Books £7.00 per copy - Rights £40 per night
Two brothers were equally talented. One left home to become a successful screenwriter while the other, a gifted musician, stayed home to look after the ageing father. The play opens with the writer returning to the sickbed of his father who is now comatose and suffering from PVS. They are torn between their love for him and the fact that he's unlikely to improve and they face an impossible decision of what to do with him - then one of them suggests that perhaps they should switch off the system that is keeping him alive.
Chosen from 150 entries for the final round of the 2,000 Pittsburgh New Play Festival.
ISBN 1-872758-02-9 Books £7.00 Rights £40 per night
Walter Midgley is an inoffensive little clerk in a building company who one day decides, against his wife's wishes, to give up work to concentrate on his hobbies of keeping chickens and listening to amateur radio. He becomes the laughing stock of the neighbourhood when he tells everyone that he thinks he's received the first signals from outer space ... however they soon stop laughing when the London boffins decide he might be right but they are so slow in replying that Walter decides to build his own rocket to send up examples of life on earth. What is he going to use as rocket fuel ? Gas from the chicken manure of course !
First performed by Burton Joyce Players, Nottingham on 27th April 2006 and winner of several awards in 2006 Notts Play of the Year Competition
Books £7.00 Rights £40 per night
Set in a traffic wardens office in a large UK city, the play sees the uproarious first day at work for a new girl who is taught the realities of what it means to be a warden. One of the characters is a shy pigeon lover on the edge of a nervous breakdown who, instead of giving out tickets, spends her time feeding the pigeons. In the second act they're all told to stay in to be interviewed for a senior's job so while they're waiting they hold an impromptu birthday party for the pigeon lover. A present is left over for her at the end which when given will send her over the edge - but what's in the box and who gave it ?
First peformed by Criterion Players, Coventry - Contact Pete Wood on 02476-303001
Books £7.00 Rights £40 per night
Harry Moss is an ex-teacher who is being taken to a residential hospice by his long-suffering wife. He is extremely bitter towards her and the staff until one day a frisbee comes over the wall from the Probation Hostel next door closely followed by a sixteen year-old female tearaway. A relationship develops between him and the girl - he teaches her to read and she, in turn, brings him happiness in his darkest hour.
First performed by The Mapperley Mavericks - Contact Alan on 0115-9241089
Books £7.00 - Rights £40 per night
An isolated French village sleeps in the summer sun near the end of the Second World War. The inhabitants are hardly aware that there's a war going on until a group of German soldiers arrive. Amongst them is a 16yr old boy soldier who has just joined up and isn't aware of his unit's past history. Against the orders of his superiors, he meets a local girl and falls in love.
At the start of the play the control of the village rests with the local mayor who owns of most of the local businesses but when one of the soldiers is found dead, the senior German Officer takes over, determined to find the offender. The old priest is questioned but won't divulge what has been said in the confessional. He is tortured without success. In order to loosen their tongues the senior officer finally decides to seize all the food in the village but things start to go badly wrong when the people become so hungry that they begin to revert to their animal nature in order to survive.
The boy soldier finally realises the sadistic nature of the work that his unit does but by then he too is unable to escape and at the end of the play he is told to attend for duty at the church where the starving villagers, including his beloved, are being herded in. He has to decide whether to do the one thing in life that he doesn't want to do.
The plot is a combination of two events that actually occurred, one in France and the other in Russia and will hopefully make your audience think about the power of love and the depths to which humans beings can descend when one group of people has total and unquestionable control over others.
Books £7 each Rights £40 per night
The year is 1929, the place the American Dustbowl. Joe MacDonald is a poor farmer trying to survive with his wife Mattie, his daughter Becky, ten year old Billy and Peewee, their youngest. Billy's playmate is Jeremiah, whose wealthy pa owns most things in town including the Macdonalds farm and to whom they are constantly in debt for the rent.
One day the kids are playing baseball when they discover a black hobo hiding in the woodshed. Joe is about to shoot him when they find out that he doesn't have a tongue. Joe wants to send him on his way but Mattie persuades Joe to take him in.
Peewee is constantly climbing a nearby tree to try and look for the Promised Land of California and one day he falls, leaving him paralysed and wheelchair-bound. On the doctor's advice, Joe thinks of an idea to encourage Peewee to get better - he'll build him a tree house. But the end result is far too simple and has no effect until Abe shows Joe a quote from the Bible - "My father's house has many rooms" ... so together they build the biggest tree house that anyone has ever seen. Peewee starts to improve and the sightseeers begin to arrive from far and wide. On seeing this, Jeremiah's father spots the business potential and decides to form a company and charge people to view the tree house but things take a turn for the worse when Abe is accused of a sexual assault.
£7.00 each Rights £40 per night
A mischievous grandfather brings an old slide projector to the local hall to try and get them to show his slides but they have other plans and are about to put on their musical show when there is a sudden electricty cut and they have to beg him to help them with some light. He agress if they will let him show his slides.
