Man or Mouse

Written by Lawrence Thelen

Reading on Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Performed by Theatre off the Square

Charlie Bump is so disillusioned with modern-day America (with its mass shootings, corporate greed, discrimination, climate change) that he decides to leave the only home he’s ever known and emigrate to another country in hopes of finding a better future for himself and his son. It’s a comedy.

Thelen’s comedy Pie in the Sky premiered on stage at the Victory Theatre in Los Angeles and has since been made into a multi-award-winning independent feature film starring K Callan. Other works include the musical Star of Freedom, which premiered at the Ivoryton Playhouse; the Noël Coward musical comedy Mad Dogs and Englishmen; the comedies Higgins in Harlem and Eating Rhode Island (both published by Dramatic); the WWI Christmas Day truce musical Khaki Chums; and the one-man comic play Ichabod Crane Tells All, featured in the anthologies Best American Short Plays, 2011-2012 and Best Monologues from Best American Short Plays (both published by Applause). His comic opera Pyramus and Thisbe was produced in New York by the 92ND Street Y and his musical The Third Wave received the Jackie White Memorial Playwriting Award. In addition to numerous articles on the musical theatre, he is the author of the book The Show Makers: Great Directors of the American Musical Theatre (published by Routledge). He is the former Literary Manager and Producing Associate for Goodspeed Musicals and is currently the Playwright-in-Residence

at the Ivoryton Playhouse.

Plays & musicals: https://newplayexchange.org/users/80048/lawrence-thelen

Screenplays: https://filmfreeway.com/LawrenceThelen