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

Pride of the Lion is a three act, four character play, formerly titled Views of the Lion.

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

Synopsis:

Pride of the Lion takes place on the day before and the day of David Williamson's surrender to federal authorities to start serving a prison term on an insider trading conviction. Williamson is called "The Lion," by the press, by his business associates, and even by his family. The name is as ironic as it is accurate.

In the first act, called The Lion Eats his Lunch, Williamson strikes up a desperate conversation with the man who has been his waiter at the private club at which he has dined for many years. What begins as a strained interchange between the two men soon takes a surprising turn when the waiter reveals that he, too, has been trading on the information Williamson is going to jail for using.

The second act, The Lion in his Lair, takes place later the same day. David Williamson arrives home for his last evening of freedom. After fighting his way through the hostile press camped at his door hoping for a statement, David seeks succor from his wife, Helen, but soon discovers that she is determined to let him see her until-now bottled up feelings before she loses the opportunity. But there are more troubling revelations than her anger.

The third act, The Lion leaves his Mark, occurs the next morning, after Helen has delivered David to the federal courthouse. On her arrival at home, Helen discovers Annie, her and David's estranged daughter, waiting for her, apparently seeking to make peace with her mother, but in fact, with another, more surprising agenda.

Taken together, the three acts of Pride of the Lion are a triptych about family life, self aggrandizement, greed, the meaning of love, and the possibility of forgiveness.

Characters:

DAVID WILLIAMSON - Stock trader, late forties. Trim and fit.
REESE - Club waiter, very late forties or older.
HELEN WILLIAMSON - David's wife, mid-late forties. Stylish, well put together.
ANNIE WILLIAMSON - Helen and David's daughter. Twenty. College student.

Setting:

ACT ONE: THE LION EATS HIS LUNCH:

The dining parlor of a private club, late afternoon. The present.

ACT TWO: THE LION IN HIS LAIR:

The living room of the Williamson house, the same evening.

ACT THREE: THE LION LEAVES HIS MARK:

The living room of the Williamson house, late morning the next day.

Time:

The end of the Reagan/Bush era.

Playing time:

Approximately 2 hours

Writing, development, and performance history:

Pride of the Lion was written in stages over an ten month period beginning in the summer of 1993. While there is little formal development opportunity for new plays in the Philadelphia area where I live and write, Pride of the Lion has actually had the good fortune to have been through a series of formal and informal developmental steps which include workshop review, private readings, public performances, and extensive revision. Originally written as three separate one act plays, each act has been separately developed and/or performed.

The first act, The Lion Eats his Lunch, was originally completed early September 1993. In late September, it was read and discussed by Working Writers Group, the writers workshop to which I have belonged since 1985, and was subsequently reworked. A script-in-hand reading at Philadelphia Playworks, followed by some revisions, led to a 21 performance non-equity run in October 1993 as part of Playworks 10.5 festival, directed by Steve Organ. The Lion Eats his Lunch was submitted to the Baltimore Festival of New American Plays in March, 1994, and was selected for performance for the 1994-95 season of the Baltimore Playwrights Theater.

The Lion in his Lair was completed in December, 1993, read and discussed by Working Writers Group in January, 1994, and was accepted almost immediately thereafter for inclusion in the 8th annual Love Creek Short Play Festival, where it was performed in March, 1994 by an Equity and Equity candidate cast, directed by Robert Ierardi. Subsequently, it was extensively re-written. A private script-in-hand reading was held in April, 1994, at Playworks (rechristened The Brick Playhouse), leading to further revision, followed by a public script-in-hand reading in May, 1994, by an all Equity cast, also under the auspices of The Brick Playhouse, directed by Steve Organ.

The Lion Leaves his Mark was completed in March, 1994, and read and discussed by Working Writers Group later that month. It was included in the Philadelphia Dramatist Center Marathon Reading in June, 1994, following which it was revised.

In August, 1994, all three acts comprising Views of the Lion, were read script-in-hand by an Equity cast at several Philadelphia area booksellers including Barnes and Nobel, under the auspices of The Brick Playhouse. The cast was Susan Moses, Doug Wild, Melissa Guinta. Performances were directed by Steve Organ.

Views of the Lion had its premier performance at the Changing Scene Theater in Denver, Colorado, March 7 - 24, 1996. The cast was Gary Cupp, Tony Accetta, Cynthia Ergenbright, and Monica Shuster. The production was designed and directed by Patricia Anne Madsen.

The Changing Scene production of Views of the Lion was reviewed in the Rocky Mountain News and the Boulder Camera.

Author Loebell's point in writing the piece seems to be to demonstrate not just the wages of sin (Williamson is headed for federal prison the next day) but the price extracted at home, as the Lion fought to become head of the pride.

-- Jackie Campbell, Rocky Mountain News, March 17, 1996

The first act of Pride of the Lion, playing as a one act called The Lion Eats his Lunch, in Philadelphia in 1994, was reviewed by the Philadelphia Gay News and the Main 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

In July 2000, Pride of the Lion had its professional world premier at Theatre Catalyst in Philadelphia. The production starred Tim Moyer, Jean Korey, Jessica Graham, and Doug Wild, and was directed by Serena Halley. Sally Friedman, correspondent for the Main Line Life says:

Loebell's world premier play is provocative enough to nag at you long after the final moment.

Cooper Robb, critic for Philadelphia City Paper said:

Loebell has crafted a 20th century morality play. Similar to the medieval form, the protagonist-stock broker David Williamson (Tim Moyer) succumbs to temptation.... Like so many other breadwinners, Williamson has placed finances and ego before the emotional needs of his family. His wife (Jean Korey) is afraid to open his mail, and his daughter (Jessica Graham) despises him. Both feel abandoned. It is an interesting tack Loebell has taken: While Williamson thinks of his crimes as being victimless, his family has been wounded. And the consequences are dire indeed.

Loebell's voice is a strong one....and the play has the ability to provide new insights into the emotional constraints of a patriarchal and capitalistic system.

Sample:

At rise, DAVID WILLIAMSON sits in a deep leather chair. Next to him is a table on which sits the remains of his uneaten lunch, a sandwich platter and a fruit cup. REESE enters, carrying an empty tray.

Can I clear you, sir?

Clear me? Thank you, Reese, no. I'm not quite finished. I might want to give this sandwich another shot. Or perhaps I'll take another nibble of -- what is this here in the fruit cup, orange slice dyed with, what, cherry juice? Stewart is so clever.

That's blood orange, Mr. Williamson.

Really? I don't know I've ever actually seen one. Mediterranean?

From the groves of Zeus. Legend has it.

Is that on your card?

Of course. (Shows Williamson.)

(Reading:) 'Turned red by Zeus to frighten thieves, this sweet citrus was once left uneaten because of its bloody color.'

Protective coloration.

What?

Protective coloration. Nature's way of deceiving predators.

I wouldn't know.

I'll keep it.

I'll come back.

REESE starts to exit,

Reese.

Sir?

Reese, how long have we known each other?

Known each other?

I mean how long has it been that you've been waiting on me.

I've had this station since you joined, sir. How long ago is that? Eight years?

That long.

I'm sure it is.

Sometimes it seems like it hasn't been very long and sometimes it seems like forever.

Maybe it feels short because nothing ever changes here.

Wouldn't that make it seem longer?

I don't know. I'm just talking.

Do you like working here, Reese?

I've got things I need to be doing.

I'm sorry. That was impolite of me. You are absolutely right. I just thought, strike a casual note, this being my last day for a while.

Forever, I'll bet.

Really?

Pretty likely.

Why do you say that, Reese?

I've seen it before. The governor's board'll take a vote. Then Stewart puts a note on each waiter's card that so and so's privileges have been revoked.

With the food facts and the poisson de la Maison du jour.

For information about performance rights, please visit www.Playscripts.com.