Books published by Samuel French Inc

Drama / 2m, 2f / Unit setIn Barrio Hollywood, a tense family drama, a young Mexican-American boxer dreams of fighting his way out of his family's economic plight in his barrio neighborhood. His sister, a passionate ballet folklórico dancer and dedicated cultural artist, dreams of owning her own dance studio to pass her Mexican traditions on to another generation. Their flamboyant mother dreams of taking her poker winnings and going on an extended vacation to the Canary Islands. The family

Comedy / 2m, 2f / InteriorTwo difficult, single people, Phyllis and Bradley, both trying to heal from their respective disappointing relationships, get their luggage mixed up at the airport. After a very disagreeable first encounter, the two decide to help each other get over their heartaches by forcing a friendship that eventually leads to the two discovering that while they may be too difficult for everyone else in the world, they are right for each other.

3m, 7f / Simple Sets Rockin' On The Milky Way is a collection of three one-act plays entitled Moon Beams In Mid-Morning, One White Winter Night and I Remember Heaven, Of Course. These plays by internationally known playwright, Jean Lenox Toddie, treat the audience to an evening of comedy and drama celebrating life, love and the tangled relationships of lovers and families. A rocking chair sits center stage in each play. Ten colorful characters range from a middle-age woman sitting in the Florida Everglades with a shot gun across her lap, a charming male poet who dines on candied locusts and marinated artichoke hearts, a lovely young mute singing her own soundless song and a quirky old lady booted out of heaven for bad behavior.

2m, 2fNovember, 1978. Wade Minnick, 16, is a slender, effeminate bookworm in suburban Miami. With his distracted mother out playing Bridge, and his pilot father away on a trip, Wade settles down in the family's showpiece living room to read A Passage To India. His volatile brother Chip, 17, takes off on a dubious errand, leaving Wade alone with Chip's foxy pothead girlfriend. "Freak" Tammy teaches "brain" Wade more about life and about himself than he could learn from a dozen novels. And wh

Comedic Drama / 5m,3f, / InteriorBored by his privileged, but mundane life, Henry Flemming sells his lucrative brokerage firm to become a detective. On his very first case, and to the horror of his wife, Karen, and his two crazy neighbors, Suzy and Stan, the Flemming living room begins to fill up with dead bodies. Karen is further annoyed when one of them turns out to be her father. Even though Henry keeps showing up at home every day more disheveled and beaten up, he couldn't be happier.

Dark Comedy / Flexible Casting; 2m, 1f or 6m, 3f / Simple Sets Tall Grass is a dark comedy comprised of three one-act plays. Each play requires two males and a female and the same three actors can play the roles for each play. THE BUSINESS PROPOSAL begins with a botched marriage proposal by a nice young man to his type-A girlfriend, who instead informs him that she has just accepted a position to become his boss. Over the next six-months the two try to sort out what they really want out of their professional and personal lives. The solution comes as a surprise, both to themselves and to the audience. The play also features a comic waiter and some voice-overs which can be done by the same actor. THE GERBIL is the story of a burglar caught breaking into the home of a dysfunctional couple, whose love for their daughter is the glue keeping their marriage together. The brutal ending reveals the harm their marriage has taken on the daughter, although she never appears on stage. In TALL GRASS we find an octogenarian couple fighting to maintain their independence. The arrival of a mysterious social worker tests the true extent of their resolve.

Drama / Comedy / 3f, flexible casting /Unit SetHAT TRICKS is an exciting compilation of six scenes and three monologues designed for performance by mature actresses. Covering a range of women's experiences in the second half of life, these nine pieces range from the purely comedic to those that combine humor with thoughtful and sometimes poignant explorations. This is a richly varied collection featuring a single intriguing commonality: Every scene or monologue includes the presence and compel

2m,3f / Drama / Interior Mustang Sally tackles the timely and sensitive topic of female teachers who have sex with their underage students, justice, and double standards. As the play begins, the affair between Sal, a 13-year old male middle school student, and his 31-year old teacher, Kathy, has already been discovered. Kathy's older, successful and high-powered, commitment phobic sister Elizabeth, steps forward to take charge and help. She quickly enlists the aid of one of her suitors, a divorced male attorney, Edward. Elizabeth attempts to solve Kathy's problems while also trying to navigate her own life, and curb her religiously fanatic mothers destructive behavior. Along the way, deep family issues are uncovered, the result being an involving and insightful drama that provides food for thought about serious subjects.

The latest in the popular monologue series, these monologues run the gamut, from broken-hearted boyfriends, to job interviews gone wrong, to frustrated mothers and revengeful sisters. Includes monologues for men and women. Perfect for auditions.

Forced to flee to the United States after Castro's revolution, a Cuban family tries to cope with their new life.

Full Length Play / 6m., 4f. / Unit Set / Dark Comedy In the Eye of the Hurricane is Machado's fourth play based on the tribulations of his family in Cuba. It is 1960 in a small Cuban town. A family gathers for a sumptuous, leisurely lunch of shrimp and avocado only to find Fidel Castro is nationalizing the family bus company: the business in which the entire family has invested all of its energies and all of its resources. The business is the symbol of the family and everything they want: money and a lot of it. Machado describes In the Eye of the Hurricane as a play about "the moment.It's about when their lives were really in crisis. It's not about recalling. It's not about getting there. It's about the moment when you lose everything." Appeared at the Humana Festival of New American plays at the Actors' Theatre of Louisville.

Full Length Play / 6m., 4f. / Unit Set / Dark Comedy In the Eye of the Hurricane is Machado's fourth play based on the tribulations of his family in Cuba. It is 1960 in a small Cuban town. A family gathers for a sumptuous, leisurely lunch of shrimp and avocado only to find Fidel Castro is nationalizing the family bus company: the business in which the entire family has invested all of its energies and all of its resources. The business is the symbol of the family and everything they want: money and a lot of it. Machado describes In the Eye of the Hurricane as a play about "the moment.It's about when their lives were really in crisis. It's not about recalling. It's not about getting there. It's about the moment when you lose everything." Appeared at the Humana Festival of New American plays at the Actors' Theatre of Louisville.

Fresh Brewed is a collection of eleven plays, all of which take place in a coffee bar, all of which use the same set of two small tables and four chairs, and all of which can be performed by two male and two female actors in various combinations from a monologue to two quartets. If all of the plays are performed in one evening, there should be no black outs between plays. Simply changing the composition of the cast can signal the audience of movement between plays. On the hand, each play is writ

Comedy / 1m, 1f / Simple SetCallback is a two character contemporary comedy, drama about the forty-year mostlyprofessional relationship between an actress and a director. They both go throughstruggles, heartbreaks, triumphs, and unexpected discoveries along the way. Theyare bound together on and off by many things, but what keeps them both going istheir overwhelming love of the theater.

4m, 2f / Drama / Unit SetWinner of the 2006 L. Arnold Weissberger AwardIt is three years since Lynne and Benjamin Montgomery's son, Ben, traveled to the Central American country of Cartuga in order to use his medical training to help the poor peasants. Soon after his arrival, Ben disappeared. In a country of civil strife, guerillas and mass executions by the army, that can mean only one thing -- he was killed. So when Bishop Melinda calls to invite the Montgomerys to take part in the historic Cartuga Truth and Reconciliation Commission, they fly down to Central America to find out what happened to their son.

Little Theatre / Comedy / 3m., 4f / 2 Interior, 1 ExteriorNew love and an old secret emerge in this richly drawn sentimental comedy by the author of Three Years from "Thirty". Three men approaching age thirty gather to attend a friend's wedding. One still adores an old love who is due to attend the wedding. His best friend arrives with his intended, both of them showing the stress of planning their own wedding. While the third member of the group finds a new romance, revelations about a one nig

Comedy Drama / 1m, 1f /Simple SetSean and Amy are your typical co-habitating, Catholic/Jewish, twentysomething couple living in Manhattan. They work hard, love each other and share common goals in life. Well, sort of. After nearly three years together, Amy wants to get married but Sean does not believe in the institution. The game is on!!! Tonight is the night when they will settle the marriage question once and for all. They will both bring their "A" game and the gloves will come off. Sean wil

Translated and adapted by Eric BentleyMusic by Arnold Black, William Bolcom, Lucas Mason, and Peter WinklerFlexible casting, 1m., 1f. or expanded to more actors as needed /Musical RevueA first draft of this entertainment was produced at The Ballroom in New York City in 1994, starring Alvin Epstein and directed by Isaiah Sheffer. Howard Kissel, Daily News, commented: "Bentley's pungent translations of Wedekind's lyrics have been set deftly by three composers, Arnold Black, William Bolcom and Peter Winkler... Tingle Tangle [as the work was then called] is well performed and invariably fascinating."For the Wedekind renaissance of the 21st century Eric Bentley has re-arranged the material and added to it. The piece now consists of two cabaret programs which could be performed together in one long evening or separately. The first program is framed by two Bentley ballads telling the stories of Spring's Awakening and The First Lulu, respectively. Within that frame is a varied series of Wedekind songs and spoken poems. The second program is framed by two Wedekind short stories, neither of them ever before presented on an American (or any other) stage. Within this second frame come poems and songs in which we meet another Wedekind, a wild poet who also had a tender, even elegiac side. The two-part show ends with a song by Eric Bentley and Arnold Black which celebrates, not Wedekind the rebel, but Wedekind the artist.

Comedy /6m, 7f (flexible casting if actors play multiple roles) / Simple SetsThis outrageous new comedy is told in five outrageously funny parts and it's all about young women and the various issues they confront today. It's part sit-com, part stand-up comedy and part sketch-comedy. This collection of vignettes parades a series of foxy, witty and anxious women who bear the expectations of the world like an itchy muffler. These girls are coffee-driven, sensitive, wired, misunderstood and fuming

3m, 2f / Comedy / InteriorStamp collecting is far more risky than you think. After their mother's death, two estranged half-sisters discover a book of rare stamps that may include the crown jewel for collectors. One sister tries to collect on the windfall, while the other resists for sentimental reasons. In this gripping tale, a seemingly simple sale becomes dangerous when three seedy, high-stakes collectors enter the sisters' world, willing to do anything to claim the rare find as their own.

Full Length / Musical Comedy / 4m, 3f / InteriorAn Interactive Musical Comedy Mystery Spoof of the famous HBO series. Meet the family that inspired it all, the Altos. It's Tony's funeral (Or is it?) and his wife Toffee has invited you to the wake. Chris wants you should check your weapons at the door (and if you don't have any, he's got extras!) Uncle Senior has a rigged dice game going and Tony's Ma is - well just nuts. Tony's shrink Dr. Malaise is giving free analysis and the Father isn't su

Full Length / Interactive Comedy / 3m, 2f / InteriorCONTEMPT OF COURT is a new non-mystery interactive comedy from the inventor of the interactive dinner theater. It's a typical night at Judge Judy's Peoples Night court where audience members become plaintiffs, defendants, witnesses and jury in some of the most outlandishly funny law suits ever to double cross the bench. This hilarious comedy send up of all those TV court shows proves that some people really have a Contempt of Court.

Full Length / Comedic Mystery / 4m, 3f / InteriorThe year is 1923 and audience members are passengers on board the HMS Victoria as it crosses the English Channel. The famous Inspector Clurrot has tracked down a homicidal mastermind hiding out on board. Meanwhile, the ship is the vessel of matrimony for the Contessa Follette and John D. Rothchild - a marriage encouraged through financial need and murderous greed. But not everything is as it seems, and it turns out that the English Channel isn't

Comedy / 6m, 5f / Int. This modern adaptation casts Tartuffe as a deposed televangelist who rooks Orgon and his family of their money and property and nearly compromises Orgon's wife. The action takes place in a religious television studio in Baton Rouge where the characters cavort to either prevent or aid Tartuffe in his machinations. Written in modern verse, Tartuffe: Born Again adheres closely to the structure and form of the original. Moliere's legendary comedic characters are delightfully

Full Length, Drama /1 m, 2 f / InteriorLives are about to collide. Julia, a successful television journalist, discovers a Manhattan apartment owned by her attorney husband, Jack that she was unaware existed. As Julia explores the apartment, her musing and pain are interrupted by the sudden appearance of Katie, a beautiful young woman who seems to know Jack a little too well. At first glance, the two women appear to have nothing in common save Julia's husband. As they face off in the apartment, secrets unfold revealing the burdens each has been carrying, and they learn they have more in common than either could have thought possible.Pied-à-Terre, or a second home, has a central theme about grieving, loss and survivor's guilt, where the passions of the soul come into conflict with the obligations of the mind and the needs of the heart.Not your usual love triangle.

2m., 2f. / Full Length, Comedy / Interior George shoots a schnauzer and brings it triumphantly back to Zee, who stuffs his pillowcase with bloody fish parts. Fighting ensues, and the flood water outside is rising. For some reason, teenager daughter Annie dreams of escape from all this. Into their mountain cabin stumbles poor Frank, the perfect replacement for the son they lost. Now if only they can keep him without killing him, too. A Fish Story is a ¿funny, engaging yarn¿ (Modesto Bee) about coming to terms with loss and the love that transcends the damage a family can do to itself. ¿You won¿t want this one to get away, ¿ wrote the Union (CA) Democrat. ¿It¿s hilarious. I like poignancy laced with humor, and A Fish Story gave me more than my limit of laughs.¿ A Fish Story has four characters, one set, and exactly one twist more than you think.

6m, 4f / Comedy / InteriorTHE IDIOT BOX tells the story of six sitcom characters whose lives are shaken when reality crashes into their perfect world. As the artifice of their lives unravels, each character discovers powerful truths about race, love, sexuality and the America outside they never knew existed - resulting in a theatrical experience that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, "is a glittering absurdist farce...with a sinister undertow that takes hold early and never lets go."

COLLECTIVE DATING is a wacky collection of romantic comedies based on the world of dating. From cavemen to the Internet, from an uptight, upright dating service to one that knows no bounds, COLLECTIVE DATING is a wild ride of fun. The plays were written with ease of production in mind. They can be performed in any combination in one evening with a cast of four men and three women or with full casts for each play, allowing for large group performances such as schools or classrooms. Most of the pl