The Unfortunate Case of Mr. Billner

Hello everyone! My name is Chris Peterman and I am the author of the Unfortunate Case of Mr. Billner, to be directed by Tucker Minnick. It's a great honor to have my play selected to be put on for the OSU student one acts. So lets get started with this explanatory blog.

A little about myself, I'm a theatre major at OSU, and I'm currently a Junior.

The play is a comedy about a man named Mr. Billner and the forces that work against him from getting a winning lottery ticket from his ex wife's car. There are a few convention's that are mean't to make it unrealistic and silly. A Narrator who tries to drive the plot against Mr. Billner. Mrs. Billner is played by a convict in drag as a part of an inmate rehabilitation program, as well as some saucy infidelity.

The inspiration for the play came from a variety of sources. The Narrator came from Morgan Freeman's character in The Shawshank Redemption, something about a man who can calmly describe anything losing his cool when a character seeming to be his invention disobey's the plot of the story seemed funny to me. The idea for Mrs. Billner being a convict came from a documentary about prisoner's performing Shakespeare's The Tempest. While the rest of the play kind of fell into place through numerous revision's and trying to tie everything together.

My goal for the play was to make it reachable to almost anyone. The play is simply what it is, there are no really deep meanings to anything, and the greatest staging requirement is to have a chair for the Narrator to sit in. Even though the play calls for 4 males, I think some of the parts can be easily replaced with female actresses. I'll leave the casting to the director though.

Overview of the Characters:

Mr. Billner
A simple everyday man with the same dreams as anybody, to live a life devoid of responsibility. He's not the most charming or intelligent of people, but he makes up for it in endurance to find the missing lottery ticket.

The Narrator
He's a sort of god over the world, using his magic pen and notebook he design's the plot of the world. Very clean cut and intelligent.

Mrs. Billner
A convict who is trying to earn browny points with his probation officer by volunteering with the play. He used to be married to Mr. Billner, but had a secret affair with Steve from Mr. Billner's work.

Steve
An accountant at Mr. Billner's company who unfortunately amassed a huge gambling debt. He is wiry and methodical, and also madly in love with Mrs. Billner.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to working with the future actors and directors to bring this show to life. It should be a lot of fun.