Note: This edition, originally published by The Tactile Mind Press in February 2004, is unfortunately out of print. However, the play is available as part of my collection Whispers of a Savage Sort and Other Plays about the Deaf American Experience.
When Michael Zuke, a gifted hard-of-hearing seventh-grader, tries to fit in with his deaf classmates, they snub him as “snooty.” He hungers to be their pal while imagining himself as Snooty, the “baddest of the bad” and the #1 hit man on Chicago’s South Side during the Roaring 1920s. Even though Snooty is engaged to Ellie, he maintains sneaking suspicions about Alexis, the mysterious woman he’s fallen for. Who is she, and why is she slumming around Snooty? But Michael must decide whether to remain “snooty” in his reality, or Snooty in his fantasy world. In an afterword I share stories that inspired the comedy.
First-Place Winner of New York Deaf Theater’s Samuel Edwards Deaf Playwrights Award.