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| A Forty-Minute Love's Labour's Lost by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 11. Minimum Female roles = 5. Minimum total with doubling = 17. Minimum total without doubling = 17. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 40 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's comedy 'Love's Labours Lost', with the original text cut down to under 40 minutes.
(The abridgement is copyrighted, so we charge for scripts and copying rights, but performances are royalty-free.) |
| Synopsis | The King of Navarre makes a vow to devote a year to scolarship, and three of his lords (albeit reluctantly) join him. Their resolve is sorely tested by the arrival of the Princess of France and her pretty ladies in waiting... |
| 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 Merry Wives of Windsor by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 9. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 16. Minimum total without doubling = 16. No chorus. The listed characters are four women, nine men, two servants (nominally male) and a boy. |
| Run Time | Around 40 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's 'The Merry Wives of Windsor', 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 | Sir John Falstaff arrives in Windsor short of ready cash and decides his coffers would best be filled from the resources of two married ladies. They have no interest in him, but play him along for their own amusement. Fun with a laundry basket ensues. |
| 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 Two Gentlemen of Verona by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 10. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 13. Minimum total without doubling = 17. No chorus. There are two groups which give numerical flexibility - 'outlaws' and 'musicians'. This is the Shakespeare play with the dog. |
| Run Time | Around 40 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona', 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 | The two gentlemen in question are Valentine and Proteus. Valentine wants Proteus to be his travelling companion on a tour, but Proteus wishes to stay behind and court Julia, a coy young lady who likes Proteus, but is too shy to admit it - at least until Proteus's father sends him away to join Valentine in Milan. However, in Milan, Proteus falls for Sylvia, whom Valentine is courting. There follows rivalry, betrayal, banishment, outlaws, cross-dressing and the occasional swoon before all ends happily! |
| 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 Volpone by Ben Jonson abridged by Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 9. Minimum Female roles = 1. Minimum total with doubling = 10. Minimum total without doubling = 15. No chorus. The minimum cast could be achieved by combining the four magistrates into 1 judge and using the boy and clerk as the court officers. |
| Run Time | Around 40 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of Ben Jonson's 'Volpone', 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 | Volpone is a sly miser. With the aid of his rascally servant, Mosca, he sets out to accumulate more wealth by way of gifts from his gullable acquaintances who think he is ailing and believe that they will be the beneficiaries of his will. Things start to unravel when Volpone sets his sights on Celia, wife of the wealthy merchant, Corvino.
Jacobean comedy, verging on farce. |
| 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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| Forty-Two by Amanda Giles |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 1. Minimum Female roles = 1. Minimum total with doubling = 4. Minimum total without doubling = 5. No chorus. The voice of the App could be recorded or played live. The angels are written male, but since they are angels this scarcely matters. |
| Run Time | Around 12 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Short comedy play for a couple of pieces of furniture, four actors and the gentle voice of a phone app. (British English, using 'lounge' for 'living room' and including slang for a cigarette which might confuse speakers of other varieties of English.) |
| Synopsis | Jemima has just woken up from her meditation cd session to find three strange men in her living room. Well, not men, they're angels, summoned by the cd she has just listened to. They have answers for Jemima, but she won’t like them... |
| 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 Four Yorkshiremen of the Apocalypse by Damian Trasler |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 4. Minimum Female roles = 0. Minimum total with doubling = 4. Minimum total without doubling = 4. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 4 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Short comedy sketch. No set requirements (could be done on an open stage or front-of-curtain). |
| Synopsis | Famine, Pestilence, War and Death meet to plot the demise of mankind - although their manner seems unexpectedly familiar. |
| 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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| Fragrant Friend by Frank Gibbons |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 2. Minimum Female roles = 0. Minimum total with doubling = 2. Minimum total without doubling = 2. No chorus. The 'action' takes place in a queue of people in a Post Office, to there are opportunities for non-speaking extras if you so desire. |
| Run Time | Around 4 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Short comedy sketch. No set or props. |
| Synopsis | Two old comrades meet... and one wishes that they hadn't... |
| 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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| Frankenstein - The Monster Musical by George Douglas Lee |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 9. Minimum Female roles = 6. Minimum total with doubling = 17. Minimum total without doubling = 19. Chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 100 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | The Producer's Copy of the script comes with piano/vocal scores for 13 original songs. |
| Style | Gothic horror musical comedy! |
| Synopsis | If Mary Shelley had written a version of Frankenstein for children, this is how she might have approached it - as a heartwarming family musical, filled with mad scientists, misbegotten creatures and an angry mob!
On a rainy night when the power is out, a father tells his son the story of Frankenstein, and we are transported to Victor Frankenstein's Laboratory with Mary Shelly singing of the creation of the creature. We meet the creature, his bride and a croud of villagers, led by the rabble rouser Frau Gribble, whipped into a frenzy and go in search of 'the Monster'. Eventually, they come to realise that he was just misunderstood! |
| 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 'rehearsal CD' with piano arrangements 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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| Frankenstein's Last Chance by Geoff Bamber |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 6. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 16. Minimum total without doubling = 16. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 42 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A one act comedy melodrama, for school-age, youth performers. |
| Synopsis | Having given up his medical practice to concentrate on his career as an inventor, Doctor Viktor Frankenstein desperately needs to raise funds to pay for his daughter's forthcoming wedding. Success at the annual Mad Scientists' Convention would be well-rewarded, but Viktor finds himself singularly short of inspiration until... No, that would be absurd - wouldn't it? |
| 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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Freya's Necklace by Jonathan Edgington
Selected for and performed at the 'Time For Something New' playwriting festival 2018 at the Bread & Roses Theatre, London. |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 0. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 3. Minimum total without doubling = 3. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 12 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A comedy sketch with a single (charity shop) setting. |
| Synopsis | Just a normal day in a charity shop? Probably, until Freya the Norse Goddess of Love and War enters on a bit of a mission. |
| 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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