ACT-CO Show Titles
 
 
 
 
      * = Homegrown Play

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$38,000 FOR A FRIENDLY FACE
In a small town, a funeral is being held for a woman no one liked, including her daughters, who may or may not stay for the event. The funeral home has just been purchased by a man who knows nothing about being a funeral director. A group of volunteers (The Last Supper Committee) along with a flower delivery girl who will not leave, head toward meal-destroying confrontations around the subject of death. The Celebration of Life is saved. Sort of. You'll have to read it to find out how.
  $38,000 For A Friendly Face
  a Comedy by Kristin Shepherd
  Nationality:  English Canadian
    Rights: 
Samuel French Inc
 
2012 Nov - The Curtain Club

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13: THE MUSICAL
13 is a musical with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown and book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn. Following a move from New York City to small-town Indiana, young Evan Goldman grapples with his parents' divorce, prepares for his impending Bar Mitzvah, and navigates the complicated social circles of a new school.
  13: The Musical
  a Musical by Jason Robert Brown, Dan Elish & Robert Horn
  Nationality: 
    Rights: 
Music Theatre International

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1949
The Mercer family and their extended clan must come to some emotional and political decisions when Newfoundland joins Confederation on April Fool’s Day of 1949. As the members of the family stand on the precipice of both a new beginning in Canada and a farewell to Newfoundland culture and independence, humour and pathos illuminate the larger question of what it means to have a country.
  1949
  a Drama by David French
  Nationality:  English Canadian
    Rights: 
Playwrights Guild of Canada
 
2016 Mar - Scarborough Players

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2 ACROSS
Two strangers, a man and a woman (late 40s to middle 50s) board a San Francisco BART train at 4:30 AM. They're alone in the car, each is married, both are doing the New York Times crossword. She's an organized, sensible, psychologist. He's a free spirited, unemployed ad exec. She is a crossword pro, he always quits. When he tosses his puzzle away, she snaps, "Crosswords are a metaphor for life, those who finish, succeed, those who don't, fail." Now he vows to finish. Why?  He's a competitor and she happens to be lovely. This starts an 80 minute ride described by critics as "Hilarious," "Witty," "Romantic," "Poignant," "Wonderfully entertaining." Two opposites in an enclosed space, attacking each other's values but also being swayed and intrigued by them. They each have serious life problems that the other helps them solve. Their trip is filled with unpredictable but believable surprises, even a passionate kissing embrace or two. As the train ride ends it's obvious each of them has been changed for the better. And we're all dying to know if these two will meet again?
  2 Across
  a Comedy by Jerry Mayer
  Nationality:  American
    Rights: 
Samuel French Inc
 
2015 Jul - Verve Theatre Company
2024 Sep - Markham Little Theatre

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20TH CENTURY BLUES
Four women meet once a year for a ritual photo shoot, chronicling their changing (and aging) selves as they navigate love, careers, children, and the complications of history. But when these private photographs threaten to go public, relationships are tested, forcing the women to confront who they are and how they’ll deal with whatever lies ahead.
  20th Century Blues
  a Comedy by Susan Miller
  Nationality: 
    Rights: 
Dramatists Play Service
 
2024 Jan - Burl-Oak Theatre Group

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THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE
Six young people in the throes of puberty, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves, learn that winning isn't everything and that losing doesn't necessarily make you a loser. THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE is a hilarious tale of overachievers' angst chronicling the experience of six adolescent outsiders vying for the spelling championship of a lifetime. The show's Tony Award winning creative team has created the unlikeliest of hit musicals about the unlikeliest of heroes: a quirky yet charming cast of outsiders for whom a spelling bee is the one place where they can stand out and fit in at the same time.
  25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The
  a Musical by William Finn, Rachel Sheinkin, Rebecca Feldman & Jay Reiss
  Nationality:  American
    Rights: 
Music Theatre International
 
2012 Feb - Whitby Courthouse Theatre
2014 May - Kempenfelt Community Players
2016 Jan - Theatre Aurora
2016 Feb - Scarborough Music Theatre

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THE 39 STEPS
"The 39 Steps" is a melodrama adapted from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock. The original concept and production of a four-actor version of the story was by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon. Patrick Barlow rewrote this adaptation in 2005. The play's concept calls for the entirety of the 1935 adventure film "The 39 Steps" to be performed with a cast of only four. One actor plays the hero, Richard Hannay, an actress (or sometimes actor) plays the three women with whom he has romantic entanglements, and two other actors play every other character in the show: heroes, villains, men, women, children and even the occasional inanimate object. This often requires lightning fast quick-changes and occasionally for them to play multiple characters at once. Thus the film's serious spy story is played mainly for laughs, and the script is full of allusions to (and puns on the titles of) other Alfred Hitchcock films, including "Strangers on a Train", "Rear Window", "Psycho", "Vertigo" and "North by Northwest".
  39 Steps, The
  a Comedy by Patrick Barlow (from novel by John Buchan and movie by Alfred Hitchcock)
  Nationality:  English
    Rights: 
Samuel French Inc
 
2014 Oct - East Side Players
2015 Apr - Whitby Courthouse Theatre
2018 Feb - South Simcoe Theatre
2019 Oct - Scarborough Theatre Guild
2022 Apr - The Bloor West Village Players
2022 Sep - Century Theatre Guild
2023 Nov - The Curtain Club

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42ND STREET
High hopes are riding on director Julian Marsh's new show, Pretty Lady. But Julian has doubts about his star, Dorothy Brock, whose wealthy admirer is also the show’s backer. Events take an unexpected turn, however, when newcomer Peggy Sawyer wins a place in the chorus, and in Julian’s heart.
  42nd Street
  a Musical by Harry Warren, Al Dubin, Michael Stewart & Mark Bramble based on novel by Bradford Ropes
  Nationality:  American
    Rights: 
Tams-Witmark Music Library
 
2012 Apr - Etobicoke Musical Productions
2022 Nov - Etobicoke Musical Productions

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7 - 10 SPLIT
This comedy introduces us to the hapless Earl, also known as "Curly Early", once a promising amateur bowler. Having chosen love and marriage to his devoted wife Brenda instead of joining the professional bowling circuit, Earl finds himself down and out and living in a trailer park. The cupboards are bare, the telephone's been cut off, and bills continue to mount due to a litany of bad investments that include discount Fudgesicles melting on the living-room floor and a load of dead lobsters. They are joined by Brenda's wise brother, Larry, who lives across the lane. Earl resents him for "stealing" a job he wanted as a security guard at an apple-processing plant. Earl, desperate to make some fast cash, has responded to an email from Count Gustaf. The Count lives in a small European country and is willing to give up 10% of his $150-million fortune if only Earl will send him $10,000 to free his frozen assets. Earl receives an email confirming that his cheque for $15 million is in the mail. The celebration, however, is short-lived when the angry "Count" arrives at their door to collect his $10,000.
  7 - 10 Split
  a Comedy by Michael G. Wilmot
  Nationality:  English Canadian
    Rights: 
Playwrights Guild of Canada
 
2015 Apr - Markham Little Theatre

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84 CHARING CROSS ROAD
This play is about the twenty-year correspondence between Hanff and Frank Doel, chief buyer of Marks & Co, antiquarian booksellers located at the eponymous address in London, England. Hanff, in search of obscure classics and British literature titles she had been unable to find in New York City, noticed an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature and first contacted the shop in 1949, and it fell to Doel to fulfill her requests. In time, a long-distance friendship evolved, not only between the two, but between Hanff and other staff members as well, with an exchange of Christmas packages, birthday gifts, and food parcels to compensate for post-World War II food shortages in Britain. Their letters included discussions about topics as diverse as the sermons of John Donne, how to make Yorkshire Pudding, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the coronation of Elizabeth II. Hanff postponed visiting her English friends until too late; Doel died in December 1968 from peritonitis from a burst appendix, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. A circular brass plaque on the building that now stands on the shop's former site acknowledges the story.
  84 Charing Cross Road
  a Drama by James Roose-Evans (from book by Helene Hanff)
  Nationality:  English
    Rights: 
Samuel French Inc
 
2014 Sep - Markham Little Theatre

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9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL
9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL is a hilarious story of friendship and revenge in the Rolodex era. 9 TO 5 tells the story of three unlikely friends who conspire to take control of their company and learn there's nothing they can't do -- even in a man's world. Outrageous, thought-provoking and even a little romantic, 9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL is about teaming up and taking care of business... it's about getting credit and getting even...
  9 To 5: The Musical
  a Musical by Dolly Parton & Patricia Resnick (based on Twentieth Century Fox film)
  Nationality:  American
    Rights: 
Music Theatre International
 
2013 May - Kempenfelt Community Players
2015 May - Scarborough Music Theatre
2024 Feb - Whitby Courthouse Theatre
2025 Mar - City Centre Musical Productions

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[TITLE OF SHOW]
Jeff and Hunter, two struggling writers, hear about a new musical theatre festival. However, the deadline for submissions is a mere three weeks away. With nothing to lose, the pair decides to try to create something new with the help of their friends Susan, Heidi and Larry on the eighty-eights. With the cast in place, Jeff and Hunter begin a conversation about what to write about. Eventually, Jeff suggests they write about what to write about. They make a pact to write up until the festival's deadline and dream about the show changing their lives. [title of show] - taken from the space on the festival's application form which asks for the [title of show] - follows Hunter and Jeff and their friends on their journey through the gauntlet of creative self-expression. In the span of 90 minutes they write and perform their show at the festival and learn lessons about themselves as people, friends and artists. [title of show] is, above all, a love letter to the musical theatre - a uniquely American art form - and to the joy of collaboration.
  [title of show]
  a Musical by Jeff Bowden & Hunter Bell
  Nationality:  American
    Rights: 
Rodgers & Hammerstein
 
2018 Feb - East Side Players

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