Name: Sunset on the Potomac - One Act Contemporary Tragedy
SKU: 30393
Price: 5.50 USD
Availability: InStock

Description

one act contemporay tragedy

SUNSET ON THE POTOMAC – ONE ACT CONTEMPORARY TRAGEDY

It’s an apartment building in the sixties. We meet six occupants – Patricia, the dancer, Harry and Marriane Spok, who have a Shag Rug and Franklin, who plays the piano and lives with his Mom and Pop. Franklin plays beautifully, in fact his playing touches the lives of all who live around him, Mom is very proud of him, but makes him work hard at his piano, now allowing him out for hours until he gets it right. While he plays, she knits and they get on very well together in this one act contemporary tragedy.

The same cannot be said about Pop. When Pop was young himself, he had it all – he was a musical prodigy, had exceptional looks and his life was just about perfect. Then he met Mom. His bitterness at how she has aged and how his life is no longer as it was consumes him. His anger at his son for not being the prodigy he was himself shows itself in verbal and physical abuse of both Mom and Franklin. When Mom asks Franklin to play the song that her and Pop courted to, the anger reaches its climax. Bitter at his ruined life, he destroys the piano and chops it into tiny bits. But he doesn’t know that the piano was the life that sustained all who listened to it and in destroying the piano, he destroys everything around him as well.

PLEASE NOTE: DEROGATORY ANTI SEMITIC LANGUAGE IS USED IN THE SCRIPT BY POP. THE AUTHOR WISHED IT TO BE LEFT IN AS IT SHOWS HIS TRUE CHARACTER.

Other plays by James B. Campbell

Snow in July – a collection of one act plays
Jumping the League – comedy about a priest
Murder in the Asylum – absurd whodunit script
Fauso e Mefisto – funny Faust script

Author: James Campbell

Type: One act play

Genre: Drama, One Act Contemporary Tragedy

Length: 10 minutes

Cast: 3M 3F

Ages of the actors: One older boy, 1M 1F middle aged and 3 adults

Suitable for: Adults

Set: An apartment house with a lobby and three apartments visible. Each apartment has a telephone. There is also a pay phone “outside” the house. FRANKLIN and MOM and POP’s apartment is on
the lowest level with the lobby. It is furnished with a grand piano, a bookcase and an easy chair. In the lobby is a sofa and a lamp. US in the lobby are elevator double doors, closed. Above the elevator,
on the highest level is PATRICIA’s apartment. It is furnished with mirrors and an exercise barre. On an intermediate level is the apartment of HARRY SPOK and MARIANNE. They possess a shag rug and a hassock.

Level of Difficulty: 8/10 – the set of three differents apartment that shows the lives off all the occupants simultaneously may require some set building