About the Play:
Thornton Wilder's Playlets is a collection of 22 very short plays by Thornton Wilder. Most of the plays run about four minutes in length, and can be presented
with three actors. The entire collection can be presented with a cast
ranging from six to 32 actors.
These snapshots of the creative spirit at play explore a variety of complex characters that range from the ordinary to the biblical, the haunted to the mystical. From the tale of a conflicted composer with a strangely familiar tune stuck in his head (The Song of Maria Bentedos) to a pair of newlyweds who find themselves bizarrely affected by the color of their hotel's tea room (Flamingo Red: A Comedy in Danger), all these tales – many told with great wit and humour – ask the thought-provoking questions of mortality, morality and faith that Thornton Wilder is famous for asking.
Thornton Wilder's Playlets: Short, Short Plays for 3-5 Persons
contains twenty-two 3-5 minute plays written by Pulitzer Prize-winning
playwright between 1917 and 1928; The Acolyte, The Christmas Interludes I, and The Song of Maria Bentedos are published for the
very first time in this acting edition. The collection includes:
1. The Acolyte (1917)
2. And the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead (1923)
3. The Angel on the Ship (1917)
4. The Angel that Troubled the Waters (1928)
5. Brother Fire (1916)
6. Centaurs (1920)
7. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came (1919)
8. The Christmas Interludes I (1916)
9. The Christmas Interludes II (1916)
10.
Fanny Otcott is a ten-minute dramatic comedy. Mrs. Otcott is sorting through the artifacts of her past when an old lover appears. He’s a former actor, now married, a father, and nothing less than an Anglican Bishop with ambitions – i.e., a man of the cloth who needs to be sure that an earlier chapter of his life is safely buried away. (1918; Cast: 1 female, 1 male, 1 boy)
11.
Flamingo Red is a ten-minute comedy. A young couple quibble and quarrel over seemingly inconsequential matters in the lavishly decorated Flamingo Red Tea Room at the Hotel Coeur de Lion. Madame Flamingo, the mysterious hostess, seeks to mediate and mitigate their dispute. (1916; Cast: 2 female, 1 male)
12. The Flight into Egypt (1928)
13. Hast Thou Considered My Servant Job? (1928)
14.
Leviathan is a ten-minute drama. A mermaid is surprised to find a shipwrecked prince adrift on soggy pillows on the sea. The Prince is no less surprised! Is she an illusion born of dreams or songs or fevers? He offers to trade some of his great treasure for his safety. She will only be satisfied to if he pays with something she has heard about: a soul. He claims to have one but he cannot show it to her. Does she save him, or does she relegate him to the clutches of the Leviathan, the great sea serpent who now swims into the scene? (1919; Cast: 1 female, 1 male, 1 any gender)
15. The Marriage We Deplore (1917)
16. The Message and the Jehanne (1917)
17. Mozart and the Grey Steward (1928)
18. Nascuntur Poetae (1918)
19. Now the Servant’s Name Was Malchus (1928)
20. The Penny that Beauty Spent (1918)
21. Proserpina and the Devil (1916)
22. The Song of Maria Bentedos (1918)
About the Playwright:
Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was an acclaimed American
novelist and playwright whose works, exploring the connection between
the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue
to be read and produced around the world. He also enjoyed enormous
success with many other forms of the written and spoken word, among
them teaching, acting, the opera, and cinema. A three time Pulitzer
Prize winner and the only winner for both fiction and drama, his many
honours include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy
of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the
National Book Committee's Medal for Literature.