WCU professor is first-time playwright

WEST CHESTER >> The footlights are shining brightly for firsttime playwright and West Chester University professor Paul Maltby.

Actors are donning the greasepaint as Maltby’s first play, a farce, “Holy Traffic!” unfolds onstage at the Chapel Street Players Community Stage in Newark, Delaware Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Maltby, a member of the WCU English Department, teaches contemporary fiction and popular culture.

During a two-year writing process, Maltby wasn’t prepared for all the physical and “knockabout humor” associated with writing a farce.

“The early results were not stage-worthy — more literary,” he said. “You cannot predict what will make your audience laugh.”

Sometimes, theater patrons would roar, and other times, when Maltby thought a scene was hilarious, they would only chuckle.

Writing a play differs from experiencing the final product in front of an audience.

“The play doesn’t really come on the page or in your head,” he said. “It’s there in your head but not the detail, color or vitality you get on-stage.”

In Maltby’s first work, a pair of brothers steal the Pope Mobile during a papal visit to Atlantic City. Tony owns a failing pizza shop at the end of the boardwalk. He has just renewed his Catholic faith when his lowlife brother, Joey, tricks him into driving around in the Pope Mobile.

They experience several religious beliefs, including evangelical snake handlers, New Age Pagans, Satanists and Voodooists.

The brothers then discover an unintended passenger in the trunk. Guess who!

The play features 23 characters and nine scene changes. Maltby said that everyone associated with staging the play did a “pretty impressive job” for a community theater project with limited resources.

“It was no walk in the park — so much logistics, so many scenes,” he said.

When the run is over Saturday, Maltby, with the help of those involved, will work and tinker to decide which scenes to leave out and which to expand.

“I’m still learning the ropes,” he said. “A play is always in development.”