Tag Archives: plays where 1 actor plays more than 1 role

Repertory Theatre – Two-act comedy about trying to get a play staged

comedy about trying to get a play staged

REPERTORY THEATRE – COMEDY ABOUT TRYING TO GET A PLAY STAGED

Meet our young hopeful playwright. He has, of course, written a play and has approached a colleague of his late father’s (an artistic director (specifically of repertory theatre)) in the hopes of getting it produced. He hopes that the relationship between the artistic director and his late father will be in his favour and that his play will be staged at his theatre in this comedy about trying to get a play staged.

Meet our artistic director. It’s true that he is a colleague of the young playwright’s late father who unfortunately died during a production of Hamlet. It’s also true that he is a typical director – self inflated ego, bombastic and possibly slightly mentally unstable. He also has no intention of staging the play.   He, however lacks the ability to say so directly and thus leads the young man on a merry dance through the play to break the news to him. He may or may not have had sex with the playwright’s mother. Okay, he did.

Meet the ghost of the young playwright’s father, also known as Richardson. He’s dead, extremely pissed off, haunts the theatre and he has a good suspicion that the artistic director slept with his wife.

This play is both uniquely comical (It had me in stitches) and challenging to play for the actors. In act one, the interview between the playwright and the artistic director takes place.  In act two, the same actor who plays the playwright plays his late father’s ghost and the dialogue in act one repeats itself from the ghost’s perspective and reveals a secret surrounding his death during the final performance of Hamlet.

PRODUCTION HISTORY

New Wright’s theatre, Vancouver, Canada – 2020
Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, Soppteatern/Kaf Klara, Sweden 2024

Read about playwright Eldad Cohen. Other plays by Eldad – Family exercise – a drama about a family falling apart in free verse.

Author: Eldad Cohen

Type: Two-act play

Genre: Comedy about trying to get a play staged

Cast: 2M – two characters are played by one actor so the play has three parts played by two actors.

Ages of the actors: 50’s and 20’s

Suitable for: Adults

Length: One hour

Set: Artistic director and young playwright are sitting in the director’s office. The room was once a stage theatre. Down side left, a chair. Downside right, a desk and a chair. A manikin wearing blond wig on its head and a sword is positioned upstage left. Upstage center, two empty frameworks are hanging side by side. One is substantially bigger than the other. A pile of plums lies on the desk.

Level of difficulty: 8/10 – this play is very funny. Delivery of lines is important as many of them need to be delivered deadpan on the director’s side with emotional reactions on the part of the son and his late father. A skilled actor needs to play two different roles in act one and two.

Read a Sample of the Script

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Cost is $9.00 for this editor’s choice play script. Just Click Shakespeare!!

Contact Off The Wall Plays with any queries about Repertory Theatre

Copyright © April 2018 Eldad Cohen and Off The Wall Play Publishers

Like this play? Other funny plays of a similar vein for you to enjoy:

The Ten Minute Hamlet – full length large cast comedy play
Matter Matters – comedy set in a a biplane
One act play – British comedy-drama set in bed