Books published by Samuel French Inc

"Based on the book Uncle Pirate by Doug Rees."

The fourth and final volume of our popular melodramas series includes four new works from Tom Frye: FAST FOOD FRENZY - 3 male, 3 female, 1 non-gender dog / 1 Exterior & 3 InteriorThe restaurant business is booming for the Frye family of Rose Hill, Kansas. There's only one problem - well, maybe more than one - the neighbor is crazy and the dog talks! This wacky famly is facing a treacherous villain, Mr. Sour Kraut, who wants the mortgage, but even more, he wants their beautiful d

"Afterlife" follows married couple Connor and Danielle as they prepare their beachfront home for an impending storm. They do their best to come together and get the job done while packing up items stained by painful memories they don't know how to talk about. But when the storm rolls in faster than expected and a great wave rises up to drag them under, it may be too late for the them to come to terms with their history and escape the haunting world of unsent letters, unexpected snow, unfinished sand castles, unrelenting birds, and unforgettable loss that threatens to swallow the pair forever.

4m, 2f to play multiple roles / Dramatic ComedyThe cuckolded King Shahriyar is marrying a new bride every night and beheading her the next morning. As unrest spreads in the Sultanate, his vizier's daughter Scheherezade hatches a plan: she will offer herself as a bride and seduce the king with stories that leave him hanging on every word. She weaves such tales as "Sindbad the Sailor" and "Alaeddin and His Magic Lamp" with stories of Borges, Flaubert, and Alan and Dahna -- a Jewish man and an Ar

Plays include: Tongue, Tied (1m, 1f) A man and a woman fall in love through their hand puppets. Death and Javier Miguel Lopez Guadalajara Asante (3m) A coffee stand vendor tricks Death into giving him his job. Clowns(s) (4m, 1f) A children's clown, possibly on the run from the law, bemoans his fate and falls in love with a mother of one of his clients. She convinces him that he might be happier if he becomes a normal person and just does clowning on the sly. Skirmishes (3m, 3f) A man and wom

3m, 3f / ComedyThe Schwartz family is on its last legs. Their father's dead and their Catskills home is up for sale. Norma's husband hasn't spoken to her since she turned their 15 year old son in for smoking pot. After five miscarriages it appears Herb's wife won't provide him with an heir. Simon has one foot on the moon. Gene's girlfriend is about to have an abortion. And nobody seems very clear about what it is to be a family anyway.What is it to be a family? Does anybody care any more? Is

Comedy / 3m, 3f / AreasLa Gringa is about a young woman's search for her identity. María Elena Garcia goes to visit her family in Puerto Rico during the Christmas holidays and arrives with plans to connect with her homeland. Although this is her first trip to Puerto Rico, she has had an intense love for the island and even majored in Puerto Rican Studies in college. Once María is in Puerto Rico, she realizes that Puerto Rico does not welcome her with open arms. The majority of the Puerto Rica

1m, 2f / Comedy / Unit SetIn Half and Half, James Sherman explores marriages past and present in two related one-act plays. In the first act, set at a breakfast in 1970, the breadwinner husband reads the newspaper and the homemaker wife fries the eggs. In act two, at a breakfast taking place this morning, the career-minded wife reads the paper and the stay-at-home husband cooks the frittata. With his unique comic insight, Sherman looks at how husbands and wives accept and reject their roles, ho

Everythings Turning Into Beautiful1m., 1f. / Interior / Play with musicThis new play with music takes place late one Christmas Eve in lonely New York City, when a couple of down-on-their-luck songwriting partners, hitless, loveless and facing their forties, come together for a night of composing and soul searching. This "musical story", finds Sam and Brenda facing the light of a new day and confronting the practical matter: they don't want to mess up their friendship or their working relationship. But, when Sam shows up on Brenda's doorstep late one Christmas Eve wanting to take things to the next level, their partnership is put to the test.

Full Length, Drama / 3f / Simple Sets Set in 1938 Chicago, Rose Colored Glass takes place in the back rooms of Lady O'Riley's and Rose Fleishman's delicatessen. Their disparate worlds, separated by much more that the alley between their kitchens, are about to collide. Peg O'Riley,the 13-year-old granddaughter of Lady, has grown determined that these two mistrustful widows will become friends, but it is not until they become involved in the same cause that their friendship has a chance to blo

Characters: 3 male, 2 female Interior Winner! 2011 Obie Award for Playwriting Nominated for the 2011 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play Samuel D. Hunter's A Bright New Boise is a earnest comedy about the meager profits of modern faith. In the bleak, corporate break room of a craft store in Idaho, someone is summoning The Rapture. Will, who has fled his rural hometown after a scandal at his Evangelical church, comes to the Hobby Lobby, not only f

Brodie, a gifted linguist, learns unsettling news about the baby she carries. Unable to get comfort from her girlfriend, she finds it in the two least likely sources imaginable: the elderly speaker of a vanishing language...and a gorilla at the zoo. Madeleine George's irreverent and charming new play reveals the beauty and the limits of human language.

Winner! 2006 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival National Student Playwriting AwardWinner! 2006 Paula Vogel Award Kennedy Center American College Theatre FestivalFrom the author: "To anyone who has ever gotten a beat down for looking like a woman, being a woman, looking like a queer, being a queer, not being manly enough, being too manly, or having the audacity to be any race other than Caucasian, here's the last laugh!"Social Darwinism is a socio-political absurdist comedy that follows a familial group: an Alpha Male, Alpha Female, Second Banana (Subordinate Male), Subordinate Female, Adolescent Male, Adolescent Female, Outside Male, and Outside Female as they move through several different social classes as viewed by a Field Scientist and his Assistant:

Charaters: 3 male, 6 female One Interior/Exterior Set A historical drama that explores Edgar Degas' scandalous visit to New Orleans in 1872. Edgar Degas, the French Impressionist painter, is torn between helping his relatives in America and pursuing a career as a painter. Fame and family obligations come to a head when he discovers he is still in love with his sister-in-law, who is now pregnant and blind. As Edgar struggles with his own ethical conundrum, he discovers that hi

Characters: 6 male, 4 female Minimal Set From acclaimed Japanese director/playwright Toshiki Okada, Artistic Director of the internationally-lauded chelfitsch Theatre Company, comes a chronicle of post-college ennui and 21st Century relationships in Japan's Lost Generation. The static lives of several self-obsessed GenX comic book store clerks are thrown out of balance by the presence of a younger female co-worker, who rightly makes them question the meaning of their lives in a shifting

Characters: 3 male, 2 female Composite set: part of a bedroom, sitting-room, eating-area in kitchen The Rodales seem like an ordinary family, but beneath the surface things are beginning to crack. Jill and Mal have lost the spark in their marriage, their son Sam resents his father and their daughter Chrissie has recently become a mum and is dealing with marriage issues of her own. And while they all share advice on how others should live their lives, nobody is really taking it on board

Holiday Play with Music Character Descriptions: 3 male, 3 female, plus chorus of 8 to 12 singers Simple SetA Christmas celebration told in songs, stories, poems and tales by Dickens, Mark Twain, Frank McCourt, Emily Dickinson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, A.J. Carothers, and many others collected with a host of traditional carols and holiday songs. This piece provides a perfect evening to warm hearts, stir memories and give laughter during the holiday season. Also available from Sam

Characters: 10 male, 7 femaleUnit SetWelcome to the 30th Reunion of the Class of '79. Everyone you ever loved, hated, had a crush on, or wanted to punch in the face will be there. They are just older, fattier and angrier. Old scores will be settled, old games will be replayed and new (or should we say old) love will be found. And they will all be singing and dancing to an amazing score by Van Zandt, Milmore & Nick DeGregorio including "I Hope They Know Me," "I Want to Bang Miss Blumquist," "(I'm in a) Garden State of Mind," and the show stopping "I'll Never Dance With You." "The downright funniest reunion you'll ever attend" - Two River Times

Includes furniture and property list, costumes and set design.

Characters: 4 male, 3 femaleInteriorIn Relatively Close, James Sheridan scrutinizes human relationships by inviting us to the summer home of one quirky and quarrelsome extended family. But then, what family isn't?Three sisters return to the house on the shores of Lake Michigan where they spent the summers of their youth. Now, the sisters are grown, their parents are gone, and the house is just sitting there. One sister wants to keep it, one sister wants to sell it, and one si

Dramatic ComedyCharacters: 1 male, 1 femaleSimple SetMeet Julian and Josephine, an immigrant couple on New York's Lower East Side, circa 1890. Meet Gideon and Margie, an unlikely pair of historical reenactors, circa now. A museum tour goes off the rails in this jaunty tale of old places, new beginnings and timeless questions."A twisty, humorous tale of significance" - Iris Wiener, TheaterMania.com"Mensch's script is a layered, clear-eyed work of art" - Di Jayawickr

Comedy Characters: 3 male, 3 female, flexible castingChained to his desk in the basement of customer service hell, Segis suddenly finds himself set free in the CEO's penthouse-but is it a dream? This raucous reinvention of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Life is a Dream gleefully skewers corporate America with razor-sharp wit"Enjoyably stylish [with an] antic pace and witty aesthetic" - Washington Post"Ambitious, often uproarious." - City Paper"A pi

ComedyCharacterS: 2 male, 2 femaleInteriorSo you think you want to be famous? So did teen idol and "shark-movie" star Sheena Keener, the darling of the press, the obsession of the paparazzi, and the Goddess of the 'E! Channel'. But now she can't stand to be looked at anymore and her Godzilla of an agent is on the warpath. When Sheena ends up on the doorstep of naïve newcomer Loli, a recent arrival from Flatt, Kansas, it's a wild ride on the road to fame. Sheena is a somebod

Characters: 2 male, 2 female Int. This is a gripping drama about an unusual terrorist, one who is brilliant, articulate and right? Victor is the head of a group responsible for a bomb attack at the White House in which 27 people have been killed. He has a television news reporter led to his lair so she can tell the world why he has done what he has done. Victor's obsession is the destruction of the world's water supply and, with it, the final destruction of the human race by pollut

Musical Music by Cy Coleman Lyrics by Dorothy Fields. Book by Michael Bennett Based on the play Two for the Seesaw by William Gibson.Characters: 4 male, 4 female, mixed chorus From the composing team of Sweet Charity, Seesaw is an intimate, engaging love story and a big, brassy musical comedy rolled into one delightful evening of theatre.Jerry Ryan, a handsome WASPish lawyer from Omaha who has left his wife and fled to New York meets Gittel Mosca, a single, loveable Jewish girl from the Bronx who's studying to be a dancer. This unlikely pair meet, fall in love, and part in a bittersweet tale that is full of fun, music and laughter through tears. Sparkling musical numbers capture the excitement of New York street life and the up and down "seesaw" of Gittel and Jerry's affair. "A love of a show."-The New York Times

Drama Characters: 2 female Unit set. Since her tragic death, Sylvia Plath continues to fascinate readers of her poetry and sole (autobiographical) novel The Bell Jar. Letters Home explores the enigma of the great poet's life, dramatizing correspondence between Plath and her mother Aurelia. Every line of this engrossing drama comes from these letters, evoking a gripping and powerful portrait of the woman, artist, daughter and mother. Originally pro

Jack SharkeyFull Length, ComedyCharacters: 2 male, 2 female Interior SetTake a husband, wife, lover and friend, add a strange lamp, a gun and a rubber chicken plus a party that begins at 8 p.m., then again at 8 p.m. and then again at 8 p.m. and you have this nightmare comedy." Four people find themselves reliving one horrible hour over and over as themselves, as Japanese, as British aristocrats, as gangsters, and almost anything else you can think of. Ca

Birthday Characters: 1 male, 1 femaleSimple SetIn Birthday, an anxious young woman slips away from a unwelcoming birthday party in a bar only to discover a stranger sitting in the other room. Confiding old secrets and past mistakes as the party rages nearby, they find they may have a chance to forgive themselves and each other.Nobody Characters: 2 male, 4 femaleSimple SetIn Nobody six people come together, each for their own reasons, a

Various AuthorsShort PlaysVarious CastingA princess. A professor. A teen-aged mother. A fugitive on the run from all forms of social media. From the nationally recognized Educational Theatre Association's Thespian Playworks competition come four short scripts with unforgettable heroes - all created by high school-aged playwrights! Included in this volume are:A Backwards Fairytale by Allie Lehnhoff, In Facebook Wii Trust by Lien Le, The Porcelain Vase by Christopher Poore, and

Genre: Dark Comedy Characters: 2m, 3f Scenery: Interior Bastian returns home for Thanksgiving with news of "joining the service." Mother suggests he join a gym. Bastian's news takes a backseat when his sister, Rissa, suddenly decides that she's pregnant, and though not yet showing, expects to deliver "any minute now". Both children are then bombarded with Mother's news of an older brother that they've never known about, Thom, who has returned home for Thanksgiving from the