Drama. Timothy Mason. 2 men, 3 women. Interior. 1950, rural Wisconsin. Faith is about to leave for the University
of Chicago when her mother, Eunice, suitcase in hand, announces that
she's going too. Desperate to leave the confines of a stony marriage,
she pleads for a last chance of escape. Faith, also eager to break
away from family and small town life, recognizes her mother's pain,
and though hesitant, relents. But Faith's sister, Charity, and brother-in-law,
Jerry, have already infopned the patriarchal Gunnar of his wife's
plan, and he threatens to cut off Faith's tuition money. The choice
is painful, but Eunice puts down her suitcase, takes off her hat
and Faith flees. 1953. Charity, the mother of twin boys, is nervously
practicing a speech she will give in tribute to Eunice at a mother-daughter
church banquet. Eunice is anxious to learn what Charity will say
about her, while Jerry is full of his plan to get Gunnar to sell
him a plot of land on which to build a drive-in movie theatre.. When
Jerry hears that Gunnar has sold the land to a rival with the same
business intentions, his darker, violent side reveals itself. 1956,
Thanksgiving. Faith returns home with her fiancee, Louis. While his
leftist politics cause tension in the dining room, the women come
and go in the kitchen, waiting on their men. Eunice fears that Faith
really does not truly love Louis, which Faith reluctantly admits.
Charity reveals her suspicions of Jerry's long-time infidelity and
Eunice talks to her daughters for the first time about the early
days of her luckless, loveless marriage. Although separated by age,
education and outlook, the three women are for a moment united. 1963,
New Year's. Eve. Gunnar, never seen but deeply felt throughout the
play, lies dying upstairs. Jerry hovers over him, drinking heavily
and making a shovW, of concern, while all the time making plans to
take over the family fortunes. Faith and Louis arrive, ostensibly
to pay respects, but really in response to a furtive phone call from
Charity, a plea for help to get her and her children out of a violent
marriage. Now faced with the possibility of freedom, the frightened
Charity recants her story. Louis, both a lawyer and magician, with
Eunice's help, uses compassion and sleight-ofhand to engineer Charity's
escape, but not before an explosion of terrifying violence. Play. Adapted by Rob Bettinson
from the novel by Catherine Cookson Set in 1910, this tells the story of one family's fight for physical
and moral survival in the poverty and squalor of the dockland slums
of Tyneside. At the centre is the apparently impossible love affair
between rugged docker John O' Brier and Mary Llewellyn, a schoolteacher.
With elements of tragedy, humour, intrigue and love, this simple
tale affords plenty of scope for imaginative and evocative production. Lanford Wilson : Drama 4M 4F 1 Interior 1 Exterior set Ken Talley, a disabled Vietnam war veteran and his lover Jed live
in the Talley family's large farmhouse in the American Midwest They
are visited for the summer holiday by Ken's sister June and her teenage
daughter, and also by Gwen and John, a would-be rock star and her
husband/manager, All are old friends from college, and over the years
since their days of student activism on campus, each has altered
their views and attitudes towards both past and present. As the action
progresses it emerges that Gwen is hoping to purchase the Talley
farm and convert it into a recording studio, but she runs into problems
when Ken's Aunt Sally arrives to scatter the ashes of her late husband
on the family's property. Through the course of the play, we see
the bittersweet effects of hopes, dreams and loss as the effects
of time and distance alter each character's perceptions of themselves
and each other. Play. N. J. Crisp Based on the author's own experiences, Fighting Chance is set
in a residential rehabilitation centre for neurological patients,
and charts the progress made by five patients over the course of
eight weeks. The five demonstrate the humour, frustration, anger
and pity of their situation, and help each other to progress, each
to a different degree, through the course of this funny and ultimately
optimistic play. Play.
Eduardo de Filippo, adapted by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall After twenty-five years Filumena is to be thrown over for a younger
woman. She pretends to be dying, inveigling Domenico into a 'deathbed'
marriage. When he proves the marriage null and void she informs him
she has three grown sons-one of them his. After trying in vain to
discover his son's identity he marries her. Filumena keeps the secret
and as the play ends they are fully reconciled, with every promise
of happiness before them. Period 1946 Play. Robert Schenkkan, 7 men, 1 woman (flexible casting) Unit Set. In 1878, while sailing off the coast of Nova Scotia, the Elizabeth
Watson sights the San Christobal, apparently abandoned.
When a boarding party climbs aboard, however, they find the San
Christobal's cargo intact as well as the remains of the ship's
company crew and passengers. They also find a diary belonging to
a cabin boy. Reading the diary reveals life on board the ship and
the incidents leading to the tragic end of the crew and passengers.
Tom, the cabin boy, tried all his life to please others, trying
hardest to please Lieutenant Brand, his surrogate father since
Tom was orphaned as a boy. On this last trip, the San Christobal carried
a mysterious Countess, with whom Tom was enchanted. Lt. Brand is
also enchanted with this elusive and intoxicating woman, and has
an affair with her aboard ship. Tom finds out about the affair
which upsets him, yet then the Countess takes Tom to bed too, confusing
him even more. The Countess, regretting her momentary lapse with
Tom, goes to Lt. Brand and accepts his proposal of marriage. The
wedding takes place without Tom and unable to deal with this rejection,
Tom puts rat poison in the wine and kills everyone on board, then
disappears. The captain of the Elizabeth Watson is transfixed
with the mystery of the story of the San Christobal, and
the true ghost story told by the ghost of Tom. Play. Ken Whitmore and Alfred Bradley Charlie Nicholson has writer's block, but when he is offered a commission
he sees a way to escape his debts. Merlin Foster, an actor, has specific
needs: Charlie's script must contain the perfect method and alibi
for the murder of Merlin's wife, only then can it be theatrically
convincing. Eden, Merlin's young wife, is to remain in the dark so
he can surprise her with the play ... A murderous and surprising
tale. Play. Olwen Wymark : M3 F5 (variable). A bare stage. At the age of twenty Verity was charged by the police with damaging
a chair by fire in the mental hospital where she was a patient. Later
she was committed to Broadmoor 'from where she may not be discharged
without permission of the Home Secretary'. Using a technique of multiple
characterisation the play seeks to investigate in depth the personality
of the young girl - to 'find her' and at the same time studies the
effects of her behaviour on those around her. Michael Pertwee : Comedy 3M 5F Interior set When Rosie Lake, the proprietress of the Delamere Private Hotel,
stumbles across the strangulated body of one of her residents, she
faints! When Rosie comes to, there is no body and no evidence to
prove a crime ever took place. She tries in vain to convince her
other lodgers, but with her drinking reputation, it is all taken
with a pinch of salt. That is, until strange things begin to occur
... Comedy. Jean Kerr. 3 men, 3 women, 2 boys. Interior. Katy and Jeff Cooper have three sons (one a Harvard senior), a comfortable
suburban home, and the prospect of a full professorship (English)
for Jeff. But somehow the bloom has worn off their marriage: Jeff
is at that dangerous age where an attractive student has caught his
eye; while Katy is more receptive than she might admit to the attentions
of the attractive bachelor professor who rents their garage apartment.
Yet when their Harvard son returns home with a lovely young actress
who proves to be his mistress it rather shocks his conventional parents
- but also triggers the hilarious, and headlong, events which form
the central action of the play. Fortunately the resultant crises
are resolved in due course, and with all the skill, taste and perceptive
humor which have become hallmarks of Jean Kerr's unique comic gift. Fires In the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities Play.
Anna Deavere Smith, In 1991, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, an Hasidic man's car jumped a curb, killing Gavin Cato, a 7-year old black child. Later, in what appears to have been an act of retaliation on the part of a faction of the black community, Yankel Rosenbaum, an Hasidic rabbinical student, was stabbed and killed. The ensuing riots that wracked Crown Heights' previous atmosphere of tolerance for its divergent cultures made national headlines and pointed to the growing infraction of racial and cultural relations across America. Drawing verbatim from a series of over fifty interviews with Crown Heights' residents, politicians, activists, religious leaders, gangs, street dwellers, victims and perpetrators alike, Anna Deavere Smith has created a theatrical event distilling the lives and voices of twenty-nine of the incident's survivors into a visionary amalgam, the import of which touches upon every American regardless of race, colour or beliefs. Play Ben Orkow. 11 men, 2 women (many of the male roles may be doubled). Open Stage. Befriending a group of strolling players who have been thrown into
her father's jail, the lovely young Felicia helps them escape, and
then heads off to London with their promise that they will assist
in furthering her theatrical ambitions - even though the laws of
the time prohibited females on stage. Disguising herself as a boy
(which leads to a number of tense - and funny - situations), and
with no help from her supposed "friends," Felicia meets both Shakespeare
and Richard Burbage, the leading actor of his company. Taken on as
a stagehand, "Felix" soon progresses to featured women's roles -
culminating in a luminous command performance of Romeo and Juliet
for Queen Elizabeth. In the end Felicia is found out, but mercifully
forgiven, while along the way the play teems with humour, colourful
action and a stirring sense of the places, people and mood of the
fascinating era which it so eloquently evokes. Poetic Drama. Christopher Fry. 10 men, 3 women. Interior/Exterior. (Pharaoh's palace, Miriam's tent.) Period 1200 BC. The story is set in Egypt just before the great Exodus of the Jews.
Moses has been away from Egypt for several years, and the Pharaoh
has summoned him back to help with military campaigns. When Moses
comes, however, his sole concern is for his people, who are used
as slaves, cruelly treated and abused. During his absence Moses has
become aware of his mission as leader of the Jews, and his loyalty
to his Egyptian foster family has had to be put behind. The Pharaoh's
son, Rameses, is a boy just emerging into manhood, who has never
forgotten his hero-worship of Moses. He cannot accept his father's
careless cruelty and disregard for the Jews in Egypt, and he wants
to establish the old relationship with Moses. The Pharaoh and Moses
come together, and the Pharaoh makes promises which are broken, one
after the other; and following each broken promise comes one of the
Plagues, until at last the Plague of Darkness is on the land. The
moment has come when Moses will lead his people into freedom, and
the signal for the Exodus is given by the last of the Plagues - the
Death of the First Born. Every first born son of Egypt is to die,
only the Jews are exempt; and it's not until the plague is beginning
that Moses realises that Rameses too will be destroyed by it. Though
he runs to the palace where he and the Pharaoh's sister who had mothered
him try to keep Rameses alive through their own lives, Rameses, too,
is, struck by the Plague and dies. Moses goes out to lead his people
away, the seal put on their freedom by Rameses' death. (Revised version). Comedy. Derek
Benfield The peaceful atmosphere of a hotel on the Italian Riviera is shattered
by the arrival of Agatha, an outspoken widow, and her timid sister,
Fiona. Agatha crushes all protests as she rounds up the guests into
communal games, her unflagging spirit of togetherness invading the
private lives of the other characters. All the ingredients of package
holidays - late flights, double bookings, foreign food etc. - provide
an evening of uproarious and innocent fun. (Original version.) Farce. Derek
Benfield Comedy. Nicky Silver. 3 men, I woman (fexible casting). Interior. Arloc Simpson is fabulously wealthy but desperately lonely, living
a solitary.life for many years. When one day he reads the obituary
of a former lover, he knows at once he's in trouble. "Pneumonia is
a code word when you read it in the paper!" For the first time, he
wrestles with the idea of his own mortality, and has a blood test,
the results of which he cannot bring himself to read. The envelope
sits, unopened, taunting him. "It's my enemy. And my apartment isnt
big enough for both of us!" So he leaves, and walks, and walks, and
walks ...and meets HIM! Arloc meets someone he believes may be the
great love of his life, Boyd, a young runaway with no family who
is working as an angel at Radio City's Christmas Spectacular. Arloc
invites him up for a drink, but when Boyd readies to leave, Arloc
is terrified that his last chance for happiness will slip away, so
kidnaps him. At that moment, Arloc's mother, Nessa, descends upon
him. A flamboyant, fast-talking, heavy-drinking promiscuous woman,
Nessa has fled her loveless marriage and, with nowhere else to go,
seeks refuge with her son. When she stumbles upon the angel, bound
and gagged in the closet, she realizes her son is in trouble, and
asks Boyd to stay by paying him, "I'll pay you ... one pearl each
day you stay and pretend to love him." Thus the three of them live
together and form what turns out to be fragile, wonderful "menage
a trois' . It isn't until Carl, Nessa's husband, appears, and demands
his wifereturn, that our trio realizes the magic quality of their
relationship. Nessa, uses her love for Boyd to wound Carl, but it
is her willingness to give him up that surprises Arloc, She proves
herself eager to sacrifice, to start again and to finally have the
relationship she had avoided with her child. Knowing this, Arloc
can finally live with the contents of that dreaded envelope, whatever
that may be. |