Nicholl Fellowships Semi-Finalist

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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:
Screenplay: Action

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Comes Winter

Synopsis:
Four ladies living out their last days in a Coney Island old-age home come face to face with their own desperate truths as they await the arrival of a senile romeo.

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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:
tragi comedy One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Coney Island

Synopsis:
An aging boardwalk stripper schemes to realize her dreams when an older man falls for a much younger competitor.

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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 One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  On and Offstage Male Barkers

Further Reference:
-

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Danny's Bet

Synopsis:
A young boy learns the facts of life while trying to find money to pay for a life-saving operation for his dying mother.

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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 One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Falling Pieces

Synopsis:
Two shattered lives get a second chance when an aging Mob Boss, distraught over the loss of his wife, chances to adopt a precocious, suddenly-orphaned young neighbor who never had a dad. A comedic love story between the soft interior of a tough man and the tough exterior of a fragile young boy.

Notes:
*Semi Finalist. Nicholl Fellowships

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Music:
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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:
Screenplay: Comedy

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Glued

Synopsis:
A hardened cop on his last assignment desperately combs the seedy underbelly of San Francisco in search of a brutal ritual killer, unaware the single clue to catch him is but a heart beat away.

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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:
Screenplay. Suspense. Mystery

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Home Cooking

Synopsis:
A kindly, eccentric widow given to feeding the poor in her crime-ridden NY neighborhood mistakenly comes to believe her visiting niece -- recently released from a mental instituion -- is really an angel sent by God to miraculously help restore her depleted soup kitchen. A black comedy with lots of twists and a big surprise ending.

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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:
Screenplay. Comedy

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Honor: The Secret Life of Sir Arthur Coinan Doyle

Synopsis:
A comedic mystery inside the mind of knighted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in which a very horny Sherlock Holmes threatens to expose his mentor's secret indiscretions unless he permits the detective free-reign to realize his own lascivious fantasies -- forcing the author to plot the untimely death of his famed character at the height of his popularity. A kind of Pirandello meets "Shakespeare in Love".

Notes:
*Runner-up. Nicholl Fellowships

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Music:
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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:
Screenplay. Comedy

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Jager

Synopsis:
JAGER is the almost unbelievable true story about a highly decorated WW1 German Jew and his family's miraculous escape from Nazi Germany with the help of the Gestapo only to reach the safety of England and learn that unless they find a new permanent destination they'd be deported back to Germany and certain extermination. A story about love -- courage -- intrigue -- betrayal -- suspense and survival.

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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:
Screenplay. Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Life!

Synopsis:
An old recluse with a mysterious past, who's only friends on earth are the cockroaches who share his one-room tenement apartment, is visited by an overly enthusiastic young exterminator determined to save the world.

Notes:
Updated version. Original written in 1985.

1st Produced:
reading, White Barn Theater, Wesdtport, CT . USA    1986

Organisations:
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1st Published:
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Music:
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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 One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Porn Queen of Park Avenue, The

Synopsis:
A man who's just murdered his family desperately searches for a writer to put into words his ingenius plan to save the world from certain disaster.

Notes:
One or two smaller parts can be performed by A middle Aged Female.

1st Produced:
Marin One-Act Play Festival, Marin County, CA, USA    2006

Organisations:
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1st Published:
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Music:
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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 One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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www.doollee.com comprises a comprehensive online searchable database for plays written in English since the production of Look back In Anger in 1956. Each play listing contains a playwright biography, synopsis, cast size, creative and production team for the premiere production, date and location of the first performance and much more.doollee.com not only defines the World's theatrical repertoire for the first time but also aims to revitalise that repertoire by reintroducing many lost scripts and providing a gateway for locating and clearing rights for a very large number existing scripts. We are delighted to receive information from users where our own research has been unable to locate details on the holder of a play's rights.doollee.com contains a comprehensive listing for each new play written in English produced by professional theatre companies, venues, festivals, commercial producers and once-off-producers from 1956 to the present. It includes adaptations, translations and new versions. The database also includes those plays produced by fringe (unsubsidised) companies and by semi-professional organisations, where the work is deemed to be of particular significance to the repertoire. Thus you will get help with playwright, dramatist, plays, biography, theatres, agent, synopses, cast sizes, production, published, dates, database, research.