Scripts by Title
The Yel-Z
The Yellow Boat
by David Saar
This dramatization is based on the true story of David and Sonja Saar's son, Benjamin, who was born with congenital hemophilia and died in 1987 at the age of 8 of AIDS-related complications. A uniquely gifted visual artist, Benjamin's buoyant imagination transformed his physical and emotional pain into a blaze of colors and shapes in his fanciful drawings and paintings.
Cast: 4 M, 3 F
The Zoo Story
by Edward Albee
A man sits peacefully reading in the sunlight in Central Park. There enters a second man. He is a young, unkempt and undisciplined vagrant where the first is neat, ordered, well-to-do and conventional. The vagrant is a soul in torture and rebellion. He longs to communicate so fiercely that he frightens and repels his listener. He is a man drained of all hope who, in his passion for company, seeks to drain his companion. With provocative humor and unrelenting suspense, the young savage slowly, but relentlessly, brings his victim down to his own atavistic level as he relates a story about his visit to the zoo.
Cast: 2 M
Thieves' Carnival
by Jean Anouilh
This most successful of Anouilh’s works in the United States is an excellent lark loaded with humorous whims, romance, and masquerades. The scene is a palatial home where two attractive young girls reside. The home is invaded by three affectionate thieves, on the one hand, and by a country bumpkin on the other. A lovely romance blooms instantly between one of the girls and the youngest thief. Being a very honest fellow, he cannot in good conscience accept her love, and instead turns with vengeance toward his job. But she is swifter in her wiles than he is in his.
Cast: 10 M, 3 F
Thoroughly
Modern Millie
by Richard Morris
and Dick Scanlan
Set in New York City in 1922, this is the story of young Millie Dillmount from Kansas, who comes to New York in search of a new life for herself. Her grand plan is to find a job as a secretary for a wealthy man and then marry him. However, her plan goes awry. The owner of her dingy hotel kidnaps young girls to sell to the Far East, her wealthy boss is slow in proposing marriage and the man she actually falls in love with doesn't have a dime to his name... or so he tells her.
Cast: 4 M, 5 F, + ensemble
Thriller of the Year
by Glyn Jones
On her return from a celebration party Gillian finds she has been sent a copy of her own novel The Lady Is Dead. The series of accidents that follow convince her that someone is trying to murder her by one of the methods described in her book.
Cast: 5 F
Titanic the Musical
by Peter Stone
The sinking of the Titanic in the early hours of April 15, 1912, remains the quintessential disaster of the twentieth century. A total of 1,517 souls lost their lives. The fact that the finest, largest, strongest ship in the world should have been lost during its maiden voyage is so incredible that, had it not actually happened, no author would have dared to contrive it. But the catastrophe had social ramifications that went far beyond that night’s events. For the first time since the beginning of the industrial revolution early in the 19th Century, bigger, faster and stronger did not prove automatically to be better. Suddenly the very essence of “progress” had to be questioned.
Cast: 10 M, 3 F, + ensemble
To Be Young, Gifted, and Black
by Robert Nemiroff
Fast paced, powerful, touching and hilarious, this kaleidoscope of constantly shifting scenes, mood and images recreates the world of a great American woman and artist, Lorraine Hansberry. The play dramatically weaves through her life experiences and the times that shaped her. The actors slip ingeniously into and out of a variety of challenging roles spanning her life and experiences to the ultimate confrontation when cancer strikes her. Includes brilliantly high lighted scenes from her plays as well as letters, diaries, poems and personal reminiscences.
Cast: 3 M, 5 F
To Forgive, Divine
by Jack Neary
Tongues have begun to wag about the handsome young parish priest Father Jerry Dolan, who has, so they say, been seeing quite a lot of a pretty young parishioner, Katie Cachenko, whom he has known since their school days, when both played in the CYO band. The rumors haven't exactly been scotched by Millie Mullins, Father Dolan's gossipy housekeeper who, with her romantically minded niece, Margaret, has kept all and sundry informed of each bit of possibly damaging grist for the rumor mill.
Cast: 2 M, 3 F
To Kill a Mockingbird (screenplay)
by Horton Foote
In a sleepy Alabama town in the midst of the Great Depression, Scout and her brother, Jem live with their widowed father, Atticus Finch. It is a simpler time as the children play outside in the summer, act out stories, and muse about their mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. The facade of the seemingly peaceful town begins to crack when a young black man is accused of a terrible crime. Driven by an unshakeable moral conviction, Atticus defends the man in a trial that sends violent waves through the community.
Cast: 13 M, 6 F
Tommy
by Pete Townshend
After witnessing the accidental murder of his mother's lover by his father, Tommy is traumatized into catatonia and, as the boy grows, he suffers abuse at the hands of his sadistic relatives and neighbors. As an adolescent, he's discovered to have an uncanny knack for playing pinball and, when his mother finally breaks through his catatonia, he becomes an international pinball superstar.
Cast: 5 M, 3 F, + ensemble
Top Girls
by Caryl Churchill
Marlene has been promoted to managing director of a London employment agency and is celebrating. The symbolic luncheon is attended by women in legend or history who offer perspectives on maternity and ambition. In a time warp, these ladies are also her co-workers, clients, and relatives. Marlene, like her famous guests, has had to pay a price to ascend from proletarian roots to the executive suite: she has become, figuratively speaking, a male oppressor, and even coaches female clients on adopting odious male traits. Marlene has also abandoned her illegitimate and dull-witted daughter. Her emotional and sexual life has become as barren as Lady Macbeth's.
Cast: 7 F
Uncle Vanya
by Anton Chekhov
Set on a country estate in late nineteenth century Russia, Uncle Vanya is in part a study of the enervation of Russian middle-class provincial life. The major dynamics between the characters themselves are centred on two obsessive love affairs that lead nowhere and a flirtation that brings disaster. Mixing the tragic and the absurd and dealing with a form that allows for ambiguity and contradiction, Uncle Vanya has been deemed "the first modernist play". (David Lan)
Cast: 5 M, 4 F
Uncommon Women and others
by Wendy Wasserstein
Comprised of a collage of interrelated scenes, the action begins with a reunion of five close friends and classmates at Mount Holyoke College. They compare notes on their activities since leaving school and then, in a series of flashbacks, we see them in their college days and learn of the events, some funny, some touching, some bitingly cynical, that helped to shape them.
Cast: 9 F
Up The Down Staircase
by Christopher Sergel
"Hi, Teach!" are the first words to greet attractive Sylvia Barrett. There's a special happiness in walking into the still-empty classroom and for the first time writing her name on the blackboard. Students pour into the classroom—cautious, testing, challenging. Simultaneously, there's a blizzard of paperwork, warnings, contradictory orders, indecipherable instructions. Soon Sylvia finds herself involved in the unexpected, sometimes heartbreaking problems of her students.
Cast: 12 M, 18 F
Urinetown
by Mark Hollmann
and Greg Kotis
In a Gotham-like city, a terrible water shortage, caused by a 20-year drought, has led to a government-enforced ban on private toilets. The citizens must use public amenities, regulated by a single malevolent company that profits by charging admission for one of humanity's most basic needs. Amid the people, a hero decides that he's had enough and plans a revolution to lead them all to freedom!
Cast: 10 M, 6 F, + ensemble
Vanities
by Jack Heifner
In 1963, Joanne, Kathy, and Mary are aggressively vivacious cheerleaders. Five years later in their college sorority house, they are confronting their futures with nervous jauntiness. In 1974, they reunite briefly in New York. Their lives have diverged their friendship, which once thrived on assumption as well coordinated as sweater sets, is strained and ambiguous. Old time banter rings false. Their attempts at honest conversation only show they can no longer afford to have very much in common.
Cast: 3 F
Vikings
by Stephen Metcalfe
The Vikings are not Norsemen of old, but an American family of Danish descent who pride themselves on their strength of character. They include Grandfather Yens Larsen, who founded the family carpentry business, his son Peter, and Peter's son Gunnar. After Peter's wife dies, Peter looses interest in life. His father and his son do everything they can to help him, including trying to make a match between Peter and an old school friend of his, Betsy Simmons, who is now divorced and lonely, too.
Cast: 3 M, 1 F
Vital Signs
by Jane Martin
The author of Talking With and other hits has never been funnier or more compelling than in this suite of theatrical miniatures over thirty two minute monologues. The two men in the cast are optional foils for the six compelling women who perform a collage about contemporary woman in all her warmth and majesty, her fear and frustration, her joy and sadness. Vital Signs wowed audiences at the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, where it was directed of Jon Jory whose notes are published with the play.
Cast: 2 M, 6 F
Waiting for Godot
by Samuel Beckett
In Waiting for Godot, two wandering tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait by a lonely tree, to meet up with Mr. Godot, an enigmatic figure in a world where time, place and memory are blurred and meaning is where you find it. The tramps hope that Godot will change their lives for the better. Instead, two eccentric travelers arrive, one man on the end of the other's rope. The results are both funny and dangerous in this existential masterpiece.
Cast: 4 M, 1 boy
Waiting for the Parade
by John Murrell
This warm, wise and winning play by a leading Canadian playwright is about World War II from the point of view five women left behind to wait and to work for their men. Produced at New York's Hudson Guild Theatre, it shows the walking wounded are not always at the front.
Cast: 5 F
We Bombed
New Haven
by Joseph Heller
Oscillating between reality and unreality, this play introduces a code bound captain who assembles his flyers to bomb Constantinople. One aviator is killed on the raid and the sergeant, realizing that he is next to die, skips over the hill. The captain pacifies the others by bringing out toy chests and leading them along the regressive route from football to blocks to baby rattles. When the sergeant is discovered in the captain's home, the captain promises to help him but the military shoots him straight away. Now comes the captain's turn to pass on 300 new recruits all bearing his son's name.
Cast: 16 M, 1 F
Welcome to the Monkey House
by Christopher Sergel
Vonnegut begins with a moving episode about right now in which a young man searches for companionship and identity through participation in amateur theatricals, appropriately entitled Who Am I This Time? An edged satire of the future concludes the first act. The final scene, entirely realistic and modern, gets to the heart of what really concerns young people as a music teacher fights to salvage a rebellious young man, explaining to him how one might bring beauty into the world. "Love yourself," the teacher tells him, "and make your instrument sing about it."
Cast: 10 M, 14 F
West of Pecos
by Tim Kelley
Judge Roy Bean, "The Law West of Pecos," has decreed Orin Powers must hang for shooting up a poster of his beloved Lily Langtry, the famed frontier actress. The sentence has the town of Langtry, Texas, in a stew. Bad men want Orin to swing. Good citizens want him to live. Only one thing will save the unfortunate lad from the gallows—the appearance of Lily herself. What happens when the dazzling and glamorous "toast of two continents" meets the grizzled old "Bean" constitutes the fun, romance and drama that make up the legend.
Cast: 8 M, 12 F
West Side Story (screenplay)
by Ernest Lehman
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is transported to modern-day New York City as two young, idealistic lovers find themselves caught between warring street gangs, the "American" Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks. Their struggle to survive in a world of hate, violence and prejudice is one of the most innovative, heart-wrenching and relevant musical dramas of our time.
Cast: 7 M, 3 F, + ensemble
When the Rain Stops Falling
by Andrew Bovell
It's raining. Gabriel York is awaiting the arrival of his grown son whom he hasn't seen since he was seven. "I know what he wants. He wants what all young men want from their fathers. He wants to know who he is. Where he comes from. Where he belongs. And for the life of me I don't know what to tell him." That's the beginning of this family saga that takes us back and forth in time from one generation to another, from 1959 to 2039, from London to Australia.
Cast: 5 M, 4 F
Where the Lilies Bloom
by Celeste Raspanti
Young Mary Call Luther has spunk, guts, spirit—call it what you will—and she needs them if she's to keep her family together after the death of her father. To do this, she has to hide her father's death from the county welfare, from Kiser Pease, their landlord, and from the townspeople. Kiser wants to marry Devola, Mary Call's older sister, a dreamy, quiet, deceptively retiring girl. Keeping Kiser Pease and the townsfolk at bay lets everyone in for some hilarious tricks and ruses that keep the play moving with action and suspense.
Cast: 7 M, 9 F
White Christmas
by David Ives and Paul Blake
Veterans Bob Wallace and Phil Davis have a successful song-and-dance act after World War II. With romance in mind, the two follow a duo of beautiful singing sisters en route to their Christmas show at a Vermont lodge, which just happens to be owned by Bob and Phil's former army commander.
Cast: 6 M, 5 F, 1 girl
Who Am I This Time?
by Christopher Sergel
An insecure young man, Harry Nash, searches for identity through participation in amateur theatricals. With a real-life personality as blah as the leaf rakes in the hardware store where he works, he's of no interest to anyone. When handed a script, however, he asks, "Who am I this time?" and on the stage he becomes the role he plays. It can be powerful, witty or even cruel but, body and soul, Harry lives the role until the curtain falls. A girl falls in love with him but it's with the Harry who is "in character."
Cast: 3 M, 7 F
Why Do We Laugh?
by Stephen Gregg
At age 6, Meredith Wilfred loves to tell people that she hates her neighbor, Andrew Powers. At age 16, she tells Andrew the same thing but goes to the dance with him anyway. At 45, Meredith and Andy have a great deal to tell each other: most married couples do. And, even at 66, Meredith is still learning about, and from, Andrew. The result is a play about love (and hate) and the way people change each other.
Cast: 4 M, 4 F
Winterset
by Maxwell Anderson
Mio, believing that his father was innocent of the crime for which he was executed, pursues his long search for proof of his innocence. Following new evidence, his path crosses that of Miriamne, a strange creature who lives with her family in the shadow of a towering bridge. The young people are drawn together through the tragedy of Mio's father, and the boy's bitterness prevents each from giving himself wholly to the other. Mio must first recover his self respect and the right to love.
Cast: 16 M, 3 F
Working
by Stephen Schwartz
and Nina Faso
Based on Studs Terkel's best-selling book of interviews with American workers, Working paints a vivid portrait of the men and women that the world so often takes for granted: the schoolteacher, the parking lot attendant, the waitress, the millworker, the mason, the trucker, the fireman and the housewife, just to name a few. It's a highly original look at the American landscape that is simply impossible to forget.
Cast: 5 M, 4 F (variable)
Young Frankenstein
by Mel Brooks
and Thomas Meehan
Grandson of the infamous Victor Frankenstein, Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced "Fronk-en-steen") inherits his family's estate in Transylvania. With the help of a hunchbacked sidekick, Igor (pronounced "Eye-gore"), and a leggy lab assistant, Inga (pronounced normally), Frederick finds himself in the mad scientist shoes of his ancestors. "It's alive!" he exclaims as he brings to life a creature to rival his grandfather's. Eventually, of course, the monster escapes and hilarity continuously abounds.
Cast: 7 M, 3 F, + ensemble
Zoot Suit
(and other plays)
by Luis Valdez
This book contains three of the most important and critically acclaimed Valdez plays. "Zoot Suit" is a play that deals with the infamous "Pachuco Riots" in Los Angeles during World War II, Bandido explores the life and legend of the nineteenth-century California social rebel Tiburcio Vasquez, and I Don't Have to Show You No Stinking Badges explores media images of Hispanic through a staged recreation of the TV situation comedy genre.
Cast: variable