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Mary Orr
Be Your Age
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| Company |
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Synopsis:
Archibald K. Holly is a widower with three daughters and a problem. Gwendolyn, his middle daughter, wires that she is jilting the boy next door for a new beau from college and that she is bringing him home. The potential groom is not a young man as expected, but Eliot Spurgeon, a suave, sophisticated professor as old as Mr. Holly himself. But the fun really begins when Mr. Holly realises that Eliot is an old fraternity brother of his, famous as the campus wolf. Holly's determination to break up this May-December infatuation and get his stubborn daughter to marry the more suitable young man her own age, leads to a crescendo of comic situations.
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| First Produced |
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| First Published |
Dramatist Play Service, NY
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| Genre |
Romantic Comedy
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| Parts |
Male
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5
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| Female
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6
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| Other
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Notes
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written by Reginald Denham and Mary Orr
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Mary Orr
Dark Hammock
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Synopsis:
In a remote part of Florida Coral Platt, a sinister woman has married a man considerably older than she. For reasons sufficient to her, she wants him out of the way and plans an ingenious though slow murder by poison. She has succeeded in making it seem that Marvin is dying through natural causes. However, she is forced unexpectedly to play hostess to two women who have come to Florida. The women stay longer than they planned because they have begun to suspect what Coral is up to. In a series of exciting scenes they discover just what is going on and prevent Marvin's death.
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| First Produced |
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| First Published |
Dramatist Play Service, NY
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| Genre |
Melodrama
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| Parts |
Male
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6
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| Female |
4
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| Other |
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Notes
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written by Reginald Denham and Mary Orr
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Mary Orr
Dead Giveaway
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Synopsis:
The setting is the living room of a boarded-up hunting lodge in rural Ohio, the secret hideaway of a prominent U.S. Senator. A young couple, on the run after having accidentally killed a gas station attendant during a robbery, break into the lodge to hide outonly to be discovered by the Senator when he arrives for a surreptitious tryst with another man's wife. Thereafter the plot begins to twist and turn ingeniously as the young couple, aware that they have caught the Senator in a compromising situation, blackmail him for $5,000only to have the tables turned on them when the Senator discovers the body which they have hidden in the lodge and realizes that the peril of discovery is as great for them as for him. Meanwhile his new lady friend, knowing that the Senator has presidential aspirations, decides to exploit his predicament for her own advantage. Needless to say the complications multiply steadily as the various protagonists try to outwit each other, leading, in the end, to an unexpected but ironically fitting denouement.
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| First Produced |
Apple Corps Theatre, NY
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| First Published |
Dramatist Play Service, NY
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| Genre |
Suspense
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| Parts |
Male
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5
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| Female |
4
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| Other |
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Notes
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written by Reginald Denham and Mary Orr
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Mary Orr
Grass Widows
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Synopsis:
The scene is a comfortable apartment on lower Fifth Avenue, in New York City, which is shared by two divorcees. They are awaiting the arrival of a third "bachelor lady" to join them in dividing their living expenses. Their new roommate turns out to be a recent divorcee from Texas, formerly married to a rich oil man, and a bit unsettled by another divorcee who lives across the halla Ph.D. who also happens to be not quite white in skin color. But the four soon hit it off well, and their confidences to each other reveal the sometimes sad, sometimes funny occurrences which have brought them to the present situation. Tension mounts with the unexpected visit of the son of one divorcee and the ex-husband of another, but ultimately the action of the play comes to bear on the central problem which confronts them all: the need to learn from past mistakes, and to replace the loneliness and frustration of their present existence with something stronger and more solid than what they had before.
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| First Produced |
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| First Published |
Dramatist Play Service, NY
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| Genre |
Comedy Drama
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| Parts |
Male
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2
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| Female |
4
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| Other |
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Notes
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Mary Orr
Minor Murder
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Synopsis:
The scene is a remote ranch in the Australian outback, where Shirley, a widow, lives with her teenage daughter, Margaret. Shirley has become disturbed by the intense relationship that has grown between Margaret and her friend, Carla, the child of her late foreman, who Shirley took in after her parents' death. To eliminate Carla's influence over Margaret, Shirley decides to send her daughter to boarding school and Carla to live with relatives. This plan leaves the girls devastated. Their bond is even more unhealthy than anyone suspected, and to avoid separation the girls coolly arrange to murder Shirley, charting each step so that it will appear to be an accident. At first, it is accepted by all, including Shirley's best friend, Patricia, and her attorney, Claude. But then, with growing horror the two grown-ups unearth small inconsistencies. To get at the truth, Patricia and Claude devise a strategy as clever as the crime itself, and painstakingly stalk their quarry, who outwit them at every turn until, in the final, chilling moments of the play, an ironic twist of fate causes them to become the means of their own undoing.
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| First Produced |
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| First Published |
1967 French, London
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| Genre |
Murder
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| Parts |
Male
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3
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| Female |
5
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| Other |
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Notes
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written by Reginald Denham and Mary Orr
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Mary Orr
RoomMates
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Synopsis:
Two middle-aged women, Muriel and Doris, meet by chance on a bench in New York's Central Park. They begin a conversation mostly because Doris, an executive on her lunch hour, is intrigued by the small poodle carried by Murielwhich turns out to be a stuffed toy, rather than a real animal. Doris, who has just been jilted by her boyfriend, allows that she is looking for a new apartment, and Muriel, admitting that her "dog" is an attempt to relieve the loneliness which she has felt since her husband divorced her, tells her new "friend" about the sexy business associate (a Goldie Hawn "look-alike") who stole away her husband's affections. She also offers Doris a share in her own very commodious apartment but Doris, fearing that they might have little in common, declines the invitation. But then, as further confidences are exchanged, it develops, to their mutual surprise, that Doris' ex-boyfriend and Muriel's ex-husband are one and the same man, and that the rather shy, dumpy Doris is the vaunted "sex goddess" for whom he left his wife! Realizing that they are both equal victims of the same lying, scheming two-timer creates an instant bond between the two women, so Doris, after second thought, decides to accept Muriel's offer after alland, as the play ends, off they go as roommates-to-be!
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| First Produced |
Off-Off-Broadway, in New York City
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| First Published |
Dramatist Play Service, NY
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| Genre |
1 Act Comedy Drama
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| Parts |
Male
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| Female |
2
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| Other |
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Notes
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Mary Orr
Wallflower
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Synopsis:
Jessamine Linnett and her husband, Andrew, are typical Americans. Each has a daughter from a former marriage. The story begins with the two girls' return from college. Jackie, Andrew's daughter, and Joy, Jessamine's, are fond of each other. But Joy's attractiveness runs to beauty so apparent that Jackie's charm is overshadowed. Jackie is taken aback with the realization that her one suitor, Warren, is dazzled by Joy. When Jackie gets no bid to the dance there follow riotous attempts to secure an escort for her, resulting in nothing more than funny arguments between Jessamine and Andrew over their respective daughters, and their communication with each other only through the medium of both girls. Jackie decided to take matters into her own hands when Warren, who has proposed to Joy and been turned down, turns to her for solace. Jackie's way of getting her man is drastic, but entirely successful.
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| First Produced |
1944
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| First Published |
Dramatist Play Service, NY
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| Genre |
Comedy
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| Parts |
Male
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8
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| Female |
7
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| Other |
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Notes
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written by Reginald Denham and Mary Orr
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Mary Orr
Wisdom Of Eve, The
| | Company |
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Synopsis:
Adapted from the story by Mary Orr, on which the film All About Eve and the hit musical APPLAUSE were based. An engrossing and revealing "inside" story of life in New York's theatre world, told in terms of an unscrupulous ingenue's rise to Broadway stardom. When we first meet Eve Harrington she is standing in the rain by the stage door of the theatre in which the renowned Margo Crane is starring in her latest long-run hit. Waiting for a glimpse of her professed idol she accosts Karen Roberts, Margo's good friend and the wife of the playwright, Lloyd Roberts, and inveigles an invitation to meet the great actress herself. The meeting leads to unexpected opportunity as Margo, struck with Eve's "sincerity," takes her on as a personal secretary. Before long Eve has done such a fine job of straightening out the clutter of Margo's personal affairs that Margo, while she had always jealously resisted the engagement of an understudy for her own role, allows Eve to have the assignment. Then Eve begins to move ahead in earnest, her true character emerging as she lies, cheats and blackmails her way to Broadway stardomand then a Hollywood careerleaving the wreckage of her friends' trust behind her. As the play ends there are rumors that Eve has found a new "friend," this time a movie tycoon, so it appears that perhaps we have not, for the moment, heard all there is to tell about Eve.
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| First Produced |
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| First Published |
Dramatist Play Service, NY
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| Genre |
Drama
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| Parts |
Male
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5
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| Female |
5
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| Other |
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Notes
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Mary Orr
Women Must Weep
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Synopsis:
After years of hardship and suffering the War Between the States is nearing its end and while the Southern women, like their men at the front, are reluctant to admit it, the fate of the Confederacy grows progressively blacker. Waiting hopefully for the good news of victories which will never be, a group of ladies meets at the Maryland home of Mrs. Agatha Lindsey to roll bandages for the Southern wounded. With Mrs. Lindsey, whose son Dick is serving under General Longstreet, are her daughter-in-law, Jane, and Mrs. Carter, a northern-born lady whose sympathies are held in question by the others. Mrs. Carter is also an outspoken individualist, a divorcee and, according to local gossip, the lover of the absent Dick Lindsey. As the women proceed with their work the tension between Jane Lindsey and her supposed rival mounts. Then news arrives from the fronta list of casualties from the crucial battle at Gettysburg. Dick Lindsey's name is among those who will not return. Numbed by the shock of this disclosure Mrs. Carter admits that while she did indeed love Dick her feelings were never reciprocated, and Jane is given the consolation of knowing that the husband she lost was true to her. As the two women comfort each other we sense not only a personal reconciliation but also a hint of the greater reunification that time and the national spirit will eventually effect
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| First Produced |
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| First Published |
Dramatist Play Service, NY
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| Genre |
1 Act Drama
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| Parts |
Male
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| Female |
7
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| Other |
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Notes
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Mary Orr
Women Must Work
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Synopsis:
Marcella Manners has built her fashion business into one of the most successful and exclusive in New York. But, as the play begins, she is distressed by a recurring series of robberies, all committed in such a way that only an "insider" could be responsible. To avoid unwanted publicity Miss Manners engages a private detective, Kitty Hawke, to track down the culprit. Posing as an efficiency expert Kitty circulates throughout the store and eventually narrows her surveillance down to two young models, Betty McCleary and Eileen Stuart. Then Betty is caught red-handed with a supposedly stolen dress. But, as the audience is already aware, the real thief is still at largeMiss Manners' trusted, long-time associate and friend, Audrey Ames. In a final, dramatic confrontation, Audrey, breaking down, admits that years of accumulated jealousy and frustration had led her to act as she did. As the play ends all are sadder but wiser and, to ease the course of true love, Betty is allowed to borrow the dress that, only moments before, had induced such doubts of her own honesty.
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| First Produced |
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| First Published |
Dramatist Play Service, NY
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| Genre |
1 Act Drama
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| Parts |
Male
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| Female |
11
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| Other |
plus numerous nonspeaking female parts
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Notes
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Mary Orr
Women Still Weep
| | Company |
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Synopsis:
The play takes place during the Vietnam conflict, revealing the descendants of the ladies who figured in the first play. The characters in the second play are played by the same actresses who portrayed their forebears in the first, and the setting, while updated, is also the same. Again the conflict centers on the fact that the men of the family are off at war, but this time the circumstances are different: The son of the family is supposedly in Vietnam; but his sister is an active war protester, and his wife is carrying on with other men. The family is visited by a descendant of Catherine Carter (who played a prominent part in the first play) and who has unearthed diaries which yield some unsettling revelations about the Lindsey family and its links to the past. In the end, however, the family is again drawn together by tragedy, as Anne, the sister, is killed in an anti-war demonstration, and the young wife, after revealing that her husband is not in Vietnam after all, goes off to Canada to stand by him as he protests the war through his voluntary exile
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| First Produced |
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| First Published |
Dramatist Play Service, NY
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| Genre |
1 Act Drama
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| Parts |
Male
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| Female |
7
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| Other |
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Notes
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