House, Divided
 La Tempestad
 The Ballad of John Wesley Reed
 Girl Science
 The Allure of Oriental Wisdom
 Memorial Day (formerly Varia)
 Pride of the Lion
 The Dostoyevsky Man


 Monica for Chanukah
 Angie and Arnie Sanguine
 Edward and Ellie Supine
 The Lion Eats His Lunch
 The Lion in His Lair
 The Lion Leaves His Mark
 Prayers


 But Who's Counting?
 Emma Goldman Imagines the Millenium


 Just Before the War Between the Plates
 I Can Handle That


 Talking  with Lee Blessing

...with Tom Coash
...with Mary Fengar Gail
...with Richard Kalinowsky
...with Jamie Pachino
...with David Rambo
...with Jason Sherman
...with Naomi Wallace
...with Tom Gibbons
...with Dick Goldberg

The Lion Eats His Lunch is a single-set, two character play.

This play is available for purchase from www.Playscripts.com. For information aboput performance rights, please visit www.Playscripts.com.

Synopsis:

Tomorrow David Williamson surrenders to federal authorities on an insider trading conviction. Today he has lunch at his private club, and strikes up a desperate conversation with the man who has been his waiter there for many years. Their strained interchange takes a surprising turn when the waiter reveals that he, too, has been playing the stock market - using the same information that's sending Williamson to prison.

Characters:

David Williamson - Stock trader, late forties. Trim and fit.
Reese - Club waiter, very late forties or older.

Setting:

The dining parlor of a private club, late afternoon.

Time:

Late in the Reagan/Bush years.

Playing time:

Approximately 25 minutes.

Productions:

The Lion Eats His Lunch premiered on September 22, 1993, at Play Works Theater Company in Philadelphia, and ran through October 8th.

The Play Works Theater Company production of The Lion Eats His Lunch starred Walt Vail and Spencer Howard, and was directed by Steve Organ.

The festival was reviewed by the Philadelphia Gay News and the Mail Line Times.

Larry Loebell's "The Lion Eats His Lunch" presents a wealthy financier (Howard Spencer) preparing to go to prison for insider trading. He is only now getting to know his butler (Walt Vail). The latter, it turns out, has been overhearing conversations on stock issues and profiting handsomely in his own right. The stock trader, hypocritically, is aghast at such craven behavior.

This play succeeds because we have here two individuals moving beyond the constraints of their social chasm, speaking almost as equals.

-- Rob Murphey, Main Line Times, 9/30/93

Larry Loebell gives currency to the cliché of the 'clever servant' in The Lion Eats his Lunch perhaps the most fully developed play, at least in structural terms, of the entire offering. It immediately establishes a clear relationship between the businessman enjoying his last day of freedom before going 'up the river' for stock manipulation, and the waiter at his private club who benefited by 'overhearing' the various deals that took place there. Loebell's deft hand with dialogue furnishes us with information...

-- Brian Caffall, Philadelphia Gay News, 10/1/93

The Lion Eats His Lunch was also selected as a winner in the Playwrights Theater of Baltimore Festival of One Act American Plays in 1994 and was scheduled for production during their 1994-1995 season. It was also selected for the Philly Blunts Festival, Fictitious Theatre Company, Philadelphia, April 2000.

The Lion Eats His Lunch is also the first act of a full length play, Views of the Lion.

SAMPLE SCENE: The Lion Eats His Lunch

Do you know, Reese, that I have been coming here for all these years, and every day you are here, and not once in all that time have I ever asked you a personal question?

You don't come here to talk to the help.

But after all this time, it really is awkward...

Don't sweat it. That's how it's supposed to be.

Reese, I don't even know your last name.

It's Reese.

You're kidding.

Nope.

All this time I've been calling you Reese thinking it was your first name?

That's what everyone calls me. My kids call me Reese.