New Play

Welcome to our Featured Play Spotlight. Today we look at Frankenstein vs the Horrendous Goo, a fast-paced, action-packed comedy that middle school actors and their audiences will delight in. A mix-up in the chemistry club creates a horrendous goo that takes over John Dalton School. Students, administrators and even parents get “goo-ed” by this mysterious green slime with a mind of its own. Who is behind the attack of the mutant polymer? Can the students disentangle the clues from what they’ve learned in chemistry, theatre and psychology class? Why is Frankenstein brought in to save the day? And why is he writing love notes? NOTE: Available in both a one-act and a competition-length version! Why did we publish this play? Strong characters. Interesting characters. Three-dimensional characters. Middle school aged characters. FUNNY characters. And of course – Frankenstein. Who doesn’t want an opportunity to play Frankenstein? This is not a childish spin through a monster story. Frankenstein has heart and a penchant for poetry. Add to that some physical acting opportunities (everyone has to “see” the goo and react to it) and you’ve got a winner of a piece. Let’s hear from the author! 1. Why did you write this play?I wrote the play after a conversation with a theatre teacher at a local middle school about what she looks for in plays. She has a very low budget, but great support for her program among teachers, students and parents. She needs plays with simple sets and costumes, and themes that middle schoolers can relate to. At the same time, there’s a trend toward “across the curriculum” activities, so a play about science would be ideal. The idea for a “chemistry play” was born. I wanted the play to include a lot of physical action, a little bit of romance, and above all, fun. 2. Describe the theme in one or two sentences.A mix-up in a chemistry club creates a horrendous goo that brings havoc and hilarity to a middle school. Students work with each other and Frankenstein to restore “normalcy,” discovering themselves and a little romance along the way. 3. What’s the most important visual for you in this play?The students in the chemistry club screaming when they first see Frankenstein’s face in a flashlight beam. I can also see a nice group shot of the entire cast with their golf-clubs and spray bottles (to fend off the monster) posed with Frankenstein and Miss Nullam in a “happy ending.” 4. If you could give one piece of advice for those producing the play, what would it be?Don’t worry too much about technical aspects. Directors can keep it simple and the comedy will still shine through. The play’s emphasis is on letting the student actors have fun in their parts and acting out the slapstick. There are a few sound and light effects, and plenty of props, and these can be basic or elaborate depending on a theatre program’s resources. The props that attach to the costumes, for instance, can be drawn on cardboard and hung from string around the students. Even the sound effects can be made by students themselves. While I was writing the play, the local high school theatre class did a read-through and the students made the phone ringing sound with their voices, like “brrring, brrring” and it even added to the humor. 5. Why is this play great for student performers?The play takes place in a middle school, so most of the characters are students the actors can relate to: the basketball star, the science nerd, the cute theatre student. The exceptions are fun characters to play: Frankenstein, the obnoxious attendance officer, the over- involved parent. This play gives the actors the chance to work on their physical comedy skills, like miming being taken over by slime, or being frightened by Frankenstein. I think the characters are strong, too, so that student actors will enjoy developing their parts to bring out the differences between the characters. I also tried to balance the lines between the leads to make it accessible to school programs putting together performances in a limited time frame. My aim was to create a play that fills a need across a spectrum of programs, from short-term after school programs to full-semester theatre classes. Directors can also choose between the full-length version and the competition length to suit their program’s needs.

Welcome to our Featured Play Spotlight. Today we look The Perils of Modern Education, by Matthew Webster, of which there are many! From standardized theatre tests that call for an exact number of steps in a scene, to trying to eat green in the cafeteria, to dealing with caffeine withdrawal, to giving Shakespeare advice on his college application essay. That’s right. Shakespeare. Spoiler alert, Willy is not college material. A comedic romp through the stresses and struggles of making it through the school day. Gender flexible casting, doubling possibilities, and easy to stage. Why did we publish this play? Funny. Gender flexible casting. Funny. Doubling possibilities. Funny. Easy to stage. Funny. Did we mention the play was funny. The standardized theatre test is one of the best comedic scenes and it would be fantastic in an ensemble competition setting. The stresses and struggles of making it through the school day are too numerous to mention and it’s important to be able to laugh at them. This play does that to the moon and back again. Let’s hear from the author! 1. Why did you write this play? I had written a number of short comic scenes for different performances over the years and it occurred to me that they might be assembled into a good vignette-style script. At the same time I was working with my proficient and advanced theatre students trying to decide on a script to produce for a class project. It didn’t take long to put those dots together! In the end I chose some of my strongest scenes, adapted them for a high school environment, wrote a series of transition scenes that humorously moved the action forward and – Viola! The Perils of Modern Education was born! 2. Describe the theme in one or two sentences. The absurdity that students (and some teachers!) face in a modern school setting. From caffeine addiction, to college application essays, to the scourge of standardized tests, the school day is fraught with perils. 3. What’s the most important visual for you in this play? I would have to say it’s the moment when Juliet is trying to carry her balcony around after Romeo sprains his groin. It creates a great visual of the absurd lengths students are expected to go in order to pass a standardized test. 4. If you could give one piece of advice for those producing the play, what would it be? Play the truth of the scenes. No matter how twisted or absurd, there is, sadly, a lot of truth in the challenges these characters are facing. Plus comedy is funnier when it is played truthfully. 5. Why is this play great for student performers? Because there are a lot of interesting, unique characters for them to tackle! Some of the stand-out characters include the Silent Student (a large non-speaking role), a teenaged William Shakespeare, a girl in the throes of caffeine withdrawal, and a lunch lady who is a total Fangirl. Plus it gives a voice to frustrated, jaded, well meaning students everywhere! 6. What advice would you give to anyone thinking about performing this play online? Much of the dialogue of this play translates quite well to an online setting. Some of the actions or specific references would have to be adapted to conform to a virtual performance, but directors and performers have my permission to make those adjustments for their production. I would love to see the creative ways they make it work!

Welcome to our Featured Play Spotlight. Today we look at the three races of discovery of three girls named Summer in the play Breathless by Wendy-Marie Martin. Summer Adams is looking for love in all the wrong places. Summer Robertson is hanging on through her battle with cancer. And Summer Davis refuses to lose, even at the expense of her body and her friends. If we just breathe, where will we go? Will we crash or will we fly? Why did we publish this play? Breathless is not only a beautiful character piece, it’s a mature piece. The characters deal with death, the future and sex. It’s important that we have mature pieces in our catalogue that are specifically written for teen aged performers. That’s a tough balance and Wendy-Marie hits it out of the park. Not only does the play deal with challenging subject matter it is a focused theatrical experience. The ensemble creates a different breathing sound for each specific subject matter. Lastly, great parts for girls! You don’t have to pick just one of your amazing students for the lead, here we have three featured female character roles. All challenging. All well-thought out. All interesting to play. Let’s hear from the author! 1. Why did you write this play? I wrote Breathless because I wanted to create a play that explored the world from the perspective of young women, and showed their strength in dealing with different situations. The idea actually happened while I was on my morning run. My phone died, and along with it my music, and all I could hear for the rest of my run was my breath. My brain started thinking of different situations where breath or breathing was important and the three Summers popped in. We spent the rest of my run together and by the time I got home, I was ready to outline the first draft. 2. Describe the theme in one or two sentences. The theme is the challenge young women have navigating the transition from girlhood to womanhood. They’re all in a race, in a sense. Summer Davis, literally trying to win the Footlocker Championship, while Summer Roberts races against death and Summer Adams is trying to beat her developing libido. 3. What’s the most important visual for you in this play? Actually I think the breath is the most important part of this play. It grounds each of the young women in their situation and creates an audio landscape that paints the world of each character. If I were to choose a visual moment, I think the last image of Summer Davis potentially winning the Footlocker race is a strong image. Although I think finding a way to visually represent the women as three parts of a whole would be cool, too. At first I imagined three separate playing spaces where they were in silhouette when not in action, but then realized how limiting this is to a director. But I believe beginning the play with the images of the three Summers would be a strong visual communication. 4. If you could give one piece of advice for those producing the play, what would it be? Explore the role of breath in the play. The pace is quick and it should flow, pausing only for the moment Summer Roberts dies, but there are places to use the breathing transitions in different ways to tell the story of the Summers’ journey. I kept the staging of the play very simple to allow creative space for a director, and I hope they will get creative in how they choose to tell the story physically. 5. Why is this play great for student performers? Breathless features real characters in heightened situations, so it give young actors an opportunity to do realistic, layered character development while getting creative about the physical life of their world. I believe the themes in the play are relatable for young actors and with emotional challenges for each situation.

This week we spread the love for Anonymous, a wonderful play by… well, an anonymous author. Recorded live against a stark white wall in an anonymous location.