Author Richard Dresser Says “Last Days Of Mickey and Jean” is Fictional

Playright is now working on a musical about “the curse of the Boston Red Sox”

Speaking to the Rockland County Times from his office home in Hastings-on-Hudson, overlooking the Hudson River, Dresser says he started writing about the real “Mickey,” James “Whitey” Bulger, before the alleged Boston mobster and his girlfriend Katherine Grieg were taken into custody, after being on the lam for almost 20 years.

“I visualized what a mobster and his girlfriend in such a situation might be like” and he admitted he has had no contact with “Whitey” or his girlfriend. Bulger and Katherine remain in custody in Boston and Dresser reports that Katherine may testify against Bulger, who has been charged with 19 murders in his long mobster career.

Dresser, who says he writes mostly comedy, said his next project is the story of the Boston Red Sox being the last major leaugue baseball team to sign a black player, Pumpsy Green, in 1959. “It will be a  musical” and too large a cast to do at Penguin Rep in Stony Point, where his current play started last week. Dresser added that he wants to do more with Penguin after the success of his play last season”Rounding Third” and now “Last Days.”

Dresser, born in Massachusettes near the Town of Worchester, says that the current play at Penguin Rep is the result of collaboration and rewrite with Penguin’s artistic director Joe Brancato. “The rewrite was terrific and the staging and production just magnificient,” says Dresser.

“We were able to bring out that Mickey showed kindness to Jean and that they had a very important relationship,” he said. He noted that ironically the real Mickey, Whitey Bulger, was a larger than life character in Boston and publicly spoke out against drugs, but was actually one of the largest drug dealers in the city.

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