Law & Elvis

With Playwright Jeff Zimmer

What inspired you to write this play?

As a TV writer for  "Not Necessarily the News," "Talk Soup," and "Mickey Mouse Club" I used to write a lot of parody sketches. On Mouse Club we did parodies of "Batman" ("Bratman"), Indiana Jones ("Pinnochio Jones") and the very first TV parody of "Star Trek: The Next Generation."  It had been a while since I'd had the opportunity to write a parody sketch and was looking for something that hadn't been done to death. My niece is a big fan of the long running "Law & Order" TV series (SVU in particular) and I didn't recall any TV shows doing a parody of that.  I also wanted to write something she would enjoy and maybe make her think her uncle is much cooler than originally thought. 

What's your favorite part or line in the play?  Why?

There's so many great moments in this show that it's hard to pick just one. I love Zydigo speaking Cajun gibberish. The performer we had playing the part was very expressive and very funny doing it. Also, I liked Olivia packing a pistol and a puppet! Having Mr. Public Defender act as Bobby Joe's defense attorney is great fun. Global cooling was featured in Time magazine back in 1977 (the year this show takes place) and the way Hatfield embraces it makes me laugh. There's a great surprise nod to one of my favorite movies, "Miracle on 34th Street". Loved giving Dumpling a hook for a hand (Hey, every good story has to have a hook, right?). Hatfield and McCoy's attempts to speak pig-latin is very amusing. Ending the show with the idea that maybe Elvis faked his death gives the show a happy, hopeful ending.

This show is more about characters, business and attitudes more than individual lines but as far as lines go, one of my favorite lines is probably Brenda's speculating that Elvis was in "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" because one of the apes was wearing "blue suede shoes." She also has a good line in "I didn't know those Get Out of Jail Free cards really worked."

Where did the characters come from? Are they based on people you know?

The cops and attorneys are obviously extreme parodies of their "L&O" counterparts. Hatfield is a conglomerate of all the incredibly beautiful yet sharp supermodel-like attorneys we see so often on "L&O" and all the other many legal shows on TV.  Zydigo was inspired by a slew of TV characters like Cousin Itt on "The Addams Family," Paw on "The Hillbilly Bears" cartoon and Mushmouth from "The Fat Albert Show." All these characters spoke in gibberish that only few could understand.  I hadn't thought of it at the time I wrote it, but Leroy and Billy Joe are kind of my Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis characters: one is the smarter romantic and the other the zany clown. The man-hungry Dumpling was written for my late friend Therese, who loved doing community theater and maybe because she was so sweet and kind, loved playing characters who weren't. 

What did you try to achieve with this play?

Besides making audiences laugh, I thought the "L&O" frame was a great way to tell the mostly forgotten story of the men who tried to "King-nap" Elvis' body from his original resting place. Because of this, Elvis was moved to a more secure location at his home in Graceland. 

Do you have anything else you'd like to add?

This show was great fun to both write and direct. Our audiences were very familiar with the "L&O" characters and enjoyed the parody. We had a very talented cast that got a lot of laughs. And best of all, my niece seemed to like it too.