Books published by Samuel French Ltd

Full Length, Tragic comedy Characters: 4 male, 3 female Exterior Set The sixth in the author's decade by decade exploration of the black experience in America, two of which have won Pulitzer Prizes, Seven Guitars is part bawdy comedy, part dark elegy and part mystery. In the backyard of a Pittsburgh tenement in 1948, friends gather to mourn for a blues guitarist and singer who died just as his career was on the verge of taking off. The action that follows is

“There was a wild kid living in Burgess Woods. He had no famly and he had no pals and he didn’t know where he come from and he couldn’t talk. His wepons wer old kitchen nives and forks and an ax. He was savage. He was truly wild.”Blue Bake’s at home with his mum and his little sister, Jess. He’s writing a story. Not all that stuff about wizards and happy ever after – a real story about blood and guts and trouble, because that’s what life’s really like. At least it is for Blue, since his Dad died, and Hopper the bully started knocking him about. But Blue’s story takes on a life of its own, weird and dangerous and wild. The savage that he creates on the page and in his dreams comes to life in the real world, and seems set on bringing chaos and revenge. Can Blue keep his creation under control? Can the savage even bring Blue and his family a kind of peace?David Almond’s own adaptation of his acclaimed graphic novel created with Dave McKean and published in translation around the world.

Drama / Casting: 6m, 5f / Scenery: Interior Sets Set in a black boardinghouse in Pittsburgh in 1911, this drama by the author of The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars and Fences is an installment in the author's series chronicling black life in each decade of this century. Each denizen of the boardinghouse has a different relationship to a past of slavery as well as to the urban present. They include the proprietors, an eccentric clairvoyant with a penchant for old country voodoo, a young homeboy u

ComedyCharacters: 10 male, 5 female, plus extrasScenery: Unit setBased on the hugely successful British television series that ran for seven seasons, this uproarious comedy relates the adventures of a hapless cafe owner, Rene, in occupied France. You can see all of your favorite TV characters in the flesh, including Rene''s tone-deaf wife Edith, Major-General von Klinkerhoffen and the Gestapo officer Herr Flick!He and his wife have stashed a priceless portrait stolen by the Nazis in a sausage in their cellar, where two British airmen are also hiding until the Resistance can repatriate them. Communications with London using the wireless that is disguised as a cockatoo add to the many embarrassments this intrepid proprietor endures in the company of his patrons. News that the Fuhrer is scheduled to visit the town inspires tricksters disguised as Hitler to frequent the cafe. Meanwhile Rene summons all the wit he can muster to save his cafe and his life.

Colin must be comforted in his grief over the death of his fiancee so his friends, who never met the girl, arrange a tea party for him. Understandably they are on edge wondering what to say, but there is more to their unease: Diane and Paul, John and Evelyn, and Marge and her husband are perpetually out of circulation with trivial illnesses are all kept together by a mixture of business and cross-marital emotional ties. By the time Colin arrives for tea, their tenseness contrasts dramatically with his air of cheerful relaxation. He is the only happy one among them and his happiness and insensitive analyses of their troubles causes each of them to break down.

Feydeau's hilarious farce Occupe-toi d'Amélie is here translated in a lively new version - seen at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, under the title She's in Your Hands! Marcel will inherit one million francs - on his wedding day. Unwilling to relinquish his bachelorhood, but in dire need of cash, he persuades Amélie, a cocotte, to act as his fiancee for benefit of his godfather. But events don't go according to plan!|5 women, 13 men

"Waiting for Godot" has become one of the most important and enigmatic plays of the past 50 years and a cornerstone of 20th-century drama. The story revolves around two seemingly homeless men waiting for someone--or something--named Godot. The result is a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes, and nonsense, which has been interpreted as mankind's inexhaustible search for meaning.

The world's greatest physicist, Johann Wilhelm Mobius, is in a madhouse, haunted by recurring visions of King Solomon. He is kept company by two other equally deluded scientists: one who thinks he is Einstein, another who believes he is Newton. It soon becomes evident, however, that these three are not as harmlessly lunatic as they appear. Are they, in fact, really mad? Or are they playing some murderous game, with the world as the stake? For Mobius has uncovered the mystery of the universe--and therefore the key to its destruction--and Einstein and Newton are vying for this secret that would enable them to rule the earth.

Joan has been hired to stabilize Jojomon, a yoga apparel giant, after its CEO is brought down by a fat-shaming scandal. But just as she finds her stride, more trouble surfaces and sales plummet. Joan comes up with a plan so risky that it could make or break the company and her career-and what it requires from her CFO, Raj, is far beyond the call of duty. This sharp comedy asks what it takes to find your own authenticity in a world determined to sell enlightenment.

Sanam Shah, a mathematician, and Ariel Spiegel, a biologist, are Ph.D. candidates and best friends working together to discover the cause of colony collapse disorder - the urgent, ecological crisis where bees are disappearing around the world in alarming numbers. Just as they are about to publish a career-defining new paper on the subject, calling for a ban on commercial pesticides, Sanam realizes that the numbers don't add up to support their conclusion. Should she look the other way for the sake of environmental action, or should she stand by her scientific principles, even if it means ceding ground to an ecological disaster, jeopardizing her career and losing her best friend?

Since the disappearance of her husband seveteen years before, Jane Mannion has lived a life of seclusion on the cornish coast with her children, David and Vanessa and a macabre old woman called Ellen. Suspected by local gossips of poisoning her husband (her mother was also a suspected poisoner) she shuns village society and extends a grudging welcome to her sons fiancee Maureen and her father. This last is a lawyer with a firm belief in hereditary, and he wants to make a through check of his future son-in-law's family history. When a body is found in a disused mine shaft on the moors he discovers more than he has bargained for...|4 women, 4 men

Keen Teens is a unique and free educational theatre program run by the Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company. Keen Teens seeks to improve the quality of plays written for high school students by commissioning scripts from highly regarded playwrights and gives students the opportunity to work with professional artists in an Off-Broadway setting. This collection includes:Foreign Bodies(5m, 5f)Alphonse the bartender will always listen to your sob story as he pours you a drink. And everyone in his bar seems to have one. Mallory struggles with her all-consuming love for Trish. Everyone seems to be struggling with something. Until they aren't. All is not as it seems at this neighborhood watering hole.The Rebellious Rhymes of J Nice(8f)The whole school gathers to cheer on the epic rap battle between the challenger, J Nice, and the champion, Makeda. Both are MCs with mad skills rhyming for the Championship of the South Bronx. "There aren't really any rules but just don't take sh*t too far."Citizens United(1f, 16m or f)A comedy about the end of American democracy. Well, not the end, but a pretty drastic assault that came from within by five people who can't be voted out, five men who will keep that job till they quit or die. Though granted, one of them is already dead.

Lali and Beng are hostages. No one knows where they've been taken or if they're alive. Or, maybe their story has been broadcast to the world? A story about intimacy, surrender, and the will to live for someone else.