Composers and their stage works 



 

King of Hearts

Comedy Jean Kerr and Eleanor Brooke.
6 men, 2 women, 2 small boys, 1 dog. Interior.

Larry Larkin draws a comic strip and, to put it bluntly, would take all prizes as the world's No. 1 egotist. Larry is engaged to his secretary Dunreath Henry, a very nice girl, who sees Larry as he sees himself - not as everyone else sees him. To create a triangle, Francis X. Dignan then appears; ostensibly he's to draw Larry's strip while Larry takes a month off to honeymoon with Dunreath; but Dignan immediately decides his purpose in life is to save Dunreath from what he calls "the fate worse than the fate worse than death." There's also Norman, a small boy ftom Australia, whom Larry adopts to show what a good guy he really is. Dignan and Norman, between them, eventually manage to convince Dunreath that she's really in love with Dignan, and the three of them go off together while Larry happily broods on his own greatness.
ISBN: 0-8222-0616-1

The King of the United States

Play with music. Jean-Claude van Itallie.
4 men, 3 women. Unit Set

Creating a mosaic of imaginative and stylistically diverse scenes, interspersed with original songs; the author provides a close and revealing examination of the American penchant for selecting leaders who remind them as much as possible of themselves. Sharply satiric, the action underscores not only the platitudes and tawdriness of American politics, but also the blind reflexiveness of the voters. People do, in effect, get what they deserve - and it is increasingly apparent that the line between president and king, democracy and monarchy (or even totalitarianism), has grown slimmer than one might care to contemplate.
ISBN: 0-8222-0617-X

Kingdom Come

Play. Amlin Gray. 8 men, 2 women (many roles can be doubled). Unit Set

The story begins in Norway, where the stern Lutheran Church teaches that emigration to America is sinful and that anyone who defies the church's stand will be punished by a vengeful God. Two brothers, Jens and Thomas Ansen, who live with a third brother, Kal, on his farm, defy the church and leave for Wisconsin when Kal announces his intention to marry, as Kal's farm is too poor to support so many people. The Pastor Dagsrood is furious because their departure will encourage others to leave, and he accuses the precentor of the church, Harstad, of weakness in teaching God's will. But Harstad, dubious that America is such a swamp of irreligion as the church contends, informs Dagsrood that he too has decided to emigrate, in answer to the call sent by some Norwegians in Wisconsin for a pastor. His defiance persuade others who are suffering poor harvests to leave Norway as well, including Kal Ansen and his young bride, Kaja. The second act dramatises, with stunning effectiveness, the settlers' struggles in seeking a new and better life in a strange, and often hostile, country. The strength which enables them to surmount not only obstacles like blizzards and locusts but also the tortured consciences and twisted faith that tormented the immigrants' spirits and minds.
ISBN- 0-8222-0614-5

Kingdom of Earth

Play Tennessee Williams. (Produced in New York as The Seven Descents of Myrtle.)
2 men, 1 woman. Unit Set: Showing Exterior/Divided Interior.

Lot is a weak and ailing youth who suffers from an attachment to the memory of his late mother. He has come to his ancestral home, a derelict house on the edge of a soon to be flooded river, with his new bride, Myrtle, a television actress. Somewhat reminiscent of Blanche Dubois from Williams's classic play A Streetcar Named Desire, Myrtle is a luckless young woman trapped in.a world of romantic illusions, one of which is to nurse Lot back to health so they can consummate their marriage. Myrtle soon discovers, however, that Lot only wants to use her to steal the deed to the property from his embittered half-brother, Chicken, a Stanley Kowalski type, brimming with masculinity and assertiveness ... and a few romantic plans of his own.
ISBN: 0-8222-0615-3

The Kingfisher.

Comedy. William Douglas Home
M2 (70, old) F1 (60). A garden.

Cedric is a best-selling novelist living comfortably with his butler, Hawkins, who has served him for fifty years. There have been many women in Cedric's richly disordered life but now he is contemplating marriage to the only one he has loved. The object of his proposal, Evelyn, has just been to her husband's funeral, whom she married on the rebound from Cedric. Now she is confronted by Cedric's charming and candid proposal and must make a decision.
ISBN 0 573 61130 0

Kiss and Tell

Comedy:. E Hugh Herbert.
9 men, 6 women (including boys and girls). Interior.

Corliss Archer, going on sixteen, is a trial to her family and at the same time a pure delight. She can't stand not being grown up, and when Private Earhart is entertained by the Archers, Corliss plays the young lady and almost precipitates a catastrophe when she considers it a point of honour not to give away the secret that Mildred is the girl her brother Lennie has married. It started when Mildred and Corliss sold kisses for charity and Mildred was accused by the Archers of being a bad influence. This led to complications that seemed serious to the parties concerned, but are delightfully funny to others. Meantime, Lennie became engaged to Mildred in spite of the feud between the Pringles (Mildred's family) and the Archers, and Corliss had to be let in on the secret. That was nothing compared with what happened when the Pringles, on what seemed good evidence, gleefully informed the Archers that Corliss is going to have a baby. As a matter of fact it is Mildred who is in that situation and Corliss, sworn to secrecy, will not speak. This being so, the Archers and Pringles take Corliss' silence as an admission of guilt. Not until the very end is Corliss cleared.
ISBN: 0-8222-0618-8

A Kiss on the Bottom

Comedy. Frank Vickery
F7 (20s, middle-age, 60s). May be played by F5. 2F extras. A hospital ward.

Three women are in East Glamorgan hospital for cancer treatment. Each woman must cope not only with the uncertainties of her health, but with the inevitable secrets and half-truths which are maintained by relations and nursing staff. It's up to Marlene, the strongest and most outspoken of them all, to keep the atmosphere in the ward cheery. Her activities make her bedfellows' time in hospital somewhat more interesting than it would otherwise have been!
ISBN 0 573 13004 3

Kiss the Boys Good-bye

Comedy. Clare Boothe. 10 men, 3 women. 3 Interior.

Cindy Lou Bethany is a Southern lamb in a house-party of cynical, cold Northern wolves. She confidently expects to be chosen for the role of Velvet O'Toole in the movie version of the novel, Kiss the Boys Good-Bye, a popular Southern tale that has swept the nation. (A not-too-subtle reference to Gone With the Wind.) After making a spectacle of herself, Cindy Lou wakes up completely disillusioned, but not to defeat. Visions of the shame of General Sherman and a long line of Southern gentlemen and ladies will not permit her to accept defeat at the hands of Damn Yankees. Cindy Lou learns she has been brought to see the film's famous producer as part of a plot by the director, who wants to cast an actress friend in part of Velvet, and hopes that the contrast between that actress and the inept Southern belle will do the trick. But Cindy Lou brings all her charm to bear, and precipitates amazing crises. And as a result the blasé house guests learn a few things, and the Northerners are completely routed. In the end, Cindy Lou finds she may have anything she wants, and she is not slow to make her choice.

Kith and Kin

Comedy Oliver Hailey. 3 men, 2 women. Interior.

Coming together for the funeral of their father (whom they all detested and, on occasion, tried to kill off) three bothers assemble at the family homestead in rural Texas. The eldest, Darryl, is a thrice-divorced ne'er-do-well who relishes the memory of having forcibly introduced his siblings to the world of aberrant sex; Big Boots, the middle brother, is a confused and threatening type who has been serving a jail sentence for strangling his wife; while Tommy Joe, the youngest of the three, is a "sensitive" sort who gives piano lessons and has been looking after Little Boots, his brother's young son, during the latter's stay in prison. Completing the cast are Charlene, the town bawd, whose favors all the brothers have shared, but who now believes that she is on the verge of a permanent relationship with Tommy Joe; and Sarah, the recently widowed (and now pregnant) housemaid who has also conceived a desperate, but unrequited, passion for Tommy Joe. Trouble looms when Big Boots, who now earns his living massaging males in Dallas, demands the return of his son, much to the distress of his brother. Questions of sexual confusion arise hilariously from the rowdy, macho confrontations which ensue, and long-standing resentments test whether blood is, indeed, thicker than,water. In the end, however, a sort of tenuous truce is achieved, with passions still simmering but with the reassuring hope that family feeling will, in the long run, bring order out of the antic chaos which still reigns as the curtain falls.
ISBN: 0-8222-0619-6