Mark Mc Quown
he, him, his
Valencia, CA
Mark Mc Quown is a produced/award-winning playwright/screenwriter with the film “Heaven’s Messenger” starring John Heard and company. Mr. Mc Quown possess an M
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Biography

Mark Mc Quown is the co-screenwriter of the feature, “PJ” (now titled, Heaven’s Messenger”), starring John Heard, Vincent Pastore, Robert Picardo, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, and company. This film is partially based on Mark’s award-winning play of the same title.  Mr. Mc Quown has won many writing awards for the following; “The Rocking Horse Christmas”, first place in the animation genre at The Santa Clarita International Film Festival in 1997, Quarter Finalist in The Chesterfield Screenplay Fellowship in 1997 with “Pier 21”,  Semi-Finalist in The Chesterfield in 1998 with “The China Tiger”,  Quarter Finalist in 2000 in Scriptapalooza with, “Jane The Legend of Mountain Charley”, Finalist in The International Family Film Festival 2005 with the animated feature, “The Cat and The Rat” (co-screenwriter), Quarter Finalist in The Fade In Magazine Screenplay Contest in 2005 with, “The Missing Link” and  Quarter-Finalist in The Zoetrope contest in 2007 with “The Sudan”.   Most recently his full-length play, Resurrection Of The Snowbird was The Finalist in The Moondance International Film Festival in Boulder, Colorado and his screenplay, “The Contractor” (co-writer) reached the Semi-Finals of The Fade In Awards Screenplay Contest, 2015.

Mr. Mc Quown has an MFA in Directing for the Stage from The School of Theatre, Film, and Television at UCLA.  He is a member of AEA, SAG/AFTRA, The New York Dramatist Guild, Association of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) and InkTip.com online screenwriter service.

 

 

Plays

Resurrection Of The Snowbird
by Mark Mc Quown

Resurrection of The Snowbird

By Mark Mc Quown

Synopsis

            Resurrection Of The Snowbird is the story of an old sailboat that has been stowed away for years under the back porch in a sandy tomb under Mama’s house on the Island of Balboa across from the Newport Jetty in southern California.  At the beginning Mama is dead but she acts as a ghost all thorough to the end of the play.  She has died, sold the house and now all of the relatives, the cousins, the uncles, the aunts – have come to take away their share of her goods while she watches and comments.

            Aunt Bar is mama’s daughter and her caretaker for the last thirty some odd years and there is a back lash of feeling in the family that Mama sold the house out from under her own daughter.  She is there at the beginning, packing and wrapping and stacking boxes of stuff bound for someone else’s house.  Marty, Mama’s granddaughter, is there with her husband Hal and their two daughters, Caroline and Cassandra.  Cassandra has a very special place in Mama’s heart and in the course of the play – she leaves Cassandra an ancient, lost, antique ring that brings the family almost to war over who should have the piece of jewelry.

            Lindsay, Marty sister and another granddaughter of Mama is there with her husband Evan and their children who are never seen in the play, only heard.  Evan has taken on the task of resurrecting the Snowbird from the down under which required a dredge to take out the sand.  The running dredge is a constant reminder to Mama about why she hated the boat so much and why she is so glad that it is finally being dredged up to be thrown away on the garbage barge.

            Piece by piece, furniture by furniture, Mama’s home is taken apart in the two acts so what starts out as a fully furnished home of great antiques, in the end the house is almost empty.  Also in the end, the Snowbird is hauled up and taken out on the end of the pier and placed on the garbage barge to be left in a land fill.  The leaving of the sailboat is also Mam’s cue so after the fight over the lost ring all the families leave and Mama is alone except for two moving men who take the last large sofa and leave the house empty.

            Resurrection Of The Snowbird has a cast of eight.  Two men in their forties and six women who range in age from teenagers to Mama at eighty nine.  The play takes place in a single set, Mama’s one time home and the time is the late 1980’s.  There are two, male cameo’s at the end in the form of the moving men.  They are on stage for one page.

Cast:
Resurrection Of The Snowbird By Mark Mc Quown Cast Of Characters: Cassandra . . . . A bright, very physical eleven year old. She is one of the daughters of Marty and Hal. Hal . . . . . Cassandra’s father, in his forties. Marty . . . . . Cassandra’s mother, Hals’ wife and Lindsay’s sister. Caroline . . . . Hal and Marty’s other daughter. She is a lazy twelve year old trying to find her position in the family pecking order. Aunt Bar . . . . Marty’s mother’s sister, now living in her mother’s house. She is late fifties and very organized. She has taken care of her mother (Mama) for the last thirty years. Evan . . . . . Lindsey’s husband and the brother-in-law to Marty and Hal. He is in his forties, super bright in math. Lindsey . . . . Evan’s wife and Marty’s sister. She goes a hundred miles an hour all the time, she is in her forties. Mama . . . . . Marty and Lindsey’s grandmother. She is eighty plus and lived in this beach house with her daughter Barbara (Bar) for thirty years. She has been dead for about a year. Two Moving Men . Two cameo roles for any two men for one page. The Setting: The time, 1980’s A beach house on the tiny island of Balboa connected to the California coast near Newport Beach. An old porch, now converted into a closed room, faces the audience. Upstage of the old porch and through a large arch is the living room of the 1930’s beach house with an entrance upstage left and upstage center. The center door leads to a hallway which leads to the kitchen, the office and the downstairs bathroom at the end next to the spare bedroom. The upstage left door leads to the upstairs, the kitchen and the side door to the outside Down right in the old porch is a round oak table with four chair. On the other side is an old stuffed chair facing what would be the bay windows, with a small foot stool and next to the chair is a plaster bust of a female on an oak stand. In the down stage left corner of the porch is a screen door leading to the outside walkway to the pier in the back or the kitchen side door in the front. A full description of this set is in the back of this script.
Angels, The Ninth Order
by Mark Mc Quown

Synopsis

“Angels, The Ninth Order” takes place in Heaven in a location called The Way Station.  The Way Station is a cloud with some tables, toys, rugs, and places to sit down.  The story has eight characters; four men and four women, whose ages range from ten, (or a woman who looks ten), up to the mid-sixties with Wendell the mechanic.  There are one male and one female African/American roles, all roles are leads.  As people die on earth, they come to a Way Station to work for their wings and to educate themselves in the history of God and the wars between good and evil.

In the beginning, Angel Pledges are dropped into the Way Station through a crude chute or tube offscreen and unseen.  They hit the floor of the surface of the cloud and then roll through the red curtains separated by white sheers and join the slowly growing crowd of Angels-to-be on the cloud and sky painted floor.

            “Angels, The Ninth Order”,  is about evil and focuses on the present evil of ISIS or ISIL and the conundrum of why the Lord isn’t taking a recognizable stand in a fight that is overpoweringly about good and evil.  In the end this new group of recruit Angels causes a mutiny in Heaven and all at the same time, they bail out of the Way Station, making their way back down the chute to earth to rejoin with each other as a band of informed citizens who are disseminating to all earthly beings that this evil we face on earth today is truly evil and may be ruled through the direct intervention of Morningstar, the King of Hell and one-time-leader of the Angels in Heaven and the army of light.

            This is a Dramedy with eight characters including one, full-fledged/winged Angel and the last of the Angels of The Tenth Order of Seraphim.  John is joined by seven others, all waiting in the queue to be full winged Angels of the Ninth Order.  There is one primary location.

 

Cast:
Angels The Ninth Order By Mark Mc Quown Characters in Order of Appearance John . . . . An Angel, ageless male with full set of white wings. Darnell . . . . An African/American Angel, twenties, no wings. Sylvia . . . A white, female Angel looks ten years old, no wings. Chalice . . . An African/American Angel in her twenties, no wings. Rayleen . . . A white, female Angel in her forties, no wings. Wendell . . . A white, male Angel, in his sixties, no wings. Groell . . . . A white, American male in his late thirties, no wings Hanna . . . . A white, female Angel in her late teens, no wings.
Ripples
by Mark Mc Quown

Four unrelated characters meet in an abondoned house outside the city to form new relations and new bonds of friendship as the rest of the world digs itself out of the hole left by Covid-19

Cast:
Cast of Characters Leonard Fisher: A man in his middle 70s. Shar: A man in his late 20s who wants a change of sex operation. Harley: A woman in her late 20s who wants to be a man so she dresses like a man. Caroline: A woman in her middle 20s in a day dress with a bright pattern.

Successes

My play Ripples was publicly read on Zoom by The Tiger's Heart Theatre Company of New York City. The reading was February 1, 2022.

Mark Mc Quown

MarkMcQuown@ca.rr.com 

Resurrection Of The Snowbird is The Finalist in The Moondance International Film Festival, Boulder, Colorado, 2015 in The Stage Writing Category