Award-Winning Playwright: Holmdel’s Mike Sockol’s Latest Work Delivered a “Dangerous” Chemical Reaction

By: Community Magazine | June 6, 2022 |  Entertainment , Local |  Holmdel

Article written by Jeanne Wall, Publisher and Editor of TAPinto Holmdel, Colts Neck & Middletown.
 

Award-winning playwright and community leader Mike Sockol has written nearly 30 plays and is an elected leader in his hometown of Holmdel, serving on the Holmdel School Board for the last 12 years.

A member of the Dramatist Guild, Sockol is known locally to many who appreciate his friendly and outgoing personality and his ability to spark many lively conversations about important local topics. Sockol is a communicator, an interesting storyteller, and a  lover of Holmdel and advocating for maintaining the rural character of the town. He has been open with the community about his battle with pancreatic cancer. He deals with his diagnosis with a sense of tenacity, pragmatism, positivity and hope, that is a lesson for everyone around him. Passionate about the performing arts, specifically theater, Sockol shares with us his latest artistic endeavors.

Jeanne Wall (JW): I know you love Holmdel, did you grow up here?
Mike Sokol (MS): Actually, I grew up in the Boston area, Holmdel has been my home for 21 years, the longest time I have ever lived in one place, it’s home.

JW: What’s your educational/career experience?
MS: I graduated from Colgate University with degrees in History and Political Science, and have spent 40 years working in the communications business, as a broadcast journalist, internet consultant, and corporate communications specialist. In addition to being elected to the Holmdel Township School Board for 12 years, I also served two years on the Monmouth County Library Commission.

JW: Tell us about your latest theatrical production.
MS: It’s a romantic comedy titled, Dangers of Falling in Love. It’s about two would-be matchmakers who think they have the discovered the secret for helping people fall in love, as long as it doesn’t kill them in the process. The production was performed at The Villagers Theatre in Somerset, NJ in May and was well received.

JW: Why is it dangerous?
MS: In the play, two women believe they can stage dangerous situations to trigger romantic reactions. I came up with the idea after I read an article that noted the similarity in the chemicals released by the brain when someone falls in love and when they face moments of extreme peril. If you think of romance as simply a byproduct of science, it opens up new ways to tell the classic love story. You end up pitting science against humanity, and then you can have a lot of fun determining who will come up on top.

JW: How many plays have you written and what others would you like to highlight? Awards to mention?
MS: I have written close to 30 plays, including Horseshoes and Pets (and their Humans), which are now under license with the Dramatists Play Service through Broadway Licensing. The play Pets (and Their Humans) received a “Best Original Production” award from the New Jersey Association of Community Theaters. Broadway Licensing plans to print two of my plays, Pets and Horseshoes.

JW: I know in addition to being a playwright, you also act in plays, correct?
MS: I was active in school plays throughout middle school, high school, and college, and performed in community theaters in Savannah, Georgia and Beaumont, Texas. After I got married and became a father, I put theater on hiatus, until 2014, when I auditioned for a part in a local production of A Few Good Men. I’ve acted in more than a dozen plays since then, most recently the part of Leonard in Circle Players’ production of Seminar in 2019. During the pandemic, most theaters went dark, so I participated in various Zoom productions.

JW: When did your passion for theatre/writing begin?
MS: When I was in A Few Good Men, one of the members of the production company approached me about writing a play for an upcoming festival. I told him frankly that I had never written a play before, but I was intrigued. I went home and wrote two short ten minute plays in two days. I followed up with a three-play trilogy involving the history of a Boston family from the 1960s to the present, building momentum to write close to 30 plays of various lengths. After years of corporate speech writing, I found dialogue easy to do, and I’ve been telling stories for years, so I felt very comfortable with the format. I also find plays to be incredibly therapeutic, a great way to work out big and little issues through a world that you create. It also helped that a lot of people liked my plays, and they weren’t collecting dust in my computer hard drive.

JW: What is your next big thing?
MS: Shocking the world by staying above ground for a few more years. Besides that, I do have an idea for a new full-length play that I want to explore. I’m sure there will be some new community involvement opportunity that will catch my fancy after I leave the Board at the end of the year.