What’s hot at Broadway Licensing Group? Check out the top trending titles of the week from Broadway Licensing, Dramatists Play Service, and Playscripts.
The Alibis by Tyler Dwiggins, Jonathan Dorf, Kathryn Funkhouser, Patrick Greene, Mora V. Harris, Jason Pizzarello, Ian McWethy, Carrie McWethy (McCrossen)
The Story: We challenged eight playwrights to find the comedy in crime in this rogue’s gallery of ten-minute plays wrapped in a classic whodunnit. When eccentric billionaire J. Leslie Arlington is murdered, a clueless detective finds the suspects are all reluctant to admit their alibis . . . because they were all committing other ridiculous crimes at the time. Designed as a flexible build-your-own mystery, you can perform these plays in any combination and thread them together with optional interludes.
The Gifts of the Magi by Jon Jory
The Story: It is Christmas in New York, but for two young lovers, Jim and Della, the prospects are bleak, as both are out of work and penniless. But as those familiar with the famous O. Henry story are aware, their dilemma is solved when both part with their most precious possessions (she her beautiful long hair, he his heirloom pocket watch) in order to buy presents for each other thereby creating, at least for a magical moment, an aura of warmth and giving in the cold, impersonal winter city
Sleepy Hollow: The New Musical by Jim Christian
The Story: This rethinking of Washington Irving’s classic short story casts Ichabod Crane as the villain of the piece and provides the backstory of the town of Sleepy Hollow complete with sorcery and dark secrets. The stirring music, magical effects, and intriguing plot twists transform this familiar legend into a powerful theatrical experience.
Father of the Bride by Caroline Francke
The Story: Mr. Banks learns that one of the young men he has seen occasionally about the house is about to become his son-in-law. Daughter Kay announces the engagement out of nowhere. Mrs. Banks and her sons are happy, but Mr. Banks is in a dither. The groom-to-be, Buckley Dunstan, appears on the scene and Mr. Banks realizes that the engagement is serious. Buckley and Kay don’t want a “big” wedding—just a simple affair with a few friends! We soon learn, however, that the “few” friends idea is out. Then trouble really begins.
The Inheritance, Part One by Matthew López
The Story: Winner of the 2020 Tony Award for Best Play. Winner of the 2020 Drama Desk Award for Best Play. Winner of the 2019 Olivier Award for Best Play. Decades after the height of the AIDS epidemic, THE INHERITANCE tells the story of three generations of gay men in New York City attempting to forge a future for themselves amid a turbulent and changing America. Eric Glass is a political activist engaged to his writer boyfriend, Toby Darling. When two strangers enter their lives—an older man and a younger one—their futures suddenly become uncertain as they begin to chart divergent paths. Inspired by E.M. Forster’s masterpiece Howards End, THE INHERITANCE is an epic examination of survival, healing, class divide, and what it means to call a place home.
Mama Won’t Fly by Jones Hope Wooten
The Story: An outrageously hilarious race against the clock begins when Savannah Sprunt Fairchild Honeycutt agrees to get her feisty mother all the way from Alabama to California in time for her brother’s wedding. Savannah’s problem: Mama won’t fly. With only four days to make it to the ceremony, this determined daughter has no choice but to drive cross-country with her equally willful mother, Norleen Sprunt, in Mama’s vintage sedan.
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel
The Story: Frowzy, acid-tongued Beatrice Hunsdorfer, supporting herself and her two daughters by taking in a decrepit old boarder, wreaks a petty vengeance on everybody around her. One daughter, Ruth, is a pretty but highly strung girl subject to convulsions, while the younger daughter, Matilda (“Tillie”), plain and almost pathologically shy, has an intuitive gift for science. Encouraged by her teacher, Tillie undertakes a gamma ray experiment with marigolds that wins a prize at her high school—and also brings on the play’s shattering climax. Proud and yet jealous, too filled with her own hurts to accept her daughter’s success, Beatrice can only maim when she needs to love and deride when she wants to praise. Tortured, acerbic, slatternly, she is as much a victim of her own nature as of the cruel lot that has been hers. And yet, as Tillie’s experiment proves, something beautiful and full of promise can emerge from even the most barren, afflicted soil. This is the timeless lesson of the play and the root of its moving power and truth.
Good Kids by Naomi Iizuka
The Story: Something happened to Chloe after that party last Saturday night. Something she says she can’t remember. Something everybody is talking about. Set at a Midwestern high school, in a world of Facebook and Twitter, smartphones and YouTube, Good Kids explores a casual sexual encounter gone wrong and its very public aftermath. Who’s telling the truth? Whose version of the story do you believe? And what does that say about you?
Scared Silly by Don Zolidis, Ian McWethy, Jonathan Dorf, Ed Monk, Patrick Greene, Alan Haehnel, Christa Crewdson, Becca Schlossberg, Hillary DePiano, Peter Bloedel
The Story: We challenged ten playwrights to bring us their funniest takes on the fearsome in this collection of ten-minute plays. Designed to be flexible for your evil plans, these plays can be performed in any combination. Every spooky tale in this collection has a twist, whether it’s what detention looks like in a school for the supernatural (The Midnight Club), what happens when a slasher-movie junkie tries to track down a killer (It’s You!), the incredible secret of the trick-or-treater dressed normally who wants candy anyway (The True Meaning of Halloween), or the only thing that scares ghosts (In the Waiting Room at the Ghost Placement Agency).
The Last Romance by Joe DiPietro
The Story: A crush can make anyone feel young again—even a widower named Ralph. On an ordinary day in a routine life, Ralph decides to take a different path on his daily walk—one that leads him to an unexpected second chance at love. Relying on a renewed boyish charm, Ralph attempts to woo the elegant, but distant, Carol. Defying Carol’s reticence—and his lonely sister’s jealousy—Ralph embarks on the trip of a lifetime, and regains a happiness that seemed all but lost. THE LAST ROMANCE is a heart-warming comedy about the transformative power of love.
