In all of Mr. McDonagh's plays, there's a sense that life is cheap and a piquant awareness of the skull beneath the skin. . . . In the telling, this play seems as clear as day. When you look back on it, it's the shadows that you can't stop thinking about. 

       THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE is set in the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, in a town so blighted by rancor, ignorance, and spite that, as the local priest complains, God Himself seems to have no jurisdiction there. BEAUTY QUEEN tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag, her manipulative aging mother, whose interference in Maureen’s first and possibly final chance of a loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that leads inexorably towards the play’s terrifying dénouement.  The mutual loathing between ancient, manipulative Mag and her virginal daughter,  Maureen,  may be more durable than any love.
 

                 Once upon a time, there were four guys (Sparky, Smudge, Jinx and Frankie) who loved to sing. They all met in high school, when they joined the Audio Visual Club (1956). Discovering that they shared an affection for music and entertaining, they got
together and dreamed of becoming like their idols - The Four Aces, The Four Lads, The Four Freshmen, The Hi-Lo's and The Crew Cuts. They rehearsed in the basement of Smudge's family's plumbing supply company. It was here they became FOREVER PLAID -- a name that connotes the continuation of traditional values, of family, home and harmony.
               Although Rock 'n' Roll was racing down the fast lane like a candy apple "VETTE", FOREVER PLAID believed in their music. As their sound developed, they sang at family gatherings, fund raisers and eventually graduated to supermarket openings and proms. Then, finally, they landed their first big gig at the Airport Hilton Cocktail Bar - The FUSEL-LOUNGE (February 9, 1964).
                En route to pick up their custom-made Plaid Tuxedoes, they were slammed broadside by a school bus filled with eager teenagers. The teens were on their way to witness the Beatles make their US television debut on the Ed Sullivan Show and, miraculously, escaped uninjured. However, the members of Forever Plaid were killed instantly. It is at that moment when their careers and lives ended that the story of FOREVER PLAID begins.
                The Plaids cover a wide range of popular music from the 1950s. Here is just a sample: 
            Catch a Falling Star, Chain Gang , Cry, Heart and Soul, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, Moments to Remember, No Not Much, Rags to Riches, 
Sixteen Tons, and Three Coins in the Fountain . . . 

His produced plays for the stage include: COOL CAGE(Montreal Playwrights Workshop, Theatre de la Place);BALLAD FOR A TWO-CAR GARAGE (Georgian Players, Montreal);AND NO CEREMONY (Man and His World International Exhibition, Montreal / WPA Theatre, New York); AMOEBA (Man and His World International Exhibition, Montreal); DEVIL IN THE ICEBOX (Quebec Region of the National Drama Festival--Adjudicator's Prize /  New Playwrights Theatre, Michigan State University); OUR FATHER IN VENICE, a musical with Richard Fagan (Quebec Drama Festival, Montreal); his English adaptation of A TALE OF THE ONION OF INTELLIGENCE,a contemporary comedy by Shankar Patil in the folk tradition of Maharashtra State, India (National School of Drama, New Delhi, India); JOSEPH AND JOSEPHINE [stage version of a script originally written for TV] (Playwrights Lab, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York); LUNCH-DATE (Sanskriti Kendra Art Centre, New Delhi, India).  TV productions include SPANISH BLUE (CBC); AND NO CEREMONY (a CBC Centennial Award winner); AMOEBA ; and JOSEPH AND JOSEPHINE (Story Magazine Citation of Honor, US Central Educational Network).

Mr. Abrams' is a member of the Dramatists Guild.  His present play, ERICA'S LAST MISSION, was developed in part in master class workshops with Milan Stitt.

...It all started in the summer of 1993 with a dream --or, rather, a nightmare. I was then living in New Delhi, and it was one of those impossible nights, with the temperature down to around 95-degrees and only a ceiling fan to stir the heat.  Well, this nightmare happened, and I woke in a panic to contemplate powerful images of suicide. They were emotionally graphic, that is to say, they really got to me. I was haunted for days until I began to formulate notes to help me make sense of it all. This would turn out to be the beginning of a voyage of discovery that helped me objectify the issues, find a plot structure and create the characters to carry the story.  I don't know if you'd call it inspiration or desperation; all I know is that I was driven to write a number of versions of the script: one included a double suicide pact (reminiscent of some classic Japanese Noh plays), while others focused on assisted suicide. The original impulse, incidentally, had little to do with the politics of assisted suicide that came into prominence early in the 90s. Of course, I did follow the news reports from the US and Canada--and, notably, the Netherlands--with more than usual interest.

Writing for the stage is a process, and there are hoops to be negotiated along the way. The process leading to the present version of "Erica" was begun in 1993 and completed only this year. Progress on the fledgling draft was slow in India as my regular work there was extremely demanding. But I was dogged by nightmare visions that started the whole thing and, by early 1994, I had somehow come up with a first draft, and a reading was held before a small, invited audience in Delhi. Reaction was positive, and the event was a social success; as theater, however, there was still a long way to go. The reading demonstrated that the script was more literature and less a piece of stage-craft. Also, the cast of seven appeared to be too large for the essential drama at the core. 

After my return to New York, I joined an ongoing series of workshops run by Milan Stitt, a fine playwright and an inspiring teacher. The sessions are devoted to discussions of works by the great dramatists and to nurturing and
developing our own writings. In 1996, I picked up the draft completed in India and challenged myself to incorporate some of the lessons learned in the workshops. Progress was slow but steady. The play was whittled down to a one-act version and the cast was brutally cut from seven to three. (I still feel sorry about the ones cut.) 

There was no straight line to completion. I dropped the project for a year and turned back to more worldly pursuits of consultancies. But, by 1999, I returned to the task with renewed determination. The interest shown by TAT's Artistic Director Paul Meacham resulted in the inclusion of the script in the company's New Plays Reading Series in 2000. From there it has been a hop, skip and many more revisions to the first production of "Erica" during TAT's 2001 season.
 

    Plays by Mr. Overmyer include ON THE VERGE;NATIVE SPEECH; IN A PIG'S 
VALISE; IN PERPETUITY THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE; MI FAMILIA 
TROPICANA; HAWKER;and THE HELIOTROPE BOUQUET BY SCOTT JOPLIN 
AND LOUIS CHAUVIN.  In addition to his works for the stage, Mr. Overmyer is a published 
poet whose poems have appeared  in THE PARIS REVIEW, SHANKPAINTER, SHAMAN, 
and NATIVE DANCER. 
.
    Among many associations with major theater companies, Mr. Overmyer was an Associate 
Artist at Center Stage, Baltimore, from 1984 to 1991, a member of New Dramatists(NYC), 
the Literary Manager of Playwrights Horizons(NYC); and an Associate Artist at the Yale Rep, 
1991-2.   He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, the Le Comte 
Du Nouy Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and 
the NEA. 

     Mr Overmyer served as a Visiting Professor of Playwriting at Yale School of Drama; and  Mentor 
for the Mark Taper Playwriting Workshop, 1992. He also has taught playwriting at the Playwrights
Horizons/NYU School. 

     ON THE VERGE has been performed extensively throughout the United State, Canada, Australia, 
and the UK, and has been translated in French and Norwegian, and performed in those languages, 
respectiveley, in Paris and Oslo. IN PERPETUITY THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE has been 
translated into Quebecois by the prominent Quebecois playwright Rene-Daniel DuBois, and read in 
Montreal at the CEAD. THE HELIOTROPE BOUQUET BY SCOTT JOPLIN AND LOUIS 
CHAUVIN was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award.

          On The Verge is not a docu-drama. I first encountered the historical Victorian lady travelers
in Evan S. Connell's A Long Desire, Luree Miller's On Top of the World, Alexandra Allen's 
Traveling Ladies, and Dorothy Middleton's Victorian Lady Travelers, beautiful books all, and 
there is currently a plethora of books about and by the lady travelers. Research about them 
should be done for insight into their spirit, and for the pleasure of it. The characters of the play 
are NOT modeled upon particular individuals, even though I have raided the historical record 
for detail, flavoring, and anecdote. The spirit of the lady travelers inspired On The Verge, and 
that spirit is the play's true concern: the quality of yearning, courage, and imagination.