DIANA HOWIE (1945 - )
| Nationality: | American |
| Literary Agent: *: | n/a |
| Email: | |
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Plays by Diana Howie
At Liberty |
| 1st Produced: | Country Playhouse, Houston TX | 2000 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Comedy | Parts: | Male | 7 | Female | 4 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: First production was essentially a workshop with 8 performances in a 50-seat theater. Part of the author's Public Employee Trilogy. | ||||
Synopsis: Susan, the new reference librarian at Ridgeview Library adores helping people find answers to questions, but she refuses to confront problems (such as smelly men or noisy teenagers). As more people arrive, the library grows raucous. The other librarian gets an emergency call from home. He tells Susan her top priority is to restore the quiet. When Bill returns, he finds a scene of total uproar, and he fires Susan on the spot. As she is packing her things, a surprise attack threatens the library and everyone in it, and Susan is finally provoked to confrontation - to protect the place she loves. | ||||
Brightest Light , The |
| 1st Produced: | Country Playhouse, Houston TX | 1998 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Playscripts, Inc | 2004 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | 110-120 min | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 7 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Included in Smith & Kraus anthology Best Stage Scenes of 2005. First production was essentially a workshop with 8 performances in a 50-seat theater. Cast size is a minimum - could go as large as 12m, 5f. | ||||
Synopsis: Alexander Hamilton can hardly wait to make a name for himself in his adopted country, but his eagerness for fame engenders a rashness that his peers find harder and harder to bear. After thirty years of working brilliantly and diligently to create a government for the new United States of America, Alex finds himself ignored - a political has-been. As he has done before, Alex speaks out slanderously, but this time he refuses to apologize, taking the chance to insure his reputation at the risk of death. | ||||
Burette |
| 1st Produced: | Country Playhouse, Houston TX | 1993 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Comedy | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 9 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Written by Diana Howie and Jeanette Wiggins. First production was essentially a workshop with 8 performances in a 50-seat theater. | ||||
Synopsis: Burette Furder at 81 has never lost his zest for life, a fact dramatically pointed out by the slew of women with whom he carries on regularly in the town of Goshen, Texas. Now Burette is about to take Lois as his fifth wife. As a wedding present, Lois demands that she be "his only one." The play's action is the persistence, the waning, and the renewal of Burette Furder's ever-present sex drive. | ||||
Hansel and Gretel |
| 1st Produced: | Children's Theatre Festival, Houston TX | 1999 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Youth Audience | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 4 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: A 50-minute play for ages 4-8. Commissioned by the Children's Theatre Festival, a professional project of the University of Houston School of Theatre. | ||||
Synopsis: Aspects of the traditional tale of children abandoned in the woods have been altered for contemporary audiences. Here the Father insists on going to look for his lost children, and the stepmother, shamed by his remorse, goes with him. The children do not take any valuables when leaving the Witch's house. And the story ends in the forest with the family joyfully reunited. The children learn to think, to survive, to forgive, and to appreciate the family. | ||||
Jackson Square |
| 1st Produced: | Country Playhouse, Houston TX | 2001 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Comedy | Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: First production was essentially a workshop with 8 performances in a 50-seat theater. Cast size is a minimum - 5 of the actors play 18 roles. Part of the author's Public Employee Trilogy. | ||||
Synopsis: National Historic Park Ranger Ceal DiOrio is giving her very first walking tour in New Orleans' old French Quarter, but hustlers interrupt, vying for the group's attention (and dollars). Ceal keeps moving on, but repeatedly must double back to retrieve one of the tour group who was more attracted to hustlers than history. In front of the cathedral, sales pitches reach a fever point and Ceal loses every one in her group to praline and balloon sales, tap dancers, and magicians. Afraid to go back to Headquarters without the group in tow, Ceal collapses in an artist's chair, only to have the Cop demand a cut of her tour business. Is there any way she can keep this job she loves? | ||||
Judy's Friend and Marilyn's Boy |
| 1st Produced: | Country Playhouse, Houston TX | 2003 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 1-2 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Nominated for 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Semi-finalist 1997 Nantucket Theatrical Productions Competition. | ||||
Synopsis: In a bookstore marked for demolition, an old midget arranges what he hopes will stop the wreckers: Judy Garland memorabilia. As Sean creates his homage to Judy, he chafes at how the film industry treated her. Once his mementos are on display, he waits for the wrecking crew. In Act Two, Marilyn Monroe's once-very-attractive son, Jack, comes in to bag any animal remains before bulldozers level the bookstore site. The boss hollers in repeatedly, anxious to finish. Threatened with the loss of even this low-level job, Jack turns away from flirting with us demolition groupies, and spots Sean. | ||||
Jury, The |
| 1st Produced: | Country Playhouse, Houston TX | 2004 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Musical | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: First production was essentially a workshop with 8 performances in a 50-seat theater. Another workshop was performed in 2005 at the Minneapolis Fringe Festival. Ms. Howie is the book writer. Anna Fay Williams is the composer/lyricist. | ||||
Synopsis: It's all the officers can do to corral the unwilling jurors into the jury box. It's a murder trial but the disgruntled jurors are more interested in their jobs, their flirtations, their backaches, and their appetites. In the jury room, several push for a Guilty vote without even talking about the defendant's plea that it was an accidental shooting. After all, there were no witnesses, and the killer clearly fired the gun. What else could there be to talk about? | ||||
Madame Delicieuse |
| 1st Produced: | The Brownstone, Houston TX | 1997 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: A 45-minute play for dinner or dessert theatre. Full-length version available. | ||||
Synopsis: Each evening in New Orleans Clairelise Broussard tucks her two children into bed, reading a story from the book Old Creole Days. But the warmth of this perfect hour is not enough to keep Daddy's absence off their minds. In Scene Two, "The Broussard Family Storyhour" is in its second week of local radio broadcasts, direct from the children's bedroom in New Orleans. When reading some of the letters the program has received, there is one from a producer in Montreal. He would "broadcast them to the world if they would only move to Canada." Could they leave their Louisiana heritage? could they leave Daddy? | ||||
No Cash Value |
| 1st Produced: | Country Playhouse, Houston TX | 1999 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | comedic drama | Comedy | Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: First production was essentially a workshop with 8 performances in a 50-seat theater. | ||||
Synopsis: When Mark Peters graduated high school, his parents gave him one last tank of gas and told him to "get a job." When they proudly arrive to see his first workplace, a sandwich shop, Mark lunges at his dad. Luckily a customer, Joe Winston, is able to contain the boy, and encourages the parents to leave. Joe stays for coffee at the shop, but is thrown out when the boss discovers Joe bathing in the restroom. In the next days, Joe makes a nuisance of himself, yet Mark finds it hard to ignore this exasperating and desperately needy man. | ||||
Street Where I Live, The |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Youth Audience | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: 45-minute play for children ages 5-11 | ||||
Synopsis: Mark, a kid whose Father went off to work early today, is bored to death on this Saturday morning in his suburban neighborhood. In anger, he pulls down the sign for Beckner Street, and it comes apart into two nineteenth century German-Americans, Gustav and Clara Beckner. They are as startled to see Mark as he is to see them. (They are the original owners of the farm that is now this subdivision.) Mark is commandeered by the Beckners to help them find their farmhouse, and while accompanying them, this eight-year-old boy time-travels and finds out that his neighborhood isn't so boring after all. | ||||
Susanna and Will |
| 1st Produced: | scheduled for production | 2007 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: A re-working of the author's one-person play Susanna of Stratford. Semit-finalist in 2001 Texas Educational Theatre Association Contest. | ||||
Synopsis: At her mother's grave with the new Folio in hand, Shakespeare's daughter demands that her mother reconsider Will. Will "appears", telling Susanna to stop harassing Anne. She turns on him (the absent father), and is even more determined to set the family history straight. In Act Two Queen Henrietta is encamped at Susanna's house. It is a time of Civil War. Susanna fears her Folio will be seized and sold to fund the King's army. Desperate and scared, Susanna unwittingly conjures up Will again. Together they find a way she can cope in these very frightening times. | ||||
Susanna of Stratford |
| 1st Produced: | 1990 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Susanna has played in many venues in Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, and Austria (the International Theatre in Vienna). When the actress for whom the play was written lived in Texas, the show was sponsored by the Texas Commission on the Arts and Young Audiences of Houston. | ||||
Synopsis: At forty-years old, Susanna Hall is finally confronting the discrepancies between what Stratford people have told her, and what she has suspected, about her father William Shakespeare. She just received tangible proof (the Folio) that he might not be so bad after all. In Act Two Susanna is sixty years old, and in a wartime emergency as the Queen of England is staying in Susanna's house. The prized folio may be seized. In these two acts, slapstick, pathos, and steely determination combine to bring the sensibilities of both Elizabethan England and the Puritan Revolution to life again. | ||||
Tight Spots |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Meriwether | 1999 | ||
| To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | monologues | One Act | Parts: | Male | 25 | Female | 25 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: A collection of monologues drawn from experiences of contemporary teens, living in both urban/suburban areas and in small towns. Divorce, parents, school, getting in trouble, finding your own way, physical appearance, the opposite sex - all loom large. In each one, the character is anticipating a difficult confrontation, experiencing something frightening or new, or weighing his options in a decisive situation. Each piece takes five minutes or less to perform. As there is this common thread of "being in a jam", a one or two-hour program of related monologues could be presented under the collective title of Tight Spots. | ||||
Top Dogs |
| 1st Produced: | Country Playhouse, Houston TX | 1997 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page | |||
| Genre: | comedic drama | Comedy | Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: First production was essentially a workshop with 8 performances in a 50-seat theater. Cast size is a minimum - could go as large as 8m, 4f. Part of the author's Public Employee Trilogy. Semi-finalist 2002 Trustus Theatre Playwrights Festival. | ||||
Synopsis: Must a modern man keep his armor at the ready? Does a civilized person need doggie skills? You betcha! Even in the field of education, the hallways are full of power plays. Journey with Michael Harrison as he pursues his dream in the schools to "just have a life without having to compete every minute of the day", tangling with top dogs every step of the way. Even when Michael arrives at the pinnacle of his career, as Superintendent of Schools, he comes up against a Mayor who thinks nothing of ruining everyone in town to achieve his own desires. | ||||