Play Suggestions

SonOfTheExiles · Post by **SonOfTheExiles** » February 7th, 2019, 12:23 pm

Elizabby wrote: ↑February 6th, 2019, 1:37 am If I want to use sounds in plays, I just make them myself ... sounds of drinking (tea).

Beth, your specificity there has me wondering how drinking tea sounds distinct from drinking any other beverage!

Chris

Elizabby · Post by **Elizabby** » February 7th, 2019, 2:57 pm

LOL! I've played a pirate drinking beer and a lady drinking champagne, and I'm about to do another pirate role - fortunately whatever I'm actually drinking (tea) it all sounds the same!

Wouldn't want anyone to think I'm drinking (alcohol) and driving a microphone under the influence!

benderca · Post by **benderca** » February 7th, 2019, 8:48 pm

Ha! That reminds me of Alan’s role in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray — “Dodo” was quite convincing as he got progressively drunk...

alanmapstone · Post by **alanmapstone** » February 8th, 2019, 2:12 am

benderca wrote: ↑February 7th, 2019, 8:48 pm Ha! That reminds me of Alan’s role in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray — “Dodo” was quite convincing as he got progressively drunk...

It is nice to think that my performance as a drunk was quite so convincing.

Not being a method actor I did not actually get drunk for the recording.
Thank you.

ChuckW · Post by **ChuckW** » February 9th, 2019, 5:02 pm

I've seen a couple of people here mention The Best Plays of 1922-1923, which is an excellent resource for discovering new plays that have recently lapsed into the public domain. Unfortunately, this book also abbreviates all of the plays pretty heavily and doesn't really suit our purposes. So for those who leafed through this book and were intrigued by some of the plot summaries, here are all of the plays mentioned in this collection that I was able to find more complete sources for.

Rain by John Colton and Clemence Randolph
Link: https://archive.org/details/rainplayinthreea00colt

You and I by Phillip Barry
Link: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001020869

Loyalties by John Galsworthy
Link: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100760410

Mary the Third by Rachel Crothers
Link: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000783971

This collection also includes Karel Capek's R.U.R., but we seem to already have that in the catalogue. There's also a section in the back that briefly summarizes every play from that Broadway season, so feel free to a dig further of none of these plays catch you interest.

https://archive.org/details/cu31924107204475/page/n445

I'm also a little bummed that a PDF scan of Merton of the Movies hasn't popped up on HathiTrust yet.

ChuckW · Post by **ChuckW** » February 12th, 2019, 1:24 pm

Another play that folks might be interested in launching: Clemence Dane's Will Shakespeare. We've already done one of Dane's plays (A Bill of Divorcement) and I suspect this one, which dramatizes the life of William Shakespeare, might be of interest.

https://archive.org/details/willshakespeare00danegoog/page/n9

alanmapstone · Post by **alanmapstone** » February 13th, 2019, 2:04 am

ChuckW wrote: ↑February 12th, 2019, 1:24 pm Another play that folks might be interested in launching: Clemence Dane's Will Shakespeare. We've already done one of Dane's plays (A Bill of Divorcement) and I suspect this one, which dramatizes the life of William Shakespeare, might be of interest.

Just had a quick read of this and it looks interesting. Hope someone can be persuaded to do it.

Post by **annise** » February 13th, 2019, 2:36 am

ChuckW wrote: ↑February 9th, 2019, 5:02 pm
I'm also a little bummed that a PDF scan of Merton of the Movies hasn't popped up on HathiTrust yet.

Is that this one https://librivox.org/merton-of-the-movies-by-harry-leon-wilson/ or are you after a play based on it ?

Anne

ChuckW · Post by **ChuckW** » February 13th, 2019, 1:11 pm

annise wrote: ↑February 13th, 2019, 2:36 am
ChuckW wrote: ↑February 9th, 2019, 5:02 pm
I'm also a little bummed that a PDF scan of Merton of the Movies hasn't popped up on HathiTrust yet.
Is that this one https://librivox.org/merton-of-the-movies-by-harry-leon-wilson/ or are you after a play based on it ?

Anne

Yes, I'm referring to the 1922 stage adaptation by George Kaufman (which, incidentally, is the source material used in most of the later film adaptations).

onhyattus · Post by **onhyattus** » February 18th, 2019, 2:56 pm

Hi all

Noel Coward's first play The Vortex, was published in 1923.
This would be wonderful to do but I'm not sure when it becomes out of copyright.

I'm also not sure what format play to do as when would it become available on Gutenberg or Archives.

This summary is taken from the Wiki page;
The Vortex is a play in three acts by the English writer and actor Noël Coward. The play depicts the sexual vanity of a rich, ageing beauty, her troubled relationship with her adult son, and drug abuse in British society circles after the First World War. The son's cocaine habit is seen by many critics as a metaphor for homosexuality, then taboo in Britain. Despite, or because of, its controversial content for the time, the play was Coward's first great commercial success.

Thoughts?

Thanks

Helena (onhyattus)

WiltedScribe · Post by **WiltedScribe** » February 18th, 2019, 3:45 pm

I found a source on Archive, but its publication date is 1924. It can't be done until next year, I'm afraid.

People outside the U.S. would also be unable to participate regardless, since Coward died in 1973 and his work would still be copyrighted in Europe, Canada and Australia. So depending on how large the cast is, it may take longer to coordinate.

Post by **ToddHW** » February 18th, 2019, 7:48 pm

Howsabout this from 1914 for Coward? https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.148801/page/n1 Includes The Vortex and 6 others.

Note however as stated above that he is not PD for most non-US readers.

Thanks, Todd

WiltedScribe · Post by **WiltedScribe** » February 18th, 2019, 7:57 pm

ToddHW wrote: ↑February 18th, 2019, 7:48 pm Howsabout this from 1914 for Coward? https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.148801/page/n1 Includes The Vortex and 6 others.

Note however as stated above that he is not PD for most non-US readers.

That works!

I'd love to act in a Coward play, but unfortunately that won't be possible until at least 2023 (I believe).

If any are launched before then, I must regretfully watch from the sidelines.

onhyattus · Post by **onhyattus** » February 24th, 2019, 11:00 am

WiltedScribe wrote: ↑February 18th, 2019, 7:57 pm
I'd love to act in a Coward play, but unfortunately that won't be possible until at least 2023 (I believe).

Oh no! I hadn't read the copyright rules for those outside the US. Copyright rules for UK seem to be 70 years after death, so I won't be able to take part until 2043

At least I'm ok for the current project I'm on! That would have been bad, to put that on the wrong side of the copyright monster

soupy · Post by **soupy** » March 6th, 2019, 11:59 am

I posted a play in Book suggestions and found I can post it here too.

[PLAY] The Wonder-Working Magician by Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1637

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Calder%C3%B3n_de_la_Barca

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6372

The second drama in this volume, "The Wonderful Magician", is perhaps better known to poetical students in England than even the first, from the spirited fragment Shelley has left us in his "Scenes from Calderon." The preoccupation of a subject by a great master throws immense difficulties in the way of any one who ventures to follow in the same path: but as Shelley allowed himself great licence in his versification, and either from carelessness or an imperfect knowledge of Spanish is occasionally unfaithful to the meaning of his author, it may be hoped in my own version that strict fidelity both as to the form as well as substance of the original may be some compensation for the absence of those higher poetical harmonies to which many of my readers will have been accustomed.

"El Magico Prodigioso" appeared for the first time in the same volume as "La Vida es Sueno", prepared for publication in 1635 by Don Joseph Calderon. The translation is comprised in the same number of lines as the original, and all the preceding remarks on "Life is a Dream", whether in reference to the period of the first publication of the drama in Spain, or the principles I kept in view while attempting this version may be applied to it. As in the Case of "Life is a Dream", "The Wonderful Magician" has previously been translated entire by an English writer, ("Justina", by J.H. 1848); but as Archbishop Trench truly observes, "the writer did not possess that command of the resources of the English language, which none more than Calderon requires."