Plays by Peter M. Floyd
ABSENCE
THE CENTIPEDE KING
PROTOCOL
Synopses:
Absence – (3M 4W) Helen Bastion is 74 years old, but age has not taken its toll on this matriarch’s will or her need to control her family, from her compliant husband David to her resentful daughter Barb. But when she begins to suffer lapses of memory, her steely facade begins to crumble. As words lose their meaning and reality fragments, Helen’s own sense of self starts to dissolve. Is she truly disappearing, or is she becoming something greater, as the mysterious, mocking figure known as Dr. Bright promises her? Helen struggles desperately to find meaning in an existence that is slowly and inexorably becoming a void.
The Centipede King – (1M 3W) Something bad happened when Rachel was a teenager. Now an adult, she relates the story of her little sister Lily, who was haunted by the mysterious and possibly dangerous entity called the Centipede King. But as Rachel’s narrative unwinds, it takes on a life of its own, independent of her, and she learns that there are some things more frightening than monsters. The limits of truth, storytelling, and memory are all exposed in this tale of the horror that lies within one family.
Protocol – (2M 3W) A dark comedy set in a dangerous and volatile world. Richard Hook is a young man dragged from his home by armed men and taken to a secret location, where he is grilled by a series of interrogators about his supposed connections to a dangerous terrorist. As Richard maintains his innocence, his questioners seem more concerned with their bureaucratic infighting than in finding out the truth. But perhaps truth is better left hidden, as Richard learns to his horror that no one is truly guiltless, least of all himself.
Bio:
A New Hampshire native, Peter M. Floyd came to Boston as a student and has lived in the city for all his adult life. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a degree in political science, Peter has worked as a library aide, a graduate admissions officer, a software quality engineer, and (currently) a programmer for a medical software company based in Cambridge.
Peter’s playwriting career began with the short play The Little Death, which premiered at MIT in 2005. It subsequently appeared in the Playwrights’ Platform Festival the following year, where it won the Audience Choice award for best play. It has since been published by Heuer Publishing. Peter’s second play, Possibilities, was presented at the 2006 Boston Theater Marathon. Other plays he has written include Objective (Devanaughn Theatre’s Dragonfly Festival, 2007), Big Eddie (SLAMBoston, 2008), The Green Room (New England Fringe Festival, 2009), Perspective (Boston Theater Marathon, 2009; Playwrights’ Platform Festival, 2009), Cracking Up (Exquisite Corp Theatre, 2009), The Yowl of the Wild (Playwrights’ Platform Festival, 2010), Love, Billy Bunny (Boston Theater Marathon, 2012), The Change (Hovey Players, 2012), Too, Too Solid Flesh (Boston Theater Marathon, 2014), Evolution (Boston Theater Marathon, 2016), The Complaint Department (Boston Theater Marathon, 2018), and The Door (Boston Theater Marathon, 2019). A filmed version of Perspective was shown on Newton (MA) Cable Television. Too, Too Solid Flesh and Evolution were published in Smith and Kraus’s annual Best Ten-Minute Plays anthologies.
In 2010 he began his studies in the playwriting MFA program at Boston University, where his instructors included Kate Snodgrass, Ronan Noone, Melinda Lopez, and Richard Schotter. Over the course of his time at BU, he developed his first full-length play, Absence. Peter received his Master of Fine Arts in January of 2012. In February 2012, Absence was named co-winner of the Kennedy Center’s Jean Kennedy Smith Award. Later that year, it was named a finalist for the Alliance Theatre of Atlanta’s Kendeda Award. The play had two readings at the Alliance in 2013, and in January 2014 had a reading presented by the Midtown Direct Rep theater company of South Orange, New Jersey, with Olympia Dukakis playing the leading role. The play received its first full production at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre in February-March 2014, receiving nominations for Best New Play for the Elliot Norton and Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) awards. Subsequent productions include performances in Norway (Oslo Nye Teater), Sweden (Riksteatern), and Italy (Accademia Teatrale Campogalliani).
In the summer of 2012, Peter developed his play The Centipede King at the MFA Playwrights’ Workshop at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He was selected as one of four New Voices @ New Rep Playwriting Fellows for 2012-13, sponsored by the New Repertory Theatre of Watertown, MA; for this program he wrote the play Protocol.
Peter was a member of Playwrights’ Platform of Boston from 2005 to 2010, and joined the Dramatists’ Guild in 2011. He was a board member of Exquisite Corps Theatre from 2009 to 2010.
Website: www.petermfloyd.com