playS and MuSicalS - Contemporary Drama Service

The Greatest
Sideshow on Earth
by EDDIE McPHERSON
A wild, whacked-out circus of antics
Cast: 12F, 5M, 9 to 15 optional extras
(doubling possible)
Playing time: 90 minutes, 2 acts
Order #R-R250 Script: $6.25
Order #R-RP51 Royalty: $50/performance
Irresistibly funny! Crazy costumes, kookie characters and
weirdo stunts make this show an end-to-end laugh riot.
A hilarious spoof of a phony circus sideshow with a
seven-eyed woman, a two-headed man, a jungle girl, a
ventriloquist, a Martian man, a gorilla and two surprise
visitors from outer space. Starring fake-freak roles for a
large cast of performers that want to really ham it up.
Lots of crazy action as several teens try to save Mrs.
Bucklewash’s sideshow from closing down. They
improvise their own sideshow acts after the star
performer quits. Everything goes wrong but turns out
wonderfully right. The kind of show that succeeds no
matter what happens. One set, two acts.
Funny Bones!
The Silence of the Hams
by TIM KELLY
A full-length comedy satire
Cast: 17F, 8M and optional extras
Playing time: 90 minutes, 2 acts
Order #R-R165 Script: $6.25
Order #R-RP65 Royalty: $50/performance
Ditchburn Academy, an exclusive girls’ school, is across
from an asylum that houses Grisly Grimm, the
infamous whacko who likes to collect funny bones. When
bones are found scattered around Ditchburn, the
principal sends for a private investigator who interviews
Grisly. It’s a wild scene. Grisly’s writing his memoirs
entitled The Silence of the Hams. Suspicion also falls on
the mysterious Shadow, who kidnaps teenager Daisy
Baxter. What’s going on here? Not only is the
faculty at Ditchburn off the wall, the curriculum is
positively bizarre. A cavalcade of wonderfully zany
characters invades the school and confuses everything.
Hold onto your chairs when Grisly escapes. Wait until
you discover the reason for all those funny bones.
Hilarious situations, fast action, mistaken identities.
Simple set, easy to stage. Many small roles that require
only a couple of rehearsals. Definitely a fun show!
Inspired nonsense! One set, two acts.
Full Length Plays
Murder at the Dude Ranch
by CRAIG SODARO
City slickers in a two-act
cowboy mystery comedy
Cast: 14F, 7M
Playing time: About 1 hour, 2 acts
Order #R-R311 Script: $6.25
Order #R-RP19 Royalty: $50/performance
The Secret Garden
by FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
adapted by GARY PETERSON
A dramatization of the classic story
Cast: 4F, 3M, and a robin
Playing time: About 90 minutes, 2 acts
Order #R-R319 Script: $6.25
Order #R-RP41 Royalty: $50/performance
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23
“Give me your back forty acres or else!” threatens the
angry neighbor rancher, Amos Slattery. A blackmailer
husband posing as a newlywed is one of the many new
guests who come to the Lucky and Giggles Galore sisters’
dude ranch. He’s found dead. Who is the killer? When a
comic lady Sheriff, Hanna, and her inept deputy, Slim,
arrive to solve the crime, things get bizarre. They lock up
every guest as the murderer until the ghosts of two
outlaws from a hundred years ago appear. Soon guests
begin to disappear and reappear. While the cowboys are
teaching the city slicker guests Western line dancing the
killer tries to strike again but is trapped by an apple pie.
The sisters’ dude ranch is saved, and the feisty neighbor
rancher takes back his threat.
Mysterious things happen to family members at
Misselthwate Manor in England. A neglected garden is
changed and opens the way to happiness for Colin, a
sickly boy, and Mary, an orphaned girl. A robin sings a
mystifying song to Mary, which tells her how to enter the
garden that had been locked many years before. In secret,
Mary, the old gardener, and Colin replant beautiful
flowers in the garden. Its magic inspires the sickly Colin
to walk and his stooped father to stand erect and learn to
love again. The best-selling book for several generations
is now a very gorgeous and theatrical stage play.