This could be sub-titled, "A Funeral Comedy." It's funny on the order of watching a hearse skid into an open grave and spill the casket onto a mudbank. Constructed somewhat like McDonough's immensely popular and successful Fables, this play has five parts. The five "plots" are connected by a Father Time-like figure who is engrossed with the fun of watching a clock tick away life.

Three of the "plots" deal with the strangest blind date imaginable...in fact it takes a good deal of imagination to accept this blind date as real. (These three were published in Read magazine as "Blind Date.") Interspersed among the blind date segments are a "plot" about a custom-built casket for someone who is terrified of being buried alive and a "plot" about two girls and a dead man in a lifeboat. It has been suggested that McDonough is a reincarnation of Edgar Allan Poe.

McDonough's penchant for using pantomime and improvisation to replace scenery and costumes is another of the many characteristics of this play that have placed his other works among the nation's favorite short plays. Ideal for contests, touring, and all other situations where superior one-acts are needed.

Since Plots is an ensemble play, double-casting is relatively easy, so the cast may be as small as, perhaps, eight people or as large as eleven. Each "plot" may be used as a 5- to 10-minute skit. All five together run 30-40 minutes. Recommended for all groups, upper elementary to adult. One act; Place, various locations—mostly nowhere; Time, now or some other time.

"I want to thank your company very much for suggesting that I try McDonough's Plots...In Virginia no awards are given at State level. A judge gives a critique and that is all. However, our judge really liked the play."—Billie V. Kerfoot & Portia Akers, Floyd County High School, Floyd, Va.

Other McDonough original plays: Eden, FAUGH, Filiation, Limbo, Mirrors , Requiem, Reunion, Roomers, Stages, Stations

Another cemetery comedy/drama: Danse Macabre