Scripts
Scripts for Summer, Deepening Then Gone, Can't Get Started, and Callous Cad may be obtained by contacting Tom X. Chao.
The script of Cats Can See the Devil (1 M, 5 F) is contained in Plays and Playwrights 2004. It is NOT a puppet show for children. Official description: “A bizarrely eclectic puppet show morphs into a kaleidoscopic tour inside the mind of an obsessive performing artist in this hilarious send-up and celebration of fringe theatre.” And it should be noted that the one-act play features many mentions of King Crimson.
Copies for purchase may be found easily at Amazon and other booksellers by searching online.
TheaterMania posted a review here, but it did not single out Tom's play for praise or ridicule. Perhaps the silence was to be taken as a sign of disapproval.
Saga of the Library for the Performing Arts Submission
On March 14, 2006, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, requested a copy of Cats Can See the Devil for their research collection. Tom hand-delivered his personal working script plus a packet of supplemental materials to the library located in Lincoln Center, Manhattan, NYC. Tom then received a letter of confirming receipt dated May 17, 2006. Having gotten this letter, Tom felt he did not need to verify the location of the materials–for many years. In 2015, on a whim, when passing the library, he decided to stop in and inquire about his materials, Tom discovered that they were missing. A lengthy discussion with various librarians took place over several years, with at least one declaration that the one-of-a-kind materials were likely to be lost forever. Finally the packet turned up sometime in 2016-17. On December 18, 2018, Tom visited the library in person and confirmed the materials were in the safekeeping of the library and had been entered into the online catalog, after 10 years.
Tom: "I now call upon the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts to preserve these materials for at least one thousand years."
