Melodrama. Ira Levin. 3 men, 2 women. Interior As Richard Watts Jr. outlined "...in the Vermont village of Greenfield
Center, there is a genial, benevolent and greatly loved old physician
who is very proud of his community. It is peopled with fine, wholesome
folk, and it appears that Heaven rewards the civic virtue by seeing
to it that mostly only those who are wicked at heart die. And the
good Dr. Cook, who is willing to go out on sick calls at any hour
of the day or night, is determined it should stay in that fortunate
condition. When a young physician, who had known and loved Dr. Cook
for years, returns to the village for a visit, he is delighted to
see his venerable friend and benefactor again. Then a problem of
medical ethics arises to haunt him. It may, he concedes, be excusable
for a doctor to kill off incurable patients and the hopelessly deformed.
But he thinks it is going too far to do away with disagreeable people
who happen to be a blot on the fair community." And it is his attempt
to make his mentor see reason on this point which brings on the gripping
climax of the play, in which the two doctors, young and old, are
pitted against each other in a scene of unforgettable, breath-stopping
suspense and high drama. A Vaudeville. Israel Horovitz. 4 men, 3 women, flexible casting. Open Stage. The hero, who is named Hero, is born onstage. Thereafter come scenes
of childhood, education, army service, and then marriage - as Hero
becomes Dr. Hero (PhD) and begins to assume the
"greatness" which he knows is destined to be his: As he moves forward
(including his especially hilarious entry into the advertising business)
his charisma - and ego - grow apace, and even old age fails to dim
the surging spirit which, through a long and turbulent life, has
won and sustained for him the singular title of "The World's Greatest
Man. Play. Crane Johnson. Freely adapted from the novel by Beam Stoker. 3 men, 4 women. Interior. Everyone is familiar with the dark tale of Dr. Seward, his fiancee
Lury, and their mysterious neighbour, Count Dracula, but here the
events take on intensified effect through the heightened action and
simplified staging of this fast-moving new version. Lury is suffering
from a strange malady; much to the concern of her aunt, Mrs. Harker,
and her intended, the scholarly Dr. Seward, and matters are hardly
helped by the disconcerting. presence o£ Renfield, whose bizarre
behavior (he eats flies and birds) is being observed by the doctor
for scientific purposes. Sensing that Lucy's illness may also be
rooted in some undefined and perhaps unnatural phenomena, Dr. Seward
has summoned the renowned metaphysician, Dr. Van Helsing (here portrayed
as a female character), to join them. Under her astute questioning
the very odd facts of Luey's case begin to emerge, and when their
neighbour from Carfax Hall, Count Dracula, pays a call, Van Helsing
begins to suspect the horrible truth. Thereafter it is a desperate
race to save Lury, and the others, from Draculâs evil clutches
- and, once and for all, to find and destroy the vampire in his secret
hiding place. Charles McKeown : Thriller 5M 2F (plus vampiresses!) Interior Set An exciting new version of this classic tale. The play opens just
after the mysterious death of Doctor Seward's fiancée, Lucy.
Before long, his neighbour, Count Dracula, has paid a visit and clearly
has his eyes on Mina, Dr Seward's sister. When Mina begins to display
the same symptoms as Lucy leading up to her death, there is much
cause for concern and the rest of the play becomes a desperate race
to save Mina from Dracula'. evil clutches. A ver,, lively and highly
amusing adaptation of this ever-popular story. Bram Stoker, adapted by Jane Thornton and John Godber : Thriller 6M 3F Flexible staging A new adaptation of the most chilling story of all time. True to
Stoker's original novel, Dracula is a fast-moving multi-layered masterpiece
of fear. As a sudden and mysterious storm whips the coast of England,
a young woman sleepwalks along the edge of a cliff. In the teeth
of the gale, a ship crashes through the harbour entrance, abandoned
except for an immense dog and fifty boxes of grave dust. The Transylvanian
Count Dracula has arrived in England. Immortal only as long as he
is able to drink the blood of the living, he pursues his victims
with brutally devastating effect. From the remote wilderness of Yorkshire
to a vast ruined castle near to London whose windows omit no light,
the race to end. Drama. Steven Dietz. 6 men, 4 women, flexible casting. Unit Set "I want your fear. For your fear, like a current, rushes through
your body. Your fear makes your heart pound, it renders your veins
rich and full. Your fear hemorrhages deliciously within you." This
new adaptation restores the suspense and seduction of Brain Stoker's
classic novel to the stage. As Count Dracula begins to exert his
will upon the residents of London, they try to piece together the
clues of his appearances - in a valiant attempt to save themselves
from a hideous fate. Rich with both humour and horror, this play
paints a wickedly theatrical picture of Stoker's famous vampire. Play. Douglas Watkinson The play enjoyed a successful run in London with Penelope Keith
and Mark Kingston. Mary, the insensitive, harsh-talking but vulnerable
'dragon' of the title is touring Wales with her lover, Frank. They
inadvertently back their van over a tent. Fearing the worst they
are relieved to find the tent empty. The young owners return, not
to apologies, but to a stream of Mary's invective. The interaction
of these four diverse personalities provides a constant flow of highly-charged
entertainment. Children's drama. Laurence Yep. A Chinese parable play At the turn of the century, a young boy living in China with his mother, travels to San Francisco, California, "Land of the Golden Mountain," to be with his father, Windrider, a kite maker who immigrated there a few years earlier to take advantage of the West Coast's booming expansionism. Now a laundryman, Windrider hopes to save enough money to bring his entire family over to the United States, but as his son Moon Shadow discovers, Windrider's heart really lies in his dream of building a flying machine like that of the Wright brothers. Spurred on by the conviction that he was once a dragon in a former incarnation, Windrider tinkers in his makeshift workshop, building model after model of seemingly magical flying machines, much to the wonderment of Moon Shadow. Surviving in the western world, however, demands that more crucial lessons be learned. There are racists attacks by angry San Francisco natives who resent the ever increasing presence of the Chinese; there are tensions between Moon Shadow and the father he hardly knows; and eventually, father and son will face the devastation of the 1906 earthquake which destroys their home and forces even more gruelling trials upon them. Through it all, and with the help of two Americans who believe in them, Windrider and Moon Shadow do build their flying machine and forge a deeper relationship. The results of their labour, though, will ultimately force Windrider to make a courageous decision about his and his family's future in the West. Play John Steppling. 6 men, 2 women. Unit Set The play begins in the grubby Los Angeles apartment of Wilson, an
ageing landlord who was once involved in the motion picture industry
but is now considering setting fire to his decrepit building for
the insurance money. Wilson, a closet homosexual who is haunted by
ethos of his young wife's voice, takes in Weldon, the drifter son
of a friend from his studio days who has arrived in town broke and
jobless. Also on hand are Marliss, a young prostitute, strung out
on drugs, who has abandoned her son to head west with Weldon; a hard-bitten
hustler named Drew, who once collected rents for Wilson and who now
pushes his wife aside to take up with Marliss; and a transvestite,
Penny, who lives with a greasy auto mechanic, Bill. Told in a series
of elliptical, but inter-related scenes, involving two or three of
the characters in various combinations, the action of the play has
a cumulative effect as it probes into their self-destructive lives
and attitudes, and follows their irreversible descent into the pit
of hopelessness and numbing futility. The Dreamer Examines His Pillow; a Heterosexual Homily John Patrick Shanley. 2 men, 1 woman. Unit Set The first scene of the play is a conversation between two lovers,
Tommy and Donna, who broke up some time earlier but who are obviously
still attracted to each other. Donna is enraged because Tommy, a
would-be artist, is now having an affair with her younger sister,
but Tommy, stretched out on his recliner (which, apart from a refrigerator
full of beer, comprises the entire furnishings of his spartan apartment),
is seemingly unmoved by her harangue. In the second scene Donna visits
her father, a once successful artist who stopped painting at the
death of his wife, whom he had bullied and betrayed despite his professed
love far her. Combative and complex (but also very funny) the father
sits and drinks and eventually gives in to his daughter's demand
that he force Tommy to marry. her or beat him úp. Then, in
the third and final scene, the father and Tommy confront each other,
with results which are sometimes men acing, sometimes antic, as a
lively discussion about art and women leads eventually to a sort
of tenuous truce - and a grudging recognition of the responsibility
which love, in its various guises, imposes. Play.
Peter Barnes In the bloody aftermath of the Wars of the Roses, Captain John Mallory leads a band of renegades across a war-torn landscape on a breathtaking quest in search of a dream-a dream of home. An apocalyptic vision packed with ravishing images, Dreaming is a haunting and brutally funny story of heroism and human values. Period 1471 |