So I have been haunted by one of my characters for over 24 years.

I wrote a play way back in 1997, which I produced in Pleasantvile, New York, and then we brought it to New York City in 1998 for an extended run.

The play was called Professor Albert’s Love, which was rebirthed into Professor Albert’s Lessons of Love for it’s NYC run, (which I like much better.)

It was about a college Professor named Albert who magically turns into Professor Albert, a Einstein-like wacky, almost comic book character, who teaches these insanely wacky Lessons of Love with a wacky version of his real-life wife, Elsa.

As the play progresses, we come to understand that his real life relationship with Elsa is strained and so not fun, and we soon learn that he just discovered that the real love of his life, the woman whom he dated right before he married Elsa, just recently died in a car crash. So Professor Albert is losing it and losing it BIG TIME! Fantasy, fear, and reality merge as Albert comes to terms with his lost love, and makes some new choices in his life.

This was probably one of the wackiest and hardest plays I have ever produced for we had an assortment of crazy costumes, fantasy lighting and bizarre set pieces, and over 120 fantasy sound cues for our 90 minute play.

And I also acted in it, playing the lead, my dear pal, Albert!

The show was a great success, AND I couldn’t get Professor Albert out of my brain, so 13 years ago for about 3 years, Professor Albert became a YOUTUBE star, garnishing over 5 million hits and he even ran for President against Hillary and Obama! Professor Albert’s Celebrity Scoop was where he continued his crazy hijinx, and I have never had more fun in my life! His girlfriend was Jessica Alba, and he was obsessed with Paris Hilton, and he was unbelievably sexist and quite off color at times, and at other times, he created magic.

Here is one of his motivational music videos!

And I was obsessed with creating his ridiculous videos. Obsessed. I created most of them in a 3 x 5 closet in my apartment, where I put a green screen on the wall behind me, (I am not kidding,) and then I created really cheesey greenscreen effects.

At other times, I would shoot at the theatre, especially the videos where you see Professor Albert dancing! I loved to do the “Professor Albert Strut,” and no one but me really appreciated it, but I didn’t care. Bringing Professor Albert to YouTube was the ultimate fun for me. I did all the work, wrote it, filmed it, edited it, and sent it up to my crazy audience in the sky.

In late Fall of 2009, I started work on my one man play, The People in my Hips, so I set Professor Albert aside, but little did I know, he would return again.

I was a big fan of TECH podcasts back then, and somehow, in some strange way, Professor Albert ended up sending a recorded Dumb Tech Question for Allison Sheridan’s Nosillacast Tech Podcast (for she had a Dumb Question segment almost every week.) And of course, when it was aired, Professor Albert couldn’t stop, so he appeared on numerous occasions on Allison’s amazing podcast over a period of three years.

He just wouldn’t go away!

And then, when I launched The Playwriting Podcast, I knew it wouldn’t be long until he was a guest. He just wouldn’t leave me alone!

And that is a good thing.

Characters that you create aren’t done when the curtain comes down on the final performance of your play. Let them live. Let them show up in other mediums or other plays. For the past 23 years, Professor Albert has brought me so much joy, fun and insanity, and I thank the stars, I’ve kept him alive!