Mike Mariano

Welcome to my writing anthology, now revamped and in color! Now instead of the bland, desaturated pages, you can view a wonderful site of puke green and small text! Enjoy!

While the change to the site has been mostly cosmetic, there are a few biggies. First of all, now all the plays on the site appear in a mouthwatering PDF format, which means that you’ll need Adobe Acrobat to read them. While this may mean a download for some of you out there, it’s worth it. It means you’ll see the plays as they are supposed to look, and it isn’t a abso-friggin huge download like the Word-created HTML versions of the plays were. However, good old fashioned Microsoft Word copies are also on the site, and many people can open those. Hope you like ‘em!

Because I am a control freak, I have added Production Notes for each of the plays. Granted, you don’t need these notes to understand the plays, but there are certain ways that I would do things; I’m just letting you know. You’ll find the notes on each work’s main page, and besides being helpful, they should make good reading material. Let me know what you think!

And in writing news, while most of my time is spent with the Summer Cabaret, I am working on that Untitled one-act right now, and progress is, er, progressing. Look for it soon!

PS: Here’s something SOOPER SECRET! The version of Over The Fence now on the site is a very slightly updated version. I matched the play’s formatting with Two Men and I Am The Devil, and changed some of Warren’s lines, because in retrospect I felt the stuttered dialogue was too much. So it’s not a full blown revision, but it’s worth mentioning.

There is much to be said for the significance of the names of characters in my work. For instance, Gabe Larson’s first name presumably comes from the biblical archangel Gabriel, one of the only figures appearing in both the Old Testament and the New. (Well actually, I picked all the names of my characters for I Am The Devil off of my desk. Two people named Gabe and Kim worked in the Modern Language Lab with me, and “Larson” came from a Gary Larson Far Side desk calendar.)

Um, I think I like the biblical explanation better.

And even in Two Men About to be Killed by a Comic Book Supervillain we see a subtle motif in the classical names of Hector and Julius. The Trojan Prince Hector was treacherously killed in single man combat when his opponent Achilles bended the rules and solicited the help of the Gods to win. And Julius Caesar, of course, faced treachery of his own as he was murdered on the steps of the Roman Senate by some of his closest friends. Even without the ten-minute play’s title, the names Hector and Julius suggests a destiny of unjust murder.

Actually, though, Hector is named after a crazy bus driver, and Julius comes from Orange Julius. So you can throw your fancy literary theories out the window, buster!

Check out the main page for an update, which includes that oft-mentioned new play, Two Men About to be Killed by a Comic Book Supervillain. I think that says it all. I’d appreciate any thoughts on the play, as well as any productions. (Now there’s a not so subtle hint….) See ya!