Now is the perfect time to select your organization’s holiday play!
Whether you’re in the market for a Christmas classic or for a play that simply and gently captures the holiday spirit, Hal Leonard Australia has a play that’s right for you.
 From the Library of Josef Weinberger... | |
Title: |  A KICK IN THE BAUBLES |
Author: | Gordon Steel |
Type: | Comedy |
Casting: | 4 male 5 female |
THE STORY: It’s another peaceful Christmas in the Bauble household, but chestnuts aren’t roasting on an open fire. And although a Silent Night would be welcome, all is not calm and all is certainly not bright. Frank does not wish it could be Christmas every day - in fact, he’s dreading the arrival of snobbish in-laws who only ever bring a single bottle of wine for the entire festivities. Throw in a couple of larger-than-live neighbours, let the drink flow merrily, and everything is set for a car-crash Christmas. But when Frank and Jean’s estranged daughter Milly suddenly appears, the rug is pulled out from underneath the chaos and the heartstrings are firmly tugged. | |
Title: |  GREAT EXPECTATIONS |
Author: | Baker, Tim & Dickens, Charles |
Type: | Drama |
Casting: | 5 male 3 female |
THE STORY: Tim Baker’s new and wildly successful adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations received its world premiere at Theatre Clwyd in 2009. It’s a rich and theatrically vivid adaptation of Dickens’ classic, following Pip from his early encounter with an escaped convict and his experiences with the cruel Miss Haversham and her ward Estella to his removal to London where after his ‘expectations’ are mysteriously unveiled, Pip aspires to become a gentleman in the company of his friend Herbert and the mysterious Magwich, all the while remaining in thrall to Estella despite her lack of reciprocation. | |
 From the Library of Dramatists Play Service.... | |
Title: |  THE BUTTERFINGERS ANGEL, MARY & JOSEPH, HEROD THE NUT & THE SLAUGHTER OF 12 HIT CAROLS IN A PEAR TREE |
Author: | William Gibson |
Type: | A Christmas Entertainment- Full Length |
Casting: | 6 men, 4 women, 4 children: 14 total OPEN STAGE |
THE STORY: Dealing with the story of Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus from a fresh and richly creative point of view, the author combines a series of deftly constructed short scenes, traditional Christmas music, and often antic characterizations into a wholly original theatre piece. The flow of the action follows the Biblical recounting, but is enhanced by a tree, a sheep and a donkey who talk (and most amusingly); a beguiling Mary who had heretofore decided that men and marriage were not for her; a suddenly cautious Joseph who now contends that he is too old for his intended (having earlier scoffed at Mary for expressing the same thought); and a flustered boy-angel who directs the action from a promptbook and manages to get only the most strangled, bleating sounds from his trumpet. But, through all the lively and resourceful happenings, the true significance of the occasion is never lost, and the underlying mood and spirit of reverence is, if anything, enhanced and made new by the distinctive approach of this joyful and unique retelling. | |
Title: |  CHRISTMAS BELLES |
Author: | Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, Jamie Wooten |
Type: | Comedy- Full Length |
Casting: | 4 men, 7 women: 11 total Flexible Set |
THE STORY: A church Christmas program spins hilariously out of control in this Southern farce about squabbling sisters, family secrets, a surly Santa, a vengeful sheep and a reluctant Elvis impersonator. It's Christmas-time in the small town of Fayro, Texas, and the Futrelle Sisters—Frankie, Twink and Honey Raye—are not exactly in a festive mood. A cranky Frankie is weeks overdue with her second set of twins. Twink, recently jilted and bitter about it, is in jail for inadvertently burning down half the town. And hot-flash-suffering Honey Raye is desperately trying to keep the Tabernacle of the Lamb's Christmas Program from spiraling into chaos. But things are not looking too promising: Miss Geneva, the ousted director of the previous twenty-seven productions, is ruthless in her attempts to take over the show. The celebrity guest Santa Claus—played by Frankie's long-suffering husband, Dub—is passing a kidney stone. One of the shepherds refuses to watch over his flock by night without pulling his little red wagon behind him. And the entire cast is dropping like flies due to food poisoning from the Band Boosters' Pancake Supper. And when Frankie lets slip a family secret that has been carefully guarded for decades, all hope for a successful Christmas program seems lost, even with an Elvis impersonator at the manger. But in true Futrelle fashion, the feuding sisters find a way to pull together in order to present a Christmas program the citizens of Fayro will never forget. Their hilarious holiday journey through a misadventure-filled Christmas Eve is guaranteed to bring joy to your world! | |
Title: |  CHRISTMAS CAROL (Baizley) |
Author: | adapted by Doris Baizley |
Type: | Play with Music -Full Length |
Casting: | 5-8 men, 3-6 women, 1 boy: 9 total |
THE STORY: A church Christmas program spins hilariously out of control in this Southern farce about squabbling sisters, family secrets, a surly Santa, a vengeful sheep and a reluctant Elvis impersonator. It's Christmas-time in the small town of Fayro, Texas, and the Futrelle Sisters—Frankie, Twink and Honey Raye—are not exactly in a festive mood. A cranky Frankie is weeks overdue with her second set of twins. Twink, recently jilted and bitter about it, is in jail for inadvertently burning down half the town. And hot-flash-suffering Honey Raye is desperately trying to keep the Tabernacle of the Lamb's Christmas Program from spiraling into chaos. But things are not looking too promising: Miss Geneva, the ousted director of the previous twenty-seven productions, is ruthless in her attempts to take over the show. The celebrity guest Santa Claus—played by Frankie's long-suffering husband, Dub—is passing a kidney stone. One of the shepherds refuses to watch over his flock by night without pulling his little red wagon behind him. And the entire cast is dropping like flies due to food poisoning from the Band Boosters' Pancake Supper. And when Frankie lets slip a family secret that has been carefully guarded for decades, all hope for a successful Christmas program seems lost, even with an Elvis impersonator at the manger. But in true Futrelle fashion, the feuding sisters find a way to pull together in order to present a Christmas program the citizens of Fayro will never forget. Their hilarious holiday journey through a misadventure-filled Christmas Eve is guaranteed to bring joy to your world! | |
Title: |  CHRISTMAS CAROL (Linney) |
Author: | Charles Dickens, adapted to the stage by Romulus Linney |
Type: | Christmas Play- Full Length |
Casting: | 19 men, 17 women (flexible casting): 36 total |
THE STORY: An adaptation of the story of Ebenezer Scrooge's journey from an embittered, ungenerous creature into a giving, caring human being at the hands of three spirits, who, one Christmas Eve, show him what life means. Of his new stage version of the story Linney writes, "When the Milwaukee Repertory asked me about adapting its new A CHRISTMAS CAROL for them, I did not remember actually reading the book, nor had I seen any of its numerous stage versions. I was only acquainted with the film starring Alastair Sim, done in England years ago, which I had liked, but only dimly remembered. So when I read A CHRISTMAS CAROL, I was able to pretend I had never heard of the great story before. I was of course amazed not only at its beauty and durability, but at its blazing theatricality. It is part Hamelt …part Everyman…and part Charlie Chaplin. I vowed to stick to the bones of the story as closely as I could to take the evolution of Scrooge seriously, and to try and find, as he goes, the child within him that slowly emerges from his ordeal to such bountiful happiness." This richly textured play brings the full spirit of the book, as well as those of Christmases Past, Present and Yet To Come, to life on the stage. Directions are included for a simplified version of the play. | |
Title: |  A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Schario) |
Author: | Christopher Schario, adapted from the book by Charles Dickens |
Type: | Drama- Full Length |
Casting: | 3 men, 2 women, 1 boy or girl, 1 musician: 7 total |
THE STORY: Focusing on Dickens' powerful language, humor and warmth, this charming version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL simply and directly tells the story of the redemption of a human soul. The play follows the ever-powerful story of Scrooge, a lonely miser, who, through the help of spirits and visions from his past, present and future, finds a second chance to become a loving, generous human being. Adapted for a company of six actors, accompanied by a fiddler, the play requires a minimum of sets, costumes and props. It begins with a child reading the story for the first time. As the scenes are played out behind him, the child becomes totally caught up in the story and is finally invited by the other characters to enter the play as one of them. With traditional carols and English folk tunes creating the proper atmosphere, the world of Scrooge, Fezziwig and Tiny Tim comes alive, igniting the holiday spirit for young and old alike. | |
Title: |  A CHRISTMAS CAROL—A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS (Wilson) |
Author: | Charles Dickens, adapted by Michael Wilson |
Type: | Drama- Full Length |
Casting: | 7 men, 5 women, chorus of children: 12 total |
THE STORY: This theatrical and spirited version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL puts the phantasmagoric qualities of Charles Dickens' classic tale center stage. A swirling, dancing chorus of ghosts that weave through this uplifting holiday story of redemption, magic and hope. The play has been performed for almost a million people over the years at Houston's Alley Theatre, Hartford Stage and Washington, D.C.'s historic Ford's Theatre. | |
Title: |  JACOB MARLEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL (Mula) |
Author: | Tom Mula |
Type: | Comedy/Drama- Full Length |
Casting: | 4 men, or 3 men and 1 woman, or 1 man (solo-performance version): 4 total |
THE STORY: "Marley was dead, to begin with…"—and what happens to Ebenezer Scrooge's mean, sour, pruney old business partner after that? Chained and shackled, Marley is condemned to a hellish eternity. He's even given his own private tormentor: a malicious little hell-sprite who thoroughly enjoys his work. Desperate, Marley accepts his one chance to free himself: To escape his own chains, he must first redeem Scrooge. So begins a journey of laughter and terror, redemption and renewal, during which Scrooge's heart, indeed, is opened; but not before Marley—in this irreverent, funny and deeply moving story—discovers his own. | |
Title: |  THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO |
Author: | Alfred Uhry |
Type: | Comedy/Drama- Full Length |
Casting: | 3 men, 4 women: 7 total |
THE STORY: THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO takes place in Atlanta, Georgia, in December of 1939. Gone with the Wind is having its world premiere, and Hitler is invading Poland, but Atlanta's elitist German Jews are much more concerned with who is going to Ballyhoo, the social event of the season. Especially concerned is the Freitag family: bachelor Adolph, his widowed sister, Beulah (Boo) Levy, and their also widowed sister-in-law, Reba. Boo is determined to have her dreamy, unpopular daughter, Lala, attend Ballyhoo, believing it will be Lala's last chance to find a socially acceptable husband. Adolph brings his new assistant, Joe Farkas, home for dinner. Joe is Brooklyn born and bred, and furthermore is of Eastern European heritage—several social rungs below the Freitags, in Beulah's opinion. Lala, however, is charmed by Joe and she hints broadly about being taken to Ballyhoo, but he turns her down. This enrages Boo, and matters get worse when Joe falls for Lala's cousin, Reba's daughter, Sunny, home from Wellesley for Christmas vacation. Will Boo succeed in snaring Peachy Weil, a member of one of the finest Jewish families in the South? Will Sunny and Joe avoid the land mines of prejudice that stand in their way? Will Lala ever get to Ballyhoo? The family gets pulled apart and then mended together with plenty of comedy, romance and revelations along the way. Events take several unexpected turns as the characters face where they come from and are forced to deal with who they really are. | |
Title: |  THE LONG CHRISTMAS RIDE HOME |
Author: | Paula Vogel |
Type: | Comedy/Drama- Full Length |
Casting: | 3 men, 3 women: 6 total |
THE STORY: Past, present and future collide on a snowy Christmas Eve for a troubled family of five. Humorous and heart-wrenching, this beautifully written play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of How I Learned to Drive proves that magic can be found in the simplest breaths of life. | |
Title: |  MRS. BOB CRATCHIT'S WILD CHRISTMAS BINGE |
Author: | Christopher Durang |
Type: | Drama- Full Length |
Casting: | 6 men, 4 women, 1 boy and 1 girl (doubling): 14 total |
THE STORY: In this departure from Dickens, young Scrooge's exclamations of "Bah, humbug!" are an undiagnosed "kind of seasonal Tourette's Syndrome," and The Ghost of Christmas Past is played by a sassy African-American woman with enough attitude to portray all three spirits (which she does). She tries to show Scrooge his past, present and future in order to change him, but her magic keeps malfunctioning in Durang's version of the beloved holiday classic, and they consistently find themselves transported to the wrong time and place. She tries to take Scrooge back to see his old employers, the Fezziwigs—"always an audience favorite"—but instead she and Scrooge keep appearing in the present at the Cratchit's pathetic home. Mrs. Bob Cratchit, a minor character in the Dickens, takes center stage here. No longer loving and long suffering, Mrs. Bob is in a rage: She's sick of Tiny Tim (the goody-goody crippled child), she hates her twenty other children (most of them confined to the root cellar), including oversized Little Nell, and she wants to get drunk and jump off London Bridge. As the Ghost loses more control, the plot morphs into parodies of Oliver Twist, "The Gift of the Magi" and It's a Wonderful Life. And to make matters worse, Scrooge and Mrs. Bob seem to be kindred souls falling in love. With a dénouement that is two parts Touched by an Angel and one part The Queen of Mean, Scrooge's tale of redemption and gentle grace is placed squarely on its head. | |
Title: |  THE SANTALAND DIARIES |
Author: | David Sedaris, adapted by Joe Mantello |
Type: | Short Play- One Act |
Casting: | 1 man: 1 total |
THE STORY: THE SANTALAND DIARIES is a brilliant evocation of what a slacker's Christmas must feel like. Out of work, our slacker decides to become a Macy's elf during the holiday crunch. At first the job is simply humiliating, but once the thousands of visitors start pouring through Santa's workshop, he becomes battle weary and bitter. Taking consolation in the fact that some of the other elves were television extras on One Life to Live, he grins and bears it, occasionally taking out his frustrations on the children and parents alike. The piece ends with yet another Santa being ushered into the workshop, but this one is different from the lecherous or drunken ones with whom he has had to work. This Santa actually seems to care about and love the children who come to see him, startling our hero into an uncharacteristic moment of goodwill just before his employment runs out. (1 man.) | |
Title: |  THE TRUTH ABOUT SANTA (AN APOCALYPTIC HOLIDAY TALE) |
Author: | Greg Kotis |
Type: | Comedy- Play with Music |
Casting: | 5 men, 3 women: 8 total |
THE STORY: Santa Claus is tired of the lies. Like the gods of old, he, too, has his mortal mistresses. This Christmas Eve he will bring Mary, his favorite earthly consort, and Luke and Freya, their illegitimate, semi-divine children, back to his North Pole compound to live with him—forever! Not surprisingly, Mrs. Claus resists. First she withholds Santa's beloved joy-weed. Then she tries to poison Mary and the children with some delicious candy-wine. And as the singing elf-slaves Jo-Jo and Jim-Jim, and Mary's drunkard husband, George, are drawn into the marital mêlée, all Hell—quite literally—breaks loose. | |
Title: |  SEASON'S GREETINGS |
Author: | David Sedaris, adapted by Joe Mantello |
Type: | Short Play- One Act |
Casting: | 1 woman: 1 total |
THE STORY: SEASON'S GREETINGS. Another funny, touching—and twisted—monologue about the season. (1 woman.) | |
Title: | MONTHS ON END |
Author: | Craig Pospisil |
Type: | Comedy- Full Length |
Casting: | 5 men, 5 women: 10 total |
THE STORY: In a series of comic scenes—one for each month of the year—we follow the intertwined worlds of a circle of friends and family whose lives are poised between happiness and heartbreak. The circle centers around Phoebe and Ben, who are engaged to be married. But Phoebe worries her Beatles-obsessed fiancé may not be the right man for her, and Ben's no help planning the wedding because he's distracted by a friend's illness. Even so, Elaine is jealous of her friends' relationship, especially since none of hers last more than five dates. She's ready to give up on love until she meets the eternally optimistic Walter, whose only flaw may be that he's married. Walter's gruff brother, Nick, is single, but when he proposes to Paige on a beach her answer is to scream and drop the engagement ring in the sand. Heidi, Phoebe's post-feminist sister, delivers a comic gem of a commencement address in May that starts as a tribute to the graduates' parents but degenerates into a hysterical tirade against them. Come June, Phoebe's wedding day meltdown isn't helped by her mother Gwen's complaints, or her father, Chris, who, trying to calm her fears, tells Phoebe to "Pretend you're in an airplane that's crashing…" Walter and Nick and their friend Tony battle hilariously in July over what they find sexy about women (but it's not what you think). As the year draws to a close, a fight over The Beatles threatens to break up Ben and Phoebe, but the death of Ben's friend bonds them more strongly together. The funny and touching December scene finds Walter and Nick still as different as siblings can be but finally united by their failed relationships…and the New York Yankees. The diverse scenes and characters in this winning play come together to create a delightful theatrical experience encompassing a range of emotions from happiness to sorrow and everything in between. | |
Title: | THE LAST DECEMBER |
Author: | Craig Pospisil |
Type: | Short Play- One Act |
Casting: | 1 man, 1 woman: 2 total |
THE STORY: An elderly couple sit at home on a cold winter's night. The old man wants to finish watching his football game, but his wife is trying to get him ready to go out on some errand. The man is angry and bitter, and he clearly doesn't want to go. His patient wife listens but gently prods. But there's more to the old man than meets the eye, and the play ends with surprising sweetness and love. | |
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