Many many moons ago a friend of mine kept me abreast on his ten-minute play that he was working on. Over the years his ten-minute play was featured in some incarnation or another in a small handful of cities throughout the continental United States. A couple of these productions were originally posted on his YouTube Channel but have since been set to private or disappeared entirely.

In any case here is the first trailer of the ten-minute (now one-act) play of Lobster Man:

Now why a trailer? Because the playwright’s piece of Lobster Man was one of the Top 40 in the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival. But what is this Festival about?

The Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival started in 1975 and is Manhattan’s oldest, continuous short play festival. […] The Festival has given emerging playwrights the opportunity to have their work produced. […]

The Festival has served as a doorway to future success for many aspiring playwrights, and has helped launched the work of notables as Theresa Rebeck, Shirley Lauro, Sheila Callaghan, Bekah Brunstetter, Steve Yockey, Saviana Stanescu, and David Johnston. In many cases, Festival participation has sparked agent contracts for Festival finalists and all of the final forty plays selected to be perform in New York are guaranteed to be seen by an Artistic Director of a major theater, a professional playwright, and a theatrical agent. Many past Festival playwrights have gone on to win major Playwriting awards and honors, as well as to have major theatrical productions of their works staged.

I was already impressed with Lobster Man in the first conception… and now with this most recent incarnation, Jonathan Cook just seems to be getting better and better as playwright in the years that I have known him.
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