n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

-

-

-

DAW Publications

-

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

Comedy

One Act

6

3

extras

-

The play is a mini-sequel to Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Nick Bottom, still partly in thrall to his experiences in the wood, has become a travelling play actor, leading a ragbag company gathered up over the years on the road. Now, ten years later, he returns to Athens. His career has been neither a financial nor a dramatic success, and, after yet another disaster, he and his players find themselves sheltering in the same woodland glade of the Pyramus rehearsals ten years earlier. The action of the play concerns Titania's making amends for the turmoil she has caused to Bottom's life. Winner of the Geoffrey Whitworth Trophy for Best Original Script 2002.

-

-

-

DAW Publications

-

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

-

One Act

-

-

-

-

Adam Sparrow attends an audition for Garrick's Drury Lane company at the beginning of a new season. He meets two of the backstage staff, Mrs Trundle and Tom Grout, then Hannah Moody, also hoping for an audition, who immediately catches at his heart, and seemingly returns his feelings. Dr Johnson arrives. Finding Garrick is indisposed after too riotous an evening, he indulges himself by conducting his own audition, a scene from Romeo and Juliet. But this brings ructions, first from Peg Woffington, one of the Lane's established actresses and Garrick's mistress, then from Garrick himself. Hannah, deserting Adam, succeeds in joining the company, but Adam loses both his new love and his chance of employment. Johnson sympathises but can do nothing. Only the sonnet that Adam brought with him as his audition piece can echo his feelings in the end.

-

-

-

DAW Publications

-

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

Play

One Act

7

3

-

-

In 1388, a group of Barons, jealous of the power of lesser men close to the young King Richard II, brought appeals of treason against them in Parliament. A number were taken and executed, including Sir Simon Burley, and many others who had held minor roles in the King's service, including Chaucer himself, feared for their lives. That much is history. This play supposes a final meeting between Burley and Chaucer at the Hope Inn in Canterbury, among a haphazard collection of pilgrims and local characters who witness Burley's capture ad then improvise a rescue to save Chaucer from arrest by the King's Marshal. And from these events emerge - with prompting - the germ of the idea that was to grow into the Canterbury Tales. *NEW TITLE*

-

-

-

DAW Publications

-

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

Comedy

One Act

5

4

-

-

Pantalone and his Commedia dell'Arte players are touring their new Comedy of a Summer Season. Funds are low and the standard of performance perhaps lower still, though we will never see the play to judge for ourselves. Nor will we know them other than by their character names. But the tangled events of the afternoon are a living Commedia of deception, quarrels and courtship, echoing the mannered style of the time, until the denouement of reality paints a darker shade both to their day and to the drama. *NEW TITLE*

-

-

-

DAW Publications

-

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

Play

One Act

4

2

-

-

The play supposes a fold or overlap in time between a spring afternoon in our present world and Will Shakespeare's last days in his garden at New Place. Bartholomew Green and Thomas Kemp are two aged actors, earning a pittance as fringe performers in a Shakespeare birthday festival. They are joined by Ann Barker, a journalist with ambitions, and her photographer fiancé Nick Cooper. Their present day concerns are interwoven with those of a past age, when Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton arrive from London to visit an ailing Shakespeare, cared for by Anne his wife. Thus we have a playwright at the end of his journey, his work done but questions still unanswered, and a young woman at the beginning of hers, with her own doubts, looking for guidance. Green and Kemp find themselves acting as links between the two worlds, and as voices of resolution in both. Their afternoon is a gentle comedy of frustrations, puzzlement within time's overlap, and finally a decision at their own journey's end. *NEW TITLE*