“Double Aftermath” flier by Bill Koch
2012—On my annual November vacation to Provincetown, the sixth year at my favorite inn, I was struck that each room at the inn had its own name—Inspiration!—therefore each room has its own story! So I wrote the first draft of THE WHITE WIND INN (with delightful innkeeper Michael Valenti’s approval) —7 rooms, 7 stories, each capturing a different aspect of this pied, off-season, New England seacoast town.
“The Morgan Room” was birthed to honor the S&M folk, one regular type of group who visit or live in Ptown. Story: Bruno, a regular, visiting S&M guy accepts invitation from Doug, a seemingly naïve businessman type to come to his hotel room “for a scene.” The S&M guy — healthy in this lifestyle — is intrigued until he discovers that this naive businessman, with no experience in the S&M scene, is desperately looking to be truly “punished,” which is not acceptable to Bruno— what is finally revealed is that the businessman’s son has been killed in a high school shooting massacre — 12 students dead — and that his son is accused of being the shooter. Thus Doug, the father, was born.
The original script, I thought, was to be a comedy–til Doug suddenly said “remember the high school shooting in Wagon Bend”…as a writer, it stopped me in my tracks.
In 2017, Theatre of the Elephant presented a staged reading of THE WHITE WIND INN, which was successful, and many audience members shared how moved they were by “The Morgan Room”, but this scene still felt to me like the proverbial ball circling the hoop without dropping in…
In 2019, after a week that reported two devastating school shootings, I was inspired to write AFTERMATH: THE CROW’S NEST wherein two policemen deal with the aftermath of a terrible grade-school shooting, which challenges their relationship and their sobriety. Several months later, and several new school shootings later, I offered a revised “The Morgan Room” as “AFTERMATH: ROCK CAUSES RIPPLES”–and I discovered that, while audience members were moved by Doug, most people’s focus was stolen by their curiosity about Bruno, the S&M guy, humorously and strongly brought to life by the wonderful actor Ryan Hilliard. And once again, Doug was still partly hidden from me…
Ralph Haugen, my college Theatre mentor taught me as a playwright to “let the characters have their own life, once you’ve given birth to them—find out what they want to say.” So I began to ask Doug who he was. The immediate answer was my memory of a young TV interviewer asking a middle-aged couple in shock “How do you feel that your son was the shooter?” And the haunted look on the face of the father in that interview …
Also In 2019, I discovered the delicious Actors Fund Senior Group, and my good friend Barbara Davison invited me to attend her acting class, sponsored by the Fund, and I met Anna Katarina—an amazing, delightful, talented, caring person and teacher. And my acting muscles began to flex again! And I began to hear Doug more clearly … to hear that he was truly alone … that he needed to be the only living person alone onstage…Anna helped me develop Doug’s character as a monologue, and I finally heard his deepest secret: “I love my son.”
Thus in January 2020, Doug got to tell his own isolated story I LOVE MY SON in a presentation called DOUBLE AFTERMATH. Doug finally got to share about that earth-shattering event, the loss of his son, the loss of other teenagers he knew, the accusations of other people, the breakdown of his wife (and thanks to Anna some happy memories from the past), and the terrible mystery of “Why?”… and now I wonder if Doug will ever hear an answer, whenever he expresses his basic truth “I still love my son.”
