The Little Prince

The Nutshell

An adaptation of the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry book. A pilot stranded in the desert meets a young prince fallen to Earth from a tiny asteroid.

The Backstory

The Little Prince was the first play I ever wrote. I was living in Florida at the time and I pitched the idea of adapting it to the Orlando Theatre Project. They foolishly said yes and I set off to write it with my friend Paul Kiernan. The play was the beginning of what would later become my signature – “many characters, few actors.” The Little Prince has four actors playing over a dozen characters. To my amazement, the OTP production was wildly successful and set attendance records. It then went on to be produced at The Hippodrome Theatre, where it also set attendance records. As I recall, the play was also going to be produced at a theatre in St. Petersburg, FL. (Evidently I was big in Florida). I then sent the script to Dramatic Publishing, (who would later go on to publish Around the World in 80 Days, The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge, and commission me to write The Quest For Don Quixote and Tom Jones – The Musical), and they loved it. They wanted to publish it. My first play ever and someone wanted to publish it? Crazy.

What could possibly go wrong?

A few months later I got a letter from Dramatic Publishing stating that the North American rights to The Little Prince had changed hands and the new rights holder, Rick Cummins, was not going to allow my adaptation to be published. Nor was he going to allow my adaptation to be produced again. This was in 1995-96. I have tried over the years to get Rick to allow my adaptation to be produced and published but to no avail. He still won’t let it happen…in the U.S.

But I have been in touch with the Saint-Exupery estate and there is life for the script outside of the U.S.! The script will live on!

Please contact me for a perusal script.