BURDEN
by Peter Anthony Fields
In the wake of a devastating school shooting that rocks a quiet Midwestern town, April, a determined Protestant minister, finds herself at a crossroads when her troubled young adult son, Derek, brings the shooter into their home as a hostage. The tension unravels as they confront the moral and emotional turmoil of their situation, grappling with dangerous decisions and unforeseen consequences that could change their lives forever.
- Cast Size: 7W 4M 6GN
- Running Time: 90+ minutes
- Royalty Rate: $75 per performance
Sample Coming Soon
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About the Playwright
Peter Anthony Fields started in the early 1990s as an independent filmmaker. He would go on to make nineteen indie films. But his journey as a motion picture director, editor, and producer came to an end following a diagnosis of early-onset Parkinson’s disease in 2015. In response, Peter turned his creative focus to live theatre, evolving into a playwright and allowing him to continue his storytelling pursuits while avoiding the pressures associated with filmmaking.
Fields has written numerous stage plays that have been read or performed in Ohio, Texas, Wisconsin, Missouri, and London, U.K. “Monster,” the ten-minute play on which the full-length stage play “Burden” is based, played at the Fade to Black play festival in Houston, Texas. His play, About Michael, was the runner-up for Audience Favorite Award at the 2017 British Theatre Challenge II. Peter’s full-length stage play, That Guy, was awarded the top prize in the Performing Arts category of the 2020 Best Book Awards, sponsored by American Book Fest. The Invited, a whodunit mystery, is a 2024 Red Ribbon Award winner from The Wishing Shelf Book Awards. In 2022, his ten-minute play, See, Invisible, was performed at the Columbus Black Theatre Festival in Columbus, Ohio. In 2021, Fields won two Davey® Awards for his internet presentations of his stage plays, Another Kind of Cancer and You People. In 2023, Fields’ monologue, When You’re Fifty, was performed in Houston, Texas, at Shabach Enterprise’s “The Flow: A Night of Monologues”.
Fields has a BA in Theatre Studies/Theatre and Society from Kent State University.
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