Books by John Nicholas Schweitzer

"Guilty or Not" is an expressionistic trip through the American criminal justice system. It is a two-act, full-length play. After a long night of drinking, Pat Barlow is arrested for a crime he doesn't remember. He goes to the police station for an interview, makes an initial court appearance, goes to the public defender's office, returns to court, retains an attorney, returns to court again, goes with his attorney twice to the district attorney's office, and makes a final court appearance, never completely understanding what's going on. Legal scenes alternate with scenes in Pat's apartment, and as he becomes more obsessed with the legal process, his relationship with his wife deteriorates and eventually disintegrates. The sets and scenes are intended to become more bizarre as the play progresses. In the end, Pat is convicted of an offense, though not the one for which he was originally arrested, and he reports to jail. Similarities to Kafka's "The Trial" are obvious and unavoidable, but the danger of this work being derivative was considered throughout its writing and I concluded that any portrait of the criminal justice system will inevitably bear a resemblance to that classic work. Although the play is written around a conventional heterosexual marriage relationship, each part was conceived as potentially being played by a person of either gender.

Six short plays performed between 2009 and 2019. "Potions and Pets" is a one-act comedy on the theme of "if your pets could talk."  "One Step Braver" is the true story of Ellory Schempp''s protest against the reading of Bible passages and The Lord''s Prayer in his Abington, Pennsylvania, high school in 1956, which led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1962.  "The Reunion that Wasn''t" tells the story of an American veteran of World War II who returns to the town on Italy where he fell in love with a local girl, but his meeting with the girl-turned-woman forces him to face a picture of himself completely at odds with his self-image.  "Remembrance" is a family story centered on a woman nearing death in a hospice, who talks for her nephew about the meaning of life and death, and who reveals a secret to her brother that makes him realize he isn''t the only person dealing with unbearable memories.  "Was Justice Served?" contrasts the actions of a World War II veteran who liberated a German prison camp with his court-martial for mistreating an SS officer. "Male Bonding" is a humorous look at the shallowness of men''s emotional lives.