Craig Sodaro
Craig Sodaro is one of Eldridge Publishing's most popular and prolific playwrights with over 60 titles currently in print. Most of his work is ideal for children's theatre and school performances, and several plays have been turned into musicals. His audience participation plays are extremely well received. For community theatre plays he writes under the pen name of Sam Craig. Mr. Sodaro taught for 33 years in public schools, but now writes full time. He and his wife Sue have four grown daughters. Here he speaks in his own words about his love of writing. "I always wanted to write. From the first time I read my first full-fledged book - a long-forgotten mystery - I wanted to be an author. I've always had an imagination that runs overtime. My mind has always been more interested in the possibilities of what if two times two equaled five rather than four. "I grew up in Chicago, but I don't think the Midwest has had a great deal of influence on my writing. I was fortunate enough to travel as a youngster, and the places we visited - the West, East, and South, all seemed steeped in atmosphere and dramatic possibilities. Eventually, I traveled to Alaska, Europe, and Africa, and each experience planted seeds for future stories. "I wrote my first play in high school - an anti-administration absurdist comedy performed in my last period art class. Our teacher turned a deaf ear to the proceedings, but we all caught her laughing. I liked this idea of audience response, and during college, I entered a playwriting contest. I won the fifty dollar prize and saw my characters come to life under the blue, red, and amber stage lights. I knew that this was the direction my writing obsession would have to take. "Success on stage would have to wait for a number of years, however, since I married, began teaching, and had four children and received many, many rejections slips. Eventually I found a formula that worked: large cast mystery with mainly female parts, one setting, and a lot of one-liners. Since then, I've written a hundred and thirty plays, many of which have been published and/or produced. I've had the thrill of walking down 54th Street in New York to a flag-adorned theater where one of my plays premiered. I've received terrific letters from kids who have had parts in the plays I've written, and I've found myself in Amazon.com. "Once in a while people ask me how I write so fast. I guess it’s that I have a lot of stories to tell. And idea will grab me, and then for quite some time—even while working on another script—I’ll keep thinking about the characters and develop the major plot points in my imagination. Once I sit down to the computer to write, the characters really tell the story almost too quickly for me to write down what they’re saying. And that's what I think playwriting is all about. It's telling a story in the simplest but most dramatic way possible. There's a ninety minute or so limit on reaching the climax, and for literature that's quick. I write fast simply so I can find out what's going to happen at the end, just like anybody who watches the play."
Cat and Mouse
Drama by Craig Sodaro
66 pages
2 m, 3 w, 1 flexible
Nora Marsh has lived with the burden of a father who's been branded a traitor. She has tried to keep their inn, the Cat and Mouse, running smoothly, but her father's depression and drinking after his return from the World War II European front has made life difficult. Her life begins to further unravel when a new border, Daniel Cavell, turns up missing. Kate Sherwin, the local Civil Defense warden, and Cavell's mother, Ruth, begin a search which ends when his body is found in the window seat of the inn's living room. Kate has long suspected Nora's father Harr...
The Medici Code
Comedy Mystery by Craig Sodaro
68 pages
6 m, 11 w
When a mysterious old woman named Q slips tickets for a trip to Medici Castle to Lucy Lyons, she feels compelled to go there. Lucy, a classical scholar and cryptologist who is temporarily caring for her nieces and nephew, Emmy, Jess, and Ben, is intrigued by the remote, historical hotel. But the tour group they are with is strange, and soon one of the tourists suddenly disappears. His wife, however, seems more interested in getting a missing parchment back than finding her husband. Q appears and tells Lucy she needs to crack the Medici Code, a dangerous, long...
The Invisible Man
Classic by Craig Sodaro
55 pages
6 m, 6 w
A mysterious stranger, swathed from head to toe in clothes and dark glasses, seeks a room at a peaceful English inn. He claims to be a scientist. When the curious innkeeper's wife spies upon him, she is terrified to find he has no face. The stranger then reveals he is indeed invisible and proceeds to menace the countryside. A young, handsome doctor must finally stop him. Special effects are no problem. When the Invisible Man speaks but is not seen, he is behind a screen. The fight scenes "between" the Invisible Man and the other lodgers is action your actors ...
DNA: Desperately Nutty Ancestors
Comedy by Craig Sodaro
62 pages
4 m, 7 w
Eddie Poe is a direct descendant of Edgar Allan Poe and hoping to follow in his illustrious ancestor’s flaky footsteps. He gets his chance when his girlfriend Lucy, a personal assistant to a very wealthy woman, tells him someone has stolen her boss’s very expensive jewelry. Fearing she’ll be the prime suspect, Lucy begs Eddie to help her by attending a conference for people with famous ancestors. The attendees turn out to be a comical cross-section of world history with the descendants of Henry VIII, Molly Brown, Joan of Ark, Michelangelo, Davy Crockett, and ...
Pocahontas
Classic by Craig Sodaro
67 pages
11 m, 13 w, doubling possible
Bring the exciting, inspiring story of the most famous Native American woman to life on your stage. This play is filled with challenging characters who played important parts in a turbulent, fascinating life - Powhatan, the chief; John Smith, the fearless adventurer; Capt. Argall, the greedy sea captain; Governor Gate's three lively daughters; and Pocahontas, the princess who longs for a world beyond the forest where her people live. The story is woven through the memories of an old woman who takes her granddaughter on a walk in the forest. The representation...
Scaramouche
Classic by Craig Sodaro
76 pages
10 m, 10 w, 4 flexible, plus extras
Adapted from the novel by Rafael Sabatini. All of the drama and adventure of pre-revolutionary France is captured in this action-filled adaptation. Andre Louis Moreau, a young lawyer reared with every advantage in life, vows revenge when his friend Philippe is killed in a duel trying to right a wrong with the Marquis. When the King's legal representative refuses to arrest the Marquis, Moreau incites the people to rise up, and he becomes an outlaw with a price on his head. He meets up with a group of traveling actors and joins them as the dashing Scaramouche,...
Sunrise Boulevard
Drama by Craig Sodaro
64 pages
6 m, 14 w
"Leave It to Daddy" is the most popular family sit-com of the '70s. So it's a national tragedy when the actor playing the father is murdered by none other than his TV wife, Norma Dreadful. Even though the law cannot find enough evidence to convict her, the public does, and Norma goes into seclusion in the very house where the show was filmed and the murder took place. Twenty years later, two young journalists finagle their way into the house and get Norma to tell her side of the story. The country has forgotten and forgiven, and Norma is even offered a role i...
Wishes
Fantasy by Craig Sodaro
51 pages
Flexible cast, approx. 9 m, 13 w
By a quirky twist of fate, high school student Mary Jo Swanson and her younger brother and sister are given three wishes by a genie trapped in a bottle that's just been stolen from the art museum. They soon learn you have to be careful what you wish, for it may come true! Their first wish brings a hot music star right into their living room, but he's so dazed he can only croak a song. Their second wish plunks Mary Jo's sweetheart into the throes of deepest puppy love and he turns into an incredible pest. Those two, along with a wild assortment of crazy charac...
'60s Mania
Comedy by Craig Sodaro
68 pages
7 m, 11 w, doubling possible
In this '60s farce, bank loan officer Norman Hinkle has a serious problem. He thinks his boss, Mr. Crabtree, is about to fire him. On top of that, younger daughter Alison just found out she's won a date with Beatle Ringo Starr and older daughter Debbie is about to run off with Starbaby, a true flower child. To make matters worse, Aunt Hilda, who lives with the family, has hired a psychologist to secretly observe Norman in the hopes of committing him. When Norman's boss invites himself over for dinner to lower the axe, the fun begins. Mistaken identities, rauc...
All Aboard for Broadway!
Musical by Craig Sodaro
69 pages
9 m, 17 w, 10 flexible, chorus
New York, 1917. Big time producer Florence Zweibach is putting on a Broadway show, and lots of hopeful girls long to be part of it. On the way to the audition, Mary Conklin, a sweet, budding ingenue, meets Harry Harrigan, a down-and-out Tin Pan Alley tunesmith, and the romantic sparks start to fly. To escape loan sharks, Harry enlists in the war that's just broken out in Europe, leaving Mary behind with his portfolio of sheet music and the dream of what might have been. Zweibach stars Mary in his patriotic revue and even falls in love with her, much to the ch...
Almost Wanted: Dead or Alive
Comedy by Craig Sodaro
61 pages
6 m, 12 w
When a bunch of temperamental artists seeking quiet at Rancho Artisto encounter the fun-loving college workers, watch out! After an episode of the popular TV show, "Most Wanted: Dead or Alive," the kids suspect one of the guests, a little old lady who specializes in American primitive, is really Granny Ghoul. And it's just too coincidental that the nervous host of the show is found knocked out cold and stuffed in the lobby closet! Add an overbearing mother, an insistent art critic, and art thieves for an aerobically-paced comedy.
Last Gasp at the Last Gulp
Melodrama by Craig Sodaro
59 pages
6 m, 11 w
Doc Robbins, a dentist with a heart of stone, rules the town of Last Gulp with an iron fist. Though folks treat Doc with due respect as their mayor and the only “medical” man in the territory, there’s no shortage of suspects when he dies following a swig of rat-poisoned sarsaparilla. Everybody, it seems, had it in for Doc. Bonnie Vivant wanted to turn her old saloon into a fancy restaurant, but Doc wouldn’t let her. Three old prospectors Crusty, Dusty, and Musty, all resented the fact that Doc had jumped their claims and wondered if he ever struck it rich. Af...