The Fear In Yesterday's Rings

I'm still doing research on American circuses in the first half of the 20th century, and on rural Hungary circa 1880 for my tiger play. Last week I read a mystery, The Search for Yesterday's Rings, by George Chesbro. I had never heard of the novel or Chesbro (he died in 2008).
Chesbro's detective is a dwarf whose stage name is Mongo (from his days as an acrobat). Mongo and his brother run a detective agency in New York City. In an attempt to restore the Statler Brothers Circus to his former boss, Phil Statler, Mongo uncovers quite a circus. It's now run by two evil Swiss Germans, the Zelezians, interested in creating assassins for foreign governments. But these assassins have four legs- a recreation of an extinct canine, the lobox. These wolf dogs are deadly and scary, and Chesbro's plotting, if not always his prose, is excellent. It's a fast, creepy, interesting novel.

St. John's University

For many years, my fellow playwright Dr. Laurence Myers has taught at St. John's University. He gave me my first job in New York, stage managing his play Title: Nietzsche at Theatre for the New City (my friend James Robinson was in the cast, and suggested me when they lost their stage manager). And for not a few years, Larry has asked me to come speak to his students. This past Monday I was finally able to rearrange my schedule to make this possible. I had never been to St. John's, nor any Vincentian institution of higher learning, before then. Larry is going to have his students in his Creating Theatre course write contemporary mystery plays, to be performed around the campus, so I spoke about medieval theatre. I'm not an expert on that subject, but I read a lot about it when I was writing my own adaptation of mystery plays, "The New York Play." After I had lectured and answered some questions, some students read my Adam and Eve scene to the rest of the class; they seemed quite engaged by it, and equally importantly, got the jokes. I was particularly impressed with the international students (from the Caribbean, South America and Africa)- a really smart, thoughtful and engaged group of kids.