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January 23
The Wizard of Oz Based on
the works of L. Frank Baum
Hosted by Jerri Wiseman Our next scheduled
play reading will be The Wizard of Oz, everybody's cherished
favorite, perennial fantasy musical based on the works of L.
Frank Baum. It was a classic institution and a rite of
passage for many, and probably has been seen by more people
than any other musical over multiple decades. The music and
story are fun, lively, and inspiring…perfect for the whole
family and sure to charm you with its energy and excitement.
Lonely and sad Kansas farm girl
Dorothy dreams of a better place, without torment against
her dog Toto from a hateful neighbor spinster, so she plans
to run away. During a fierce tornado, she is struck on the
head and transported to a land 'beyond the rainbow' where
she meets magical characters from her Kansas life
transformed within her unconscious dream state. After
travels down a Yellow Brick Road to the Land of Oz, and the
defeat of the Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy and her
friends are rewarded by the Wizard of Oz with their hearts'
desires - and Dorothy is enabled to return home to Kansas.
For those that haven’t attended a musical play read, we will
read the script and listen to the cast recording of the show
as we go along. Anyone that knows the music is welcome to
sing along!
Cast: Minimum of 12 speaking roles for males and females
December 5
The Idiot Box by Michael Elyanow Hosted by Jim and Andi Johnson
**For Mature Audiences Only** The Idiot Box is a dark comedy that tells the story of six
sitcom characters whose lives are shaken when reality
crashes into their perfect world. As the artifice of their
lives unravels, each character discovers powerful truths
about race, love, sexuality and the America outside they
never knew existed. Cast:
6 males, 4 females October
25, 2009
Dracula by Bram Stoker Hosted by Mary Willett Come celebrate Halloween with the classic story of Dracula!
The most feared and recognizable name in the dark history of
the world. An undead fiend who rises from his coffin to seek
a rendezvous which is the only thing that can keep him
alive.
Cast: 8 primary roles for males and females. Specific script
to be selected.
September 26,
2009
Urinetown
Music by Mark Hollman
Lyrics by Hollman and Greg Kotis
In grim Gotham-like city of the future, a 20-year drought
has occurred. As a result, the government has banned private
toiletries and the citizens must use pay-to-pee toilets
regulated by a monopolistic company, the Urine Good Company,
which charges exorbitant prices. Bobby Strong, the assistant
custodian at the poorest urinal in town, decides enough is
enough. With the help of the daughter of the CEO of the
Urine Good Company, Hope Cladwell, Bobby ends up leading a
rebellion which frees the citizens. Urinetown: The Musical
satirizes capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism,
bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and petty small town
politics. It also is a satire of the Broadway musical as a
form.
August 22,
2009
The Time of Your Life by William Saroyan
The Time of Your Life, written in 1939, is the first drama
to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York
Drama Critics Circle Award. The play is set in Nick's
Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace,
a run down dive bar in San Francisco. Much of the action of
the play centers around Joe, a young loafer with money who
encourages each of the bar's patrons in their
eccentricities. Joe helps out a would-be dancer, Harry and
sets up his flunky, Tom, with a prostitute, Kitty Duval. The
bar is frequented by a number of colorful characters,
including a frenetic young man in love, an old man who looks
like Kit Carson, and an affluent society couple. The play
was adapted for film in 1948 starring James Cagney as Joe
and his sister, Jeanne Cagney as Kitty Duval. In 1958 an
adaptation was presented in a live television broadcast with
stars Jackie Gleason, Jack Klugman, and Dick York.
Cast: 16 roles for males and females, plus various
minor characters. April
4, 2009
The
Elf Who Came for Christmas by Joe Campanella
In this mini-musical, a klutzy elf
is stranded in a small town where he tries to help a young
girl come up with the perfect gift for her father.
Unfortunately, the elf is more a hindrance than a help, and
Christmas is coming up fast.\
Please bring a snack for everyone to
share.
Cast: Approximately 12-15 speaking roles for males and
females, ranging from 12 to adult.
March 14, 2009
A Delightful Quarantine by Mark Dunn What would it be like to be confined with people you don’t really know? Strange
visitors leave behind a deadly disease that leaves seven separate households
unexpectedly quarantined. Seven story lines are deftly balanced as people are
forced to confront their personal issues. A heart-warming original comedy/drama
about how people react when there’s nowhere else to go.
“Sharp and witty, warm and very, very funny.” –Williamsport Sun-Gazette
Cast:
5 men, 10 women, 2 extras (girls)
February 21, 2009
Brooklyn Boy by Donald Marguiles
Novelist Eric Weiss,
critically celebrated but unsuccessful, "arrives" when his new, autobiographical
novel becomes a best-seller. An outsider all his life, he is suddenly on the
inside of everything: town cars, television studios, the Sunday book review. But
as his career takes off, his personal life stutters.
His father lies ill in
Maimonides Hospital, Jewish Brooklyn's version of the river Styx, wondering when
Eric will produce his first grandchild. His former friends and neighbors in
Brooklyn celebrate his success while simultaneously being suspicious about his
attitude toward them–in life and in his novel. And his success, rather than
oiling the waters of his marriage, troubles them for him and his writer-wife.
The novelist Thomas
Wolfe was one of the first American writers to point out that you can't go home
again. In Brooklyn Boy, Margulies makes his own funny, warm and moving testament
to that adage, while adding the irony that you can also never leave.
Cast: 3 women, 4 men
January
31, 2009
The Secret Garden by Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman
A musical!
Based on the popular children's book, The Secret Garden
tells the story of Mary Lennox. Orphaned after a cholera
epidemic in India, Mary is sent to England to live with her
uncle Archibald, a man left bitter and alone for years after
the death of his wife Lilly 10 years ago. They both discover
that loved ones lost are never gone "If someone alive is
still holding on to them." Mary has difficulty adjusting to
the vast somber estate, but when she is befriended by the
gardener, a chambermaid named Martha, and a young druid
named Dickon, she develops a love of making things grow, and
a passion for finding her late aunt's "secret garden". Then,
one night, a chance meeting with her ailing cousin Colin, a
young boy in the care of Archibald's brother helps her to
realize her true purpose in returning to England, to
discover the healing power of nature.
Cast: 10 women, 10 men, 2 children December
13
Present Laughter by Noel Coward Present Laughter follows a few days in the life of successful and self-obsessed
actor Garry Essendine as he prepares to travel for a touring commitment. Amid a
series of events bordering on farce, Garry must deal with interruptions from
numerous women who want to seduce him (including the stagestruck young girl,
Daphne Stillington, and the devious Joanna Lyppiatt), placate his long-suffering
secretary Monica Reed, avoid his estranged wife Liz Essendine, be confronted by
a crazed young playwright named Roland Maule, and overcome his fear of his own
approaching fortieth birthday and suggested impending mid-life crisis.
Cast: 5
men and 6 women
August 16
Laughing Stock by Charles Morey
Laughing Stock is a hilarious backstage farce and
genuinely affectionate look into the world of theater. When
The Playhouse, a rustic New England summer theater,
schedules a repertory session of Dracula, Hamlet, and
Charley's Aunt, comic mayhem ensues. We follow the
well-intentioned but over-matched company from outrageous
auditions to ego-driven rehearsals through opening nights
gone disastrously awry to the elation of a great play well
told and the comic and nostalgic season close. Cast: 9
men and 5 women
July 2008
Guards! Guards!
by Stephen Briggs (Adapted from the novel by Terry Pratchett)
Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels have sold more than 45
million copies worldwide. Discworld is a land where swords
and sorcery ride right along with wit, adventure, and… more
wit. Guards! Guards! Is the story of the Night Watchmen in
the city of Ankh-Morpork, where the criminals maintain the
peace because they're on the city payroll. Magic is strictly
regulated, and mimes are outlawed. (Thank heavens!) Great
beasts such as dragons are merely the stuff of myths and
legends, and no longer have a place in an ordered society.
Or do they…? Capt. Sam Vimes of the Watch along with Constable Carrot
Ironfounderson (a 6 foot 6 inch dwarf?) match wits against
the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night (or is that the
Ancient Brethren of Ee? Who can keep these secret societies
straight) with the help of the Watch guardsmen, a
noblewoman, and…a 300 lb. orangutan librarian to stop the
overheated lizard from turning the city into fiery hors-d-overes.
Hilarity ensues. Cast: 9 major roles and 24 minor roles
June 2008
7:00 PM
Hosts: The Smiths of Ashburn
Game
Show by Lew Riley (comedy, PG-13)
This comedy goes behind the scenes and then in front of the
cameras as it follows five fascinating contestants: a
fidgety Vietnam veteran; a know-it-all senator's assistant;
and cocky young filmmaker, along with a dizzy
housewife/author; and a bubbly senior citizen — from the
time they meet backstage at a popular game show until one of
them wins the grand prize; And then there are the hilarious
antics of the game show's narcissistic emcee and his
beautiful bimbo of an assistant. Who was the only bachelor
president? What boy dubbed Lauren Becall's voice when she
sang in To Have and Have Not? What was unusual about Babe
Ruth's uniform when he hit 60 home runs? These and other
intriguing questions are answered during Game Show, a warm
and witty look at an American institution — the television
game show. Please note that this play has some strong
language which may be deleted.
Cast: 5 men and 5 women.
May 2008
Co-Hostesses: Barb Gillen and Lora Buckman
Show: The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder
A certain old merchant of Yonkers is now so rich that he
decides to take a wife. To this end, he employs a
matchmaker, a woman who subsequently becomes involved with
two of his menial clerks, assorted young and lovely ladies,
and the headwaiter at an expensive restaurant, where this
swift farce runs headlong into a hilarious climax of
complication. After everyone gets all straightened out
romantically, and everyone has his heart’s desire, the
merchant of Yonkers finds himself affianced to the astute
matchmaker herself. He who was so shrewd in business is
putty in the hands of a player like the matchmaker. He is
fooled by apprentices in a series of hilarious hide-and-seek
scenes, and finally has all his bluster explode in his face.
Cast: 9 males and 7 females
April 2008
Host: Leah Daily
Baby with the Bathwater by
Christopher Durang
Helen and John are very unprepared for parenthood. They
can’t seem to name the baby. John thinks it’s a boy, but
Helen says the doctors said they could decide later. When
the baby cries, they can’t quite decide what to do. To their
rescue comes Nanny – who enters their apartment as if by
magic, and is full of abrupt shifts of mood, first cooing at
the baby soothingly, then screaming at it. In subsequent
scenes, John and Nanny have an affair, Helen takes baby and
leaves, only to come back a moment later, rain-soaked and
unhappy. (“Well if it isn’t Nora five minutes after the end
of A Doll’s House,” says Nanny.) At some point they
finally name the baby Daisy, and as a toddler, Daisy has a
penchant for running in front of buses; or for lying,
depressed, in piles of laundry. We hear an alarming essay
Daisy has written in school, and the principal, the
terrifying Miss Willoughby, is oblivious to the essay’s cry
for help, and instead gleefully awards it an A for style.
Finally, we meet Daisy – dressed as a girl, but otherwise a
polite, confused young man. In a “jump cut” sort of scene,
we follow his years and years of therapy, where he
alternates feeling depressed and angry, and is unable to
complete his Freshman essay on Gulliver’s Travels for
over 5 years. In the end the play comes full circle as the
former Daisy and his young bride fondly regard their own
baby—forgiving of the past but determined not to repeat its
calamitous mistakes.
Cast: 2 men and 3 women
(some women's roles consist of several small roles).
March 2008
Moon Over Buffalo by
Ken Ludwig In the madcap comedy tradition of Lend me a Tenor, the
hilarious Moon Over Buffalo centers on George and Charlotte
Hay, fading stars of the 1950's. At the moment, they’re
playing Private Lives and Cyrano De Bergerac in rep in
Buffalo, New York with 5 actors. On the brink of a
disastrous split-up caused by George’s dalliance with a
young ingénue, they receive word that they might just have
one last shot at stardom: Frank Capra is coming to town to
see their matinee, and if he likes what he sees, he might cast
them in his movie remake of The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Unfortunately for George and Charlotte, everything that
could go wrong does go wrong, abetted by a visit from their
daughter’s clueless fiancé and hilarious uncertainty about
which play they’re actually performing, caused by
Charlotte’s deaf old stage-manager mother who hates every
bone in George’s body.
Cast: 4 men and 4 women.
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