Comedies I got, how's about a Drama!
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Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Play Suggestions
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URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2717
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Topic: Comedies I got, how's about a Drama!
Posted By: VPA1
Subject: Comedies I got, how's about a Drama!
Date Posted: 10/05/07 at 6:16pm
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Howdy everyone,
Comedies galore, too many to choose from. How's about a really good drama? Drama's are harder to sell, but we really need to round out the season. We've done MOCKINGBIRD and MIRACLE WORKER and MICE AND MEN. All very well received. Ideas like that? Something with good name recognition...something classy? Hey, I appreciate your responses. |
Replies:
Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 10/05/07 at 8:42pm
| Agnes of God, The Runner Stumbles, anything by Tennessee Williams or Arthur Miller, Glenngary Glen Ross, That Championship Season, The Shadow Box, Fifth of July, Angels in America ... gee - there are so many! |
Posted By: charlz
Date Posted: 10/05/07 at 9:50pm
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Proof, Doubt, Wit, Picnic, Art, Master Class, Grapes of Wrath, Last Night of Ballyhoo, Diary of Anne Frank, The Crucible, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Children's Hour, The Heiress, Mass Appeal, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Driving Miss Daisy, Wait until Dark, A Few Good Men, Stalag 17, Inherit the Wind, A Veiw from the Bridge, Amadeus, 12 Angry Men, Lion in Winter, On Golden Pond, The Rainmaker, The Elephant Man, just to name a few.
Good luck! |
Posted By: donzolidis
Date Posted: 10/05/07 at 10:32pm
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To be nice about it, The Runner Stumbles is not my favorite show. I don't understand how it gets done as much as it does. ------------- www.donzolidis.com |
Posted By: bbpchick
Date Posted: 10/06/07 at 1:04am
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I just read a play called "Ladies in Retirement". We are planning to do this for our fall play next year. Really worth reading.
"Rememberance" is another really good one. I saw that several years ago and I loved it. Great Story. ------------- Kendra http://www.murphysblackbartplayer.com - www.murphysblackbartplayers.com You are NEVER too old to dress up! |
Posted By: eveharrington
Date Posted: 10/06/07 at 4:01am
 Hey now! Sister Rita is one of the best things on my resume.  But in the interest of understanding, I think its the fact that the set is very minimalistic and can be done with basically nothing but lights and a black stage.------------- "If nothing else, there's applause... like waves of love pouring over the footlights." |
Posted By: eveharrington
Date Posted: 10/06/07 at 4:02am
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oooh, what about "The Boys Next Door", definitely funny, but very dramatic as well. ------------- "If nothing else, there's applause... like waves of love pouring over the footlights." |
Posted By: Theatrestation
Date Posted: 10/06/07 at 4:32am
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I agree with anything Tennesee Williams. Also Neil Simon's Lost In Yonkers and Broadway Bound. Lost in Yonkers is more dramatic, but both have a comic element without overtaking the Drama.
------------- http://www.castbuilding.com http://www.theatrestation.com |
Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 10/06/07 at 6:48am
blasphemy! sincerely, father rivard
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Posted By: alice
Date Posted: 10/06/07 at 8:54am
| Also look at plays written by Horton Foote. Lots of characters with lots of emotions that most people can relate to. Alice |
Posted By: Marlo
Date Posted: 10/07/07 at 9:40pm
| I just saw "Three Days of Rain" at North Dakota State University. Two men, one woman. First act set in modern day, second act set in early 1960s. A beautiful script, apparently destroyed by Julia Roberts in 1997, unfortunately. I really loved this show. It takes place in a NY apartment that is run down in 2000 and nice 4 decades earlier, so it was a fun transition. |
Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 10/07/07 at 10:14pm
| "Three Days of Rain" is a wonderful play. I've seen it twice - once here at Yale, and the Broadway production with Julia Roberts (which I thought was quite good and didnt think Julia Roberts was bad at all!). |
Posted By: VPA1
Date Posted: 10/08/07 at 1:43am
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Ohhh, Agnes of God.... nice story, good idea Tristan. So, thoughts on this one from folks? Admonitions, advice, history, how did it play for you?
Frankly, it got my attention because like most of you, I suspect, our female to male ratio is about 5 to 1, so when I can find a play that features women, it gets my attention quickly! thanks! Larry |
Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 10/08/07 at 8:04am
for the girls  : Steel Magnolias, Ladies of the Alamo, Lettuce and Lovage, Crimes of the Heart (mostly women), Taken in Marriage, Top Girls, Stage Door (mostly women), The Women (d'uh ) ...
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Posted By: MartyW
Date Posted: 10/08/07 at 11:51am
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Gee, hope that made it nice and simple for you... Just as many great drama titles as there are comedic... Trick is finding the one thats right for you. ------------- Marty W "Till next we trod the boards.." |
Posted By: VPA1
Date Posted: 10/21/07 at 2:28pm
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Hey Marty,
Yes, it did make it easy for me and that's what I was searching for. Without a wealth of background knowledge and long experience in theater (just the RESPONSIBILITY of developing a successful season) I need all the help and advice I can get. Larry |
Posted By: lmar12
Date Posted: 10/23/07 at 1:32pm
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The Cemetery Club--excellent--very dramatic with comic movements, but a tour-de-force for a good group of actresses. |
Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 10/24/07 at 7:11am
what kind of comic movements do they use? sorry - couldn't resist |
Posted By: stockhamlj
Date Posted: 10/24/07 at 7:15pm
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CAMINO REAL by Tennessee Williams. ------------- Linda Stockham |
Posted By: avcastner
Date Posted: 10/24/07 at 11:20pm
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Anne of Green Gables by Sylvia Ashby (Baker Plays) is great. Can be done by youth or adults. Very dramatic scenes.
The Mousetrap is a great who-dun-it drama. (SF--by Agatha Christie) ------------- |
Posted By: stockhamlj
Date Posted: 10/25/07 at 7:43am
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Are you looking for produced dramatic plays or new/fairly new dramas that may have had just one production or one staged-reading? One I am thinking of is THE DARKEST ZONE IN THE SEA, a tragedy where the protagonist Pelleas Lee DePalma, has unreal expectations and is finally drawn to a tragic decision.
Summary: Thirty-eight years old, he has been married three times his current wife having just left him. He is obsessed with academic goals that leave little or no room for anything else in his life. Thus, the unreal expectations, pressures over time, and rapidly declining health have pulled him into irreversible frustration and despair. When his first wife calls on him in Act I, Scene 1, concerned over the news of his most recent marital troubles, she tells him that scholastically he has always been trying to prove himself over and over again; that is, he has been "constantly trying to overcome some deficit. And this is the crux of Pelleas' problems. He tries to laugh it off, but for him it is a truth that will see him to the grave. It is after Pelleas returns home (Act II) from a sobering doctor's appointment that he has the final fight with his current wife Arleen. Young, self-absorbed, and symbolic of the shallow personality, it is she who ironically hits upon Pelleas' life-long trouble. In essence, he has been trying to make up in his own life for his father's lack of education a man Pelleas seemingly idolized but was actually ashamed of. In confronting Arleen when she returns to their condominium to remove the rest of the belongings she claims for herself, their final fight occurs, and by what he learned at the doctor's, carries him through with a tragic decision that we (as the audience/reader) easily foresee in a monologue Pelleas delivers in Act I, Scene 2; that is, the foreshadowing of his suicide. But first he kills Arleen. In addition, you might want to go to the following website for those plays of mine (dramas as well as comedies) that have had productions: http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsS/stockham-linda.html |
Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 10/25/07 at 11:22am
 - just being a smart ass - |
Posted By: lynda gee
Date Posted: 2/02/08 at 3:17pm
| My drama favorites (and good sellers too!) are "Death of a Salesman," "All My Sons," "Twelve Angry Men," and "Trip to Bountiful." And I agree with "The Boys Next Door" and "The Mousetrap." |