Works by
Tom Noe
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My goal is to tell great stories about interesting people. I’m more intrigued by the perennial themes of human experience (egotism, love, sacrifice, friendship, hypocrisy) than topics ripped from the headlines. My plays show ordinary people in harsh and conflicting situations where their faith in God makes a difference in their decisions. Sometimes they succeed; sometimes they fail.
Bio
I assist in line-coaching and directing four high-school plays each year (Shakespeare, Shaw, Chekhov, Williams, Ibsen, etc.). I have produced and directed over a dozen readers’ theater presentations. As publisher for Greenlawn Press, I’ve managed the production of over 30 books for the trade, ghostwritten four books (most recently a 140,000-word biography for Notre Dame Press), and edited the 19-year run of a current-events magazine and the 7-year run of a scholarly journal. I’ve had two books of nonfiction published, as well as a fiction children’s book, hundreds of articles, two short stories and over 20 poems—one of them an online video. I’ve edited thousands of articles and run workshops for poets and writers of fiction and nonfiction. I also freelance as an editor.
Productions
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Talk about God, Five Cents
A sign outside a tent at a seedy strip mall invites Christmas shoppers to come inside, toss a nickel in the basket and simply talk about God—their faith or lack of it, their hopes and dreams. So they do. Three productions and a fourth scheduled.
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Eros and Psyche (libretto)
An opera based on a story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Psyche has grown old and is developing dementia while her husband, the immortal god Eros, has remained a youthful teenager. Zeus offers her an opportunity to go back in time and reconsider her fateful decision about marriage. Two productions in 2011.
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Current project
The Dickinsons of Amherst (libretto). an opera about the extramarital affair that tore apart the family of Emily Dickinson. Scheduled for production in spring, 2021.
Plays:
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The Women of Amherst
The same story as the opera above, but written as a play. Two staged readings in 2015; a 2016 semifinalist for the Ashland New Play Festival.
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Ain’t Marching Anymore
College antiwar activists at the time of the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968 find that it’s easier to talk about peace than to live it.
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Showt!me, a Most Lamentable Comedy
Amateur actors in ancient Athens are upstaged by Dionysus, a mute god who delivers his lines by playing Charades with the audience and likes to thunderstrike hubris-laden playwrights like Sophocles, who turns out to be a woman.
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Church of Holy Clay
Two young architects struggle to hold their firm and their friendship together when one is bribed by a casino operator. Finalist in the 2013 new play competition at Ft. Wayne Civic Theatre.
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House of Pardon
A young idealist unintentionally destroys his Catholic Worker ministry when he is offered a million dollars.
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The Green Gospel
A Catholic order of brothers experiences a crisis after they allow women to become associate members.
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Providence
Rhode Island, 1650. Roger Williams, a Puritan minister, has founded the first government in human history that allows freedom of religion for all: atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Jews (Hebrews) and Muslims (Turks). But now the second generation, including his own son, whom he named Providence, is taking over. Chosen for the final round for the Kernodle Award at the University of Arkansas.
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