Shakespeare’s “King Phycus”
Play Description
A laugh-out-loud parody par excellence of Shakespeare's tragedies. Wickedly whimsical, delightfully devious, with six blended tragedies, thirty-one parts, forty location changes and one enormous sword-swinging battle of twenty thousand men.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (2 female, 4 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
- Productions
Press Quotes
“Much like the bit in Reduced Shakespeare’s COMPLETE WORKS (ABRIDGED) that combines all of the Bard’s comedies into one gigantic super-comedy, SHAKESPEARE’S ‘KING PHYCUS’ is a pithy mash-up of the more memorable Tragedies. In this hilarious parody, Hamlet and Juliet are siblings, the former married to the Scottish Macbetty, the latter betrothed to the deformed Gloucester by their father the great King Phycus, whose Queen, Gertrude, has recently been murthered. Meanwhile, incongruously, Brutus is an Italian ambassador and Romeo a Roman spy. If this seems like a lot to handle, it is — and that’s not even all of it. Yet the ingenuity of Tom Willmorth’s script is well matched by an ensemble of energetic performers and increasingly clever staging … Miraculously, the plot somehow comes together, despite its many comedic detours. Although it does end with a bunch of dead bodies onstage, SHAKESPEARE’S ‘KING PHYCUS’ is no tragedy.” —Neal Ryan Shaw, Newcity (Chicago)
“… from the delightful opening pantomime, set to a recording of Frank Sinatra singing ‘If I Had You,’ of a young couple meeting, courting, and deciding to marry, it’s clear that a refreshingly original sensibility is at work. Mitnick has a lot more on his mind than obvious laughs in this consistently inventive and surprising comedy-drama.” —Erik Haagensen, Backstage
“Mitnick seems to be the rare young playwright more interested in his elders than in his contemporaries.” —Alexis Soloski, Village Voice
“Mitnick displays classy wit, gentle humanity, and flashes of formal innovation.” —Scott Brown, New York
Author(s)
Tom WillmorthTom Willmorth's playwriting career began with Chicago's Illegitimate Players, co-authoring a trio of full-length parodies: THE GLASS MENDACITY (spoofing Tennessee Williams), A CHRISTMAS TWIST (Dickens), and OF GRAPES AND NUTS (Steinbeck). OF GRAPES AND NUTS received a Joseph Jefferson Citation for play adaptation. Willmorth has scripted four commissioned works for Idaho Theater for Youth, including FURNITURE THAT TALKS, NO FISH IN THE HOUSE, and FOOL'S GOLD. His COMMEDIA DELL LAZZI was presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC as part of its Imagination Celebration for young audiences. Willmorth is uniquely suited to edit Shakespeare's KING PHYCUS, having performed as an actor for 25 seasons with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. For 15 years, he has co-produced I S F's pre-curtain Green Shows with writer/actor Joe Golden. The team recently scripted and performed THE KRUMBLIN FOUNDATION, a two-man comedy, for Boise Contemporary Theater. Tom is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University Drama Department, and the Second City Training Center in Chicago. He lives and works in Boise, Idaho with his wife, Christina Lang, and daughter, Katie.
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:
First presented by the Strange Tree Group and The Lord Chamberlain's Men, Chicago
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
Pulled from the stomach of a whale, an American whaler is bleached blind and becomes a modern Tiresias in the court of Louis XVI. He seduces Marie Antoinette and sets the king on a path to destroy France and ultimately humankind. A tragicomedy in rhymed couplets.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (3 female, 7 male)Full Length Comedy (about 140 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95 Play Description
In 1692, as the Salem Witch Trials rage in nearby Salem, the residents of Peabody, Massachusetts are going through their own crucible, and they are just, like, really sick of crucibles. The surprising election of the boorish lout Dunning Kruger to be the local reverend has thrown the town into turmoil and pitted the townsfolk against each other like never before in the history of the New World, and that’s saying something because the history of the New World is really messed up. Ezekiel Farmer and his wife Verity must reconcile their differences (she voted for Kruger, he for the more experienced female challenger, Goody Constant Bending) and somehow find a way to resist the ugly tide that threatens them all. TOO MANY CRUCIBLES is an extremely unsanctioned companion piece to Miller’s classic THE CRUCIBLE that proves some witch hunts turn up witches.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (4 female, 4 male, doubling, flexible casting, up to 37 actors)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
$11.95–$15.00 Play Description
In the words of The Chicago Reader, “The witty script supplies the one thing Steinbeck lacked: a sense of humor! … OF GRAPES AND NUTS dogs its original like a comic bloodhound.” Chicago’s WBBM Radio said “I have a feeling that were he alive today, John Steinbeck would be chuckling more than just a little … OF GRAPES AND NUTS scoots along, as Tom Joad might say, like a 12-toed man in a foot race.”
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (2 female, 4 male)Full Length Comedy (about 90 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95 Play Description
Lord Loveworthy has a problem. His only daughter is soon to be married. And the only way to pay for her wedding is to blackmail the vicar who’s seducing his wife. But how does a Victorian pornographer commit extortion, without inordinate discord, at tea?
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male)Full Length Comedy (about 120 minutes)
Single Set
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95 Play Description
When Doc Frankenstein and the Count fall for the same showgirl, you’re in for an evening of showdowns and hoedowns that could turn Tombstone into a ghost town. A Halloween Western family entertainment in two acts. And the Mummy dances.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (6 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95 Play Description
What if Blanche Dubois didn’t go crazy? Or the Three Sisters actually made it to Moscow? When he discovers he’s fictitious, a never-seen character in an Oscar Wilde play, Bunbury joins forces with Rosaline, Romeo’s never-seen obsession from ROMEO AND JULIET. Together they infiltrate and alter classic literature, including giving ROMEO AND JULIET a happy ending.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (3 female, 5 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
$15.00–$19.95 Play Description
A murder-mystery serial-comedy with gratuitous sex and violence and a cliffhanger ending every 10 minutes. Larry Fingers and his cigar-chomping, gun-toting protégé Spike are about to hit the big-time. But will their budding music career survive the spectre of scandal raised by the Lycanthrope from Larry’s occult past? Larry’s not saying. But hotel detective (and erotic novelist) Dick Piston means to find some answers. Even if he has to write it himself.
Production Info
Cast: 15 total (5 female, 10 male)Full Length Comedy (about 210 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95 Play Description
When the dead walk … you run! LIVING DEAD IN DENMARK is an action-adventure/horror sequel to William Shakespeare’s HAMLET. Set five years after the events of the original, the undead have risen to power and are trying to take over the world, led by the zombie lord and true king of Denmark. Fortinbras, assembling a formidable opposition, has resurrected the corpses of some of the greatest women that Shakespeare had to offer: Lady Macbeth, Juliet, and the very angry Ophelia. A clash of the undead titans ensues!
Production Info
Cast: 11 total (6 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 95 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
$11.95–$15.00 Play Description
A very funny satire of Dickensian excesses about Christmas and poor people and the rich people who don't care about them … A CHRISTMAS TWIST is bursting with humor that makes a mockery of Christmas sentimentality. Perfect theatre for the holiday season.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (2 female, 5 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
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
$0.00–$15.95 Play Description
Danger is Firesign’s take on the hard-boiled detective character, with first-person narration and crazy adventures that often involve mistaken identity, and of course there’s always a dangerous dame. The skits spoof the conventions of those old detective radio shows, right down to the special effects, the sponsors, the on-air host, the convoluted plots, and just about anything else that one might have heard on a classic serial.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (4 male)Full Length Comedy (about 60 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes