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Drama. Will Kern. 4 men, 3 women (flexible casting). Unit Set Hellcab is a 70-minute collection of scenes from a day in
the life of a Chicago cabbie. Beginning with a 630 am. trip by a
born-again couple. The cabbie's long days journey proceeds with fares
from, among many others, a dangerous trio of druggies, a piggish
mini-capitalist, a benumbed rape victim, an argumentative pair of
fellow cabbies, a drunken woman on welfare, a smug lawyer, a randy
couple on the way to a motel, and two boisterous New Yorkers out
on the town. Alternately frightening, hilarious and poignant, these
sharply etched blackouts and cameos are capped by a stunning and
very touching final scene. Despite rough language and some truly
nasty bits, the play is a joyous and spirited choice for the Christmas
season. Play.
Alan Ayckbourn In a fortified, steel shuttered flat in North London, lonely composer
Jerome sits surrounded by sophisticated, high-tech audio-visual equipment
with only a robot nanny for company. Jerome desperately wants to
get his teenage daughter back from his estranged wife, and enlists
the services of Zoë, an unemployed actress, in his cunning plan.
When his plan doesn't work, Jerome has to improvise and it's amazing
what can be done with some new microchips and a screwdriver ... Comedy:. Kurtz Gordon. 6 men, 9 women. Interior Adele, Wilma and Carol, daughters of Mrs. Claire Sutton, a widow
who neglects her home for politics, are left to the care of their
mother's private secretary. The girls always manage to change the
status of the various secretaries to that of a personal maid, and
eventually lose them. A new secretary arrives and when the girls
learn that her name is Henrietta, and is to be their mother's eighth
secretary, she is dubbed Henrietta The Eighth. The living room is
Liberty Hall for their boy friends, Dizzy Lucas and Baggypants Baldwin,
and the Coke set and the dancing Blitz Brothers, who represent the
High School youth of the town, breeze in and out as though the house
were a Community Centre. When Henrietta arrives, the girls begin
to treat her like a personal maid, but Henrietta straightens them
out, looks after their love affairs and exposes Annabelle Mason,
Claire's political opponent, for what she is. They are all surprised
when they (earn that Henrietta is a novelist who became a secretary
to study them as copy for her next novel, but her interest in the
family turns to affection and she stays on to solve their problems,
bringing contentment to the household. Comedy. George Batson and Donn Harman. 5 men, 6 women. Interior This uproarious comedy concerns the complications that ensue when
a popular television personality comes to a suburban town to open
a new supermarket. The Robinsons and their neighbours are average
citizens but when Monica Marshall arrives in their midst the results
are mirth provoking and unexpected. The cramped household is increased
by Clara Jones, attractive young spinster, whom Monica sets about
helping to trap the elusive Mr. Higbee. However, without the aid
of her script writer, Monica gets herself and the Robinson family
into many hilarious and outrageous situations. Young PFC Ken Robinson,
having met Monica at the army camp, has been nursing a deep infatuation
for her. This causes Helen, the girl next door, to resort to drastic
strategy to regain his interest. Further fun develops when Tim Hayden,
ambitious boy-reporter covering the TV star's trip for the local
paper, releases the news that she and young Ken are engaged. This
brings Ken's Commanding Officer quickly to the scene. He and Monica
are secretly wed. From then on laughter mounts and tempers rise.
At the final curtain a miracle has happened, and Clara Jones has
won a proposal from her prince charming, but not by practising what
Monica Marshall has preached. An extremely erratic television set
and a near-sighted lady plumber add to the mirth. Peter Whelan : Drama 5M 2F 1G Flexible staging The play is based on actual events which occurred in Stratford-upon-Avon
in the summer of 1613, when William Shakespeare's eldest daughter
Susanna was publicly accused of having a sexual liaison with Rafe
Smith, a married neighbour and family friend. Despite a recanting
by her accuser, the young gentleman Jack Lane, the following month
Susanna sues for slander in the court of Worcester Cathedral. Her
husband, the respected Stratford physician John Hall, is desperate
for her to clear her name in order to save his practice and gives
her his complete support - but how can he avoid the fact that one
summer's night while he was away from Stratford, Rafe Smith was seen
secretly leaving their herbal garden? Faced with political divisions
within the church, the hearing in the bishop's court becomes a risky
gamble as three people's private lives are subjected to the glare
of intense public scrutiny in this emotional thriller whose result
is anything but certain. Play.
Stephen Churchett Three generations of a family come to terms with change over the course of a year. Stephen Churchett's elegiac new play considers how we deal with what's handed down to us, both the tangible and the not-so-tangible. How do we confront our mortality, and if we do live on in some way, what is the nature of our immortality? ' ... infinitely touching in its weary acceptance of the personal and environmental destruction wrought in the name of progress.' Spectator Play. Matthew Weiss. 3 men, 1 woman, 2 boys. Unit set The play centres on Hesh, a Bronx father who can't help but further
alienate his already withdrawn sons, Sammy and Jacob, and his desperate
wife, Bianca Despite all his good intentions, Hesh drives his wife
and kids to despair, and drives them away as Bianca kidnaps her own
children to save them, taking them to her native Switzerland. Hesh
is left all alone. Years later, Sammy returns to the Bronx to try
and re-connect with this past and with his father from so long ago.
Both Sammy and Hesh have deteriorated over time, victims of their
own assorted personal demons, yet, somehow, they manage to connect.
They get through to each other - in the tiniest, most intimate level
- in one devastating moment on the beach. Play Oliver Hailey. 3 men, 4 women. 2 Iinteriors/ 1 Simplified. Ashley Knight (real name Orville Sheden), a leading man, has decided
to live on-stage in the set of his current hit. The play being a
sophisticated comedy, the set is quite lavish. As he is settling
down, brandy in hand, a woman comes out of the empty orchestra and
asks directions for getting out of the theatre. She has fallen asleep
during the performance and now the doors are locked. This is Lula
Roca, a rather plain and frumpy young widow whose husband, a stagehand,
was recently killed by a falling sandbag. Ashley persuades her to
come on stage, and then to stay with him for the night. Soon she
is drawn into the realms of illusion in which Ashley has sought escape
from his own rather drab reality. The next morning she goes off to
round up her best friend to show her the magical life into which
she has fallen, and while she is gone Ashley is visited by by his
oafish son - the inescapable reminder of the limiting responsibilities
from which he has tried to remove himself. From then on, it is a
matter of conflicting worlds. Eventually the pressure of the "outside" one
forces the two lovers to flee to another theatre, this time with
a drab, prison set, but Ashley (with an assist from the light man)
manages to conjure up a sense of excitement and beauty just the same.
In the end, however, the truth must be faced. Sooner or later reality
will come nipping at their heels, with responsibilities which cannot
be ignored. Their idyll is illusive at best. Ashley goes back to
his family, Lula to what's left of her own life - a little sadder,
but a little wiser too. |