About the Play:

Fair Exchange is a full-length comedy with suspense by Kurtz Gordon. An Ohio high school and a New York high school exchange male honour students to escort female honour students to the spring prom. Questions arise with the arrival of the Ohio student Ched and the discovery of an unconscious teenager by the highway. Is Ched really the exchange student who will escort Peggy to the prom? Or could is he a notorious gas station robber? Questions, drama, and laughter ensue as the audience discovers the truth and finds their way to a happy ending.

Fair Exchange takes place in Long Island in 1959 and tells the story of a student swap between an Ohio high school and a New York high school. The Wilson house was a happy household until Agnes Franklin, a faculty member of Wickapoque High School, impressed by the Foreign Student Exchange program, borrows the idea for the Spring Prom. An old boyfriend is a principal of a high school in Ohio, and together they agree to exchange their male honour students to escort the female honour students of their respective schools to their proms. Peggy Wilson, the Wickapoque honour student, looks forward eagerly to meeting Ched Armstrong, her Ohio counterpart – although her steady boyfriend, Steve Haviland, is not so happy about the idea. While they are waiting for Ched to arrive the radio reports that a young man has been found beaten and robbed on the highway, but then Ched joins the party and hits it off well with everyone. There is something about him, however, that makes Peggy's younger sister Diana suspicious, and she decides to do some detective work. As it turns out, the real Ched is the robbery victim, and the one who is impersonating him is a notorious criminal, wanted by the police in many states. By the time the truth is known the false Ched has taken Peggy hostage, but thanks to Diana and Steve, she is safely rescued, justice is done, and play ends as delightfully as it began – with a full measure of laughter, thrills and action in between. Fair Exchange is a comedy, drama, and mystery rolled into one.

Fair Exchange is well known for its humour in high society and is regularly performed in high school theatre productions.

Cast: 9 female, 8 male, a Radio Voice

About the Playwright:

Kurtz Gordon is an American playwright.