Pronouncing Glenn
Excerpts from Pronouncing Glenn
A comedic romp with a giant heart, Pronouncing Glenn looks at life and death through the lens of an unconventional family. With humorous repartee interrupted by madcap antics, a caregiver named Millie goes to crazy lengths to hide a body with only the best of intentions. All the elaborate ruses and schemes come undone as one by one, Dorcus, Ben, Sandra, Thomas, and Boyd discover the truth.
Summary
Millie, a caregiver, lives in the home of her elderly patient, Glenn, whose only child, Sandra, has moved back home with her young son, Boyd, to help care for her ailing mother. Their usually turbulent mother/daughter relationship has gone from bad to worse as they are no longer speaking, which allows Millie to keep Glenn's death a secret, while she tries to heal the rift between mother and daughter. Millie enlists Ben, Sandra’s bumbling but lovable suitor, as an unknowing accomplice. Meanwhile, there are regular visits by Glenn's lifelong neighbor, Dorcus, who dispenses an endless amount of loopy advice, and Glenn's physician, an uptight Dr. Thomas, who seems more eager to see Sandra than his patient. Millie’s secret eventually comes unraveled and the action ends with a fun, fast-paced romp all the way to a heartfelt conclusion.
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Reviews
“Sounds like the terms ‘quirky’ and ‘entertained’ might be extreme understatements . . . looks to be the equally brilliant work of this anything but novice playwright.”
- Shelburne News
"Succeeds wonderfully at devising a brace of charming, believable characters that have us laughing with them and caring about them . . . abounds in fresh ideas, well-crafted repartee, and touching scenes . . . Pronouncing Glenn represents a remarkable achievement."
- Seven Days Vermont
Inspiration
The seed for Pronouncing Glenn came from a brief news item in USA Today. The six sentence long article was about a caregiver who kept her deceased patient upstairs in a bedroom with the help of air conditioning for two and a half years, while the patient’s daughter and grandson lived downstairs. Vasta Folley says, “While the real motive may have been to cash checks, in writing the play, I asked what possibly could be a relatively caring reason why someone would do something like that, and, of course, I shortened the time frame. Pronouncing Glenn ultimately became a story about loss and family reconciliation. One that uses comedy as a balm to deal with the tough stuff." The playwright notes that since the inspiration was a bizarre news item, all the crazy news tidbits shared by Dorcus throughout the play are taken directly from the news.
CAST SIZE - 6(Character & Stage Age)
3 Women (Millie - 40-50’s / Sandra late 20‘s-early 30’s / Dorcus - 50-60’s)
2 Men (Ben late 20’s-early 30’s / Thomas 30’s-early 40’s)
1 Boy (Boyd - 8)