Monster
Play Description
Adapted from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, MONSTER takes a disturbing yet poignant look at one man’s obsession with creating life and the destructive after effects of abandoning his creation.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (4 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
“MONSTER, a slick and streamlined new stage adaptation of the Frankenstein saga written by Neal Bell … is faithful to Shelley, if not in all the exhaustive details, then at least insofar as it seizes on its thematic highlights. Mr Bell’s adaptation pucks the major events from the narrative, and his language treads a colorful path: a mixture of fanciful poetics, glib wisecrackery and an occasional Anglo-Saxon obscenity that lends a contemporary tint to things.” —Bruce Weber, The New York Times
“… a lean literate version of Shelley’s often much-embroidered classic. Exploring Shelley’s psychosexual undertones, Bell’s version is more creepy than shocking in effect. He also provides a viable new conclusion for the novel’s open-ended narrative.” —Michael Sommers, The Star-Ledger
“Starting from Shelley’s original, but with a sharp eye for cogency and a sharp ear for the turn of a phrase, [Neal Bell] has managed to locate the philosophic germ inside each of the horror myth’s iconic scenes. The scare is still there, but it now has other functions than merely frightening your inner child with fantasies of impotence, rape and castration on a dark and stormy night. If you really want to frighten yourself, there’s always today’s paper; if you want a dramatic story that makes you think about the meaning and purpose of life, you should probably go and see MONSTER.” —Michael Feingold, Village Voice
Author(s)
Neal BellNeal Bell's plays, including SPATTER PATTERN (Edgar Award), MONSTER, TWO SMALL BODIES, RAW YOUTH, COLD SWEAT, READY FOR THE RIVER, SLEEPING DOGS, RAGGED DICK, ON THE BUM, and SOMEWHERE IN THE PACIFIC, have appeared at Playwrights Horizons and Classic Stage Company in New York, and at regional theaters including Berkeley Repertory, Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, and Actors Theater of Louisville, where his ten-minute play OUT THE WINDOW was a co-winner of the 1990 Heideman Award. Mr. Bell has been a playwright-in-residence at the Yale School of Drama, and has taught playwriting at New York University, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, and the 42nd Street Collective. He is currently a member of the Theater Department faculty at Duke University. A recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment and the Guggenheim Foundation, Mr. Bell was awarded an Obie Award in 1992 for sustained achievement in playwriting.
Mary ShelleyMary Shelley (1797 – 1851) was a novelist and the wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her most famous novel is Frankenstein. She also wrote the novels Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), and the autobiographical Lodore (1835). Her final novel, Mathilde, was published posthumously.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 1/30/2006 |
| Pages | 96 |
| ISBN | 9780881452280 |
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:
Originally produced by The Classic Stage Company, New York
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com
Related Plays
$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
Play Description
Ferdinand is an army major and son of President von Walter, a high-ranking noble in a German duke’s court, while Luise Miller is the daughter of a middle-class musician. The couple fall in love with each other, but both their fathers tell them to end their affair. The President instead wants to expand his own influence by marrying Ferdinand to Lady Milford, the duke’s mistress, but Ferdinand rebels against his father’s plan and tries to persuade Luise to elope with him.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (2 female, 7 male)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
$11.95
Play Description
Subtitled “A Comedy of Trans-Atlantic Manners.” An Englishman and his family live far-flung across the vast American continent. Brought together by tragedy, they find comfort in attacking their adopted country, ridiculing its crude ways and lack of standards. Humour and irony as well as the sense of loss and longing permeate this story of exiles unable to address a world that is passing by.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (4 female, 4 male)Full Length Comedy (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00
Play Description
As the 19th century moves into the 20th century, the Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi struggles to hold together the proud ancient Chinese empire, which is being assaulted by foreign nations and the technological advances of the age. Following the arrest of a Young Actor who is playing her in the streets, she finds herself powerless at the pinnacle of power, trying to preserve traditional Chinese civilization against overwhelming forces for change.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (3 female, 5 male, optional extras: court attendants)Full Length Drama (about 130 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle use logic and religion to fend off a seductive vampire in this fang-in-cheek comedy/thriller.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (3 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Büchner’s classic is brought to vivid life in Sean Graney’s sensational adaptation.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (2 female, 5 male, doubling)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00
Play Description
A Play with Music — the music of Frederic Chopin. George Sand had many lovers — but the one to whom she was most attached, and who almost ruined her life, was Frederic Chopin. His illness and dependency, the rivalries of two artists living under the same roof, the conflicting demands of two careers, all these batter the relationship. But most damaging is what the affair does to her family. Sand is hailed as an icon of female liberation. In GEORGE AND FREDERIC we see what can be the consequences of that liberation. Her rebellious daughter, Solange, embraces the tenets of feminism as an excuse for wild behavior, eventually causing the final rift between her mother and her mother’s lover. To assert his own creativity in this maelstrom, Maurice, George’s doting and doted-upon son, creates puppets of each member of this explosive ménage, puppets who, throughout the play, comment wryly on all the heated goings-on with humor, irony, and wit.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (2 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 125 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
Play Description
Two very different old friends, one a British novelist, the other an American novelist, meet for an uninhibited lunch where they bare the raw emotional content behind their latest publications.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male, multiple bit parts)Short Drama (about 45 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
COCKS AND HENS examines the myths and nonsense surrounding sex.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 130 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
THE AWFUL TOOTH was the last new play of Feydeau to be produced in his lifetime, and its dentist’s chair offers a dose of sadistic hilarity. As translator Laurence Senelick notes, “Feydeau may be to dentists what Molière was to doctors.”
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (3 female, 6 male)Short Comedy (about 45 minutes)
Single Set
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Based on historical incident, the play chronicles the first race riot in Los Angeles history: the 1871 lynching of 18 Chinese men by a mob of 500 “people from all nations.” Tom Jacobson’s fiercely theatrical retelling brings to light the remarkable, culturally diverse 19th-century Wild West town that exploded into the metropolis we know today.
Production Info
Cast: 14 total (4 female, 10 male)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
THE DAUGHTERS OF THE MOON follows a runaway slave girl and a former plantation mistress wanted for murder as they embark on a perilous journey North towards freedom, guided by an Ancient African Goddess.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (7 female, 6 roles are for black actors)Full Length Drama (about 105 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes