Books published by Samuel French Ltd

Genre: Drama Characters: 2 males, 1 female Scenery: Bare Stage On board the SS Graigaur a young sailor begins to pen his first novel. Assisted by his muse, a portrait of his mother comes to life, and supported by his friend, an illiterate ship's mechanic, he struggles to balance romance and reality. This most personal of Athol Fugard's works is strictly autobiographical; at twenty he abandoned his university education, hitch hiked up Africa and ended up on a tramp steamer in Port Sudan. This play refl ects his attempts to come to terms with the conflicting emotions evoked by memories of his courageous mother and flawed father. "Charming... Admire The Captain's Tiger and the lovely way in which it is told." - The New York Daily News

Mrs. Dowey is entertaining three other charwomen at tea; they are all proud of their sons in the army (1914 1918). The curate arrives with Kenneth Dowey of the Black Watch in tow. But Mrs. Dowey has no son; she only pretends after seeing Kenneth's name in a newspaper. Since he has no family, he agrees to spend his leave with her and Mrs. Dowey has the long wished for experience of mothering a boy. When Private Dowey does not return, the old lady puts away his effects and bravely sets out to work.

A. A. MilneComedyCharacters: 4 male, 2 female Interior SetA terribly exciting little affair happens in the humdrum life of John and Mary, a tempest in a teapot, but while it lasts--well, it's high comedy, at least for the audience!

Jason Milligan's anthology of one-act plays set in New York City features a wide range of styles and tones, ranging from wacky comedy, to romance, to drama. This collection includes: Best Warm Beer in Brooklyn, John's Ring, Next Tuesday, Nights in Hohokus, Shoes.

Millie the nursemaid brings baby Tommy to Central Park in the hopes of a rendezvous with the handsome Patrolman Avonzino. Mrs. Boker soon arrives with baby Moe, and as the two ladies trade snacks and advice on child rearing, the infants compare notes on their parents' bad behavior and pitiful lack of understanding. Babies act like grown-ups and grown-ups act like babies in this comedy about fulfilling basic human needs.

Comedy / Characters: 5 male, 2 femaleScenery: InteriorMandy and Tania are sexy but struggling nightclub dancers living in the heart of London's Soho nightlife, and they face a crisis. Will possessive club owner Big Mack find out about Mandy's affair with Gerry and set his sidekicks on them? Will he discover that he is owed money that was borrowed from the club's till, gambled and lost on the club's roulette table and then stolen from the day's take? Will Gerry be discovered hiding in Mandy's bathroom? Will Terry be caught delivering dinner? Will Terry reveal that he is really Gerry and that Gerry is Terry? Will anyone figure out what is going on, and will they all survive until the curtain comes down? The action doesn't slow down from beginning to end in this madcap comedy by the author of Don't Dress for Dinner and Perfect Wedding "Packed with high-energy and mad comedy that rarely takes a breath until its side-splitting conclusion.''-Door County Advocate "Produces big surprises that delight and astonish. It is 'Sopranos' with laughing gas.''-Green Bay Press

Drama / Characters:1 male, 1 femaleScenery: InteriorA couple sit at opposite ends of a table reminiscing about their life together. Each has a point of view and they rarely address each other directly. They are young to begin with, then middle aged, then old, then one dies. The anecdotes they relate are both humorous and tragic. Their lives seem wasted, yet the wife's muted final gesture of affection conveys a love that endured through years of bickering. A critical success in London, Irel

The Insanity of Mary Girard is the real-life story of a Philadelphia woman who spent the last 25 years of her life in a mental institution. In 1790, Mary Girard is committed to an asylum. After she became pregnant by another man, her husband had her declared legally insane. Now, she sits in a chair as the "furies" dance around and impersonate people from her past. By the end of this haunting and highly theatrical piece, Mary has grown rather convincingly into her diagnosis.

The Drunken Sisters is Wilder's satyr play that followed The Alcestiad, his adaptation of the ancient Greek "Alcestis" story. Apollo ventures into the land of the three sisters of Fate who control the threads of each man's life, and here in disguise he tricks the sisters into releasing their death hold on King Admetus. His trick: 3 flagons of wine which he declares to be Aphrodite's beauty drink but which make the sisters drunk. He then foils them with a riddle, releasing the king

Short Plays, DramaScenery: InteriorsComanche Cafe: 2 femalesIn the late 1930's outside the seedy "Comanche Cafe", two waitresses pass the time: the older, Mattie recalls a fling; Ronnie, a regretful virgin, plans a bright future... Domino Courts: 2 males, 2 femalesFour years later, at a tourist cabin in the Oklahoma dust bowl, Floyd (now married to waitress Ronnie) and Roy, former bank robbers and self-proclaimed "Hot Grease Boys", meet up for an ill-fated reunion. "Haunting, t

Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna Comedy Interior Set Plays include: Alan, Betty and Riva (1 male, 2 females) Alan gets his mistress Betty to agree to join him in a menage a trois with Riva, a hooker who calls herself a sex therapist. Betty gets cold feet and acquiesces only when Alan convinces her it will help him make the decision to finally leave his wife. Afterward, Betty is depressed and, when she realizes Alan still isn't going to leave

A collection of two short plays. In the first of these one act comedies, The Line Thats Picked Up 1000 Babes And How It Can Work for You, six people in a bar are in search of companionship, a one night stand or a life-long relationship. Benny is employing the title handbook while his friend Alan insists that women dont fall for pick up lines. There are surprises for everyone at the bar tonight. In The Midnight Moonlight Wedding Chapel, Peter and Walter are vacationing in Las Vegas. Peter gets drunk with a cocktail waitress and they decide to marry, enjoy a one night honeymoon, and divorce the next day. When he wakes up his bride has vanished. Both plays are well suited for scene work.

Genre: Comedy Characters: 8 males, 4 females Scenery: 2 Interiors This delightful 1920s drawing room comedy was revived on Broadway and in London's West End with Rex Harrison and Claudette Colbert. Jeremy Brett, Lynn Redgrave and George Rose also starred in the Broadway production. It is a brilliant and sophisticated play concerned with the sympathetic and natural foibles of a very human set of people. "Lonsdale's works fall somewhere between Wilde and Coward... an expert craftsman as well as a witty writer... Should prove not only instructive to theatre goers interested in this genre, but decidedly entertaining too." - New York Daily News

DramaCharacters: 2 male, 3 female Combination interior and exterior set. Loved by audiences and critics nationwide, this compassionate and reflective play about two women coping with loneliness and loss was also successfully presented Off Broadway. The women are the last members of a rural commune founded in the 60's. One's husband was killed in Vietnam and she still clings to his memory. The other's wisecracking husband is hospitalized and dying. Both women find the

Comic drama / Characters:2 male, 3 femaleScenery: InteriorA lesser known but wonderful play by the acclaimed author of Extremities and The Woolgatherer . The story concerns a young hemophiliac youth named Chandler who has been kept, of necessity, by his cab driver mother in a very sheltered sort of existence. Chandler is desperate for contact with the world. He is also highly intelligent; but is supremely naive about the ways of the world. He pays a neighbor to bring him a girl; but he can

Takes a different approach to mystery as a ghost tries to find out who murdered her in a witty, sophisticated, yet suspenseful look at the upper crust of Hollywood. The curtain rises to find Jane, Oscar winning screen writer, dead at the bottom of the stairs in a Vermont ski lodge. Her four friends and husband are saying she fell. 'I was pushed!' she says as her ghost rises. Aided by Kitty, a rather wanton adviser from 'up there,' Jane is brought ahead to the present, three years after the murder, where the same group is gathered. They are all famous film makers with an intense hate love relationship; Janes husband who has married an ambitious ingenue, a heading for middle age leading lady, an arrogant director, and Hollywoods reigning gossip columnist. The five suspects join together to keep the possible murder quiet for reasons of their own but their relationship busts apart with their mutual distrust. Woven through the suspense in humorous, acidic, and revealing comedy is an extraordinary whodunit with a surprise denouement when the murderer is revealed. All the roles are lengthy with well defined characters. For the unusual and audience pleasing combination of comedy, intrigue, and suspense, this is a must!

Comic DramaCharacters:1 male, 4 female, 3 children (2 male, 1 female) Exterior Set The play is set in the coal mining country of southern Indiana. Carla, a twenty six year old high school dropout, wife, and mother, dreams of packing up and moving to escape her dreary existence. She is teased, threatened, and cajoled by her friends as they settle into an ordinary day of trading gossip, reading magazines, and prattling about sex while the children dart in and out. An ordin

This important drama was named best play of the 1979 Paris season and has subsequently moved audiences throughout the world with its simple story about seamstresses struggling to recover from the aftermath of World War II. The central character struggles to keep herself and her two sons alive while she waits for word about her husband who was deported to a concentration camp. Her heroism and determination are especially poignant, for she is a portrait of the playwright's mother. There is an evocative balance of humor and pathos in this excellent play, as well as a number of fine monologues and six excellent female roles.

Genre: Comedy Characters: 10f, 1m (to play several roles) Scenery: Unit set In this hilarious satire on B-movies of the 1950's, Mary Eleanor, an innocent duped into crime, lands in the Greenwich Village Woman's House of Detention, presided over by a massive matron with a taste for sadism and female flesh as our heroine, now Caged in the Big House, learns about life The Hard Way... "Sex is rampant and comically cheerful!...A delirious evening of Grade-A tomfoolery!"-

Comedy Characters: 3 male, 2 female Interior Set The two young brothers of the Oberon family live in their mansion with one faithful butler. They are happy until they discover the inheritance has gone to cousin Toni. This charming girl is shortly to descend on them, and the problem that faces the two is "Murder or Marriage?" When Toni arrives they have to consider whether (if murder) the means shall be the knife, or poison, or the dungeons, or (if marriage) which of the two is it who must marry her? Ian Stuart Black plays every conceivable variation on the alternate plots of the brothers, and the play is alive with wit and invention.

Drama Characters: 3male, 2female Interior Set Jimmy and Ian share a flat. Jimmy is "straight"; and Ian is "not". Neither are very "gay". One night Jimmy brings a girl home. He tries to get Ian and his friend to go out so he can have some privacy but Ian refuses. In fact, he gets very angry, leading to a fight. Jimmy's mother comes to visit Ian, and there ensues a mutual sexual attraction, which is consummated. The mother tries to get Ian to go to bed with her again; b

Comedy Joseph Fields and Peter de Vries, adapted from the novel by Mr. de VriesCharacters: 2 male, 4 female Interior Set Tom Ewell played the Broadway part of a suburban husband in a 5 year childless marriage. He and his wife decide to adopt a baby, but a loud mouth neighbor upsets the apple cart when the adoption investigator comes to call. However, not to be outdone, Ewell finds himself in the clutches of the investigator, who has suddenly turned color. Later she announces that she is pregnant and is going off to have the baby. She will see that the man and his wife receive the child in due time through the agency. Shortly after the baby arrives, however, the wife learns of the matter and starts packing to go home to Mother. But it turns out that the adopted baby was not fathered by the husband, and also that the wife is now herself pregnant; and matters are mended. "It offers laugh after laugh." N.Y. World Telegram & Sun.

Jack Kirklandadapted from the novel by Erskine Caldwell Full Length, ComedyCharacters: 6 male, 5 female Exterior Set The story of the Lester's of "Tobacco Road", of father Jeeter who dreams of planting a garden beside his ramshackle home, the idiotic son who marries a ravenous evangelist and drives an automobile to destruction, a daughter with strong sexual inclinations, another who is sold into marriage for $7. This heralded play ran for over 3,000 performances

Christopher Hampton DramaCharacters: 10 male, 5 female, plus extras Various Sets Revised version. Total Eclipse is an intelligent look at the relationship between Rimbaud and Verlaine and shows considerable insight into the bourgeois and artistic societies of the period as well as a moving understanding of homosexuality. "The first six scenes develop the contrast between the two men...and their mutual need for each other as they move th

Leona Samish, a single American woman of a "certain age" takes a long-planned European vacation from her job as a secretary and finds herself in a pensione in Venice, Italy. At a street market, she meets the handsome proprietor Renato DiRossi, entering into a casual flirtation which turns into an affair. Her complacency is jolted when she discovers he is married, has several children and is quite happy with the arrangement as is. Long-dormant frustrations and anger come to the surface as Leona faces the harsh reality of this new found infatuation and her own romantic notions of love. Shirley Booth and later Katharine Hepburn ("Summertime") played the leading role.

Genre: Comedy Characters: 4 males, 4 females Scenery: Interior A Hollywood writer in need of some research material finds Susan, a 17 year old delinquent, on his doorstep on a rainy Christmas Eve. He learns her life, decides he won't let her be sent to the prison farm, and therefore contrives to have her marry him in Las Vegas. Before she awakens after their all night ride back, Joe leaves for his mountain cabin to write a play about Susan. In his absence, Joe's old Navy pal talks Susan into studying acting. Finally Joe's play opens with Susan in the cast, and she immediately becomes the talk of Broadway. However, she walks out on the play to go back to Joe, who has since realized how much he really loved her. She has little trouble convincing him that age differences mean nothing when two people love each other.

Genre: Comedy Characters: 2 males, 2 females Scenery: Interior In this play Mr. Levy gives us the blundering and silly ass character of Henry Dewlip, a wealthy young English bachelor. Henry leads a life of ease until he is taken in hand by his apparently prim young secretary, who tries to persuade him to forego all his pleasant vices. "Few things on Broadway are so funny. Not for many a night have I heard such spontaneous laughter in a theater. The audience got up to go with tears in its eyes. Tears that came from laughter." - New York World Telegram

Comedy / 7m, 1f / 2 Ints. 1929. A pretty young girl from a small town in Mississippi has left home to marry a snobbish man from West Orange, NJ, even though she doesn't really love him. At a speakeasy one night they have a falling out. Suddenly she finds herself approached by a suave Italian opera singer whose intentions, he admits, are strictly dishonorable. The two of them repair to his room, where he makes love to her, and dresses her in a pair of pajamas. By now they are both deeply in love; and he, much to her disgust, has a change of heart and decides to sleep someplace else. The next morning the snobbish fiance gets exactly the brush-off he deserves; and the girl and the opera singer, aided by a paternal judge, confess their love for each other and lay plans for their wedding. "It is a quick, witty, and delicately risque little comedy, themeless and altogether gay." - N. Y. Sun

All those people who live fantasy lives up there on the not-so-silver porno screen, what might they be like at home, away from the tacky lighting and cheap interiors of their workaday world? What might they fantasize about? What might they really, really want? One wants to be discovered as a serious actress - well, they all more or less want that; one, a star of gay porno, is actually heterosexual and wants to be recognized as such; another wants a child. At Georgia Lloyd Bernhart's birthday party, which wish, if any, will come true?