StagePlays – Weekly Play Offer
Our first hot-off-the-press discount delights of 2012 include a stage adaptation of the great children’s classic Swallows and Amazons and Love in Idleness from Terence Rattigan, published together with Less Than Kind, an earlier version of the play which was never staged during Rattigan’s lifetime.
And then there’s Thrill Me! – The Leopold & Loeb Story, a critically acclaimed two-character musical drama which explores the unusual love story behind the “crime of the century”.
We’ve also Sign of the Times, a comedy two-hander from Tim Firth, and from StageStars Recordings, the Vocal & Backing Tracks of Urinetown, one of the most uproariously funny musicals in recent years.
But we begin with a funny and fascinating tribute to the Eastern European immigrants who became major players in Hollywood’s golden age …
Travelling Light
3 Male, 1 Female
Nicholas Wright
Price: £8.99
** 10% Off**
In a remote village in Eastern Europe, around 1900, the young Motl Mendl is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father’s cinematograph. Bankrolled by Jacob, the ebullient local timber merchant, and inspired by Anna, the girl sent to help him make moving pictures of their village, he stumbles on a revolutionary way of story-telling. Forty years on, Motl – now a famed American film director – looks back on his early life and confronts the cost of fulfilling his dreams.
Swallows and Amazons
Large Mixed Cast
Helen Edmundson & Neil Hannon from Arthur Ransome
Price: £8.99
** 10% Off **
Arthur Ransome’s famous and much-loved children’s classic is brought to thrilling life for the stage in Helen Edmundson’s wonderfully theatrical adaptation. When John, Susan, Titty and Roger are granted their wish to set sail on their beloved boat Swallow, they know it will be the summer holiday of a lifetime. But their adventure truly begins when they encounter Nancy and Peggy, the self-proclaimed Amazon Pirates, and the dastardly Captain Flint.
Thrill Me – The Leopold & Loeb Story – Samuel French Acting Edition
2 Male, 0 Female
Stephen Dolginoff
Price: £8.55
** 10% Off **
Based on the true story of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two 19-year-olds who murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in Chicago in 1924, Thrill Me focuses less on the murder itself than on the relationship between Leopold and Loeb. More than 30 years on, the older Nathan speaks at a parole board hearing, recalling the crime and the dynamics of his friendship with Richard, defined largely by their shared intelligence, their passion for Nietzschean philosophy, and their desire for the ultimate thrill.
Sign of the Times
2 Male, 0 Female
Tim Firth
Price: £8.55
** 10% Off **
Frank is an aspiring spy novelist and Head of Installation at Forshaws lettering factory. Alan is his reluctant teenage trainee, more interested in listening to music and designing album artwork for his band ìLizardî than Frankís beloved bracketing systems. As they attempt to install the company name in giant letters on the side of its building, it soon becomes clear that the letters are supposed to read “For Sale” instead of “Forshaw” – the company is relocating and Frank will soon be out of a job!
Urinetown – 2 CDs of Vocal & Backing Tracks
Mark Hollmann & Greg Kotis
Price: £17.99
** 10% Off **
A satirical show that mixes love, revolution, greed and corruption … In a worn down town, a twenty year drought led to a ban on all private bathrooms and forcing even the poorest people to pay to use public amenities. There are 32 tracks on this album – Tracks 1-16 contain the background tracks and guide vocals & Tracks 17-32 contain the accompaniment tracks alone. This enables the performer to learn a song by singing along with the vocals and music, and then practice their technique accompanied only by the backing track.
Love in Idleness & Less Than Kind
4 Male, 5 Female
Terence Rattigan
Price: £13.50
** 10% Off **
Love in Idleness is the third in Terence Rattigan’s unofficial trilogy of war plays, following Flare Path and While the Sun Shines. Michael, eighteen, returns to wartime London from schooling in Canada, brimming with youthful left-wing convictions. Reunited with his mother, he is alarmed as he begins to realise that she is the mistress of a leading member of the war cabinet.
BARGAIN BASEMENT
Our Bargain Basement offers Discounts of up to 50%!
Here’s one of them -
Not About Nightingales – METHUEN EDITION
Tennessee Williams
Price: £4.50
*** 50% Discount ***
Never before produced or published, this is an early play by the 27-year-old Tom Williams and the first play to carry his signature pen-name ‘Tennessee’. Rescued from Williams’ archive by Vanessa Redgrave, written in 1938 and based on an actual newspaper story, the play follows the events of a prison scandal which shocked America when convicts leading a hunger strike were locked in a steam-heated cell and roasted to death. Williams later said, ‘I have never written anything since that could compete with its violence and horror’.
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