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E Thomalen

E THOMALEN

  
Nationality:    USA
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    n/a

E. Thomalen's produced plays include Claras Christmas Dreams (2004, St. Clements Theatre, New York City); The Metamorphosis, A Play (2003, Jose Quintero Theatre, New York City); El Tigre (2001, U of Texas at Arlington & Bass Performance Art Center, Fort Worth); Tale of 2 Murderers (2001, American Theatre of Actors, 2003, Theatre Studio Inc.); The Platform (2004, Chicago Infamous Commonwealth Theatre); and Seed for the Planting (1987, Baltimore). Award-winning plays include The Night Watchman (1987 semifinalist ONeill, 1998 winner in the New Century Writers Awards competition); The Metamorphosis, A Play (1996-97 American Alliance for Theatre and Education, Unpublished Play Reading Project); El Tigre (2001 Writers Digest Playscript competition); The Platform (2004 themed contest Home for the Holidays), Seed for the Planting (1987 Baltimore Playwrights Competition winner) Publications include Claras Christmas Dreams, The Metamorphosis, and El Tigre, all published by Samuel French.

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

         Absalom the King         Clara's Christmas Dreams         Courting Candle, The         Dances of Life - And Death, The         El Tigre / Juan Darien         Hecuba - In the Darkness of the Fire         Inventing Alice And Wonderland         Invisible Towers, The         Making of an Unexpected Death, The         Metamorphosis A Play, The         Mummer's Masque, A         Night Watchman, The         Phaeton's Chariot         Platform, The         Seed for the Planting         Shaker Story, A         Tale of 2 Murderers

Absalom the King

Synopsis:
This is a retelling in theatrical form of the biblical story of David and Absalom, a tale of generational conflict. Absalom's rebellion ends in his death at the hands of King David's soldiers. The story begins with the rape of Tamar (Absalom's sister). Absalom avenges her violation by their half-brother Amon, then goes into exile but later returns to King David's Jerusalem, and desires to succeed his Father as king. When he seizes the throne, David flees his capital and arranges a climactic battle in the wood of Ephraim. In that battle Absalom is killed and David weeps for him. Tamar flees Jerusalem and describes the consequences of killing Absalom for David and for Israel.

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Genre:
poetic drama

Parts:
Male:  33            Female:  6            Other:  doubling possible

Further Reference:
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Clara's Christmas Dreams

Clara's Christmas Dreams
Clara's Christmas Dreams is a stage adaptation of the Dumas (pere) version of the Nutcracker story used by Tchaikovsky for his ballet. It tells the story of the journey of a young girl from childhood to emotional maturity condensed into a series of dreams brought on by a high fever during a single special night. the audience for the play is children from nine to fourteen, and adults of all ages. One reader commented on this adaptation as follows: "the dream sequences interspersed with the 'real' illness scenes made sense of the ballet story line to me. the characters were simple and clear, appropriate for a fable/fairytale. I enjoyed the dialogue in verse. . .I found Clara's fight for her life and character journey stronger than in the ballet. . .". the NY Times commented: "the show mesmerizes even boys"

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1st Produced:

Organisations:
StageRight

1st Published:
Bakers Plays, CA, 2005 >>>    978-0874402186

Music:
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Genre:
Musical Drama

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  8            Other:  musicians

Further Reference:
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Courting Candle, The

Synopsis:
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1st Produced:
Staged Reading At The Durango Arts Center Theater    17 May 2013

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Genre:
ten min

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Dances of Life - And Death, The

Synopsis:
This is a dramatic adaptation of E.A. Poe's short story: Masque of the Red Death. In Poes story a plague has devastated a small country and the Prince seals the palace gates and withdraws into his estate, with his courtiers, hoping to escape it. He holds a year-end ball and invites the guests. Death makes an appearance at midnight traveling through all of the elaborate ballrooms and even the Prince is unable to escape. I have elaborated on Poe's story and added and altered elements. Dance sequences in the masquerade ballrooms depict the time of day and seasons of the year as metaphors for life. In the progression the company gradually confronts both the pain and beauty of life and finally the meaning and terror of death. The dance music for the piece is drawn mostly from Renaissance period compositions, the nature of the music can be gleaned from the text. Conceptually it is departure from anything now being done either on the dramatic or dance stage.

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Genre:
poetic drama 80-90 min

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  6            Other:  ensemble piece

Further Reference:
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El Tigre / Juan Darien

El Tigre / Juan Darien
This play is based on the folk story "Juan Darien" told by Horacio Quiroja, relating the moralistic value of "a life for a life" and the transformation it creates in the life of the avenger. An animal becomes a human and then reverts back to an animal by an act of revenge. The play can best be told in dramatically en masque with some choreography. It lends itself to musical enhancement of a Latin, jazz/blues, or ethereal Andean flute music. The text for this work is but the skeleton upon which the work is co-constructed by the performers in a manner more than is true of most plays. Building it out requires music, choreography, magic and masque. It is also an ensemble piece. The story told in the verse should be enacted in dance, e.g., in the sequence of death taking off souls of the village, in the jaguar courting scene, in the school scene, in death taking of the Mother etc.

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1st Produced:
U. Of Texas At Arlington And Bass Theatre, Fort Worth, Texas    01 Dec 2001

Organisations:
Hip Pocket Theater Co. & U. of Texas Theater Arts Program

1st Published:

Music:
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Genre:
Short Poetic Drama 75 min

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  15 boys and girls

Further Reference:
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Hecuba - In the Darkness of the Fire

Synopsis:
Like Shakespeare's King Lear, Hecuba - in the Darkness of the Fire is an epic story of losses and grief in old age. Hecuba, the Queen of defeated Troy, loses her power and possessions, sees her husband killed, children lost in the war and its aftermath, her city burned to the ground, its men killed and its women taken off in slavery. the play vividly captures the Trojan Queen's desperate fight against oblivion and challenges the most accomplished actress. It is also a meditation on war and the savagery it evokes in the victors and the vanquished alike. As in all of the classical Greek literature, it is civilizing in its unflinching look at our common, and all too human, failings. Translator and Poet Robert Fagles comments: "A fine, frightening transformation of Hecuba, and throughout, a taut Dramatic sense, filled with the unexpected. . .I've gone through your pages (hastily, I admit, but time is short) with admiration for the ambition of the play and, in contemporary terms, its Greekness. Many thanks and best of luck."

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Genre:
Poetic Drama

Parts:
Male:  10            Female:  10            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Inventing Alice And Wonderland

Synopsis:
This play draws on biographical information penned by the principals about the original telling of many of the episodes in Lewis Carrolls famous book. On a warm summers day Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and his friend Robinson Duckworth took the three Liddell sisters (one of whom was Alice) on a leisurely excursion on the Thames River near Oxford. They rowed upstream, had a picnic lunch, and then drifted back to their point of departure. The play follows that journey and dramatizes some of the stories Lewis Carroll told. It charmed the girls and before they parted that evening, Alice begged Dodgson to write them down for her sometime. In the course of the play we see how the stories might have evolved, how children of different ages might respond to the stories, and what might have especially drawn their interest and captivated them. We also see how some of Charles Dodgsons colleagues at Oxford looked upon someone who was unconventional within that community.

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Genre:
Historical Romance

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  29

Further Reference:
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Invisible Towers, The

Synopsis:
This play is a visionary retelling in poetry, song, and dance of the tragic destruction of the NY World Trade Center. It is also a mystical and allegorical undoing and triumph over those events. Music and dance knit the piece together and poetry gives the work a transfiguring quality. It draws upon the tradition of such magical works as Rimsky-Korsakovs The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh.

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Genre:
poetic drama 75 min

Parts:
Male:  10            Female:  10            Other:  ensemble piece

Further Reference:
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Making of an Unexpected Death, The

Synopsis:
This play opens and closes with scenes from the gulag where two prisoners discuss the relation of leaders to followers. The central story of the play is about the rise and unexpected fall of Lavrenti P. Beria, the Soviet Minister of the Interior and State Security as well as master of the gulag system. Beria was a Georgian, like Stalin, and ingratiated himself with Stalin. Beria played a prominent role in the purges of the 1930s, was a member of the Soviet State Defense Committee during WW II and was made Marshal of the Soviet Union for his organization of wartime production with the extensive use of gulag labor. He chaired the successful Soviet Special Committee on the Atomic Bomb after the war. When Stalin died Beria became First Deputy Chairman (number two) and nominated Georgy Malenkov to be Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers. Beria also took back control of the Ministry of the Interior and controlled the dreaded security police. Within three months, and against all odds, Nikita Khrushchev was able to bring about Berias precipitous fall. This is a story that will keep an audience on the edge of their seats until the final curtain.

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Genre:
Historical Play: Soviet Union 1930s - 1953

Parts:
Male:  14            Female:  doubling required            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Metamorphosis A Play, The

Synopsis:
This play is a Dramatic adaptation of Kafka's novella. the story, first published in 1915, is of a man who finds himself transformed one day into an insect. In this adaptation Gregor Samsa, portrayed by a mime, awakens into a dream. Inviting the audience to view the experience as Gregor perceives it, the Stage Manager summons the play. In the nightmare he can neither speak nor alter the conduct of those around him who see him as a bug. A musician communicates Gregor's choked internal feelings while the mime communicates the spectacle of the man in the bug. the action takes place in the moment of the dream rather than in real time. there is a tragicomic dimension to this surreal tale. Set in early 20th century Prague and written in verse, this new adaptation captures the experience of anyone who has been a stranger in a strange land. A special feature of this work is it opens a Dramatic space in the schools community for an individual with strong mimic, but not declamatory, talent to perform in a great work of world literature with special relevance to the pain and struggles of adolescence and young adulthood. Is there anyone who has not felt like such an outsider? It should be performed in every school. This play was a past winner of the American Alliance for theatre and Education, Unpublished Play Reading Project

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1st Produced:
Jose Quintero Theatre, New York City, Ny    2003

Organisations:
StageRight Productions

1st Published:
Baker's Plays, 2005   -

Music:
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To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Tragicomic surreal Drama

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  4            Other:  1 Klezmer fiddler

Further Reference:
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Mummer's Masque, A

Synopsis:
The Prologue of the play takes place in an English inn where an acting company seeks lodging and sustenance after their travels. They bargain with the innkeeper, and when he agrees to provide food, drink and overnight shelter they agree to perform a play. The text is a dramatic adaptation of E.A. Poe's short story: Masque of the Red Death. Poe's story draws upon lore handed down about the Plague that caused widespread death in Europe during the middle ages and even into the Renaissance period. A Prince, seeking to avoid it, seals the palace gates and withdraws into his estate, with his courtiers. He holds a year-end ball and invites his guests. Death makes an appearance at midnight traveling through all of the curious ballrooms and even the Prince is unable to escape. I have elaborated on Poe's story and added and altered elements. The Epilogue takes place in an English country church where the Priest relates that the troupe that performed the play were drowned when their ship went down en route to France to perform. However, we learn that there were two survivors.

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Genre:
poetic drama 80-90 min

Parts:
Male:  11            Female:  6            Other:  ensemble piece

Further Reference:
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Night Watchman, The

Synopsis:
This piece tells the story of the sinking of the whaleship, Essex.

Notes:
won the 2013 Hawaii Prize given by the Kumu Kahua/ University of Hawaii Theatre Department Playwriting Contest

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Genre:
Historical Play: Nineteenth Century, American

Parts:
Male:  20            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Phaeton's Chariot

Synopsis:
This is a play in four Acts performed in masks. The first and fourth Acts are the scenes rendered in verse about a pilgrim in a strange land, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) searching through the ruin of the city for her children. Act II focuses on the American decision to use the atomic bomb and revolves around the ultimate decision maker ("the buck stops here") President Harry S. Truman. Act III presents the Japanese struggle to surrender by looking at a sequence of all day meetings of the Japanese government on August 9, 1945 (the day of the Nagasaki bombing); i.e. the meeting of the Supreme War Direction Council 10:30 AM - 1:30 PM, the meeting of the Japanese Cabinet 2:30-5:30 PM and 6:00 - 10:00 PM, and finally the meeting of the Imperial Conference which began at 11:30 PM that evening. The Japanese meetings of the Cabinet and the Imperial Conference are translated from detailed notes by one of the participants at those meeting which has been edited for clarity and to eliminate redundancy. The story is told in all its human detail, and by a mixture of prose and poetry. The prose represents the actual historical record. The poetry, placed in the mouth of the chorus, speaks to the myth and symbolism of events that have been dramatized from largely first hand accounts.

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Genre:
poetic drama 105 min

Parts:
Male:  20            Female:  10            Other:  ensemble piece

Further Reference:
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Platform, The

Synopsis:
This play tells the story of a psychotic homeless man and his eventual end. The play operates upon the multiple meaning of the word "platform" - concretely it is the subway platform upon which the action of the play takes place. However it also represents the platform, or station, of the ephemeral present as well as the supposed moral loci of the characters in the drama, and their relationships to each other. Six actors are meant to play all of the parts in a kaleidoscopic fashion and with minimal props. However, certain special talents are required of one performer, as can be seen from the text. In keeping with the stylized nature of the performance, three of the characters are formally attired throughout most of the play while one is in rags.

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Genre:
poetic realism 70 min

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  2            Other:  ensemble piece

Further Reference:
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Seed for the Planting

Synopsis:
This is a play that is at its core about grief. The central character, Kathe Kollwitz, a German artist was a person who knew grief intimately, grew up with it as a constant companion in the household, observed it in her husbands daily medical practice, experienced it personally and intensely with the loss of a son in World War I. Society turned to a giddy denial of the enormous losses that had been experienced in the 'Great War', learning nothing from it and in a sense taking nothing seriously, including life itself. In this play we see an artist who struggled with her grief until she is finally able to master it. It strengthens her commitment to all those who suffer and live with it. She is at the end even able to extend her support to her son when his son, her grandson, is killed. In the dream scene she examines the many different facets of her relationship with her dead son and of the different levels that his death touchs in her.

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Genre:
Historical Drama  Twentieth Century, Germany

Parts:
Male:  34            Female:  17            Other:  doubling possible

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Shaker Story, A

Synopsis:
The Shakers begun in England in the late 1700s by Mother Ann were persecuted there for unconventional beliefs and practices and immigrated to America just before the American Revolution, founding communities in New York, New England, and eventually Ohio and Kentucky. This utopian, millennial, religious sect experienced a revival in the 1820s-1850s but after the American Civil War gradually lost appeal for younger members and now exists only as a single, small, elderly community of sisters in Maine. The Shakers, however, left a rich legacy of music and art and were known, also, for their exceedingly fine manufacturing products. It was, and is, a celibate community where love of God and service to their community and fellow man were valued over singular attachments. But this could be problematic from time to time as the play relates. It was a self-sufficient community and provided a home for orphaned and abandoned children as well as lifetime care for its own sick and elderly members. The play set in the period from 1830 - 1850 introduces the audience to many of the Shaker songs and dances. It tells the story of a young girl whose parents died under the harsh living conditions of the nineteenth century and was taken in by the Shakers. A boy whom she knew before her Father died, also joins the Shakers to escape from his Father. It shows how the Shaker community shaped their lives and values and tells something of why one of them eventually left. Hair and A Shaker Story perhaps belong as opposite bookends on a shelf of musicals of the late twentieth century.

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Genre:
musical drama

Parts:
Male:  15            Female:  15            Other:  doubling possible

Further Reference:
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Tale of 2 Murderers

Synopsis:
This is a play in three Acts. It is set in a prison psychiatric facility where a petty criminal and drug addict who has "accidentally" killed his girlfriend with a drug overdose shares a cell with a well-educated, intelligent axe murderer who killed a professor at the college where he, the axe murderer, had been working on an advanced degree. the values and personalities of these two characters come into intense and ultimately violent conflict with one another.

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Genre:
contemporary drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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