Why Go All the Way to Fulton, Louisiana?

About the Book

“WHY GO ALL THE WAY TO FULTON, LOUISIANA?” is a collection of short plays by Dr. David J. Holcombe, MD. Most are ten-minute plays, but several are considerably longer and more complex. The subjects range from medical (“Ebolamania” and “Sex Ed and the Superintendent”) to political (“Removing the Equestrian Statue” and “Painting the Ghetto.”) The plays all have limited cast and set requirements, thus making them ideal for ten-minute or one-act play presentations by professionals or students. One of these plays has made its stage debut in Alexandria, Louisiana by Spectral Sisters Productions (“Ted’s Head”), but the others await their world premieres by those with a bit of courage and considerable vision. While written plays have limited public appeal, these works truly come alive on the stage. Share in the fun and the drama with these undiscovered gems from a most unlikely source, someone sometimes referred to locally as the “Chekhov on the Bayou.”

About the Author

About the Author Dr. David Holcombe works and writes in Alexandria, Louisiana, where he lives with his beloved wife, Nicole. Growing up in California in the bucolic ’50s, followed by the turbulent ’60s and ’70s, he witnessed firsthand the social transformations of his native state. Taking writing classes at the University of California at Davis with Diane Johnson-Murray, he developed an appreciation for creative writing. That passion remained dormant for decades while he studied medicine in French at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, Belgium. There, he met his future wife, Nicole Catherine, one of his folk dance students. Settling in Alexandria, Louisiana, in 1986 after a stint in Baltimore, he worked for twenty years in a private internal-medicine practice, where his passion for writing blossomed once again. Despite the rigors of a full-time practice, he managed to produce a series of works, including short stories (Like Honored and Trusted Colleagues and Cappuccino at Podgorica) and short plays (Beauty and the Botox, Old South, New South, No South, Chateau in Hessmer, and now, Why Go All the Way to Fulton, Louisiana?). While none of his works have been critical or commercial successes, this Chekhov on the Bayou continues to produce compelling and original works completely out of the literary mainstream. That being said, he has had over a dozen plays produced locally by Spectral Sisters Productions, a developmental theater organization in Central Louisiana. He has also kept the Central Louisiana Writers Guild alive and has had his nonfiction medical articles appear monthly in regional publications. A collection of these nonfiction medical topics was published in 2014 (Mendel’s Garden: A Collection of Medical Topics). He and his wife raised four sons, all grown up now, and have hosted hundreds of visitors from far and near in their art-filled home in Alexandria, Louisiana. They have created and maintained the quintessential “house by the side of the road” in this unlikely location where they support the creative arts as best they can with the help of like-minded locals.