The Found Dog Ribbon Dance
Play Description
In the Pacific Northwest live Norma, a professional cuddler and reluctant dog-rescuer, and Norm, an amateur ribbon-dancer and attentive barista. Together they navigate loneliness, vulnerability, a collection of eccentric characters, and the healing power of human connection.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (3 female, 6 male)Full Length Comedy (about 90 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
“It starts off easy, sweet and very funny. Norma is a professional cuddler. Now I have heard of professional cuddlers but to my knowledge I have never met one nor have I ever understood the what, why and wherefore of their ‘profession.’ Nevertheless there she is engaging in her cuddling work. Also just to get things off to a weird and wonderful start there we see on stage Dog, not just a dog but the Dog who as it turns out is a human man barking and otherwise behaving like one would expect of a dog. Seems the dog got lost from its owners and found its way into the care of Norma. But Norma wants very much to return the dog to its real owners and to that end visits the local coffee shop and posts a photo of the dog directing the owner where to find her and the dog. Yes, yes I know this is all rather strange but hang in there, it gets even better. At the coffee shop she is met by a barista, a fellow by the name of Norm. Seems Norm is a huge fan of the late great Whitney Houston. In fact Norm routinely takes video of himself dancing in a very flamboyant manner to Houston music. At first their encounter is rather stressed. But slowly Norm and Norma begin to develop a very much unexpected relationship. As the story unfolds what becomes obvious is that both Norm and Norma have been long suffering from a failed relationship, shattered love and ultimately deep loneliness. This is when the story begins to turn. What starts as wild, outlandish and funny morphs into something far deeper. But I will not spoil the story for you … It is one of those all too rare theatrical presentations that reaches beyond the easy and superficial and probes both heart and mind. For this I also salute playwright Dominic Finocchiaro. Want to see something remarkably unique and richly entertaining? … Just what you are looking for.” —Ron Irwin, Los Angeles Post-Examiner
“Wow! … The kind of play you’ll want to tell all your romcom-loving friends (and just about anyone else in search of smart, funny, heartstrings-tugging, feel-good new theater) not to miss.” —Steven Stanley, Stage Scene LA
“Recommended … Finocchiaro is a fine comic talent.” —Gray Palmer, Stage Raw
Author(s)
Dominic FinocchiaroDominic Finocchiaro is a Brooklyn-based playwright, performer, and freelance dramaturg. Dominic Finocchiaro's full-length plays include BROTHER BROTHER, BRUT, COMPLEX, THE FOUND DOG RIBBON DANCE, GOLD PERSON, THE LUCKY LADIES (SOMEDAY YOU WILL BE LOVED), MOTHER'S SON, and TREES IN THEIR YOUTH. His writing has been produced and developed around the country, including with Roundabout Theatre, the New Group, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Echo Theater, the Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, the Lark Play Development Center, the National New Play Network, Portland Center Stage, the Flea Theater, the Kennedy Center, PlayPenn, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Dixon Place, and the Amoralists. MacDowell and Ucross Fellow. BA Reed College, MFA Columbia University.
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:
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
In this gripping ghost story an eccentric librarian discovers a weather-beaten book in a return bin — 113 years overdue. Sparked by a message left in its margins, she embarks on a magical quest that takes her around the world and 2,000 years into the past. With astonishing twists and turns, UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL draws us into an unforgettable odyssey.
Production Info
Cast: 1 total (1 female)Full Length Drama (about 65 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
In Mac Wellman’s black comedy, a very angry person attempts to make sense of his understanding of law and order in a world of other angry persons.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (5 female, 5 male)Full Length Comedy (about 90 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
They seemed like the perfect couple. Attractive. Well-educated. Affluent. Why did the husband brutally murder his wife and take his own life? Aaron and Henry, two young wannabe screenwriters at a writer's retreat struggle with crippling blocks as they seek to solve the mystery. Shawn, an academic teetering on the edge of insanity grapples with her own possible involvement in the killing, while writing a book about America’s obsession with violence. Meanwhile, the murder victim's sister attempts to reconstruct the truth from the ashes of her late sister's diary, becoming a celebrity in the process. What really happened that violent night, and will any of them come close to uncovering the truth?
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (3 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00
Play Description
A small theater company's next ill-advised production, a modern vaudeville, goes off the rails the night before opening. The cast rebels against Doc, the writer/director/star/producer, and chooses a midnight showing of the newest Star Wars movie over ironing out the show's kinks. Then, of course, they're sucked into a vortex and spit out into a world that resembles some of our most beloved films. It's up to Doc and his trusty sidekick, Boof, to go on a 3D adventure to rescue the cast and the show, and the entire theatrical art form. Part vaudeville, part Hope/Crosby Road Show, A 3D ADVENTURE is an inventive love letter to both the theater and the movies.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (3 female, 3 male, doubling, flexible casting, up to 15 actors)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
The story of a dysfunctional circus in which a fortuneteller has wrested control of the circus from her ringmaster. Beasts and dark shapes never seen on earth come forth to present, or disrupt, their acts. Until an absent clown, or child, finally comes back to lead the circus's opening parade.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (5 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Set in the fantastical, miserable village of Brood, Glen Berger's ingenious play conjures up a marvelously imaginative world peopled by a large cast of dreamers, schemers and would-be lovers. Tormented by the memory of a beautiful young girl he adored and lost, and saddled with the child she left behind as a painful reminder of their doomed romance, a village tinker turned poet tries to ease his pain by conjuring up a hilarious and extremely moving tale, a story made up for the young boy as they sit in front of the dying embers of their hearth. When the last spark is extinguished, we have gone along with them on a magical journey filled with music, shadow, and light, meeting along the way a town full of comically misguided characters and an enchanting young saleswoman of casket bell devices for the prematurely buried. A rich and delightful fairy tale for everyone who remembers what a great story sounds like.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (3 female, 6 male)Full Length Drama (about 140 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
A roller-coaster ride through the American scene, from the Fascination Parlor to Leroy Smiles the Crab-boy, and from the movie set to the tattoo parlor to Frankie the Finn. A concert for actors.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (1 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
A very black and hilarious comedy about love in Lydia’s Eternal Acres Funeral Home, which is enlivened by two amorous morticians and a couple of really attractive corpses.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (3 female, 2 male, 1 male and 1 female are corpses)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
A play for children. When a statue of the legendary Hawaiian surfer Duke Kahanamoku comes to life, he relates his story to the Hawaiian children.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (3 female, 6 male)Full Length Comedy (about 80 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$0.00–$15.95
Play Description
In WOLF IN THE RIVER, Adam Rapp explores love and neglect, the challenges of poverty, the dangerous cost of shiftlessness, the simple notion of leaving a place behind, and the value of a girl.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male, ensemble chorus)Full Length Drama (about 105 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
FIVE OF US deals with the parallel lives of New York tenement dwellers, who live next door to each other but whose paths do not cross until one fateful moment, which spells disaster for them all. One apartment is occupied by Mark, a young writer who churns out pornography while planning the “big novel” he will someday write, and his live-in girlfriend, Lee, an anthropology grad who works as a waitress. Their next-door neighbor is Herman, a mentally deficient messenger who speaks in a language all his own and amuses himself by calling 800 numbers to make hotel reservations he has no intention of keeping. When Lee is offered a chance to join an anthropological expedition to Sri Lanka, Mark is faced with a crisis — the loss of both her companionship and her income. With the connivance of his ex-con buddy, Eddie, a street-smart would-be mercenary, Mark decides to prop up his finances by robbing Herman's apartment, in the misguided belief that the poor eccentric has been hoarding money. But, instead, what they find is the bizarre detritus of a stunted life — a life which is abruptly ended when Herman, coming upon them, is startled into a fatal epileptic fit. Fearful and guilt-ridden, Mark and Eddie try to cover their tracks — but as the play ends it is also clear that no matter how far or fast they flee they will never escape the spectre of the lonely misfit whose pathetic world they have so thoughtlessly and fatally shattered.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes