Welcome

Comedy.   

A strike at the hottest Latin Soap Opera forces the hiring of scab writers, actors, director, producer and makeup artists who really don’t speak Spanish. 

Comedy. After a vasectomy, a man who does not read his prescriptions, takes a prescription to a pharmacy to be filled. 

Comedy. Three supervisors, two diggers and an overly curious homeowner. Three Anglicans above, two Hispanixs below and if you question city hall, you go to jail. Spanish and English.

Drama.  A devoted husband of 32 years, desperately tries to obtain pain medicine for his terminally ill wife.  Reading May 23, 2022 during the dramatist Guild Gulf Coast Footlights and in March 2022  during the DG Florida Panhandle Footlights Footlights.

Comedy. Performed 2019  Optioned for a short film. A man pretending he is a sports buff tries to pick-up a woman at a bar. She is a sports nut. 

Comedy. Performed at Tampa Bay Theatre Festival 2017.  “ If you are familiar with the concept of a “found poem,” you will appreciate Lee Kitchen’s theatrical application of this idea in his clever short, FORTUNE KOOKY. After ten years of visits to Chinese restaurants, 95% of his dialogue is culled from the signature dessert. The story’s premise is simple, but there are immediate escalations and reversals that would make this play fun and challenging for its actors. Looking for a good short play for your festival? “Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you.” Greg Burdick, Playwright. 

Comedy. Read at the SEC Conference, 2018. An actor in Shylock costume, debates with an English professor. Reality vs, theory. 

Comedy. Inebriated couple  party until 2 am. They hail a musician cabbie who drives them home. He’s had weirder passengers, maybe not.

Recently completed as a feature screenplay .

Comedy.   

A strike at the hottest Latin Soap Opera forces the hiring of scab writers, actors, director, producer and makeup artists who really don’t speak Spanish. 

Recently completed as screenplay.

A man comes into the agency and requests the agency take his multi-million advertising account. The man resembles a stereotypical accountant but claims he is the devil. 

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Comedy.   

A comedy based upon a mother’s love of an eccentric daughter immersed in art, greed and prejudice. 

Winner Best Screenplay at the recent Irvine International Film Festival.   

Jim Crow hysteria draws thousands to a southern town seeking vengeance on seven African American tenant farmers accused of butchering a landowner, wife, and small children. The human and inhuman side of people and an unsolved mystery. Based on real events.

What happens when the military industrial complex’s design of the ultimate fighting creature escapes, multiplies rapidly and enslaves humans? 

Comedy.  A grieving, cartoonist husband unknowingly transforms his deceased wife’s muslin dolls into zany Samaritans who talk to each other but not to Doll Man, while discovering friendship, culture, and trouble in Mexico. 

Comedy with a message. 

Genie Says, WHAT?  created for the Easterseals Film Challenge   We filmed and edited the short, in four days, per the contest rules, thanks to our talented editor and camera person, Robert Proctor. 

Youtube link: https://youtu.be/XvU2AIfWZWE

Comedy. What happens in this farce when Richard I, Richard II and Richard III return to modern time to sue William Shakespeare? 

I used to take my daughter, Lisa, to Central Park on Sundays. On the return train back to the Bronxville Station (we actually lived in Yonkers, a fourth floor walkup) a vendor would walk up and down the aisles. I don't think he had a license. Who knows? He would yell out, "Ice Cream! Ice cream! There will be no more food served on this train."

SCABS was developed into a feature screenplay. Awards were for the short screenplay. 

REPOSITION was also recently completed from a revised stage play into a feature screenplay. Both completed during during the past nine months.

 Illustration from commuting and business characters. 

Took me a ride on a commutin' train

everyone looked alike and dressed the same...(More in manuscript, Commutin' Train). Song also used in first play, Terrarium Earth. Fourth-story walkup in Yonkers (Bronxville Station) when I worked for JWT, then the world's largest ad agency.

Began career at J. Walter Thompson Advertising in New York and Chicago. Joined The Mentholatum Company as Marketing Director and member of the Executive Committee. Obtained MBA from University of Buffalo at nights while working as Marketing Director at the  Mentholatum Company. After receiving my MBA, I left corporate world to write full-time. Worked with the late NYC agent Glen Cowley on humor manuscript, MBA Guidebook.  Negotiating with Little Brown for advance when comparable book hit market. Learned a lesson: sent entire manuscript to several publishers a year before signing with agent.

Started business, Freelance Network working with freelancers in North America. Joined a client, Greater Buffalo Press, later Sullivan Graphics and then American Graphics. 

Left corporate world  again to write (a creative-non-fiction historical novel) that is now a screenplay, Picnik. Worked with the late Toni Mendez in NYC on humor book, Political Folksay  with artist Steve Sweny. Wrote first play that received recognition, JoJo Mama & The Voodoo Queen. Taught at colleges and universities while writing, leaving academia July 2016 to write  full-time.

• BS and MA Journalism, University of Alabama. 
• After leaving corporate world again, participated in the Alabama Writer's Project (Poetry and Short Story Courses)  studied under Marlin Barton (O'Henry Prize Winner) and poet, Peter Huggins. 
• Moved to Tallahassee and participated in classes with Bob Shacochis and Janet Burroway at Florida State University. 
• Attended workshops at Last Frontier Conference and Dramatist Guild in New York and LA. 
• MBA degree in Buffalo when I simultaneously developed humor manuscript, MBA Guidebook, while attending classes.
• Participated in Dramatist Guild Master Playwriting Course 2018.
• Completed Roland Tech's Songwriting Circle 2018. 
• Completed Sundance Collab Basic TV Writing Course and Sci-Fi Writing Course 2020 and 2021.

Board member of The Peyton Tuthill Foundation. Provides scholarships to students who've lost a family member to homicide.   www.peytontuthillfoundation.org  

Instructor for study abroad programs for FSU in Spain, London and China. Later, program director for Tallahassee Community College study abroad programs in Tianjin, China. Traveled to China for over ten years.

Honorary Professor Tianjin Foreign Studies University

Some ASL, minimal Mandarin and elementary Spanish

Dramatist Guild, Playwrights Guild of Canada.