ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM by D.C. Copeland

A jitterbug love story woven between the lives and times of legendary black entertainers, black and white thugs, and the common man in swinging 1930's Harlem.

Billy Rhythm, the quintessential American, teams up with Tharbis Jefferson, a “CopperColored Gal” from the latest Cotton Club revue, to win a dance contest at the Savoy Ballroom. Unfortunately, their competition will stop at nothing to win, including murder. Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance is a jitterbug love story woven between the lives and times of legendary black entertainers, black and white thugs, and the common man in swinging 1930’s Harlem. It takes place when 22-year-old Cab Calloway is at thebeginning of his long and storied career and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, already over 50, is still unknown to most people outside of New York. “Air steps,” Jujitsu type dance moves, are just making the scene. The white and black gangland violence in the play? It all happened in an almost forgotten time in America’s most mythic city: Harlem.

This Annotated Radio Play/Reading version is based on the full-length play. It is appropriate for ALL AUDIENCES and will fit a one-hour time slot which makes it perfect for schools. Like the full-length play, this dance/drama requires no singing. To find out more and to purchase this version, please click here.

BEWARE THE MAN EATING CHICKEN by Henry Meyerson

BEWARE THE MAN EATING CHICKEN
A Dark Farce for Adults.

By Henry Meyerson

Featured in the 2004 NYC FRINGE FESTIVAL

Synopsis: BETTY, wanting to be a good mother to her son WILLIAM, devises a plan to Make Him Bigger and Make Him a Winner. She enters William in the “Fattest Man in the Universe” contest, and she is determined to win. CAROLE, Betty’s younger sister, too weak to stand up to Betty’s threats and intimidation, is forced to assist in the endless round of cooking the dozens of chickens needed each day for William’s inexorable assault on hugeness. When CAPTAIN LEONARD of the Board of Health comes to check on the “large carnivore” that is devouring twenty chickens a day he is initially an annoying bureaucrat, but ultimately a timely dessert. ALBERT, claiming to own one of the largest chicken farms in the U.S. arrives to negotiate a deal. For using William’s picture on the logo of his product Albert will pay Betty a percentage of the profits on each bird sold and ancillary rights on tie-ins. The deal is struck. When DOROTHY, Albert’s sister, appears claiming she is the true owner of the chicken farm, a struggle between the siblings ensues for control of William and the potential fortune at stake. But it is DOCTOR MARTIN who brings the tragic coup de grace to Betty and her plan for achieving her goals of motherhood. Can be cast with 3f and 2m actors w/ doubling.

Samuel French

She'll Find Her Way Home by Valetta Anderson

"She'll Find Her Way Home"

(A love story of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, in two acts for all audiences)

Author: Valetta Anderson

Synopsis: The only child of a wealthy though deceased Mississippi slaveholder, Martha Robb views her coming of age with the expectations of adolescent longings and the seemingly unending horizons promised by the victorious Union Army and her quadroon complexion. She and her lifelong and as fair complexioned friend, Thomas, could forge new lives for themselves, lives without barriers… if they could only get past her mother. But Gussie will not be swayed. Isaiah Montgomery, Vicksburg's newest, wealthiest, coal-black complexioned store owner, is more than welcome to come courting her daughter. "She'll Find Her Way Home" is a fictionalized account of the courtship of Martha and Isaiah Montgomery, the historical founders of the African-American town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi.

www.havescripts.com

"Moral of the Story" by Valetta Anderson

"Moral of the Story"
(Updated Aesop's fable with a Nigerian twist for grades K-6)

Author: Valetta Anderson

Synopsis: Why does Harry Hare, television spokes-hare for the National Hare Council on Carrots, race his longtime friend, Tommy Tortoise? And why can't Harry's niece, Harriet Hare, spell carrot? This modernized children's play contains an ancient Ibo (northern Nigeria) legend and reveals what inquiring minds have always wanted to know… the inside scoop behind Aesop's most famous Fable and why tortoises have cracked, lumpy shells.

http://www.havescripts.com/