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Lee Hall

LEE HALL

  (1966 - )
Nationality:    English
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    Judy Daish Associates Ltd  

Born in Newcastle in 1966. Started writing for Radio in 1995 winning awards for I Luv You Jimmy Spud, Spoonface Steinberg and Blood Sugar which all made the journey to other media, his screenplay for Billy Elliot was nominated for an Oscar and was adapted into a multi-award winning stage musical. He has worked as writer in residence for Live Theatre, Newcastle and the RSC and has adapted many plays for the stage including Goldoni's A Servant to Two Masters (Young Vic/RSC), Brecht's Mr Puntila and his Man Matti (Right Size/ Almeida) and Heijermans' The Good Hope (RNT). He is currently working with Roger Waters on a stage adaptation of The Wall.

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below is a list of Lee Hall's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Adventures Of Pinocchio, The         Aladdin         Barber Of Seville, The         Billy Elliot the Musical         Black on White Shorts         Bollocks         Chain Play, The         Child Of the Snow         Children Of the Rain         Close the Coalhouse Door         Cooking With Elvis         Genie         Good Hope, The         I Love You, Jimmy Spud         Leonce and Lena         Mother Courage and Her Children         Mr Puntilla And His Man Matti         Ne1         Network         Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour         Pinocchio         Pitmen Painters, The         Servant To Two Masters, A         Shakespeare in Love         Spoonface Steinberg         Two's Company         Wittgenstein On Tyne

Adventures Of Pinocchio, The

Synopsis:
Since it first appeared in 1883, Carlo Collodi's classic tale of the mischievous puppet who becomes a boy has enchanted readers of all ages. Now Dramatised by Lee Hall (Billy elliot, Spoonface Steinberg & Cooking with Elvis), Pinocchio's hilarious and treacherous journey through childhood comes alive in the spirit of the Italian commedia dell'arte and good old-fashioned slapstick

Notes:
Original Playwright - Carlo Goldoni

1st Produced:

Organisations:
the CaTheatre Companyh

1st Published:

Music:
-

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Genre:
Childrens Play Youth audience

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  4            Other:  doubling

Further Reference:

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Aladdin

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     2004

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
pantomime

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Barber Of Seville, The

Synopsis:
This sparkling Brit's abroad' production set in the Hotel Seville on the Costa Brava is sure to amuse and entertain. Based on the original play by Beaumarchais but set in 2006, the storyline follows the antics and exploits of Figaro and the Count almaviva to steal the hand of the stunning and scantily clad Rosine from under the nose of her jealous guardian who wants her for himself. Contemporary references, cunning disguises, comic songs and a swimming pool all add to the general confusion of the plot.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Beaumarchais

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Billy Elliot the Musical

Billy Elliot the Musical
miner's son overcomes family bigotry and financial hardship to make it the Royal Ballet School, amidst the bacground of the miner's strike.

Notes:
by Lee Hall with music by elton John, based on screenplay by Hall

1st Produced:
Victoria Palace, London     11 May 2005

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  large cast

Further Reference:

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Black on White Shorts

Synopsis:
An unmissable opportunity to catch some of the most exciting, funniest, life-enhancing short plays written this year, commissioned from the sharpest young playwrights from Cumbria, Northumberland, Durham, Tyneside and Teeside.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Paines Plough

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
short play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Bollocks

Bollocks
contemporary version of the expressionist German playwright ernst Toller's Hinkemann, which he sets in Tyneside

Notes:
Original Playwright - ernst Toller

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Chain Play, The

Synopsis:
One off performance of chain writing to celebrate the National theatre's 25th anniversary. a scene each from all the authors for a performance on one night

Notes:
Written By Terry Johnson, Philip Ridley, Charlotte Jones, Lee Hall, Sebastian Barry, Zinnie Harris, Kevin elyot, Nick Dear, Tanika Gupta, Frank McGuinness, Nick Stafford, Stephen Sondheim, Colin Teevan, Patrick Marber, David Lan, Sarah Daniels, Martin She

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Conceived and commissioned by angus Mackenchnie

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Child Of the Snow

Synopsis:
Written for Radio 4 as art of the Child of our Time scenes in 2000, it's based on research conducted among the arctic Sami people. Young Matti is learning to rd reindeer, like generations fore him. His world is a mix of ancient and modem, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes scary, here shamanism, colourful creation myths and respect for the natural order are encroached upon by Christianity, tourism and technology. - Marlowe, Times

Notes:
Revival

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Short Play One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Children Of the Rain

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Lee Hall - Plays 1, Methuen, London, 2002   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Close the Coalhouse Door

Synopsis:
A hymn of unqualified praise to the miner's circles around a golden wedding party. Lee hall's main contribution is to add a telling coda that links the collapse of the coal industry to the rise of the call centre.

Notes:
Original by Alan Plater - this verion with additional material by Lee Hall. music by Alex Glasgow. Adaptation of stories by Sid Chaplin

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Musical Documentary with additional material by Lee Hall

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  2            Other:  extras

Further Reference:

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Cooking With Elvis

Cooking With Elvis
a domestic play that is both farcical and upsetting. Mam and Jill live together in an uneasy calm. Jill is overweight and a fiendish cook who whips up one exotic dish after another. Her Father (and Mam's husband) is stuck in a wheel chair as the result of a stroke. He can neither speak nor move, but he can hear. He was a famous Elvis impersonator and from time to time steps out of the wheel chair in a series of fantasy scenes to give stirring renditions of some of Elvis's most famous hits. But Mam brings into the house a new young lover whose presence in the house become the source for hilarity and big time trouble. the ending is a deadly one, you can be sure. the play has been compared to the early black farces of Joe Orton

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Edinburgh     1999

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Genie

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Good Hope, The

Good Hope, The
a voyage of the Good Hope is a journey on which the life of an entire community depends. a storm rages, the women and children wait ashore, the boat follows the Greenland catch. . .

Notes:
Original Playwright - Herman Heijermans

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Translation

Parts:
Male:  13            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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I Love You, Jimmy Spud

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Leonce and Lena

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
translation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Mother Courage and Her Children

Mother Courage and Her Children
For Mother Courage, war is strictly business - a chance to trade in boots and brandy. She's determined to profit from the thirty years war, while protecting her family from the bloodshed that surrounds them. This is an updated, playable translation

Notes:
Original Playwright - Bertolt Brecht

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Shared experience

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Mr Puntilla And His Man Matti

Synopsis:
Brecht's Puntila is the Jekyll and Hyde of the class war. When he's plastered this Finnish landowner drips with sugary human kindness; once sober again, he's a tyrannical bastard. . . Lee Hall mixes in-your-face contemporary slang with endearing jokes. . ..It's not often that you can write 'Bertolt Brecht' and 'knockabout fun' in the same sentence - Paul Taylor, Independent

Notes:
Original Playwright - Bertolt Brecht; After stories And A draft by HElla Wuolijoki

1st Produced:
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry     06 Oct 1998

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  14            Female:  7            Other:  children

Further Reference:

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Ne1

Synopsis:
life on Tyneside in the year 2000

Notes:
part of A show of 12 monologues

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Live Theatre Company

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
short monologue

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Network

Network
"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore." Howard Beale, news anchorman, isnt pulling in the viewers. In his final broadcast he unravels live on screen. But when the ratings soar, the network seize on their newfound populist prophet, and Howard becomes the biggest thing on TV.

Notes:
Adapted for the stage by Lee Hall from the Paddy Chayefsky film

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  15            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour

Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour
Catholic School Girls go Wild! The Choir Trip to the Capital goes badly wrong. Funny, Sad and Raucously Rude. A play about singing, sex and sambuca. With music by Handel, Bach and ELO! Adapted from Alan Warner's brilliant novel. Six girls on the cusp of change. Love, lust, pregnancy and death all spiral out of control in a single day. Warner's blisteringly funny dialogue ends in fireworks (literally). A musical play about losing your virginity and finding yourself.

Notes:
Based on The Sopranos by Alan Warner, adapted by Lee Hall

1st Produced:

Organisations:
National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  6            Other:  musicians

Further Reference:
-

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Pinocchio

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Pitmen Painters, The

Synopsis:
the Pitmen Painters asks - as Hall did in Billy elliot - why the Arts seem to belong to a privileged cabal. What makes others - that's to say, most of the population - feel excluded? I hope the Culture Secretaiy has booked a ticket, because the question - the main point he should be tackling -will probably never again be put so buoyantly, in a play that's both deliciously comic and grave. Seventy years ago, in an old army hut in ashington, Northumberland, a group of miners met to talk about art. Most of them had started down the pit when they were 12; none of them had been inside an art gallery; they wanted their visiting university lecturer to explain the secret of a remote world. He did better than that: he got them painting and put that world into their hands. they painted ponies hauling coal, women pumping water for washday, men showing off whippets. 'We made our life into art,' one of them says. 'It don't get better than that.' their work was exhibited in Durham, in London, and later in China; they were for a time celebrated. But who now has heard of them? the Pitmen Painters, based on William Feaver's book, is a terrific piece of historical retrieval, a fine piece of art criticism and a stirring political rebuke. above all it's an immediate, gripping, searching work of art. It doesn't require a code-cracker to make it out: clarity doesn't make it less penetrating, just more lovable. Max Roberts' production strongly conjures up the period - from 1934 to the nation-alisation of the mines in 1947 -without romanticising it. Gary McCann's utility design - austere lighting, fold-up wooden chairs -makes reproductions of the paintings the focus of the action. the assiduous, acerbic miners, suited, pullovered and impressive, don't have the mix-and-match look often seen in TV period Drama. Nor do their personalities. the group were taken up by honourers of working-class culture such as Mass Observation. the lecturer who made his reputation by encouraging his students waxes lyrical, saying their work proves everyone is creative. He's taken to task by one of the miners, who's interested in being assessed for merit rather than effort. You wouldn't, he points out, say that a roomful of paintings by rich people proved that rich people could be creative. and anyway, he goes on, it's not true that everyone can do it: 'Our lass can't paint.'
- Susannah Clapp, Observer

Notes:
inspired by a book by William Feaver

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Faber and Faber, London (2009)
Dramatists Play Service, Inc (2012)   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Servant To Two Masters, A

Synopsis:
is wildly and inventively farcical. More surprisingly still, it also contrives to find passages of deep feeling amid the comic mayhem. . .the tremendously promising Lee Hall, who has come up with a superb new version of the play that brilliantly combines hilarity and darkness. Daily Telegraph

Notes:
Original Playwright - Carlo Goldoni. Translation by Gwenda Pandolfi

1st Produced:

Organisations:
RSC/Young Vic

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Shakespeare in Love

Shakespeare in Love
Plagued by debt, tormented by writer's block and in desperate need of a new hit, promising new playwright Will Shakespeare finds his muse in the form of passionate young noblewoman, Viola De Lesseps. Their forbidden love soon draws everyone, including Queen Elizabeth herself, into the drama and inspires Will to write the greatest love story of all time, Romeo and Juliet.

Notes:
Awardwinning film Shakespeare in Love has been adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. The screenplay was written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  22            Female:  6            Other:  with doubling

Further Reference:

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Spoonface Steinberg

Spoonface Steinberg
queer isolated child who understands everything and nothing of the world but whose skewed insights into her own plight and that of her warring parents contain huge truths

Notes:
broadcast on Radio Four in 1997.

1st Produced:
Barbican, Plymouth     1998

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
BBC Books, London, 1997   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Monologue Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Two's Company

Synopsis:
the man with the machine and the microphone is exactly the kind of ordinary, slightly seedy bloke you'd expect to find peddling a selection of chart hits to drunken punters in downmarket bars. But he has a secret; or, more precisely, two. their names are Karen and Sheila - and he's married to both of them. - Marlowe, Times

Notes:
Revival

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Short Play One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Wittgenstein On Tyne

Synopsis:
Wittgenstein is caught red-handed when working as a hospital porter on Tyneside

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Lee Hall - Plays 1, Methuen, London, 2002   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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