Al and Kester

The Story:  When Al and May Bobberson hear that their 90-something multi-billionaire parents, Bob and Betty, have barely survived a car crash, they rush to the family home in Palm Peak Beach fearing, yet hoping for, the worst and the best; death and inheritance. May, struggling with a low paying job is overwhelmed by credit card debt, three grandchildren left her by her daughter who died of cancer and a shiftless, drug-addled ex-husband.  Al, a Complexity Theory professor, is mortgaged to the hilt and badly in need of a cash infusion.   Al's longtime companion Kester has a Broadway Show about to open or not depending on whether he can raise five million by five o'clock.  This is his last chance.

The senior Bobbersons survive, while the car they hit with four teens going home from the prom is totaled and the teens are dead. As May, Al and Kester get ready to leave, Death Himself turns up (with a Chorus of Dead Promsters) and tells Bob and Betty that He made a mistake and their time is indeed up.  Furious, Bob, relentless old capitalist that he is, demands a reconsideration.  Death, instantly weary at the mere thought of such a conflict, grants him the right to offer a substitute.  If they find someone to die in their place in the next twenty-four hours He will grant them another twenty years. 

In this re-telling of the Alkestis of Euripides, the values are all reversed. Wires are crossed, emails fly, secrets are revealed, contracts broken, clocks are ticking and millions get spent on the road to finding out who will end up with the thirty-two billion dollars in the Bobberson estate when and if the older generation actually moves on.

On April 26, 2010 MOC in conjunction with T.W.E.E.D. director Kevin Maloney, presented a reading of Al and Kester at The Village at Ed Gould Plaza: The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.  In a small conference room we had about 40 people and did the whole play with a narrator.  The cast included Jon Southwell, Bridgette Campbell, John Rael, Michael Griffith, Dean Hepker, and Diane Lane.