Garret Mathews was born in Abingdon, Va., and graduated from Virginia Tech. He wrote feature stories and columns on the Bluefield, W. Va., Daily Telegraph from 1972 until 1987 when he was hired to pen the metro column for the Evansville, Ind., Courier. His 12 books include “Can’t Find A Dry Ball” about a season spent with the Evansville Otters at the lowest level of minor-league baseball. He has had op-ed articles published in newspapers in Chicago, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Huntington, W. Va., and Roanoke, Va. Bored during the pandemic, he learned to juggle a 16-pound bowling ball and two bean bags (More on that…).
Altogether, the Abingdon, Va. native and graduate of Virginia Tech, has penned more than 6,500 columns and features on every subject from murderers and moonshiners to the members of a snake-handling church. His legacy website (www.pluggerpublishing.com) contains some favorite columns, as well as material on Appalachia and the civil rights movement. The link ‘Coming Together’ contains a pair of looking-back interviews with black folks of Evansville and Greenwood, Miss., that has received almost 200,000 views. Retired since 2011, Garret lives in Carmel, Ind., with his wife MaryAnne, where they dote on their grandchildren. Several of his plays have been staged at the Indianapolis Fringe Festival.
Thanks to his background as a newspaper columnist, Garret Mathews writes accessible, 80-90 minute plays about subjects he knows. The latest round of plays include two comedy/dramas designed to be produced for high school theater audiences — “Climbing the No-Hope Rope” and “They Shall Take Up Serpents.” The other new play — “Make Me a Perfect Asperger’s Match” — is about a young man and a young woman on the autism spectrum and their heroic efforts at attempting a relationship.
HIGH SCHOOL PRODUCTION, G-RATED, COMEDY – Remember high school PE when you could not climb the rope that seemed at least a mile high? Set in 1966, “Climbing the No-Hope Rope” lets you relive the mortification when two nerdy senior boys from the mountains of Virginia find they must make it to the top in order to graduate.
HIGH SCHOOL PRODUCTION, G-RATED, COMEDY/DRAMA — A wisecracking elder of an Appalachian snake-handling church becomes a mentor for a serious-minded young woman with a troubled past who is trying to decide whether or not to take up serpents.
A young man with Asperger’s (on the autism spectrum) overcomes shyness and self-doubt to ask a young woman (also with Asperger’s and also low in self-esteem) for a date. Both use index cards with suggested questions so they won’t clam up on their initial telephone conversation. Will they find romance or will they realize they’d rather be alone?