Composers and their stage works 



 

Communicating Doors.

Comedy. Alan Ayckbourn
M3 (30x-70) F3 (25-45). A hotel suite.

An ingenious time-warp comedy which begins in the year 2014 when a prostitute, Poopay, is summoned to a deluxe London hotel suite by an infirm elderly businessman to witness a document detailing the murder of his two wives by his psychopathic business associate. Poopay finds herself in the year 1994 confronting Ruella, the second wife, and when Ruella finds herself in 1974 with the first wife she decides to rewrite the future!
ISBN 0 573 01740 9

The Company of Heaven

Drama. John Glore. 3 men, 3 women, 1 boy. Unit set

Joanna's Air Force husband has a new command in England, and the transfer has taken its toll on Joannâs state of mind. One night she feels an unusual presence in the sky, which soon becomes connected to two other mysterious sky sightings: Julie, a local woman, claims to have had an encounter with fairies; and Charlie, an airman under the command of Joannas husband, reports having seen a bright, metallic disc take off in the woods and flash across the night sky. Joanna befriends both Julie and Charlie and becomes involved in their lives as the outside world begins to learn of their alleged encounters. Prosper Blondlot, a flamboyant paranormatist, arrives to capitalize on Julie's experience, while Karla Banning, a government debunker, attempts to, quash Charlie's story. Caught up in a battle between "faith" and "skepticism," and torn between her own beliefs and doubts, Joanna finds herself becoming alienated from her unsympathetic husband. Other lives also begin to fray, as Julie's husband moves to take custody of their child, and Charlie's military standing is threatened by his refusal to cooperate with Karla Banning. When new information further obscures the truth about the entire affair, Joanna turns in desperation to Prosper for answers to her deeply troubling questions. She begins to find her way out of the darkness when she decides to leave her husband and to help Julie and her son. escape his father. As the play ends, the two women find themselves at Avebury Monument, a centuries-old stone circle that testifies to the ever-present human search for a connection to the great unknown.
ISBN: 0-8222-1457-1

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)

Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield : Comedy 3M Flexible staging

Shakespeare may be turning in his grave, but the show that's become a cult classic contains all 37 plays (plus sonnets) in just 97 minutes. As the comedies aren't anywhere near as funny as the tragedies, all sixteen have been condensed into 'Four Weddings and a Transvestite', the history plays are transformed into a game of American football, Othello is performed in rap and Titus Andronicus, becomes a TV cookery programme. Hamlet is staged first as a psychological exploration of Hamlet's Ego and Ophelia's id, then performed in a matter of minutes and, for the finale, performed backwards. For lovers of Shakespeare everywhere. 

Confusions.

Five inter-linked one-act plays. Alan Ayckbourn
M3 F2 (minimum cast). A living-room, a bar, a restaurant, a marquee, a park.

These five short plays deal riotously, but with sharply pointed undertones, with the human dilemma of loneliness; a mother unable to escape from baby talk (Mother Figure), a disastrous fete (Gosforth's Fete), an unsuccessful seduction attempt (Drinking Companion), a fraught dinner encounter (Between Mouthfuls) and the final play, A Talk In The Park, sums up, with five self-immolated characters on park benches.
ISBN 0 573 11073 5

Conjugal Rites.

Play. Roger Hall
M 1 (late 40s) F1 (mid 40s). A bedroom.

A middle-aged couple, Barry and Gen, are celebrating their twenty-first anniversary - in bed. It begins amiably enough - it's a time for reflection and celebration, after all. But the rewards of middle-aged married life are doubtful, and gradually, the picture darkens as they confront the spectres of death, physical decline and adultery that surround them.

The Conscience of Sergeant Cluff

Leslie Sands : Drama 5M 3F Interior set

The play from is set in an isolated farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors, where an investigation is underway following the suspicious death of Tom Norton, a local farmer who died in mysterious circumstances. Sergeant Caleb Cluff, now retired from the service and living in the village but unable to put his investigative mind at rest, is reluctantly drawn into the ensuing tangle of accusations and recriminations due to his relationship with the Norton family and in particular with Norton's widow, Nell. Her daughter Kathleen has encouraged village gossip by her lack of compassion for her father's death and, taunted by her cousin Ritchie, Kathleen soon comes to believe that Cluff may indeed be her real father. When Ritchie is discovered drowned in a local canal in questionable circumstances, Cluff battles wits with the local CID to solve both puzzles as the misery and grief from a lifetime of self-doubt and guilt is brought explosively to the surface in this very poignant and gripping drama.
ISBN: 0 85676 145 1

The Constant Wife.

Comedy. W. Somerset Maugham
M4 (40s) F5 (30s, 40, elderly). A drawing-room.

When Mortimer Durham storms into the Middletons' home revealing that Constance's husband is having an affair with his wife, Constance refuses to create a scene. A year later, and financially independent, Constance feels entitled to sexual independence. She announces that she will, as John has done, take a short revivifying break by having a holiday with an early admirer, leaving John first outraged and then appreciative of his remarkable wife.
ISBN 0 573 01077 3

Continental Divide

Comedy. Oliver Hailey. 2 men, 2 women. Interior.

Lucille and Cullum are wealthy New Yorkers living as virtual prisoners in their lavish Fifth Avenue apartment, the entire block being held in a state of siege by rebelling domestic servants. They are, however, allowed a visit by their new in-laws, "Mr. John" and Mae, who hail from Arkansas and qualify as simple folk themselves. Thereafter the complications multiply uproariously, as the urbane Cullum struggles (at no small peril) to be; civil to the surly Mr.'John (who is in the garbage business, and a confessed murderer as well); while his wife tries to persuade Mae (who is dazzled by "money people') that she need not repay their hospitality by cleaning house furiously and doling out copious samples of her homemade pickled pigs feet. And so it goes until, in a final irony, Lucille (with Mr. John) runs the blockade disguised as her house guest -leaving Cullum to hold the fort and fend off the down-home ministrations of her starry-eyed replacement.
ISBN: 0-8222-0237-9

The Continental Quilt.

Farce. Joan Greening
M4 (middle-age) F6 (22, 30s, 45). A living-room.

Mike is looking forward to a pleasant stay with girlfriend Gloria. Scarcely has the curtain risen than a ring of the doorbell shatters his plans-his brother Dick seeking help after being thrown out by his wife, Marion, following her discovery of him in the bedroom with his neighbour Angela. There follows the most hectic evening of Mike's life and an even more hectic morning as he tries to sort everything out.
ISBN 0 573 11057 3