Category: Plays

The story centers on Maggie Hill, an unmarried, newly retired school teacher attempting to supplement here meager pension by selling Miracle Products, and Lady Anne Windesmeer, a recent widow who has been swindled by an unscrupulous lawyer. Brought together by their common financial straits, the two seniors convert Lady Anne’s San Francisco home into a bed and breakfast, which becomes the setting for a cast of characters that bring with them hilarity, intrigue, romance, warmth and a twisting chain of events which will shake your audience in more ways than one. This is the first full-length musical comedy ever created for senior theatre and presented in the Production-in-a-Packet Series format which states: Everything You Need To Produce A Show Except For Actors and A Stage. It is the winner of the 2004 National Mature Media Award. It is ArtAge Publication’s #1 best-selling musical.

Additional Comments:

Overture

Someone You’ve Not Met

A Bag Full of Miracles

I Can Make Old Things New

Please Pardon Me

Could This Be Love?

Old Enough

My Heart With Love Doth Fill

Has Love Come My Way Again?

I’m the Rotten Lawyer Elmer Strunk

I Needed Someone Special

 

A musical comedy about the homeless in the nation’s capital, Washington, DC. It centers on the life of Cordy Shelburne, a widow living with her daughter and abusive son-in-law who have left her with nothing but memories. She has no social life, no friends, no hope and no dreams and is more or less waiting to die. She sees no way out of her current situation. She then meets Duchess, a long-time street person, who talks her into running away from home and teaches her to live and survive on the streets. The characters and situations they encounter are hilarious, the music is delightful and has the audience crying one moment and laughing the next.

You’ve Gotta See DC

I’ve Got It

Street People

Sometimes A Rainbow

They Call Me Mack the Knife

Once We Had Tomorrow

When Someone Sees

So They Will Be Free

Point of View

Big Little World

Building New Dreams

This two-act Broadway style musical comedy centered around three widows with completely different backgrounds, who are brought together when living in an old schoolhouse now converted into an upscale apartment building on Walnut Hill in the small town of Zionsville, Indiana.

HORTIE, is a well-known fashion designer and creator of The Hortie Wells  clothing line of Marshall-Fields in Chicago; HALCY, the straight-laced housekeeper for a wealthy pharmaceutical family in Indianapolis, and LULU, a legendary folk and country singer from Bent Fork, a tiny community in the back hills of Kentucky. The trio of widows are joined by a fourth widow, MRS. JOHNSON, whose daughter, JODY MARIE, an archeologist falls for HORTIE’s nephew, LT TOMMY T, a JAG Officer at the Naval Station, Great Lakes, in Chicago.

They join forces to fight Zionsville’s newly elected Mayor Clifford P. Cotton…the third, who wants the sizable property…Walnut Hill,  the apartment building now sits on. The threatened widows become …”mad as wet hens” causing all kinds of mischievous problems to the corrupt mayor…much to the enjoyment of Zionsville residents. They discover an historical fact about the old school and Zionsville…a discovery that proves there is more than one way to “skin a cat!”
The hilarious two-act theatrical production is heavily laced with Hoosier dialect and colloquialisms, intertwined with memorable music that is sometimes beautiful, often poignant, and frequently…just plain foot-stomping fun. It is a delightful musical score brilliantly orchestrated by Nathan Raught, MME.

♫ MUSIC 

1. OVERTURE
2. EVERYTHING I NEED
3. I LOVE LIFE
4. AIN’T SHE SOMETHIN’ SPECIAL
5. NOT A LITTLE BIT LIKE ME
6. YOU GOT US 
7. OLD TIM BROOKS (PUBLIC DOMAIN – 1917)
8.   ENTR’ACTE

9. CLIFFORD P. COTTON …THE THIRD
10. LATE NIGHT SATURDAY BLUES
11. DON’T GET CONNECTED TO A SAILOR
12. EVERYTHING I NEED (REPRISE)
13. WHY THE HECK ARE WE HERE?
14. NEVER GIVE UP

STANDING OVATION is a comedy and musical revue which serves as a vehicle for a variety show. It is unique and designed in a series of vignettes or scenes which can be added or deleted without affecting the overall show. In this manner, each theatre group can develop its own production based on available talent and desired length of the show. There are five required scenes totalling about thirty minutes which are required to tell the story and tie the overall production together. The remainder is a series of vignettes which are selected by the theatre group and consist of former “stars” auditioning to be a part of the “Greatest Show of All Time.”

THE STORY. A very rich, (and married), Chicago business tycoon falls in love with a young actress, Gloria Swansworth. He buys The Palace Theater in Peoria, Illinois, providing her a place to perform to keep her far from Hollywood. The tycoon dies. Although the theatre is closed to the public, the actors continue to perform as they have for years as its total operation and salaries are paid by an ongoing trust fund. The estate, which has been in probate court for nearly fifty years, is finally settled leaving everything to his sole heir, his grandson, Reginald Hector Pittsfield, III of Lick Creek, IL, otherwise known as the Right Reverend Reginald Hector Pittsfield, III of the Holy Redeemer Salvation Church of the New Truth.The show begins as the cast learns that the court case has been settled. They are soon visited by the Right Reverend Pittsfield III and his sidekick Sister-Elder Johns. As it turns out, he is a movie buff and is thrilled to discover  his new theatre is filled with old actors and actresses (whom he thought were dead) who are still performing. He decides to invest his billions to produce “The Greatest Show of All Time,” to pay tribute to all the golden stars of the silver screen by providing the opportunity for a last performance and Standing Ovation.

FADED PICTURES is a delightfully humorous and heart-warming story about an angry and discouraged young man who runs into a spunky, homeless woman in a small park. The often annoying and aggravating encounter soon becomes a daily challenge which greatly alters his life perspective. The play touches most emotions of the human experience.

The play is a challenging showcase for two actors…an older woman and a twenty-plus young man. 

The set may consist of a park bench, a trash can, shrubs, trees, flowers, a light post and backdrop…or simply a bench and a trash container. 

“One Spring day, while walking to lunch along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, I passed a small park. There was a homeless woman going through the trash can on one end of the park and a young man in a wrinkled suit sitting on the bench at the other end.

Later, in the restaurant, I recalled the scenario–a woman at the end of her days with little to live for and a young man just starting out in life. What if I reversed their roles? I Imagined a conversation between the two. The following is what I doodled on the paper placemat:” 

“Lady, can I share with you…a secret that I know is true?
This a young man whispers to…one who already knew, of
Pictures…faded pictures in dusty frames,
Of faraway places…forgotten names.”

A good play for dinner theatre.

the sandcrab
behold the busy sandcrab
scratching tracks upon the sand,
his cautious gait, his measured skill,
his scurried efforts on the land.
and when his day is ended
and the sea recalls its brine,
the waves have left no worthwhile mark
upon the sands of time.
and though the mighty waves have rolled
his efforts out to sea,
and setting sun may shadows cast
upon his will to be
his highest goal was to survive
and look you see,
he’s still alive!
tom northam
“FAC ISTUD QUOD TEMPUS HONORABIT”

THE SANDCRABS is a two-act comedy and satire about civil service and bureaucracy. It takes place in Washington, DC during current times and is about installing a simple drinking water fountain within the Federal Agency for Development of Effectiveness (FADE) which was established to reduce the size of government, eliminate unnecessary red tape…and the effective development of the public.