Eldridge Plays & Musicals


Eldridge Plays & Musicals
   Address:
PO Box 14367, Tallahassee, FL 32317
   Email:
   Website:
   Telephone:
1-800-HI-STAGE
   Fax:
1-800-453-5179

Plays by Eldridge Plays & Musicals

BURTON BUMGARNER
West Wing Follies
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
2006
Genre:
two acts, 90 min
Comedy
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
flexible cast 12
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
Here is a hysterical, non-partisan look at our fearless (and not so fearless) U.S. Presidents, their achievements, their failures, and their idiosyncrasies. This play offers a flexible, kazoo-playing cast the opportunity to portray history as never before! From newscasts, game shows, reality TV, talk shows, beach movies, the Grand Ol' Opry, and Shakespeare soliloquies, a cast of 12 actors presents all of the United States Presidents in twenty brief scenes. Former Presidents interview for jobs, advertise used cars, head to Fort Lauderdale for spring break, and play a game called Gilded-Age Jeopardy. James Buchanan is interrogated by Law and Order type cops; Woodrow Wilson sings a ballad about his attempt to start the League of Nations; and Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft are elementary school students hauled into the principal's office for unruly behavior. This script is non-partisan and G rated. Performance time about 90 minutes.
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PAT COOK
Live Onstage!
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
2006
Genre:
-
One Act
Parts:
Male
4
Female
4
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
Professor Featherflowers comes on stage and begins her lecture, How to Write a Play. You're snoring already, right? That's exactly what the Stage Manager is worried about when he peeks through the curtain and tells the Professor to jazz it up, that she needs to open with a joke. The professor then tells him she did. You see, she says, You don't really exist  I made you up. YOU are my opening joke! Needless to say, he doesn't believe her and calls for his sound person, Shirley, to come out. The Professor then tells them both that they aren't real and simply characters she invented for to demonstrate her speech. From there on out it's all a question of what is real and what isn't as they are then joined by the Director, a Southern Belle, a Shakespearean Lord and a tap-dancing chicken. Also, a silent woman keeps bringing out props as the Professor makes notes in her speech. Is the Professor making all this up? If so, has she lost control of her characters? Why won't the woman speak? What is real and what isn't? This farcical existential spoof is full of deeper meanings. At least, that's what the Director believes. Maybe we all represent the planets? he questions. Maybe we're the Great Lakes! yells Shirley, And you're Erie!
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BRADLEY HAYWARD
Da Vinci Cold, The
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
2005
Genre:
40-45 min play
One Act
Parts:
Male
4
Female
5
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
Laura has carefully plotted a day off school in order to find out the meaning of life. Playing hooky, along with her ditzy best friend, she has concocted a foolproof plan to get to the bottom of things. Chaos ensues when her attempts to leave the house are foiled by a lazy cable guy, a rapper who's come to install high-speed internet, a disapproving Mary Kay consultant, a devious Girl Scout selling cookies, and an insecure FedEx driver. It seems all is lost until Laura's older brother arrives with a man claiming to be Leonardo Da Vinci. He, too, knows the secret ... but can he trust the wacky group of strangers to keep it quiet?
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EDDIE MCPHERSON
Cow Trippers, The
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
2006
Genre:
two acts, 90 min
Comedy
Parts:
Male
7
Female
10
Parts Other:
1 flexible, extras possible
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
Mrs. Brown has moved to Hoke's Bluff to study rural school life. She's used to schools equipped with state-of-the-art computer labs and up-to-date technology. At Hoke's Bluff, however, high tech is an intercom system consisting of an aluminum can with a piece of string attached. On the first day of school, the sheriff shows up looking for leads to cow-tipping pranks. Her study of these people may be more than she bargained for. But as relationships are built, Mrs. Brown not only teaches her students a few lessons, but she learns a few of her own. And when Clyde, the school janitor, has eyes for her, she also discovers that there's more on these people's minds than just cow tipping.
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PHIL OLSON
KOLD Radio, Whitefish Bay
1st Produced:
Los Angeles, California
1997
Company:
-
1st Published:
2006
Genre:
-
Comedy
Parts:
Male
5
Female
4
Parts Other:
1g 1m voice
Notes:
Winner of the Gilmore Creek Playwright Competition; finalist in the prestigious Chesterfield Writer's Project, and a Pick of the Week in the LA Weekly.
Synopsis:
KOLD Radio is located in a corner of Carl and Lena's Place for Beer in a small Minnesota town near the Canadian border. Lars Knudsen is the host of a radio show called Crappie Talk, devoted entirely to ice fishing for crappies. Because it is a somewhat narrow subject, Lars has no listeners, so he loses his only advertiser, Ole's Bait Mart and Deer Petting Farm. Martha Bjorklund, Lars' unrequited love interest, hosts Book Beat. She has all the listeners, and all the advertisers. Lars has issues with Martha ever since she beat him in the 50-yard dash in 6th grade. Lars' jealousy toward Martha multiplies when a fish-out-of-water Brooklyn Italian comes to Whitefish Bay, buys the radio station, promotes Martha and fires Lars. Lars has his work cut out for him. He needs his job, he needs his dignity, but most important, he needs Martha.
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JAMES RAYFIELD
Ten Actors In Search Of A Cell phone
1st Produced:
Blake High School for the Arts, Tampa, FL
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
2006
Genre:
comedy
One Act
Parts:
Male
4
Female
6
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
Just as the stage manager is getting ready to call Places for the start of the school's play, everything comes to a screeching halt. Brandy has discovered that her cell phone is missing and refuses to go on until she finds it. The other actors try to help her re-create her every move to find the exact moment the phone was misplaced, and what follows is not only the quest for a cell phone but a trip through a tangle of who said what to whom. From secret boyfriends, pet nicknames, and the confusion between Tony the boy to Toni the girl, we get a very funny look at how gossip gets started and where it goes. Does everyone learn a lesson? Heard any good gossip lately?
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ERIC SENNE
Enter Fairy Godmother
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
2006
Genre:
-
One Act
Parts:
Male
9
Female
9
Parts Other:
8 flexible, doubling possible
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
Seeking comfort from her miserable life and an easy ticket to the prince's ball, our heroine Ashenputtel cries out for her Fairy Godmother. The magical matriarch, who arrives, however, is a no-nonsense narrator who works her magic by giving lesser-known folktales a playful yet empowering twist. This Fairy Godmother offers no magical pumpkin carriages, but rather spins three separate tales of women from around the world who make their own happily ever after. Story one, from Ecuador, is The Search for the Magic Lake, which features a peasant girl who must boldly go where many men have gone before and failed: on a quest to draw healing water from the magic lake. Clever Manka, a tale from the former Czechoslovakia, pits a keen peasant girl against a domineering political official who forbids his son to marry her. In The Wife's Portrait a tale from Japan, a woman with a large nose has herself painted as a knock-out model in a portrait to snare a dashing but superficial prince. Will she drown in their combined shallowness, or accept the hand of a humble farmer who loves her with or without her extreme makeover.
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CRAIG SODARO
Nifty-Fifties Maltshop Murder, The
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
2006
Genre:
mystery comedy
Mystery
Parts:
Male
6
Female
14
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
A quintessential 1950s mom, June Seevers, and her committee are working hard to win the Small Town USA title and a cash prize for their town of Sunnydale. The judges are due in two days to verify that it is, indeed, an All-American, apple pie-eating, crime-free hamlet. Did we say crime free? Then what about the mysterious customer at the Malt Shop who falls over dead during the committee's final meeting? It looks like he was poisoned, and the victim's sister may be a committee member! But who? With the help of her family, the prissy librarian, and even the goofy deputy sheriff, June manages to unmask the killer, but not before the killer tries to outsmart - and silence the amateur sleuth.
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R REX STEPHENSON
Just So Stories
1st Produced:
Blue Ridge Dinner Teatre, Ferrum, Virginia
2005
Company:
-
1st Published:
2007
Genre:
-
Musical
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
min 14 people
Notes:
adaptation and lyrics by R Rex Stephenson; music and additional lyrics by Emily Rose Tucker; based on the book by Rudyard Kipling
Synopsis:
Rudyard Kipling's dramatic and entertaining stories about how the Camel got his hump, how the Elephant got his nose, how the Whale got his spout, and other richly woven tales come to life in this engaging musical. Mr. and Mrs. Kipling and their two bubbly yet unpretentious daughters serve as narrators. The story weaves from animal tales to the final human one, how Manor in this case an enterprising young girl!wrote the first letter. Especially engaging is the two-person whale which is a great theatrical device. The show opens with the song, When the World Was Brand New, and features other humorous and rhythmic tunes as The Whale With a Whale of an Appetite, An Elongated Nose that Looks Like a Hose, and Firest Friends. Easy to produce, this whimsical musical is sure to charm everyone. (Non-musical version available as Kipling's Just So Stories.)
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L DON SWARTZ
Here We Sit
1st Produced:
Ghostlight Theatre, NY
2006
Company:
-
1st Published:
2006
Genre:
-
Comedy
Parts:
Male
5
Female
9
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
Here is an outrageous comedy for community theatres that puts the audience on the hot seat! A series of sixteen, quick-paced scenes illuminate the joys and tribulations of the modern theatre-going experience. In An Audience of One, a single theatre patron delivers an impassioned monologue to convince the actors to perform the show just for her. The scene, What the Crowd Is Thinking, allows us to hear the real thoughts of an audience sitting through an uninspired performance. In Uber Ushers, a band of ushers, driven to the brink of madness by the boorish behavior of an audience, stages a ferocious uprising to reclaim their theatre. The scenes are propelled by two feisty old ladies, Lottie and Bernice, who keep popping up to express their contempt for the theatre. Having been given free tickets, the two outrageous seniors turn the theatre upside-down with their constant talking and their non-stop snacking from enormous purses stuffed with groceries and candy, wrapped in crinkling paper, of course! The comedy's ultimate conclusion is that the actors and audience desperately need one another and that this timeless dance we do, as crazy as it can be sometimes, will go on.
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EMILY ROSE TUCKER
Just So Stories
1st Produced:
Blue Ridge Dinner Teatre, Ferrum, Virginia
2005
Company:
-
1st Published:
2007
Genre:
-
Musical
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
min 14 people
Notes:
adaptation and lyrics by R Rex Stephenson; music and additional lyrics by Emily Rose Tucker; based on the book by Rudyard Kipling
Synopsis:
Rudyard Kipling's dramatic and entertaining stories about how the Camel got his hump, how the Elephant got his nose, how the Whale got his spout, and other richly woven tales come to life in this engaging musical. Mr. and Mrs. Kipling and their two bubbly yet unpretentious daughters serve as narrators. The story weaves from animal tales to the final human one, how Manor in this case an enterprising young girl!wrote the first letter. Especially engaging is the two-person whale which is a great theatrical device. The show opens with the song, When the World Was Brand New, and features other humorous and rhythmic tunes as The Whale With a Whale of an Appetite, An Elongated Nose that Looks Like a Hose, and Firest Friends. Easy to produce, this whimsical musical is sure to charm everyone. (Non-musical version available as Kipling's Just So Stories.)
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CRAIG WILLIAMS
In Search Of The Holy Grill or It Was All A Big Miss Stake
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
2005
Genre:
-
One Act
Parts:
Male
4
Female
5
Parts Other:
2 flexible
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
An evil banker, Char Cole, wants the land the church sits on to build a casino. He sends a bogus mortgage bill demanding the church pay a $10,000 balloon payment to scare the congregation in to selling him the property for a fraction of what it is worth. Church members hurriedly decides to submit a secret barbecue recipe to a contest in hopes of winning the huge cash prize. They even open a barbecue restaurant in the church to raise money. Meanwhile, Miss Phit, the bumbling church secretary, is constantly getting the bulletins and newsletters wrong, sending misleading and funny information out to the congregation. In the end, however, it is Miss Phit who saves the day because she is really undercover as an A.N.G.E.L., er, make that A.N.G.L.E., the Anti-Nefarious Gangster Law Enforcement. While a narrator instructs the audience when to boo and hiss, everyone will know when to laugh in this rich 30-minute comedy.
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CARL L WILLIAMS
Poetic License
1st Produced:
Fort Bend (TX) Theatre New play Contest (winner)
2002
Company:
-
1st Published:
2006
Genre:
two act
Comedy
Parts:
Male
2
Female
3
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
Marties idyllic memories of a poet from her college years rise again when he reappears, willing and able to continue the romance. Her regular-guy husband, whod rather bowl than read poetry, seems a poor match against the dashing, artistic Brook Oliphant. Marties best friend Janice, who also knew the suave poet when he was a teaching assistant, is drawn to Brook again as well, especially now that she is recently divorced. Suddenly, their nostalgic used-to-be's contend with the ordinary here-and-now  until the women meet one of the professors current students. They discover that Brook uses the same old poem to romance all his lady friends and students. Will they separate his iambic from his pentameter or, at the very least, have him arrested for the reckless use of a concealed poem? Ultimately Martie realizes the four rhyming lines Tom writes are much sweeter than Brooks poetic license will ever be. Winner of the Fort Bend (TX) Theatre New Play Contest.
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