The ptmcplaywriting Menu ...
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HIDDEN  3 men 1 woman

HIDDEN  Synopsis
John Singer Sargent (1856 – 1925), the most successful portrait painter of his era, lays bare his thorny relationships with models Thomas McKeller, Wilhelm Kamp & patroness Isabella Stewart Gardner while desperately seeking non-portraiture as his legacy. 
 
McKeller became Sargent’s most "useful" life drawing model, standing in for men, women, the politically powerful, all forms of gods, goddesses and white people. The "colossal" painting of a totally uncovered Thomas McKeller, was only displayed "discretely & infrequently" to Sargent's closest friends, never publicly during Sargent’s lifetime & was exhibited for the first time at Boston's Gardner Museum in 2020.
 
Combining spoken text, life drawing, immersive imagery, and historical fact & fiction, HIDDEN invites you to Sargent’s Pope Building Studio in Boston, 1922, to meet the artist, his patroness and two of his most “useful” models. Join in the HIDDEN mystery of “Thomas McKeller”s disappearance for nearly one hundred years.

12th NIGHTed  5 men 3 women

Shakespeare Street Selection
12th NIGHTed set in swinging 1960's Little Italy NYC
​12th NIGHTed catapulted from TWELFTH NIGHT's confetti cannon of sexual confusion
​12th NIGHTed  Reviews:   ​ "Hands down, Patrick Thomas McCarthy has written a slam-dunk retelling of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” aptly entitled “12th Nighted”   
​Reviewed by David Roberts - Theatre Reviews Limited - July 2016
​12th NIGHTed  Reviews: "12th NIGHTed wraps run with 12th Night of Christmas bow on top"  
Reviewed by Austin Fimmano  playsToSee.com - July 2016
Aaron's Revenger's Tragedy  
                                                      8 men  3 women
Shakespeare St Selection
​Aaron's Revenger's Tragedy - Mashing up Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy and the “Penny Dreadful” String of Pearls a.k.a. Sweeney Todd, to provide enough vengeance, mayhem and bloodshed to fill a banquet hall of horror. Aaron becomes the central character in this barbaric tripleheader, gaining his freedom, his vengeance & child’s legacy on the bloody way. 
A.R.T.  ..... A "Feast of Blood"

CUSTODY  3 men 1 woman

CUSTODY holds court in the 1990's American Midwest​
CUSTODY  Reviews:  "​lovingly observes all the little rituals of longtime relationships ... gets each character’s inner life with the help of the direction of Patrick Aran who clearly understands every nuance" 
Reviewed by Joel Benjamin - TheaterScene - July 2017
​CUSTODY Reviews:  "a riveting dramedy ... With wit and charm, Custody, hands us the necessity of love and the futility of trying to figure it out.  Custody is outstanding and recommendable. Irony makes you smile." 
Reviewed by Rachel Rocano - OuterStage Reviews - July 2017
​CUSTODY Reviews:  "The play took “custody” of the audience with moments of depth and humor. The ensemble cast carried the show splendidly. Fine acting and total commitment to detail and great heads for comedy made for an excellent showing"
​Reviewed by Turan Koyuncu - Drama Queens Reviews - July 2017
The ASK:   https://vimeo.com/216911097

CONFESSIONS   4 men 3 women

Confessions: A sacramental primer
​Confessions: A Gurneyesque foray into American Catholicism's late 20th century experience
​Confessions: Arcs from baptismal font to last rites
​Confessions: Even the statuary feels the need to make "Confessions" 

Reeking of Indiscretion: 
Madame X's Allerton   2 men 1 woman


The Chicago Tribune’s Madame X, society doyenne Caroline Kirkland (1865-1930) declared Robert Allerton (1873–1964) Chicago’s most eligible bachelor in 1906.  His personal relationship with Caroline Kirkland, both in high society and everyday life, and his intimate relationship with John Wyatt Gregg Allerton (1899-1986), his longtime companion, adopted-as-an-adult son, are best imagined by inventing what their correspondence might have been. Over the course of two centuries, what words might have passed between these three brightly shining stars that shaped the course of art, landscape architecture, the future of celebrity journalism and LGBTQ issues that were only imagined in the early 20th century. An epistolary intrigue of historical truth and fiction for two men and one woman. 
                                           
*** Direct result of Vermont Studio Center Dec 2018 Residency
​*** Reeking of Indiscretion: Madame X's Allerton  NEW Title... 1/1/19

Midnight's Dream  ​7 men  5 women

Shakespeare Street Selection​
What if Ray Cooney, Georges Feydeau and Shakespeare had a baby?
Midnight's Dream: A fanciful/farcical adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream
​Shakespeare's New Contemporaries Entry Summer 2018
PANDER ... ing  5 women 6 men
What if Shakespeare felt maker's remorse in presenting Henry VI’s Joan la Pucelle, & Troilus & Cressida’s Pandarus, calling upon the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I to assist him in giving both the Pander & Joan d’Arc makeovers. Perhaps change history in the process? Achilles, Patroclus, Mistress Overdone, Anne Hathaway, Mrs. Aphra Behn, Edward DeVere and even a Gallant Stool join in the fray. And what’s that underlying thrum regarding authorship?

Pride River Crossing  3 men 3 women

Pride River Crossing channels SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY's otherwordly voices to comment on contemporary LGBTQ life in America's Heartland, featuring 49 characters, 40 interconnecting monologues, and 13 connecting scenes.
​Pride River Crossing Reviews:  ""Six fine actors portrayed over forty characters ... we get a tapestry of interwoven lives, written with an expert ear and an emotional acumen that few modern playwrights possess.  Over the course of an hour and a half, the fictional town of Pride River came alive through the words of its inhabitants, all in a minimal stage set with just chairs and appropriate, scene-setting projections and appropriate, character setting costumes"
​Reviewed by Joel Benjamin - Fire Island Sun - July 2012

sExtOrtiOn   6 Boys 2 Girls 1 Adult

sExtOrtiOn - torn from the headlines of national news accounts of teen sexting
​sExtOrtiOn Reviews:  " Eschewing comfortable  simplicity for more challenging complexity, ‘sExtOrtiOn” wrestles with the themes of bullying, pack behavior, sexual identity, and teen sexual experimentation. Its strength, however, is its willingness to tackle the weightier issues of motivation and the hidden violence extant on the underbelly of those themes."
Reviewed by David Roberts - Theatre Reviews Limited - July 2013

SLIPPERY: A Wintry Tale   6 men 3 women

Shakespeare Street Selection
​SLIPPERY is woven from the web of THE WINTER's TALE
​SLIPPERY slides into an American red state of mind

TEMPEST   4 men 2 women

Shakespeare Street Selection
​TEMPEST thunders forth from Shakespeare's The TEMPEST
​TEMPEST's  Setting: A survivalist enclave in an apocalyptic future
Synopsis: A father captures two strangers he will groom to give as gifts to two of his three children in a post-apocalyptic world. Will the strangers civilize his children or compound their savagery?
                                              "Oh brave new world" that has the other in't. 

The LEARS: Fools of Fortune   5 men 2 women

Shakespeare Street Selection
​The LEARS: Fools of Fortune a contemporary American version of Shakespeare’s KING LEAR
​The LEARS: Fools of Fortune hovers on a heath of dementia descending
​The LEARS Reviews:  "Playwright Patrick Thomas McCarthy has written an admirable ... gloss on Shakespeare’s King Lear, adhering to the basic themes of greed, delusion, lust and the breakdown of a family, while simultaneously spinning the story in a fully modern way" 
Reviewed by Joel Benjamin - Theatre Pizazz - July 2015
The LEARS: Fools of Fortune, suggested by Shakespeare's KING LEAR, features an Alzheimers addled Captain of Industry, Edgar Reginald Lehman Lear, gathering those closest to him for an advance reading of his last will & testament at Thanksgiving dinner. He has sold the family estate, and will go to live with those that love him best. Will his daughters Anneril and Reagan retain the family wealth & to what lengths will they go to do so? Will disinherited gay son Cord, reappear as home health care nurse, Cordelia Learson? And will the Storr family, Glen Storr Esquire, Edmond "Monty" Storr, and Edgar "Ned" Storr find their way into the tangle? Homicide, a blinding, poisonings, betrayal, abuse, sibling rivalries, cross dressing, arm wrestling and even loyalty, redemption & love find their way into the turbulent mix.

VARIED LIVES   6 men

Shakespeare Street Selection
​VARIED LIVES "Modelled" upon THE MERRY WIVES of WINDSOR
​VARIED LIVES - Autumn 1930 - An American Estate's Kitchen & a wild weekend in the country
VARIED LIVES - a gay romp for 6 men
VARIED LIVES - adoption or marriage, prefacing the gay marriage debate

      sExtOrtiOn                       

The LEARS: Fools of Fortune

PRIDE RIVER CROSSING: A SPOON RIVER FOR A NEW CENTURY   
Pride River Crossing (C) 2011 by ptmc   ALL OUT ARTS Fresh Fruit Festival
The Wild Project July 2012
​Awards: Outstanding Distinction in Playwriting
​Outstanding Ensemble Performance
The LEARS: Fools of Fortune (C) 2014 by ptmc  ALL OUT ARTS Fresh Fruit Festival Showcase
​The Wild Project NYC  July 2015
​Awards: Outstanding Lead Performance - David Palmer Brown as Lear
Outstanding Production Design - Katherine Hammond
​
Pride River Crossing (C) 2011 by ptmc   ALL OUT ARTS Fresh Fruit Festival
The Wild Project ​July 2012 
​Awards: Outstanding Distinction in Playwriting 
​Outstanding Ensemble Performance 
12th NIGHTed (C) 2016 by ptmc  ALL OUT ARTS Fresh Fruit Festival  at The Wild Project NYC    
​July 2016    
CUSTODY (C) 2017 by ptmc  ALL OUT ARTS Fresh Fruit Festival  at The Wild Project NYC   
​July 2017   
sExtOrtiOn (C) 2013 by ptmc ALL OUT ARTS Fresh Fruit Festival
The Wild Project NYC  July 2013
​Awards:   Outstanding Distinction in Playwriting
​Outstanding Ensemble Performance
Pride River Crossing (C) 2011 by ptmc   ALL OUT ARTS Fresh Fruit Festival
​The Wild Project    July 2012     
​Awards: Outstanding Distinction in Playwriting     
​Outstanding Ensemble Performance ​
Midnight's Dream - a fanciful/ farcical adaptation of Shakespeare
Coming Soon from ptmcplaywriting.com
12 MerryMakers: 7 Men & 5 Women