Can you give us some history of your plays?
I started writing plays about 10 years ago. My first play, Crappie Talk, was produced at The Lonny Chapman Group Repertory Theatre in 1997 where it had a nice 12 week run. It won some awards and went on to be produced in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa. It’s published by Eldridge. My second play, A Nice Family Gathering, opened in 2000 at the Lonny Chapman GRT. After 10 weeks we moved it to The Groundlings where it played for 12 weeks. It also won some awards, played in other cities and is now published by Samuel French. My first musical was Don’t Hug Me. It played for 6 months at The Whitefire Theatre in 2003-2004, then it ran for 9 months in Minneapolis, and since then it has played in over 50 cities around the U.S. and Canada. It won 4 Artistic Director Achievement Awards including Best Original Musical and Best Author Original Play. Don’t Hug Me is also published by Samuel French. My most recent musical, A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol, the sequel to Don’t Hug Me, opened simultaneously in 5 cities in 2006. The NoHo production of A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol ran for 16 weeks and opened before the others, so it’s the world premiere. It’s also published by Samuel French and is being booked into theatres for this Christmas. I’ve also written 4 one-acts that are published.

How did you get Don’t Hug Me to play in over 50 cities?
About 7 or 8 theatres in the Midwest saw Don’t Hug Me when it played in Minneapolis and they contacted me to license it. I realized the theatres that were booking Don’t Hug Me did shows like Forever Plaid, Nunsense, Pump Boys and Dinettes, and Greater Tuna. So I googled those shows and found out what other theatres around the country they played in. I then sent emails to the artistic directors of those theatres asking if they would like to see a free perusal script and cast album. I sent out about 2500 emails, I got replies from about 250 theatres, and I booked about 25 of them. It took me about 200 hours to send out that many emails, because you have to do the research, etc. to find the theaters. Then Samuel French published Don’t Hug Me and they’ve been licensing it since. Following suit with Forever Plaid, Nunsense, and Greater Tuna I did the Christmas version. I figured A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol would play in most of the cities that produced Don’t Hug Me. So far it’s working. Samuel French is doing a good job with that one as well.

How are the theatres booking Don’t Hug Me? Are you touring the show, do you rent the theatres, or does each theatre just license it?
Right now the theatres just license it thru Samuel French, they cast it themselves, advertise it, and pay all expenses for it. They pay me a licensing fee that varies depending on the size of the theatre, price of tickets, number of performances, etc. The range is around 8 -12% of the box office gross. I split the fee with my brother who wrote the music. I wrote the book and lyrics. Prior to Samuel French, we toured the show to about 10 cities in the midwest. What I mean by tour is, the theatres booked the show, then we brought our actors and the set from our Minneapolis production, and the theatres handled all the advertising and ticket sales and they paid us a flat fee from which we paid our actors, traveling expenses, etc. So it wasn’t a typical tour where we might rent the theatre, and handle all the advertising and ticketing costs. We haven’t worked with a touring company. I’d like to.

Do you have an agent?
Ironically, I have an agent in New York that only handles novels. He wants me to write a book compiling my plays and talking about them. Some day I will. Right now I’m too busy writing plays. I don’t have an agent that handles my plays. I’ve had agents in the past but I’ve never gotten work from an agent. Everything I’ve gotten has been on my own including the 2 screenplays I sold and the 3 screenplays I script-doctored that got produced. I do the theatre bookings on my own and I negotiated all the deals with Samuel French and the other publishers. I have a degree in mathematics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the University of Chicago and I have somewhat of a business background.

Why do you suppose the Don’t Hug Me franchise has had so much success?
I think because they are family friendly like Forever Plaid and Nunsense. There are only 5 characters, a simple set, no elaborate costumes, and they don’t require a band, so they are very inexpensive to produce. Theatres like that.

Will you take Don’t Hug Me to New York?
A friend of mine co-created a popular family friendly show called Triple Espresso that’s had very good success in cities for 10 years. I asked him why they don’t take it to New York and he said, “because we don’t have to.” New York is a risky place for family friendly shows. I’m not in a hurry to go to New York and have the critics tell everyone my work isn’t dark or disturbing or edgy enough. I already know that.

How did you get your plays published by Samuel French?
Don’t Hug Me was the first one to get published by Samuel French. I think I had about 15 productions of Don’t Hug Me before I submitted it to them. A couple friends of mine who had relationships with Samuel French put in a good word for me, and that combined with all the productions helped get their interest. It’s been great working with them. They have three of my plays now.

What’s your next project?
The Lonny Chapman Group Rep Theatre is doing a revival of A Nice Family Gathering which runs from June 15th to July 21st so I encourage everyone to see it. Right now, I’m working on a musical with Wayland Pickard. We’ll start workshopping it in a few weeks. When I’m done with that I’ll write another Don’t Hug Me musical, probably a summer version. Maybe C.S.I. Don’t Hug Me. We can always use another C.S.I.