My Plays

Before becoming the host of Wait Wait, I had a successful career as a playwright, with productions at such theaters as Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Seattle Rep, HB Playwrights, Pittsburgh City Theater, Actor's Theater of Louisville, the Illusion Theater of Minneapolis, New York Stage and Film, and many others. I was lucky enough to work with directors such as Arvin Brown, Doug Hughes, Billy Carden, and Alex Roe, and with actors such as David Straithairn, Kristen Johnston, Alan Tudyk, Alan Mandell, and Max Wright.

Two of my plays, Denial and Most Wanted, have been published by Dramatics, and are available from them. Denial was also recorded by LA Theaterworks with a cast including David Clennon and Stephanie Zimbalist .

A selection of my short plays can be found in Ten Minute Plays from the Actors Theater of Louisville Vol. 6, and a series of books of short plays from HB Playwrights: Museum Plays, Airport Plays, and Funeral Plays.

Reviews

Denial (at the Metropolitan Playhouse, New York City, April 2007, directed by Alex Roe: "an engrossing legal drama that examines the moral and ethical dilemmas inherent in the First Amendmen... At the heart of the conflict is the question of how much sufferance a free society should give its crackpots to maintain its liberties. And at what point does the threat of violence to citizens validate curtailing an individual's rights."

The New York Times

Milton Bradley (at the Ensemble Studio Theater, New York City, June 2007): "Peter Sagal's very clever 'Milton Bradley' offers a more irreverent take on dying, in his sendup of the hollow tributes some clergymen make to the recently deceased. The play is set in a funeral home, where a rabbi (Stephen Singer) must make a speech about a hateful woman whose only life accomplishment was that she beat another elderly woman at pinochle. It's a pretty good Jewish mother joke, and the rabbi's speech, performed hilariously by Mr. Singer in a familiar stop-and-start cadence, demonstrates filibustering and diplomacy (her 'consistency of purpose' is praised) that would make any politician jealous."

The New York Times