Other-Novels-Plays

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Other Novels/Plays

Ira Neebest and The First Coming

The State vs. Max Cooper

Ira Neebest and The First Coming

(seeking publication)

Ira Neebest and The First Coming is an unconventional story of love and suspense that can best be described as unusual, thought provoking and both light and dark at times … but uplifting in the end.

Ira Neebest, Hasidic Jew turned atheist, struggles with orthodox Judaism, devout Christianity and fanatic Islam, a struggle propelling him along a prophetic journey that ends in Jerusalem. The world is at the brink of annihilation as the Jews and the Muslims continue to rattle their nuclear swords with the dreaded expectation that metal will melt into mushroom clouds. Along his journey, Ira is awarded the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes for The First Coming, a novel that blasphemes all three religions and places his life within the crosshairs of Islamic hatred.

This tale also tells of Ira’s troubled mother Rebecca (raised an orthodox Jew) and the deep seated guilt thrust upon her by an unrelenting rabbi—and of his wife Natale (the love of his life), who must deal with the demons thrust upon her by a Catholic past. Throughout Ira’s life, Soma Nole serves as a mother figure and friend. She is a wise but mysterious old woman, an eccentric elder who never seems to age as she travels the world over on a moment’s notice with the ability to speak as many languages as the places she visits.

Ira Neebest and The First Coming is a story that is relevant to our times, in the world we live in, a world held captive and seemingly battered into submission, day after day, by religious fanatics. There are many great books of non-fiction that confirm this, books written by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, to name a few, books that rely on historical data and well grounded philosophical thought. Ira Neebest takes a different approach. It reasserts those most important issues that Harris and the others have raised, but wraps them in literature with plots and subplots, and imagery. It shows how average people, the characters, are affected by their beliefs or their non-beliefs in a god and religion and how they respond to both, again wrapped in literature and not bundled in statistics and past genocides that appear merely as black ink on page after page. This novel forces the readers to see the flesh and blood of Ira Neebest dripping from the pages into their own laps as he deals with the religious orthodoxy that surrounds and affects him.

Cast List/Descriptions

Rudy Oliver - TV Reporter

Jody Greenstreet - Clerk/Bailiff

Francis Hart - Judge

Leslie LaRue - Prosecution Attorney

Dale Lane - Prosecution Attorney

Connie Johnson - Prosecution Attorney

Terry Stone - Defense Attorney

Alex Rhodes - Defense Attorney

Regina Brinwaller - Police Officer at the scene and State Witness

Avery Summers - Resident at the scene and State Witness

Lonnie Jacobsen - One of the “Fearsome Five” and State Witness

Peter Lambert - Shot by Max Cooper and State Witness

Kelly Traveena - Botanical garden docent and. State Witness

Gilbert Grover - Gun shop owner

Val Baker - Gun expert and State Witness

Carrie Brubaker - Max Cooper's neighbor and State Witness

Nolan Hinkle - Friend to Max and Savannah and. State Witness

Loren Winer - Gun Training Expert and Defense Witness

Betty Doolittle - Savannah’s best friend and Defense Witness

Savannah Gregg Cooper - Max’s flirtatious wife and Defense Witness

Max Cooper - The Defendant

Note: A cast member’s age can vary greatly and those

portraying witnesses can double with a simple costume change.

Set/Technical Requirements

The set can be quite simple; a judge’s bench (for example a raised podium and bar stool), a bailiff’s box containing a chair, and a witness box containing a chair. In addition two long tables (one for the State Attorneys and one for the Defense Attorneys) are required. There also should be several chairs set up for the Attorneys and the witnesses.

Synopsis

Peter Lambert moved into a tranquil community and soon began terrorizing the neighbors. Max, an upstanding member of the community, found himself in a feud with Peter that escalated to one fateful night that ended with Max shooting Peter in the shoulder, causing Dean Palan, an innocent bystander, to veer off the road and die. Arrested for the attempted murder of Peter Lambert, and the death of poor Dean Palan, Max contends that he “didn’t know the gun was loaded with real bullets” and that his Wife, Savannah, switched the blanks for the real thing. Savannah was outraged by the accusation even though she had a flirtatious reputation and was rumored to have been “involved” with Peter.

The State argues that rage and revenge were involved in this exciting courtroom drama, laced with humor, in which the audience, as the Jury, must deliver the verdict. Three different endings are provided depending on the jury’s outcome.

UNIQUE, INTERACTIVE AND ENGAGING.

21 Actors, Doubling Possible

Many Gender And Age Neutral Roles.

Comments from Patrons

The State vs Max Cooper Production

Tucson, Arizona

February 24, 25, 26, 2010

(All Performances Sold Out with a long waiting list!)

The production was a real winner in many ways; suspenseful, entertaining, fact filled, well cast, a marvelous blend between "serious" and "comical", right length, engaging for the audience, flexible/ adaptive, doable, fun, easily staged, well supplemented with A/V, relatively quick to produce, did NOT take advantage of the audience in a condescending way, . . .

... the production was unique, well written & directed and an altogether fun experience for both of us. Our friends who saw the show commented that they thought the play was written by a professional playwright and adapted for by Steve. When we reminded them that Steve wrote the play, they were very impressed. Involving the audience as the jury made their experience much more enjoyable as they were a part of the play instead of just on-lookers.

Max Cooper had a superb plot (and script), performed sensationally. Thanks for an outstanding play.

What a fun evening! The courtroom drama was a real hoot; the acting was really good and best of all, everyone seemed to be having a great time.

We have just enjoyed one of the best nights of entertainment that we have ever experienced in SaddleBrooke. The writing was terrific, the plot engaged our attention, the actors entertained us with their portrayals, and the production was superb! Can we count on a sequel?

It was very engaging and very well performed. Thanks to everyone involved for a most entertaining and thought provoking evening.

You should be very proud and pleased with your original script. To have written such a detailed and realistic stage play is commendable. Screen play coming up? To get that many people to memorize and deliver so many lines is amazing. The movement on and off stage showed some really good coaching and directing.

We voted to acquit the defendant but my wife held her ground and so did 3 others at our table who found him guilty, which turned out to be the correct verdict. The rest of us were swayed by the long legs and big red hat of the defendant's wife. We loved that the crime took place in our community!

I loved the courtroom format and thought the production was a good blend of drama and comic relief. It provided several conflicts so that the jury could speculate about multiple scenarios that might have led to the shooting. Participating was especially rewarding as every actor and actress had his/her moment in the spotlight. The audience clearly enjoyed the humor and the jury ballots were testimony to the heated discussions that took place about who did what to whom.

I loved the script. It had humor and drama and it was great to see my friends and neighbors bring it to life. It was a wonderful experience for me to be part of this production and judging by the response of the audience every night, they absolutely loved it, especially their own participation as members of the jury. Thank you Susan and Steve Shear for bringing this new format to SaddleBrooke. I hope we will see more productions like it in the future.

The State vs. Max Cooper

by Steve and Susan Shear

Max is available at ArtAge Publication.

The Click

(seeking publication)

Just imagine you are seventy-seven years old, you hear THE CLICK (right on schedule), and know to an absolute certainty you will be dead in ninety days! Even worse, imagine you have an eleven year old grandchild who hears THE CLICK prematurely and has only ninety days to live—unless you can save the child—somehow! AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT—with each page you turn.

NOW, let me take you back to a time before humankind began hearing THE CLICK. Imagine the world without terminal illness: cancer, heart disease, diabetes—most citizens living well into their late nineties, dying of old age. Visualize governments politically controlled by a theocratic mindset promoting large families and outlawing all forms of birth control and abortion. The combination is synergistic, devastating—and inevitable: an overpopulated world depleting its most precious resources, food and water.

Can you truly imagine either reality? If not, check out my synopsis below and, thereafter, asl for the entire manuscript for everything The Click has to say about world governance and religious interference in the not so distant future—and how Oliver Hitchcock, a retired CIA agent, and his tiny band of conspiracy theorists (reporters, scientists, and present day CIA operatives), are affected by and how they challenge the homogenizing of both.

I am currently seeking representation for my third novel, The Click, which extrapolates present political and societal trends to construct a preview into the future, a not so distant future. The Click involves mystery and suspense while at the same time insisting its characters have something important to say. In some ways it has the look and feel of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and the in most ways the character interplay of a John Irving novel.

The Click - A Synopsis

As I said above, imagine an overpopulated world depleting its most precious resources, food and water; nations fighting over ever diminishing plots of land and safe havens for shelter. The year is 2040 and enough is enough. The All Mighty or Mother Nature, depending on your belief system, conjures up a plague the likes of which has never been summoned before.

It is the water in most places, but sometimes the air carries the deadly virus quickly dubbed ERAM, Earth’s Revenge Against Mankind. The righteous brand it the hand of Heaven avenging all those abortions in dark alleys—and their renunciation of the Good Book. The Godless repudiate such demagoguery, insisting that Mother Nature recoiled against a worldwide population boom playing havoc with her creation. In either case, the world powers fight back, producing the ERAM vaccine and establishing VAMA, the Vaccine Assurance and Management Authority, to insure that all citizens of the world are vaccinated against the ravage decimating their Earth. Even though the plague offers only temporary relief against overpopulation, the theocratic mindset nevertheless remains a steadfast opponent of abortion and birth control. The real cure, the Click, is yet to come—and come it does, in early 2050!

The summer of 2123 comes quickly in the cosmic sense—and the Click is as common as air. People in their late seventies hear it or feel it and die in their sleep shortly thereafter. The All Mighty saved the planet from a population glut yet again the righteous claim, while the Godless once again repudiate such demagoguery, insisting as they had before that credit belongs to Mother Nature.

Oliver Hitchcock, a retired CIA agent, has other ideas and a life-or-death mission—to save his twelve year old grandson, Christopher. Oliver is eighty-five, older than he has the right to be. He is a Beater, one of the few lucky people who beat the Click, who didn’t hear or feel it when he was supposed to. Christopher, on the other hand, is a Preemie, one of the few unlucky youngsters destined to feel the Click early and die prematurely. Oliver swore to his wife hours before she closed her eyes forever that he would save her grandson, but to do so he has to wage the battle of his life with the Cūtocracy, the Christian Union for Theocratic Oversight. He and his tiny band of conspiracy theorists—reporters, scientists, and present day CIA operatives—all suspecting the unthinkable, have to prove to the world what they are not entirely sure of themselves—that the Click was manmade, a tool created and implemented not by God or Mother Nature but rather by the Cūtocrats who decades earlier took political control of legislative bodies around the world.

What Oliver and the others eventually discover is even more devastating . With the help of the President of the United States, a surprise to everyone, and the unvaccinated people of DanSheba, a secret village hidden deep in the jungles of India, they learn the Cutocracy was not only responsible for the Click but had developed the ERAM vaccine in time to save most of those people ravaged by the plague. But the Cutocracy chose not to administer the vaccine until the Click was ready—months and more than a billion deaths later. It is that discovery that the President and Oliver Hitchcock’s band use to “unclick” humanity.

The Click… is what you hear or feel just months before dying peacefully in your sleep. It’s taken for granted like clean air, good food, and spacious surroundings.