The Story Behind the Script

By David Bellantoni

For me, the most compelling thing about this story is that FRANK’S LOT is not just another made-up tale, but is based on a personal experience in a real place.  I met a woman, I’ll call Tina, sitting alone in a darkened theatre in Santa Monica watching a David Lynch film. Though we barely knew one another, two weeks later we were on a cross-country flight to a remote, historical, and haunted Inn. We were both reeling from recent deaths in our families and yet open to an uncertain adventure. I wanted to show Tina a place where I had spent substantial time as a kid and was like a second home to me. This Inn affected me on a primal level. While there we met a highly sexualized mysterious couple who was also alluring, threatening, and dangerous. 

As in the script, upon arriving at the Inn this character I’ll call Frank immediately got into my face at the bar and challenged every notion of why I was there. Much to Tina’s chagrin, I could not pull myself away from him. It didn’t help that once we went back to “our” cabin Frank and his girlfriend, who I’ll call Loretta, were staying in the room next door. It was a sleepless night for Tina and me as the sounds of pounding, assault, screams, and sex hammered against the thin wall separating us. We both wondered if Loretta would survive the night. The next morning, they were nowhere to be found.  Frank’s car was crunched up against the side of the cabin, windows and screens were broken, and shards of glass were everywhere. A single shoe was left behind in the walkway. 

Much like Frank himself, this story stubbornly stuck to me and I felt compelled to write about it. This led to a short prose novel followed by a play, that ran in LA for six weeks and then was extended for two more at a venue on Hollywood Blvd called The Haunted Cabaret. A week after the show closed, an earthquake nearly leveled the theatre. FRANK’S LOT was the last play ever to show in that venue. I moved FRANK’S LOT to New York and workshopped it with a number theatre companies and seasoned directors and attached Robert “Bobby” Funaro as Frank who was literally born to play this role.