Playwright, Novelist, Speaker
May your wishes all come true
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
- Bob Dylan
May your wishes all come true
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
- Bob Dylan
"Mike Broemmel is the 21st century's answer to
John Steinbeck at his most nitty-gritty."
- Neil Marr, Monaco
Publisher & Editor
The Baptism by Mike Broemmel tells the tale of the residents of Worthington, seemingly typical small town folks -- the farming family, the widow and her circle of friends, a young woman with a new baby. Despite the seeming normality, something sinister brews beneath the surface of daily life in the tiny village. The tale has a Twilight Zone feel.
The town folks gather on a stormy night for the baptism of May Proctor's baby son. The reader steps into the shoes of a congregant for an event not soon to be forgotten. The novel is inspired by a play and a short story of the same title, both written by Mike Broemmel.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Witness: The Story of Virginia Hill by Mike Broemmel is a full-length, one actor play that chronicles the virtually incomprehensible life of a woman named Virginia Hill. The play is structured around her cantankerous appearance before what officially was christened the U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime.
Using her remarkable appearance before what is better known as the "Kefauver Committee" as the spine of the stage production, the play tells her story from her time walking the streets as a low-priced hooker to becoming the paramour of Ben Siegel (better known as "Bugsy") to herself being christened as the "Queen of the Mob". Perhaps the only quiet moment in the story of Virginia Hill is the discovery of her body two days after her death in a snow-covered Austrian forest, her remains veiled in a thin layer of white ice flakes.
Witness is slated to premiere in Las Vegas in the summer of 2023.
Born into slavery in Hannibal, Missouri, by the end of her life Julia Greeley became known for her charitable works. Julia pulled a red wagon through the streets of Denver in the dark to bring food, coal, clothing, and other necessities to needy families. She made her rounds in the night so as not to embarrass white families ashamed to accept charity from a poor, black woman. In part because of her work for the poor Julia Greeley is being considered to be canonized a saint.
Mike Broemmel has dedicated A Lady and Her Wagon: The Life Story of Julia Greeley to the memory of Amanda "Mandy" Gardner as well as her family, the late Irene and Marvin Gardner, Renee Gardner, Tracy Gardner, and Marvy Gardner.
Stand Still & Look Stupid: The Life Story of Hedy Lamarr by Mike Broemmel features Emily Ebertz portraying the iconic Hollywood actor and brilliant inventor. The play chronicles the incomparable life of Hedy Lamarr, who conceived spread spectrum technology, deemed as the backbone of the digital communications age. Stand Still & Look Stupid is in its eighth year of production.
Hedy Lamarr: As a 19-year old girl she revolutionized the film industry as the first woman in a mainstream movie to be portrayed in sexual rapture.
Hedy Lamarr: At the height of her Hollywood career, she developed technology that made her one of the most important inventors in all of history.
Spread spectrum technology, conceived by Hedy Lamarr, is indispensable for wireless communication. Her invention is described as the backbone of the digital communications age … from mobile phones to WiFi to GPS to Bluetooth to the barcode scanner at the market … and countless other technologies. Global communication exists … because of a woman once best known as the most beautiful girl in the world.
The Wind Is Us: The Death that Killed Capote is a full-length, three-act, one-actor play chronicling the life and death of iconic author Truman Capote.
At the heart of the play is the impact researching and writing Capote’s seminal book In Cold Blood had on the author. This effort includes a stark look at the complicated relationship Capote had with one of the two men executed in the gallows at the Kansas State Penitentiary in 1965.
The play focuses on Capote’s life from the execution of the pair of men who violently killed a Kansas farm family in 1959 through his passing in 1984.
The Wind Is Us premiered at the end of 2022.
Another new stage play from Mike Broemmel slated to premiere in 2023, I'm Harvey Milk tells the life story of LGBTQ+ rights leader Harvey Milk. Assassinated less then a year after taking the oath as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Milk was one of the first (and certainly best known) openly gay men elected to office in the United States.
I'm Harvey Milk is scheduled to premiere in the summer of 2023.
A Destination of My Own by Mike Broemmel is another full-length, one-actor play. A Destination of My Own chronicles the life of Richard Durham.
Richard Durham was the creator and writer of Destination Freedom, a weekly radio drama that aired for two years in the 1940s. The radio serial dramatized the lives of important Black American historical figures and is described as “nothing ever before heard on radio.” The radio program strove to defeat commonplace stereotypes routinely attached to Black Americans. In many ways, Richard Durham’s work has been described as an important precursor to the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter movements.
A Destination of My Own will premiere as part of 2023 Juneteenth celebrations.
White Bear Woman chronicles the life story of Lori Piestewa, the first indigenous American woman to lose her life in combat as a member of the United States military. The play also examines the Native American Warrior Tradition.
White Bear Woman will premiere in the summer of 2023.
Check out the full catalog of plays by Mike Broemmel.