What’s hot at Broadway Licensing Global? Check out the top trending titles of the week from Broadway Licensing, Dramatists Play Service, and Playscripts.
Like You Like It, music by Daniel S. Acquisto, book & lyrics by Sammy Buck
All the world’s a mall in this totally awesome musical mashup of Shakespeare and John Hughes. It’s 1985 and the brand new Arden Mall is hosting a high school dance. Bookworm babe Rosalind wants to go with varsity wrestler Orlando, but she’s never had the guts to talk to him. Rosalind disguises herself as a frat dude named Corey and discovers Orlando’s true feelings for her. But things get tricky when “Corey” complicates the lives of three other couples at Arden. Rosalind will do anything to get Orlando, even if it means showing up at the dance as both herself and Corey. Filled with memorable ’80s-inspired tunes, a hip sense of humor, and heart, it all works out like you like it if you take the biggest risk of all: being yourself.
The Cottage by Sandy Rustin
Sylvia and Beau find themselves in an English countryside cottage for their yearly rendezvous, and Sylvia knows this time it will be the beginning of their new life together. But when Beau demurs on a shared future, and their spouses arrive at the cottage, she realizes that this home-away-from-home is a refuge for determining a new path forward. With a tip of the hat to Noël Coward and sex comedies of the past, The Cottage offers a perfect showcase for six actors with endless laughs, hilarious twists, daring physical comedy, and a happy ending for lovers everywhere.
The Murderous Mansion of Mr. Uno by Don Zolidis
The mysterious Mr. Uno has invited six eccentric guests to his dark and stormy mansion. When Uno winds up dead (several times over), and guests begin dying mysteriously, those remaining must uncover the murderer before it’s too late. A wickedly funny parody of the traditional murder mystery, with eleven possible alternate endings voted on by the audience. Mix and match them all!
Ghosts adapted by Richard Eyre
Helene Alving has spent her life suspended in an emotional void after the death of her cruel but outwardly charming husband. She’s about to dedicate an orphanage she has built in his memory, and she reveals to a previous admirer, Pastor Manders, that her marriage was a miserable one. Manders had advised her to return to her husband despite his philandering, and she followed that advice in the belief that her love for her husband would eventually reform him. Now Helene is determined to escape the ghosts of her past by telling her son, Oswald, the truth about his father. But on his return from his life as a painter in France, Oswald has his own secrets to share. As the truth spirals out, Helene and her son must confront the harsh realities of their past, and what it will mean for their future.
¿De Donde? by Mary Gallagher
Freely translated as “Where are you from?” the title of the play refers to the increasing tide of illegal aliens who flee north to the United States from the economically and politically oppressed countries of Latin America. Seeking jobs and freedom from persecution, the refugees are, more often than not, met with indifference and even hostility, regardless of their circumstances, and deported back to their home countries—which can often mean certain death. In a series of sharply drawn scenes and monologues, with thirteen actors portraying more than forty characters, the author explores the individual stories of a cross section of refugees and those with whom they come in contact: overworked and increasingly cynical lawyers who try to win amnesty for them; a group of Catholic nuns who risk imprisonment to provide sanctuary; judges and immigration officials who must enforce often antiquated and even inhuman laws; and U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent who are torn between allegiance to their new country and compassion for those fleeing persecution and poverty in their old. A moving plea for understanding and forbearance, the play also becomes, in the end, a searing indictment of this nation’s immigration policies and a disturbing reminder of the terrible toll which these can exact, whether intentionally or not.
Exception to the Rule by Dave Harris
How do you make it through detention? In the worst high school in the city, six Black students are stuck in Room 111. They flirt. They fight. They tease. Should they follow the rules and stay put, or find an escape? Are the walls keeping them in, or are stronger forces at play?
Fabulation or, The Re-Education of Undine by Lynn Nottage
Fabulation is a social satire about an ambitious and haughty African American woman, Undine Barnes Calles, whose husband suddenly disappears after embezzling all of her money. Pregnant and on the brink of social and financial ruin, Undine retreats to her childhood home in Brooklyn’s Walt Whitman projects, only to discover that she must cope with a crude new reality. Undine faces the challenge of transforming her setbacks into small victories in a battle to reaffirm her right to be. Fabulation is a comeuppance tale with a comic twist.
Auntie Mame by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
This fabulously successful hit hardly needs introduction. Besides being the source for one of America’s most popular musicals, Auntie Mame set a standard for Broadway comedy that’s been sought after ever since. “Auntie Mame was a handsome, sparkling, scatterbrained and warm-hearted lady who brightened the American landscape from 1928 to the immediate past by her whimsical gaiety, her slightly madcap adventures and her devotion to her young nephew, who grew up to be Patrick Dennis. Through fortunes that rose and fell and a pleasant but brief marriage to a likable Southerner, who had the bad luck to tumble down from the Matterhorn, Auntie Mame’s chief concern was that nephew, whom she raised. The play’s central figure is a woman of spirit, innate kindness and undefeatable courage…” —New York Post.
Rapunzel Uncut by Mariah Everman
The story of Rapunzel told by dueling narrators, with a misunderstood witch, an off-pitch Rapunzel, and an unimaginably stupid Prince.
And a Child Shall Lead by Michael Slade
This is the heroic and true story of children coming of age in Terezin, the “Jewish city” established by the Nazis near Prague as a way station before the death camps. In the face of unspeakable horror, these children use their determination and creativity to build lives filled with hope and beauty—playing, studying, making art, and writing an underground newspaper—all at the peril of being executed. Their actual poems and stories are woven into a fast-paced drama, evoking the universality of children caught in the insanity of war.
