Allan Baker's Plays

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Full length plays

Dex and Abby
Though Sean and Corey are enjoying the beginning of a relationship and their new home, their dogs, Abby and Dex, are not. Abby, Sean’s young dog, must learn to deal with Dex, who has been Corey’s companion and protector for thirteen years. Over a period of two years, we watch the development of these two relationships and see how the dogs both resolve their conflicts and aid Sean and Corey in the resolution of theirs. Fortunately, all four characters are able to communicate in lovely and very unexpected ways. A funny, sweet and very moving tribute to the importance of the companions with whom we share our lives.

A world premiere of this play was produced by The Ground Floor Theatre in Austin, from May 16th to June 1st, 2019. Pride Films and Plays produced Dex & Abby at the Broadway Theatre of the Pride Arts Center in Chicago from Feb. 20th to March 29th, 2020.

Published, 2023 by Original Works Publishing, Los Angeles, CA.

 

Eskandar
Inspired by Bizet’s Carmen and the Shahnameh of the 10th century Persian poet Firdowsi, this play tells the story of the consequences of a clash of politics, economic interest, military strategy, cultural heritage and differing gender roles in today’s Afghanistan. Joe, a gay Afghan-American who has returned to Afghanistan as part of a covert military operation, meets Eskandar, the passionate and wild “kept boy” of an Afghan warlord. They develop a relationship which leads to tragedy.

This play received a staged reading by Wordsmyth Theatre Company at Houston’s Stages Repertory Theatre as part of The Texas Playwright’s Festival in July, 2015.  Only three of seventy-one plays, submitted by playwrights from across Texas, were selected for the Festival.  In 2014 this play was a finalist in the annual Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Competition for plays with GLBT historical themes.

 

All the Saints
Written in 2004, this play is a full-length, modern re-telling of Dumas’ Lady of the Camellias and Verdi’s La Traviata, with gay characters. Alex, a very successful gay model/escort/circuit party boy and AJ, a gay US Navy pilot stationed in San Diego, fall in love. For the sake of his beloved, Alex renounces this love and leaves AJ. With scenes set in San Diego, at the White Party in Miami, in Baja and San Francisco. A timeless love story, faithfully translated from 19th century Paris into a modern, gay setting. This play was given a very well-received staged reading at the Zach Scott Theatre Center in Austin, Texas in January 2008.

It has not otherwise been produced.

 

Dare
In a nursing home in the Central Valley of California, Jack, an 82-year-old gay man, reflects on a life that has spanned the most tumultuous years of gay history and explains to Josh, a young gay doctor, his decision to complete the “dramatic arc” of his character in the play that is his life. This play weaves together the history of gay liberation, the enduring threat of homophobia, the impact of AIDS, aging in the gay community, end of life issues, the argument between advocates of gay “assimilation” and gay “exceptionalism”...and the vital role of drag queens.

A staged reading was produced at Ground Floor Theatre in February 2015.

A staged reading of this play was presented on Feb. 25, 2015 at Ground Floor Theatre in Austin. In 2017 it won the Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Play Contest, sponsored by the Castillo Theatre in New York City and was given a very well-received staged reading at the theatre in August.

Dare was produced by The Desert Rose Playhouse in Rancho Mirage, CA and ran from April 20thth to May 13th, 2018.

 

 

One act plays

Five Minutes
Three short scenes set in the World Trade Center on 9/11, reminding us that sometimes five minutes can be a lifetime...and sometimes love can take us to a safe place when nothing else can. This play was named “Best of the Fest” for the FronteraFest short fringe at the Hyde Park Theatre in Austin in February 2006. It was selected for the Emerging Artists Theatre’s Fall Festival of Short Plays and ran for three weeks in New York City in November 2006 and, in June 2007, was part of the Samuel French, Inc. Festival of Off Off-Broadway One Act Plays in New York City.

This play was one of the four plays in “Connect: Four Short Plays” produced at the Off Center theatre in Austin from April 1st to 17th, 2010 and encored at the Rollins Theatre of the Long Center on June 5th, 2010 for Austin Pride 2010.

 

Voices
A conversation across four generations, among five members of a family, all residents of a cemetery in rural Texas. Taking Our Town in a new direction, Voices focuses on Martha, the tyrannical ninety-seven year old matriarch of a Texas family, born in the 1860’s, and how she deals with the two most recently-arrived residents of the family cemetery: Cole, a relatively young, gay victim of AIDS and Peggy, her seventy-five year old bohemian granddaughter. Voices was produced as part of the FronteraFest short fringe at Hyde Park Theatre in Austin in February, 2007. It was a finalist for New York City’s Emerging Artists Theatre’s Spring 2009 Festival of Short Plays.

This play was one of the four plays in “Connect: Four Short Plays” produced at the Off Center theatre in Austin from April 1st to 17th, 2010 and encored at the Rollins Theatre of the Long Center on June 5th, 2010 for Austin Pride 2010.

 

Click
It's Saturday night and two gay guys are online trying to hook up, each for a somewhat different reason. Jason sees easy sex as a way to avoid intimacy. Michael sees it as a way to get to intimacy more quickly. Click was produced in 2008 as part of the FronteraFest short fringe festival at the Hyde Park Theatre, in Austin, Texas.

This play was one of the four plays in “Connect: Four Short Plays” produced at the Off Center theatre in Austin from April 1st to 17th, 2010 and encored at the Rollins Theatre of the Long Center on June 5th, 2010 for Austin Pride 2010.

In September 2011 this play was produced by Uptown Players as part of their Dallas Pride Performing Arts Festival at the Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas. In July and August, 2012 this play was produced by Eclectic Company Theatre as part of their “Hurricane Season 2012 One Act Play Festival and Playwriting Competition” in Los Angeles, CA. “Click” tied for first place in the playwriting competition.

On June 26th, 2014 a staged reading of Click was produced by The Desert Rose Playhouse, "The Coachella Valley's LGBT and Gay Positive Stage Company" at the Tolerance Education Center in Rancho Mirage, CA as part of the Palm Springs area's celebration of Pride Month.

In April, 2018 Click was produced by the Department of Music and Theatre of Iowa State University at Ames, Iowa as part of their annual student-directed short play festival.

Presented in a live zoom performance on Sunday, May 24th, 2020 by The Ground Floor Theatre, Austin, Texas and recorded for YouTube. To view on YouTube, "click" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kum_Y761wgQ&feature=youtu.be .

 

A Midsummer Night’s Conversation

It’s four months into the relationship and a gay couple must face a critical moment. It’s a time for honesty, intimacy and total self-exposure. And one of the two is an actor...a very good actor. This play was one of the four plays in “Connect: Four Short Plays” produced at the Off Center theatre in Austin from April 1st to 17th, 2010 and encored at the Rollins Theatre of the Long Center on June 5th, 2010 for Austin Pride 2010. In September 2011 this play was produced by Uptown Players as part of their Dallas Pride Performing Arts Festival at the Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas.

On June 26th, 2014 a staged reading of A Midsummer Night's Conversation was produced by The Desert Rose Playhouse, "The Coachella Valley's LGBT and Gay Positive Stage Company" at the Tolerance Education Center in Rancho Mirage, CA as part of the Palm Springs area's celebration of Pride

 

A Midwinter Night’s Conversation

Jamie and Will have been in a loving, comfortable and mutually supportive relationship for many years. But all relationships encounter unexpected challenges.  That's when truth, sensitivity, self-awareness and honesty are most important.  When one of the two is an actor...a very good actor...both the nature of the challenge and how the couple come to deal with it...can be quite...interesting.

In September, 2015, Modus Vivendi Theatre Company produced this play at the Registry Theatre in Kitchener, Ontario as part of their annual LGBTQ Festival of the Arts. 

 

Modesto

Jack, an 84 year old gay man, is a resident of a nursing home in Modesto, California. There in “the reddest part of the bluest state”, Jack is interviewed by members of the San Francisco Gay History Project. Jack had, for many years, been the owner of a bookstore in the Castro district of San Francisco that had also served as a gay community center. Jack, however, wants to give the history that brought him and the project curators to where they are today...in a world where threats to the gay community have emerged again after the 2016 election. He also wants to give the “gift” that will be a way to resist those threats. Jack does so in a series of flash backs to his past: from San Francisco in the early ‘70s to Fire Island in the late ‘70s to New York City in the mid-80s and in 1990.

This play confronts the history of gay liberation, issues of aging in the gay community, the impact of AIDS, and the dialogue between advocates of “gay assimilation” and “gay exceptionalism”...and the role of drag queens.

“Modesto” is adapted from the full length play, “Dare” and is set after the 2016 election.

 

Missing

In January, 1971 two US Navy personnel…one a junior officer and the other a Navy medic acting as his driver…disappear in the Delta of South Vietnam, near the Cambodian border. In September, 1996 a US Consular official from Ho Chi Minh City, is in the Delta, looking for information on American MIA’s from the war. In a Buddhist temple the American comes upon a priest, who has been waiting for him. The priest has a story to tell…of the last days of those two MIA’s. The story is sad, enlightening, comforting…and one out of an important and very ancient legend.

 

Short plays

...last and always
 Based on the powerful final scene of Allan’s play, Five Minutes. A gay couple must say goodbye. Sometimes love takes us to a safe place when nothing else can. In 2008 this play was a finalist for the San Luis Obispo Little Theatre’s Fall Festival of Ten-Minute Plays. This play was produced by NativeAliens Theatre Collective in June, 2009 as part of their tenth annual “Short Stories” program for New York City’s Pride Celebration. It was also produced by Turtle Shell Productions of New York City as part of their “8 Minute Madness Playwright’s Festival 2011” from January 21st to February 6th, 2011.

In May, 2012 this play was produced by the Blue Slipper Theatre Company of Livingston, Montana as part of their first 10 Minute Play Festival. In June, 2012 it was produced by the Buffalo United Artists Theatre of Buffalo, NY as part of their “Takes Ten: GLBT Short Plays” Festival.

In 2012 this play was a finalist for City Theatre of Miami's National Award for Short Plays.

In November, 2013 “...last and always” was produced by the Theatre Department of the University of Guam as part of their annual festival of student-directed short plays. In January, 2014 this play was produced by the Actors’ Theatre of Santa Cruz, CA as part of their 19th annual “Eight Tens @ 8” ten minute play festival. In July, 2014 it was produced by West Coast Players of Clearwater, FL as part of their annual one acts festival.

In February, 2020 …last and always was produced by the Raven Players at the Raven Theatre in Healdsburg, CA for their spring festival of one act plays. In May, 2020 it will be produced by the Tree City Playhouse in Sylvania, Ohio as one of three winners of their annual ten minute play competition.

 

Beauty

A great work of art changes hands and a story of beauty is told...by the Dealer, the Collector and the Buyer. In February, 2012 this play was produced by the Valley Repertory Company in Enfield, Connecticut as part of their third annual “LabWorks 15 Minute Play Contest” and was an audience selected finalist. In July, 2012 it was produced by Salem Theatre Company of Salem, MA as part of their annual “Moments of Play” short play festival.

 

Schrodinger's Cat

“Schrodinger’s Cat” is an eight minute play, modeled on a Greek chorus, examining certain implications of quantum physics.

 

Saturday, Duboce Park
A monologue

On a lovely day in San Francisco, a sweet, tender and very moving moment between a young man and his frail and aging dog.

Winner of the Original Monologue Contest sponsored by Talking Horse Productions of Columbia, MO.  Thirty-six monologues were streamed on the company’s Facebook page in October, 2020 and viewers voted for their favorite.

 

Miss Lotta Chanel Explains
A monologue

Miss Lotta Chanel explains the source of misogyny, homophobia, toxic masculinity and its violence, our dangerous “warrior culture”, the self-destructive gay “inner closet”… and your own quiet discomfort with drag queens… even the most FABULOUS!

Produced at Austin’s Hyde Park Theatre for the 2023 FronteraFest fringe festival. A two minute version of this monologue was chosen by New York City’s Playground Experiment for their third annual “Faces of America Monologue Festival” in 2021.

 

 

 

 

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