• My Account
  • Quick Order
  • Cart
  • Checkout
 
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Clients

 
  • Home
  • The Plays
    • The Plays
    • Not Yet Published
    • Newly Published
    • Bestsellers
    • Classics
    • Collections
    • Bundles
    • Catalog
  • Performance Rights
    • Restrictions
    • Payments
    • Performance Rights
    • Upcoming Productions
  • Authors
  • FAQs
    • FAQs
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Wholesale Customers
    • Desk Copies
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
Menu
  • Home
  • The Plays
    • The Plays
    • Not Yet Published
    • Newly Published
    • Bestsellers
    • Classics
    • Collections
    • Bundles
    • Catalog
  • Performance Rights
    • Restrictions
    • Payments
    • Performance Rights
    • Upcoming Productions
  • Authors
  • FAQs
    • FAQs
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Wholesale Customers
    • Desk Copies
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
 

  • Home
  • The Plays
    • The Plays
    • Not Yet Published
    • Newly Published
    • Bestsellers
    • Classics
    • Collections
    • Bundles
    • Catalog
  • Performance Rights
    • Restrictions
    • Payments
    • Performance Rights
    • Upcoming Productions
  • Authors
  • FAQs
    • FAQs
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Wholesale Customers
    • Desk Copies
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
 
  • Home
  • >
  • The Plays
  • >
  • Fit for a Queen
    Cover photo by Lelund Durond Thompson

    Fit for a Queen

    Betty Shamieh
    Trade Edition$15.95
    ePlay$15.00 + $10.00 per additional user
    Performance Rights

    Play Description

    Inspired by the life of Hatshepsut, a woman who ruled as a pharaoh in ancient Egypt. Under the guidance of Senenmut, her female lover, Hatshepsut usurps the throne from her son-in-law, Thutmose III. Full of intrigue, farce, and sexual politics, FIT FOR A QUEEN is a tragicomedy of epic proportions with a modern sensibility.

    Production Info

    Cast: 7 total (4 female, 3 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
    Multiple Sets
    Period Costumes
    Categories: The Plays Tags: Historical Figure, African
    • Reviews
    • About the Author(s)
    • About the Book
    • Special Notes
    • Productions

    Press Quotes

    “Plenty of glamorous backstabbing, diva dissing and sexual double-crossing … has every right to claim the name Dynasty for itself. But the title character in Betty Shamieh’s bouncy, bumpy comic melodrama is the real thing. A queen, I mean, and not just of the self-dramatizing type. Scratch that. She’s more than a queen. She’s a pharaoh, one Hatshepsut, who reigned over Egypt for 20 odd years in the 15th century BC, and the distinction is important in a time when women rarely ruled, at least not officially. (Ancient days, huh?) A subversive speculation on the nature of power.” —Ben Brantley, The New York Times

    “Funny, both witty — Shamieh’s sharp-tongued women lacerate one another and their shared opponents — and farcical. FIT FOR A QUEEN may have attracted attention due to its election-season parallels … but it’s Senenmut who is [Shamieh’s] favorite kind of antihero: the oppressed subject who refuses to play angel, the recipient of horrors who manages to deliver some horrors of her own. She’s bundled contradictions, as the best-written characters always are: power-hungry but empathetic; hardened through experience but naive enough to be betrayed; often the smartest person in the room, so always surprised when she’s outwitted.” —Harvard Magazine

    “If the premise sounds like a history lesson, this play delivers a hilarious, beautifully written tale of what it takes to be a woman in power and how absolute power does inevitably corrupt absolutely … the writing is both poetic and powerful and the comedy is intelligent and sharp. The wily Senenmut has an evil streak that rivals many a Shakespearean villain.” —Tribeca Trib

    “FIT FOR A QUEEN reveals the life and reign of Hatshepsut in a way never before explored, thus ensuring Hatshepsut’s name is not lost to the ages.” —Huffington Post

    Author(s)

    • Betty Shamieh

      Betty Shamieh is a playwright, author, screenwriter, and actress. She is the author of fifteen plays. She was selected as the winner of The Playwrights' Center's 2012 – 2013 McKnight National Residency and Commission. Her Off-Broadway premieres are THE BLACK EYED (New York Theatre Workshop) and ROAR (The New Group), which was selected as a New York Times Critics Pick and is currently being taught at universities throughout the United States. Shamieh was named a UNESCO Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue in 2011. Her recent European productions in translation include AGAIN AND AGAINST (Playhouse Theater, Stockholm), THE BLACK EYED (Fournos Theatre, Athens), and TERRITORIES (co-production of the Landes-Theatre and the European Union Capital of Culture Festival). AGAIN AND AGAINST was presented in Russian translation as part of the American Seasons in Russia/U.S.-Russia Presidential Bi-lateral Commission and Lark Play Development Center in 2011. AS SOON AS IMPOSSIBLE was commissioned by Second Stage through the Time Warner Commissioning Program. THE MACHINE was directed by Marisa Tomei and produced by Naked Angels. Her play FREE RADICALS was commissioned by at Het Zuidelijk Toneel (Holland). TERRITORIES was commissioned by Trinity Rep, developed at Al-Harah Theatre, and presented at the Bethlehem Peace Center with support from the Doris Duke Foundation. In 2012, Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Studies presented the world premiere of a suite of arias from TERRITORIES, an opera that Shamieh is writing the lyrics and libretto for based on her play. Shamieh performed in her play of monologues, CHOCOLATE IN HEAT, in three extended Off-Off-Broadway runs and over twenty university theatres. A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, she was a recipient of a NEA/TCG residency program at the Magic Theatre. Shamieh was selected as a Clifton Visiting Artist at Harvard in 2004 and named as a Playwriting Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies in 2006. Shamieh's contributions to theatre and literature have not gone unnoticed. Her life and work has been the subject of features in The New York Times, Time Out, American Theatre magazine, Theater Bay Area, The Brooklyn Rail, San Francisco Chronicle, Svenska Dagbladet, Teaterstockholm, der Standard, Aramco Magazine, Kathimeiri, and The International Herald Tribune among others. A cartoon of ROAR appeared in The New Yorker's "Goings on about Town" section. She is a member of New Dramatists, an affiliated artist at the New Group, and a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. Her works have been translated into seven languages.

    Book Information

    Publisher BPPI
    Publication Date 4/18/2018
    Pages 66
    ISBN 9780881457636

    Special Notes

    If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:

    FIT FOR A QUEEN was first produced by the Classical Theatre of Harlem
    (Ty Jones, Artistic Director; David Roberts, Managing Director)
    opening on 7 October 2016

    In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:

    Fit for a Queen is produced
    by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
    www.broadwayplaypub.com

    Upcoming and Recent Productions

    Nonprofessional


    2/23/2023 – 2/26/2023
    University Of The Arts
    Philadelphia, PA

    Related Plays

    $15.00–$15.95
    Killing the Bear
    Jonathan Yukich
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    What happens when football and aliens mix in the American South? Set in 1974, an Alabama family is forced to confront long-submerged truths when sports legend Bear Bryant visits their hometown of Balls. As the big arrival nears, and other unexpected guests materialize, the family struggles to maintain their identity, civility, and what’s left of their sanity. A comedy with bite, KILLING THE BEAR turns a spotlight on the insularity of small-town life, the frenzied clout of college football in the Bible Belt, and the distorted constructs of hero-worship.

    Production Info

    Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)
    Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
    Single Set
    Contemporary Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Hillary Agonistes
    Nick Salamone
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    Part Greek tragedy, part blackest comedy, HILLARY AGONISTES presents the cautionary tale of Hillary Clinton, newly elected President of the United States. One bright spring day 65 million people disappear — First Husband Bill among them. Is it the rapture? Pat Robertson, Stephen Hawking, a Papal emissary, the Antichrist, and a Muslim convert named Chelsea offer their opinions as Hillary agonizes and attempts to avert Armageddon.

    Production Info

    Cast: 4 total (3 female, 1 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 75 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Contemporary Costumes
    $15.00
    Joshua Slocum Sailing Alone Around the World
    Ruth Wolff
    $15.00

    Play Description

    As he is making preparations to set out on what will become his final sea journey, Joshua Slocum (hounded by an unsympathetic offstage second wife), tells us about his previous Great Adventure when, in 1895, he set out on a three-year journey in his 34-foot sloop the Spray to prove that a man could sail around the world alone. In vivid anecdotes, he shares the tale of his unprecedented 46,000 mile journey, when (years before radio or G P S systems), he sailed through sun and storm, blazing heat and relentless cold, through hunger and delirium, across the world's great oceans and seas, battled wind and waves to traverse the world's two great capes, fought pirates and savages, and put into port in some of the wildest, weirdest and most inhospitable lands around the world. Slocum takes us with him on his epic adventure, told with humor and originality through the eyes of a weather-beaten sea salt who, against all expectation, did what no one had ever done before. Based on Slocum's own account of his epic journey.

    Production Info

    Cast: 1 total (1 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
    Single Set
    Period Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Celadine
    Charles Evered
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    The often hilarious, bawdy, and adventuresome story of Celadine, coffeehouse proprietor, writer, and sometime spy, during the reign of Charles II in London.

    Production Info

    Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)
    Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Young Robin Hood
    Jon Klein
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    Travel to Sherwood Forest for some swashbuckling fun in this rousing new version of the classic adventure story. Long before he robbed from the rich to give to the poor, the famed archer was just another teenager honing his skills. The King is off on the Crusades and Nottingham is at the mercy of the corrupt Sheriff, who twists the law and persecutes the poor. When his dad is falsely imprisoned, Robin must step up and orchestrate a rescue mission. Friendship is tested and new alliances are formed as Robin fights tyranny and injustice, with the unexpected help of the Sheriff’s feisty daughter, Marian.

    Production Info

    Cast: 11 total (4 female, 7 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    The White Crow
    Donald Freed
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem for the trial of the century.

    Production Info

    Cast: 2 total (1 female, 1 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
    Single Set
    Contemporary Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Wheatley
    Lonnie Carter
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    The real life, storybook adventures of Phillis Wheatley; a revolutionary American slave girl, whose poetic genius lifted her from New England parlor trick into the great salons of Europe and beyond. Follow her travels with the Countess Selena, Ben Franklin, and the Admiralty from Boston to London and back, where she will find love in the arms of Samson Osee Power Frock — free man of color.

    Production Info

    Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male, Multiethnic Cast)
    Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $0.00–$15.95
    Orwell in America
    Joe Sutton
    $0.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    In the first years after World War II the author of Animal Farm is chaperoned during an American book tour by a fetching young woman, whose job is to dissuade Orwell from telling Americans why he is a proud socialist.

    Production Info

    Cast: 3 total (1 female, 2 male, 1 male bit part)
    Full Length Drama (about 105 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $15.00–$17.95
    Unexplored Interior
    Jay O Sanders
    $15.00–$17.95

    Play Description

    An old Tutsi story-teller, sitting on a hill, invites us to join him in the most beautiful place on earth — Rwanda. He becomes our guide through the history and people of the land he loves. In the wake of the 1994 genocide, multiple stories unfold. A Hutu government minister, engaged in encouraging the killing falls deeply in love with a Tutsi woman. The head of the U.N. peacekeepers, haunted by the hundreds of thousands of people he couldn’t save, struggles with his own will to live. A young Rwandese film student, away at school in New York City when his country implodes embarks on an eye-opening journey to find out what has become of his family and craft a film that will bring his country’s story to the world. The play weaves together the lives of these and other characters who experience the genocide from many different perspectives and ultimately come together to move forward into the uncertain future, reaching for hope.

    Production Info

    Cast: 14 total (2 female, 12 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 180 minutes)
    Multiple Sets
    Contemporary Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    The Beloved Disciple
    Tom Jacobson
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    Christopher Marlowe, sixteenth-century author, was murdered at the age of 29. This tragicomedy speculates that his death was tied to his scandalous play about the relationship between Jesus and the disciple John.

    Production Info

    Cast: 3 total (3 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 105 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Plunge
    Tom Jacobson
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    Dark secrets bubble to the surface as two strangers — one a priest, the other a noted art historian — share a surreal confession at the “exclusive” Bimini Baths, circa 1918. Years before, a young immigrant drowned under mysterious circumstances.

    Production Info

    Cast: 2 total (2 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 60 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $15.00
    The Abdication
    Ruth Wolff
    $15.00

    Play Description

    Why, having become Queen in childhood, would Christina of Sweden give up the throne? Confused about her sexual identity and religious beliefs, and thwarted in love, she decides to abdicate, convert to Catholicism, and throw herself, for life, on the hospitality of the Vatican. Once there, this proud but troubled woman is stunned to discover that, before she can be received by the Pope, she must submit to intense questioning by Cardinal Azzolino. At first she sees him as an adversary. But then, against all rules and expectations, Christina finds herself falling in love with her inquisitor. A probing exploration of the nature of woman, whether queen or commoner, is the subject of this highly original play.

    Production Info

    Cast: 10 total (4 female, 6 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 140 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes

    Contact Info

    BROADWAY PLAY PUBLISHING INC

    148 W 80th St, NY, NY 10024

    Working Days: Monday – Friday

    Working Hours: 8 am – 6 pm EST

    Phone: 212­-772-­8334

    Email: info@broadwayplaypub.com

    Website: www.broadwayplaypub.com

    Company Info

    • About Us
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Contact Us

    Pages

    • Home
    • The Plays
    • Performance Rights
    • Authors
    • FAQs
    • Blog

    Newsletter Sign Up

    • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
    © Broadway Play Publishing Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

    ‹ › ×