What’s hot at Broadway Licensing Group? Check out the top trending titles of the week from Broadway Licensing, Dramatists Play Service, and Playscripts.
A Sherlock Carol by Mark Shanahan
THE STORY: Moriarty is dead, to begin with. And Sherlock Holmes is a haunted man. But, when a grown-up Tiny Tim asks Holmes to investigate the death of Ebenezer Scrooge, the Great Detective must use his gifts to solve a Dickens of a Christmas mystery! Six actors take on the beloved characters of Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens in this heartwarming and highly theatrical holiday treat for all ages!
The Marvelous Wonderettes: Glee Club by Roger Bean
THE STORY: We begin at the 1958 Springfield High School Senior Prom, where we meet Betty Jean, Cindy Lou, Missy, and Suzy, four girls with hopes and dreams as big as their crinoline skirts! As we learn about their lives, loves, and friendships, the girls serenade us with classic ’50s hits as they compete for prom queen. Act II zooms ahead to graduation day for the Class of 1958, and the Wonderettes celebrate with their fellow classmates and teachers as they prepare for their next step toward a bright future.
Back to the 80s by Dean O’Carroll
THE STORY: Hold on to your hoverboards, we’re taking a trip Back to the 80s! When modern teen Mary Fitzfry gets sent back in time by an eccentric professor, she finds herself in the middle of a totally tubular cavalcade of 80s pop culture. There’s a lot of familiar faces, from the teens in breakfast-time detention to the guys chasing ghosts and dancing zombies, but the biggest surprise of all is Mary’s own protective mom as a teen. Turns out she’s actually kind of rad – but thanks to Mary’s time travel, she’s in trouble. Can Mary make things right? This adventure takes you from the mall where everything happens, to a suburban sitcom street, to a cave under the high school – and you can choose who to feature from a flexible throng of characters to bring your audience maximum nostalgia. A hilarious parody to make all ages cheer “I love the 80s!”
Digging Up The Boys by Laura Lundgren Smith
THE STORY: The mine where Floyd, Paul, and Jack work is old, nearly picked clean and about to be closed, when part of it collapses, trapping them. The women left above race to the foreman, only to receive the company line: Go home and pray. We’ll handle it. Though the men are seen as “no-counts” in a class-conscious South, to Addie, May, and Ruth they are beloved fathers, husbands, and brothers. Those above and below are left to whistle in the dark, desperate for a miracle — but the mine holds a terrible secret that will change their lives forever.
Five Women Wearing the Same Dress by Alan Ball
THE STORY: During an ostentatious wedding reception at a Knoxville, Tennessee, estate, five reluctant, identically clad bridesmaids hide out in an upstairs bedroom, each with her own reason to avoid the proceedings below. They are Frances, a painfully sweet but sheltered fundamentalist; Mindy, the cheerful, wise-cracking lesbian sister of the groom; Georgeanne, whose heartbreak over her own failed marriage triggers outrageous behavior; Meredith, the bride’s younger sister, whose precocious rebelliousness masks a dark secret; and Trisha, a jaded beauty whose die-hard cynicism about men is called into question when she meets Tripp, a charming bad-boy usher to whom there is more than meets the eye. As the afternoon wears on, these five very different women joyously discover a common bond in this wickedly funny, irreverent, and touching celebration of the women’s spirit.
Mac Beth adapted by Erica Schmidt
THE STORY: After school, seven teenage girls convene in an abandoned lot to perform a play. They drop their backpacks, transform their uniforms, and dive into a DIY retelling of Macbeth. As the girls conjure kings, warriors, and witches, Shakespeare’s bloody tale seeps into their reality. MAC BETH recontextualizes a classic text to expose the ferocity of adolescence and the intoxicating power of collective fantasy.
Asleep on the Wind by Ellen Byron
THE STORY: The time is ten years before the time of GRACELAND, the place, a small clearing in Bayou Teche, Louisiana, the “special place” that Rootie refers to in the other play. This is where Rootie and her favorite brother, Beau, a handsome, sensitive and restless young man of thirty come to talk in private and to escape her other brothers, two high-spirited hot rodders who seem to delight in pestering their shy, reclusive sister. This time Beau has a double purpose for their meeting: to persuade Rootie to try to stick it out at home and in school and to reach beyond him for companionship; and also to tell her that he has enlisted in the army and has requested service in Vietnam. Inevitably the news comes as a deep shock to Rootie, but it is the way of its telling that makes the play so touching and evocative—and that in the end allows Rootie to accept the fact that her life, for better or worse, will never again be the same.
Becoming Dr. Ruth by Mark St. Germain
THE STORY: Everyone knows Dr. Ruth Westheimer from her career as a pioneering radio and television sex therapist. Few, however, know the incredible journey that preceded it. From fleeing the Nazis in the Kindertransport and joining the Haganah in Jerusalem as a sniper, to her struggle to succeed as a single mother newly-arrived in America, Mark St. Germain deftly illuminates this remarkable woman’s untold story. BECOMING DR. RUTH is filled with the humor, honesty, and life-affirming spirit of Karola Ruth Siegel, the girl who became “Dr. Ruth,” America’s most famous sex therapist.
Three Viewings by Jeffrey Hatcher
THE STORIES: TELL-TALE is the story of Emil, the mild-mannered undertaker whose unspoken passion for a local real-estate woman who comes to all his funerals leads him to commit crimes and plot a way to confess his true feelings before time—and bodies—run out.
THE THIEF OF TEARS is Mac, a beautiful Los Angeles drifter, who makes her living stealing jewelry from corpses. When her wealthy grandmother dies, leaving her nothing, Mac returns to her hometown and attempts to pry loose her inheritance but, instead gets more than she had bargained for.
THIRTEEN THINGS ABOUT ED CARPOLOTTI is the story of Virginia, the widow of a wheeler-dealer contractor, who discovers that her husband has left her in debt to the banks, her family and the mob.
The Andrews Brothers by Roger Bean
THE STORY: A USO performance from the Andrews Sisters is in jeopardy of cancellation when they fail to appear shortly before curtain. Thankfully, three earnest stagehands are determined to go on with the show! The Andrews Brothers is filled to the brim with 30 songs made famous by The Andrews Sisters and other top artists of the era, including the showstoppers “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” “Three Little Sisters,” and “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive.” Mistaken identities and madcap adventures—imagine Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in a road movie of Some Like It Hot—along with the music of an entire generation highlight this wonderful valentine to the heroes of World War II.
