Plays - ROYALTY FREE

Our plays have been adapted from classical novels. These include the script of the play, a list of technical cues of all music and sound effects in scene order, author biography, story summary, character summaries, set and property list, costumes, and notes on casting and play adaptation. Where appropriate, the package also contains accompanying music and sound effects in cue order. These orginal classical music scores are not to be used for singing but as background music like a movie. We have striven to incorporate the original purity, literacy, and intent of the author with no dumbing down to appease contemporary standards.

Plays for a mixed age-group - children, teens and/or adults (Scroll down)


Plays for the Littlest Players (5-12 years of age) Click here


Abridged Shakespearean Plays for Teens/Adults and for Littlest Players (5-12 years) Click here

To order any product, please click here. If you have any questions or wish to order several items, please email us at familyplayhouse@rcn.com. We will be happy to combine shipping and send you a personalized paypal invoice.



Plays for a mixed age-group
The plays in this category were written for a repertory company of actors ranging from 5 years of age to adults. However, most adult roles can be played by teens. Please scroll down to find descriptions and order details.
The Secret Garden

Adapted from the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, this is a truly beautiful and moving play adaptation that upholds, in every way, the purity and intent of the author. A classical musical score (not to be used for singing but as background music like a movie) and complete sound effects are included in the package. An additional sequence of music has also been included called The Enchanted Garden. This music may be used as an intermission piece or for choreographing a ballet dance scene. If you have some little children who would like to play fairies and gnomes, the music works wonderfully to bring to life the garden of Mary’s imagination. In our play adaptation, this scene takes place just before intermission so the play flows with or without its addition.

Story Summary: Mary Lennox, a young English girl, awakens one morning in colonial India to find her parents and all the house servants dead from a cholera epidemic. She is sent back to England to live with a cold, grieving and self-preoccupied uncle. In her aloneness she discovers a secret garden and becomes totally possessed of the idea that Colin, the crippled son of her uncle, will walk if he too can share the Magic of the secret garden.

Cast: 14 female roles (6 principal/8 minor); 9 male roles (4 principal/5 minor)
Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. One intermission

To order this play, please click here.

CLICK here for pictures of our performances of The Secret Garden and read what our audiences have said about our performances
   
Little Women

Based on the Louisa May Alcott classic, this is one of the most appreciated and beloved of our play adaptations. This play comes with a classical musical CD and a recorded Narration by Joe (Josephine) that links the scenes.


Story summary: Little Women refer to the March sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy - living with their mother in New England while their father is away serving as a chaplain in the Civil War. The story spans a period of four years and follows their adventures as a family and as young gentlewomen struggling to find happiness and love amidst the constraints of poverty. Through happy times and tragic, they each learn the value of goodness, sacrifice, and truth as they come to terms with the trials and joys of maidenhood.

Cast: 12 female roles (6 principal/6 minor); 5 male roles (3 principal/2 minor)
Running Time: 2 hours 20 minutes. Two intermissions

Special note: This is a great Christmas play to stage as there are two Christmas scenes incorporated within the play.

To order this play, please click here.

CLICK here to see our storyboard and pictures of our performances.

Anne of Green Gables

This is our most popular play. It is based on the novel by L. M. Montgomery. The production boasts a gorgeous classical musical score that expresses the irrepressible hope of a young girl learning how to love and be loved.

Story summary: The time is 1908. The place is Avonlea, Canada. Green Gables is the home of lovable Matthew Cuthbert and his stern sister, Marilla. When Marilla decides to adopt an orphan boy to help Matthew with his farm work, the orphanage makes a mistake and sends instead a high-spirited redhead called Anne Shirley. With a knack for trouble and misadventure, her irresistible spunk steals everyone’s heart. We follow Anne’s strenuous but brimful schooldays, her attachment to her bosom friend, Diana Barry, her feud with Gilbert Blythe, her contest with Josie Pye, and her undying loyalty to Matthew and Marilla. We glimpse the inmost joys of a girl who only marks the hours that shine, as she struggles toward fair maidenhood.

Cast: 13 female roles (4 principal/9 minor); 5 male roles (3 principal/2 minor)
Note: More “extra” roles of schoolchildren may be added for the classroom and outdoor scenes.
Running Time: 1 hour 50 minutes. One intermission

To order this play, please click here.

CLICK here to see storyboard and pictures of our performances.

Anne of Avonlea

This is our sequel to Anne of Green Gables based on the novel of the same title. Like its predecessor, the sequel play boasts a gorgeous musical score.

Story Summary: The heartwarming adventures of Anne Shirley continue as the irrepressible, high-spirited redhead begins her career as a schoolmarm in Avonlea. The Cuthbert house is transformed when Marilla adopts six-year old twins Davy and Dora Keith, and Anne’s friendship with her bosom friend, Diana Barry, takes on a new maturity with Diana’s engagement to Fred Wright. Anne’s romantic heart blossoms with the discovery of sweet Miss Lavender and her hidden secret. The page of girlhood is turned in Anne’s friendship with Gilbert Blythe and the page of womanhood set before her with all its charm, its pain, and gladness.

Cast: 16 female roles (6 principal/10 minor); 7 male roles (4 principal/3 minor) Note: More “extra” roles of children may be added for the classroom scene.
Running Time: 1 hour 50 minutes. One intermission

CLICK here to see our storyboard and pictures of our performances.

To order this play, please click here.
The Three Musketeers

Finally a play for teenage boys! This is a vigorous and swashbuckling adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ novel by the same title. We have even included some old fashioned swordfighting scenes! Your audiences will love this play but not as much as your cast! It is great fun while preserving the original noble intent of the story by Dumas. For those of you with younger children, please click here to find out about our Littlest Player’s adaptation. We have included nearly eighty illustrations by Maurice Leloir, the famous French artist who was commissioned to illustrated Dumas’ first edition of The Three Musketeers. These illustrations have been used as title pages, scene dividers and scene illustrators. The children will love them!

Story summary: The time is 1625 - an age of high adventure, romance and brave deeds. The place is Paris. Our story, set during the reign of Louis XIII of France and Cardinal Richelieu, tells the true tale of Charles de Batz d’Artagnan, a young nobleman who leaves his country estate in Gascony at the age of nineteen to join the King’s Musketeers. His swashbuckling soul, animated by honor, loyalty and shrewd intelligence, courts perilous adventures and romantic intrigues. Through them all, and with his valiant companions-in-arms, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, he outsmarts evil and pierces to the heart of goodness.

Cast: 14 male roles (11 principal/3 minor); 4 female principal roles. Optional 12 “extras”: Six additional “extra” roles of the Cardinals’ Guardsmen, and six additional “extra” roles of Ladies-in Waiting to the Queen may be added if you have more girls and boys to fill roles.

Running Time: Just under 1 hour 45 minutes. One intermission

To order this play, please click here.

 

 
Saint Bernadette

Based on the novel, The Song of Bernadette, by Franz Werfel, our adaptation is a celebration of holiness and the triumph of the human spirit amidst poverty, doubt and persecution. You will need to distribute boxes of kleenex to your audience if you stage this production. It is deeply moving and spiritually uplifting. It is accompanied by a stirring classical musical score and sound effects.

Story summary: The time is 1858. Bernadette Soubirous, a young girl from a poverty stricken family in the village of Lourdes, France, sees a vision of a “beautiful lady” in the town dump. The wondrous news spreads rapidly throughout France, leaving in its wake a variety of consequences: adoration, suspicion and greed among the peasant people; disbelief and fear from her family; skepticiam from the municipal doctor; hostility from the Church; charges of insanity from the Imperial Prosecutor, and threats of physical punishment from the Chief of Police. During the course of her visions, Bernadette discovers a spring whose waters bring miraculous healings. Only then is Bernadette asked to prove her trust love and fidelity to her “Lady’s” wishes.

Cast: Female principal roles: 9
Female minor principals: 18
Female minor roles: 15
Female extras: 15 to 50
Male principal roles: 11
Male minor principals: 7
Male minor roles: 10
Male extras: 8 to 20
Note: The play requires a fairly large cast though the crowd scenes can be thinned out.
Running time: 2 hours. One intermission

To order this play, please click here.

CLICK here to see pictures from our show and Bernadette Soubirous.
Meet Me in Saint Louis

A bright, fast-moving comedy (not a musical) adapted from the original 3 Act dramatization by Christopher Sergel based on the novel by Sally Benson. The play is fresher and brighter than the Hollywoodized film version written around Judy Garland’s solos. Any repertory company will have enormous fun staging this play!

Story summary: The time is 1904. The place is St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Lon Smith is a St. Louis businessman who has just been promoted to run the New York office. The news that his family must pack up and leave immediately comes just two weeks before the grandest event ever to take place in St. Louis - the opening of the World’s Fair. Though he is willing to move his family to New York, his wife and children are not. Between the budding romances of his two oldest daughters, a love-struck collegiate son, and the delinquent mischief of his two youngest girls, Mr. Smith’s plans become “happily” foiled.

Wonderful musical sound effects accompany the play. The package also includes fabulous original pictures and engravings of the real St. Louis State Fair.

Cast: 15 female roles (9 principal/6 minor); 11 male roles (5 principal/6 minor)
Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes

To order this play, please click here.

Click Here for Plays for Littlest Players