What’s hot at Broadway Licensing Global? Check out the top trending titles of the week from Broadway Licensing, Dramatists Play Service, and Playscripts.
Flex by Candrice Jones
The pressure is on for the 1998 Lady Train high school basketball team—on top of a battle to bring home the championship trophy, it is also college scouting season. But the team’s performance on the court is tested as it ruptures under the weight of its own infighting, and the once-tight players begin to focus on their individual futures. What does it mean to be a Black girl on the brink of freedom and womanhood in a small town in the South? Does honoring your own wants mean sacrificing your friends, family, and team? This funny and frank play about getting a full-court press from life will have audiences cheering.
Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical JV, Book by Melvin Tunstall III, music by Greg Borowsky, music & lyrics by Douglas Lyons
Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical follows 8-year-old Lily Polkadot who just moved to the “Squares Only” small town of Rockaway. As the first Polkadot in an all Square school, Lily faces an almost impossible task of gaining acceptance from her peers. From daily bullying to segregated drinking fountains, Lily’s quest seems hopeless until she meets Sky, a shy Square boy whose curiosity for her unique polkadot skin blooms into an unexpected pal-ship. Inspired by the events of The Little Rock 9, Polkadots serves as a colorful history lesson for children, reminding them that our individual differences make us awesome, not outcasts.
The Tin Woman by Sean Grennan
Instead of relishing life after her heart transplant, Joy enters a downward spiral, unsure whether she truly deserves a second chance. Meanwhile, Alice and Hank mourn the loss of their son, Jack, whose heart was used to save Joy. At a friend’s urging, Joy tracks down Jack’s family to find closure. But are Alice, Hank, and their daughter Sammy ready to accept Jack’s death? Based on a true story, The Tin Woman uses humor and pathos to explore loss, family, and what it means to be given new life.
Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill
In the space of one day, from morning until midnight, we are given the tortured family background which created the elusive yet magnificent talent of the author. The characters come to life with an almost frightening fidelity; it is doubtful if any work in the theatre has ever been written with such first-person authority. The proceedings take place in the living room of a summer house in 1912. In short order we learn that the father, although well off, is a confirmed miser; one son is a drunk, the younger one is tubercular and the mother is a drug addict. Then we begin to learn the reasons for this excessive bad fortune. The mother’s addiction resulted from the father’s penury in sending her to a second-rate doctor; the elder boy drinks from sheer frustration; the old man has never been able to get over his magnified respect for money induced by an impoverished childhood. Even the illness of the younger son, quite obviously the author, is being treated by the cheapest local physician, and the father is planning to send him to a state sanatorium where he will hopefully expire inexpensively. This sounds like a preponderance of tragedy for any household, and so it must have been, but it is revealed in such terms of stark honesty that no one can ever doubt its stature as an autobiographical document. The people speak in the everyday language of our neighbors; their emotions rise and fall with the absurd devotion to trivialities which provoke so many quarrels; these are dimensional characters trying desperately to keep their doomed household together.
Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage
It is the summer of 1930 in Harlem, New York. The creative euphoria of the Harlem Renaissance has given way to the harsher realities of the Great Depression. Young Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., is feeding the hungry and preaching an activist gospel at Abyssinian Baptist Church. Black Nationalist visionary Marcus Garvey has been discredited and deported. Birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger is opening a new family planning clinic on 126th Street, and the doctors at Harlem Hospital are scrambling to care for a population whose most deadly disease is poverty. The play brings together a rich cast of characters who reflect the conflicting currents of the time through their overlapping personalities and politics. Set in the Harlem apartment of Guy, a popular costume designer, and his friend, Angel, a recently fired Cotton Club back-up singer, the cast also includes Sam, a hard-working, jazz-loving doctor at Harlem Hospital; Delia, an equally dedicated member of the staff at the Sanger clinic; and Leland, a recent transplant from Tuskegee, who sees in Angel a memory of lost love and a reminder of those “Alabama skies where the stars are so thick it’s bright as day.” Invoking the image of African-American expatriate extraordinaire, Josephine Baker as both muse and myth, Cleage’s characters struggle, as Guy says, “to look beyond 125th Street” for the fulfillment of their dreams.
Ada and the Engine by Lauren Gunderson
As the British Industrial Revolution dawns, young Ada Byron Lovelace (daughter of the flamboyant and notorious Lord Byron) sees the boundless creative potential in the “analytic engines” of her friend and soul mate Charles Babbage, inventor of the first mechanical computer. Ada envisions a whole new world where art and information converge—a world she might not live to see. A music-laced story of love, friendship, and the edgiest dreams of the future. Jane Austen meets Steve Jobs in this poignant pre-tech romance heralding the computer age.
Spunk by George C. Wolfe
Hurston’s evocative prose and Wolfe’s unique theatrical style blend to create an evening of theatre that celebrates the human spirit’s ability to overcome and endure. Utilizing the blues, choral narrative and dance, the three tales focus on men and women trapped inside the “laughin’ kind of lovin’ kind of hurtin’ kind of pain that comes from being human.” The first of the three tales, Sweat tells the story of a young washerwoman who is abused and betrayed by her estranged husband, and of her ultimate triumph over him. The second piece, Story in Harlem Slang, is told in 1940s Harlemese. It is the story of two street lotharios trying to outhustle each other and win the favor of—and a meal from—a domestic on her payday afternoon off. The third tale, The Gilded Six Bits, is a bittersweet story of an adoring husband’s betrayal by his loving but innocent wife.
The Christians by Lucas Hnath
Twenty years ago, Pastor Paul’s church was nothing more than a modest storefront. Now he presides over a congregation of thousands, with classrooms for Sunday School, a coffee shop in the lobby, and a baptismal font as big as a swimming pool. Today should be a day of celebration. But Paul is about to preach a sermon that will shake the foundations of his church’s belief. A big-little play about faith in America—and the trouble with changing your mind.
Making God Laugh by Sean Grennan
Making God Laugh follows one typical American family over the course of thirty years’ worth of holidays. Starting in 1980, Ruthie and Bill’s grown children — a priest, an aspiring actress, and a former football star — all return home, where we learn of their plans and dreams as they embark on their adult lives. The empty-nester parents contend with their own changes, too, as old family rituals are trotted out and ancient tensions flare up. As time passes, the family discovers that, despite what we may have in mind, we often arrive at unexpected destinations.
10 Ways to Survive the End of the World by Don Zolidis
These days, it feels like the end of the world could happen any minute. But are the machines or the apes going to be the first to rise up against us? Are we looking at a killer asteroid or a killer virus here? Better get ready for them all! Any way the end times arrive, you just might have a shot at survival with this hilarious new how-to guide.
