About the Play

In a small-town Indiana dental office in the 1960s, Doc Henderson, his son Sonny, and young Sydney share a working life filled with familiar patients, gentle ribbing, and questions that reach well beyond dentistry. As Sydney begins to imagine her own future, the office becomes a place where people find relief in unexpected ways. Warm, funny, and quietly moving, Novocaine explores the care we offer one another and how that care carries forward.

About the Playwright

After graduating college with a degree in theatre I anticipated a career writing and directing plays. While directing one of my first productions, I took a side gig teaching improvisation to engineers and scientists. That experience opened the door to a long and fulfilling career bringing lessons from theater into collaboration, innovation, and leadership, a path that led to a PhD and a faculty role at Purdue University, where I teach engineering and technology leadership. As I begin looking toward the next chapter, I’m making more room for the creative work that started it all. Novocaine is one of the first expressions of that return.

The play draws loosely on my family’s history, particularly the world of my grandfather’s small-town dental practice. Its characters and events are fictional, but the impulse behind it is personal: to explore how we make life a little easier for one another.

For Theaters & Collaborators

Novocaine is a full-length play set primarily in a single dental office in small-town Indiana during the 1960s, with an estimated running time of two hours and fifteen minutes. Scripts are available for review, and I welcome conversations with theaters, directors, and collaborators interested in further development or production.

Cast

The play features four male and four female characters.

• Dr. V. E. “Doc” Henderson: Late 50s–early 60s.
• Dr. V. E. “Sonny” Henderson Jr.: Late 20s – early 30s.
• Sydney: 17–18; early 30s in the epilogue.
• William Bell: Late 20s–mid-30s.
• Paul Eberly: Mid-30s–mid-40s.
• Mrs. Nelson: 30s–early 40s.
• Mrs. Johnson: Mid-40s–early 60s.
• Mrs. Harlan: Mid-50s–70.

Doc and Mrs. Harlan also age into the epilogue. Selected supporting roles may be doubled.

Interested in bringing Novocaine to the stage?

I welcome conversations with theaters, directors, and collaborators interested in the play’s next stage of development. Click below to start a conversation.