Composers and their stage works 



 

A Sting in the Tale

Play. Brian Clemens and Dennis Spooner
M3 (30s, 40s) F2 (30s). A study.

Two crime-writing playwrights are endeavouring to complete a blockbuster to pay off their mounting debts - or are they? As the plot develops they realise their full potential - who better to accomplish the perfect murder than themselves? Forbes's nagging wife, Ann, is the perfect victim. Forbes's partner mistakenly kills their secretary; from here the play twists and turns so much that it is difficult to know who has been murdered and by whom.
ISBN 0 573 01645 3

Straight and Narrow

Comedy. Jimmie Chinn
M4, F3. 1 female voice. A living-room.

Nicholas Lyndhurst and Carmel McSharry starred in the smash-hit West End production of this sharply-observed comedy of family life. The cosy domesticity of lovers Bob and Jeff is threatened. Can Bob's family - Lois and Bill, Nona and Arthur and matriarch Vera - rescue the situation? And will Bob be able to tell seemingly ignorant Vera that the straight and narrow is not for her favourite little boy ... ?
ISBN 0 573 01902 9

Strange Boarders

Comedy:/Mystery George Batson and Jack Kirkland.
8 men, 7 women. Interior.

A delighfully scatterbrained maiden lady runs a boarding-house. Out. of her goodness, Cordelia has adopted two girls - Candy and Gloria - practically, adopted a delightful sea captain, and the "Professor" - both of them, like herself, impractical. Chiefly the play revolves round the efforts of an amusing band of bank robbers to elude the police in nearby Boston and get away with $10,000 in cash, which is brought to Cordelia's home by the Misses Amity and Priscilla Haines, who take rooms as respectable school teachers. To Cordelia's home also come Smiley, a sad-faced thug, Joey, a petty gangster, and the "Deacon," a fellow with much false piety and a benign manner. The gangsters, having seized the money stolen by the "brains" of the band, attempt to hide from their leader and keep the money themselves. Boston Benny, the "brains," unexpectedly appears, and tries to get even with his partners. Up to now Cordelia, vainly trying to organise her boarding-house on systematic principles, thinks that all the nice ladies and gentlemen who have suddenly come to her home are boarders, and she is in seventh heaven. However, the crooks cannot long keep secret who they are, and Cordelia's next problem is how to get the money, round up the crooks and get the reward for their capture. How she does this, with the help of her friends, provides comedy and suspense in generous amounts and brings all to happy conclusion.
ISBN: 0-8222-1087-8

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Play. David Edgar, based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson
M8 F3, or M7 F3 with doubling. 6 children. Interior and exterior settings.

The famous tale of Dr Jekyll, the outwardly respectable and virtuous man whose darker side is given terrifying life in the form of murderous Mr Hyde, has been vividly and thrillingly adapted for the stage. Jekyll and Hyde are played by two actors; as a result, the divisions in Jekyll's character are presented in a compelling and truly theatrical style.

The Strangeness of Others

Play. Nick Ward
M I I F8 or M5 F3, with doubling. London.

The author creates panorama of contemporary London: a city in which a range of individuals rich, poor, young, old - are locked in a network of shifting relationships. On a bare stage Ward surveys the whole spectrum of human love - from hetero and homosexual, to brotherly, motherly, adulterous, incestuous and the rest. The play was seen in the Cottesloe auditorium at the National Theatre in 1988.

Stranger's House

(in German Plays) - Dea Loher. Trans D.Tushingham
3m 3f Drama. Single exterior set.

The story of a young Macedonian man who flees to Germany to escape the war. His arrival signifies the downfall of those around him as the play develops into an epic dealing with themes of racism, jealousy and betrayal. Premiered at the Royal Court 1997.
ISBN 1 85459 338 2

Strangers on Earth

Comedy. Mark O'Donnell
3 men, 2 women; unit.

Priss, a high-strung, beautiful Boston heiress, rents a run-down New York apartment with her sardonic Radcliffe roommate, Margaret. Each befriends Pony, a confused would-be actor and Mormon folk singer from Utah whose painfully repressed background leaves him vulnerable to imprinting romantically on anyone who takes an interest in him. The problem is that Pony really wants Hank, Priss's wannabe Republican boyfriend and boss. Hank is fond of Pony, but finds little time to maintain a friendship with him, let alone a relationship with Priss. Though Hank and Priss finally go their separate ways, Hank and Pony achieve professional success while crossing paths along the way. On the other end of the spectrum is Margaret's edgy courtship with Mutt, a slobbish but engaging handy man who's been hired to remodel the apartment. Doubting even the minutest possibility that a worth while relationship exists, Margaret deliberately fences herself off from sex and emotional entanglement with a non-stop barrage of self-deprecating, intellectual banter whose withering effect almost succeeds in leaving her isolated and yearning for more. Mutt, constantly intrigued by Margaret, perseveres through his own emotional land mine, to win Margaret over to see his side and to start living with him. Through it all, these achingly recognisable characters display a bitter sweet appreciation of half-happy endings and the truest survival skills of the socially satiric.
ISBN: 0-8222-1350-8

Stray Cats: Dramatic Monologues

Warren Leight. 3 men (flexible casting). Unit Set

Some guys are leaders, some guys are joiners, some guys are Stray Cats. This collection of musically-influenced monologues portrays nine "cats" as they hit bottom, paint themselves into a corner, or reach a moment of transcendence. The nine lives include: Alone, But Not Lonely Tom "shares" at a twelve-step support group on Valentine's day. The Poem Writer, who after having a little too much to drink, delivers a bitter, funny, self-loathing, self-aggrandizing speech to the Poem Writers Guild. An LA Agent Talks About Love, or more accurately about power and abandonment-love Hollywood-style. Goodbye, Jack - A kid works the drive-thru window at Jack-in-the-Box. The night they take the clown away he realizes he's "just another little drive-thru guy in orange and brown, alone on the graveyard shift." Jocko the Clown, backstage in a moment of crisis, suffers from extreme "mime block." Ol' 'Gator is an aging TV weatherman who has been kicked off the air for politically incorrect statements. His farewell apology skids into a near breakdown. Diary of a Voyeur chronicles a writer, who instead of meeting his deadlines, spends months obsessing and writing about a couple in a window across his courtyard. The Night Ali Lost: A life-long men's room attendant at the Roseland Ballroom relates with grace his point of view of the Big Band era, racism and bodily functions. Jaguar Jesus: A young man listens to a street saxophone player. The two trade riffs, each "stroking the night, blazing out of control."
ISBN: 0-8222-1614-0

Stray Dogs

Play. Julie Jensen. 2 men, 1 woman, 2 boys. Interior.

The place is a small town in rural Utah, where a young mother, Nyda, wages a good-humored struggle to provide a decent, if threadbare, home for her two adolescent sons, Reese and J. Roy, with little help from her ne'er-do-well, alcoholic husband, Myers. J. Roy, the older son, is reserved and pensive, and preoccupied with religion; Reese is hyperactive and disruptive, and sometimes more than Nyda can handle; but both boys (like their mother) are drawn to their soft-spoken uncle, Wells; a bachelor farmer (and Myers' brother) who has become a surrogate father to them and a mainstay of support for their mother. When Myers shows up after another extended binge, the deep-seated animosities which beset the family begin to surface with growing ferocity, as he vents his frustrations with wild boasts of far-fetched money-making schemes and vicious taunts about his brother's obviously deepening regard for the beleaguered Nyda. Inevitably the underlying tensions build to an explosive, fatal climax, which is both shocking and, at the same time, compassionately revealing of,the tragic consequences which can ensue when hopefulness and love are overcome by bitterness and despair.
ISBN: 0-8222-1088-6

A Streetcar Named Desire

Play. Tennessee Williams
M6 (28, 30, 35) F6 (25, 30, 1 Black, 1 Mexican). Composite setting.

Blanche DuBois comes to live in the slums of Elysian Fields, New Orleans, with her sister Stella and Stella's husband Stanley Kowalski. Blanche enrages Stanley by her airs and affectations, her perpetual reminiscences about her genteel past and her open distaste for his coarse vitality. When he discovers that all her refinement is a mere facade, he has no compunction in destroying Blanche's only hope of salvation, which is to marry his friend Mitch.

Strictly For the Birds

Don Woods : Thriller 3M 3F Interior set

Twists and counter-twists maintain suspense at high level in this complex thriller. When Bernard discovers to his great surprise that his wife Linda has a penchant for collecting diamonds, a mysterious chain of events is set off. Linda is forced to explain that the diamonds serve as a pay-off for a blackmailer and as the couple set out to trap the blackmailer, it soon becomes apparent that far more insidious plans are in progress than at first imagined. The audience is kept continuously on edge as to the eventual outcome as the local inspector attempts to unravel the web of deceit and intrigue.

Strike Up the Banns

Comedy. Olwen Wymark
M3 (21, 40s, 60s) F3 (20, 40s, 60s). A suburban living-room.

Geraldine and Reg, ageing hippies now trapped in Green Belt respectability by Geraldine's domineering mother, Mrs Carmichael, are giving a dinner-party. Geraldine decides to liven up the evening a bit by impersonating Reg's imaginary brother Rollo, a cad and a bounder. When Reg retaliates by dressing up as Rollo's eccentric wife, Lillian, chaos ensues. Olwen Wymark's suburban comedy is a rebel's fantasy, a hostess's nightmare, and a hijinks treat for its audiences.
ISBN 0 573 01898 7

Strippers

Play. Peter Terson
M4 (20s, 30s, middle-age) F6 (20s, 30s, 50s). Various simple settings.

Inspired by a television documentary, Peter Terson's play looks at the world of the North-East England strippers, centring on Wendy and Bernard, a young couple whose lives are up-ended when Wendy turns, reluctantly, to stripping to support the family after Bernard is made redundant. Although Bernard quite happily watches the 'exotic dancers' over a couple of pints at the club, when it comes to his wife it's a different matter. '... a play full of humour, concern and affection ...' The Listener
ISBN 0 573 01632 1

Stumps

Drama. Mark Medof.
3 men, 2 women. Unit Set.

Two handicapped Vietnam veterans, Stephen Ryder and Jerry Marcus, want to make a highclass movie with explicit sex, to go a step beyond Last Tango in Paris. They elicit the interest of the young explicit film star, Fawn Sierra, who arrives in the hills of Austin for a creative meeting with her "manager," Calvin Rhodes, a "gentleman who may be an ordained minister or may be evil incarnate. Calvin's dark manipulative personality slowly emerges as he tries to wrest the project from the writers. Trying to keep the events of the day in balance is Lin Ryder, the Stephen's Vietnamese wife. Ultimately, Cal destroys all semblance of balance and Lin is able to re-establish order only 'through catastrophic violence of her own.
ISBN: 0-8222-1434-2

Stupid Kids

John C. Russell
2 men, 2 women. Unit set

Meet Jim and Judy, the "popular" ones.. She's cute, blonde and a fabulous cheerleader. He's new in town - the hunky rebel who won't be tamed, not even by autoshop. Neechee (real name John) and Kimberly aren't popular. They're the resident outcasts at Joe McCarthy High, complete with ill-fitting clothes, mounds of angst-filled poetry and a taste for high romance and tragedy. They're both also secretly gay. Normally, two high school gods like Jim and Judy wouldrA notice Kim and Neechee - but after a party the four get arrested together and bond while in jail. That's where Jim and Judy meet, and Neechee and Kimberly develop crushes on this pair of dreamy teens. Willing to do anything to be close to their idols, but unable to, say they're in love with them, Kim and Neechee decide to facilitate Jim and Judy's relationship by throwing a party to let the couple have sex there. Jim and Judy have been trying to hide their relationship (because the "in" crowd at school follows a strict code about who may date who), so they accept the party invitation. Once there, the four of them devour junk food and smoke hash, during which Neechee and Kim have erotic fantasies with Jim and Judy in an imaginary sex ballet. Seeing that Jim and Judy won't change their romantic ways, Neechee and Kim - who have now confided to each other that they're gay - decide that Jim and Judy are too all-American and mediocre to waste their affections on. They still love them, but there must be something better. Outside, a gang appears on motorcycles. They want Jim and Judy to have sex in front of them as an initiation rite. Neechee and Kim beg them not to and admit they love them, but Jim and Judy are too afraid of not being "in," and they walk outside to comply, leaving Kim and Neechee alone to mourn their lost loves.
ISBN: 0-8222-1698-1

The Sty of the Blind Pig

Play. Philip Hayes Dean.
2 men, 2 women. Interior

The place is Chicago's south side and the time the 1950s, just before the civil rights movement began to burgeon. Alberta, unmarried and in her thirties, shares an apartment with her mother, Weedy, an old-fashioned black woman who finds solace for her troubles in religion. Their constant visitor is Uncle Do, a sporty, down-on-his-luck gambling man who is the despair of his strait-laced sister, Weedy. Then, unexpectedly, a wandering street singer, Blind Jordan, comes to their door, searching for a woman he once knew. The others are puzzled, and even frightened by their visitor, but Alberta offers to help him in his quest and, when they are alone, all the emotional and sexual frustration struggling within her bursts forth in a scene of tremendous eloquence and power. Out of the unsettling nature of their encounter comes estrangement between mother and daughter, which subsides to an uneasy truce when blind Jordan departs - leaving behind a disturbing awareness of much that has been lost or changed, and of much greater change still to come.
ISBN: 0-8222-1091-6