Linda Whitmore, a native of St. Louis, is graduate of the University of Missouri. She was a copy editor at the Los Angeles Times for 22 years. Contact her at whitmore58@aol.com.

Linda’s work:

10-Minute Plays

“Sig Alert”: A husband and wife who have been married for what seems like forever make the long trek to a wedding in Orange County. Drama West staged reading, Aug. 2009. 2 females, 2 males.

“Have a Very PETA Christmas”: A young woman gives her mother cooking lessons because she’s inviting her vegan boyfriend home for Christmas. 2 females.

“Press Box”: A baseball announcer for a last-place team loses his cool during a late-season game against another last-place team, with the score tied in the bottom of the ninth. 1 male.

“The Twelve Theories of Christmas”: A little Catholic schoolgirl is called on the carpet for her essay on the importance of Christmas. Jesus was a space alien? Uh, you’re not going to graduate writing that kinda malarkey. 2 females.

“Tubular Belles”: Two women sitting side by side talk about life, love and babies while rolling ping-pong balls down vacuum hoses strung between them, and they drop into a plastic bucket on the floor. Don’t get it? You’re not a woman. 2 females.

“Table for Two”: A hapless waiter gets caught between man-hating diners. When your husband leaves you, why not take it out on the waiter? Finalist, 5th Annual West Coast 10-Minute Play Contest, 1998. 2 females, 1 male.

“Bittersweet Smell of Success”: A stay-at-home mom re-evaluates her life choice after running into a successful college friend. 1 female.

“David Mamet 101”: A man and a woman sign up for a playwriting class. The teacher turns out to be like something out of a Mamet play. 2 males, 1 female.

“Amber and the Night Visitors”: A woman alone at night after Christmas answers the door. It’s her boss, bearing eggnog. What does he want? Remember the office party? Where he gave everyone $5 lottery tickets as a gift? Guess what? 2 males, 1 female.

“One-Up”: A man and a woman tell each other how awful their childhood was. Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, it does. 1 female, 1 male.

“Midnight Clear”: Christmas Eve. Guy walks into a bar. Hey, you look familiar, he tells bartender. Where does he know him from? Could it be they were both on the same ship when they were abducted by aliens? 3 males, 1 female.

“E-Z Shuttle”: A man is finally taking his dream vacation to Paris. The only problem is, the shuttle driver shows up, and she’s nine months pregnant. And oh yeah, her water just broke. 1 female, 1 male.

“Masks”: A woman attends her high school reunion, only to be confronted by the boy who made her life a living hell for four years. But he remembers things differently. 1 female.

“Your Call Is Very Important to Us”: A woman calls a catalog clothing company to re-order Christmas gifts, and reveals a dark secret. 1 female.

“Future Imperfect”: In the distant future, a man walks into a doctor’s office to receive an injection that will instantly make him a master of jiu-jitsu. And he intends to use the martial arts on the doctor. 2 males.

“The Visitation”: A man on death row consults a priest hours before his execution, with a strange tale to tell of the night of the crime. 2 males.

“God Only Knows”: God and Jesus discuss the end of the world. Turns out it conflicts with the son’s barbecue plans. 2 males.

“Perfect Pitch”: Executives at a cable network try to create the next “big” reality show. 1 female, 3 males.

One-Act Plays

“Life in the Old Country”: A woman journeys to the land of her mother, Japan, and discovers not only insights as to her mom, but also herself. Winner, 8th Annual Fullerton College Playwriting Festival, 1998; staged reading at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, 1999; staged reading at the Long Beach Actors Playhouse, 2000. 3 females, 2 males.

“Ambulance Chasers”: A woman working for a law firm has a crisis of faith. Isn’t representing criminals a criminal act in itself? Work in progress. 3 males, 2 females.

Full-length plays

“Light Years”: A hippie-type woman who has relocated her husband and kids to the Montana wilderness to live “off the grid” is caught in an absurd situation when an escapee from the state prison takes her family hostage. The escapee? Her college boyfriend. 4 females, 4 males.

“Star Turn”: A waitress in New York is trying the finish the Great American Play. But why should she labor, when she can lie about having a terminal illness and have a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer finish it for her? Staged reading, Don Cribb Theatre in Santa Ana, 1998. Winner, Panndora Productions New Works Festival, June 2009.  5 males, 4 females (1 male can be double cast)

“Relative Obscurity”: A reporter goes undercover at a Psychic Convention to blow the lid off psychic phenomenon. But what the psychics tell her can’t be explained logically. What does her father and her boss have to do with a hit-and-run accident 25 years ago? Winner, 15th Annual Fullerton College Playwriting Contest, 2006. 3 males, 4 females.

“Delayed Gratification”: A washed-up British novelist moves to the United States to make a fresh start teaching creating writing at a major American university. His star student is a young woman, whose graduate thesis is a roman a clef–about him. Work in progress. 2 females, 2 males.

Screenplays

“Next of Kin”: A woman lives parallel lives-what would have happened if her father had not been arrested for child abuse-and solves a decades-old mystery. Drama.

“Kill Shot”: A radio host become convinced the earth is going to be slammed by plasma outburst from a violent solar flare. She moves into the New York City subway system, where meets a man from her past who is living there for the same reason. Science fiction.

“The Envelope, Please”: An actress of a certain age becomes convinced she’s won an Oscar-two years before.  How does she right this wrong? She does what anyone would do: Hire a private detective to track down that envelope. Comedy.

“Happily Ever After”: The CEO of a major software company–who is engaged to an A-list fashion model–enlists the help of a therapist in modern-day San Francisco, to help him with his insomnia. She looks familiar–have they met? Oh, yes. Hundreds of times. In previous lives. Romantic comedy.

Spec Scripts

“Star Trek: Voyager”: Earned eight pitch meetings at Paramount.

“Arli$$”