What’s hot at Broadway Licensing Global? Check out the top trending titles of the week from Broadway Licensing, Dramatists Play Service, and Playscripts.
The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman and the Members of Tectonic Theater Project
In October 1998, a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming was kidnapped, severely beaten, and left tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. His bloody, bruised, and battered body was not discovered until the next day, and he died several days later in an area hospital. His name was Matthew Shepard, and he was the victim of this assault because he was gay. Moisés Kaufman and fellow members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half, in the aftermath of the beating and during the trial of the two young men accused of killing Shepard. They conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town. Some people interviewed were directly connected to the case, while others were citizens of Laramie, and the breadth of the reactions to the crime is fascinating. Kaufman and Tectonic Theater members have constructed a deeply moving theatrical experience from these interviews and their own experiences in Laramie.
All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 by Peter Rothstein, Erick Lichte & Timothy C. Takach
The Western Front: Christmas 1914. Out of the violence of World War I, a silence, then a song. A German soldier steps into No Man’s Land singing “Stille Nacht.” Thus begins an extraordinary night of camaraderie, music, and peace. An a cappella chorale, All Is Calm is a remarkable true story in the words and songs of the men who lived it.
The A.I. Play by Don Zolidis
When Eleanor uses a chatbot to write a paper on The Great Gatsby for her, she figures it’s not that big of a deal. But when her chatbot writes the best essay on The Great Gatsby ever, she’s sent to a special school for genius children. Except every other student also used a chatbot to get into the special genius children school. And that school might not be a school, it might just be prison. Now Eleanor has to lead a jailbreak with her friends—can she escape without the help of artificial intelligence?
Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare
Inspired by a true story, the play follows the trail of a young black con man, Paul, who insinuates himself into the lives of a wealthy New York couple, Ouisa and Flan Kittredge, claiming he knows their son at college. Paul tells them he is the son of actor Sidney Poitier, and that he has just been mugged and all his money is gone. Captivated by Paul’s intelligence and his fascinating conversation (and the possibility of appearing in a new Sidney Poitier movie), the Kittredges invite him to stay overnight. But in the morning they discover him in bed with a young male hustler from the streets, and the picture begins to change. After kicking him out, Ouisa and Flan discover that friends of theirs have had a similar run-in with the brash con artist. Intrigued, they turn detective and piece together the connections that gave Paul access to their lives. Meanwhile, Paul’s cons unexpectedly lead him into darker territory and his lies begin to catch up with him. As the final events of the play unfold Ouisa suddenly finds herself caring for Paul, feeling that he gave them far more than he took and that her once idyllic life was not what it seemed to be.
Rex’s Exes by Jones Hope Wooten
This deliriously funny Southern-fried farce finds the Verdeen cousins of Sweetgum, Texas—Gaynelle, Peaches and Jimmie Wyvette—teetering on the brink of disaster again. Gaynelle, frustrated and frazzled from working too many two-bit jobs, stubbornly refuses to face the fact she’s turning the Big 5-0. In a misguided effort to lift her cousin’s spirits, Peaches, a sassy, morturarial cosmetologist who’s stuck in a romantic dry gulch, is determined to throw Gaynelle a surprise birthday party she doesn’t even want. Jimmie Wy, riding high on the success of her new wedding gown boutique for big gals—Wide Bride—reluctantly agrees to help Peaches surprise Gaynelle. But it turns out the surprise is on them when, in a startling twist, the party plans shift to a hastily thrown-together family funeral instead. The hilarity escalates when Peaches’ recently declared dead husband unexpectedly returns and his romantic links to each of the cousins is revealed. And the hits just keep on coming as a Cajun bounty hunter who’s tracking Peaches’ husband crashes the funeral and a jilted bride holds the Verdeens hostage with a loaded paintball gun. All the while, the cousins struggle to avoid their bitter Aunt LaMerle who’s hell-bent on cracking the ranks of the elite Daughters of the Nation of Texas and exacting revenge on the Verdeen girls before the dirt hits the casket. As the outrageous complications of this ferociously funny Jones-Hope-Wooten comedy explode into chaos, you’ll find yourself hoping your next family celebration—be it birthday, wedding or funeral—is even half this much fun!
Animals Out of Paper by Rajiv Joseph
When a world-renowned origami artist opens her studio to a teenage prodigy and his school teacher, she discovers that life and love can’t be arranged neatly in this drama about finding the perfect fold.
The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca, adapted by Emily Mann
A masterpiece of the modern theater, The House of Bernarda Alba was written in 1936, just before the start of the Spanish Civil War. The play takes place in a small village in southern Spain following the funeral of Bernarda Alba’s second husband. After the mourners depart, the tyrannical matriarch announces to her five daughters that their period of mourning will last eight years. Obsessed with family honor, Bernarda rules the household with an iron fist, but all of her daughters secretly harbor a passion for Pepe el Romano, the handsomest man in the village. The eldest daughter is engaged to him, but the arrangement is a financial one, and it is the youngest daughter, Adela, who becomes his lover. When the truth finally breaks through the atmosphere of suppressed desire, jealousy, anger, and fear, the consequences are tragic. Adela takes her own life and Bernarda makes a desperate attempt to maintain control of her shattered household.
Mac Beth adapted by Erica Schmidt
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.
At The Bottom of Lake Missoula by Ed Monk
After losing her entire family in a fatal tornado, Pam, a college sophomore, must embark on an unimaginable journey as she copes with her loss. To separate herself from her grief, she transfers schools and isolates herself from her fellow students, but these steps do not lessen her sadness and guilt over their deaths. Not until a fellow classmate makes an attempt at conciliation does Pam finally begin to realize that healing doesn’t have to be a solitary endeavor. A moving exploration of the difficulty of continuing to live in the wake of great tragedy.
The Princess Capers by Taryn Temple
When happily ever after isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, what’s a princess to do? Bored of their fairy-tale lives, Cindy, Snow, Beauty, Briar Rose, and Florine embark on an adventure to save the kingdom from rap-obsessed supervillain Delusia, whose dancing minions are stealing the youth of all the children in the land. With the help of exercise guru Rumpel Stiltskin and the Big No-Longer-Bad Wolf, they may stand a chance, but only if the Narrators can remember how the story goes. Will they discover the shadowy figure behind D-diddy’s evil scheme before it’s too late? Find out in this funny and fast-paced fractured fairy tale.
