Cold Rain
by Craig Houk
Cold Rain follows three witch sisters in a small Western Pennsylvania town whose attempt to conjure the perfect husband for the youngest, Carly, unleashes consequences that ripple across decades. When the volatile Shirley adds a dangerous twist to a simple love spell and Lolly secretly attempts to reverse it, the magic binds Carly to touring crooner Joe Rekowski and sets their family on a troubled path. Years later, as rumors swirl around the mysterious drowning of the Pacheco twins at Flat Rock and suspicion falls on Carly’s sensitive, troubled son Johnny, old secrets resurface and long-buried resentments ignite. Moving between 1959 and 1989, the play blends dark humor and supernatural lore to explore fate, guilt, and forbidden longing in a family bound by blood – and black magic – struggling to outrun the consequences of a single, fateful night.
- Cast Size: 4M 5W
- Running Time: 120+ minutes
- Royalty Rate: $75 per performance
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About the Playwright
Craig Houk is an award-winning DC based Playwright and proud Dramatists Guild Member. He is also a Producer, Actor & Director. Houk’s plays include Cold Rain (published by Next Stage Press, winner “Best Drama” and “Best of Festival” at Capital Fringe 2018), Syd (published by Next Stage Press), Brute Farce (published by Next Stage Press, 2021 The Loom New Works Festival Finalist, 2022 Dominion Stage Playwrighting Competition Full Length Winner), Cooler (published by Next Stage Press), Lost In Place Anthology (2022 Dominion Stage Playwrighting Competition One-Act Honorable Mention), and Radiator (2020 Dominion Stage Playwrighting Competition One-Act Honorable Mention). His other works include Herb Cleary Meant No Harm, The Reluctant Hen, Big Bastard, The Keeper’s Quarters, Lost Sole, Dinner Dance, Old Money, Smoking Fags On A Rooftop, and Chum and Get It!. Lost In Place: Rhonda & Danielle (now titled The Corpse Flower) has been included in Smith & Kraus’s “The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2022”. Brute Farce has two monologues included in Smith & Kraus’s “Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2023” and “Best Men’s Stage Monologues 2023” 2023. Radiator has one monologue included in Smith & Kraus’s “Best Men’s Stage Monologues 2024”. Syd has two monologues included in “The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2025” and “The Best Men’s Stage Monologues 2025”. Many of Houk’s plays can be found at The Drama Book Shop in New York City.
ALSO BY CRAIG HOUK
“Cold Rain” is a beast. Hulking, encompassing, evocative of that special feeling you find in vintage Stephen King, where every word and scene drips world-building of historical proportions. The years long mystery that Houk slowly reveals is tantalizing and sucks you in until the final pages, and propels us through a cavalcade of family relations that remind us of the timeless truth, we don’t get to choose our family, and they may not always be good people. So can we make better choices than them? Or not?
“Cold Rain” is a beast. Hulking, encompassing, evocative of that special feeling you find in vintage Stephen King, where every word and scene drips world-building of historical proportions. The years long mystery that Houk slowly reveals is tantalizing and sucks you in until the final pages, and propels us through a cavalcade of family relations that remind us of the timeless truth…we don’t get to choose our family, and they may not always be good people. So can we make better choices than them? Or not?
Oh my goodness! This play is epic! It jumps around in time, telling the story of a spell gone awry (because it’s also about WITCHES!) There are mysteries surrounding kids who drowned and a woman who disappeared, and everything slowly gets pieced together as we jump backwards and forwards in time. The characters are all well developed, and each of them, in their own way, is a person who doesn’t belong. This play is hard work that looks effortless. So good!
It’s been a while since I’ve read a play that’s gripped me so tight and threw me into a space devoid of time, watching, waiting, and caught. COLD RAIN is going to stay with me for a long time. Eventually, I’ll come back to learn from it, but for now, I can simply sit in this show in awe. If this show is any indication, then, much like this tantalizing family mystery, Craig Houk is a force to be reckoned with.
Epic, sprawling, structurally ambitious, at times wildly funny, at times wildly horrifying, Craig Houk’s COLD RAIN grabs one’s attention from its first lines and keeps it through every twist and turn of its haunting, dark magic-tinged plot. There’s a lot to unpack here, but it stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page (or, I imagine, after you’ve left the theatre), mainly because the characters are so compelling one gets swept up in their individual, interweaving stories.
This is a story that is a mystery wrapped in magic, connections made through incantations, family rivalries and vengeance, along with the dysfunction that comes when people who think they know each other are casting spells, both magic and very, very real. This story moves back and forth through time leaving seeds and crumbs to pick up in much the same manner as all good mysteries built on fear, reminding me of “The Rimers of Eldritch” by Lanford Wilson. Read this play and absorb the sense of foreboding and inevitable power that comes from knowing there’s more here than magic.
“Cold Rain” is full of magic, but the most impressive is Craig Houk’s ability to make the supernatural seem perfectly natural. Unlike Shakespeare’s howling wilderness crones, Houk’s three weird sisters are literally the witches next door. They are neither evil nor benign, but when they cast a love spell it has tragic and generational consequences for every person and relationship around them. Houk cunningly constructs the play to reveal each secret, motivation, and detail drip by inexorable drip. The strong characters, story, and atmosphere of “Cold Rain” should provide audiences with a memorable theatrical experience.
Review Cold Rain.