CLIFF MCCLELLAND
Playwright, Screenwriter, Novelist, Poet
CLIFF MCCLELLAND
Dramatists Guild Member
Author Bio
C.E. McClelland is a playwright/novelist from the Dallas, Texas area. His love for writing began with reading Stephen King, Alexander Lloyd, and J.R.R. Tolkien in junior high, then graduating to Andre Norton and Philip K. Dick in high school. A retired theatre teacher, McClelland’s first forays into writing were plays, four of which have been published and produced both in the U.S. and overseas. He also wrote and directed a horror film, “From the Dark,” which was released on Amazon last year. His wife, Amanda, and two stepchildren, Greyson and Amelia, are both supportive and annoyed about the hours he spends in front of a computer. His Aussie shepherd, Harper, simply wants to go for a walk.
PUBLISHED PLAYS
HALLOWONDERLAND--a children's interactive "haunted" attraction written in Seussian rhyme.
ONCE UPON A TEEN--are fairy tales flights of fantasy or stories of abuse? Funny, sad, and ultimately optimistic.
THE TEST--A satire-powered SNL-style play exploring the ludicrousness of standardized testing in America.
THE PRINCESS AND THE PIRATES--Margaret doesn't want to do her math homework, at least until her dad shows her how important math can be with a fractured fairy tale involving knights, kings, mermaids, and pirates. An homage to The Princess Bride and algebra!
OTHER PLAYS
Royalties and Printable Scripts!
My full-length shows are $60 per performance, and my one-acts are $30. For a $25 fee, you will receive a .pdf script which you can copy yourself. For a fifteen-person show, that perk alone saves over $100! Contact me if you'd like a .pdf perusal. Several have been used for one-act competitions and all have received full high school productions. I also give full permission for free to use any monologues in my plays for festival or prose competitions.
A STEPPING OFF PLACE
Celebrity look-alikes and a clown are trapped in the World Trade Center in New York City during the terrorist attack in 2001. Working together, they struggle to find a way to survive, although Andy, the clown, has even deeper secrets that will be revealed as the minutes count down to the total collapse of the tower.
WHAT THE ALIENS SAW
Four aliens travel to Earth and assume human disguises to record data about the populace. They infiltrate a biosphere known as "high school," where they witness friendship, bullying, cliques, and finally, courage in the face of tragedy.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Taking a cue from David Ives's "All in the Timing, "Food for Thought" is an amalgamation of six one act plays written around the theme of famous writers and food. "Charles Darwin and the Mating Habits of the Galapagos Marine Iguana" finds the famed naturalist being hit on in a bar by a most unusual species. Marie Antoinette is saved from death by a time traveler in "Cake." Friedrich Nietzsche ponders breakfast food in "The Abyss and the Waffle." Edgar Allan Poe, Meryl Streep, and a giant hot dog join the fun as we look at man's relationship with food and love.
MUGSY AND GRETEL
Inspired by old Bugs Bunny cartoons, this children's play finds two old school gangsters caught onstage during a production of Hansel and Gretel. In order to escape the Irish police officer looking for them, they have to get into costumes and play the lead characters. Not just a comedy but a soft reminder that guns have no place at school, "Mugsy and Gretel" will have your students rooting for the bad guys!
DINO-SORES
Dinah, a Hypsilophodon, really wants to become a ballet dancer. Unfortunately, all the other kids in Jurassic High make fun of her. Will she find or dreams or end up being eaten by her teacher, Mrs. T.? "Dinosores" is about believing in yourself and following your passions, no matter what other people might say.
FACES IN THE WATER
Adam is three people--single father to a teenager, husband to a discontented wife, and son to a single mom. He lives in three time periods, and through his tragic loss at Colombine High School, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11/2001, we see the reactions of Americans to the ever-growing tragedies caused by terrorism, both foreign and domestic.
CLOWNBETH
Shakespeare's scariest play, with clowns! In a weird, dystopian future where circus clans fight for domination of the big top, Clownbeth and his wife murder their way to the top as foretold by the three carnival fortune tellers. The classic story leads to a showdown with Clownduff and a rubber chicken sword fight that will leave your audiences rolling with laughter. Check it out!
BROOKLYN BIDDLE AND HER MOST AMAZING DAY
Brooklyn Biddle has a magic closet. If she puts a shirt with a design on it, such as a sleeping bear with the words, Bearly Awake, it comes to life! When she discovers that creatures from the Land of Nots have been invading her bedroom and messing with her stuff, she has to take her merry band of t-shirt animals to the Land of Nots and sort things out. Things get really complicated when her frenemy, Jennifer, follows behind and tries to block her return home before the big talent show.
BURIED
Amanda is trapped in a box that a voice tells her has been designed specifically for her measurements. She'll stay in the box until she can solve the puzzle as to why the voice put her there in the first place. What did she do? How did she offend him? She think through the last few weeks as images of herself act out all her important memories on the stage of her memory. A breakup with her boyfriend, her mother's early-onset Alzheimer's and her father's depression, her work load at school...how has she had time to make this faceless enemy?
100 ENTRANCES
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.” This quote is the prompt for “100 Entrances.” In this play, we see an invisible friend, a children’s clown, a vampire, goth girls, and more! Ultimately, they discover that when you walk through a door, you never know what you may find, or sometimes even what you may leave behind. Funny often, remorseful at times, but always entertaining, “100 Entrances” has something for everyone!
PORAJMOS, THE DEVOURING
Porajmos, the Devouring,is a fictional account of Pieter Stangl, son of the commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp. A loyal German, Pieter nonetheless hates the Nazi regime and the atrocities it visits upon the peoples of Europe. In order to force his son to accept his duty as a German, Colonel Franz Stangl forces Pieter to be the liaison to a group of militant Romani and Jewish women who have been sent to Treblinka to be “broken,” then killed. The colonel discovers that the leader of the women, Katerina, was once a part of the Theatre Romen in Russia and offers the group the opportunity to perform a Shakespearean play under her guidance to entertain the German troops.
SAUL AND PAUL
"Saul and Paul" imagines the two personalities of the Apostle Paul on stage at the same time. Saul, a persecutor of Christians, is a standup comedian. Paul, awaiting his execution, reaffirms his believe in God and Christ. This religious-based play is a two=person show that will amuse, move, and uplift.
LADY McB AND THE TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD HAIR DAY
WUNDERLAND
WHAT THE DICKENS?!!
TWO BY TWAIN
GET IN TOUCH
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or to request free perusals of my unpublished work!
7530 Fitchburg Avenue
Garland, TX 75044