For theatre... online, non-professional, amateur
New Plays,  Books & Musicals

New Plays, Books & Musicals

Our regular up-to-date selection of recently published books as well as new or re-released plays and musicals, many of which are now available for amateur performance.
Some licensors are now offering special online-performance arrangements, so please get in touch with the appropriate company to find out more.

CONCORD THEATRICALS
E: licensing@concordtheatricals.co.uk
E: customerservices@concordtheatricals.co.uk
W: www.concordtheatricals.co.uk
F: ConcordShows | T: @ConcordUKShows

SAMUEL FRENCH:

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Eamonn O’Dwyer, Helen Watts

Full Length Musical, Drama; F8, M10; 19th Century; 978 0 573 11683 4; £9.99 paperback

England, 1820: The isolated town of Sleepy Hollow is disrupted by the arrival of a new schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane, who challenges the town’s superstitions with science, reason and fact. The locals instantly mistrust him; but Katrina van Fleet, heiress to Sleepy Hollow’s rich land is charmed by his intellect and passion. But Ichabod is mistaken: as behind each one of the villagers’ tales lies a dark and bloody truth. As the spirits of the Hollow Wood grow restless, and as the hooves of the Headless Horseman thunder ever nearer, Katrina is forced to make a choice that will change the fate of Sleepy Hollow forever.
Based on Washington Irving’s infamous short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a powerful and atmospheric musical by Helen Watts and Eamonn O’Dwyer. It is a story of community; a story of faith, of blood and belief; a story that asks the simple question: what happens when good people make bad choices?

The Lovely Bones by Bryony Lavery, Alice Sebold

Full Length Drama; 978 0 573 11686 5; £9.99 paperback

This title is not currently available for performance. To be informed as soon as it becomes available in the future, please submit a license application.
Susie Salmon is just like any other young girl. She wants to be beautiful, adores her charm bracelet and has a crush on a boy from school. There’s one big difference though – Susie is dead. Now she can only observe while her family manage their grief in their different ways. Her father, Jack is obsessed with identifying the killer. Her mother, Abigail is desperate to create a different life for herself. And her sister, Lindsay is discovering the opposite sex with experiences that Susie will never know. Susie is desperate to help them and there might be a way of reaching them…
Alice Sebold’s novel is a unique coming-of-age tale that captured the hearts of readers throughout the world. Award-winning playwright Bryony Lavery has adapted it for this unforgettable play about life after loss.

Mustard by Eva O’Connor

Full Length Drama; F1; 978 0 573 13221 6; £9.99 paperback

When E meets the man of her dreams, a professional cyclist, love hits her in the pubic bone like a train. For a brief period she is high on life – he’s the answer to her crippling loneliness, her self-harm issues, her non-existent career. But when the cyclist cheats on her and ends the relationship E plummets into a black hole of heartbreak. She turns to her only friend – mustard.
Winner! 2019 Fringe First Award.

 

Spun by Rabiah Hussain

Full Length Drama; F2; 978 0 573 13245 2; £9.99 paperback

Safa and Aisha have been best friends for years. They used to bunk off school, revise for exams together and even went to the same university.
But now they’re forging different paths for the first time: Safa to work in the City, and Aisha to teach in Newham. When London is attacked one day in July, Safa and Aisha feel the whole world spinning. As extremes from all sides take hold of the city, can their friendship survive the upheaval?
Spun is the exhilarating debut play from Rabiah Hussain. Seen through the eyes of two British Pakistani Muslim girls from East London, this funny and moving drama unravels the makings of a friendship, microaggressions in the city, and the challenge of keeping rooted through unstable times.

 

RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN:

The King and I by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Margaret Landon, Jerome Robbins

Full Length Musical; F3, M4, 2 Boys; 19th Century; The King’s Palace in Bangkok; Classic Broadway, operetta

It is 1862 in Siam when an English widow, Anna Leonowens, and her young son arrive at the Royal Palace in Bangkok, having been summoned by the King to serve as tutor to his many children and wives. The King is largely considered to be a “barbarian” by those in the West, and he seeks Anna’s assistance in changing his image, if not his ways. With both keeping a firm grip on their respective traditions and values, Anna and the King grow to understand and respect one another in a truly unique love story.

 

Oklahoma! by Lynn Riggs, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Agnes de Mille

Full Length Musical; F4, M6; 1900 – 1910, Wild West; Indian Territory; Classic Broadway, country/western

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first collaboration remains, in many ways, their most innovative, setting the standards and rules of modern musical theatre. In a Western territory just after the turn of the 20th Century, a high-spirited rivalry between local farmers and cowboys provides a colourful background for Curly, a charming cowboy, and Laurey, a feisty farm girl, to play out their love story. Their romantic journey, as bumpy as a surrey ride down a country road, contrasts with the comic exploits of brazen Ado Annie and hapless Will Parker in a musical adventure embracing hope, determination and the promise of a new land.

The Sound of Music by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse, Maria Augusta Trapp

Full Length Musical; F7, M4, 5 Girls, 2 Boys; 1940s / WWII, 1930s; Austria, 1938, pre-occupation; Classic Broadway

The final collaboration between Rodgers & Hammerstein was destined to become the world’s most beloved musical. Featuring a trove of cherished songs, including ‘Climb Ev’ry Mountain,’ ‘My Favorite Things,’ ‘Do Re Mi,’ ‘Sixteeen Going on Seventeen’ and the title number, The Sound of Music won the hearts of audiences worldwide, earning five Tony Awards and five Oscars. The inspirational story, based on the memoir of Maria Augusta Trapp, follows an ebullient postulate who serves as governess to the seven children of the imperious Captain Von Trapp, bringing music and joy to the household. But as the forces of Nazism take hold of Austria, Maria and the entire Von Trapp family must make a moral decision.

South Pacific by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Joshua Logan, James A. Michener

Full Length Musical; F3, M7, 1 Girl, 1 Boy; 1940s / WWII; Two Pacific islands; Classic Broadway

Nellie, a spunky nurse from Arkansas, falls in love with a mature French planter, Emile. Nellie learns that the mother of his children was an island native and, unable to turn her back on the prejudices with which she was raised, refuses Emile’s proposal of marriage. Meanwhile, the strapping Lt. Joe Cable denies himself the fulfillment of a future with an innocent Tonkinese girl with whom he’s fallen in love out of the same fears that haunt Nellie. When Emile is recruited to accompany Joe on a dangerous mission that claims Joe’s life, Nellie realises that life is too short not to seize her own chance for happiness, thus confronting and conquering her prejudices.

 

TAMS-WITMARK:

An American in Paris by Ira Gershwin, George Gershwin, Craig Lucas

Full Length Musical; F4, M5; 1940s / WWII; Paris, 1945; Classic Broadway

Set in the French capital in the wake of World War II, An American in Paris tells the romantic story of a young American soldier, a beautiful French girl, and an indomitable European city – each yearning for a new beginning in the aftermath of international conflict. Inspired by the Academy-Award winning 1951 film, the new stage musical features a ravishing score by George and Ira Gershwin and a fresh, sophisticated book by Tony nominee and Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Lucas.
The show’s timeless musical numbers include ‘I Got Rhythm,’ ‘’S’Wonderful,’ ‘But Not For Me,’ ‘The Man I Love,’ ‘Shall We Dance?’ and ‘(I’ll Build A) Stairway To Paradise.’

A Chorus Line by Marvin Hamlisch, James Kirkwood, Michael Bennett, Nicholas Dante, Edward Kleban

Full Length Musical; F9, M10; 1970s; A Broadway theatre, 1975; Pop/Rock, Contemporary Broadway

A Chorus Line is a stunning concept musical capturing the spirit and tension of a Broadway chorus audition. Exploring the inner lives and bittersweet ambitions of professional Broadway performers, the show features one powerhouse number after another. Memorable musical numbers include ‘What I Did for Love,’ ‘One,’ ‘I Can Do That,’ ‘At the Ballet,’ ‘The Music and the Mirror,’ and ‘I Hope I Get It.’ A brilliantly complex fusion of song, dance, and compellingly authentic drama, A Chorus Line was instantly recognised as a classic.

 

Hello, Dolly! by Michael Stewart, Jerry Herman, Thornton Wilder

Full Length Musical; F5, M4; 1900 – 1910; Yonkers, New York and New York City; Classic Broadway

This musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s hit play The Matchmaker bursts with humor, romance, energetic dance, and some of the greatest songs in musical theatre history. The romantic and comic exploits of Dolly Gallagher-Levi, turn-of-the-century matchmaker and “woman who arranges things,” are certain to thrill and entertain audiences again and again.
The show’s unforgettable songs include ‘Put On Your Sunday Clothes,’ ‘Ribbons Down My Back,’ ‘Before the Parade Passes By,’ ‘Hello, Dolly!,’ ‘Elegance,’ and ‘It Only Takes a Moment.’

 

The Wizard of Oz (RSC 1987) by L. Frank Baum, Harold Arlen, E.Y. Harburg, Herbert Stothart, Peter Howard, Larry Wilcox, John Kane

Full Length Musical; F3, M5, 16 M/F; 1930s; The Gale farmhouse in Kansas and various locations in the Land of Oz; Classic Broadway

Follow the yellow brick road in this delightful stage adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s beloved tale, featuring the iconic musical score from the MGM film. The timeless tale, in which young Dorothy Gale travels from Kansas over the rainbow to the magical Land of Oz, continues to thrill audiences worldwide.
There are two full-length versions of The Wizard of Oz: MUNY and RSC. Both include the songs ‘Over The Rainbow,’ ‘Munchkinland (Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead),’ ‘If I Only Had A Brain/A Heart/The Nerve,’ ‘We’re Off To See The Wizard (Follow The Yellow Brick Road),’ ‘The Jitterbug,’ and ‘The Merry Old Land of Oz.’ The MUNY version also has ‘Evening Star.’ The RSC version also includes ‘Poppies (Optimistic Voices)’ and ‘If I Were King Of The Forest.’
This RSC version is a more faithful adaptation of the film. A more technically complex production, it recreates the dialogue and structure of the MGM classic nearly scene for scene, though it is adapted for live stage performance. The RSC version’s musical material also provides more work for the SATB chorus and small vocal ensembles.
The MUNY Version is more theatrically conservative, employing its stage, actors, singers, dancers, and musicians in traditional ways. Using L. Frank Baum’s book – and not the MGM film – as its inspiration, this version employs story and songs as elements of a classic stage musical, adding a bit more humor to the witch and her cronies. The MUNY version does not include Toto, but instead adds new characters, including: Farmhand Joe, Gloria of Oz, Lord Growlie, Tibia (the witch’s skeletal assistant), two comical neighboring witches, and the Royal Army of Oz.

 

MUSICALS FOR YOUNG PERFORMERS:

42nd Street (Young Performers’ Edition) by Harry Warren, Al Dubin, Michael Stewart, Mark Bramble, Bradford Ropes

Short Musical (60 mins); F7, M6; 1930s; New York City and Philadelphia; Classic Broadway

This Young Performers’ Edition is a one-hour adaptation of 42nd Street, specially tailored for elementary and middle school-aged actors. The materials have been prepared to help your school or organisation mount the best possible production and to give your young cast and crew an exciting and rewarding experience.
Come along and listen to the lullaby of Broadway! 42nd Street celebrates Broadway, Times Square and the magic of show biz with wit, humor and pizzazz. At the height of the Great Depression, aspiring chorus girl Peggy Sawyer comes to the big city from Allentown, PA, and soon lands her first big job in the ensemble of a glitzy new Broadway show. But just before opening night, the leading lady breaks her ankle. Will Peggy be able to step in and become a star? The score is chock-full of Broadway standards, including ‘You’re Getting To Be A Habit With Me,’ ‘Dames,’ ‘We’re In the Money,’ ‘Lullaby of Broadway,’ ‘Shuffle Off to Buffalo’ and ‘Forty-Second Street.’

Anything Goes (Young Performers’ Edition) by Cole Porter, P.G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse, Timothy Crouse, John Weidman

Short Musical (60 mins); F3, M4; 1930s; The S.S. American, a luxury liner sailing from New York to London; Classic Broadway

This Young Performers’ Edition is a one-hour adaptation of Anything Goes, specially tailored for school-aged actors. The materials have been prepared to help your school or organisation mount the best possible production and to give your young cast and crew an exciting and rewarding experience.
Anything Goes is a wacky shipboard farce featuring romance, intrigue, colourful characters and a glorious score from Cole Porter. Highlights include: ‘You’re The Top,’ ‘It’s De-Lovely,’ ‘Friendship,’ ‘I Get A Kick Out Of You,’ ‘Blow, Gabriel, Blow,’ and the title number.

Bye Bye Birdie (Young Performers’ Edition) by Michael Stewart, Charles Strouse, Lee Adams

Short Musical (60 mins); F6, M6, 6 F/M; 1950s; New York City and Sweet Apple, Ohio; Classic Broadway, Pop/Rock

This Young Performers’ Edition is a one-hour adaptation of Bye Bye Birdie, specially tailored for school-aged actors. The materials have been prepared to help your school or organization mount the best possible production and to give your young cast and crew an exciting and rewarding experience.
A loving musical send-up of the early 1960s, small-town America, teenagers, and rock & roll, Bye Bye Birdie remains as fresh and vibrant as ever. Teen heartthrob Conrad Birdie has been drafted, so he chooses all-American girl Kim McAfee for a very public farewell kiss. Featuring a tuneful high-energy score, plenty of great parts for kids, and a hilarious script, Bye Bye Birdie remains one of the most popular shows in schools across the country.
Hit songs include ‘Put on a Happy Face,’ ‘One Last Kiss,’ ‘One Boy,’ ‘A Lot of Livin’ to Do,’ ‘Kids!’ and ‘Rosie.’

Chicago (High School Edition) by Fred Ebb, John Kander, Maurine Dallas Watkins, Bob Fosse

Full Length Musical (90 mins); F10, M9; 1920s; Chicago, Illinois; Classic Broadway, Jazz

In roaring twenties Chicago, chorine Roxie Hart murders a faithless lover and convinces her hapless husband, Amos, to take the rap… until he finds out he’s been duped and turns on Roxie. Convicted and sent to death row, Roxie and another ‘Merry Murderess,’ Velma Kelly, vie for the spotlight and the headlines, ultimately joining forces in search of the ‘American Dream’: fame, fortune, and acquittal. Changes made for the High School Edition:
(1) Removal of adult language and overtly sexual references.
(2) Removal of ‘Class’ and ‘A Bit of Good’
(3) Transposed keys to better accommodate teen voices

 

Nick Hern Books
T: 020 8749 4953
W: www.nickhernbooks.co.uk | E: info@nickhernbooks.co.uk
F: NickHernBooks | T: @NickHernBooks

Bright. Young. Things. by Georgia Christou

Full-length Play; F7, 8 F/M; Contemporary, various locations (can be simply staged); 978 1 788 50342 6; epub £8.99 (£7.19 direct from publisher)

On a reality television show, six remarkable young geniuses are competing for the coveted title of ‘Britain’s Brainiest Child’. As the contestants battle it out round after round, the pressure mounts, the spotlight gets harsher, and each is faced with questions they were never expecting. Part of Platform, a partnership between Nick Hern Books and Tonic Theatre that provides new plays written specifically for young people with majority- or all-female casts that put young women at the heart of the action.
‘[Offers] quirky characters and amusing situations… an interesting challenge for any youth group’ British Theatre Guide

 

Caterpillar by Alison Carr

Full-length Play; f2, M1, (plus 2m voices only); Contemporary, seaside town; 978 1 848 42794 5; epub £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Greasy fish’n’chips, sticks of rock and a pot-bellied Spider-Man throwing himself off the pier; the annual ‘Birdman’ competition is in full flight. It’s the busiest weekend of the year in this faded seaside town, but Bayview B&B is somehow closed for business. A finalist in the Theatre503 Playwriting Award, this is a darkly funny, searing and tender drama about those moments when we find ourselves teetering on the edge.
‘Alison Carr’s ear for natural, funny dialogue distinguishes it from the outset’ The Stage

 

The Funeral Director by Iman Qureshi

Full-length Play; F2, M2; Contemporary, various interiors and one exterior; 978 1 848 42796 9; epub £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Winner of the Papatango New Writing Prize 2018, this is an incisive and heartfelt story of sexuality, gender and religion in Twenty-First-Century Britain. Life as the director of a Muslim funeral parlour isn’t always easy, but Ayesha has things pretty sorted. But when a grieving young man walks in to organise his boyfriend’s funeral, Ayesha makes a snap moral decision that has profound consequences. Forced to confront a secret she has hidden even from herself, Ayesha must decide who she is – no matter the cost.
‘Very clever… plenty of moral meat to sink your teeth into’ Time Out

 

Heavy Weather by Lizzie Nunnery

Full-length Play; F5, 3 F/M, plus ensemble; Contemporary, various locations (can be simply staged); 978 1 788 50343 3; epub £8.99 (£7.19 direct from publisher)

A powerful, timely play featuring songs, about one girl’s journey through a world teetering on the brink. Amidst the chaos of competing and contradictory voices about Earth’s future, she sets off on a kaleidoscopic journey to find answers – about the planet, and her own family. Part of Platform, a partnership between Nick Hern Books and Tonic Theatre that provides new plays written specifically for young people with majority- or all-female casts that put young women at the heart of the action.
‘Wonderful… well worth a look for any teenage youth-theatre group’ British Theatre Guide

 

You Stupid Darkness! by Sam Steiner

Full-length Play; F2, M2; Contemporary, single interior (an office); 978 1 848 42832 4; epub £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

In a cramped, crumbling office, four volunteers spend a few hours every Tuesday night on the phone telling strangers that everything is going to be okay. As the outside world disintegrates, they teeter on the edge of their own personal catastrophes. Their hopes and fears become entangled as they try, desperately, to connect with the callers and with each other. This comic play about the struggle for optimism and community is perfect for any group interested in offering a sideways look at the world’s current situation.
‘Hilariously bleak… has a charming cynicism and compassion’ Guardian

 

 

Bloomsbury – Methuen Drama
T: 01256 302699
W: www.bloomsbury.com | E: direct@macmillan.co.uk
F: BloomsburyPublishing | T: @bloomsburybooks

Actors’ and Performers’ Yearbook 2021 – Essential contacts for stage, screen and radio – Foreword by Rob Ostlere

Theatre book; 978 1 350 15947 1; £16.99

This essential directory supports actors in their search for work within an industry where contacts and networking are key to career survival; now updated to include even more advice from industry experts with each listing, including valuable insight into auditions, interviews and specific tips on how to wow the crowd.

 

 

Adrian Lester and Lolita Chakrabarti: A Working Diary by Adrian Lester, Lolita Chakrabarti

Theatre book; 978 1 350 09277 8; £18.99

The creative powerhouse couple Lolita Chakrabarti and Adrian Lester recount 16 months of their working lives, including their time working on the stage adaptation of Life of Pi, an original series of monologues about the NHS (The Greatest Wealth), and the film adaptation of Red Velvet; giving us a first-hand glimpse of their experiences as two of the most proactive and versatile theatre makers today.

 

 

My White Best Friend (And Other Letters Left Unsaid) – Edited by Rachel De-lahay

Play collection; 978 1 786 82901 6; £14.99

23 letters from exciting voices in the UK and beyond – Zia Ahmed, Travis Alabanza, Fatimah Asghar and more – engage with topics from racial tensions, microaggressions and emotional labour, to queer desire, prejudice and otherness and ask: “Could you put your white best friend on stage and remind them that they’re part of the problem? Even if you love them?”

 

 

The 24 Hour Plays Viral Monologues: New Monologues Created During the Coronavirus Pandemic – Volume edited by Howard Sherman

Monologue collection; 978 1 350 18754 2; £14.99

Over 50 original monologues from writers such as Clare Barron, Christopher Oscar Peña and Jesse Eisenberg chronicle the global response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, an unprecedented moment in history which brought an end to live theatre in the USA and Europe; making for an anthology that is timely, moving, irreverent and at its best, transcendent.

 

 

Robert Icke: Works One (Oresteia; Uncle Vanya; Mary Stuart; The Wild Duck; The Doctor) by Robert Icke

Play collection; 978 1 786 82907 8; £17.99

This collection of Robert Icke’s multi-award winning adaptations includes The Wild Duck, a new version of Ibsen’s masterpiece in which a stranger’s revelation of family secrets leads to tragic consequences; Uncle Vanya, Chekhov’s late masterpiece examining the bittersweet contradiction of human behaviour; and Oresteia, a family drama spanning several decades which still resonates today.

 

 

The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro (Electricidad; Oedipus El Rey; Mojada) by Luis Alfaro. Edited by Rosa Andújar

Play collection; 978 1 350 15540 4; £22.49 paperback

Featuring a new interview with Alfaro which addresses key topics such as his engagement with ancient Greek drama and work with Chicanx communities across the United States, this trilogy gathers together for the first time the three ‘Greek’ plays of the MacArthur Genius Award-winning Chicanx playwright and performance artist, each with its own introduction and summary of overall themes.

 

 

Lucy Prebble Plays 1 (The Sugar Syndrome; Enron; The Effect; A Very Expensive Poison) by Lucy Prebble

Play collection; 978 1 350 17509 9; £19.99 paperback

Bringing together Lucy Prebble’s landmark plays from 2003-2019, this collection spans from the George Devine Award-winning play The Sugar Syndrome – following 17 year old teen truant Dani, who seeks solace from her mundane life through online chatrooms – to A Very Expensive Poison, a bizarre mix of high-stakes global politics and radioactive villainy.

 

 

Richard Bean Plays 6 (One Man, Two Guvnors; Young Marx; The Hypocrite) by Richard Bean

Play collection; 978 1 350 18365 0; £19.99 paperback

The sixth collection of plays from award-winning playwright Richard Bean showcases the world-conquering hit One Man, Two Guvnors, winner of both the 2011 Evening Standard Theatre Best New Play and Critic’s Circle Best New Play; Young Marx, his riotous take on Karl Marx’s life in London which launched London’s new Bridge Theatre; and The Hypocrite, a historical-farcical romp that lit up Hull’s year as City of Culture.

 

 

Tom Whalley Pantomimes
W: www.tomwhalleypantomimes.com
E: tomwhalleypantomimes@gmail.com
F: twpantoscripts | T: @twpantoscripts

Dick Whittington by Tom Whalley

Full length pantomime; Free perusal copies available upon request

Dick is a dreamer and has his sights set on London; the city paved with gold. With his trusty pussy cat by his side, he gets a job at Alderman Fitzwarren’s Store but the city is under attack from the most villainous, vermin of them all; King Rat!
With the help of his new love Alice, Fairy Bow Bells, Sarah the Cook and her silly son – Idle Jack, will Dick be able to vanquish the vermin?

 

The Crowood Press
01672 520320
W: crowood.com | E: enquiries@crowood.com
F: TheCrowoodPress | T: @crowoodpress

The Costume Maker’s Companion by Diane Favell

Theatre book; 978 1 785 00719 4; £25.00 paperback

Authentic historical costume is essential for any performance, to instantly communicate a period, a social standing, an occupation or an identity. The responsibility of this representation lies with the costume maker, in their knowledge of the design and their accuracy of construction. The Costume Maker’s Companion serves as an aide memoire, to novice and experienced makers alike, covering the common garments of the Medieval, Tudor, Jacobean, Restoration, Regency and Victorian eras of British history.
Learn the key styles and fashions of each period before step-by-step tutorials and detailed orders of work illustrate the costume construction process for eight popular garments, from the designer’s drawing through to the finished piece. This book also covers:

  • Working with a costume designer
  • Key processes and equipment
  • Flat pattern manipulations
  • Cutting a pattern on the stand
  • Taking a pattern from an existing garment
  • Costume details, including goldwork and flounces
  • Making accessories, including gauntlets, corsets and ruffs

Foreword by Fiona Shaw.
Diane Favell has worked at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for nearly twenty-five years, teaching costume and running the Wardrobe department since 2001. Before this she both made for and supervised performances in theatre and film. Diane also teaches short courses at Central St Martins, University of Arts, London.

 

Cressrelles Publishing Company Limited
01684 540154 | F: Cressrelles
W: www.cressrelles.co.uk | E: simon@cressrelles.co.uk

Please email simon@cressrelles.co.uk if you would like to read any of these plays:

Celestial Error by Patricia Brooks
Celestial Error is a divine one-act comedy for women, written in 1958. Five women are called to Judgement after a clerical error has caused confusion over which of them was scheduled to meet their Maker! Two of them should not be there – but all five of them have to plead their case before the Heavenly Court!
For eight women, of mixed ages from nineteen to 60s+. The roles of the three Court officials can be played by men. The running time is approximately 45 minutes.

Blonde On The Bonnet by Jennifer Curry
Blonde on the Bonnet is a piece of absurdist theatre. It is a one-act play with a great deal of humour, tinged with the drama and sadness of an unfulfilled marriage. When George buys a new car, he is surprised when the scantily-clad girl draped over the bonnet is included. The effect on his wife and neighbours is devastating – until his wife wins a Disk Jockey in a competition!
Blonde On The Bonnet can either be staged with a large cast of ten men and nine women, or a cast of eight with doubling of parts. The running time is approximately 45 minutes.

South For The Winter by Joe Graham
South For The Winter is a two-act comedy, which is ideal for amateur drama groups as it is set within an amdram society! Michael Finch has spent the last fifteen years wasting his serious acting ambitions on his local drama group. He wants to stretch himself and branches out to set up his own group, holding open auditions for Shakespeare’s Richard III. The response is not what he hoped for, as many of the usual suspects from his usual society turn up.
The sudden and unwelcome arrival of his father, Birdy, and his personal issues, throws the group into a chaotic spiral as skeletons and real feelings are exposed. A comic but hard look at a world that appears to be Care Bear Land, but often hides secrets and desires.
For three men and five women, ranging from their twenties up to 56. The running time is approximately 90 minutes.

Be My Guest! by Kay Macauliffe
Be My Guest! is a best-selling, zany comedy from a well-respected author. A mix-up over the identities of Mary’s Mother-in-law and the Guest Speaker causes confusion and chaos. Espcially when the Guest Speaker’s rescued baby badger is mistaken for a child!
For six women – four younger and two of whom are older. The running time is approximately 30 minutes.

The Cardboard Cavaliers by John Waterhouse
The Cardboard Cavaliers is a one-act social farce. Lil, Will and Bill are a family living on the streets, in three cardboard boxes underneath a railway arch. The play is basically a domestic comedy. Young Bill returns from begging in the West End with news that a TV presenter wants to interview them for a real, human-interest documentary series. The family’s eagerness to impress is confounded by Bill’s ineptitude. It does not end happily for the family, but there is plenty of humour along the way. At the end, the police move them on, but as they leave, a new family moves in. And so the cycle goes on.
For four men, four women and three extras (1m, 1w, 1b). The running time is approximately 30 minutes.

Blush Pink by Jean McConnell
Blush Pink is a one-act comedy for an all-women cast. Well-meaning ladies from the local Townswomen’s Guild or WI have decided to re-decorate an elderly lady’s home as a treat for her. After a variety of mishaps and squabbles, the old lady drops a bombshell which puts them back to square one.
For six women, one of around 80, five any age younger. The running time is approx. 30 minutes.

Black Velvet by Winifred Trentham
Black Velvet is a one-act murder mystery set in the late 1940s. The Moir family has gathered for a reunion. Dinner is about to be served when the son’s wife, who is hated by every member of the family, is found dead. With the family Doctor ruling the death to be unnatural, the police are called. As several members of the family seem to have good cause to murder Louise, who will be revealed as the killer? And what does it have to do with the cat?!
For four men (two older) and four women (one older). The running time is approx. 30 minutes.

The Burning Glass by Charles Morgan
The Burning Glass is a three-act drama. Set in the 1950s as the suspicions and rivalries of the Cold War begin to grow. A British scientist has stumbled upon an immense new power which harnesses the Sun’s rays. In the enemy’s hands, it could be a devastating weapon. With spies closing in, Christopher turns to the Prime Minister for protection, but have they acted too slowly.
For six men and two women, with most of the cast of a younger age and two in their 50s or higher. The running time is approximately 90 minutes.

Answers On a Postcard by Andrew Rock
A one-act comical play. Harold relieves the boredom of unemployment by advertising for lady visitors. In the midst of an appointment, his wife, a successful business woman, unexpectedly returns home and her reaction surprises her errant husband. Festival winner.
For one man and three women, two in their forties, two younger. The running time is approximately 35 minutes.

Alas, Poor Yorick! by Leonard de Francquen
Alas, Poor Yorick! is a one-act play set in the 1950s-1960s. Peter, an actor, is being painted in his role of Hamlet by his beloved Norah, an artist. Norah is resisting his proiposal of marriage yet again. Molly, Norah’s impetuous younger sister, invites Norah’s ex-fiancé and his wife round for tea. Will seeing him finally lay the ghost of their love to rest and allow her to move on?
For two men and three women, in their 20s to 30s. The running time is approx. Running time is around 35 minutes.

Afternoon Theatre by Beatrix Carter
Afternoon Theatre is a gentle, one-act play for women. Sybil has submitted a radio play to the BBC for its ‘Afternoon Theatre’ slot. To her joy, it has been accepted and is being broadcast this afternoon. She has gathered some of the villagers to listen to her radio play. Some have come to celebrate with her, others to sneer where they can. A heart-warming blend of humour and compassion.
For five women, middle-aged and above. The running time is approx. 35 minutes.

NEW PLAYS, BOOKS AND MUSICALS

NEW PLAYS, BOOKS AND MUSICALS

Samuel French Ltd (A Concord Theatricals Company)

T: 020 7054 7285 (Amateur Groups)
T: 020 7054 7285 (Schools and Youth Groups)
T: 020 7054 7289 (Universities and Drama Schools)
W: www.samuelfrench.co.uk | F: samuelfrenchuk | T: @SamuelFrenchLtd

 

Better Off Dead by Alan Ayckbourn

Full-length Comedy

Larger than life and highly irascible author, Algy Waterbridge is hard at work on his 33rd crime novel featuring blunt Yorkshire cop DCI Tommy Middlebrass. But it’s been a while since Tommy was on the TV, Algy’s wife is getting frighteningly forgetful and his adoring PA sometimes oversteps the mark. With constant interruptions, it’s almost the last straw when old acquaintance Gus Crewe turns up to interview him for the press, with alarming consequences.
But as Algy’s fictional characters take over and real people introduce themselves into the dramatic climax of his novel, the lines become blurred and it might just be that fiction, misunderstandings and mistaken identity are closer to the truth than they seem.
A comedy of confusion about a grumpy old man who might not be so grumpy after all.

 

A Brief History of Women by Alan Ayckbourn

Full-length Comedy, 3M 3F, 978 0 571 34828 2, £18.99 (Alan Ayckbourn: Plays 6)

Contained in Alan Ayckbourn: Plays 6
A comedy in four parts about an unremarkable man and the remarkable women who loved him, left him, or lost him over sixty years; and of the equally remarkable old manor house that saw and heard it all happen.
A Brief History of Woman charts the life of Anthony Spates: from his first job as an adolescent footman at a country manor house through to his retirement as manager of the hotel the manor house became. Over the course of six decades, the play follows him and the remarkable women he has loved, left and lost over the years.
A Brief History of Woman premiered in September 2017 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough.

 

Consuming Passions by Alan Ayckbourn

Full-length Comedy

Consuming Passions is a thriller in which a woman believes she overhears a murder being planned. But has she really and, if so, can she prevent it?

 

A Daughter’s a Daughter by Agatha Christie

Full-length Play/Melodrama, 4M 5F, 1930s, PMS0000000209, £14.99 (pre-publication manuscript)

The love between a mother and daughter turns to jealousy and bitterness in this intense and personal drama.
Ann Prentice falls in love with Richard Caulfield and hopes for a new life and happiness. Only her daughter, Sarah, takes an instant jealous dislike to him. Resentment slowly corrodes their relationship as each seeks comfort in the formidable and knowing Dame Laura Whitstable who remarks, “the trouble with sacrifice is that once its made its not over and done with.”

 

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie by Dan Gillespie Sells, Tom MacRae, Jonathan Butterell

Full-length Musical, 10M 8F, Contemporary, 978 0 573 70689 9, £9.99

This title is not currently available for performance. To be informed as soon as it becomes available in the future, please submit a license application.
Jamie New is sixteen and lives on a council estate in Sheffield. Jamie doesn’t quite fit in. Jamie is terrified about the future. Jamie is going to be a sensation.
Supported by his brilliant, loving mum and surrounded by his friends, Jamie overcomes prejudice, beats the bullies, and steps out of the darkness into the spotlight.
Sixteen: the edge of possibility. Time to make your dreams come true.
Please note: the acting edition currently sold is intended for perusal only and may not be used in performance.

 

Fabric by Abi Zakarian

Monologue, 1F, Contemporary, 978 0 573 13211 7, £9.99

Leah has lost her friends, family, career, and dignity. Forced to move for a third time following a harrowing court case, she relives painful events in her past as she sorts through all the stuff that has accumulated in her spare room: clothes she doesn’t wear, books she doesn’t read, things she doesn’t need anymore. Leah desperately tries to unpick just where it all went wrong and who or what is really to blame.
Fabric deals with the aftermath of a rape that isn’t believed and confronts the traditional roles still expected of women; questioning how much has changed since the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

 

Farinelli and the King by Claire van Kampen

Full-length Drama, 6M 1F, 16th Century / Elizabethan, 978 0 573 70790 2, £10.99

Depressed and plagued by insomnia, King Philippe V of Spain lies awake in his chamber. The queen, desperate to find a cure, hears of Farinelli – a castrato with a voice so divine it has the power to captivate all who hear it. Even Philippe is astonished when Farinelli sings, and he begs him to stay. But will Farinelli, one of the greatest celebrities of his time, choose a life of solitude over fame and fortune in the opera houses of Europe? And will his extraordinary talent prove to be a curse rather than a blessing?

 

Fiddlers Three by Agatha Christie

Full-length Play, Melodrama, 8M 3F, 1970s, License only

Trying to get their hands on more than a little inheritance, a group of young people hide the body of a dead tycoon. But what starts as a lark quickly becomes all too serious when they discover that the body is in fact a murder victim.
A comedy about business and finance, with a strong undercurrent of criminal activity, the play combines humour, intricate plotting and a confounding murder.

 

Hangmen by Martin McDonagh

Full-length Play, Melodrama, 12M 2F 2M/F, 1960s, 978 0 571 32887 1, £9.99

In his small pub in Oldham, Harry is something of a local celebrity. But what’s the second-best hangman in England to do on the day they’ve abolished hanging? Amongst the cub reporters and sycophantic pub regulars, dying to hear Harry’s reaction to the news, a peculiar stranger lurks, with a very different motive for his visit.
Don’t worry. I may have my quirks but I’m not an animal. Or am I? One for the courts to discuss.

 

If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet by Nick Payne

Full Length Drama, 2M 2F, Contemporary, 978 0 571 25597 9, £9.99

Surviving school as a fat kid is tough enough. When your mum’s a teacher, it’s hell. What’s more, Anna’s dad is obsessed with saving the world and her maverick uncle Terry is dossing on the couch. When Anna hits back at the bullies, she suspended from school and stuck at home with hapless Terry trying to save her. But Terry needs saving himself and, as the bond between the two deepens, Anna is swept up in a friendship she can’t live without. If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet by Nick Payne is premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in October 2009.
Once you have applied for your licence, email your licensing representative so that they can send you the most up-to-date version of this script necessary for production. No other version of the script is approved for production.

 

Incognito by Nick Payne

Full-length Drama, 2M 2F, 1960s, Enquire for details

Four actors play a combined twenty-one characters within Incognito’s three interwoven stories. A pathologist steals the brain of Albert Einstein; a neuropsychologist embarks on her first romance with another woman; a seizure patient forgets everything but how much he loves his girlfriend. Incognito braids these mysterious stories into one breathtaking whole that asks whether memory and identity are nothing but illusions.
The brain builds a narrative to steady us from moment to moment, but it is absolutely an illusion. There is no me, there is no you, and there is certainly no self.
Princeton, New Jersey. 1955. Thomas Stoltz Harvey performs the autopsy on Albert Einstein – and then steals his brain.
Bath, England. 1953. Henry undergoes pioneering brain surgery. The surgery changes Henry’s life, and the history of neuroscience.
London, England. The Present. Martha is a clinical neuropsychologist. When her marriage breaks down she starts to make radically different choices.
Three interwoven stories exploring the nature of identity and how we are defined by what we remember, Incognito is an exhilarating exploration of what it means to be human.

 

Mikey and Addie by Robert Alan Evans

Short-length Play, 1M 1F, Contemporary, 978 0 573 12015 2, £9.99

He walks about with his head in the stars, believing that his dad is up there somewhere, in space, working for NASA. However, when Addie shatters his dreams she starts to realise that with the truth comes responsibility and that, like it or not, she is going to have to do everything she can to help this boy. Even if it means breaking all the rules she holds dear.

 

Mystery of Dumsey Meadow by David Perkins, Caroline Dooley

Full-length Musical, 8M 8F 1M/F, 1930s, 978 0 573 11525 7, £9.99

When the pupils of St Winifred’s and St Albert’s arrive for a camping trip at the beautiful Dumsey Meadow, deep in the heart of the English countryside, they find themselves in a spot of bother – there has been a double booking and only one school may camp there.
Whilst trying to decide which of them should stay, they become aware of some mysterious things happening around them: What is the peculiar smell in the air? Why is the Farmer always singing? Why do the cows and sheep appear to be laughing? Why did the Dumsey apple harvest fail for the first time in 300 years? And who is the hooded woman with the horrible cackle? With sleuth-like commitment the children attempt to find answers to these puzzling questions.
Set in the 1930s with a cast of colourful characters, this is a musical play for mystery lovers everywhere with a flexible performing age range of eight to adult.

 

No Knowing by Alan Ayckbourn

Full-length Comedy, Enquire for details

A supremely funny comedy written in 2016, we see Elspeth and Arthur celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary. We go back to the previous Christmas and wince as their grown-up children reveal murky and (often) hilarious truths about both parents.

 

One Day When We Were Young by Nick Payne

Full-length Drama, 1M 1F, WWII & 2002, 978 0 571 28395 8, £9.99

I am scared, that once this war is over, and I am sent home, that you won’t be here. That you will have left.
Leonard and Violet, young, restless and in love, spend their first night together knowing it may also be their last. It’s 1942 and, in a hotel room in Bath, they dream of their future while preparing for Leonard’s departure to the war. But the bombs begin to fall and their world will never be the same again. In the year 2002, the couple look back at what might have been.
Examining the impact of the Second World War on two ordinary lives and a love that spans more than sixty years, Nick Payne’s One Day When We Were Young premiered at the Crucible Studio, Sheffield, in October 2011 in a Paines Plough production.
Once you have applied for your licence, email your licensing representative so that they can send you the most up-to-date version of this script necessary for production. No other version of the script is approved for production.

 

Personal Call by Agatha Christie

Radio Play, Melodrama, 9M 5F, 1950s, Enquire for details

James Brent receives a chilling telephone call seemingly from beyond the grave. His dead wife, Fay, is waiting for him at the very place she met her grisly end. At his new wife’s insistence, they go to meet her as requested and in the process discover a terrifying and disturbing truth.
Part of the live radio triple bill Murder in the Studio which also includes Butter in a Lordly Dish and Yellow Iris.

 

A Poirot Double Bill by Agatha Christie

A double-bill of short Poirot plays, 7M 2F, 1930s, PMS0000000216, £14.99 (pre-publication manuscript)

In The Wasp’s Nest, Hercule Poirots come between a bitter triangle of lovers to prevent a sinister murder before it takes place. In Yellow Iris, A distressed phone call from a mystery woman brings Hercule Poirot to the hotel Jardin des Cygnes, where a man commemorates the four-year anniversary of his wife’s sudden death – a death under very suspicious circumstances that Poirot himself witnessed. Gathered is everyone present on that fateful night and now Poirot must find a killer in the midst, before they strike again.

 

Rule of Thumb by Agatha Christie

A triple-bill of short contrasting plays, 5M 4F, 1930s, PMS0000000217, £14.99 (pre-publication manuscript)

This triple bill of one-act murder mysteries combines: The Wasp’s Nest which sees Hercule Poirot come between a bitter triangle of lovers to prevent a sinister murder before it takes place; The Rats, a dark and chilling tale in which a pair of adulterous lovers find themselves lured to a flat, trapped like rats and framed for murder; and finally, The Patient, a tense thriller in which a woman has been hospitalised after seemingly falling from her balcony.

 

The Same Deep Water As Me by Nick Payne

Full-length Drama, 5M 6F, Contemporary, 978 0 571 31100 2, £9.99

Had an accident at work? Tripped on a paving slab? Cut yourself shaving? You could be entitled to compensation. Andrew and Barry at Scorpion Claims, Luton’s finest personal injury lawyers, are the men for you. When Kevin, Andrew’s high school nemesis, appears in his office the opportunity for a quick win arises. But just how fast does a lie have to spin before it gets out of control?
Once you have applied for your licence, email your licensing representative so that they can send you the most up-to-date version of this script necessary for production. No other version of the script is approved for production.

 

The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie

Full-length Play, Melodrama, 10M 4F, 1920s, Enquire for details

The Council Chambers at Chimneys, the Brent family estate, holds a dark and intriguing secret and someone will stop at nothing to prevent the monarchy being restored in faraway Herzoslovakia.
A young drifter finds more than he bargained for when he agrees to deliver a parcel to an English country estate. Little did Anthony Cade suspect that a simple errand on behalf of a friend would make him the centrepiece of a murderous international conspiracy. A sinister plot rife with diamonds, oil conessions, exiled royalty, an elusive master criminal and the combined forces of Scotland Yard and the French Surete.

 

Starlings by Nick Payne

Full-length Play, 3M 2F, Enquire for details

Melissa wants to get on with her life but never knows when her father is going to turn up next. Over thirty years she struggles to overcome her past while her family, torn apart by alcohol, try to repair the damage. Nick Payne’s new play about history and hope is a poignant, unflinching reflection on the ties that bind us.
Once you have applied for your licence, email your licensing representative so that they can send you the most up-to-date version of this script necessary for production. No other version of the script is approved for production.

 

The Wasp’s Nest by Agatha Christie

Short-length Play, Melodrama, 3M 1F, 1930s, PMS0000000235, £12.99 (pre-publication manuscript)

This classic Christie short story sees Hercule Poirot come between a bitter triangle of lovers to prevent a sinister murder before it takes place.
Available to buy as an individual title or as part of the collections Rule of Thumb and A Poirot Double Bill.

 

Nick Hern Books

T: 020 8749 4953
W: www.nickhernbooks.co.uk | E: info@nickhernbooks.co.uk
F: NickHernBooks | T: @NickHernBooks

 

Box Clever by Monsay Whitney

Full-length play, 1F 1F/M (larger cast possible), Can be simply staged, 978 1 848 42694 8, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Offering a challenging role for a lead female performer, plus a diverse chorus of characters for one multi-roling performer or a larger cast, Box Clever is a moving, truthful and darkly comic play. Marnie is stuck in a women’s refuge, trying to escape toxic relationship patterns, just wanting to do the best for herself and her daughter. But how do you get out of a rut when everyone you know is a liability? ‘A superb piece of writing, bubbling with bitterness yet bursting with heart, simultaneously funny and infuriating’ The Stage

 

Drawing Crosses on a Dusty Windowpane by Dylan Coburn Gray

Full-length play, 1F, Can be simply staged, 978 1 788 50212 2, £3.99 – epub (£3.19 direct from publisher)

A play for a solo female performer about losing someone close to you, about the human need to remember and connect. From the Verity Bargate Award-winning playwright Dylan Coburn Gray. ‘Entrancing… sumptuous and sinuous writing’ Irish Times on Citysong

 

The House Keeper by Morna Regan

Full-length play, 2F 1M, Can be simply staged, 978 1 848 42272 8, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

A woman stripped of everything she has ever worked for takes a stand, only to find she has disturbed a hornet’s nest of unimagined proportions. The House Keeper is a darkly humorous psychological thriller exploring the nature of possession, inheritance and corruption for three performers. ‘Potent… Regan’s humour is ink-black and bladed’ Exeunt Magazine

 

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, adapted by Jessica Swale, music by Joe Stilgoe

Full-length play, 6F 3M, 9+F/M (flexible; smaller/larger cast possible), Can be simply staged, 978 1 848 42925 3, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Rudyard Kipling’s beloved tale of family, belonging and identity has been reimagined in this acclaimed version by Olivier Award-winning playwright Jessica Swale. This musical adaptation with original songs by Joe Stilgoe is packed with memorable characters, catchy tunes and brilliant storytelling, offering rich opportunities for all school, college, youth-theatre and amateur groups looking for a fresh, ambitious and inventive retelling of a much-loved classic. ‘Swale has given us a Jungle Book for the present day, one ready to enchant and educate in equal measure’ WhatsOnStage

 

Mud by Robert Holman

Full-length play, 1F 4M, Can be simply staged, 978 1 788 50232 0, £4.99 – epub (£4.00 direct from publisher)

A surreal and touching play for a small cast about a group of lonely people converge on the North Yorkshire moors. George, recently retired and grieving for his wife, has come on holiday to fish. Harold, son of the local squire, has come to shoot. Alan and Pauline have come to escape prying eyes. Hopes, dreams and fears play out in a Beckettian landscape as RAF fighter planes tear across the sky. ‘Holman’s instinct for truth, and an unaffected ability to spot what’s poignant in it, is what one remembers’ The Times

 

The Natural Cause by Robert Holman

Full-length play, 2F 4-7M plus additional voices, Can be simply staged, 978 1 788 50231 3, £4.99 – epub (£4.00 direct from publisher)

A dark and disturbing portrait of mental illness, and its effects on a young family. Barry and Mary are expecting a child. Barry is a bus conductor, but he’d like to drive the bus one day instead. His mother keeps telling Mary that Barry’s not right, and that she should leave him. But Mary chooses to stick with Barry, for better or in fact for worse.

 

Other Worlds by by Robert Holman

Full-length play, 4-5F 5-8M, Can be simply staged, 978 1 788 50231 3, £4.99 – epub (£4.00 direct from publisher)

A gorilla is taken for a French spy by an Eighteenth Century fishing community on the isolated North Yorkshire coast. Robert Holman’s play explores the suspicions, antipathies and fears of the unknown that divide communities, and the bonds that can transcend those divisions.

 

The Overgrown Path by Robert Holman

Full-length play, 3F 3M, plus several children, Can be simply staged, 978 1 788 50235 1, £4.99 – epub (£4.00 direct from publisher)

Nicholas Marks, an aspiring academic from Yorkshire, arrives on the Greek island of Tinos to interview reclusive scientist Daniel Howarth about his work on the atomic bomb. But as he tries to tease apart fact and fantasy, science and mythology, chance and destiny, Nicholas discovers a surprising truth about himself. The Overgrown Path is about history, and the stories we tell each other to make sense of ourselves.

 

Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Cordelia Lynn

Full-length play, 5F 9M plus extras, Can be simply staged, 978 1 848 42860 7, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

A fresh and intelligent adaptation that makes Chekhov’s characters feel like contemporary young women. In a room in a house in a provincial town, three sisters wait for their lives to begin. Olga, the eldest. Masha, the middle child. Irina, the youngest. The clock strikes. A candle is lit. The clock stops. Something catches fire. The clock strikes. They wake up.

 

Today by Robert Holman

Full-length play, 5-6F 7-9M, Can be simply staged, 978 1 788 50234 4, £4.99 – epub (£4.00 direct from publisher)

From the lawns of King’s College, Cambridge, where two shy young men from opposing backgrounds confront the reality of their attraction to each other, to the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War, where courage, idealism and solidarity are tested in the furnace of conflict, Today is a panoramic study of life, desire and the search for a fundamental self in the midst of a shifting, uncertain world. Written for a large ensemble cast.

 

Music Theatre International (Europe)

T: 020 7580 2827
W: www.mtishows.co.uk | E: shows@mtishows.co.uk
F: mtieurope | T: mtieurope

Shrek – The Musical

Music by Jeanine Tesori. Book & Lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire. Based on the DreamWorks Animation Motion Picture and the book by William Steig.

Available for performances after 1 January 2021. Based on the Oscar-winning DreamWorks Animation film, Shrek The Musical is a Tony Award-winning fairy tale adventure featuring all-new songs from Jeanine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Caroline or Change) and a sidesplitting book by David Lindsay-Abaire. Shrek brings all the beloved characters you know from the film to life on stage, and proves there’s more to the story than meets the ears.
“Once upon a time, there was a little ogre named Shrek…” And thus begins the tale of an unlikely hero who finds himself on a life-changing journey alongside a wisecracking Donkey and a feisty princess who resists her rescue. Throw in a short tempered bad guy, a cookie with an attitude, and over a dozen other fairy tale misfits, and you’ve got the kind of mess that calls for a real hero. Luckily, there’s one on hand…and his name is Shrek.
Shrek presents a treasure trove of creative opportunities including costumes, sets, puppets (there is a fire-breathing dragon after all), and more! Irreverently fun for the whole family, Shrek proves that beauty is truly in the eye of the ogre.

 

Josef Weinberger Ltd

T: 020 7927 7322
E: shows@jwmail.co.uk | W: www.josef-weinberger.com

The Guardsman by Ferenc Molnar, in a new adaptation by Bonnie J. Monte, from the unabridged English translation by Gabor Lukin

Full-length Play, 3M 4F, 2 Sets, 978 0 856 76376 2, £9.99 (RRP)

A beautiful actress has married her handsome leading man, and their best friend is a critic. A recipe for marital bliss for denizens of the theatre world – until a dashing guardsman enters the scene and starts sending the actress roses. In this new version of The Guardsman, Molnar’s “romantic comedy” finally receives the treatment it deserves as a “comedy of agony.”
The Guardsman is an anguished farce which inspired the work of Pirandello and Pinter. Even as it poses disturbing questions about identity, voyeurism, reality, perception, the masks we wear, and the pain of love, it elicits gales of laughter.

 

The Musical Company

T: 020 7240 0880
W: www.themusicalcompany.com | F: themusicalco
E: laura.hall@reallyuseful.com | T: @themusicalco

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Lyrics by Tim Rice. Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Full length musical, Principals: 6M 1F (Narrator); Featured: 11M 1F; Choir (Men/Women); Children’s Chorus (Boys/Girls), “way, way back many centuries ago, not long after the Bible began” in the land of Canaan and Egypt.

Orchestration:

  • 10 Piece Novello Version (60 minutes) – 1974
  • 10 Piece Version (90 minutes) – 1991
  • 15 Piece Version (90 minutes) – 1991
  • Backing Track Edition (60 minutes)

For the first time, adult amateur societies are being given the opportunity to apply to perform one of musical theatre’s best-loved and most popular shows of all time. The performing window is throughout 2020 and only applies to productions taking place outside the M25 and in auditoriums with less than 1,000 seats.
To date, Joseph… has only ever been available to schools, colleges and youth groups so we hope The Really Useful Group is preparing to be inundated with requests to perform the show which played to sell-out audiences at The London Palladium last summer.
First performed as a 15-minute school pop-opera in 1968, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is based on the story of Joseph from the Bible’s Book of Genesis. Today, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sung-through musical has been on a virtual non-stop tour for years, which is one of the reasons why it has never been available to amateur companies.
Featuring songs from just about every musical genre, there can’t be many people who don’t recognise the show’s numbers, which include: Any Dream Will Do; Joseph’s Coat; One More Angel in Heaven; Close Every Door; Go, Go, Go Joseph; Song of the King; Those Canaan Days and Benjamin Calypso.

 

Arts On the Move

T: 0161 881 0868
W: www.artsonthemove.co.uk | F: artsonthemove.co.uk
E: info@artsonthemove.co.uk | T: @artsonthemoveco

Nickolai of the North by Lucy Daniel Raby. Music by Geoff Tinniswood

Full-length Christmas Play with Music, 24. KS2 KS3, 120 minutes, £60.00 (download) £20 (license, up to 5 performances)

Have you ever wondered who filled Santa’s stocking when he was a boy? Or why he carries out his Christmas mission every year? All is revealed in this two-act Christmas play with music.
A refreshing alternative to panto, it tells the magical story of Santa’s childhood. When villainess Magda destroys his home at the North Pole, young elf Nickolai is rescued by a flying reindeer. We follow his adventures as he grows up amongst humans, realises he is different and returns to the North Pole to seek his destiny and ultimately save the world’s children from Magda’s evil.
With fourteen sensational songs from established composer Geoff Tinniswood, including backing tracks and vocals and containing traditional seasonal ingredients such as heroes, villains, witches, fairies, reindeer, wolves and goblins, ‘Nickolai’ is a sparkling family show that provides a fabulous opportunity for ensemble work.
The package includes mp3 music files of backing tracks, vocals and incidental music for performance and practice; lyrics; vocal music score (vocal line only) and the playscript with production notes and lyrics.

 

Brown, Son and Ferguson Ltd

T: 0141 883 0141
W: www.scottishplays.co.uk | E: info@skipper.co.uk
F: Brown-Son-Ferguson-Ltd-1684294391792165 | T: @skipper_uk

A Bit of Land by Agnes Adam

Short-length Comedy, 4M 2F, 978 0 851 74837 5, £1.00

Tommy Boyle, thinking his father has died, persuades Dan Murphy to impersonate the dead man for the purpose of making a will. After a hurried make-up, Dan jumps into bed and poses as the dying man. The schoolmaster arrives to make the will. Finally, he starts to make a new will, but old Andy, the supposed dead man, appears on the scene.
This is rollicking comedy in Ulster dialect at its raciest, but is playable in any dialect.

 

Building Bridges by Marie Dunlop

Full-length Play, 2M 2F, 978 1 849 27085 4, £5.00

Building Bridges is set in 1965 in Anderston, Glasgow and examines the reaction of deserted husband, Billy Speirs and his family to the return of his estranged wife, Bernie, whose mother has been taken seriously ill.
It is a tale of bitterness and betrayal but also of the absolute enduring strength of love at a time when a community was being sliced up to make way for a stretch of inner city motorway and the Glasgow Kingston Bridge. Just as the earmarking of Anderston as a Glasgow Comprehensive Development Area faced mixed reactions, the couple’s tentative and nervous steps back to one another face opposition and difficulty and like the opinion of much of the community at that time, it was clear that things were never going to be the same again.
The heart was getting ripped out of the place, just as it had been ripped out of Billy. Decisions have to be made, loyalties examined and painful truths faced. Better days were coming, however, in the promise of new corporation housing and it is against this backdrop of demolition and renewal that Building Bridges opens.

 

False Widows by Rebecca Bond

Two-act Play, 2M 5F, 978 1 849 27069 4, £5.00

It’s 1955 and Roland Ayre, the Earl of Dunshire has passed away; but at his funeral his family find out he was not the man they thought. In the forty-eight Hours that follow Heathersett House is turned into a battle ground as his families go head to over the inheritance – and things take a very strange turn.

 

Redemption in Salamanca by Rebecca McCallum

Three-act Play, 6M 1F, 978 1 849 27086 1, £5.00

The soul of Don Félix de Montemar, a young Spanish aristocrat, is on the brink of damnation as he makes his way through the night streets of Salamanca in the direction of the Carnaval. On his travels, he encounters a duel, a gambling den, a lost lover and the wraiths and priests who will fight over his soul.
Adapted for the stage from the Romantic poem by José de Espronceda, which is a variation of the Don Juan legend, the play brings to the fore the question of mortality, faith, eternal law and redemption.

 

Scobie Raeburn had a Ten Pound Note by Alistair Ferguson

Six-act Play, 5M 8F, 978 1 849 27082 3, £5.00

Scobie’s rent is due. While paying he produces a £10 note from his sock, but changes his mind and decides to hold on to that one – it’s his lucky one and has some kind of sentimental value. During passionate negotiations with his landlady the note is torn, making it quite identifiable. Scobie manages to retain the £10 note, which he then decides to spend at the shops instead.
The note then goes on an adventure, seeing a few snapshots into people’s lives, before ultimately finding its way back to Scobie, who ends the play quite philosophically.

 

Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie. Stage Version by James Scotland

Full-length Play, 16M 8F, 978 1 849 27086 1, £4.00

October, 1941. The Hebridean islands of Great Todday and Little Todday are sunk deep in the doldrums of a spiritless wartime existence, till the S.S. Cabinet Minister runs aground nearby, and by a miracle there is uisghe beatha gu leoir.
Various young couples find the path of true love smoothed and the village schoolmaster slays his personal dragon, but the commander of the local Home Guard finds his duty becoming harder every day. Compton Mackenzie’s immortal tale is world-famous. He expressed his warm approval of this stage version, which was first performed at the 1966 Edinburgh Festival by the Edinburgh People’s Theatre.

 

Smith Scripts

T: 0844 997 1000
W: www.smithscripts.co.uk | E: info@smithscripts.co.uk
F: smithscripts | T: @smithscripts

A Carol’s Christmas by Keith Badham

Full-length Comedy, 4M 8F, Contemporary, £5.00 (download only)

Carol is struggling to organise her Christmas with a dysfunctional family, friends and neighbours. A surprising discovery changes her Christmas and her relationships. Shock announcements, catering issues and the odd game of charades make the perfect Christmas menu. Based very loosely on A Christmas Carol, A Carol’s Christmas is a bittersweet comedy that is perfect for the festive season.

 

Hollywood The Musical by Shaun Blake

Full-length Jukebox Musical, 8M 13F plus extras – may be performed by 15 M/F with doubling, Contemporary, £5.00 (download only)

Hollywood the Musical is the tale of Bryan and Jennifer who make it into the movie industry in Hollywood for the first time. There they meet several people along the way, some who will help them to success and others who will show them the possibly scandalous side of the industry. A jukebox musical set to many of your favourite film soundtracks.

 

Ride a White Swan by Tom Kelly

One-act Play, 2M, Contemporary/Simple staging, £3.50 (download only)

Joe returns to the family home, after his divorce and has to share with his younger brother Mark, who has been living alone since the death of their parents. After years of being apart, they have to learn to live together and find that adjustment is difficult.
Mark has a passion for the music of Marc Bolan as a way of coping with a lack of parental love. The brothers bicker, drink and reflect on their lives, family and growing slowly and sometimes painfully closer together.

 

Six Views by Max Porter

Six Short Plays, Min. 2M 2F. Max. 8M 4F, Contemporary/Simple staging, £5.00 (download only)

Six ten-minute two-handers all set on a bench in a park overlooking a town. May be performed individually or in groups.
Some serious, some serious, but all with a slight twist in the tale, these duologues are suitable for a variety of ages and all in a very easily staged.

 

Bloomsbury – Methuen Drama

T: 01256 302699
W: www.bloomsbury.com | E: direct@macmillan.co.uk
F: BloomsburyPublishing | T: @bloomsburybooks

Theatre Books

Actors’ and Performers’ Yearbook 2020 – Essential Contacts for Stage, Screen and Radio | Edited by Lloyd Trott

978 1 350 10757 1, £11.89 (Online price, paperback)

This well-established and respected directory supports actors in their training and search for work on stage, screen and radio. It is the only directory to provide detailed information for each listing and specific advice on how to approach companies and individuals, saving hours of further research. From agents and casting directors to producing theatres, showreel companies, photographers and much more, this essential reference book editorially selects only the most relevant and reputable contacts for the actor.
With several new articles including The multi-hyphenate comedy actor-performer-writer; Ignition, inspiration and the imposter; Be prepared for publicity; and Equity pension scheme, Actors’ and Performers’ Yearbook 2020 features aspects of the profession not previously covered, as well as continuing to provide valuable insight into auditions, interviews and securing work alongside a casting calendar and financial issues. This is a valuable professional tool in an industry where contacts and networking are key to career survival.
All listings have been updated alongside fresh advice from industry experts.

“A map, compass, guide-book” Simon Callow. “Use of this book will save you time and money” Samuel West

Plays

Methuen Drama’s Modern Plays: 60th Anniversary Gift Set by Shelagh Delaney, Edward Bond, John McGrath, Caryl Churchill, Sarah Kane, Kwame Kwei-Armah, James Graham

978 1 350 13666 3, £56.00 (Online price, hardback)

Published in a limited-edition box set, this special celebratory set includes the following plays:
A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney (1959)
Saved by Edward Bond (1960s)
The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil by John McGrath (1970s)
Top Girls by Caryl Churchill (1980s)
Blasted by Sarah Kane (1990s)
Elmina’s Kitchen by Kwame Kwei-Armah (2000s)
This House by James Graham (2010s)

Methuen Drama’s iconic Modern Plays series began in 1959 with the publication of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey and has grown over six decades to now include more than 1,000 plays by some of the best writers from around the world. This new limited-edition hardback box set of seven plays celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Modern Plays series and features a play from each decade from 1959 to 2019.
Starting with Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey, the six other plays were chosen by public vote from a shortlist of plays from each decade. The resulting collection tells a unique story of British theatre from a period of restriction and censorship through to a period of radical retaliation against the status quo and norms of theatrical storytelling. The box set brings together first plays by remarkable women, the first Black British voice in London’s West End, often-revived classics, student favourites and contemporary Olivier Award nominees to offer a diverse picture of British playwriting. Methuen Drama’s Modern Plays series has been at the heart of British theatre for the past 60 years and looks forward to publishing landmark plays of future decades.

 

Stagescripts Ltd

T: 0345 686 0611
W: shop.stagescripts.com | E: sales@stagescripts.com
F: Stagescripts | T: @stagescripts

A Very Scottish Play by John Waterhouse

Full-length Play, 3M 3F (30s – 50s), Contemporary/Simple staging, £7.95 (printed)

Terry, a highly stressed businessman, decides to go away with his wife for some rest and relaxation on a remote Scottish island. Soon after arriving, he discovers the idyllic looking cottage in the brochure is actually very uncomfortable and has a strange atmosphere. To make matters worse, Sid, the landlord, who is also the local undertaker, describes a host of natural hazards on the island, from sudden fog to quicksand and this is in addition to numerous dangers from local animals and insects.
Terry’s wife, Angela, is determined that they will enjoy their holiday and they venture off to a local pub, only to fall into bogs whilst a mysterious woman in black arrives and just stares at them. Sid believes that they have seen the ghost of the ‘dark lady’ and this is confirmed by Valerie, a curious clairvoyant who checks into the guest house that evening. The ghost is seen pointing at Terry and this is interpreted by Valerie as a warning. Then Gerald a flamboyant American film producer arrives looking for set locations, accompanied by his girlfriend Fenella. The old guesthouse is exactly what he needs for his latest film.
The ghost of the dark lady makes further appearances and Terry believes that his life is in danger. Sid knows of a reclusive medium called Gertie who lives on a remote island, who can exorcise the spirit that is tormenting Terry, for a fee. Gerald is fascinated in the ghostly background to the guesthouse and hopes to film the dark lady’s next appearance.
Valerie emerges as a lady of many talents and Gerald puts her in his film, finding her surprisingly athletic for a clairvoyant and arousing jealousy from Fenella, who is the star of the film.
Will Terry and Angela be freed from the attentions of the ghost? Is Valerie really just a clairvoyant writer? What is Sid really up to? And why is this island the focus of paranormal activity?

 

Oberon Books

T: 020 7607 3637
W: www.oberonbooks.com | E: permissions@oberonbooks.com
F: OberonBooksLondon | T: @oberonbooks

[BLANK] by Alice Birch

978 1 786 82948 1, £17.99 paperback

She can’t stay awake. She sold drugs. She’s good at interrogations. She drinks in the mornings. She ate a rabbit. She smashed up a shop. She stabbed a man. She used a hammer. She had a baby. She can’t find her mother. She’s covered in blood and doesn’t know why.
Alice Birch’s heartbreaking new play reaches across society to explore the impact of the criminal justice system on women and their families.

 

Cyrano by Peter Oswald

4 – 13M 3 – 7F, 978 1 786 82945 0, £9.99 paperback

A new version of the classic French romantic comedy from Peter Oswald.
Cursed with the looks of a clown, he weaves his secret longing into love letters of exquisite beauty that he will never dare to send. All he needs is a perfect nose to match his perfect prose. The handsome Christian has also fallen for Roxane – but while he looks like a god, he sounds like a fool. Sacrificing physical love for fantasy, Cyrano hands his words of love to Christian to speak for them both. Will Roxane fall for the ‘perfect’ man? Can Cyrano exist with only half her heart? Is true love more than skin deep?

 

Dirty Crusty by Clare Barron

1M 2F, 978 1 786 82976 4, £9.99 paperback

“We must be the women of the future standing here in this bathroom because we look like sex and power, we look like sex and power, and you don’t even know it, standing there in that motherfucking pantsuit.”
Jeanine is determined to improve her life. With sex. With dance. With new hobbies, like horticulture. But self-improvement is hard. Reclaiming your dreams is hard. And personal hygiene is really, really hard.

 

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Glyn Maxwell, Robert Louis Stevenson

2M, 2F, 978 1 786 82951 1, £9.99 paperback

A new version, from award-winning poet Glyn Maxwell, of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Gothic masterpiece. A decent man finds himself stalked and confronted by his own evil alter-ego.

 

Essex Girl by Maria Ferguson

1F, 978 1 786 82987 0, £9.99 paperback

“Essex Girl: a young working-class woman from the Essex area, typically considered as being unintelligent, materialistic, devoid of taste and sexually promiscuous.” Collins English Dictionary.
Kirsty is a sixteen-year-old girl growing up in ’00s Brentwood. She likes WKD, Elton John, Pie & Mash and Charlie Red body spray. She’s on a quest to win Sexy Ricky’s heart and pass her GCSEs. She also has a secret to tell you. One she can’t tell anyone else.
Follow Kirsty’s story through the house parties and Irish pubs of Essex. From West Ham matches to choir practice, pre-drinks to registration, she will tell you what it’s really like to be an Essex Girl.

 

Feeding the Dragon by Sharon Washington

1F, 978 1 786 82626 8, £9.99 paperback

‘Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a library…’
Deep in the bowels of a New York Public Library lies a dragon: the monstrous coal furnace that Sharon’s father, the live-in custodian, must feed every night.
A moving examination of family secrets, forgiveness, and the power of language, Feeding the Dragon explores Sharon’s life growing up in the library and the fire she never allowed to fade.

 

Five Guys Chillin’ by Peter Darney

978 1 786 82003 7, £9.99 paperback

A graphic, gripping, funny and frank verbatim drama exposing the chill-out chem-sex scene. “Wanna pair of shorts? Shot of G? Line of Meth?” From surgeons to students, couples to kink; guys that love it and lost guys longing to be loved. An original look into a drug-fuelled, hedonistic, highly secret world of Grindr, and instant gratification.

 

for all the women who thought they were Mad by Zawe Ashton

978 1 786 82958 0, £9.99 paperback

“they like to see us fall, to slip on branches full of fruit we have not tasted”
Lately, it’s small things. Pop songs. The radio. Every day, anguish becomes madness. Call on your family. Call on the ancestors. Can they guide you home?
for all the women who thought they were Mad is an urgent piece of theatre examining the myriad of forces that collide and conspire against women of colour in Britain today.

 

Gail Louw: Plays Three by Gail Louw

978 1 786 82959 7, £17.99 paperback

A third collection of plays by South African writer, Gail Louw.
Includes the plays The Ice Cream Boys, Being Brahms, A Life Twice Given, and Killing Faith.

 

 

Gods & Kings by Paul Whittaker

1M, 978 1 786 82778 4, £9.99 paperback

At the age of 23, Paul walks into a psychiatrist’s office believing he is either a God, or a King. He leaves with a diagnosis of bi-polar manic depression, and facing a life-changing decision: take the pill and live, or don’t take the pill and die.
Challenging perceptions of what it is to live with mental illness, Gods & Kings is a bracingly honest and darkly funny real-life tale, expressing what it is to live a life ruled by mental illness.
This special edition also contains a range of materials from the National Centre of Mental Health, covering diagnoses and issues raised in the play.

 

The Ice Cream Boys by Gail Louw

2M 1F, 978 1 786 82940 5, £9.99 paperback

There are some enemies you’d wait a lifetime to see face-to-face. Charismatic, corrupt and dangerous, Jacob Zuma was until recently President of South Africa. But before Zuma came to power, Ronnie Kasrils masterminded the intelligence services. Now at last they’re alone together. When you’ve been betrayed, it’s never too late to settle old scores.

 

It’s True, It’s True, It’s True by Breach Theatre

4F, 978 1 786 82662 6, £9.99 paperback

Fringe First and Total Theatre Award- winning Breach (Tank, The Beanfield) restage the 1612 trial of Agostino Tassi for the rape of baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
Based on surviving court transcripts, this new play dramatises the seven-month trial that gripped Renaissance Rome, and asks how much has changed in the last four centuries. Blending myth, history and contemporary commentary, this is the story of how a woman took revenge through her art to become one of the most successful painters of her generation.

 

Mephisto (A Rhapsody) by Chris Campbell, Samuel Gallet

3M 5F, 978 1 786 82953 5, £9.99 paperback

In the town of Balbek the far right are about to seize power. At the local theatre, Aymeric dreams of celebrity; Lucas longs for a liberal revolution; Michael is seduced by the extremists. Juliette Demba is in fear for her life.
As this political earthquake ripples through the town, Aymeric must make his choice: resist the forces of hatred or harness them for his own success.
Based on the real life story of Gustaf Gründgens, whose dreams of fame led him to betray everything, and at the peak of his career, perform Faust for Hitler, Mephisto [A Rhapsody] is a searing contemporary response to Klaus Mann’s banned, and fiercely political cult novel. Samuel Gallet’s urgent new play asks: what would you sacrifice to do the right thing?

 

The Monstrous Heart by Oliver Emanuel

3F, 978 1 786 82955 9, £9.99 paperback

Mag lives in a rustic cabin in the Canadian wilds, far from neighbours and further from her past. It’s an unremarkable life, save for the enormous bear carcass on the kitchen table.
But when her estranged daughter Beth turns up on the doorstep having been freshly released from prison, the past becomes terrifyingly present – and the bear isn’t the only thing with a dangerous bite.
The Monstrous Heart is a play about motherhood, the cycle of trauma, and how you can never really leave your past behind.

 

The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess

2F, 978 1 786 82965 8, £9.99 paperback

At an elite East Coast university, an ambitious young black student and her esteemed white professor meet to discuss a paper the college junior is writing about the American Revolution. They’re both liberal. They’re both women. They’re both brilliant. But very quickly, discussions of grammar and Google turn to race and reputation, and before they know it, they’re in dangerous territory neither of them had foreseen – and facing stunning implications that can’t be undone.

 

Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum with Expats by Sh!t Theatre

2F, 978 1 786 82978 8, £9.99 paperback

In 2018, island-monkeys Becca and Louise got invited to Valletta, the European Capital of Culture in Malta. They thought they were going to drink rum with Brits abroad, celebrating their final year as Europeans, and make a play. Instead they found corruption, hypocrisy, and murder in the fight to be European.

 

Shuck ’n’ Jive by Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong, Simone Ibbett-Brown

2F, 978 1 786 82942 9, £9.99 paperback

Opera singer Simone very quickly discovers that London is not the BNP-free utopia she’d always dreamed of. Meanwhile, actress Cassi battles it out for the illustrious roles of ‘Sassy Friend’, ‘Spunky Slave’ and ‘Third Crack Whore From The Left’ at every audition.
Desperate to be seen as they are, not as the colour of their skin, they decide to take control and write their own story.
With songs and searing honesty, Shuck ’n’ Jive is the laugh-out-loud story of two friends trying to break out of racist typecasting and create a story for themselves.

 

Terra Firma by Barbara Hammond

5M 1F, 978 1 786 82961 0, £9.99 paperback

Inspired by a real-life event and its aftermath, Terra Firma is set in a not-so-distant Beckettian future–years after a conflict known as the Big War, in which a tiny kingdom wrestles with the problems of running a nation – and opposing notions of what makes a citizen, a country, and a civilization.

 

There’s A Room by Three Performance Texts By Third Angel

978 1 786 82752 4, £17.99 paperback

There Is A Room brings together three works by Third Angel: Where From Here, Presumption and What I Heard About the World.
Taken chronologically, these shows turn their attention outward, from the intensity of personal relationships and our domestic lives, to the overwhelming number of stories and events taking place in the world beyond.

 

The Watsons by Laura Wade

8 – 10M 8F, 978 1 786 82638 1, £9.99 paperback

What happens when the writer loses the plot? Emma Watson is nineteen and new in town. She’s been cut off by her rich aunt and dumped back in the family home. Emma and her sisters must marry, fast. If not, they face poverty, spinsterhood, or worse: an eternity with their boorish brother and his awful wife.

New Plays,  Books & Musicals

New Plays, Books & Musicals

Our regular up-to-date selection of recently published books as well as new or re-released plays and musicals, many of which are now available for amateur performance.
To find out more about the availability of any specific performing licenses please make contact with or visit the relevant publisher’s website.

Samuel French (A Concord Theatricals Company)
E: licensing@concordtheatricals.co.uk
E: customerservices@concordtheatricals.co.uk
W: www.concordtheatricals.co.uk
F: ConcordShows | T: @ConcordUKShows

THE ALTERNATIVE by Michael Patrick, Oisín Kearney

Full-length Drama, Modern day, 978 0 573 11681 0, £9.99

This title is not currently available for performance. To be informed as soon as it becomes available in the future, please submit a license application.
What if Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom? What if Home Rule had passed? What if there was no War of Independence? No Civil War? No partition? What if the island had only one soccer team?
The year is 2019 and it is the eve of the Referendum. British Prime Minister Ursula Lysaght is returning to her hometown of Dublin to convince voters to Remain. With the threat of chaos in the streets, and personal conflict behind the scenes, the final debate is set to begin at BBC Dublin: Should Ireland leave the UK?

 

THE BUTTERFLY LION by Michael Morpurgo, Anna Ledwich

Full-length Play, 978 0 573 11682 7, £9.99

This title is not currently available for performance. To be informed as soon as it becomes available in the future, please submit a license application.
When Bertie is sent away from the African farm of his childhood to school in England, he leaves behind not only his beloved mother and the beautiful land, swarming with wildlife, but also his best friend – a white lion he rescued as a cub.
Bertie’s struggle to adjust to his new life in harsh, grey England is alleviated only by a chance friendship with the equally lonely Millie and his dreams of his treasured lion, now trapped in a French circus. But their remarkable journey is only just beginning, and the pair are destined to meet again.
The Butterfly Lion combines music, design and puppetry to bring a magical adventure to life: celebrating nature, friendship and the triumph of love. Based on Michael Morpurgo’s best-selling novel, which won the Smarties Prize and the Writers’ Guild Award, this stage adaptation was commissioned by Chichester Festival Theatre and written by Chichester Festival Theatre’s Writer-in-Residence Anna Ledwich.

 

A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens, Alan Harris

Full-length Play, Victorian, 978 0 573 11696 4, £9.99

This title is not currently available for performance. To be informed as soon as it becomes available in the future, please submit a license application.
It’s Christmas Eve and Ebenezer Scrooge is miserable – will he ever get into the Christmas spirit?
Set in North Wales, this version of Dickens’ festive classic tale explores a living, breathing Victorian community.
This adaptation by Alan Harris is a funny immersive family show filled with music and mystery that whisks away the audience to a dream world where anything can happen and ghosts are just around the corner.

 

LITTLE MISS BURDEN by Matilda Ibini

Full-length Drama, 978 0 573 13017 5, £9.99

This title is not currently available for performance. To be informed as soon as it becomes available in the future, please submit a license application.
They are the coolest, fiercest, most super talented girl band ever assembled: Big Sis and Little Sis are waiting for the third member of their trio to arrive. Little Miss is on her way. It just takes her a little bit longer.
At thirteen, Little Miss is given a gift which cannot be returned. She has to share her body and life with it. And she needs to find a way for the two of them to get along as they can’t both be Player One. Little Miss Burden explores rewriting your narrative and embracing your identity on your own terms.
Matilda Ibini’s coming-of-age tale smashes together 90s nostalgia, Nigerian family, East London and Sailor Moon to tell the sometimes tricky, often funny truth about growing up with a physical impairment.

 

THE WIND OF HEAVEN by Emlyn Williams

Full-length Play, 4M 4F, 19th Century, 978 0 573 01653 0, £9.99

Dilys Parry lives in Blestin, a Welsh mountain village which has no children and worships no god since a disaster snatched away all its youth.
Inconsolable since her husband died in the Crimean War, Dilys is gradually re-awakened to life when a prophet-like child working in her household is called by God to serve the world.
In the wake of vast social inequality and a mismanaged war, one small community rediscovers its lost faith, with startling consequences for the village, and the world beyond…
A parable about healing the wounds inflicted by a national trauma, The Wind of Heaven was first produced in the West End in April 1945, just three weeks before the end of the Second World War in Europe, starring Emlyn Williams himself.
It received its first London production in nearly seventy-five years at the Finborough Theatre, London, in November 2019.

 

Bloomsbury – Methuen Drama
T: 01256 302699
W: www.bloomsbury.com | E: direct@macmillan.co.uk
F: BloomsburyPublishing | T: @bloomsburybooks

Theatre Books…

Introduction to the Alexander Technique by Bill Connington

978 1 350 05295 6, £19.99

This practical guides for actors includes over 150 practical, easy-to-follow exercises to improve alignment, flexibility, and poise. The book is supported by a range of online videos demonstrating key exercises described throughout the book.

 

 

Questors, Jesters and Renegades by Michael Coveney

978 1 350 12837 8, £25.00 Hardback

The Story of Britain’s Amateur Theatre
This is the vital story of the amateur theatre as it developed from the medieval guilds to the modern theatre of Ayckbourn and Pinter, with a few mishaps and missed cues along the way. Michael Coveney – a former member of Ilford’s Renegades – tells this tale with a charm and wit that will have you shouting for an encore.
Between the two world wars, amateur theatre thrived across the UK, from Newcastle to Norwich, from Bolton to Birmingham and Bangor, championed by the likes of George Bernard Shaw, Sybil Thorndike, and J.B. Priestley. Often born out of a particular political cause or predicament, many of these theatres and companies continue to evolve, survive and even prosper today.
This is the first account of its kind, packed with anecdote and previously unheard stories, and it shows how amateur theatre is more than a popular pastime: it has been endemic to the birth of the National Theatre, as well as a seedbed of talent and a fascinating barometer and product of the times in which we live.
Some of the companies Coveney delves into – all taking centre stage in this entertaining and lively book – include The Questors and Tower Theatre in London; Birmingham’s Crescent Theatre; The Little Theatre in Bolton, where Ian McKellen was a schoolboy participant; the Halifax Thespians; Lincolnshire’s Broadbent Theatre, co-founded by Jim Broadbent’s father and other conscientious objectors at the end of World War II; Crayford’s Geoffrey Whitworth Theatre, where the careers of Michael Gambon and Diana Quick were launched; Anglesey’s Theatr Fach, a crucible of Welsh language theatre; and Cornwall’s stunning cliff-top Minack.

Methuen Drama (Bloomsbury) is pleased to offer readers a 35% discount on Questors, Jesters and Renegades.

Enter the code QUESTORS35 at checkout online at: www.bloomsbury.com to apply the discount.
Offer valid until 31 May 2020.

 

Screen Acting Skills by Roger Wooster and Paul Conway

978 1 350 09303 4, £18.99

This handbook addresses the fact that many screen actors beginning their careers lack the necessary pre-shoot preparation and knowledge of studio protocols that are required of them, and offers practical, focussed exercises that can be explored in low-tech workshop situations.

 

 

Music Fundamentals for Musical Theatre by Christine Riley

978 1 350 00175 6, £24.99

Offers a series of lessons in music fundamentals, including theory, sight-singing and aural tests, giving readers the necessary skills to navigate music and all that is demanded of them without necessarily having had a formal music training.

 

Plays…

Rough Magic Theatre Company, Edited by Patrick Lonergan

978 1 350 11979 6, £24.99

Celebrating the work of one of Ireland’s most daring theatre companies, this anthology gathers five plays by established and emerging playwrights. They include vibrant new adaptations of Peer Gynt and Phaedra alongside vital new dramas that explore issues of urgent contemporary concern, such as sex and sexuality, emigration and climate change.

 

 

The Sugar Syndrome by Lucy Prebble

978 1 350 17457 3, £10.99

Dani is 17. She’s looking to meet someone honest and direct. What she finds is a man twice her age who thinks she’s an 11-year-old boy.
Lucy Prebble’s debut play is a devastatingly and disturbingly funny exploration of an unlikely friendship, our desire to connect, and the limits of empathy.

 

 

Death of England by Roy Williams and Clint Dyer

978 1 350 16789 6, £10.99

After the death of his dad, Michael is powerless and angry. In a state of heartbreak, he confronts the difficult truths about his father’s legacy and the country that shaped him. At the funeral, unannounced and unprepared, Michael decides it is time to speak.
A powerful new monologue play by Roy Williams and Clint Dyer that explores family feelings and a country on the brink.

 

The High Table by Temi Wilkey

978 1 350 14718 8, £10.99

With her wedding to Leah drawing nearer, Tara’s future is thrown into jeopardy when her Nigerian parents refuse to attend. This kind of love is unheard of, they say. It’s not African. High above London, suspended between the stars, three of Tara’s ancestors are jolted from their eternal rest. Stubborn and opinionated, they keep watch as family secrets are spilled and the rift widens between Tara and her parents. Can these representatives of generations passed keep the family together?

 

 

Judgment Day by Ödön von Horváth, ad. by Christopher Shinn

978 1 350 15935 8, £10.99

This new adaptation offers a fresh take on the portrait of a society struggling to take responsibility for its actions in a search for public retribution, themes that still resonate in today’s societal climate.

 

 

American Moor by Keith Hamilton Cobb

978 1 350 16530 4, £10.99

A play that examines the experience and perspective of black men in America through the metaphor of Othello. It is a play about race in America, but it is also a play about who gets to make art, who gets to play Shakespeare, about the qualitative decline of the American theatre, about actors and acting, and about the nature of unadulterated love.

 

 

Nick Hern Books
T: 020 8749 4953
W: www.nickhernbooks.co.uk | E: info@nickhernbooks.co.uk
F: NickHernBooks | T: @NickHernBooks

Christmas Carol: A Fairy Tale by Charles Dickens, Piers Torday

Full-length Play, 4-9F 3-16M up to 10f/m, 19th Century simply staged, 978 1 848 42914 7, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Jacob Marley is dead. And so is Ebenezer Scrooge… In this reinvention of the timeless classic, Ebenezer has died and his sister Fan has inherited his money-lending business. At Christmas, she is haunted by three spirits who want her to change, but will she? Witty, urgent and empowering, this bold adaptation will prove a festive gift for amateur theatre companies seeking an original, female-led version with lashings of goodwill to all men – and women.
“Delightfully surprising and subversive… offers both the story, and its 19th Century writer, a welcome 21st Century transformation.” The Guardian

 

Hedda Tesman by Henrik Ibsen, Cordelia Lynn

Full-length Play, 4F 3M, Adapted for the present day can be simply staged, 978 1 848 42895 9, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

In this vital exploration of motherhood, power and sabotage, Cordelia Lynn breathes new life into Henrik Ibsen’s classic. After thirty years of playing wife, Hedda is bitter and bored. When her estranged daughter, Thea, suddenly reappears asking for help, the present begins to echo the past and Hedda embarks on a path of destruction.
This ingenious adaptation offers an older female performer the opportunity to dive into the iconic titular role.
“Lynn reveals how Hedda’s torment is just as applicable today as it was a century or more ago.” WhatsOnStage

 

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Rona Munro

Full-length Play, 3-6F 4-9M plus 1F/M (additional chorus possible), 19th Century ideally spare and non-naturalistic set, 978 1 848 42917 8, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

An eighteen-year-old girl, Mary Shelley, dreams up a monster whose tragic story will capture the imaginations of generations to come. Rona Munro’s imaginative retelling of Shelley’s Gothic masterpiece places the writer herself amongst the action as she wrestles with her creation and with the stark realities facing revolutionary young women, then and now. This version puts a fantastic role for a young female performer at the centre of the classic, with flexible casting for the Monster and scope for a large cast.
“An inventive feminist adaptation… an exploration and celebration of female creativity.” The Stage

 

nut by debbie tucker green

Full-length Play, 3F 3M plus one voice, Contemporary, can be simply staged, 978 1 848 42335 0, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

debbie tucker green’s play nut is a drama about a woman who wants to withdraw from the world. Elayne doesn’t want company but company won’t leave her alone. Everyone’s got an opinion but no one’s listening and things are starting to slip.
A powerful play for a company looking for great opportunities for black performers.
“Provocative, touching, darkly humorous… its understated power is remarkable.” Time Out

 

One For Sorrow by Cordelia Lynn

Full-length Play, 3F 2M, Contemporary single interior setting, 978 1 848 42761 7, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

During an attack on London, Imogen joins a social media campaign offering refuge to victims. Before her family have had a chance to discuss it, John is at their door. He isn’t what they expected. And although they’d never admit it to themselves, he isn’t necessarily what they want.
This pressingly topical socio-political drama sends up the modern manners of the middle class, and offers an opportunity for companies wanting to stage something challenging for performers and audience alike.
“A riveting, quicksilver, subtly manipulative thriller… electrifyingly plugged into the moment… a rich, fascinating work.” The Stage

Rathmines Road by Deirdre Kinahan

Full-length Play, 3F 2M, Contemporary can be simply staged, 978 1 848 42777 8, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

While hosting friends for drinks, Sandra comes face-to-face with someone she never wanted to see again. A play about secret trauma and public revelation, Rathmines Road is set over one evening that bristles with tension. Fraught, funny and ferocious, it testifies to the pain of carrying the memory of sexual assault throughout a lifetime. A challenging ensemble piece with a meaty role for a female performer.
“Kinahan’s rollercoaster script has an awful lot of important and necessary things to say. Thought-provoking and uncompromising.” The Arts Review

 

The Small Hours by Katherine Soper

Full-length Play, 8F/M (add’ chorus possible), Contemporary can be simply staged, 978 1 848 42896 6, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Written specifically for young people, The Small Hours formed part of the 2019 National Theatre Connections Festival.
It’s 1am. Eight young people are staying up through the night. Peebs and Epi are the only students left at school over half-term; former step-siblings Red and Jazz try to navigate their reunion; Jaffa tries to help Keesh finish an essay; Wolfie is getting up the courage to confess a secret to VJ. Set over four hours, where the choices are small yet feel momentous, this play offers rich opportunities for a large cast of young performers.

 

When They Go Low by Natalie Mitchell

Full-length Play, 6-10F 3-4M (larger cast possible), Contemporary can be simply staged, 978 1 848 42902 4, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Written specifically for young people, When They Go Low formed part of the 2018 National Theatre Connections Festival.
Reprimanded after social media goes into a frenzy over pictures of a girl at a party, Louise wages war on her school’s systemic misogyny. When she threatens popular boy Scott, things escalate horribly. Exploring everyday feminism, consent and the changing face of teenage sexuality in an online world, this topical drama offers rich opportunities for a large cast of all genders, with particularly strong roles for young women.

 

Music Theatre International (Europe)
T: 020 7580 2827
W: www.mtishows.co.uk | E: shows@mtishows.co.uk
F: mtieurope | T: mtieurope

KINKY BOOTS

Music and Lyrics by Cyndi Lauper. Book by Harvey Fierstein. Based on the Miramax motion picture of the same name, written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth

Winner of six Tony Awards including Best Musical, Kinky Boots features a joyous, Tony-winning score by Cyndi Lauper and a hilarious, uplifting book by four-time Tony winner Harvey Fierstein.

Charlie Price has reluctantly inherited his father’s shoe factory, which is on the verge of bankruptcy. Trying to live up to his father’s legacy and save his family business, Charlie finds inspiration in the form of Lola. A fabulous entertainer in need of some sturdy stilettos, Lola turns out to be the one person who can help Charlie become the man he’s meant to be. As they work to turn the factory around, this unlikely pair finds that they have more in common than they ever dreamed possible… and discovers that when you change your mind about someone, you can change your whole world.
Kinky Boots is full of opportunities for a theatre to flex their artistic muscles with elaborate costumes, exhilarating choreography and a truly moving and powerful story. A sure-fire crowd pleaser, Kinky Boots will have your audiences dancing in the aisle and discovering why sometimes, the best way to fit in is to stand out!

 

Smith Scripts
T: 0844 997 1000
W: www.smithscripts.co.uk | E: info@smithscripts.co.uk
F: smithscripts | T: @smithscripts

THE FOX by Tim Kenny

One-act Drama, 1M, 1M/F, Contemporary, £3.50 (online)

This play has won a national award and continues to be performed. An old man goes to a beach at dusk to see the foxes. A young police officer, send out to look for him, finds that his expectation of the aged people is turned on its head.

 

 

GARDENING LEAVE by Nicolas Ridley

One-act Drama, 2M 1F, Contemporary, £3.50 (online)

Bob is on ‘gardening leave’ but he’s anxious ‘to get back in the saddle’. Work is Bob’s life. For him, it’s an imperative, a compulsion. What is life without a job? It has to be the right job, of course. That’s not to say that money isn’t important. And although there’s no urgency, sooner would be much, much better than later. Which is why his meeting with Tom in a West End club is so important. Can Tom point Bob in the right direction? Better still, does Tom have any openings himself? The problem is … Well, there are lots of problems. Mistaken identity, cross purposes, a surprising revelation and a terrible let-down, for which free theatre tickets – gold dust though they may be – isn’t really sufficient recompense.

 

INVISIBLE EDDIE by Becky Kimsey

Full-length Comedy, 6M 3F or 4M 3F, Contemporary, £5.00 (online)

Eddie is an introvert who is still living with his sister Mary in her London flat. When he loses his job, Mary and her fiancé, George, decide to have Eddie hypnotised to make him feel ‘invincible’ around strangers. Unfortunately, the Hypnotherapist (who has had a few too many) mistakenly convinces Eddie that he is ‘Invisible’ around strangers instead. Throw in a cockney super, a lustful landlady, a blustering boss, a blind Bonny and a baited barkeep at the Cock and Poppy Pub and you’ve got yourself a cracking good British comedy!

 

MR TEN DAYS by Jon W. Baker

Full-length Comedy/Drama, 3M 3F, Contemporary, £5.00 (online)

Andy is a neurotic commitment-phobe. He prides himself on not doing relationships longer than ten days. Then he meets Emma; bright, attractive, optimist, and training to be a marriage guidance counsellor. Emma fixes relationships, Andy doesn’t do relationships
Do opposites ever attract? Can the man who never dates, date? And how does the psychologist get together with someone who declares psychology to be the dark art?
All will be revealed in this charming, very, very funny romantic comedy for the stage. It’ll make you laugh… and cry.

 

ROBIN HOOD by Jonathan Edgington

Full-length Comedy/Drama, Large Mixed Cast, 12th Century England, £5.00 (online)

Robin Hood is a two-act comedy-drama with a running-time of just under two hours which successfully premiered in Winchester in 2016.
Its narrative is driven by three ancient, irascible witches and the plot centres around their desire to obtain the ingredients for a spell which will make them all young again.
Expect the unexpected and lots of laughs in this swashbuckling new version of the much-loved tale!
Twelfth Century England. Weary from The Crusades, Robin of Loxley returns to Nottingham intending to marry his childhood sweetheart and claim his family inheritance. Instead he finds a much-changed world packed with romance, mystery, intrigue and dastardly deeds in which his archery and sword fighting skills and those of his new comrades, the Merry Men, are regularly put to the test…
This comedy/drama cleverly combines the traditional elements of the legend with brand-new material and characters in an exciting, fun-filled adventure.

 

Oberon Books
T: 020 7607 3637
W: www.oberonbooks.com | E: permissions@oberonbooks.com
F: OberonBooksLondon | T: @oberonbooks

Before I Was A Bear by Eleanor Tindall

1F, 978 1 786 82925 2, £9.99

On a rainy Wednesday evening, Cally sits at her local pub waiting for her best friend. She notices someone in the corner. She recognises them. It can’t be them though, can it? It isn’t. This doesn’t happen. She won’t go over. She won’t.
A darkly comedic coming-of-age solo play, Before I Was A Bear is a modern myth about friendship, the power dynamics of sexuality and hot TV detectives.

 

Bubble Schmeisis by Nick Cassenbaum

1F, 978 1 786 82994 8, £9.99

Bubbemeises: Noun. Yiddish; a grandmother’s story, a tall story, an old wives’ tale.
Nick Cassenbaum invites you into the warmth of the Canning Town Schvitz, East London’s last authentic bath house. Amongst the steam and ritual Nick will take you on a journey to find the place he belongs.
Bubble Schmeisis is full of intimate and personal true stories about identity, home and getting schmeised (washed) by old men.

 

I Can Go Anywhere by Douglas Maxwell

2M, 978 1 786 82910 8, £9.99

Stevie is a disillusioned academic who once wrote an unfashionable book on youth movements in Britain, now struggling to cope after a painful break-up. His misery is interrupted by Jimmy who lands unexpectedly on his doorstep beaming with excitement. Jimmy is 100% Mod: oversized military parka, fitted Italian suit, dessy boots, pork pie hat. The full package.
Jimmy is seeking asylum in the UK. With just a few days before the substantive interview that’s going to decide his fate, the stakes are high. So he came up with a brilliant plan. A plan that’s going to work against all odds. It has to work. He can’t go back. And Stevie has an important part to play.

 

Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury

3M 5F, 978 1 786 82938 2, £9.99

It’s Grandma’s birthday and the Frasier family have gathered to celebrate. Beverly just wants everything to run smoothly, but Tyrone has missed his flight, Keisha is freaking out about college and Grandma has locked herself in the bathroom. But something isn’t right. Who is watching them?
A radical examination of the power of spectatorship and the pressure of destructive preconceptions. Jackie Sibblies Drury’s 2019 Pulitzer prize-winning Fairview.

 

Hela by Mari Izzard

1M 1F, 978 1 786 82923 8, £10.99

Erin, a young mother, has lost her son – but no one will listen. Driven and desperate, she must find him by any means necessary. When everything – including justice – is determined by an algorithm, can data truly be trusted? Can deep-seated pain ever be defused? And how far will Erin be willing to go to see justice happen?
Mari Izzard’s debut bilingual play Hela is a dark and unsettling tale of dirty family secrets and vigilante justice.

 

A Kind of People by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti

3M 4F, 978 1 786 82928 3, £9.99

Friday night and someone’s having a party. It seems like a laugh, but not everyone’s having fun. Nicky and Anjum want their kids to get into the best schools, and Gary is feeling the pressure after applying for a promotion. What happens when not everyone will get what they want?
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s new play about a group of working-class friends dreaming of a better life for their children questions the dream of class mobility, and what happens when the odds are stacked against you.

 

Land Without Dreams by Tue Biering, Sophie H. Smith (trans)

1F, 978 1 786 82906 1, £9.99

A woman walks onto the stage. She says she is from the future. She says that we have stopped dreaming. She says we can change everything. She says that she can help end all our dystopian nightmares. But we know plays don’t change the world. Right?
Land Without Dreams is a hopeful, funny and courageous new show by experimental Copenhagen-based theatre company Fix&Foxy.

 

Midnight Movie by Eve Leigh

978 1 786 82930 6, £9.99

A girl fights for her life in a lift. New Window. A protest in Trafalgar Square. New Window. A naked man in a bathtub. New Window. Janelle Monae, dancing.
The possibilities are endless. Even at 2am. That’s the thing about being Extremely Online: there’s no limit on where you can go.
Eve Leigh’s new play explores what the internet means for those who are disabled – what does an online life feel like to those whose bodies are deemed out of the ordinary by the rest of society?

 

Playstart 2: Short Plays from New Voices by Mono Box Ltd., Grace Tarr, Kiran Benawra, Vivian Xie, Maatin Patel

978 1 786 82920 7, £10.99

Four short plays by brand new writers, each of whom has been mentored by an experienced playwright and supported by the Mono Box team.

 

 

Ravens – Spassky vs. Fischer by Tom Morton-Smith

9M 3F, 978 1 786 82932 0, £9.99

Reykjavik, 1972. All eyes are on Iceland ahead of ‘the Match of the Century’: Boris Spassky vs. Bobby Fischer. For the two contenders, the stakes have never been higher – the world title, unprecedented prize money, and stratospheric fame are all on the table.
But as the Cold War begins to heat up, each side of the Atlantic spots a major opportunity to demonstrate superiority over the other. So why hasn’t America’s knight in shining armour shown up? And why won’t Russia’s grandmaster listen to orders? As the two superpowers prepare their opening gambits in a proxy battle of ideologies, with sport as the weapon of choice, both sides find themselves undermined by their pawns, who seem oddly unwilling to cooperate.

 

Snow White Devised by the company

3M 3F, 978 1 786 82893 4, £9.99

In a wild and windswept land, far, far away, snow falls on a castle nestled amongst the trees, where a cruel Queen is assured by her magic mirror that her beauty surpasses all others. Until one day – when the mirror proclaims that Snow White, the Queen’s step-daughter, is the fairest in the land. Fleeing the Queen’s rage, Snow White runs deep into the forest, where she finds refuge with a motley crew of characters that accept her as one of their own, and show her a different way to live.
This joyful re-telling of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale is about growing up, growing old, growing your own food, and why you shouldn’t trust a very shiny red apple.

 

Three Sisters by Inua Ellams, after Anton Chekhov

10M 10F, 978 1 786 82966 5, £9.99

Chekhov’s iconic characters are relocated to Nigeria in this bold new adaptation. Owerri, 1967, on the brink of the Biafran Civil War.
Lolo, Nne Chukwu and Udo are grieving the loss of their father. Months before, two ruthless military coups plunged the country into chaos. Fuelled by foreign intervention, the conflict encroaches on their provincial village, and the sisters long to return to their former home in Lagos.

 

Cressrelles Publishing Company Limited
T: 01684 540154
W: www.cressrelles.co.uk | E: simon@cressrelles.co.uk

If you would like to read a free-for-approval-purposes pdf, please email. Printed copies of these plays are also available via post at the usual approval rate.

My Name Is Oscar Wilde by Norman Holland
A stark, powerful play. For a flexible cast of up to nine men and four women. Duration is fifty-five minutes but can be cut for Festival performance.
My Name Is Oscar Wilde sees the famous playwright and wordsmith facing the harsh realities of incarceration in Reading Gaol. He takes refuge in memories of his earlier triumphs and his subsequent fall from grace.

Pieces of Hate by Richard Franks
For three men and three women. Running time is approximately 50 minutes. This one-act, very dark comedy won the Scarborough Theatre-In-The-Round Festival in 1978, adjudicated by Alan Ayckbourn.
Judi and Thomson are about to host a fancy-dress party to introduce themselves to their new neighbours. From this simple plotline, the play gathers momentum and drama. Unbeknownst to our hosts, who have troubles of their own, the other two couples are inter-connected, with a tense back-story. The black humour is funny without becoming sick. The characters, their individual ‘kinks’ and the constantly fluctuating relationships between them are a source of amusement.

Poppy by Leonard Rogers
Poppy is a one-act comedy for two men and two women in their twenties. Running time is approximately 45 minutes.
Young, flirty Poppy, a figment of Mike’s imagination, materialises at the most awkward moments! Mike’s wife exorcises the problem, only to benefit Rodney!

Post Mortems by Jill Hyems
A one-act play for two women in their forties.
Post Mortems is a dissection of a widow’s downward spiral following the death of her beloved husband. Eight months of grief and isolation have driven Gerda to a total breakdown and Jan is to be part of her macabre suicide plot. Performed on TV and radio. A marvellous play by the talented author of the TV series, Tenko.

Spotlight Publications
T: 01383 825737
W: www.spotlightpublications.com
E: wwpanto@gmail.com | F: spotlightpublishing

Robin Hood & the Babes in Verse by Dave Buchanan

5M 6F 4M/F, Castle, Village square and Forest

The Babes come to visit their uncle, the Sheriff of Nottingham, little suspecting that he is planning their demise. But never fear, help is at hand! – in the shape of Robin and his Merry Men, plus Lady Marian, and Nanny Dame Dannii (with two Is).
The plot combines the Babes-lost-in-the-forest story with the Robin Hood legend. Musical highlights include parody lyrics of songs by Abba and The Village People, and one from The Sound Of Music. The comedy comes thick and fast with the comedy hitmen and Robin’s motley crew of Men in Tights. Plus, a really villainous Sheriff, and an unforgettable Dame!

New Concord Website Launched (Your News)

New Concord Website Launched (Your News)

You may have noticed that, in the New Year, Concord Theatricals launched its brand-new website.

At www.concordtheatricals.co.uk societies can now license plays and musicals from Samuel French, R&H and Tams-Witmark.

All previous websites will now re-direct users to the new central umbrella licensing giant.

Concord Music acquired legendary theatre publisher and licensor Samuel French just over a year ago leading to the formation of Concord Theatricals. Through the new website, Concord Theatricals comprises professional and amateur theatrical licensing catalogues of Samuel French, Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatricals, Tams-Witmark and Concord Music’s joint venture with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group, The Musical Company – making the company the most substantial licensing house in the world.

Over its 188-year history, Samuel French has represented some of the finest plays and musicals in the English language throughout the world from their offices both in the US & UK. Its catalogue of over 10k titles includes plays by Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, Neil Simon and Alan Ayckbourn, along with the musicals Grease, Chicago, Fun Home, The Wiz, The Secret Garden and Heathers.

Concord Theatricals acquired the celebrated Rodgers & Hammerstein Organisation as part of Imagem Music in 2017 and Tams-Witmark in 2018.

All this means that the Concord Theatricals website now represents a long list of iconic musicals from the catalogues of R&H, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill and Irving Berlin; a line-up of successful shows by young musical theatre composers including Lin Manuel Miranda, Adam Guettel, Jason Robert Brown, Shaina Taub and Michael John LaChiusa; and some of Broadway’s enduring classics such as A Chorus Line, Hello, Dolly!, Gypsy, Hair, The Wizard of Oz, Bye Bye Birdie, Funny Girl and Dreamgirls.

Working with Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Really Useful Group also means CTs license the composer and his collaborators’ smash hit musicals, including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and School of Rock and will continue to administer Lloyd Webber’s incomparable song catalog.

With a team of experienced theatre professionals drawn from all four companies (Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatricals, Samuel French, Tams-Witmark and The Musical Company) in New York, London, Berlin and affiliates worldwide, Concord Theatricals has arguably become the most important licensing house in the world, the only firm that provides truly comprehensive services to creators and producers of musical theatre, including theatrical rights acquisition and licensing, music publishing, cast recording and first-class production under a single banner.

Concord Theatricals additionally facilitates cast albums with Concord Music’s Craft Recordings label, allowing for international distribution and dedicated promotion and marketing. To date, these collaborative recordings have been nominated for two GRAMMYs (Come From Away and Carousel).

While other licensing houses respectively continue in their own right, the sheer size and commercial dominance of the Concord Theatricals ‘umbrella’ cannot be ignored.

As far as we know, Samuel French, R&H, Tams-Witmark and The Musical Company are all still running their own social media platforms, but directing traffic to the single licensing website found by visiting:

www.concordtheatricals.co.uk

New Plays, Books & Musicals

New Plays, Books & Musicals

Our regular up-to-date selection of recently published books as well as new or re-released plays and musicals, many of which are now available for amateur performance.
To find out more about the availability of any specific performing licenses please make contact with or visit the relevant publisher’s website.

Samuel French (A Concord Theatricals Company)
E: licensing@concordtheatricals.co.uk
E: customerservices@concordtheatricals.co.uk
W: www.concordtheatricals.co.uk
F: ConcordShows | T: @ConcordUKShows

ADMISSIONS by Joshua Harmon

Full-length Drama, F3 M2, Present day, 978 0 573 70748 3, £10.99

A new play from Joshua Harmon (Bad Jews, Significant Other) that explodes the ideals and contradictions of liberal white America.
Sherri Rosen-Mason is head of the admissions department at a New England prep school, fighting to diversify the student body. Alongside her husband, the school’s Headmaster, they’ve largely succeeded in bringing a stodgy institution into the Twenty-First Century. But when their only son sets his sights on an Ivy League university, personal ambition collides with progressive values, with convulsive results.

 

 

A Bunch of Amateurs by Nick Newman, Ian Hislop

Full-length Comedy, F4 M3, Present day, 978 0 573 11373 4, £9.99

5 STARS “terrific comedy packed with killer comic dialogue… plety of twists and turns” Whatsonstage.
Keen to boost his flagging career, fading Hollywood action hero Jefferson Steele arrives in England to play King Lear in Stratford – only to find that this is not the birthplace of the Bard, but a sleepy Suffolk village. And instead of Kenneth Branagh and Dame Judi Dench, the cast are a bunch of amateurs trying to save their theatre from developers. Jefferson’s monstrous ego, vanity and insecurity are tested to the limit by the enthusiastic am-dram thespians. As acting worlds collide and Jefferson’s career implodes, he discovers some truths about himself – along with his inner Lear!

 

 

MRS BEETON SAYS… by Eamonn O’Dwyer, Helen Watts

Full-length Musical, F5 M3, Between 1854 – 1865, 978 0 573 11664 3, £9.99

A new musical based on the life and times of Isabella Beeton…
‘As with the commander of an army, so is it with the mistress of a house.’ Isabella Beeton was only 23 years old when she penned these words in “Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management”, first published in 1861. She could not have predicted how they would resonate with the women of England, nor could she have imagined how her name would become synonymous with culinary expertise and domestic bliss for generations to come.
Mrs Beeton Says…is a charming and vibrant musical examining the life and legacy of this extraordinary woman: a spirited journalist, a tireless entrepreneur, and if not a perfect homemaker, then certainly a queen of organization. In a world where a woman could not vote, own a house, nor even ride a bicycle, Mrs Beeton’s book gave the women of England something they desperately wanted: a bit of control.

 

PROOF by David Auburn

Full-length Drama, F2 M2, Contemporary, Chicago, 978 0 573 11685 8, £9.99

Catherine has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, Robert. When he dies she has more than grief to deal with: there’s her estranged sister, Claire, and Hal, a former student of her father’s who hopes to find valuable work in the 103 notebooks that Robert left behind. And a further problem: how much of her father’s madness – or genius – will Catherine inherit?
Gwyneth Paltrow starred in this Pultizer Prize-winning play which opened at the Donmar Warehouse in 2001.

 

 

SHAFTED! by John Godber

Full-length Drama, F1 M1, Docudrama/Historic, 978 0 573 11623 0, £9.99

Shafted! moves forwards and backwards over time, starting after the Miners’ Strike in 1984. Act I demonstrates the depression and hopelessness which engulfed a West Yorkshire mining village post the strike and the plethora of menial jobs which Harry found in order to try to make a living. By the late 1990s Dot had suggested they move to Bridlington to start a new life running a Boarding House. Act II starts in 2016 with Dot suffering from cancer, immobile in a wheelchair, the act moves backwards through the success of the boarding house and their new life together, to the time they left Upton to run the boarding house in the 1990s.

 

 

Time and Tide by James McDermott

Full-length Drama, 978 0 573 03109 0, £9.99

This title is not currently available for performance. To be informed as soon as it becomes available in the future, please submit a license application.
Norfolk’s bootiful. Miles of coastline, endless sea, endless sky. So much space to dream big dreams. But… yeah: there’s nowhere round here to make those dreams come true.
May runs a crumbling caff on the end of Cromer Pier. Her delivery man Ken is losing customers to Costa. Her head waiter Nemo is desperate to leave Norfolk and tread the boards in London. Nemo’s unrequited love Daz is burying his head in the sand over his best mate leaving.
Time and Tide is an LGBTQ-themed comedy drama about a Norfolk community struggling with change. The play was longlisted for The Bruntwood, Papatango and Verity Bargate Playwriting Prizes and was developed on Park Theatre’s Script Accelerator Programme 2018 before having its world premiere at Park Theatre in February 2020.

TRIAL BY LAUGHTER by Nick Newman, Ian Hislop

Full-length Comedy, F2 M6, 19th Century, 978 0 573 11595 0, £9.99

This title is not currently available for performance. To be informed as soon as it becomes available in the future, please submit a license application.
Following critical acclaim for The Wipers Times, Ian Hislop and Nick Newman have once again taken inspiration from real life events for their new play Trial by Laughter.
William Hone, the forgotten hero of free speech, was a bookseller, publisher and satirist.
In 1817, he stood trial for ‘impious blasphemy and seditious libel’. The only crime he had committed was to be funny. Worse than that he was funny by parodying religious texts. And worst of all, he was funny about the despotic government and the libidinous monarchy.

 

 

THE WIPERS TIMES by Nick Newman, Ian Hislop

Full-length Drama, F1 M6, 1910s / WWI, 978 0 573 11351 2, £9.99

A stage adaptation of the award-winning BBC film by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman. This title is not currently available for performance. To be informed as soon as it becomes available in the future, please submit a license application.
The true and extraordinary story of the satirical newspaper created in the mud and mayhem of the Somme, interspersed with comic sketches and spoofs from the vivid imagination of those on the front line.
In a bombed out building during the First World War in the French town of Ypres (mispronounced Wipers by British soldiers), two officers discover a printing press and create a newspaper for the troops. Far from being a sombre journal about life in the trenches, they produced a resolutely cheerful, subversive and very funny newspaper designed to lift the spirits of the men on the front line.

 

Nick Hern Books
T: 020 8749 4953
W: www.nickhernbooks.co.uk | E: info@nickhernbooks.co.uk
F: NickHernBooks | T: @NickHernBooks

1972: The Future of Sex by The Wardrobe Ensemble

Full-length Play, F4 M3 multiple characters (large cast possible), 1970s, flexible staging (ideally with live musical accompaniment), 978 1 848 42847 8, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

It’s 1972. Ziggy Stardust is on Top of the Pops, Penny is writing an essay on Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Christine is watching Deep Throat and Brian is confused. Devised by the creators of amateur hit Education, Education, Education, this entertaining show incorporates the company’s trademark theatricality, irreverent humour and ingenuity to tell the story of three couples having sex for the first time – and a country on the brink of a sexual awakening. Perfect for groups looking for a fun and energetic ensemble piece.
“Terrific work… Funny, true and a little bit heartbreaking.” The Guardian

 

Apologia by Alexi Kaye Campbell

Full-length Play, F3 M3, Contemporary, single interior (kitchen), 978 1 848 42053 3, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Kristin Miller is an eminent and successful art historian. As a young mother she followed her politics and vocation, storming Parisian barricades and moving to Florence. Her birthday should be a time for celebration but, when her two sons deliver their versions of the past, everyone must confront the cost of Kristin‘s commitment to her passions. A sharp, perceptive and political family drama.
“A fascinating play that tackles, head on, the subject of women, ageing and motherhood… eviscerating and funny.” The Times

 

 

Collapsible by Margaret Perry

Full-length Play, F1 M1, Contemporary, minimal requirements, 978 1 848 42839 3, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

A funny, furious, award-winning one-woman play about holding on in this collapsing world, with a fantastic central role for a female performer. Essie’s lost her job. Her girlfriend’s left. But she’s alright. Except lately she feels more like a chair than a person. One of those folding chairs. Solid one minute. And then.
“Compelling… the images pour forth in a lava flow of language.” New York Times

 

 

 

Flights by John O’Donovan

Full-length Play, M3, Contemporary, single interior (abandoned building), 978 1 788 50314 3, £7.99 epub (£6.40 direct from publisher)

A haunting and funny drama about bereavement, brotherhood and breaking away from your past. On a dark and stormy night, three men gather for the anniversary of a childhood friend, killed in a road accident when they were seventeen. Expecting a crowd and tearing into the cans, the three slowly realise they’re the only ones coming. As they drink to their uncertain futures – and their receding youth – they’re forced to face up to the ghost that has held them together.
“Bleak, tender and shot through with stinging black humour… skilfully written.” The Stage

 

 

Machinal by Sophie Treadwell

Full-length Play (shorter versions available), F10 M14, 1920s, various interiors and one exterior, 978 1 854 59211 8, £8.99 (£7.19 direct from publisher)

NHB has just acquired the performing rights for Machinal, Sophie Treadwell’s bold, renowned 1920s masterpiece inspired by the true story of Ruth Snyder who, with her lover, murdered her husband and was sent to the electric chair. With a cast of over twenty characters, including a powerful central role for a female performer, Machinal is perfect for ambitious companies throughout the world looking to dazzle audiences with an intense theatrical experience, which is still strikingly relevant today.
“Gripping… doesn’t loosen its hold on the senses until its shattering climax.” The Independent

 

 

Sink by John O’Donovan

Full-length Play, F1, Contemporary, minimum req’, 978 1 788 50315 0, £7.99 epub (£6.40 direct from publisher)

A play of two voices for one actor, about memory, catastrophe and sacrifice. Bríd’s coming home to convalesce after drying out in rehab. Ciara’s headed west too, investigating a potential archaeological site on a parched area of bogland. How will Bríd cope in her old haunts? How will Ciara confront a past she thought forgotten? And will they unearth the hidden truth that binds them together?
“O’Donovan is a gifted writer, the lines curl about each other with elegance and depth.” Irish Independent

 

 

Snowflake by Mike Bartlett

Full-length Play, F2 M1, Contemporary, can be simply staged, 978 1 848 42817 1, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Three years ago, Andy’s daughter Maya left home, and they haven’t spoken since. But this Christmas, she might be coming back. Andy knows she’s going to stay. Maya knows she’s not. Mike Bartlett’s Snowflake is an epic story about generational conflict, fathers and daughters, and whether we’re living in the best or worst of times. This insightful family drama is a bittersweet alternative Christmas show from the writer of Contractions and TV’s Doctor Foster.
“A Christmas show that feels simultaneously festive, caustic, refreshingly woke and authentically heartwarming… tremendous fun.” WhatsOnStage

 

 

The Tyler Sisters by Alexandra Wood

Full-length Play, F3, Contemporary, minimal requirements, 978 1 848 42927 7, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Three women, forty years, one ever-evolving bond. The Tyler Sisters is a funny, heartening exploration of time, and the unassuming moments that make up our lives. Alexandra Wood’s innovative play explores the deep and unruly waters of sisterhood. Spanning over forty years, this lovely and well-crafted play offers an exciting challenge for three female performers.
“Wood’s spirited story of modern womanhood reminds us that the blood-bond of sisterhood has hard edges… refreshing… emphatically contemporary.” The Guardian

 

 

The Unreturning by Anna Jordan

Full-length Play, M4 doubling (large mixed cast possible), Contemporary, minimal requirements, 978 1 848 42787 7, £9.99 (£7.99 direct from publisher)

Three young men are coming home from war. Their stories, set at different times over a hundred years, are beautifully interwoven in Anna Jordan’s The Unreturning, a play that explores the complexity of masculinity, and the profound effect that war has on young people’s lives. When experience has shattered you into a million pieces, will home help to put you back together again? A moving and beautiful piece offering meaty roles for four male performers, or a large mixed cast.
“A feverishly intense drama… visceral and insightful.” Time Out

 

 

Music Theatre International (Europe)
T: 020 7580 2827
W: www.mtishows.co.uk | E: shows@mtishows.co.uk
F: mtieurope | T: mtieurope

The Bridges of Madison County

Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown.
Book by Marsha Norman.
Based on the novel by Robert James Waller.

Based on the best-selling novel, and developed by the Pulitzer- and Tony Award- winning creative team of Jason Robert Brown (The Last Five Years, Parade, Songs for a New World) and Marsha Norman, The Bridges of Madison County captures the lyrical expanse of America’s heartland along with the yearning entangled in the eternal question: “What if…?” Winner of the 2014 Tony Award for Best Score and Orchestrations, this sweeping romance about the roads we travel, the doors we open and the bridges we dare to cross will leave audiences breathless.
Francesca Johnson, a beautiful Italian woman who married an American soldier to flee war-ravaged Italy, looks forward to a rare four days alone on her Iowa farm when her family heads to the 1965 State Fair. When ruggedly handsome, National Geographic photographer, Robert Kincaid, pulls into her driveway seeking directions, though, what happens in those four days may very well alter the course of Francesca’s life.
With a soaring score and a heartbreaking story, The Bridges of Madison County is a touching and powerful addition to any theatre’s season. The tour de force roles of Francesca and Robert are a dream come true for any actor, while the ensemble is rich with characters that tell their own individual stories and receive plenty of focus onstage.

Elf The Musical

Book by Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin.
Music by Matthew Sklar.
Lyrics by Chad Beguelin.
Based on the New Line Cinema film by David Berenbaum.

A title known the world over, Elf The Musical is a must-produce holiday musical that can easily become an annual tradition for any theatre. Based on the cherished 2003 New Line Cinema hit, Elf features songs by Tony Award nominees Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin (Disney’s Aladdin On Broadway, The Wedding Singer), with a book by Tony Award winners Thomas Meehan (Annie, The Producers, Hairspray) and Bob Martin (The Drowsy Chaperone).
Buddy, a young orphan mistakenly crawls into Santa’s bag of gifts and is transported to the North Pole. The would-be elf is raised unaware that he is actually a human, until his enormous size and poor toy-making abilities cause him to face the truth. With Santa’s permission, Buddy embarks on a journey to New York City to find his birth father and discover his true identity. Faced with the harsh reality that his father is on the naughty list, and his step-brother doesn’t even believe in Santa, Buddy is determined to win over his new family and help New York remember the true meaning of Christmas.
This modern day holiday classic is sure to make everyone embrace their inner elf. After all, the best way to spread Christmas Cheer is singing loud for all to hear.

Josef Weinberger Ltd
T: 020 7927 7322
E: shows@jwmail.co.uk | W: www.josef-weinberger.com

The Fulstow Boys by Gordon Steel

Full-length Drama Comedy, F3 M10, Interior/Exterior, 978 0 856 76380 9

At the turn of the centenary of the armistice, the award-winning writer of Studs, A Kick in the Baubles, Albert Nobbs and Grow Up Grandad gives us this comedy-drama that is based on true stories from the town of Fulstow, Lincolnshire in 2005, and the Great War. When Sky News and the rest of the world’s press descends on a small village in Lincolnshire all hell breaks loose. Why doesn’t the village have a war memorial? And what are they going to do about it? Determined to right a wrong that has been hanging over Fulstow since the First World War, the tenacious Nicola Pike leads the village committee to make a decision that threatens to tear the community apart … but Graham is desperate to cure his constipation, Maurice’s back is playing up and Moira is furious that someone else has been asked to make the chocolate cake at the forthcoming fete. Set across two time frames, the tale of a village’s monumental decision is both heart-breaking and hilarious.

 

Bloomsbury – Methuen Drama
T: 01256 302699
W: www.bloomsbury.com | E: direct@macmillan.co.uk
F: BloomsburyPublishing | T: @bloomsburybooks

Questors, Jesters and Renegades by Michael Coveney

978 1 350 12837 8, £25.00 Hardback

The Story of Britain’s Amateur Theatre…
This is the vital story of the amateur theatre as it developed from the medieval guilds to the modern theatre of Ayckbourn and Pinter, with a few mishaps and missed cues along the way. Michael Coveney – a former member of Ilford’s Renegades – tells this tale with a charm and wit that will have you shouting for an encore.
Between the two world wars, amateur theatre thrived across the UK, from Newcastle to Norwich, from Bolton to Birmingham and Bangor, championed by the likes of George Bernard Shaw, Sybil Thorndike, and J.B. Priestley. Often born out of a particular political cause or predicament, many of these theatres and companies continue to evolve, survive and even prosper today.
This is the first account of its kind, packed with anecdote and previously unheard stories, and it shows how amateur theatre is more than a popular pastime: it has been endemic to the birth of the National Theatre, as well as a seedbed of talent and a fascinating barometer and product of the times in which we live.
Some of the companies Coveney delves into – all taking centre stage in this entertaining and lively book – include The Questors and Tower Theatre in London; Birmingham’s Crescent Theatre; The Little Theatre in Bolton, where Ian McKellen was a schoolboy participant; the Halifax Thespians; Lincolnshire’s Broadbent Theatre, co-founded by Jim Broadbent’s father and other conscientious objectors at the end of World War II; Crayford’s Geoffrey Whitworth Theatre, where the careers of Michael Gambon and Diana Quick were launched; Anglesey’s Theatr Fach, a crucible of Welsh language theatre; and Cornwall’s stunning cliff-top Minack.

Enter the code QUESTORS35 at checkout online at: www.bloomsbury.com to apply a 35% discount.
(Valid until 31 May 2020)

Our Country’s Good (Based on the novel ‘The Playmaker’ by Thomas Keneally) by Timberlake Wertenbaker. Editor: Sophie Bush

Student Edition, 978 1 350 09788 9, £9.89 (online price)

Australia 1789. A young married lieutenant is directing rehearsals of the first play ever to be staged in that country. With only two copies of the text, a cast of convicts, and one leading lady who may be about to be hanged, conditions are hardly ideal…
Winner of the Laurence Olivier Play of the Year Award in 1988, and many other major awards, Our Country’s Good premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1988 and opened on Broadway in 1991.
“Rarely has the redemptive, transcendental power of theatre been argued with such eloquence and passion.” Georgina Brown, The Independent

 

 

Oberon Books
T: 020 7607 3637
W: www.oberonbooks.com | E: permissions@oberonbooks.com
F: OberonBooksLondon | T: @oberonbooks

Antigone by Lulu Raczka

F2, 978 1 786 82885 9, £9.99

The war is over.
The dead have been buried. The traitors have been punished. People feel more alive than they have in a long time. They are ready to start again.
But Antigone is not. She will not move on, and she will not forget. She will drag everyone back if she has to.
Lulu Raczka’s searing adaptation of Sophocles’ classic text hands the reins to the young women at its heart, creating something messy, irreverent and vital.

 

 

Ask Me Anything by The Paper Birds

F3, 978 1 786 82864 4, £9.99

The Paper Birds invited young people to “ask them anything and now they’re trying to come up with the answers.
Inspired by the magazine problem pages they read growing up in the 90s and 00s, in Ask Me Anything, The Paper Birds become the agony aunts. Using the real letters sent to the company, this verbatim show explores what young people think, want and worry about today.
Set in our teenage bedrooms, this is a show about what different generations can learn from each other whist celebrating teenagers, grandparents and everyone in between, who, like us, are still figuring it all out.

 

 

Blood Wedding by Barney Norris

F3 M3, 978 1 786 82980 1, £9.99

A Wiltshire village, 2019. Rob and his fiancée Georgie are checking out the village hall for their wedding reception. Rob’s mum wonders if they are rushing into things. Just when they begin to talk her round, an old flame who could shatter the wedding plans turns up, and very soon Georgie’s past is making her question who really is the love of her life…
Barney Norris’s explosive retelling of Lorca’s classic tragedy sets the action firmly in a modern day village community that’s rocked by revelations and gossip.

 

 

Can I Help You? by Philip Osment

F1 M1, 978 1 786 82851 4, £9.99

Philip Osment’s final play, Can I Help You? is a magical realist examination of the role race and gender have to play in mental health and suicide.
An off-duty English policeman is about to throw himself off Beachy Head when he is met by a Ghanaian woman carrying a laundry bag and a cat box. Over the course of one night, two disparate characters learn what it truly means to be touched by the magic of hope.

 

 

 

Idol by Jamal Gerald

978 1 786 82859 0, £9.99

A daring and unapologetic examination of religion, pop culture and Black representation.
Who would you rather pray to? Beyoncé or white Jesus?
Jamal grew up Catholic in a Caribbean household, but would rather light a candle and worship celebrities than white saints. Combining African diasporic ritual, music and storytelling, Idol is a spiritual journey that asks what happens when you don’t see yourself represented – featuring a host of celebrity appearances.

 

 

Passengers by Kit Redstone

F1 M2, 978 1 786 82872 9, £9.99

Max wants to tell you a story. He’s not entirely sure why or even who he is: savage, peacekeeper or critic. But he’s hoping you’ll be able to help him.
A dark comedy about the epic battles and alliances within the psyche, and the beautiful power of the mind to protect itself from pain.

 

 

 

The Rage of Narcissus by Sergio Blanco

M1, 978 1 786 82855 2, £9.99

When writer Sergio arrives in Ljubljana to give a lecture on Narcissus, the first thing he does after checking in to his hotel room is get on an app and look for someone to have sex with. A few hours later, once Igor has come and gone, Sergio spots a dark brown stain on the floor. Looking closer, he sees that it’s a blood stain. And looking around, he discovers more and more blood stains all over the room.
As he begins to investigate, he gets drawn deeper and deeper into a dark murky world of desire, infatuation and murder. Perfect material for the new play he’s trying to write – if he can get out of Ljubljana alive…

 

 

Scrounger by Athena Stevens

F2, 978 1 786 82895 8, £9.99

Everyone likes to make speculations about Scrounger. Scrounger doesn’t care. A successful online personality, she’s got more power from her bedroom than anyone on the Southwark estates could dream of. She’s educated, she’s ballsy, Scrounger is a woman who knows how to make change happen. That is, until an airline destroys her wheelchair.
Inspired by real events and a lawsuit initiated by Stevens herself, Scrounger drives towards the realities of how Britain is failing its most vulnerable and the extreme cost paid by those seeking justice.

 

 

Since U Been Gone by Teddy Lamb

978 1 786 82861 3, £9.99

When friends die and pronouns change, what’s left of the memories that don’t fit anymore?
Brought to life with storytelling, an original pop music score, and way too many America’s Next Top Model references, Since U Been Gone is a moving and powerful autobiographical account about childhood co-stars, teenage rebellion, growing up queer in the mid-noughties, and finding yourself while losing a friend.

 

 

 

So Many Reasons by Racheal Ofori

F1, 978 1 786 82853 8, £9.99

Melissa is having a bit of a crisis. This bold, funny and honest piece explores the reasons why: starting with her mum, God and sex… What happens when we realise mums don’t always know best?
Told by a first-generation British-Ghanaian woman on the hunt for an orgasm, Racheal Ofori’s brave and exuberant So Many Reasons explores cultural and generational shifts, religion and sexuality.
“Ofori’s excellent writing fuses poetry and prose to allow each character to vividly leap off the page.” The Stage

 

 

Trainers …Or the Brutal Unpleasant Atmosphere of this Most Disagreeable Season: a Theatrical Essay by Sylvan Oswald

978 1 786 82857 6, £9.99

The only rule is to break the rules.
In a parallel present, two queer radicals meet in the fallout of The Second American Civil War. If love is the most radical act, can their desire survive the revolution?
Based on Montaigne’s intellectual love affair with political thinker Étienne de La Boétie, Sylvan Oswald’s brand-new play Trainers is a visionary story exploring the different ways we can connect as lovers, activists, and humans.

 

 

TSL Drama
W: tslbooks.uk/drama | F: TSLpublications | T: @TSLpub

Against the Tide by Stephen Baker

6 monologues, F3 M3, Simple settings, 978 1 912 41642 4, £5.18

All the characters in Against the Tide are fictitious, reflecting individuals who see situations very differently to mainstream society; and who, due to circumstances, feel isolated and somewhat estranged even from those around them. Politics features in Queen of South Faxby and Moving with the Times, and in a previous work, The Waiting Man. This no doubt is due to 12 years spent in the political arena of local politics. Although light hearted, some of the characters lead quite sad existences.

 

 

Connie’s Lovely Boy by Beatrice Holloway

1 Act, 25-30 minutes, F2 M1, Sitting room & entrance hall of an elderly woman’s house, 978 1 912 41695 0, £5.28

Connie’s son Paul comes to visit after a long absence. Recently released from prison, Paul suggests to his mother that he’s been away on business. Emma, Connie’s friendly neighbour decides to visit and there is an encounter between her and Paul, including mention of a robbery which happened the day before… How far does a mother go to protect her boy?
Beatrice Holloway is a playwright and author. The London Borough of Hillingdon library service has published two of her children’s stories and awarded her with a Certificate of merit — ‘In recognition of an outstanding contribution to the Arts’. Beatrice was also awarded a Lottery Grant to write a commissioned historical play: Commoner to Coronet.

 

Small Mercies by Melville Lovat

2 Act comedy/drama 90 minutes, F2 M4, Flat and shop – single stage setting (diagram provided), 978 1 912 41625 7, £5.26

In Small Mercies, people’s lives hang well and truly in the balance.
Shop owner Donald and wife Andrea are desperate people with a failing business. They decide to pay an arsonist to set fire to the shop so they can claim on the insurance and start a new life. Little do they know that two late customers have inadvertently been locked inside! As the two couples, each with their own very different problems, touch each others’ lives with unexpected results, the dark comedy, pathos and fragility of existence shines through in this ultimately uplifting play.
Small Mercies developed as a continuation of Melville’s one act play, The Lamp and includes much of The Lamp’s text whilst focusing mainly on the furniture shop owner, Donald and his family.

 

Trust by Christopher X Morris

1 Act, grotesque, 20 minutes, M2, Bright pink room, 978 1 912 41686 8, £4.99

Boris decides to take his life into his own hands by kidnapping his ex-lover Jay. Despite the gruesome circumstances, Jay and Boris form a sense of trust, which Jay can use to his advantage. With trust comes vulnerability. And when you’re vulnerable anyone can take advantage of you … Boris learns this the hard way.
Christopher is an author, producer, and playwright with a love for the surreal and intense. His plays often involve grotesque subject matter, and can be very cheap to produce. His work has been performed in several One Act Festivals, the “Hudson Guild Theatre”, and the “NYSummerfest2018” where, TRUST, was acknowledged for Most Creative Play and Best Short Play.

A Play About Amateurs

A Play About Amateurs

Another show which has fallen victim to the current health crisis is the first-ever UK tour of Ian Hislop & Nick Newman’s comedy, A Bunch of Amateurs. Sardines sat down with the pair at Ian Hislop’s Private Eye HQ just as the Coronavirus was gathering pace. Two weeks later, the tour may be postponed until later in the year but the following conversation is well worth reading, and is a real tale of life imitating art…

Nick N:

“Of all the things we’ve done it’s been the most surprising; it just keeps going on and on and on. We suddenly became aware that so many amateur groups were doing it – and it’s been done all over the world, as far as Alaska and New Zealand…”

Ian H:

“…And I think the professional company that’s putting this on had a good look at the fact that it was on all the time and filling up local theatres and thought, ‘Hello, perhaps it’s time to do it professionally.’ I think it’s now out of licence for the duration of this tour, but it’ll definitely be back.”

Nick N:

“The thing that’s really impressed me is how imaginative all of the groups are, I mean much more imaginative than professional theatre. One group sent us a programme where they had their own version of The Stratford Players’ programme including biographies of all the leading characters. That’s far more than we’ve ever gone.”

Ian H:

“We’ve seen lots of posters and promotional material from amateur productions and have often said to each other, ‘Bloody hell, this is really good!’ Ha ha!”

2008’s film, A Bunch of Amateurs

SARDINES:
Trial by Laughter and The Wipers Times are based on historical events, while A Bunch of Amateurs is a very different kettle of fish. What gave you the idea?

Nick N:

“It was actually bought to us as a project way back in the early 2000s. It was being developed as a film by our friend, David Parfitt, but the script had stalled and wasn’t getting anywhere. So David asked us to come and have a look at it, which we did, suggesting a few things. Anyway, we ended up rewriting it from scratch. And then it got made. It was a bit out of our comfort zone I suppose.”

Ian H:

“At the age of 17 or 18 I was part of an amateur theatre company, in a barn, in Sussex. So I know ‘those’ characters; they were people with whom I did some very strange plays with. Lots of Dickens and plays about the Saints. But anyway, I’ve been there. And Nick and I both acted at school – not terribly well – but in a very similar setup. We’ve become ‘very serious’ people in later life but to get the chance to go into all this again was a real treat.”

Nick N:

“Also, we had already written a thing for Dawn French called He Died a Death – in the Murder Most Horrid series – which was about a version of The Mousetrap, where an actual murder takes place on stage and a couple of policeman have to crack the case in half an hour. So we were already quite obsessed with actors and that world, and we just thought why should it be any different for an amateur company – such as the egos – compared with a professional one? We have many many actor friends, who are all lovely, and they are such brilliant raconteurs with so many anecdotes, but you never quite know where the actor ends and the person begins. We tried to do that in the Murder Most Horrid episode and it seemed very natural to bring it into this play. That was really the starting point wasn’t it?”

Ian H:

“And I think as we’ve got older we know more and more famous people…”

Nick N:

“… Well, you do!”

2008’s film, A Bunch of Amateurs

Ian H:

“Yes, Nick will say he knows one famous person, but he’s mad. I.e. me! But we felt we had both ends of the story, just watching how bonkers being famous is and how peculiar it makes people. And then we did the film with Burt Reynolds… which was just a complete eye-opener. You’ve no idea just how mad he was. We then rewrote the whole thing really to incorporate just what we’d found out about Burt and put it back into the play. The version of the play that exists now is full of things about Burt Reynolds… (laughs)”

Nick N:

“… Stuff that he did, and his lack of self-awareness… nothing prepared us for. The British cast were consummately professional, very funny, knew the script and could turn it around at the drop of a hat. But Burt arrived and we sort of joked to him at the meet and greet that ‘we hope you’re going to behave very badly’, to which he said, ‘Oh yes, I’ll keep them on their toes.’ And he proceeded to behave very, very badly. We thought, ‘You’re portraying a kind of washed-up actor who comes over from the States and starts behaving very badly’ – this really is life imitating art!

“But then to get the detail, because we couldn’t have imagined it in the screenplay, for instance, he said to the make-up lady: ‘Give my hair a pull! The stuff keeping it on is what holds the space shuttle together.’ You cannot write lines like that.”

Ian H:

“It’s now all in the play. Ha ha!”

Nick N:

“We flew out to the Isle of Man prior to three or four days of filming to find some enormous cue cards. We questioned, ‘Are these for the play within the film?’ No, they were for Burt, and for the most basic lines of dialogue. The other character from America in the film was the guy who played Burt’s Hollywood agent. He was actually older than Burt and could remember fewer lines than him. The is a scene where they are acting together and the director, Andy Cadiff, had so much trouble getting an angle where there wasn’t a cue card in shot; they were literally all over the set.”

Ian H:

“Derek Jacobi actually came up with the funniest line, which we’ve put back in the play. He said that Burt shouldn’t be playing King Lear, he should be playing Yorick – because he was so old and decrepit. Incredibly funny, so we stole it and put it in the play. I’m sure Derek would pretend he didn’t say that, but it’s definitely his line.”

2008’s film, A Bunch of Amateurs

Nick N:

“The funniest story I heard, after Burt passed away, was in filming a scene – which sadly we can’t recreate in the play – where he goes to a phone box to call his agent because there is no satellite signal in the village. He’s screaming down the line while, outside the phone box, there’s the entire village listening in on the conversation. Of course he couldn’t remember his lines, so they fed them to him down the phone line. However, that’s not the funny part. When it came to the end of his rant and Andy Cadiff said down the line, ‘Put the phone down, Burt,’ of course he shouts out, ‘PUT THE PHONE DOWN, BURT!’ …Somewhere there is a clip of that.
“He was immensely good value, quite by accident. And we mourned his passing. Along with our producer, David Parfitt, we do hanker after making My Week with Burt because it was such an experience.”

IAN H:

“That is one of the things that’s really special about the play, going forward; it’s riddled with real life. We knew quite a lot about it before, but after a film shoot with Burt, I think the character of Jefferson Steele is pretty accurate.”

Nick N:

“I think it’s quite good for amateur groups because it doesn’t patronise them, as really they are the stars of the show. It’s really about how the amateurs are better at it than the great professional.”

IAN H:

“The fact that the word ‘amateur’ actually means ‘lover of’ is really interesting because the play is riddled with love letters from us to the amateur stage; trying to save it, people explaining why they do it in the first place, what is the point of it – apart from getting out of the house? But their commitment is above and beyond because they’re doing it for nothing. I think they’re phenomenal.”

SARDINES:
As well as eventually being “reconciled with his estranged daughter,” Jefferson Steele ultimately “realises that he is no better, in terms of talent and intelligence, than his amateur colleagues.” A telling appraisal of the murky grey area between amateur and professional?

IAN H:

“I think if you look at Student Review, which is where we started, people who had done nothing much more than making people laugh when they were undergraduates, manage to go straight onstage, and then do it again. I saw David Mitchell’s performance in Upstart Crow and he commanded the stage for two and a half hours in the West End stage adaptation. What is his theatre experience? He doesn’t have any, but he can do it. I’m sure some people are very snotty and would think that ‘it’s all rather amateur’… but it isn’t.”

Nick N:

“There’s also a requirement of the stage for a certain level of professionalism which I do think eludes some film stars now. Burt is used to doing ten takes, in which somewhere there will be something which is usable. But – and I think this is what he found when he was onstage performing with Derek Jacobi, Samantha Bond and Imelda Staunton, who were all so on top of their lines – they were getting it right all the time and he wasn’t… which is no doubt why he felt insecure and threw some wobblies and tantrums.”

IAN H:

“The more we talk about it the more Burt sounds like Jefferson Steele. It’s great and we were so lucky to have him in the cast; it really fell into our laps. Its further life on stage is just one more level of fun, because we’ve now done life imitating art, and the life again, then art, back to life and so on… but it’s much richer because of it.”

Nick N:

“For us, we did about eight weeks at the Watermill Theatre with it initially, before Wipers [Times] or Trial by Laughter, so that was the start of our relationship with the Watermill. Heather Davies, who was in charge at the time knew it was being made into a film and, once it had come out in 2008, came to us and asked if we’d ever thought of doing it as a play. So we adapted it as a play. Then they had the noble idea of including local amateur groups to make up bodies onstage, shifting scenery etc. So that was great as it allowed us to do a pared down version of the film – I think we’ve ended up with seven characters – but other people are on the stage to give you the sense that there are many more people involved.
“So we did that as a run and had a fantastic cast, plus it was great fun. It was also our first go at writing for the stage, and when the Watermill asked us if we had any other ideas, because we’d had such a great time, that’s when we said, ‘well actually, we’ve written this thing called The Wipers Times. Then came Trial by Laughter, and here we are today. It’s been a fantastic run with The Watermill, and the good thing is we know A Bunch of Amateurs works. I haven’t yet seen an amateur production of it – and I know I’ll need to get around to seeing it sometime, but purely as a piece of theatre, thankfully we can be assured we’re on pretty safe ground.”

SARDINES:
So are you excited about seeing amateurs performing your work, or worried at what we might do to it?

IAN H:

“Ha, ha! I hope it inspires them, as I think it often does with amateur companies. Even if they come to see it and think, ‘Well that’s not hard, we could do that!’ So I hope we’ll get lots of people doing it again afterwards. It’s such a pleasure knowing that it has such legs.”

SARDINES:
How long have you both been collaborating now?

IAN H:

“About forty-five! We were at school together. Have I Got News for You will be thirty years old this year. It’s older than most of its viewers! Ha, ha! Somehow Nick and I got locked into the long-term project; arguably your whole life. Nick’s been at The Sunday Times for thirty years.”

Nick N:

“…A fantastic feat of survival.”

IAN H:

“Yes, you should have been sacked years ago.”

Nick N:

“Professionally we’ve been fantastically lucky; Ian edits the magazine and its structure is such that we have one week on and one week off. At the moment, this is our week off, so we’ve got time to do a bit of writing or whatever. In the time that we devote to writing projects it never feels oppressive, in terms of being with each other all the time.”

IAN H:

“It was the founders of this place [Private Eye] who came up with the idea of a fortnightly – they say because they were ‘very lazy’ – but actually it means that everybody who works here, every other week, goes off and does something else. So we’ve all got time. Plus we’ve only really got back to the stage in the last ten years. We’ve done an awful lot of telly. But we love it; I used to perform live, and so did Nick. We’ve probably rediscovered a lot of that early energy. Live performance is just fantastic.”

The Wipers Times UK Tour (2017)

Nick N:

“When it works well, it’s the most exciting thing. And nothing prepared me for how exciting doing A Bunch of Amateurs was the first time round. We’d done lots of radio and lots of successful TV shows, but you’re completely unaware of anybody laughing or finding it remotely amusing. When you’re in a hall where the whole place is ringing to the rafters, you not only see it for the first time again and again, you also see it change. You never see the same performance and it gets better – otherwise you fix something if it’s not working. In film, it’s all done and dusted and your writers are very much kept at arm’s length. Radio is better as the writers are an integral part and you can change things on the hoof…”

IAN H:

“…A lot of telly, written telly, doesn’t have an audience; it’s just shot. You see it at home when it goes out and you hope it’s going to be well-received. Then I remember turning up in Chichester and thinking, ‘God, there’s a thousand people here!’ Then the laughter belts across from the back, and you realise, ‘There’s nothing like this.’ And there really isn’t.”

Trial by Laughter UK Tour (2018)

NICK N:

“It’s also work in progress. Take Michael Frayn and his plate of sardines. He worked on Noises Off continually for over twenty years, changing bits and rewriting the ending while it got better and better, polishing other bits. He’s my idol really. When we were doing both Wipers and Trial by Laughter some of the actors were pretty smart writers too, so they would suggest a line or two and, if it worked, we would go for it.”

IAN H:

“We cut things and we changed things during the tour; it just give you the chance to do it again, rather than once, and that’s it. Have I Got News for You is recorded over about an hour and forty-five minutes. There’s a studio audience there, and I love that, as Nick will tell you – I’m ‘very vain’. Ha, ha! Paul Merton did a panto in Wimbledon and he suddenly sounded like us. He said, ‘It’s absolutely brilliant, panto. It’s fantastic. I want to do theatre!’ And now he’s doing theatre – Hairspray, when it eventually gets the all-clear. I think he’s also decided that ‘live’ is great.”

NICK N:

“In 2017 we did a special charity production of The Wipers Times on Armistice Day. It was a very special night and performed after the ceremony at the cenotaph, so we had veterans in the audience. Aled Jones came in and sang Stille Nacht [Silent Night] which really made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Just fabulous. But, the star of the show was… Ian. It had been mooted that the writers might like to take part in some way. Ian had to be restrained, the speed at which he rushed up there, whereas I prefer to watch from the audience. Ian came on as the vicar and got a big laugh, not I think because you delivered the lines in a particularly comprehensible way, but he’s such a luvee and desperate to be back on the stage.
“When we’re completely washed up we’ll no doubt put on our own amateur production…”

IAN H:

“…Definitely! I shall buy a small barn in a village and put on our own plays, endlessly.”

As the UK tour has been postponed, please check the show’s website for all the latest news and updated details:
www.bunchofamateursplay.co.uk

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