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

Memorial Day is a two act, seven character play. For performance rights, please contact Elaine Devlin, Elaine Devlin Literary Agency, at edevlinbei@aol.com

Factual background:

In 1994, Donald Hamilton, a 68 year old social worker and community activist, was murdered for the contents of his wallet on the street near his home (and not far from mine) in the northwest section of Philadelphia. Don worked his entire life to help improve the lives of others-- as a young man at social agencies in Chicago, and later as the director of the Kensington Lighthouse, a settlement agency in Philadelphia, and as the director of Eagle Springs Center, a vacation and respite program for retarded adults. Don was a true believer in human rights and he understood better than anyone I have ever known the relationship between the local and the global. As a member of the Society of Friends, he believed in loving his neighbor. As a long-time Philadelphian, he also loved his neighborhood.

Synopsis:

Memorial Day takes place in the months following the murder of a revered activist college professor, Donald Lang. The action has its source in the anonymous violence on a city street, but rather than the specifics of the crime the play deals with the impact of the crime on the life of the family and the community of the murdered man. The characters in the play, some directly related to Lang and some related only tangentially, orbit in the gravity of his death, trying to make sense of what has happened and of what gets said and done -- and what doesn't -- in the shadow of urban violence.

Memorial Day has a mixed race cast of 7 actors. These are: Gretta Lang, Donald Lang's widow; Gretta and Don's grown son, Eric; Warren, an African-American city Water Department worker assigned to turn off a decorative drinking fountain in the Wissahickon, the "wilderness" part of Philadelphia's famed Fairmount Park; Warren's wife Pauline; and Ed, Mark, and Looney, workmen the city has engaged to construct a park bench Gretta has donated money to erect in Donald Lang's memory.

Memorial Day takes place on a single set, at the site where the memorial bench is being built, in front of the 19th century marble and stone spring-fed fountain Warren has been sent to turn off, the spot which is Gretta's favorite place in the city.

Memorial Day is about what connects people, and about what separates them. It is about race relations, about the continuing deterioration of older cities, about the ability of government to keep people safe from crime, about the meaning of the declining number of migrating song birds in the eastern flight corridor, and about public grieving and private resolve in the aftermath of tragedy.

For information about performance rights, please contact Elaine Devlin, Literary Agent.

Memorial Day is a hopeful play.

Characters:

Gretta Lang, early 60's, widow of Professor Donald Lang

Eric Lang, Donald and Gretta's son, 30's

Ed, a contractor, 50's.

Mark, Ed's temporary helper, early 20's.

Warren Miller, a water department pipe fitter, young 30's, African American.

Pauline Miller, Warren's wife. Late 20's, African American.

Looney, Ed's regular helper, African American, over 50.

Setting:

A glade some distance down a side trail leading from Forbidden Drive, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. The glade is dominated by a 19th century spring-fed fountain. The fountain is made up of a stone and mortar pedestal on which sits a rather more ornate top, carved from a stone slab. A curved spout extends from the center of this top piece. Spring water runs from the spout to a carved catch-bowl below. At the top of the structure, there is an inscription and date.

Time:

Spring, 1996, Fall 1996, Spring 1997

Playing time:

Approximately 100 minutes

Writing, workshop, development, and performance history:

Written originally in early 1996 in response to the murder of my friend, Donald Hamilton in 1994, Varia was developed through several drafts and reviewed and read after each by Working Writers Group, one of the oldest on-going writer's groups in the Philadelphia area, of which I am a founding member.

Memorial Day was then given a rehearsed, staged reading by an Equity cast for two nights in February, 1998, in front of a general audience at the Allens Lane Theater in Philadelphia, and slightly revised afterwards. The cast was Jane Moore, Eric Moore, Doug Wild, Thomas W. Fowler, Jr., Shelita Birchett, Richard Floyd, Patricia Langford, and Alex Greenshields.

Another reading, for the theater community and invited guests, was also staged in Denver, Colorado in the summer of 1998. The cast was Elainee Blainey, Dwayne Carrington, Thurman Ergenbright II, Robert Mason Ham, Rick McKenna, Greg McKnight, and Ken Witt. This reading was directed by Cynthia Ergenbright.

Memorial Day has been a finalist in several competitions. It was a finalist in the 1998 Maxim Mazumdar Competition at the Alleyway Theater in Buffalo, a finalist in the 1998 Charlotte Repertory New Play Competition, and a finalist in the Mill Mountain Theater New Play Competition. In October, 1998, Varia was named the winner of the Pennsylvania Playwriting Contest, sponsored by the Theater Association of Pennsylvania.

Memorial Day was also a finalist in the Dayton Playhouse FutureFest in Ohio, where it was given a single-performance full production. The FutureFest panel of adjudicators included: Peter Filichia, Critic and Columnist for the New Jersey Star Ledger and Playbill-on-Line; Roger Danforth, Artistic Director of the Drama League of New York; Oni Faida Lampley, Actress and Playwright; Helen Sneed, Director of the National Alliance for Musical Theater; and Tony Giordano, actor and director.

In addition, based on the submission of Memorial Day, I was awarded a Pennsylvania Council for the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting for 1998.

Praise for Varia:

Larry Loebell's play Memorial Day is worthy and ready for production. I had to good fortune to see this play in front of an audience during a play festival, called Futurefest, at the Dayton Ohio Playhouse, in which VARIA was a finalist and I was a judge.

This play is special and taps the audience fully. Perhaps its simplicity is the reason for its success. Perhaps its humanity is the reason. But whatever the reason, produce it and see for yourself. VARIA has humor, drama, a love of life, and a universal appeal.

-- Tony Giordana, Director

Larry Loebell... is a writer whose work is really quite beautiful. There is a sensitivity in the simplicity of his language, the struggles of his characters and the inner strength of someone he sees with wisdom that prevails in all of his work. I found his most recent play, VARIA, a quiet play that deals with issues of brutal loss, life-long love, and tranquility and inner peace in the midst of a struggling world on the verge of chaos. I think Larry's is an American voice truly aware of the most intimate complexities of our humanity.

-- Ben Levit, Artistic Director American Music Theater Festival

Sample scene from Memorial Day:

What are those?

What do you think? Binoculars.

Where'd you get them?

I borrowed them from your father. He uses them at Eagles games.

What do we need binoculars for?

The Mniotilta varia is a small black and white bird, 4 inches long. It feeds along tree trunks. It winters in South America and comes up here for the summer.

Lucky it.

You wanna' look?

If it will make you happy.

It will.

She takes the binoculars and looks.

Warren.

Uh huh.

What the hell am I looking for?

Hold on a second. Let me find them for you. (She hands him the binoculars.) OK. OK. Right there. (He hands the binoculars back.) In that big tree right there. There's a place where the branches split off. You see that? It looks like a big Y? Well right above that, maybe five feet. You see them? There's two of them?

These binoculars are amazing. Everything's so close.

And these aren't even very good ones. I have my eyes on some really good Nikons...

Oh. Oh. I see them. There they are. Sort of striped, black and white? With a little beaky thing?

Right. Pretty cool, huh?

Warren.

Yea?

Is this it?

What?

Is this the whole thing?

What whole thing?

The whole thing we came here to do?

No. There's another part.

What is it?

Counting.

Counting?

Yea. It's important to count.

Important to who?

The idea is that you count the birds you see and write it down. And every year when you come back you can compare...

We're gonna come back here every year?

Maybe.

You maybe. Not me.

Just count.

There's two birds, Warren. One. Two. Counted. Done.

You're not really into this are you, Pauline?