I'm Saving You a Seat

an exclusive excerpt from the play

Hey pals!

I hope you can join me and the talented group of artists over at Brooklyn Music School this Saturday August 3rd at 3:30 pm. It’s a free staged reading of a play I’m very proud of!

I’ll be playing Sam, Rich Lovejoy will be playing Mark, and Kimi Handa Brown will be playing Jamie, the other fantastic character in the show. Directed by Emily Hartford and stage direction will be read by Amanda Corbett.

If you’re not local, or can’t make it, here’s a little snippet from the play. Very “slice of life” show.

BACKGROUND OF SCENE: Sam (30 years old and 8 years sober) randomly reconnected with her estranged ex-stepfather Mark (52 years old and 18 years sober) when she moved to a small Hudson Valley town he also happened to live in. They had not seen one another since the divorce and his sobriety. In this scene, they are a month into this tenuous reconnection, spending Thanksgiving building IKEA furniture in Sam’s new house.

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MARK 
I tried to find you — you and your mom — a few years after I got sober. This was before Google was Google — pretty sure I used Ask Jeeves or something. I owed both of you an amends, but I couldn’t find you. 

SAM
We moved a lot. 

MARK
I wrote a letter to her, and another to you. I didn’t have anywhere to mail it, but I didn’t want to keep it. I put each letter in a bottle and threw it in the Hudson River. 

SAM
That’s poetic. 

MARK
I know it was symbolic, but a part of me dreamed it’d somehow reach you. 

SAM
Do you remember what it said? 

MARK
It was an apology for leaving you. That I wished I had the guts to go back and give you a safe home. My sponsor told me I had to let it go, the idea that I could save you. But a part of that survivor’s guilt never went away. 

SAM
Mom said you were sick of us. 

MARK
I was sick of — that dynamic was fertilizer for all my worst traits. In a dysfunctional relationship, you become someone you don’t like. Like some sort of twisted self-fulfilling prophecy.

SAM
What about being a step-dad? 

MARK
I thought you’d be better off without me. I mean, Jesus, how many times did you shake me awake from nodding out to ask for cereal? 

SAM
But you were fun. I still remember the weekend “field trips” you’d take me on, when mom would work. Staying all day at the water park or ice skating at the rec arena. 

MARK
You know I was stoned for most of those? 

SAM
Yah, but you weren’t, like, checked out. Do you remember my favorite field trip? 

MARK
(searching for a bit in his brain) 
Shit. Um.

SAM
We’d stay at home and listen to your CDs all day. You’d play along on your guitar, I’d draw for hours. 

MARK
Oh yah…!

SAM
And we’d always walk down to the McDonalds for lunch. 

MARK
You know why we’d walk right? 

SAM
…I do now. 

MARK 
Weekends were a chance to, uh, yah…not that a weekend and weekday were all that different to me by that point…No matter my choice, it’d always end in a fight with your mom. Never got it right with her. May as well be fucked up, you know? 

SAM
I just remember that you made things better. You didn’t hate me. You were nice to me. 

MARK
I don’t know if being constantly high or drunk is being nice. 

SAM
Better than what I was used to. And what remained after you — I understand. You only got better when you left. 

MARK
I can’t tell you how relieved I felt to see you were ok, last month. It was like half my survivor’s guilt immediately disappeared. 

SAM
Oh. I mean, good. 

MARK
Look what you’ve accomplished! You draw for a living, you’re sober, you did it all on your own. 

SAM
That’s AA, not me. 

MARK
Sorry, you’re officially the strongest person I know. Deal with it. 

---

Just a little tease for now! So much more to see in the full play, including how Jamie, Mark’s much-younger-girlfriend and Sam’s new sponsee, factors into all of this found family dynamic.

Hope to see some of you there!