Böcker utgivna av Samuel French Ltd

Characters: 2m, 3f / Historic/Docu DramaPassionate. Brilliant. Defiant. Tonight, 18th century scientific genius Emilie du Châtelet is back and determined to answer the question she died with: love or philosophy, head or heart? In this highly theatrical rediscovery of one of history's most intriguing women, Emilie defends her life and loves; and ends up with both a formula and a legacy that permeates history."Gunderson possesses an antic imagination that seeks to invent its own rules. As soo

Wings of Madness:Short Play, Southern DramaCharacters: 1 femaleInterior SetSet in a tacky funeral parlor on a highway outside New Orleans, a murdered beauty taunts the audience, exposing her bare unshrouded back, and explaining why she was murdered. Other imaginary characters--her husband and daughter--add an eerie quality to her already surreal tale.Turtle Soup: Short Play, Southern ComedyCharacters: 1 male, 1 female

>Short Play, Comedy Characters: 2 male, 2 femaleBare stage w/props.A Southern comedy about mature love found later in life, and the trouble and insight that such discoveries can bring. Though well-warned, Kitten, a runaway housewife, decides to travel with her Tulane professor, Beau, on a train trip through the Louisiana swamp. Their plans are upset when her son, Bunky, in an effort to punish her, shows up as a stowaway on the train. Kitten and Beau struggle through their disappointments, mourning the futility of their lives, while the hurricane brewing outside the train builds toward its inevitable whirlwind of destruction. Also available in A Louisiana Gentleman and other New Orleans Comedies.

Short Play, DramaCharacters: 1 maleOne exterior set or bare stageA young writer faces love, death, and the challenges of creating a joyful life. Setting: Rocky coast of Ireland in the 1930's.

Dramatic Comedy / 2m, 1f / Interior An eccentric widower, Mack has been a stay-at-home dad for twenty years, his daily existence revolving around his son Billy. Not only can't he let go, Mack's convinced he's more needed than ever. First up is pulling Billy from a dead-end copy shop job and enrollment in culinary school-after all, he was a finalist in the Pillsbury Bake-off. Then Mack discovers that Billy, adopted from infancy, has contacted his birthmother, a Washington, DC secretary about to make a first trip to New York City. Panicky Mack spends a sleepless three days coaching his son, determined to impress Adela with Billy's upbringing-and their indestructible father-son bond. Over a snowy Easter weekend, these three square off. Confronting timid Adela, Billy's romanticized ideas about his identity are turned inside out, as Mack's deepest insecurities surface. Mack is convinced the woman will psychologically lay claim to the child she gave up two decades earlier. Yet for Adela, a lasting reconnection with the boy couldn't be further from her mind. With abundant humor, Easter Monday addresses what it means to be a parent, and to be parented, illuminating both the pain and joy in finally saying goodbye to childhood. "....An interesting examination of an unusual father-son relationship... The Sondheim lyrics 'stay a child while you can be a child' are embodied in Mack, the overprotective father. In his eagerness to keep his adopted son Billy with him, Mack has in essence tried to keep him a child. He creates a wonderful world of nostalgia that is very moving... Easter Monday holds our interest, and Corley has written some beautifully evocative lines ... " -Connie Meng, NPR Radio Character Descriptions: MACK: 55-ish; a radically sentimental, unapologetic Pollyanna; unselfconscious, devoid of vanity, he's alternately tender, prickly, impatient, cuddly, bullying, at times fiercely defensive and aggressively paternal. BILLY: Mack's son, 20; attractively boyish, yet preternaturally world-weary; gentle, introspective and cautious, he has developed a short fuse, and though desperate to avoid confrontation, he can turn combative. ADELA: Billy's birthmother; 35; unprepossessing, plain-spoken and intensely focused on whatever meager task is at hand; though decidedly meek, she's capable of standing up for the truth - and herself. Please contact Samuel French, Inc. (www.samuelfrench.com) for performance licensing inquiries.

Judges selected from the audience actually vote and determine the winner who, therefore, may be different at each performance. The show takes its shots not by mocking the pageant from the outside, but by being one. The six contestants compete for the title of Miss Glamouresse (Glamouresse being a cosmetics company). Miss Deep South, Miss West Coast, Miss Great Plains, Miss Bible Belt, Miss Industrial Northeast. and Miss Texas and compete in evening gowns, talent, swim-wear and spokemodeling, plus the finalists answer actual calls from the Glamouresse Beauty Crisis Hotline.

Not a farce, but a true comedy of manners, and as such requires genuine character performances. Hugely successful premieres in the UK and the USA. Ah, Provence! The French Riviera. Where the well-to-do rent luxury villas for exorbitant sums in order to get their annual fix of sun, sea, and haute cuisine. However, imagine the crisis if one such sumptuous place was double-booked. Worse - imagine it triple-booked! By a French couple, an English couple, and heaven forbid, an Irish/American couple. M

DramaCharacters: 4 male, 3 female Interior Set This poignant drama about a dysfunctional Jewish family in Massachusetts is structured as a memory play. Roddy Stern recalls what it was like growing up in a family dominated by his paranoid and pathologically jealous father, a truck driver who lurked outside his house instead of working to catch his wife with other men. A long suffering and abused saint, Roddy's mother raised two children in this difficult environment. Roddy's

Comedy / Characters: 5 male, 2 femaleScenery Requirements: Simple setPeter and Madeline have been friends since they were teenagers in Queens. They have Manhattan apartments and separate unsatisfactory sex lives. Though more loving than most couples and searching for partners, they are incompatible: he is gay. Maddi is overweight and drawn to men who treat her badly. He hides behind snappy retorts and skepticism. Maddie's alcoholic mother, Peter's father, lovers, pickups and friends with A

This hard-hitting psychological drama swirls around a young Irishman who moves into lodgings in London already occupied by two bigots, one of them Irish and a student who's slumming to research his thesis. Damien is befriended by the student, who appreciates his intellect, and by the student's girlfriend, a devotee of causes and an aspiring journalist. When the IRA mounts a bombing campaign in London, it appears that the enigmatic Damien may be involved. Tension mounts as he remains noncommittal in the face of inquires. Gradually, Damien is drawn into an affair with the student's girlfriend, a lady attracted by the IRA specter. Realizing he has misled those around him, Damien tells her the truth: he's a dispatch clerk with absolutely no IRA ties. Back at the lodging house, misconceptions and resentments explode into sudden violence.

Four people have come to the Paradise Lounge on the same night for the same reason - to kill the singer. The four do not know each other, and therefore, do not know that the others are there for the same purpose. As the singer, Cindy, is onstage for her first set, the villains discuss with their accomplices the reason and method they've devised for Cindy's death. One by one, they each set a trap in Cindy's dressing room. Cindy finishes her set and leaves the stage to change clothes for the secon

Two people move into an empty room and begin to construct a life together in this work by the author of Noises Off, Copenhagen, Benefactors and numerous other well known plays. Should the bed go here and the table go there? Or the bed there and the table here? Everything inside this small space is for them to decide. The responsibility is daunting - especially when they reflect that it has taken the whole history of the world to get them together in this particular place at this particular time and that the whole future of the world will be different if the table is here instead of there. But how can they decide anything when the other person keeps disagreeing and when the woman downstairs maddeningly dumps unwanted furniture on them that they do not have the heart to refuse?

Comic drama Characters: 2 male, 4 female Interior, exterior or unit set. A warm drama played against the hatred in Northern Ireland, Remembrance charts the love that develops between a Protestant father and a Catholic mother who meet in the cemetery where their sons are buried, both victims of violence. Family members burden the courtship with personal antagonisms. "An absorbing, powerful and touching play.... A gripping account of the brutality of bigotry that knows

This stage biography of gifted short-story writer Katherine Mansfield is set in the tuberculosis sanitarium where she went with her devoted companion, Ida Baker, to regain her health over the winter of 1920-21. The play focuses on the relationship between these two ladies and on this important literary figure's sensibilities as a writer and a woman, while revealing harsh truths about her marriage to a writer and critic who treated her with selfish insensitivity.

Comedy Characters: 1 male, 1 female Interior Set This amusing and insightful look at marriage focuses on one middle aged couple, Barry and Gen, in whose marriage it is possible to see most of the agony and the ecstasy of the institution. Barry, for example, has difficulty accepting that Gen wants to have a career and, indeed, an identity of her own. She wants to be more than merely Mrs. Barry. Eventually, of course, he comes around.

Denis Diderot, Translated and adapted by Shelley Berc and Andrei Belgrader Comic DialogueCharacters: 2 male Simple Interior SetThe two characters in this amazing, almost theatre of the absurd play are an aloof 18th century philosopher and a callow youth who happens to be the nephew of a great French court composer. The young man has recently offended his rich patron and been cut loose. The philosopher maintains that he should swallow his pride and beg forgiveness. As they argue, this tour de force becomes more and more manic. "It has the charm of Amadeus, the irony of Shaw.... The whole evening is one to be seen, savored and treasured." -New York Post

A collection of short plays selected by New York theatre critics, professionals, and the editorial staff of Samuel French, Inc. as the most important plays of the 15th Annual Off Off Broadway Original Short Play Festival, sponsored by Love Creek Productions. This collection includes: The Adventures of Captain Neato-Man by Timothy Harris, A Chance Meeting by Frederick Stroppel, Chateau Rene by Sam Ingraffia, Does This Woman Have A Name? by Theresa Rebeck, For Anne by Peter Gruen, The Heartbreak T

Genre: Comedy Characters: 4 males and 2 females Scenery: Interior This is a riotous comedy about divorce. Arthur and Norma, ex-spouses, live in separate apartments in the same building. Norma has second thoughts about her ongoing affair with Arthur's best friend, while Arthur isn't so sure he wants to continue his dalliance with Sonia. Dennis, Sonia's husband, doesn't mind his wife having an affair as long as she provides him with titillating accounts of it while he is dressed as a lady traffic cop. She greatly embellishes the tales to make him happy. Comic sparks are ignited into farcical flames when Dennis arrives at Arthur's flat for lessons in love making. "Riotous! A domestic laughter romp! A super play. You'll laugh all the way home, I promise you." - Eastbourne News "Very funny.... A Churchill comedy that most people will thoroughly enjoy." - The Stage

Characters: 4 male, 2 female 2 Interiors Maestro Vito De Angelis, an egomaniacal but charming conductor, is under contract to a major publisher to deliver his autobiography. The publisher has paid a huge advance and Vito has just fired his fifth ghost writer. The publisher sends pretty Iris Peabody, knowing that Vito is a sucker for the ladies, to gain his cooperation as she ghost writes the book. The stratagem works, a fact that distresses Mrs. Vito, former opera star Rachel Garla

Drama 8m, 3f (to play var.roles)/ Unit set. This exciting, highly theatrical docu-drama is about the growing white supremacist movement in America, those dedicated to violent revolution and the expulsion from "God's Country" of non Aryans. The play covers all of the right wing lunatic fringe while focusing on three narrative spines: the trial in Seattle of a paramilitary group which calls itself The Order; the career and death of Denver's Allan Berg, the outspoken, controversial, Jewish talk r

Successful mystery playwright Chuck Reynolds has had his plays lauded by all critics except Charity Starr. When she shows up at his home and has the unmitigated gall to ask his expert help in writing a play of her own, Chuck fiendishly insists that their teacher/pupil sessions be held over lunch with Charity footing the bill at the most expensive restaurants in New York City. Lunatic waiters provide a uniquely hilarious touch to these meetings. Love blossoms despite the scheming of Chuck's amorous neighbor. Charity's play opens on Broadway and she finds out what it's like to be a target for all her critical confreres. Non stop fun, romance, and explosive hilarity make this an ideal show for the entire family.

Comedy Characters: 1 male, 2 female Interior Set Marcia returns to her flat to find it has not been painted as she arranged. A part time painter who is filling in for an ill colleague is just beginning the work when the wife of the man with whom Marcia is having an affair arrives to tell all to Marcia's husband. Marcia hires the painter a part time actor to impersonate her husband at the confrontation. Hilarity is piled upon hilarity as the painter, who takes his acti

Comedy Johnnie Mortimer & Brian Cooke Characters: 2 male, 4 female Interior Set Based on a very popular British sit com, this riotously funny play is classic British sex farce. When Mildred and Ethel go off on a trip to Paris, the "mice will play". Egged on by Ethel's philandering husband Humphrey Pomfrey, George agrees to invite two charming little sex kittens over. Well, you know already what happens, don't you the wives come home prematurely. "The audience screamed with laughter as the farcical comedy events unfolded. The plot is simple and slight risque with machine gun quick repartee. Unbridled laughter, by the theatre load." -Brisbane Telegraph "An amusing evening." -The Middlesex Chronicle

When Cliff Tucker inherits an orphan on the eve of his wedding to wealthy Bobbi Ralston, he figures he can handle matters until the foundling turns out to be full grown and gorgeous with an infant in her arms. While Cliff is fielding this disaster, his lawyer, who is in love with Bobbi, plots to scuttle the wedding. Plans backfire and lunacy multiplies when a struggling actor arrives and Cliffs housekeeper/sister lets him move into the apartment Cliff is vacating. Three convoluted romances culminate in a climactic engagement party in the final act that leaves audiences roaring with laugher. The deranged events involve a dress that looks like a Christmas tree, a stuffed monkey subbing for the baby, a telltale birthmark, and a startling dinner entree called 'Penguin Wellington.' This farce quickly accelerates from amusing to hilarious and is a fine frolic for the entire family to enjoy.

ComedyCharacters: 11 male, 6 female Various sets. Art Carney and Phyllis Thaxter played the Broadway roles of parents of two typical American girls enroute to college. The story is based on the wild and wooly experiences the authors had with their daughters, Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron, themselves now well known writers. The phases of a girl's life are cause for enjoyment except to fearful fathers. Through the first two years, the authors tell us, college girls are fright

Comedy / Characters: 2 male, 1 female, 1 m. extraScenery: Interiors and Exterios simply suggestedPhilip Bosco, David Groh and Priscilla Lopez starred Off Broadway in this light hearted tale of two middle aged brothers on a vacation in Aruba by the author of Other People's Money. The men are searching for fun and adventure i.e., women but also for their misplaced happiness. Their father has recently passed away and the brothers decide some fun in the sun might be just the thing to kick the blues away. Phil, somewhat of a swinger, tries to advise his timid and married brother Norman on the ins and outs of getting laid. When Phil's ex wife Elizabeth arrives to raise a little hell, Norman puts what he's learned to use to hilarious and touching results.

Category: Comedy, Thriller Characters: 4 males, 3 females When nice Mrs. Collier and her two horrendous children are chosen to star in a shampoo commercial, it's not just the dandruff that has to go! "Polished, fast moving and thoroughly entertaining." - The Plymouth Evening Herald "A positive mine field of surprises." - Croydon Advertiser "A must for theatre fans." - The Derbyshire Times

This delightful comedy is about marriage, adultery, career choices, opposing a domineering father and finding one's own identity. Buddy Apple, an aspiring writer, ventures off into an adulterous affair because of frustrations with his lack of career success and his unhappiness with his wife. Eventually, he learns that the perfect life he has been seeking is right there at home.

MusicalCharacters: 1 male, 3 female Interior Set Book and Lyrics by Alan Ayckbourn. Music by Paul Todd. Mrs. Mary Yately is no run of the mill housewife-- she has been chosen by the Evening Echo as Mum of the Year. And, Mrs. Yately is no ordinary character in this brilliantly inventive new musical by Britain's comic master-- she is three separate personalities, played by three actresses. One actor plays all the men in Mary's life, all of whom are, shall we say, not on this world to make her life easier. "We know that Alan Ayckbourn writes more ingenious comedies than anyone else. Now, he is starting to write more ingenious musicals as well. Me, Myself and I offers more civilized pleasure than any other British musical I've seen this year."-- London Guardian. "Splendid, galloping music and rapid fire lyrics."-- London Standard.