This is a story that should be told. How the Cuban Revolution was conceptualized and later fought. Of course, that topic is way too large for a 1 hour play, but I have tried to capture some important moments with two of the main players of the revolution Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. The play begins in 1953 with Che in Guatemala City seeking out one of the guiding lights of Marxist thought at that time, Hilda Gadea and it ends with Fidel's televised eulogy for Che in 1967. In between there is a lot of propounding of Marxist-Leninist thought, some romance, and glimpses of the historical events...

This area encompasses the southeast side of Chicago and northwest Indiana. It is heavily populated. Maybe a couple million people. A lot of industry. A lot of degraded natural areas. Hard working people with modest homes and lifestyles. Many are religious. They have worked for everything they have and never expected any more than that. Many of the people no longer accept pollution in their environment. They stand up and complain. Their world has already been abused, but they are against it getting any worse. There are also poems here about events in the area, some good and some bad. Also some...

George Pullman built America's first industrial town south of Chicago on Lake Calumet. He purchased 4000 acres of natural marshlands and woods and built factories to make sleeping cars for the railroads. He also built a model community for the workers to live in. Brick homes with modern conveniences. The more skills the worker had, the better the home he would have. List of Poems: 1. I am Pullman 2. The Pullman Experiment 3. Lake Calumet Flyway 4. Lake Calumet Today 5. Col. James Bowen / The Opening of the Calumet 6. I am Calumet / Andrea Stevens 7. George Pullman's Dream 8. Big Steel 9....

"I am sure there are patrons who might personally prefer one of my paintings instead of a Picasso on their wall, and I am not referring to monetary value. I think there are people who like my work as much as anyone else's, but as an artist, I know they are wrong. Believe me I am not close to Picasso, and I never will be. He is a giant and I am a midget." That is a quote from Ed Paschke in the play, "Paschke." His career basically spanned from the late 1960's until the time of his death in 2004. He did hundreds of paintings. All are instantly recognizable as Paschke paintings. He had his own...

I was one of Gwendolyn's students and a lifelong follower of her work. I remember reading some of my own attempts at poetry to our group and I still remember her words to me, "Acie, we sing poetry. Yours sounds like the sports page of the Tribune." Well, I appreciated her criticism. It would have been easier for her to just write me off and say nothing or a perfunctory "nice." But she woke me and my next attempts started to progressively loosen until I was singing my poems. And she smiled at me and I was thrilled. She listened to my every word and to every student's every word. She didn't...

Here is a short play of approximately one hour in length about a man who was probably the most famous actual peasant of all time. The setting is imperial Russia from about 1900 until 1916. Rasputin was an impoverished man from Siberia who visited a monastery built in caves. He had vision of a Holy Mother and he was taken under the wing of a hermit holy man living nearby. Rasputin stayed with him and learned to harness the powers of his mind. He attracted the attention of the local bishop, who became impressed with Rasputin's photographic memory of the scriptures that he could not read, but...

Friedrich Nietzsche is probably the most read philosopher of the last 100 years and probably the least understood. I'm one of the people who tried to read some of his books and, to say the least, I had a very difficult time of it. I have tried to create a one hour play based on his life and thought. One hour can really be merely a taste of Nietzsche. He is very complex and he never stopped thinking and writing. Lot of material and a lot of ideas. Most of the material written about Nietzsche is done by professional philosophers or academic researchers. I am not one of those. I am a writer and...