Category Archives: Dramas

And All His Songs Were Sad by Mattie Lennon, Music & Lyrics by Sean McCarthy

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Simon Balcan and Kerry Steed in Lizzy, Darcy and Jane

Drama with Music/ 4 Characters, 3 Men, 1 Woman/ Full Length (App. 80 minutes)

Synopsis: A play with music about the Irish songwriter Sean McCarthy and his complex relationship with the singer Peggy Sweeney. Her gorgeous, definitive recordings of McCarthy’s folk tunes about death and unrequited love were responsible for cementing his fame throughout Ireland.

From Fort Worth Weekly: “Their collaboration was so intense, many people wanted to know: Was there any funny business going on? . . . The more intriguing thing about their ‘artistic friendship’ was that she seemed to be the artist, while he was her muse. That’s an interesting reversal of the typical singer-songwriter arrangement.

“Amateur McCarthy scholar Lennon never met McCarthy; his script is based on interviews and newspaper accounts of his life and of his musical partnership with Sweeney. The title of the show comes from a quote by the English writer G.K. Chesterton, whose ode to the Irish famously declared that ‘All their wars are merry/ And all their songs are sad.'”

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Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
Mattie Lennon
E-mail: mattielennon@gmail.com
Playwright’s website: mattielennon.com

About the Playwright: Mattie Lennon writes the occasional humorous article and has contributed to The Irish Times, Sunday Independent,The Irish Post, Ireland’s Own, Ireland’s Eye, The Wicklow People, Kerry’s Eye, Leinster Leader and many more. He also writes for a number of on-line magazines, including irishpoetsworldwide.com. He has compiled and presented programmes on RTE Radio One and currently presents a ballad programme on Radio Dublin 100FM.

He has spent most of the past 30 years in Dublin; but whenever asked “Will you ever go back to Kylebeg?” he quotes James Joyce’s reply when asked the same question about Dublin: “I never left.” He is married, with a family, although currently his wife is wondering what sort of an eejit he is to be sitting at a computer, at this time of night, typing this with one finger.

And All His Songs Were Sad was first produced by The Pantaglieze Theatre in Fort Worth, Texas in September, 2010.

 

And The Stones Will Cry Out by David M. Graham

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And
Comedy-Drama/ 3 Characters, 3 Men/ Full Length, Two Acts

Synopsis: When the arrogant Dr. Johann Beringer, Dean of the Medical School in Wurzburg, Germany in 1725, discovers some unusual fossils, he becomes convinced that the stones are a gift from God that will make him famous. What he does not know is that they are forgeries, craftily carved by a rival professor at the University, algebra teacher Ignatius Roderick.

With the unwilling help of the school’s librarian, Georg Von Eckhart, Roderick carves and distributes over 2000 stones, hoping to embarrass the ambitious Beringer. The scheme works, as Beringer writes and self-publishes an expensive book that brings him temporary notoriety. Sensing that the hoax has gone too far, the conspirators confess to Beringer that he has been duped, but the arrogant Doctor refuses to believe it. Events spiral out of control when Beringer is finally convinced, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, leading to a trial and its inevitable consequences.

Based on real events, And The Stones Will Cry Out is a tale of the uneasy war between faith and science, the difficulty of friendship, and of course, rocks.

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Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
David M. Graham
340 W. Regent St. Apt. 6
Inglewood, CA 90301-1160
Ph.: 323-395-9985
E-mail: onlylivingheartdonor@gmail.com

About the Playwright: David is a Georgia native who came to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of being poor and hungry. In the actor’s tradition, he has drifted from here to there and had many jobs — including BMW salesman and gravedigger. He is a seasoned actor and director, with many shows to his credit.

And The Stones Will Cry Out is David’s first full length play, though a short of his, The Death of a Sale, Man, was performed in Los Angeles, and three of his short works, The Right Impression, Eden 2025, and Stealing Home have been included in every year of the Arabian Shakespeare Festival. He has also (self) published the first novel in his series A Little Mythunderstanding..

A 50-minute version of And The Stones Will Cry Out was presented by the Gorilla Theatre Company for the Festival of Independent Theatres in Dallas, Texas in July, 2015. It was first produced in its current full-length form at Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro, California in August, 2015.

“Graham’s thought-provoking work builds upon a prank, which is revealed early on in the play, but the play doesn’t feel farcical. It feels like any good drama in which the conflict causes people to come to the crux of what ails them.” – Daily Breeze, Los Angeles

Arthur and Paul by Zsolt Pozsgai, translated by Peter Linka

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Comedy-Drama/ 8 characters, 6 Men, 2 Women/ Full Length, Two Acts

Synopsis:
Confined to a hospital bed in the farthest reaches of Africa, the great French poet Arthur Rimbaud spends his time harrassing the nurse and penning letters to the local Emperor, demanding compensation for his duties as a gun-runner. He receives an unexpected visit from the love of his life, the even greater French poet Paul Verlaine, whom he hasn’t seen in eighteen years. Their strained reunion — strained because the last time they were together Verlaine shot Rimbaud — is made worse by the arrival of Verlaine’s son and first wife, who have their own scores to settle with both men. When it turns out the tumour on Rimbaud’s knee is malignant and inoperable, he realizes the time has come to set matters straight with his various visitors.

Arthur and Paul is a witty, wise, and highly theatrical speculation on how one of the most fervent literary love affairs of all might really have ended — not with a bang, but with one last grand gesture.

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Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
Zsolt Pozsgai
H-7630 Pécs, Tétény u. 28.
Ph.: 00-36-30-2791324
horatiofilm@gmail.com

About the Playwright: Award-winning dramatist Zsolt Pozsgai’s plays have been seen worldwide. He is a winner of the European Drama Award, and three-time winner of the Hungarian Playwright’s Competition. Liselotte in May, his most performed play, premiered at the Deutsches Theater, Budapest, Hungary, in May, 2002 and has since been seen in over 22 stagings from New York City to Geneva, Switzerland to Vancouver, Canada. By the end of 2014, 57 of Pozsgai’s pieces, including tragedies, comedies, farces, and plays with music, had been performed in 87 theatres. He has also worked widely as a stage director, and as a writer and director for film and TV.

Arthur and Paul was premiered at the Madách Theatre, Budapest in 1995.

Babes In America by Carole Clement

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Comedy-drama/ 7 Characters, 3 Women, 3 Men, 1 either gender/ Full Length, Two acts

Synopsis: (From NewYorkTheatre.com): “Babes in America is a new play by Carole Clement about a woman named Liz Small who is suffering from information overload. An obedient wife and mother of two, Liz finds herself confronting the absurdities of the Information Age — ‘information overload and experiential underload.’ Struggling against the inertia of her own values, she must move beyond the expectations of others while avoiding the ‘Siren Song’ of new technology.”

(From www.offoffoff.com): “We’re in a perfect little suburban housing complex where the husbands go out to work and the wives stay home and scan stacks of newspapers into their computers, so their children will never be information-deprived for the rest of their lives. Liz Small (Kate Lunsford) — who’s slightly out of her mind as a mom, forcing her two kids (Alexandra Leeper, Ryan Paulson) to continue their babyhood well into their teens — is the first to crack. She starts to spiral down to reality and wonder whether scanning all day long is really the way to educate the family.

“She has another idea — go outside the cookie-cutter house and see what’s out there.

“‘I think I could learn from experience!’ she imagines.

“‘Even if you could, says her skeptical hubby, who hopes to achieve a totally electronic existence, ‘do you realize how long it would take? Your whole life!'”

Character and production notes

“An often-inspired comedy about a gated-community family on the edge between going totally digital and pulling the plug on their technological rat race . . . .

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Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
Carole Clement
8371 Villa Marina Court
Mentor, Ohio
USA 44060-2039
(440) 209-0634
clement@ncweb.com
About the Playwright: Carole Clement lives in the Cleveland area and is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Cleveland Playwright’s Salon, and past President and Director of Development for the International Centre for Women Playwrights.Among the competitions that have recognized her works are the Sundance Film Festival, Jane Chambers Competition, Last Frontier (Edward Albee) Competition and the Eugene O’Neill Competition.When not writing, Clement is probably gardening, pumping iron, ballroom dancing, or digging on archaeological expeditions.Babes in America was premiered by the Breakaway Theatre Company at Theatre for the New City, New York City in September, 2001.

“Babes In America gets off plenty of clever lines, poking fun at gated communities, homeowners’ associations and the bright electronic future . . . . It takes on [its] big subject with wit, imagination and a strong sense of purpose.”
– www.offoffoff.com

Belles of the Mill — Book by Rachel Rubin Ladutke, Music & Lyrics by Jill Marshall-Work

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Musical Drama/ 14 Characters, 7 Women, 6 Men, 1 Boy, plus chorus of 3 to 6 Women/ Full Length, Two Acts

Synopsis: (From The Off-Off-Broadway Review [oobr.com]): “Out of the dark rises the rhythmic sound of machines at work. The lights fade up on a slow-motion tableau of women miming working in a mill. They start to sing, inaudible over the machines until with a collective stamp of the foot the machines stop and we are treated to the opening number, ‘Pennies in our Pay,’ leading into the defiant ‘We Strike.’

“It’s a strong, effective opening to a show with a strong, serious subject. The musical is an adaptation by Rachel Rubin Ladutke of her own play; this in turn is based on the real-life events of 1912 when immigrant female workers in the mill-town of Lawrence, Massachusetts decided to strike for decent pay in the face of police brutality, the National Guard, and town officials. Ultimately successful, their victory came at a great personal cost to the families involved.

“Ladutke’s musical tells this story through the experiences of a few individual characters, although a handful of smaller roles and the chorus of mill-workers help to suggest the wider community. The story follows two main families — first that of Sarah, the midwife whose license is revoked due to her support of women’s suffrage, her shopkeeper brother-in-law Hiram, and her nephew Jacob. Into their life comes Irish teenager Bridget.

“In a sense, her journey is that of the show: first introduced as the sexual victim of her boss Albert, she seeks help from Sarah; confronts the entrenched ideas of her uncle Father Paul; talks back to the unsympathetic chief of police; confronts her romantic feelings for Sean, the Irish policeman; and ends up as a spokesperson for downtrodden workers through the encouragement of union organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.”

The first act of Belles of the Mill may be read by clicking on the “Read It Now” button above. To obtain a complete reading copy, please see the Contact Information.

“If you’re familiar with The Pajama Game, you’re probably aware that a musical comedy about labor relations can be entertaining. But you might not be aware of how much entertainment can be wrung from what is otherwise a musical drama . . . . Ladutke has highlighted many of the subject’s strong dramatic possibilities, and brought the conflicting emotions of all the characters to the forefront. The book is swift and compact, covering an amazing amount of ground in two hours . . . . the strike numbers are particularly strong and explosive.”
– Talkin’Broadway.com

A “Best of the ‘Fest” selection at the 2002 Midtown International Theatre Festival

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Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
Rachel Rubin Ladutke
Tel.: 212-875-7785
Email: rachel@rachelwrites.com
www.rachelwrites.com
or
Jill Marshall-Work
MusicalMakers@yahoo.com
http://www.musicalmakers.org/
jillmarshallwork.html

About the Playwright: Rachel Rubin Ladutke is a playwright based in New York City. Grace Notes, her first full-length drama, has been widely excerpted in various monologue and scene anthologies. As one of four winners of the Pittsburgh New Plays Competition, it premiered at Pittsburgh’s Gemini Theatre in February 2000. Later that same year, it was staged at The Looking Glass Theatre in NYC.

The Belles of the Mill, a fact-based historical epic, was a stageplay Finalist in the 2001 Moondance Film Festival, and Runner-Up in the Coe College Playwriting Symposia and in America’s Best Writing Competition. It has been excerpted in three anthologies. Her latest full-length play, Clary’s Exodus, was awarded Honorable Mention in the prestigious Jane Chambers competition.

Rachel is a member of the Looking Glass Theatre Playwrights’ Lab, Membership Director of the International Centre for Women Playwrights, and an Associate Member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and of the Dramatists’ Guild.

Belles of the Mill was first produced at the RAW Space as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival in July, 2002. It was directed by Arlene Schulman.

Bertha and Bertman by Zsolt Pozgai

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Drama/ 1 Man, 1 Woman/ Full Length, Two Acts

Synopsis: Bertha, a nurse, lives peacefully in her apartment in Austria. She has had no success in finding a partner, but has resigned herself to the situation. One day, an unexpected guest arrives. Her love from grammar school — an established, wealthy man, youthful and athletic. But lonely. He lives with his mother, who is terminally ill. He needs somebody, a partner who loves him.

Bertha welcomes him. They live together. The man takes her on fabulous journeys. They sometimes visit his mother in the hospital. She is glad that her son is happy and has found someone.

Bertha and Bertman’s sexual, physical encounters are wonderful. Everything is perfect.

Then Bertman’s mother dies. Bertman thanks Bertha for everything she has done for him. Bertha realizes that the man was with her only to calm down his mother, to demonstrate that he had a partner, would have children, and his mother would have grandchildren. He pretended to enjoy their encounters, and pretended to be in love. But it was all a ruse.

Bertha is devastated. She kills the man. Everything she thought to be true, has turned out to be a lie. There is no mercy.

This drama is based on a real story.

Read it Now
Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
Zsolt Pozsgai
H-7630 Pécs, Tétény u. 28.
Ph.: 00-36-30-2791324
horatiofilm@gmail.com

About the Playwright: Award-winning dramatist Zsolt Pozsgai’s plays have been seen worldwide. He is a winner of the European Drama Award, and three-time winner of the Hungarian Playwright’s Competition. Liselotte in May, his most performed play, premiered at the Deutsches Theater, Budapest, Hungary, in May, 2002 and has since been seen in over 22 stagings from New York City to Geneva, Switzerland to Vancouver, Canada. By the end of 2014, 57 of Pozsgai’s pieces, including tragedies, comedies, farces, and plays with music, had been performed in 87 theatres. He has also worked widely as a stage director, and as a writer and director for film and TV.

Bertha and Bertman will premiere in Budapest, Hungary in February, 2022.

Betterland by David Lohrey

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Drama/ 6 Characters, 3 Women, 3 Men/ Full Length, Two Acts

Synopsis: (from Absolutearts.com): “In Betterland, a veteran schoolteacher, faced with dismissal, discovers that her principles are no longer valued by the institution she serves. Her enlightenment is triggered by the arrival of the first genuine student she’s had in years. The other high schoolers, catching the subversive scent of curiosity, set into motion events that compel the teacher’s final act of defiance. Finally, defeated, she is nonetheless set free by her realization that neither she nor the student is welcome in a system devoted to the unexceptional.”

From Show Business: “As the play opens, Miss Vanderhoff is being pressured into transfer or early retirement by school administrator Stiles due to a single ‘incident’ marking an otherwise officially acceptable career . . . . The story of an intimate relationship that develops between Miss Vanderhoff and Lafayette, a transfer student placed in her High School English class, is renacted as Vanderhoff relates it to Stiles.

“Lafayette epitomizes everything popular culture has led us to believe characterizes ‘inner city youth.’ He’s black, he’s hostile, he’s done time in juvenile detention for car theft. But much more than a menace to society, Lafayette turns out to be the first ‘real student’ Vanderhoff has ever had. He begins to show a personalized enthusiasm for critical thinking that contrasts the years of resistance or passionless, grade-focused ambition she has come to expect from her students.

“In spite of her continual claim not to ‘love children,’ which she sees as a prevailingly sentimental and unrealistic reason to pursue the needed job of teaching, Vanderhoff develops a concern and interest in Lafayette’s well-being that eventually alienates her other students — especially Billy. Out of resentment for the new teacher’s pet and a fear of summer school, Billy pushes both student and teacher to points of no return through manipulation of Lafayette’s insecurities and a brutal attack upon Miss Vanderhoff’s already harried defenses. Supported by a cabal of students, administrators, and parents, Billy then engineers the downfall of both.”

“Raises a host of difficult questions about education in general, and shows the precarious balance between politics, ethics and practicality . . . . When the cast came out for their final bow, it took me a long moment to remember that I had not been again sitting in a classroom, led by the type of teacher whose commitment I’d remember gratefully for the rest of my life.”
– Show Business

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Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
David Lohrey
411 Walnut Street #7829
Green Cove Springs, Florida
USA 32043
E-mail: lohr_burgh@hotmail.com

About the Playwright: David Lohrey completed his undergraduate degree at UC, Berkeley. Later, he studied creative writing at San Francisco State University, UCLA, and California State University, Los Angeles where he completed his MA. David now teaches at the college level in New Jersey, and is Literary Manager at Theatre-Studio, Inc. in New York City.David’s plays have received productions and staged readings across the country, including Group Rep and FirstStage in Los Angeles, The Long Beach Playhouse, the Dayton Playhouse, the Turnip Company, ArtGroup, and TRU’s 2nd Annual NYC Play Festival.

His work has received awards in competitions such as New Century Writers’ Competition, Riverside Stage Company’s Founder’s Award Competition, Harvest Festival of New Plays at the Sonoma County Rep, the 1998 Writers’ Digest Writing Competition, the 1999 Writer’s DigestWriting Competition, and the Generic Theater Company’s Dog Days Festival. For three years, David has been a voting member for TheatreLA’s annual Ovation Awards. He has been a member of the Dramatists Guild since 1982, and recently joined the Play Selection Committee at the Long Beach Playhouse.

Betterland was first produced by the Long Beach Playhouse, Long Beach, California in 1999.

Black Widow by Paul Thain

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Drama/ 12 Characters, 6 men, 6 women/ Full Length, Two Acts

Act One of “Black Widow” may be read by clicking on the “Read It Now” button above. To buy the complete text in its Samuel French print version, click here.

Synopsis: Murder, madness, ghosts, and retribution are all themes of this complex and compelling drama.

Lord Arlington is dead, apparently from food poisoning. Obsessed by Hamlet, his daughter Emily becomes convinced her mother Cressida and family friend Richard Harker are responsible for her father’s death, and so resolves to exact revenge

Set in the Edwardian era, but with a very modern sensibility, this intensely theatrical work offers 12 strong roles, and can be performed on a virtually empty stage

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Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur rights:
Samuel French UK, Ltd.
Professional rights:
Casarotto-Ramsay Ltd.
National House
60-66 Wardour Street
London W1V 3HP
Tel : +44 20 7287-4450
Fax : +44 20 7287-9128
agents@casarotto.co.uk
Playwright’s website: www.stageplays.com/today.htm

About the Playwright: Paul Thain was born in South Shields, UK. Inspired by his acting experience with the National Youth Theatre, he gave up life as a bus conductor, studied A-levels, and then read Drama & Theatre Arts at Birmingham University. When his first child was born he left teaching to become primary parent and playwright. His second radio play, The Biggest Sandcastle in the World, won a BBC Giles Cooper Award as one of the Best Radio Plays of 1981, and he has subsequently written many more including The Paradise Machine, for which the BBC’s production won the 1995 European Broadcasting Union Award for Best European Radio Drama.

Other work includes four commissioned screenplays, as yet unproduced, and five stage plays. His plays have been published and performed throughout the world, particularly the UK, Germany, Italy, Russia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Black Widow premiered at The Library Theatre, Sheffield, UK in April 1998.

Book of Days by John Chambers

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Drama/ 6 Characters, 3 Men, 3 Women/ Full Length, Two Acts

Synopsis: In late 18th-century England, Thomas Day, a disciple of Rousseau, decides the way to nuptial felicity is to mould a female into the perfect wife. He selects two pre-pubescent girls from charitable institutions and determines to marry one of them — with results that turn his well-ordered world on its head. Based on a true story.

 

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Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
John Chambers
Email: artistan38@tiscali.co.uk

About the Playwright: John’s stage plays include: Stiff Stuff; Shouting at the Radio; Raw Material; Albert Finney Doesn’t Live Here Any More; Robin Hood – The Raven’s Revenge – all at the Library Theatre Company where he was Arts Council Resident Dramatist; Two Wheel Tricycle (Contact Theatre); Silver Lining (Oldham Coliseum); Yoiks Oiks (Bolton Octagon); The Marigold Trilogy(Real Life Theatre. M.E.N. Best Fringe Award); Balling the Blues (One Step);City of Gold (Arden).

John has written three epics for Lancaster Dukes Promenade Seasons – Tales of King Arthur, Jungle Book and The Three Musketeers, and several pieces for/with young people at Manchester Youth Theatre and M6 where he was also Resident Writer.

Co-written theatre work includes: Scandals – The Life & Liver of Frank Randlewith Keith Clifford (which John also directed); Crazy People with Marvin Close (LTC); I’m Marrying Ryan Giggs (Robbie Fowler in Liverpool!) with Dave Simpson (Liverpool Playhouse & national tour); Koff with Brian Morgan (One Step).

He has written around 100 hours of television including: The Bill (Thames);Emmerdale (Granada-YTV). Working on it during BAFTA Best Soap year 2001); Eastenders; Runaway Bay (YTV / Lifetime); 14 episodes of Children’s Ward (Granada. Including RTS Best Children’s Drama Series); 3 fifteen minute films for BBC Education’s Turning Points, (which won BAFTA and RTS awards, 1999); Away From Home and Grease Lightning – 30 minute plays for BBC2 (Northwest); Dramarama (ITV).

Book of Days awaits its first production.

 

Cafe Hollywood by Ron Grant

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Drama/ 10 characters, 5 Women, 5 Men/ Full Length, Two Acts

Synopsis:
Delilah, owner of a seedy but decent Hollywood coffee shop, is a one time actress who manages to retain the elegance of her salad days as she fantasizes over her youth in Broadway theater. Claude, an aging writer, plugs away at his craft, taking heart in the thought that Shaw wrote until he was 91, so that his day may yet come.

Then there is the prostitute, Carrie, struggling to break away from her past but bounded by the thugs who will not allow her to slip out of their clutches. Delilah sees in Carrie “the daughter I never had,” while Claude is ready to risk his life to keep her from harm

The characters cling to each other to ward off a fate they choose not to recognize as inevitable, until the arrival on the scene of another down-and-outer, who seems to fit into their pattern and wins Delilah’s easily aroused protective instints.

Disarming as he may appear, however, Gene does not share the other’ hapless vulnerability. Possessed by a psychopathic hatred of prostitutes, he is a fugitive from justice, wanted in New York for murder, and anyone who recognizes him becomes his victim. As the story races to its tragic climax, three more are sacificed to his crazed motives.

Read it Now
Performance rights must be secured before production
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
Bloomin Desert Productions
2165 East Rochelle Avenue #17
Las Vegas, Nevada
USA 89119
e-mail: goldthroat2003@netzero.com
Ph: (702) 735-9568
(702) 349-0298

About the Playwright: Ron Grant is a writer, actor, producer, and musician living in Las Vegas. His other plays include Elvis Did It, which has been staged in Holland and the Dominican Republic, and The Cuckoo’s Nest Casino.

Cafe Hollywood was first produced at the International Student Centre, Los Angeles in 2004 and subsequently at the Finally-A-Unicorn Emporium, Huntington Beach, California.