Spotlight Cover Story Persistence Pays Off For M.V. Playwright Alan David Perkins   by Susan Lin, Assistant Editor February 28, 2002 Alan David Perkins, (r.), author and director of “Second Bananas,” now performing in Forest Hills.      Although his plays had been turned down for nine years, playwright Alan David Perkins never gave up submitting them to the Parkside Players theater company for possible production.    “If it’s a comedy, I’d submit four or five,” said Perkins, 39, who lives in Middle Village. “It took many years, but doing an original is taking a chance.”    By staging a debut instead of a reliable audience-pleaser, the theater company could end up making less money than it spent on the production.    But, last fall, Perkins succeeded. Parkside Players announced it would stage his comedy, “Second Bananas,” next season.    “We wanted to try something new and different, and Alan’s was particularly funny,” said Diane Jobsky, a producer at Parkside Players.    Departing from the long-standing theater hits, most recently, “A Man For All Seasons,” that the company is known for, Perkins's “Second Bananas” will be only the second original debut Parkside Players has done in 22 years. “Don’t Touch That Dial” was the first in 1980.    Perkins's “Second Bananas” is running at the Grace Lutheran Church in Forest Hills until this Saturday. The 90-minute comedy is about a group of actors who try to sabotage the production they are working on.    Perkins was patient during the nine years that he was trying to convince Parkside Players to stage one of his plays.    As a regular member of the theater group, he ushered, house managed, produced, handled sound and light, served as treasurer and once acted.    Perkins also married another Parkside Player, Miriam Denu, in 1998. Denu, 43, is a social studies teacher at PS 100 in Ozone Park and, Perkins said, the main reason he became a member of Parkside Players eight years ago.    Another play by Perkins, “Nobody Knows I’m a Dog” debuted at the Queens Festival of New Plays at Queens College in 1996.    The script involves six people who troll the Internet’s chat lines under fantasy personae. “They’re unable to connect to people,” said Perkins, whose regular job is as a network engineer at a law firm in Times Square.    Since Queens College, “Nobody Knows I’m a Dog” has been staged about 20 times throughout the world, including Germany, England, Taiwan and Canada as well as in several productions in the United States including the Parkside Players.    Perkins earns some royalties from the productions as they occur. “I charge 2.5 percent of the house, which I think is a bargain.”    Although only two of his full-length plays have seen the stage, Perkins has written 17 since 1989.    “I got a computer (that year). I have the terrible problem that I can type far faster than I can write, so when I started typing, things would flow,” Perkins said, explaining his productivity.    When writing plays, Perkins avoids characters who are boring. “I’m not a big fan of straight drama, people being people. It’s got to be something a little quirky, heightened reality.”    One of his characters, Production Assistant Lydia, in “Second Bananas,” wears headphones wherever she goes and is constantly shuffling the actors around.    The character, played by his wife, was also inspired by her, Perkins said. “I incorporated her teacher voice. She frequently will use a very pointed, very sharp tone when trying to control children and that is the character I captured.”    Five years from now, Perkins would like to be a working playwright or screen writer.    Besides writing plays, Perkins also spends some of his free time playing the French horn.    Planning on pursuing music as a career, he had majored in music while attending college at the University of Alabama.    By graduation, Perkins was one of the top-ranked horn players in the state, and represented Alabama in the 1984 summer Olympics in Los Angeles.    Perkins moved to New York when he was 26 because “I had to be here.” Once in Queens, he began to be disillusioned by his musical career. “It was never creative enough for me. It was re-interpretive, but not like creating a play.”    Another one of Perkins’s talents is baking cakes. His mother used to decorate cakes professionally. And today he will sometimes surprise his colleagues with a home-baked and decorated cake, such as at the opening party for “Second Bananas.”    “It’s a nice creative outlet, and cake’s good to eat,” he concluded.