Kirjahaku

Learn public speaking skills to make your next presentation an EXTRAORDINARY ONE Stories have the ability to enrapture audience members and touch off their creative energies. Excellent speakers know how to utilize stories to captivate and impact their groups of people. Inside, you will find how to: - Make an opening that in a split second guides your gathering of people into your discourse. - Keep your groups of onlookers spellbound with a story. - Utilize the suspended account equation to increase the interest. - Breath live into your characters. - Transform your stories into mental motion pictures for your group of onlookers. - Keep your gathering of people entranced by expanding the power of your contentions. - Add natural silliness to any presentation without turning to jokes. - Make your discourse noteworthy with the right analogies and representations. - Create a repeatable catchphrase utilizing "the principle of contrary energies". - Recount a story and convey a discourse that your group of onlookers will recall and discuss for quite a long time. - and much, much more...

In 1978 almost 900 souls and members of The People's Temple had migrated from San Francisco, one of the most liberal cities in the United States seeking liberty, equality, and self-sufficiency and paradise. They followed their spiritual leader, The Prophet Jim Jones to land the church had bought in Guyana that had been named: Jonestown. This play, "Bloodlines to Oblivion" is about the last remaining family preparing to immigrate to "Paradise". The plot revolves around the fearful and reluctant anti-religious father who refuses to go, but also doesn't want to abandon his family to the religious man who has taken his wife's mind and soul. There is great public pressure from the government to investigate horrible rumors about the conditions in the jungle and Jonestown. A congressional investigation is underway for a fact-finding mission and is to arrive in the middle of November. This heightens the father's fears and he will do anything to make his family miss the last possible flight to Jonestown.

Bloodlines to Oblivion is a tragic fictitious story of the last family to take up roots to head for Jonestown, Guyana. Not really knowing the danger his family is heading to, the father is just trying to prevent his wife and kids from leaving him because of the charisma of a preacher who promises them Heaven here on Earth.

This is a collection of all the short plays I have written in my career; which is a total of five. The themes vary widely from "The Lady on the Road" from an encounter between two American Sailors in the jungles of the West Indian Country of Grenada and the infamous Caribbean witch Ligibliss to a story of a senior citizen fantasying about "the Garden of Nirvana" in his single bedroom. In the "Blue Mirror Review" three innocent young women desperate for employment after losing their jobs to returning World War II soldiers who are being groomed by an agent of the devil to become nightclub singers. The final two plays are The Ant in the Sugar Bowl which is a three-way love affair story and finally Mr. Ding Dong Daddy about an seemingly senior Lothario and the confrontation he has with one of his "lady friends" daughter .

This is a collection of all the short plays I have written in my career; which is a total of five. The themes vary widely from "The Lady on the Road" from an encounter between two American Sailors in the jungles of the West Indian Country of Grenada and the infamous Caribbean witch Ligibliss to a story of a senior citizen fantasying about "the Garden of Nirvana" in his single bedroom. In the "Blue Mirror Review" three innocent young women desperate for employment after losing their jobs to returning World War II soldiers who are being groomed by an agent of the devil to become nightclub singers. The final two plays are The Ant in the Sugar Bowl which is a three-way love affair story and finally Mr. Ding Dong Daddy about an seemingly senior Lothario and the confrontation he has with one of his "lady friends" daughter .

This is an award winning play about Dorothy Dandridge. It has been produced all over the country and is considered one of the most complete rendition of the tragic star and icon. It is a fictional telling of Dorothy's last day alive. The play takes place in her backstage dressing room at the Velvet Club in Los Angeles where she comes face to face with her mortality as well as defining moments in her life and career. It is a solo piece that is a challenge for an accomplished actor. The story tells the story that just because one is considered a famous, rich, and beautiful star it doesn't always lead to a filling life.

Where Dark Things Hide Book Two is the book end to Book One. Speculative Fiction meets Urban Social Commentary with very evil and dark theme and characters. This novel is written in a style in honor of the great Chester Himes. A man/Angel/Devil dressed in black and driving a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado deals out justice to some uniquely evil human beings.

The play takes place in 1988 and the main character, Pearl (Bailey) has given up performing and is living out the last years of her life at her Lake Havasu, Arizona home. The all female multi-cultural cast will consists of mostly middle age women sans the hired help. Though Pearl has won much acclaim in her long show business career, she has been nominated for the highest civilian award that the President of the United States can give. As she awaits the arrival of the woman who is sent from Washington, D.C. to "vet" her, she has gathered her closest friends to help her prepare a magnificent patio luncheon for the woman, but old grudges and private secrets arise that almost scuttles this moment of joy for the normally inflatable Pearl.

This book is about the much produced and award winning play by the author. It is a fictitious one-woman performance about her last night alive and the memories that suddenly come streaming into her mind because the lone reporter in her dressing room that fateful night reminds her so much about her estranged only sister. This story takes on a ride through her rise to fame to her personal life failures and successes, and finally to the place of desperation her life has come to at the age of 42. Though she is depressed in her Velvet Club dressing room, she relays her biographical story with great flair and sophistication as only Dorothy Dandridge can.

This is a play about three generations of black men who share a brownstone in Harlem. There is the handicapped Grandfather (G.P.) who is still trying to get his son to understand why he was missing most of his life. There is G.P.'s son William who owns the Brownstone and is going through a mini midlife change and is upset with the suspicion that of his only son, Junior is on the "down-low". Out of frustration he has given both his father and his son a few days to find somewhere else to live. His reasoning is that he believes they have been both a burden on his bank account and his socializing. G.P. is reluctantly forced to go along with Junior's plan of poisoning his father with a lethal cocktail of amphetamines in a bottle of Cognac William sneaks in while he's celebrating an Oldies but Goodies dance. By mistake both the father and grandfather drink from the bottle and die. A shape shifter/spirit has come for one's soul as she is birthing another child into the world. But because two die, she has to find a way to bring one back as is the custom. She has to come up with a way to rectify this and she decides to give the choice of which one of the men can return to life to the two feuding men who have died. This leads to a retelling of their truthful past and what each man means to each other. They physically have to walk in each other's footsteps to see their true meaning to one another.

This book is collection of two plays with themes dramatically based on real events in the annals of Black Urban Revolutionary history. One took place in 1974 and the other in 1984. The first play is entitled: "The Last Dance of the Panther Women" It's about a disillusioned female Panther women has had come to settle an old score and also to assassinate Kathleen Cleaver because of something her husband had done to her. Though she knows her mission is suicidal she so believes in the movement's original mission of revolution, she feels that she can set an example as a martyr to help jump start the next movement for the present Black Panther movement is on life-support. The second play is entitled: "6221 Osage Avenue" (The MOVE Inferno) and it theatrically recreates the aftermath of the destruction of the neighborhood as well as the events that lead up to the government deciding to drop a bomb in the city of Philadelphia that eventually ended up not only destroying the radical Back-to-Africa folks, but all their disapproving neighbors homes as well. The stories of he actual folks involved in this tragedy are played out on stage. Even the first black Mayor of Philadelphia, Wilson Goode, is represented in the play. Mayor Goode became infamously known as the leader of a city that bombed itself.

With such a provocative title, Elizabeth's Precious Kitty EPK, arouses ones curiosity as to what type of play it could be. But as they say, never judge a book by its cover. EPK promises to take you well beyond the dungeon and day to day happenings of its main character Elizabeth, who just so happens to be Virgin Dominatrix. EPK is a wonderfully titillating, sensual, fun, erotic, 3-person modern day farcical play, that promises to shock and entertain the audience. In this day of 50-shades of Grey, Elizabeth opens the doors for female empowerment and sexuality, while setting up the great debate of man vs. woman and woman vs. mother. Strong and forceful with her clients, this well-respected and beautiful Dominatrix, finds herself at a crossroads with one of her biggest battles, fighting for her virginity, her most "precious kitty," against the nagging woes of her dead Mother's desire to become a grandmother and the uninvited appearance of a mystical hideous stranger. While Elizabeth revels in the esteemed honor of being a fierce Dominatrix, also known as the "Baddest" chick in the BDSM world, she has never felt, needed nor wanted the physical touch of a man and plans on being a Virgin for the rest of her life. Like most mothers wanting to see their only child bear fruit, Mother Dear serves as the consummate reminder that Elizabeth's biological clock is about to start ticking, or has it already started, stopping at nothing to continue the family bloodline, even in death. But while the two battle the debate, Elizabeth is visited by the charming hideous man-creature, Panner, whom she finds herself uncharacteristically engaging in his strange desires and demands for her exclusive services.

The farcical themed play is about playing a "twist" on the sexist opinion of people who go to fortune tellers, practitioners of the occult, and Mojo Priests to have spells and incantations manifested on enemies, opponents, and especially loved ones when "reasoned" conversation is not an option. Four men who are total strangers find themselves answering a discount offering flier for a "Thursday Men's Only" meeting with a conjure man who promises to help solve their most pressing love relationship problems. For $50 they are promised that the solution can come only if they go through a three stage ritual and at the end the spell that will be cast upon their mates will be equal to the severity of their unique situations. And as an added bonus not only will the spell be supernatural, but each man will see the future as the spell is played out on their mates. This hilarious situation forces the men to bond together and to open up to each other to reveal that exact moment when they each confronted an unsolvable confrontation with their mates. The telling of their tells will be done in two stages. The first stage is they own perception of what is wrong with their mates. And the second stage is the truth as it really is. Scenes are played out in spotlighted monologues in which they and their mates play out that moment of "the last straw". All of the men are eager to cast spells upon their mates and are given the opportunity in the last stage to see theconsequences and reactions of the spells and to change their minds or to okay the spell. The play is meant to be over the top and farcical. The characters are almost super-stereotypical.

This play is an examination of how colorism within one's own race can destroy loved ones and a family's bloodline. An elderly woman returns to the ancestral home that now belongs to her daughter and the son-in-law that she hates because she is mourning the sudden death of her only son. Drunken and depressed she finds herself in the boarded up nursery where she had given birth to her two children fifty years before. In her despair, anger, and subconscious guilt the crying of baby constantly permeates from behind a wall and beckons to her in a Edgar Allen Poe type way to remind her of a horrible crime she'd committed in this very room so many years before to hide the results of her lustful hypocrisies. She has buried of a child in the wall. Just the fact that she is in this house is causing great distress between her childless daughter and her lawyer husband. Try as they can, they cannot make her leave this ancient nursery. The wife convinces her husband that this situation is temporary and that because she is all her mother has left, she has to at least hire a nurse to attend to her mother so that she doesn't do harm to herself. But just her presence in the house is a cancer that will ultimately bring upon a moment-of-truth and will dig up and expose old scabs between the couple. The live-in nurse that they bring in is someone who has a fifty-year grudge to exact from the grieving woman.Ghost of the past and present visit upon this woman to make her come to terms on how this whole tragedy has been brought upon herself and her beliefs of "skin" superiority that borders on the insane. It is a story about how racism within the race has caused the destruction of the bloodlines of a black aristocratic family. As she mourns and cusses, and scorns and drinks and smokes, ghost of the past and some of the present converge on her to finish the job.