Comedy-Drama/ 6 Characters, 3 Women, 3 Men/ Full Length, Two Acts
Synopsis: Ever have trouble getting off the couch? Patrick has the same problem, only it’s been two years, and it’s his Mom’s couch. Being a 26-year old virgin with severe hemophilia, HIV, and lousy joints hasn’t given him much impetus.
Encouraged by his therapist, Patrick is determined to shake things up. He decides to cruise his infectious disease clinic for the HIV positive woman of his dreams. But instead of finding “Ms. Right”, Patrick meets two people from the HIV landscape.
The first is Joe, a gay man close to Patrick’s age, who only has one small ambition in life: to change the world. The second is Marie, an enigmatic young woman who embodies contradiction and specializes in shocking people. Authentic friendships are formed as they help each other pursue their dreams.
Out Among the Dragons begins in 1995, just before the life-saving “drug cocktail” is available to patients, and AIDS is still viewed as a terminal illness. Through humor, it explores how the mode of transmission can affect the way we view people with HIV and the way positive people view their world, their dreams, and themselves.
“Dan Noonan’s new semiautobiographical script is a minor miracle, avoiding the pitfalls that hobble so many AIDS plays. Melodramatic pity, facile moralizing, and PC proselytizing have no place in this piece about Patrick, a nebbishy HIV-positive hemophiliac searching for love in his doctor’s waiting room.” — Chicago Reader
“Remarkably assured, intellectually astute, emotionally satisfying.” — Chicago Free Press
“An engaging, savvy look at life with HIV.” — Chicago Tribune
Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact Information:
Amateur and professional rights:
Dan Noonan
E-mail: danieldnoonan@gmail.com
Phone: 773-354-7161
About the Playwright: Dan Noonan was born with severe hemophilia. As a person living with several chronic health conditions, he likes to have characters with chronic health conditions in his plays, preferring a smart-ass cripple to a brooding leading man any day of the week.
Dan’s play Set Up, about a diabetic and a severe depressive on a blind date, was premiered by TheatreBAM, Chicago and also produced at the Alleyway Theatre in New York. Out Among the Dragons was workshopped by Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago as part of Stage Left’s Leapfest, and first produced by After Midnight in Evanston. Both plays were highly recommended by the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Reader.
Blue Over You was produced by Best Medicine Repertory Theatre in Washington D.C. and by Spot On Company in Evanston, IL. Dan has had staged readings of his plays at several Chicago theaters: The Goodman Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago Dramatists, Steep Theatre, Stage Left and Circle Theatre.
He has won the Neil Simon New Play Competition, the Maxim Mazumdar Playwriting Competition, and the Agnes Nixon Playwriting Competition. He was a finalist in the Dayton Playhouse FutureFest, B Street Theater New Comedies Festival, The Three Cat Productions Chicago New Works Festival, the Henrico Theatre One-Act Playwriting Competition, the Dionysia New Play Competition, and the SART Repertory Theatre Playwriting Festival.
Dan has been a semifinalist in the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwright’s Conference, Inkslinger Playwriting Competition, Ukiah Comedy Playwriting Competition, and the Chesterfield Screenwriters Competition. He also received an Honorable Mention in the New Works of Merit Playwriting Competition 2015 and The Writer’s Digest Competition 2018. Dan’s play Bountiful Gifts is published by Scripts for Stage. He has a B.A. in theater and political science from Boston College and a M.A. in theater from Northwestern University, and currently resides in Evanston with his wife and three sons.
Out Among The Dragons was first produced by After Midnight Productions and Northminster Players, Evanston, IL, in 2005.