Writing Samples
Gaining Ground
Cast size: four, 1F/3M, all double
    Idealistic dropout Cliff Nardell joins the National Guard just in time to be on the front lines of the infamous Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970.  In the aftermath, he maroons himself in an elaborate tree house, and it is up to his estranged son to talk him down, thirty years later.
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/gainingsyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/gainingexc.pdfshapeimage_3_link_0shapeimage_3_link_1
Cavers
Cast size: five, 3F/2M
    Cantankerous Gertie Stovall is about to lose the family’s collapsing farmhouse to foreclosure, but then she discovers “a gold mine” directly beneath her property in the form of a previously undiscovered cave system.  Will she be able to strike it rich American-style, or will a team of preservation-minded cave explorers shut her cash cow down?
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/caverssyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/caversexc.pdfshapeimage_4_link_0shapeimage_4_link_1
Lines in the Sand
Cast size: seven, 2F/5M
    Cartographer Melody X lands on a sandbar in the Rio Grande, declares it to be a free and sovereign nation, and takes us through the rise and fall of civilization via her new democracy, Hope Island, in just ninety minutes.
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/linessyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/linesexc.pdfshapeimage_5_link_0shapeimage_5_link_1
Honor
Cast size: four, 2F/2M
    When Jordanian immigrant Semera Kawar seeks asylum with her next-door neighbors, Dre and Jane, claiming her brother keeps her prisoner, it sets off a lethal chain of events that becomes a theatrical microcosm of current East-West relations.
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/honorsyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/honorexc.pdfshapeimage_6_link_0shapeimage_6_link_1
The Cure
Cast size: five, 2F/2M, plus child
    Oncologist Dr. Rosalyn Bay arrives at the White House claiming she has a cure for cancer.  The catch: She will only reveal the secret if the United States agrees to scrap its nuclear and chemical arsenal.  Will that agenda get her past White House gatekeeper Liz Nickles, who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer?
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/curessyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/cureexc.pdfshapeimage_7_link_0shapeimage_7_link_1
Burning Mona Lisa in the Reptile House
Cast size: four, 2F/2M
    New reptile house intern Erin Arscott isn’t who she says she is, and one of her fellow keepers is “saving” endangered species by dealing cocaine.  Meanwhile, the zoo director develops a very unhealthy crush on “Erin.”  With this many secrets in play, someone is sure to get a very nasty case of snakebite.
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/burningsyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/burningexc.pdfshapeimage_8_link_0shapeimage_8_link_1
Acts of God
Cast size: twelve, 7F/5M
    Acts of God tracks twelve high-school students through the year following a devastating tornado strike.  As the students grieve, assist in the recovery efforts, and tackle the basics of getting on with life, they must also cope with the storm’s emotional detritus.  
    *** Acts of God is published by Playscripts, Inc.
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)http://www.playscripts.com/play.php3?playid=1333https://markrigney.net/PDFs/actssyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/actsexc.pdfshapeimage_9_link_0shapeimage_9_link_1shapeimage_9_link_2
Digging in the Margins
Cast size: seven, 3F/4M
    Earl and Pearl Douglass, the discoverers of Dinosaur National Monument, leave their cabin as a legacy of their work, only to have the secrets it contains rediscovered one hundred years later.  A play that refuses to stand still in time, Digging in the Margins dares to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem while digging for fossils, miracles, and hope.
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/diggingsyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/diggingexc.pdfshapeimage_10_link_0shapeimage_10_link_1
The Experts
Cast size: five, 1F/4M, all double
    In this comic gold rush Odyssey, petty thief Dan Mark Cott flees to 1849 California hoping to start a new life, but bad planning and scurvy conspire against him.  He needs medical help, and fast––but the only available doctors are busy playing poker, and, worse, they’re all dead as doornails.
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/expertssyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/expertsexc.pdfshapeimage_11_link_0shapeimage_11_link_1
House | Divided
Cast size: four, 2F/2M
    Doug Ryan hits middle age hard, thanks to a traffic accident that leaves him with lingering amnesia.  On hand to re-construct his life are his garrulous best friend, his conservative wife (running for state senate), and his left-wing daughter, newly returned from Ecuador to do battle for Doug’s suddenly available soul.  Doug reluctantly concedes he has choices to make––and no matter what he does, he will wind up driving one of the women in his life away.
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/housesyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/houseexc.pdfshapeimage_12_link_0shapeimage_12_link_1
Live Nude Girl
Cast size: nine, w/gender flexible
    Senior Kate Merrill accepts a role in a small-college play that involves a nude scene, and soon the entire campus is in an uproar.  Who or what wins when social mores clash with artistic license?  Certainly not Kate’s soon-to-be-expelled housemate, Lee––and maybe not Kate herself.
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/livesyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/liveexc.pdfshapeimage_13_link_0shapeimage_13_link_1
Nightjars
Cast size: seventeen, 8F/6M, others flexible
    Meet the Nightjars Fireside Council, a loose band of college students on the fringes of radical environmentalism, but never––so far––willing to take the plunge into criminal activism.  On this night, with a guest from Saudi Arabia joining their marshmallow roast, one of their members sets fire to a power plant’s rail depot, changing all of their lives forever.

***    Nightjars will receive its world premiere at the YES Festival through Northern Kentucky University (Highland Heights, KY), in April, 2009.
Synopsis (.pdf)    Excerpt (.pdf)https://markrigney.net/PDFs/nightjarssyn.pdfhttps://markrigney.net/PDFs/nightjarsexc.pdfshapeimage_14_link_0shapeimage_14_link_1