Books published by Samuel French Inc

'Yellow' chronicles a year in the life of the perfect family in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Bobby Westmoreland, a high school football coach, and his wife Kate, a respected therapist, have two ambitious children in high school. Their son Dayne is the golden football star while their daughter Gracie is an overly-dramatic actress. Gracie's best friend is a young gay boy, Kendall, who is at constant odds with his abusive, fundamentalist mother, Sister Timothea. The play opens with the start of the football season and high school auditions for "Oklahoma." Everything falls apart when an unexpected tragedy rocks the Westmoreland family to the breaking point. 'Yellow' explores the themes of cowardice, intolerance and the damage caused to families by secrets, rejection and the difficulty of forgiveness.

Winner! 2011 Hollywood Fringe Festival, Best of Fringe Official Selection! 2010 Festival of New American Musicals Official Selection! 2012 New York International Fringe Festival When famous superhero Blackjack the Bold is kidnapped by an evil sorcerer, it's up to his assistant Inky to step up and save the day! Little does he know that he'll also have to contend with Ninja Koalas, dark caves, secret weapons, and an abducted princess who's considerably braver than he is. Colorful characters, witty humor, and an upbeat catchy score make Super Sidekick: The Musical a treat for young audiences, and an engaging project for thespians of all ages.

"Judith, a beautiful, wealthy young widow, is reviled by her own people as a gold digging adventuress. When her ancient city of Bethulia is facing brutal annihilation, Judith, wearing her most glittering finery, slips into the enemy camp, seduces and ultimately decapitates the ruthless General Holofernes"--Page 4 of cover.

Olivia and Gabe are moving into their first apartment together. They've just packed up all of their belongings and driven halfway across the country, to start a new life together in Chicago. Their moving day doesn't go exactly as planned, though, and things become slightly more complicated when all of their parents show up to help! Can a two bedroom apartment contain all of the love, laughs, worry and wisdom that's about to happen? This brand new comedy from the author of Nana's Naughty Knick

In Go Back to Where You Are God offers Passalus, a failed actor from ancient Athens festering in hell, the opportunity of redemption by returning to Earth to free a young woman from her domineering mother, Claire, a distinguished stage actress. Passalus accepts the proposal with the understanding that on completing his mission his soul be annihilated. God agrees - with the caveat that Passalus not become entangled in the lives of others. Granted the ability to shape-shift, Passalus assume

After a ruthless faction seizes power in Washington, Carlton Berg, a bureaucrat for the State Department, runs off with the new regime's top secret enemies list. Unfortunately for Carlton, the chase has come to an end in a police station in the Ozarks town of Lodus. With a pair of DHS agents on the way, Carlton's last hope is in the people around him: an unsympathetic police chief, an ambivalent administrative assistant, and fellow prisoner Tanya Shepke, a motor-mouthed recidivist who's turned h

Winner! 1990 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person ShowAdapted from the words and works of Truman Capote, Tru takes place in the writer's New York City apartment during the week before Christmas 1975. An excerpt from Capote's infamous novel Answered Prayers has recently been published in Esquire and the author's friends, recognizing the characters as thinly veiled versions of themselves, have turned their back on the man they once considered a close confida

Bernard Slade Full Length, DramaCharacters: 5 male, 6 femaleUnit Set From the author of: Same Time Next Year, Tribute, Romantic Comedy among others, comes this endearing family tale full of hope and humor. Studies have concluded that moving is one of the most traumatic events in life.The play covers the journey that eleven characters, drawn together by the life changing experiences, go through in one day that alters all their lives. Touching, insightful

Play Jean Lenox ToddieCharacters: 2 female Bare stage or simple set. This witty look at mother daughter relationships is a light hearted exploration of irritations and misunderstandings that build walls between a woman and her female off spring-- and the love and compassion that destroys these walls. The crisis and humor of childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age are evoked in a celebration of dissonance and the harmony between mothers and daughters. With the

Full Length, ComedyCharacters: 5 femaleBare stage with chairsWritten to be performed by five actresses, this sequel to Jane Martin's last monologue play picks up where VITAL SIGNS left off - in these funnier, stranger days of the 21st century. Reveling in virtues of brevity that include hilarity, surprise and homespun philosophy, these monologues roam the range of contemporary perspective on everything from sexual harassment to sleeping in theaters to the erotic appeals o

Matthew BurnetBased on the Thornton Wilder novelComedy/DramaCharacters: 4 male, 3 female to play over 20 characters Simple setsHelen Hayes Award nomination, Outstanding New PlayIt is the spring of 1926. Thirty year old Theophilus North quits his teaching post in New Jersey and embarks on a quest for fun, adventure and his place in the world. His used car breaks down in Newport, Rhode Island, and he is stranded in this city of renowned wealth

Comedy Edward Taylor Characters: 5 male, 2 female Interior Set A Rise in the Market mixes broad comedy with sharp satire as it pokes fun at the fat cats of the European Community the Common Market. Sir Clive Partridge hopes to be the new president, but he needs the support of puritanical elder statesman Jacque Berri. It's bad news for Partridge when Berri calls on a day that he is trapped in a luxurious Paris flat where he is beset by glamorous young women he can't account for, plus an angry wife and an exploding boiler. What's in the big, brown paper parcel? And why do Partridge's clothes keep dissappearing? Wild mishaps and comic confusion abound right up to the hilarious climax.

Romantic Farce Nick Hall Characters: 2 male, 2 female Interior Set Sir Peter, has planned a dinner for two. His companion is Viola, a young chorus girl. But he's forgotten it's his wedding anniversary-- his wife, Lady Alexandra, comes home early and aided by the butler, Medford, turns Sir Peter's evening into a shambles. Medford interrupts the dinner disguised as a policeman-- then Lady Alexandra appears in a Salvation Army uniform-- then Medford in the guise of a gypsy violinist-- and finally the two of them disguised as Sir Peter's parents. Viola-- unlike Sir Peter-- is unaware of their true identity and leaves in a huff. Sir Peter and his wife make up and sit down to an anniversary supper.

Little Theatre Comedy Georges Feydeau, Translated by Barnett Shaw Characters: 13 male, 6 female 3 interior scenes The action revolves around a flirt who refuses lovers so long as her husband is faithful. A wild plot to entrap her stumblingly husband in flagrante delicto becomes so frenetic that the seducers, angry husbands, spying wives, innocent maids, pubescent bellboys and police inspectors lose track of who's in bed with whom. "Sheer delight." Dallas Downtown News.

Comedy Liam O'Brien Characters: 10 male, 4 female, 6 children, Interior Set Burgess Meredith starred as the genial, easy going father of a family in Wilmington who is a very progressive though quiet thinker. Mr. Pennypacker has a branch office in Philadelphia and spends half of his there. He has established a second family in Philadelphia, never dreaming the twain should meet. But they do. The minister, whose son is to marry Pennypacker's daughter, is speechless. His wife hysterically refuses to believe it. His children are merely curious about his other children. But he is finally ostracized and has to be voted back in by family council. He comes back somewhat chastened and with a delectable solution to his two family system. "An uproarious show." N.Y. Times. "Hilarious." N.Y. Daily News.

Characters: 1 male, 2 femaleUnit SetRebecca and her chronically unemployed butch girlfriend, O, have created a happy nest in their run-down walk-up in Queens, but things are starting to unravel. The more O pushes Rebecca to stop hiding their relationship, the more Rebecca's work life-writing a textbook for seventh graders about the Holocaust-begins to bleed into her personal life: She starts meeting World War II Nazis on the 7 train, passing as hipster professionals in New York City but

Characters: 8 male, 2 femaleAcclaimed playwright Matt Pelfrey's adaptation of John Ball's In the Heat of the Night based on the award-winning book that inspired the Oscar-winning film and the Emmy-winning television series.It's 1962. A hot August night lies heavy over the small town of Argo, Alabama. A dead white man is discovered and the local police arrest a black stranger named Virgil Tibbs. The police discover that their prime suspect is in fact a homicide detective from Cal

Characters: 7 male, 5 female, cross-gender casting possible Multiple Sets Newly Revised! The landmark Ridiculous Theatre Company production of the classic 19th century melodrama! Tubercular courtesan Marguerite Gautier abjures her rich lover, Baron De Varville, and sells all her jewels and furnishings to live in the counry with her true love, poor young Armand Duval. Her heart is broken when he agrees to his father's request to abandon him, and returning

Casey Kurtti Full Length, ComedyCharacters: 4 female Unit set. This satire of Catholic school life in the 1960's uses four actresses to play the nuns and the first through eighth grade girls at St. George's School in Yonkers. As they experience bonds of friendship, reprimands from authority figures and pressures from home and they react to the Beatles, the Addams Family, the Supremes and the election of a Catholic president, an amusing portrait of girls maturing to

Music and Book by James Valcq, Lyrics and Book by Fred Alley Based on the film by Lee David Zlotoff Musical DramaCharacters: 3 male, 4 female Unit Set A feisty parolee follows her dreams, based on a page from an old travel book, to a small town in Wisconsin and finds a place for herself working at Hannah's Spitfire Grill. It is for sale but there are no takers for the only eatery in the depressed town, so newcomer Percy suggests to Hannah that she raffle it of

Mawby Green and Ed FeilbertAdapted from Double Jeu by Robert Thomas Full Length, ComedyCharacters: 5 male, 2 femaleInterior Set Monique is married to a gambling wastrel. When she refuses to pay his debts, he leaves for France to raise money from an estate. Meanwhile, his brother is released from prison and turns up to see his fiancee, Monique's maid. They scheme to have brother impersonate wastrel so that Monique can get a divorce, but the wastrel returns at the very hour the lawyer is due. Monique tries to drug her husband but imbibes the potion herself. Fighting for a gun, the wastrel is killed. When Monique comes to and the police appear, they think she is loco: there is no body, the maid is now a nurse, and the lawyer a psychiatrist. Is Monique insane and will they do her in to get her money? No, Monique is really a secret agent sent to trap the wastrel in his fifth widowhood. This time the law catches wastrel, lawyer and maid combined.

Full Length, Comedy Characters: 1 male, 1 femaleInterior Set One of the most popular romantic comedies of the century, Same Time, Next Year ran four years on Broadway, winning a Tony Award for lead actress Ellen Burstyn, who later recreated her role in the successful motion picture. It remains one of the world's most widely produced plays. The plot follows a love affair between two people, Doris and George, married to others, who rendezvous once a year. Twenty-five years of manners and morals are hilariously and touchingly played out by the lovers. "Delicious wit, compassion, a sense of humor and a feel for nostalgia."-The New York Times "Genuinely funny and genuinely romantic."-The New York Post

Nick Hall Full Length, Comedy Characters: 2 male, 2 female Interior SetLee Schallert, housewife, feeling she may be missing out on something, leaves her husband, Bob, and her suburban home and moves into a two room Greenwich Village apartment with two roommates. One roommate, Pat, is an aspiring actress, never out of character or costumes; but through an agency mix up, the other roommate is a serious, young, graduate student male. The ensuing complications make a hysterical evening. "An amusing study of marital and human relations. . . . A gem." Labor Herald. "The audience laughed until it hurt." News American. "Superior theatre.... It is light comedy at its best." The Sun, Baltimore.

"Interactive mystery / 4m, 3f"--P. [4] of cover.

James KirkwoodFull Length, ComedyCharacters: 3 male, 1 female Interior SetIn the West Village of Manhattan, Jimmy Zoole, a thirty-ish actor is having a run of bad luck. He's been robbed twice (they even took the only copy of his first novel), fired from a play, has a cat on the critical list, a girl friend who's leaving, and he discovers a burglar hiding in his loft. To avenge his life, he ties "Vito" to the kitchen sink and keeps him prisoner over the long New Yea

Winner! 2009 AATE Distinguished Play Award, Best Adaptation Based on the masterful adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island is a stunning yarn of piracy on the tropical seas. It begins at an inn on the Devon coast of England in 1775 and quickly becomes an unforgettable tale of treachery and mayhem featuring a host of legendary swashbucklers including the dangerous Billy Bones (played unforgettably in the movies by Lionel Barrymore), the sinister two-timin

Collection of short playsHoliday ComedyA celebrated Winner of the 2009 Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival, playwright Matt Hoverman brings an evening of hilarious short holiday comedies to the stage. A wonderful alternative for theatres tired of mounting the traditional seasonal play, Christmas Shorts offers five original plays that humorously comment on holiday themes: family, the nativity, Xmas cards, and elves. Included are the plays: Going Home, The

Comedy5mWhat "The Irish Curse" is - and how it manifests itself - is the raw centerpiece of this wicked, rollicking and very funny new play. From its blistering language to its brutally honest look at sex and body image, The Irish Curse is a revealing portrait of how men, and society, define masculinity. In doing so, it dares to pose the fundamental question that has been on the minds of men since the beginning of time: "Do I measure up to the next guy?" Size matters to a sm

Dramatic ComedyCharacters: 1 male, 1femalePhoenix premiered at the 2010 Humana Festival of New American PlaysWhen Bruce and Sue meet four weeks after an uncharacteristic one-night-stand, Sue has this to say to him: one, I had a great time with you that night and two, let's never see each other again. Thus begins a 4,000 mile journey well beyond the confines of their carefully structured worlds. Bruce is fueled by an overwhelming but undefined compulsion to join her