Love is Complicated
An anthology of one-act love stories. Raccoon, Happy Birthday Dear Maggie, Six Days in the Life of Mom, 2126. All stories thematically linked by love as a force thats drive people to surprising places in their lives.
Three women. And love that’s complicated. Today when her husband announces he’s leaving her and stealing all their money, a woman discovers raccoons aren’t so bad. Tomorrow morning another woman will wake up in a hotel room with a clown to learn that maybe God’s answered her prayers and surgery for the hateful husband she doesn’t have the courage to leave went better than she could have hoped—and he’s gone. A hundred years in the future, an artificial human who’s also a Mom changes her program so she can love her kids, arrange the birthday celebration she’s been planning for almost two decades and then shut herself down.
Themes and issues
Marriage breakups, abusive relationships, domestication of raccoons, social injustice, prejudice, isolation, romance, clowns, childcare in the future, maternal love, parenthood, aging, siblings, artificial intelligence, big tech, superhero, surveillance culture.
Production history
Love is Complicated has not yet been produced as a complete anthology. However, individual plays have successful production histories.
Raccoon made its Canadian stage debut in Brantford, Ontario in August 2026 at the Left of Centre Festival produced by IT Productions. It was later staged at The Knights in Brantford, Ontario as a benefit performance in support of a local food bank.
In Aurora, Ontario, Raccoon was selected for a “top ten” prize at Theatre Aurora and later presented as a directed staged reading at Theatre Aurora’s Foundations Fest 2026.
Happy Birthday Dear Maggie appeared on stage for the first time in Brantford, Ontario in August 2026 at the Left of Centre Festival produced by IT Productions. It was later staged at The Knights in Brantford, Ontario as a benefit performance in support of a local food bank.
Happy Birthday Dear Maggie is also being brought to life as an audio drama by the professional voice actors of US-based Broken Arts Entertainment. It is an episode in the coming season of the audio anthology Loved Ones (season 3) selected for production from over 700 scripts from playwrights from around the world.
Happy Birthday Dear Maggie made its UK stage debut at the award-winning Thestival 2026 in Sheffield, UK. It was presented by the Butter Side Up Theatre Company at The Lantern Theatre. It was selected as one of two plays from “across the pond” included from US and Canadian playwrights to be featured among the best writers from the UK.
Six Days in the Life of Mom, 2126 is a very recent play and has no production history. However, an audio version is currently on a short list with an American professional theatre that specializes in audio drama that presents “future” stories. Its next stage presentation will be a premiere.
Genre
Love stories, black comedy, satire, science fiction, tragedy, drama, political.
Acts and run time
Three one-acts combined, approximately 121 minutes. (Raccoon, 45 minutes, Happy Birthday Dear Maggie, 31 minutes, Six Days in the Life of Mom, 2126, 45 minutes.)
Cast
Nine actors (4 women, 3 men, two voices). Some roles may be doubled. Roles may be cast with actors of any race.
Note on very simple staging
The simple staging is well within the capabilities of most community theatres. Raccoon and Happy Birthday Dear Maggie follow one after the other on a virtually identical set with minor reset (as they already have in two productions at different venues) running 76 minutes. Intermission. A minor reset to an almost bare stage. Then Six Days in the Life of Mom, 2126 runs for 45 minutes to conclude the three-play program.
Casting ideal for community theatres & leads for women
Casting for Love is Complicated is ideal for community theatres: nine actors. Three leads for women, another woman in a major supporting role, three men, two voices. Actors in their twenties, thirties, forties / fifties / sixties.
Raccoon requires three actors (1 man, 1 woman, 1 voice any gender). Happy Birthday Dear Maggie has a cast of two (1 man, 1 woman). Six Days in the Life of Mom, 2126 has four actors (1 man, 2 women, 1 voice any gender). Two characters in Six Days in the Life of Mom, 2126 must appear convincingly in their early twenties (Thena being twenty-three years old is part of the narrative and a climatic event is tied to Matts’ birthday when he turns twenty-one).
All the one-acts feature leading roles for women. Even though they are central actors in comedies, both Ellen (Raccoon) and Maggie (Happy Birthday) invite performers to explore a wide and nuanced range of emotions as their characters evolve into a new understanding of themselves independent from the men who have been defining so much of their lives.
Six Days in the Life of Mom, 2126 is a play about two women, Thena the daughter and Nora Mai her mother. Usually saving whole worlds as a superhero, Thena learns that her mother Nora Mai is quite capable of changing worlds right in her own kitchen. Both roles require actors capable of portraying a profound psychological complexity as they struggle to deal with the circumstances imposed on them by societal and government dictates. Nora Mai in particular makes a final dramatic decision about how she will live out her life once her children no longer need her.
Performance rights
You may download a perusal copy of this copyrighted play for review. Performance rights inquiries to the playwright at rights@rbws.ca or the Playwrights Guild of Canada at playwrightsguild.ca.
I’m a self-represented playwright so I generally handle rights inquiries for my plays myself. You don’t need to deal with the big guys (you know who they are). You just reach out to me and we’ll start the process and get it done very quickly. If you’re used to dealing with the Playwrights Guild of Canada already, they’re terrific too, so go talk with them because they can administer rights for all my plays.
If you’re a drama teacher working with students and not selling tickets or making money with one of my plays, then I ask for production photos in lieu of royalties. It starts with an email to me. Then we figure it out.
