WTexas in 2 Plays

by C. G. Wayne

2/2014 Otter Track Press announces the release of a new title in its catalog, WTexas in 2 Plays.

A "narrative in play form," WTexas in 2 Plays contains two plays, LawnMaster and Winter Crew, that follow the lives of a Texas university grounds crew one summer. The author has intended for these two pieces to be read primarily as narrative fiction although their performance on stage is not discouraged!

The setting is the equipment workshop of a Texas university grounds crew one week in the spring of 1979. The workshop is filled wit broken, rusted and make-do equipment except for the centerpiece of the equipment collection - a polished, gleaming riding mower, the LawnMaster. The member of the crew assigned to use the  LawnMaster has highest status in the group and it serves as a lightening rod  for tension between the members of the crew.

The first narrative, LawnMaster, began its life as an assignment for a playwright workshop led by Amy Freed at Stanford in 2002. In its original form, the focus was on a new hire effort to fit in with the veteran grounds crew. However as the piece evolved, the more dynamic story became that of the “regular” employees. In the final version of this work, the grounds crew itself emerged as a character of the narrative, with the story of the new hire emerging asincidental to the piece. The second work, Winter Crew, resumes the story of the regular employees as their work season comes to an end.

 The characters in this narrative survive in a rough and hardscrabble world.                

When asked about the origin of this "narrative as play" form, the author responded,

"When I was growing up, my
mother taught Senior English
in high school and one of the
main activities of her senior
classes was producing and
performing in the “senior play.”
Each year, she brought home
sample play books which
she received from publishers
and I read them as though
they were novelettes...

"The idea of a narrative in dramatic
form jelled in my thinking after
reading Cormac McCarthy’s
the Sunset Limited ... but it has
actually been with me from the
time that I began reading. "

C. G Wayne

Media Kit

Hardcover edition is available in all bookstores including:

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A paperback version and additional ebook formats are in work and will be released in the near future. Signed copies are available on request from Otter Track Press.

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