Peter Glen Fenton (1995–) is an American playwright and screenwriter with four stage plays and one screenplay in his growing body of work. He wrote his first play and saw it through to its world premiere in his hometown, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, when he was fourteen years old. Fenton graduated from Wheaton College in 2017. His signature style involves witty comedic dialogue often embedded in low fantasy or fantasy-adjacent stories.
Official website: [1]
Works by Peter Fenton with their own pages:
- Knights of the Square Table (Stage Play, 2010-14, Heuer Publishing 2019)
- The Thousand Year Rose (Stage Play, 2016, Heuer Publishing 2019)
- See Amid the Winter Snow (Stage Play, 2018, Independently Published 2020)
- Abandon All Hope (Stage Play, 2020, Ornithology Media 2021)
Other Work by Peter Fenton:
- Filling In (Co-Writer, Dadley Productions Short Film, 2017)
Work by Peter Fenton includes examples of these tropes:
- All Love Is Unrequited: Invoked and enforced in Abandon All Hope. Evan likes Melissa, Melissa likes Sean, Sean likes Evan.
- Author Avatar: A variant in Abandon All Hope. Each of the characters (Teresa, Melissa, Evan, Sean) represent a version of Peter Fenton at a different point in his life.
- Badass Normal: Sir Galahad, Lady Heron, Kimmi Larkin, Scott Foley, Mitchell Claus, Daisy Scarlett, and Melissa Jones are all otherwise normal people who become heroic and do badass things.
- Better than a Bare Bulb: Littered throughout Peter’s early work. A good rule of thumb is if the character is smart, they’re probably pretty Genre Savvy.
- Big Eater: There's at least one character in each script preoccupied with snacking. Princess Jacqueline in Knights, Ciera in Rose, Mitchell and Idalynn in See Amid. Sean is a wannabe Big Eater in Abandon All Hope, wishing to take on the challenge of eating a monstrously-sized Black-Bottom Hazelnut Pie.
- Book Ends: Present in all of his plays. In Knights, Lady Heron starts the play confessing feelings for Sir Galahad and in the end, he reciprocates. In Rose, the first and last scene take place in the cave of the Thousand-Year Rose. See Amid begins with Mitchell meeting Daisy while splitting firewood and their conflict begins at Granny’s House. Mitchell has his epiphany while splitting firewood and he and Daisy reconcile at Granny’s House. Abandon All Hope begins and ends with Teresa drinking wine as she monologues.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: See Badass Normal on this page.
- Chekhov's Gag: A good rule of thumb when reading a Peter Fenton play is, there are no throwaway lines
- Complete-the-Quote Title: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” from The Divine Comedy in Abandon All Hope.
- Creator's Oddball: Fenton’s first three plays are light-hearted, family-friendly adventure comedies. Abandon All Hope? Still a comedy, but it’s a profanity-laden character-driven piece set in Hell.
- Deadpan Snarker: At least one in every one of his scripts, normally the protagonist or narrator. Sir Galahad and Lady Heron both in Knights, Kimmi in Rose, the Snowman in See Amid, and Teresa, Melissa, and Sean in Abandon All Hope. See Snark-to-Snark Combat and World of Snark below.
- Descended Creator: Peter originated the role of Evan Daigle in Abandon All Hope
- Evil Counterpart: Pops up a lot, with a villainous character embodying traits of the protagonist. Sir Krause is one for Sir Galahad, Abigail is one for Kimmi, and Wolf is one for Mitchell.
- Fireand Brimstone Hell: Averted in Abandon All Hope, but referenced in the name of the torture chamber - Brimstone Hall, Room 664.
- The Fundamentalist: Evan Daigle in Abandon All Hope.
- Genki Girl: Usually one in every play. Princess Jacqueline, Idalynn Marble, and Kimmi Larkin are straight examples respectively from Knights, See Amid, and Rose. Teresa in Abandon All Hope qualifies as a middle-aged version.
- Lemony Narrator: The Snowman in See Amid the Winter Snow is a textbook example. Teresa in Abandon All Hope is a variant.
- Meaningful Name: In Abandon All Hope, the principal character names reflect their principal struggle. ‘Evan’ is the first four letters of the word Evangelical. ‘Me’ is the first two letters of Melissa. The name ‘Sean’ resembles the word ‘seen’. Teresa is named for Mother Teresa, as she really is putting the humans through the torture chamber as a chance to improve their lives.
- No Antagonist: Abandon All Hope being a character-driven piece technically has no antagonist, though Sean, Melissa, and Evan respectively serve as each other’s antagonists.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: See Amid the Winter Snow goes wild with this trope, making Mrs. Claus into a No Celebrities Were Harmed Hillary Clinton and Ebenezer Whitfield into a male Sarah Palin. Abandon All Hope mentions a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Jerry Falwell, Jr.
- Plot Twist: Somewhere between two-thirds of the way through and the very final scene, something develops in the plot that changes the whole story. The wizard has been sleeping with the princess in Knights, The witch had a pure heart all along in Rose, the entire complicated story in the first two acts was a preamble to retell Red Riding Hood in See Amid, and Teresa is actually a guardian angel and the torture chamber was set up for each of the humans to confront their fatal flaws in the moments before they make the decision that will kill them in Abandon All Hope.
- Rewatch Bonus: Fenton layers some bonuses in the scripts that pay off only when watching or reading the script a second time, often in light of the plot twist.
- Self-Deprecation: In Rose, Abigail takes a shot at Knights of the Square Table, calling it a bad show. In See Amid, Santa Claus dismissively says he "always knew Vivian was nice" when the recent Naughty/Nice report comes out for Ireland.
- Shout-Out: Comes up on occasion. See Amid the Winter Snow has quite a few with Christmas song lyrics embedded into the dialogue, notably Daisy saying “Lately it feels like we’ve been Frozen — but for the first time in forever, I feel-“. Additionally, Teresa in Abandon All Hope says of the torture chamber, “This room has No Exit, because — well — you get it”.
- Take That!: Abandon All Hope is basically a string of Take Thats toward evangelical Christianity (including Liberty University) and performative wokeness.
- Take That, Critics!: Peter is known to word-for-word incorporate criticism and questions from editors and early readers into later drafts of his work.
- Walking Spoiler: There's normally a character who is hard to talk about without giving away significant plot points. Merlin, Vivian, Wolf, and Teresa
- Whole-Plot Reference: The Thousand-Year Rose is one for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, See Amid's third act is one for Little Red Riding Hood, Abandon All Hope’s is one for No Exit.
- World of Snark: A signature of Fenton’s work, seen best in Abandon All Hope. Melissa, Sean, and Teresa spend most of the script snarking at each other.
- Write Who You Know: Fenton cites in order to write realistic dialog, he sounds out character voices by imagining the voice of a non-fictional person he knows either in real life or a media figure.
