Sunday Dinner - Nellie! How The Women Won The Vote - A Dog's Life
The Last Of The Daytons - The Piaggi Suite - Four Women in Search of a Character
A two act romantic comedy...
...about love, marriage, and Mother
An ensemble piece for four actors, including a tour de force part for a middle-aged woman, it's a deceptively light comedy with deep currents underneath, in which an only son struggles to free himself from his single mother.
It's in modern dress, has minimal set requirements - the living room of an apartment serves both acts - and is inexpensive to produce. Each act consists of one scene.
3women, 1 man, Running time 90 minutes
Suitable for regional and community theatres
Available from The Playwrights Guild of Canada
Download Act One
Diane Grant, Marcia Wallace and Jeff Witzke
Theatre Palisades, West Los Angeles College, CA The Complex, Los Angeles,CA
The Academy Theatre, Kingfisher Cafe Reading Series, Atlanta, GA
Winner – Dramalogue for Best Performance
The Jack Oakie award for comedy
"I loved Sunday Dinner...and would recommend it to anyone. It's a fantastic show."
Thomas Amo - Smiler's Comedy Playhouse - Stockton, CA
"The play was so energetic and funny that we didn't want it to end! Diane Grant has a magic way with dialogue." Professor May DuBois, Honors Director -
West Los Angeles College, CA
"Sunday Dinner is very funny....." Arnold Margolin, Producer, The Falcon Theatre, Burbank, CA
Nellie! How The Women Won The Vote
(formerly What Glorious Times They Had)
A two act historical comedy/drama with music
Nellie McClung and the Canadian suffragists win the vote in 1916.
One set (easy to follow stage directions for various settings)
4 women, 2 men with doubling. Cast can be much larger if desired
Suitable for middle schools, high schools, colleges, regional and community theatres
Available from The Playwrights Guild of Canada
Elizabeth Murphy and Francine Volker sing Heaven Will Protect The Working Girl
..."uproariously funny satire about the struggles that Nellie McClung...and the early feminists had to win the vote in Manitoba. It was a production that earned a standing ovation - for once that was well deserved."
Catherine Carson - The Edmonton Journal
"McClung production top rate... so excellent on every level that words cannot adequately express its high quality."
Lee Rolfe - Winnipeg Tribune
REVIEWS FROM TWO SOLD OUT CROSS CANADA TOURS
Paul Brown and Geoffrey Saville Read think about women
Photo courtesy of the Sun Parlour Players Community Theatre
A Comedy in Two Acts about a Comedy in Two Acts
A financial "angel" rescues an impoverished acting troupe. Or does he?
...A romp, a two act farce with incidental music that uses Laban techniques, melodrama, improvisation, Method, and Shakespeare, and includes a parody of the story of Puccini's Tosca, featuring a trampoline. It's about human corruptibility, and the constant friction between commerce and art - a classic enduring story of rent vs. artistic principles. It's a set, technical, and costume designer's dream with falling paper flowers, offstage fights, illuminated moons, and actors dressed sometimes as cavaliers and sometimes as dogs.
One set - 5 women. 6 men Running time approx. 90 minutes.
Suitable for high schools, colleges, regional and community theatres
Eric Travers, Elizabeth Hillman, Dana Baron, Wil Bowers and Jeff Soroka
Playwright Diane Grant has come up with a clever concept for her backstage comedy, the farcical aspects of creating a play- within-a-play -- also called A Dog's Life-- juxtaposed with the fictional ensemble's struggle to pay the rent.... Elizabeth Hillman gives a delightful performance as the artistic director's wife, the kind of role once created for Thelma Ritter, and Eric Travis is hilarious as a terminally Method actor who can't stop playing a canine after rehearsals end...."
Travis Michael Holder BACKSTAGE WEST
"A delightful comedy that will keep you giggling all evening…Diane Grant, resident playwright, has created a fun-filled, entertaining comedy that will be well worth the trip to the theatre." M. Upward Maestro Arts and Review LA
"…it is brilliant." Steve Guttenberg, Palisadian Post, LA
"...a
well-constructed, light-hearted farce" Jim Boyett, Theatre Resources
Unlimited
Elizabeth Hillman and Wendy Gough
Photo by Lou Briggs
A comedy/drama about the universal human longing for family.
At first glance, Melina and Bob, Jodie and Devon might not be seen as "normal." Not that many people talk to invisible friends, escape from hospitals in their pajamas, or collect epitaphs. Not too many seventeen year old boys wear their Mother's bustiers. However, what these characters have found are various ways to cope with the past.
One set - 2 women, 3 men, Running time 90 minutes
Suitable for colleges, regional, and community theatre
Staged reading, Theatre Forty, Beverly Hills CA.
Theatrum Botanicum, Topanga CA
"I just finished reading The Last of the Daytons. I think it is a lovely script."
Adam
Fitzgerald, Associate Artistic Director
South Ark Stage Co., NYC, NY
Semi- finalist
Eugene O'Neill Theatre Conference 2007
ATHE Finalist 2006
Reading at Theatricum Botanicum
Samara Frame, DJ Harner, Diane Grant, Jennie Webb
Ann-Giselle Spiegler, Martha Mintz
A romantic comedy
in which a monstrously self-absorbed and powerful diva visits a legendary New England musicians’ retreat that has seen better days. Dangling the prospects of celebrity and success, she manipulates the collection of resident musicians as they struggle with the conflicts between career and love, the dangers of ambition, the perils of success, the pain of loss, and the glory of music.
With elements of farce, incidental music, various coats, and a mysterious stranger.
One set - 5 women, 4 men Running time - 95 minutes
Suitable for high schools, colleges, regional and community theatre
Winner - Best Works of 2006 - Long Beach Playhouse - Long Beach, California
Honorable Mention - McLaren Memorial Play Competition - Midland, Texas
Semi-finalist, Backdoor Theatre, Wichita, Kansas, 2001, Semi-finalist, Mildred and Albert Panowski Playwriting Award. 2003
"A lively, rollicking, highly enjoyable comedy that is guaranteed to be a rip-roaring crowd pleaser" Shirle Gottlieb - Long Beach freelance critic
"The dialogue is terrific! with…."the Noel Coward-Moss Hart-George S. Kaufman touch." Frank Rutledge, Literary Manager, Boarshead Theatre
Workshop Production - Theatre Palisades
Four Women in Search of a Character
Abstract set - 5 women, 3men, 3 recorded voices, Running time - 90 minutes
Suitable for regional and community theatre
The Pacific Palisades American Legion presented a staged reading of Diane Grant's comedy, Four Women in Search of a Character, on Friday, January the 25th, 2008,at 7 pm featuring The Spolin Players.
A sell out and enthusiastic crowd raised $3, 620 for the West Los Angeles Fisher House!
Why Royal Smith seduced the women in his life is a mystery. Did he really love them? Why did he keep leaving in such a hurry? The women he loved and left can agree on only one thing:
He had a hell of a voice.
"Loose and lively with sure-fire crowd pleasing dialogue... left the packed dinner hall audience of 100 laughing." Michael Aushenker, Palisadian Post
a family play with music
Adapted from the book by Kenneth Grahame
Suitable for middle schools, high schools, regional and community theatre
It concerns Mole, an underground creature, who, feeling the stirrings of Spring, wants to leave his burrow and climb up to the World Above.
He's not sure if he'll survive up there. He's not very formidable. He's small and has very poor eyesight. What will he do if he loses his glasses?