Playing with the Queen of Hearts

Harris, Larry (aka Lawrence R. Harris, American playwright, screenwriter, 1960-____), “Playing with the Queen of Hearts,”

a 60-minute lyrical New Age thriller in English, set on the sitting room of Claire Leridon’s ground floor Tarot Parlor which doubles as her apartment, U.S.A., a hot Indian summer evening, sometime in the 1990s,

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© 1992 by Larry Harris;

• in Larry Harris’ Playing with the Queen of Hearts (New York: The Author, 1992);

 script/rights available from Larry Harris, 22 East 36th Street #4A, New
 York, New York 10016-3419, U.S.A., telephone (home) 212.645.4834, e-mail
 Lharris.nyc@verizon.net.  

Cited by Larry Harris via ftp, June 30, 1997; Harris says,

Dramatis Personae

“Claire Leridon (f), 26, a tarot reader, tall with light brown hair and hazel eyes; Frank Patterson (m), 28, a tarot customer with blond hair and blue eyes; Diane (f), 28, Frank’s fiancée with dark hair and brown eyes; Mort (m), 26, short with dark hair and brown eyes.

Synopsis

“A whimsical tarot card reading triggers a dangerous love triangle and an unpredictable murder mystery."

Comment

• A tarot is any of a set of twenty-two playing cards, used for fortune telling, used for trumps in tarok. Tarok is a venerable Central European card game played with forty, fifty-two, or fifty-six cards like modern cards—in addition to the twenty-two tarots.

• “Larry Harris has worked in the literary offices of the Guthrie Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club and McCarter Theatre. He earned his MFA in dramaturgy from Columbia University. Larry’s full-length, The Kitchen of Heaven, was produced by EAT at NY’s Mint Theatre in 1999. Larry co-wrote and associate produced the PBS documentary series Black and White in Exile. His one-act sex farce “Answering the Echo” won four awards in the 9th Annual New York City 15-Minute Play Festival, including Honorable Mention for Best Play. This play was the inspiration for Larry’s spec screenplay Trick of the Eye. His other screenplays include Tools of Ignorance (about baseball player-turned-spy Moe Berg) and Collector’s Item (a romance for the aged).”—e-mail from the playwright, June 1, 2004.

• Page mounted June 30, 1997, updated June 17, 1998, September 5, 1999, March 1, 2001, January 16, February 8, November 12, 19, 2002, June 26, 2004, April 25, 2005, December 23, 27, 2008, by the site Webmaster.

Themes

deception, love triangle, mystery, new age, suspense, tarot, thriller.