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| Androcles and the Lion by Peter Bond |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 2. Minimum Female roles = 2. Minimum total with doubling = 8. Minimum total without doubling = 9. Chorus. The chorus - of soldiers, slaves, Christians and lions - is optional. |
| Run Time | Around 8 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Short rhyming fable for kids. |
| Synopsis | Androcles is a man who loves all living things - he's even reluctant to kill a lamb to feed himself. So when a lion appears, he's less worried about it eating his sheep and more concerned that there's a thorn in it's paw. Helping this lion turns out to be a good move in the long term... |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Androcles et Leo by Nicholas Richards |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 14. Minimum total without doubling = 23. Chorus. Most of the characters are written male (even the lion), for reasons of historical verisimilitude. Don't let that put you off. |
| Run Time | Around 25 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Short drama (played for comedy) in which the protagonists speak Latin and the narrators, where necessary, translate. |
| Synopsis | The optimistic story of the slip-away slave meeting the limping lion - with a side-order of the private life of Emperor Claudius. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| The Art of Nero by Nicholas Richards |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 4. Minimum Female roles = 0. Minimum total with doubling = 5. Minimum total without doubling = 5. No chorus. All written male (on the grounds of history), but that isn't essential to the plot. |
| Run Time | Around 30 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Roman romp for kids. Single location (preferably decorated according to the taste of the emperor Nero). |
| Synopsis | As Nero constructs the Golden House amongst the Ashes of burnt Rome, three friends hatch a plot to end the tyranny and, more importantly, the dreadful singing, acting, poetry and painting of the mad emperor. Sadly, Nero's 'Art' defeats them all. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Caesar and the Pirates [Full Version] by Nicholas Richards and Timothy Hallett |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 9. Minimum Female roles = 1. Minimum total with doubling = 18. Minimum total without doubling = 29. Chorus. Flexible - the pirates roles could easily be shared by a smaller number and other doubling is possible. On the other hand, there is scope for pirate and soldier chourses. Only one specfied female role - Venus! - but others could be cast female. |
| Run Time | Around 85 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | The Producer's Copy of the script comes with piano and vocal scores for six songs. |
| Style | Musical comedy play for kids - though the songs are optional.
A shorter version of the same play is available.
First published in 2011, revised in 2012. |
| Synopsis | An older Caesar is recounting his campaigns in Gaul to a bored scribe, who suggests that it might benefit Caesar's public image to tell a tale of his younger days... Something dashing, perhaps, involving pirates? As it happens, Caesar does know such a story...
Great fun (and secretly educational) with a genuine event in Caesar's life. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Extras | The following additional items are available (at extra cost) to go with this script:
** Vocal recording for five tracks and six rehearsal tracks (accompaniment with an instrument playing the vocal line) for the songs from Caesar and the Pirates [Full Version].
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| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Caesar and the Pirates [Short Version] by Nicholas Richards and Timothy Hallett |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 8. Minimum Female roles = 1. Minimum total with doubling = 17. Minimum total without doubling = 29. Chorus. Flexible - the pirates roles could easily be shared by a smaller number and other doubling is possible. On the other hand, there is scope for pirate and soldier chourses. Only one specfied female roles but some could be cast female. |
| Run Time | Around 65 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | The Producer's Copy of the script comes with piano and vocal scores for six songs. |
| Style | Comedy play for kids - with optional songs.
(A longer version of the same play is available.) |
| Synopsis | An older Caesar is recounting his campaigns in Gaul to a bored scribe, who suggests that it might benefit Caesar's public image to tell a tale of his younger days... Something dashing, perhaps, involving pirates? As it happens, Caesar does know such a story...
Great fun (and secretly educational) with a genuine event in Caesar's life. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Extras | The following additional items are available (at extra cost) to go with this script:
** Vocal recording for five tracks and six rehearsal tracks (accompaniment with an instrument playing the vocal line) for the songs from Caesar and the Pirates [Short Version].
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| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Caradog And The Celts by Penny Burns |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 17. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 21. Minimum total without doubling = 45. Chorus. Very flexible numbers, with groups of Celts and Romans of various occupations, and opportunites for singers and dancers. The roles are a mixture of adults and children, but inteded to be played by children. |
| Run Time | Around 45 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | Keyboard and Vocal scores (with added percussion) for seven songs and one instrumental are provided with the Producer's Copy of the script. |
| Style | One-act Musical Drama for schools (fitting with the Key Stage 2 History topic on Roman Britain). |
| Synopsis | Following the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 AD, the Celtic resistance was led by Caradog (called Caratacus by the Romans). The play dramatises the life of the Celts on what is now the Welsh border and the battle for the hill fort of Caer Caradog. (We are also taken to Rome for a meeting with the Emperor Clau-Clau-Claudius.) |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Extras | The following additional items are available (at extra cost) to go with this script:
** A 'backing track CD' with arrangements of songs from the show
** Soundtrack CD - vocal performances of songs from the show
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| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Cleopatra and the Roman Way by Geoff Bamber |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 9. Minimum Female roles = 5. Minimum total with doubling = 15. Minimum total without doubling = 20. No chorus. No formal chorus, but opportunities for extras. |
| Run Time | Around 55 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Comedy play for kids. A solid grounding in ancient history, but it's comedy, so there are plenty of anachronisms. |
| Synopsis | When the glamorous Queen Cleopatra takes over the throne of Egypt along with her brother Ptolemy XIII it coincides with the expansion of the Roman Republic (soon to be Empire) in her direction. Cleopatra does not find the advances of a succession of stylish Romans entirely unwelcome, even if her brother has to be disposed of in the process. Unfortunately, Roman politics being what they are, none of her suitors can be viewed as having any long-term prospects. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Consulting an Ancient Doctor by Nicholas Richards |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 0. Minimum Female roles = 2. Minimum total with doubling = 5. Minimum total without doubling = 18. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 21 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A series of short educational scenes. The narration is in English and the dialogue in Latin. Suitable for Latin classes and assemblies. |
| Synopsis | A series of comic scenes set in Roman times in which an ancient doctor deals with various patients - in Latin. Narrators bind the scenes together, explain the Latin for those who need it, and provide some elementary background information on ancient medicine. The piece is designed as an educationally useful but recreational activity for Latin classes, and could make an entertaining Assembly or be interspersed with other pieces in an end-of-term show. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| A Forty-Minute Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 14. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 18. Minimum total without doubling = 40. No chorus. Lots of small roles (guards, messengers and the like), so either opportunities for a large cast or scope for doubling! |
| Run Time | Around 40 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra', with the original text cut down to 40 minutes or so.
(The abridgement is copyrighted, so we charge for scripts and copying rights, but performances are royalty-free.) |
| Synopsis | After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Rome is ruled by a triumvirate, locked in a struggle for power. Mark Antony is beguiled by Cleopatra, the Egyptian Queen, and neglects his duties in Rome. Eventually, there is open warfare between Antony and Octavius Caesar. Antony loses, and Cleopatra takes her own life (with the aid of literature's second most famous snake.) |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| A Forty-Minute Coriolanus by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 19. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 22. Minimum total without doubling = 30. Chorus. As usual with Shakespeare, most of the characters are male - but for your production, you can cast whomsoever you like! |
| Run Time | Around 40 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's tragedy 'Coriolanus', with the original text cut down to 40 minutes.
(The abridgement is copyrighted, so we charge for scripts and copying rights, but performances are royalty-free.) |
| Synopsis | In the early days of the Roman republic, Caius Martius Coriolanus is a brilliant Roman General, but contemptuous of the civilian population. After a successful military campaign against the Volsces (an Italian tribe), Coriolanus runs for Consul. He is supported by the Senate, but the common people are stirred-up to riot against him. Still contemptuous of the people, Corilanus is exciled from Rome and takes his revenge by leading the Volsces against Rome. His mother intervenes and persuades him to sign a peace treaty. Unfortunately, his Volscian allies see this as a betrayal, and Coriolanus pays the price. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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