Arthur Keyser was a corporate attorney in the Philadelphia metropolitan area for approximately fifty years. In 2004, He retired at age seventy-five and moved, with his wife, Ellen, to Sarasota, Florida. In April, 2009, after turning eighty, he began to write plays.
His first short play, Mid-Life Romance, was one of ten plays selected for performance at the 2010 Odyssey Ten-Minute Play Festival in Sarasota Florida. In 2011. Three of his short plays, Starting Over, New Car Shopping and Grown-Up Games, were published by ArtAge Senior Theatre Resource Center, Portland, Oregon. They have been performed in numerous venues throughout the country.
One of his full-length plays, Implosion, was selected for a reading at the 2011 summer festival of new full-length plays at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stockbridge, MA. Another of his short plays, The Visitor, was one of eight plays performed at the 2012 Odyssey Ten-Minute Play Festival in Sarasota, FL. The Visitor was awarded second prize at the Festival.
In 2013, ArtAge published The Visitor and four other short plays, which were written by him —Tech Support, Mothers' Day, Norma's List, and Improv. Like the three published in 2011, they have been performed in venues throughout the country. Another play, School For Wives, was one of eight plays performed at the 2014 Theatre Odyssey Ten-Minute Play Festival in the Cook Theatre in Sarasota.
In May, 2015, his ten-minute play, High School Reunion, was awarded the prize as Best Play in the Odyssey Ten-Minute Play Festival.
In July, 2015, his full-length play, Before Steepletop, was one of five selected for readings in the Players Centre for the Performance Arts ("Players Theatre") Festival of new plays.
In 2015, ArtAge published four additional new plays, written by him (High School Reunion, School For Wives, The Wisdom of Ganesha and The Prize). In addition, he revised two of his earlier short plays (Improv and Norma's List) under new names and the revised plays have also been published by ArtAge. He now has a total of twelve short plays in the ArtAge catalog, which has U.S. and international circulation.
In July, 2016, his full-length play, Harry's Angel, was one of five selected for readings in the Players theatre Festival of New Plays.
His new book, Short Plays By the Dozen, which contains all of his published short plays, has being published by ArtAge and is available in its new 2016/2017 catalog. It is also available through Amazon Books.
In August, 2017, a revised version of his full-length play, Before Steepletop, was one of five selected for readings at the Players Centre for the Performing Arts new play festival. It was awarded first prize at the festival and by virtue of that, it was scheduled for a full production at the Players Theatre in August, 2018. The play was performed on six consecutive dates before mostly sold out performances at the Backstage Theatre at Players.
In December, 2017, his full-length play was published by Art Age. It was then performed (four performances) at MCP Still Got It Players South, a community theater in Orlando, Florida.
He is a member of the Sarasota Area Playwrights Society, The Dramatists Guild of America and The Playwrights Center (Minneapolis, MN).
*Photo by Ellen Kramer.
