The Write life: One word at a time
News Reporter
In 2019, the Rear Window Listening Room premiered a play performed by the Ganado Townhall Players titled, Under A Powder Blue Moon, written and directed by Victoria playwright Patrick McLaughlin.
It’s recently been picked up by a theatrical publisher, Next Stage Press, and now part of their catalogue, meaning anyone can license it and perform it anywhere in the country…not to mention the original cast and premier information will be printed into every script produced.
Turns out, McLaughlin has written about 30 plays and this is the second one published. The first was titled, Until He Wasn’t, a dark drama about a modern- day Jack the Ripper and told by his victims, which are stuck in purgatory together. He learned Until He Wasn’t was licensed for a oneday performance in The Hague, in the Nether- “It’s always really gratifying to see your work come to life on stage and I’ve been very fortunate to have a lot of things produced,” he said. “It’s always a unique thing to see something which played out in your head come to life with people in realtime.”
lands, of all places!
Although McLaughlin said his best ideas come to him in the wee hours of the night, he’s the production services planner at the Leo J. Welder Center in Victoria. In addition to working with two resident companies, ballet and theatre, any rental, performance, lecture, etc., McLaughlin is the one responsible for the technical production for the show.
He said the initial script for Under A Powder Blue Moon began in 2013, and once he found a draft that was good enough, he copyrighted it and started sending it to theaters, where it was debuted in Ganado.
“It’s a comedy with poignant moments. It centers around a bank teller named Jannelle, 50-ish, at a small-town mini bank, and it gets robbed,” McLaughlin said. “Through the course of the show they capture him, unveil him, and she recognizes him as the boy who stood her up at the prom 30 years earlier.”
So Jannelle decides it’s her time for revenge and closure by turning the tables on him, getting the gun and holding him hostage. Then she begins asking for demands like punch and cookies and tulle fabric, because she wants her prom and she wants answers.
McLaughlin said it took about two months for them to cast the roles, do a table read, begin blocking scenes and doing character work until the play was performed.
He submitted the play to the Tyler Civic Theater for a competition, and in 2020 it won the People’s Choice Award at the play festival. In 2021 as part of the competition, the theater did a full-staged production of it.
“I’d been watching some random true crime show and the idea came to me the way all my ideas do…I ask, what if? And, can it be done in a funny way? The next day I started free-writing and after tinkering with it after a couple of days I realized I had something there,” he said.
Something upcoming: McLaughlin wrote a one man’s show which he will be performing at the Rear Window Listening Room in June. It’s based on a true story about the king of bootleggers during prohibition, George Remus.
McLaughlin said he’s tried writing all kinds of genres, except musicals and children’s plays, because his humor is typically not for the child audience.
“I’m also not musical in the least, I struggle to play the radio,” he joked. “I don’t know if I could stick to one genre because my mind’s a mess, so it bounces everywhere.
He’s currently working on a couple of shows, one in particular, a comedy Christmasthemed show, which centers on two women vying for the Santa Claus at the local mall.
“I’m so grateful for theaters like the Rear Window and the Ganado Townhill Players for keeping live theaters going and providing opportunities for playwrights,” he said. “Anytime a theater takes a chance on one of your scripts, it’s a big honor.”
The original cast of Under A Powder Blue Moon: Maintenance Man/Bobby, played by Jeff Sabedra; Jannelle, played by Geraldine Tobola; Alvin, played by Virgil Knowlton; Louise, played by Jessica Coleman; Marcy, played by Sarah Tupa; Detective Harlan, played by Clinton Tegeler; and Lonnie, played by McLaughlin himself.
