Plays
FULL
LENGTH PLAYS
The following plays can be purchased at
dramaticpublishing.com
The Happiness Trilogy consists of three plays about happiness in America, with each play set in a different social class. The plays are:
AUGUSTA
(working class) Two women clean houses for wealthy summer
people on the coast of Maine. When the national cleaning company
brings in a new boss, the women have to prove themselves to the
alternately abusive and seductive Jimmy. The desperate struggle
to survive in a collapsing economy triggers a startling crime which
provides the women with an unexpected ray of hope. BUY
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
(middle class) Annie and Neil place all
their hopes and dreams on their bright and accomplished daughter
Jodi, a high school senior. But Jodi rebels against her parents’ expectations
and sabotages the college admissions process. Horrified that Jodi
might not go to college, Annie decides the only hope is to get
Jodi into her own alma mater. Fortunately , the head of admissions
once had a serious (and unrequited) crush on her. The play explores
exactly how far a mother will go to get her daughter into college. BUY
A VIEW OF THE HARBOR
(upper class) A twisted family saga set in
a decaying mansion on the Maine coast. A young man attempts to
avoid the expectations of his highly privileged family by inventing
a brand new life and falling in love. As Nick struggles to create
the solid, middle class future he has dreamed of, he discovers
that escaping great wealth can be every bit as tricky as clamoring
out of poverty. BUY
Other plays include:
ROUNDING THIRD
The tumultuous journey of two Little League coaches
through an entire season from their first tentative meeting to
the climactic championship game. Don believes in winning at all
costs, Michael thinks the team should just have fun. Out of these
conflicting philosophies, the real issue of the play emerges: How
should we raise our children? BUY
SOMETHING IN THE AIR
A desperate man discovers the last sure-fire
investment left on earth. A contemporary film noir, the play takes
place in a nameless American city where Walker has hit rock bottom.
He encounters a shadowy power broker, Neville, who sets him up
with a can’t-miss
financial opportunity which somehow misses. Walker is torn between
the dark forces that have trapped him and a fragile love affair
that just might be enough to save him. BUY
WONDERFUL WORLD
A close-knit family is shaken to its core when
a minor misunderstanding spirals out of control. An ambiguously
worded dinner invitation triggers hurt feelings and a scorched
earth policy of truth telling. Loyalties shift and relationships
are ruthlessly examined, causing family members to confront forbidden
sexual attraction, long-ago affairs, debilitating illness, and,
finally, a reconfigured family. The play probes the subterranean
forces that nearly tear the family apart, and the mysterious bonds
that ultimately hold it together. BUY
GUN-SHY
A no-holds-barred comedy about marriage, divorce, infidelity,
infertility, incompatibility, eternal love, household accidents,
and diets that no one should ever try. Evie and Carter have divorced
after fifteen years of marriage. Evie is having an affair with
an aggressively insecure coffee salesman, and Duncan is involved
with a very young and annoyingly thin gun-control lobbyist. Through
bad luck and bad planning, the two couples end up snowbound in
Duncan’s New England house. By the end, Duncan and Evie’s
divorce is in a shambles and true love endures. BUY
The following plays can be purchased at
samuelfrench.com
BELOW THE BELT
Three American men work as Checkers for a mysterious
multi-national company in a distant land. Merkin is the power-obsessed
boss, Hanrahan the tortured middle manager and Dobbitt, the disturbingly
eager newcomer. Away from their families and isolated from the
other workers on the industrial compound, they are completely dependent
on each other. However, their need to compete is as strong as their
need to connect, and they guard their territory with baroque, subterranean
strategies. The play is about loneliness and the deep existential
pettiness of men attempting to work together. BUY
THE DOWNSIDE
Set in the marketing department of a New Jersey pharmaceutical
company during an all-or-nothing product launch. The company is
betting its future on a break-through anti-stress medication, Maxolan-3000.
The exhausted marketing team responds to the pressure by back-stabbing,
cheating, naked power grabs, affairs, and a dangerous dalliance
with the drug they’re marketing. BUY
ALONE AT THE BEACH
George, a displaced Manhattanite, inherits his
grandmother’s
beach house in the Hamptons. Trying to expand his circle of friends
and make ends meet financially, George opens his home as a summer
share for a particularly prickly and mismatched group of Manhattan
single people. The play follows the group’s bumpy summer
of hook-ups, love affairs, friendships, hurt feelings, surprise
parties, feuds, and unwanted visits from therapists. BUY
BETTER DAYS
An exhilarating romp to the apocalypse. Set in a dying
mill town in New England, the only employment possibilities are
at a highly organized arson ring which is surgically burning first
all the cars in town, and then the buildings. Ray, a former factory
worker, has a religious experience when a mysterious voice starts
talking to him, revealing one way out of the escalating despair.
The play is about Ray and his followers as they careen between
arson and hope, trying to find their way back to the days when
life was good. BUY