I am beyond excited to announce that Pioneer Drama Service has just released my 29th play with them and my 33rd play overall. Titled The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, it's a fast-paced comedy with a cast of 8 and a run time of just 20 to 25 minutes.
The play had an interesting development process. It was first commissioned by Belmont Day School in Massachusetts for use in their 6th grade theater arts class.
After working out the bugs with them, I promoted it on the High School Theatre Directors and Teachers group on Facebook. South Florence High School in South Florence, South Carolina, snapped it up and they gave the play its world premiere in a student-directed production in November.
Shenandoah High School in Shenandoah, Iowa also responded to my post, and they took the play to their district speech contest in January and the state-level contest in March.
So the play appeals to many different age groups, from elementary school all the way up to high school. It would also work well as a TYA production performed by adults.
What makes it so adaptable? Well, I think it's because the play is a piece of cake to produce, with no set requirements beyond a single stage cube and no costume requirements beyond a few hats. And while the story is simple, the vocabulary is just challenging enough to offer some real meat for young and not-so-young actors alike.
The story itself works on three levels. At first glance, it appears to be a straightforward fairy tale about a king who offers half his kingdom to whoever can defeat the dragon ravaging the land. But the actors performing the play-within-a-play pretty much botch it.
The actor playing the knight tapes his lines to the back of his shield. Another actor insists on stealing the show with a ridiculously drawn-out death scene. The actor playing the dragon is too shy to even step onto the stage. And the narrator gets so fed up with the cast's antics that she quits the show entirely.
Think of it as the Brothers Grimm meets The Play That Goes Wrong.
Only as the play progresses does it become clear that the story goes deeper yet as one of the actors has an anxiety attack about his performance and the rest of the cast quickly improvise an ending to help him feel the love.
Want more? Then just head over to the play's web page, where you can read the synopsis, download a script sample, and order your own perusal script.
Enjoy!
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