The Life and Works of Ingmar Bergman

Hal Leonard Australia on behalf of Josef Weinberger Ltd is proud to represent the works of one of the world’s most influential film directors, Ingmar Bergman. Now for the first time Australian theatre companies can present his works - on stage. Strindberg, Ibsen, Shakespeare and Moliere were the pillars of Bergman’s work in the theatre and they inevitably influenced his own works. Whether for film or theatre, they are deeply personal pieces that address universal human concerns in a profoundly thoughtful and questioning way.  Stage versions of a number of the films have already been successfully adapted and more will certainly follow.  As he both wrote and directed his films, Bergman in fact conceived his screenplays as plays to be filmed, and they require little or no adaptation - merely translation - for performance in the theatre. about...   Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) is one of the most famous and influential directors in the history of film. From the age of 9, when he acquired an old magic lantern, he was also a stage director and playwright. His first stage was his own private miniature one, at home, whose scenery and lighting were self-designed and whose actors were marionettes, performing Strindberg plays in which he spoke all the parts himself. At the age of 19, he entered Stockholm University to study art and literature, but spent most of his time there in student theatre and developing his writing.  He became an assistant director at a local theatre, directing one of his own scripts, Caspar’s Death, which came to the attention of the Svensk Filmindustri.  This marked his big break into film. At age 26, the year in which he wrote his first screenplay, “Torment”, he became the youngest theatre manager in Europe at the Helsingborg City Theatre. He moved to the Gothenburg City Theatre from 1946 to 1949 and directed Malmö City Theater for seven years from 1953. Many of the stars of his films began working with Bergman on the stage. A number of actors in the “Bergman troupe” of his 1960s films came from Malmö‘s City Theatre (including Max von Sydow). He was the director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm - from 1960 to 1966 and manager from 1963 to 1966. He left Sweden in the 1970s following an accusation of tax evasion (which proved to be unfounded) by the Swedish authorities, and directed the Residenz Theatre in Munich from 1977 to 1984. He remained active in theatre throughout his life, having returned to Sweden after an eight-year absence, his final production was Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 2002. his works... CLICK HERE! to download descriptions of each play! (pdf) AFTER THE REHEARSAL ALL THESE WOMEN AUTUMN SONATA Cast:  1 Male 2 Female Additional Casting:  1 Boy, 1 Girl  Length: Full  Set: Interior       Genre: Drama Cast: 5 Male 6 Female Length: Full Set: Flexible Genre: Drama Cast: 5 Male 5 Female Additional Casting: 1 Girl Length: Full Set: Interior Genre: Drama THE BEST INTENTIONS CRIES AND WHISPERS THE DEVIL'S EYE Cast: 9 Male 7 Female Length: Full Set: Flexible Genre: Comedy Cast: 4 Male 5 Female Length: Full Set: Interior Genre: Drama Cast: 3 Male 1 Female Length: Short Set: Interior Genre: Drama FAITHLESS FANNY AND ALEXANDER SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE Cast: 3 Male 2 Female Additional Casting: 1 Girl Length: Full Set: Interior Genre: Drama Cast: 14 Male 10 Female Additional Casting: 2 Girls, 1 Boy Length: Full Set: lexible Genre: Drama Cast: 3 Male 6 Female Additional Casting: 1 Girl Length: Full Set: Interior Genre: Drama Contact us today to apply for or to peruse any of these great works!

Looking for plays to challenge and excite your students?
Hal Leonard Australia has a wide range of plays from around
the world for your students to perform or study. 

When Shakespeare's Ladies Meet
Charles George
Comedy- One Act
6 women: 6 total
THE STORY: Imagine the fun when six of Shakespeare's heroines get together to discuss the universal topic—love. That's what happens in this thirty-minute playlet. Juliet's just fallen in love with Romeo and the other ladies of the Bard's imagination convene to enlighten her on the best method of conducting a romance.

You Can't Take It with You
Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
Comedy-Full Length
9 men, 7 women (3 men extras): 16 total
THE STORY: At first the Sycamores seem mad, but it is not long before we realize that if they are mad, the rest of the world is madder. In contrast to these delightful people are the unhappy Kirbys. The plot shows how Tony, attractive young son of the Kirbys, falls in love with Alice Sycamore and brings his parents to dine at the Sycamore home on the wrong evening. The shock sustained by the Kirbys, who are invited to eat cheap food, shows Alice that marriage with Tony is out of the question. The Sycamores, however, though sympathetic to Alice, find it hard to realize her point of view. Meantime, Tony, who knows the Sycamores are right and his own people wrong, will not give her up, and in the end Mr. Kirby is converted to the happy madness of the Sycamores, particularly since he happens in during a visit by an ex-Grand Duchess, earning her living as a waitress. No mention has as yet been made of the strange activities of certain members of the household engaged in the manufacture of fireworks; nor of the printing press set up in the parlor; nor of Rheba the maid and her friend Donald; nor of Grandpa's interview with the tax collector when he tells him he doesn't believe in the income tax.

Hal Leonard Australia can supply a huge range of
play scripts for your classroom needs.
Discounts available for bulk orders!

We look forward to working with you on your next production!  

The Crucible
Arthur Miller
 Drama- Full Length
10 men, 10 women: 20 total
Winner of the 1953 Tony Award for Best Play.
THE STORY: The story focuses upon a young farmer, his wife, and a young servant-girl who maliciously causes the wife's arrest for witchcraft. The farmer brings the girl to court to admit the lie—and it is here that the monstrous course of bigotry and deceit is terrifyingly depicted. The farmer, instead of saving his wife, finds himself also accused of witchcraft and ultimately condemned with a host of others.

The Laramie Project
Moisés Kaufman and the Members of Tectonic Theater Project
 Drama- Full Length
4 men, 4 women (doubling, flexible casting): 8 total
THE STORY: In October 1998 a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming was kidnapped, severely beaten and left to die, tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. His bloody, bruised and battered body was not discovered until the next day, and he died several days later in an area hospital. His name was Matthew Shepard, and he was the victim of this assault because he was gay. Moisés Kaufman and fellow members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half in the aftermath of the beating and during the trial of the two young men accused of killing Shepard. They conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town. Some people interviewed were directly connected to the case, and others were citizens of Laramie, and the breadth of their reactions to the crime is fascinating. Kaufman and Tectonic Theater members have constructed a deeply moving theatrical experience from these interviews and their own experiences. THE LARAMIE PROJECT is a breathtaking theatrical collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable.

AGES OF THE MOON
by Sam Shepard
Comedy 2M Exterior set
A gruffly poignant and darkly funny play, Ages of the Moon finds old friends Byron and Ames re-united by mutual desperation. Ames' marriage has broken down and he rings Byron in desperation. Byron travels for three days to see Ames, and over bourbon on ice, they sit, reflect and bicker until fifty years of love, friendship and rivalry are put to the test at the barrel of a gun.

KICKING A DEAD HORSE
by Sam Shepard
Comedy 1M + horse Flexible staging
Written for the Abbey Theatre and the celebrated Irish actor Stephen Rea, Sam Shepard's striking play tells the story of one man's quest for authenticity when Hobart Struther, an urbane art dealer, attempts to revisit his roots by striking off into the desert, only for his horse to pack up and die leaving him stuck in the desert with his gear and a dead horse, which he feels obliged to bury. Struther, exasperated and contemplative by turns, talks to himself and the audience, gradually revealing how he amassed wealth exploiting Americana, married a glamorous woman, became estranged, and now finds himself in late middle age searching for authenticity and, yes, the true west.

WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS
by Jill Hyem
Three women of a ‘certain age’ gravitate to Paris.  There’s Nancy, a retired headmistress determined to throw off the shackles; Anna, recently widowed – and free – after years of nursing a sick husband; and Raquel, a divorcee in search of eternal youth and a new boy toy. A feel-good play with laughter and tears, the promise of romance, friendship and anger, and the advantages and disadvantages of growing old. Perhaps not La Vie en Rose, but We’ll Always Have Paris is certainly a play that will leave audiences charmed, amused, thoughtful – and singing!

A HEALTHY GRAVE
by Simon Brett
Robert and Hilary Travers, a childless married couple in their seventies, have had careers around the world as academics, but now in retirement their horizons have shrunk to a small cottage in the Cotswolds.  Robert, once the life and soul of lecture hall and Senior Common Room, is now reduced to an audience of one, his wife – and she’s heard all his stories before.  The play, alternatively hilarious and heart-breaking, is a study of marriage in old age.

CASTRO’S BEARD
by Brian Stewart
On the eve of Fidel Castro’s historic visit to the United Nations Assembly in 1960, a clandestine meeting takes place in Washington DC – a CIA think tank is hastily assembled whose sole aim is to take down the Castro regime.  From the beginning, no idea is too far-fetched for this group, as the tactics switch from destabilising the Cuban government to outright assassination.  Suggestions range from poisonous snakes in the mail to exploding underwater sea shells, even putting poison in his socks to make his bear fall out, thus stripping Castro of the symbol of his power.  A plan involving hired mafia hit men is also considered, and of course, an exploding cigar.  But as Castro’s United Nations visit looms ever closer, the stakes continue to rise in this satirical tale of desperate government responses to foreign provocation, probing an issue as resonant today as ever.

To purchase any of these exciting plays or to apply for performance
rights please visit our website at www.halleonard.com.au

We look forward to working with you on your next production!