What’s hot at Broadway Licensing Global? Check out the top trending titles of the week from Broadway Licensing, Dramatists Play Service, and Playscripts.
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang
Middle-aged siblings Vanya and Sonia share a home in Bucks County, PA, where they bicker and complain about the circumstances of their lives. Suddenly, their movie-star sister, Masha, swoops in with her new boy toy, Spike. Old resentments flare up, eventually leading to threats to sell the house. Also on the scene are sassy maid Cassandra, who can predict the future, and a lovely young aspiring actress named Nina, whose prettiness somewhat worries the imperious Masha.
Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe by Jonathan Christenson
This unique and wildly theatrical musical combines haunting music and poetic storytelling to chronicle the fascinating life of iconic American writer Edgar Allan Poe. A literary rock star of his day, Poe struggles with tragedy and addiction, poverty and loss, yet produces some of the world’s most original, visionary and enduring literature before dying in unexplained circumstances at the age of 40. At once gorgeous and grotesque, Nevermore explores the events that shape Poe’s character and career, blurring the line between fact and fiction–after all, as Poe himself writes, “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
Irena’s Vow by Dan Gordon
Through the eyes of a strong-willed woman comes the remarkable true story of Irena Gut Opdyke and the triumphs of the human spirit over devastating tragedy. 19-year-old Irena Gut is promoted to housekeeper in the home of a highly respected Nazi officer when she finds out that the Jewish ghetto is about to be liquidated. Determined to help twelve Jewish workers, she decides to shelter them in the safest place she can think of: the basement of the German commandant’s house. Over the next two years, Irena uses her wit, humor, and courage to hide her friends until the end of the German occupation, concealing them in the midst of countless Nazi parties, a blackmail scheme, and even the birth of a child. Her story is one of the most inspiring of our time.
Passage by Christopher Chen
A fantasia inspired by E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, Passage is set in the fictional Country X, which is a neocolonial client of Country Y. B, a local doctor, and F, an expat teacher, begin to forge a friendship that is challenged after a fateful trip to a local attraction. A meditation on how power imbalances affect personal and interpersonal dynamics across a spectrum of situations, the play allows a director wide latitude in casting the roles by race, ethnicity, and gender, with different casting choices highlighting different societal structures.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
In a plantation house, a family celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of Big Daddy, as they sentimentally dub him. The mood is somber, despite the festivities, because a number of evils poison the gaiety: greed, sins of the past and desperate, clawing hopes for the future spar with one another as the knowledge that Big Daddy is dying slowly makes the rounds. Maggie, Big Daddy’s daughter-in-law, wants to give him the news that she’s finally become pregnant by Big Daddy’s favorite son, Brick, but Brick won’t cooperate in Maggie’s plans and prefers to stay in a mild alcoholic haze the entire length of his visit. Maggie has her own interests at heart in wanting to become pregnant, of course, but she also wants to make amends to Brick for an error in judgment that nearly cost her her marriage. Swarming around Maggie and Brick are their intrusive, conniving relatives, all eager to see Maggie put in her place and Brick tumbled from his position of most-beloved son. By evening’s end, Maggie’s ingenuity, fortitude and passion will set things right, and Brick’s love for his father, never before expressed, will retrieve him from his path of destruction and return him, helplessly, to Maggie’s loving arms.
Murdered to Death by Peter Gordon
This hilarious spoof of the best of Agatha Christie traditions is set in a country manor house in the 1930s, with an assembled cast of characters guaranteed to delight—Bunting, the butler; an English Colonel with the prerequisite stiff upper lip; a shady French art dealer and his moll; the bumbling local inspector and a well-meaning local sleuth who seems to attract murder wherever she goes—they’re all here, and all caught up in the side-splitting antics which follow the mysterious death of the house’s owner. It soon becomes clear that the murderer isn’t finished yet, but will the murderer be unmasked before everyone else has met their doom, or will readers and audiences die laughing first?
The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of Where Babies Come From by Christopher Durang
Frank and Joe Hardy change sweaters a lot and look cute. The word “sleuthing” excites them and they’re off to investigate what it means that Nancy Drew has “a bun in the oven.”
The Heiress by Ruth Goetz and Augustus Goetz
The background of the play is New York in the 1850s and the basic story tells of a shy and plain young girl, Catherine Sloper, who falls desperately in love with a delightful young fortune hunter. Catherine’s lack of worldliness prevents her from realizing that the young man proposing to her is not entirely drawn to her by her charm. Catherine’s father, a successful doctor, sees through the fortune hunter and forbids the marriage, but his daughter proposes an elopement that fails to materialize because the young man knows most of her expected fortune will go elsewhere if he marries her. Catherine retires into a little world of her own. But the fortune hunter turns up once more and again proposes to her. For a moment, Catherine leads him to believe that she will accept him, but when he calls by appointment, she locks the door, blows out all the lights and allows him to realize that she will not be fooled for the second time.
Regina Flector Wins the Science Fair by Marco Ramirez
Middle schoolers Regina, Bradley, Tiffany, and Sam compete (somewhat viciously) for first place at their school Science Fair. Though everyone else’s projects are flashier, from Sam’s exploration of his mother’s facelift to Tiffany’s study of the effects of glitter consumption, Regina proudly finds within herself words to defend her project, which she did entirely herself.
13 Signs You Should Stop Being a Pirate by A. M. Dittman
The most dastardly crew on the high seas is horrified when Jaime starts to question the pirate’s life. Helping people? Putting a unicorn on their flag? Dabbling in Buddhism? What could be worse?! The pirates must set their shipmate straight before it’s too late, but the sea is full of distracting sword fights and manatees that look like mermaids. A goofy celebration of the arrrrt of being a pirate for crews of all sizes.
