Comedy, 20-40 minutes

After their in-performance deaths, six female Shakespearean characters find themselves in a holding area until the play they are a character in gets revived by another Shakespeare company so that they can (re)live their tragedy over (and over) again. It’s a comic romp that evokes Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit” meets Luigi Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” meets “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.”

Setting:Three door frames on a bare stage. Seven ‘harpbacked’chairs knocked over and disorderly on stage.The Present.

Casting

6F, 1M

Character List: (Flexible, gender-blind casting for 7 actors.)

TAMORA: From the play Titus Andronicus. Sensible. Blood around her mid-section because she was stabbed by Titus. JOAN: From the play Henry VI, pt. 1. Resolute. Speaks in French and English. Covered in black ash because she was burned at the stake. JULIET: From the play Romeo and Juliet. Melodramatic. Has a dagger between her breasts. LADY MACBETH: From the play Macbeth. Paranoid. Bruises on her face because of her suicide. OPHELIA: From the play Hamlet. Unhinged. Singer. Soaking wet because she drowned in a nearby river. CLEOPATRA: From the play Antony and Cleopatra. Haughty and sensual. Has snakes draped around her neck because she placed them there as a method of suicide. DIRECTOR: Affected, British accent. Any gender. Pretentious and lofty.

Author

David Overton

A North Carolina native, David Overton is the founder and Artistic Director of Long Island Classics Stage Company in Centerport, New York where he primarily works with young actors on performing the works of Shakespeare and developing their transferable life skills for stellar social interaction. He has over 25 years experience teaching high school and college-aged students and is currently on faculty at New York City area colleges. Other ventures include downloadable synopses of Shakespeare’s plays in English and Spanish under the brand iHearShakespeare, and the creation of Bard Cards, an authentic Shakespearean quote game. David holds his MFA in Acting, a minor in Spanish from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and his Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Colorado at Boulder. [FULL BIO]