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K2

Play: Patrick Meyers. : 2 men. Exterior set

The setting is an icy ledge high up on K2, the world's second highest mountain. Two climbers, Taylor and Harold, are stranded at 27,000 feet, and Harold has suffered a broken leg in their precipitous descent. They have also lost one of their ropes, and the remaining one is neither long or strong enough to serve as a sling to lower Harold to the next ledge. As Taylor climbs back up the mountain in an attempt to recover the other rope the two men keep up a running conversation which begins in a lighthearted vein but gradually shades into an absorbing discussion of the meaning and value of life. Taylor, an arch-conservative, womanizing assistant district attorney, sees personal gratification as the focus of existence, while Harold, a physicist, has found an almost mystic satisfaction in his selfless love for his wife and young son. When Taylor's attempts to rescue the second rope fail, and the desperation of their situation can no longer be denied, it is, finally, the bond between the two men which is put to the test as Harold, in a scene of shattering emotional impact, calmly but firmly orders Taylor to save himself to salvage the one life which can be saved, and to live on for both of then.
ISBN: 0-8222-0606-4

Kafka's Dick

Comedy. Alan Bennett
M5 F1. A living-room, heaven.

It is 1919 and the tubercular Kafka adjures Max to burn his writings after his death. Max doesn't and goes on to publish all Kafka's work. Moving to the 1980s, in an English suburban living room sit Sydney, a Kafka-besotted insurance agent, his frustrated wife and his elderly father. Into their midst descends the dead but lively Max, closely followed by a cadaverous Kafka and Kafka's larger-than-life father. It seems everyone wants to get in on the act ... This text is the revised 1992 edition.
ISBN 0 573 01663 1

Katherine Howard

Play. William Nicholson
M7 (50s-60s) F4 (18, 20s, 40s). Extras. Various simple settings.

Opening on the wedding night of Henry VIII and his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, and closing with the execution of his fifth wife, Katherine Howard, found guilty of adultery, Nicholson's play takes a slice of Tudor history and turns it into pure theatrical magic. A touching May-to-September romance; political intrigue, plots and betrayals; a pointed and sometimes comic portrayal of women's lives in Tudor times: all these, and more, are elements of this entertaining, thoughtful, intelligent play from the author of Shadowlands. Period 1540-1542
ISBN 0 573 01811 1

Keep an Eye on Amélie

Farce. Georges Feydeau. Translated and adapted by Robert Cogo-Fawcett and Braham Murray
M 13 F5. Extras. A salon, the Town Hall, two bedrooms.

Feydeau's hilarious farce Occupe-toi d'Amélie is here translated in a lively new version - seen at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, under the title She's in Your Hands! Marcel will inherit one million francs - on his wedding day. Unwilling to relinquish his bachelorhood, but in dire need of cash, he persuades Amélie, a coquette, to act as his fiancée for benefit of his godfather. But events don't go according to plan!
ISBN 0 573 01813 8

The Keepers

Drama. Barbara Lebow. 1 man, 2 women. Unit Set

It is 1854. On a remote stretch of Maine coast live Captain Nathaniel Brockett and his wife, Octavia, lighthouse keepers who have had to move into the tower itself after a terrible winter storm wrecks their cottage. With them is Angeline, the young black woman raised as their daughter. Claiming that she received a head injury during the storm, Octavia begins to have attacks of delirium. Past and present merge for her as she fantasizes about the captains lustful nature and instigates bizarre arguments with Angeline, mistaking her for a woman who died long ago. The captain tries to divert his wife with romantic tales of his adventures at sea, but her brain fever, it seems, may have other, more sinister roots. As she tries to draw the others into her suddenly realized memories, we discover how Octavia's fears have brought about her own repression as well as her apparent domination over Angeline and Nathaniel. While the captain cannot face the reality of his wife's continuing decline, Angeline can no longer suppress questions about her real mother or her heritage. Racially isolated and kept under Octaviâs thumb, Angeline struggles to break free of her stifling environment. She grows stronger as Octavia weakens, but it is only upon Octavia's death that the truths she's been seeking will out, whatever the consequences.
ISBN: 0-8222-1459-8

Keeping Down With the Joneses.

Comedy. John Chapman and Jeremy Lloyd
M5 (1 Asian-Indian) F4. An underground atomic shelter.

Convinced the Russians are about to launch a nuclear strike, Geoffrey Jones builds a shelter in his garden which the family decide to try out. Inadvertently they are trapped inside with the telephone engineer and their Indian milkman. Trying to make the best of the situation they are surprised by the arrival, through the side hatch, of their next door neighbours. Ever striving to keep up with the Joneses they are now keeping down with them by building their own shelter ...!
ISBN 0 573 61115 7

Keeping Tom Nice

Lucy Gannon : Drama 3M 2F Flexible staging

Tom is approaching his twenty fifth birthday. He is severely handicapped and in spite of growing intervention from the social services he has lived in the care of his parents Doug and Winnie and sister Charlie, who have devoted their lives to him. Tom's family has coped with the unrelenting strain of maintaining social appearances while caring for his every need but with the arrival of Stephen, a new case worker with a particular insight into Tom's circumstances, the family is pushed to the breaking point in this rich and compelling examination of a family disintegrating under the pressures of an increasingly complex world. Winner of the 1990 John Whiting Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Richard Burton Drama Award.
ISBN: 0 85676 146 X

Kennedy's Children

Play. Robert Patrick
M2 (young) F3 (young). Extra 1 M. A bar.

'The theme of the play is the death of the ideas of heroes as guides for our lives. I think the sad thing about Kennedy's children is that they have so very much to offer one another and are held away from one another by fear and despair ... the play stands as my tribute to their valour and suffering.' Robert Patrick.
ISBN 0 573 61126 2

Key Exchange

Comedy. Kevin Wade. 2 men, 1 woman. Unit Set

The scene is a bicycle path in Central Park, where three young cyclists come together each weekend. Philip, an aspiring novelist, is having an affair with Lisa, a photographer, while Michael, a Madison Avenue copywriter, is newly married to the girl with whom he has been living (and who has just run off for a fling with her music teacher). Their meetings are pleasantly casual and filled with crisp, funny lines, but sobering reality pops up when Lisa suggests to Philip that they make their relationship more permanent by exchanging apartment keys - a possibility which disconcerts the freedom-loving Philip, who prefers sex without "commitment." As Lisa presses her case Philip evades, but then, as Lisa stuns him by electing to turn elsewhere, Philip reverses his field and tries to win her back - but the opportunity has slipped by. Meanwhile Michael's wife calls to tell him she is coming home - a prospect which, despite the fact that they had decided to make their own liaison a lasting one, he can only regard with mixed feelings and even a touch of regret.
ISBN: 0-8222-0609-9

Key for Two

Comedy. John Chapman and Dave Freeman
M3 (30-50) F4 (30-middle-age). Composite setting.

In this wickedly amusing play Harriet solves her financial problems by entertaining two married gentlemen on different days of the week. The scheme faces collapse when her friend, Anne, arrives, hotly pursued by her husband; one of Harriet's lovers is confined to bed with a sprained ankle and the second lover turns up unexpectedly, closely followed by two irate wives in search of their itinerant husbands! The long-running London production starred Moira Lister, Patrick Cargill, Barbara Murray and Glyn Houston.
ISBN 0 573 11258 4

Key to Murder

Play. Stewart Burke
M4 (young, 305) F3 (27, 30, middle-age). Composite setting: a sitting-room and bedroom.

A TV production is in preparation to feature the well-known star Maggy Fairchild. At a gathering in her flat of leading personalities in the project, hidden tensions are apparent under the smoothly sophisticated surface. A spare key to the flat disappears, and late that night an intruder, disguised in a Ku Klux Klan outfit, tries to strangle Maggy. The final surprising revelation unveils an unusual and potentially tragic tangle of personal relationships.
ISBN 0 573 11215 0

Kid Champion

Play Thomas Babe. 7 men, 4 women. Unit Set

Charismatic, dazzling, and attractive to both sexes, Kid Champion has achieved the pinnacle of success as a rock star. He is surrounded by an entourage of groupies, press agents, would-be biographers and adoring fans - all of whom seek to share in the glittering excitement of his almost frightening notoriety. But even as the play captures the aura of this high-powered world, it also exposes the emotional and intellectual complexities of its title character, and the uncertainties, faced by a gifted, attractive kid from Kansas who is skyrocketed to sudden wealth and fame, and eroded by the drink, drugs, and messianic power which are so much a part of the rock scene. Inevitably, as pressures mount, there is tragedy and sudden decline, and the sense that all the beauty and ugliness of the 60s have been compressed into one brief, but remarkable, lifetime.
ISBN: 0-8222-0610-2

Kid Purple

Comedy. Donald Wollner. 3 men, 3 women, several roles are doubled. Unit set

Benjamin Schwartz was born with "a slight pigmentation abnormality" - i.e. he is purple from the neck up. This naturally leads to problems with the other kids, who call him a "retarded grape," after which fights ensue - invariably won by Ben. In fact he becomes so good at using his fists that his mother's dream of his becoming a lawyer is soon side-tracked by a career in the ring, and an eventual shot at the title. But the progression of his pugilistic successes is also an opportunity for the author to poke hilarious good fun at some abiding cliches of our times, as Kid Purple becomes the great "off-white" hope. His mother may have died of a broken heart when she heard of his first fight, but his sister (now the lawyer in the family) steps in to learn how to smoke cigars and manage his career, and a resourceful black trainer, Willie Hogan, teaches him all the dirty tricks he needs to know to make it to the top. Which he does, culminating in a hard-won victory over Sweet Eddie Kareem, the reigning champ, and some valuable lessons in life for a basically sweet-natured kid from Great Neck who, in the final essence, is only searching for acceptance and happiness in a non-purple world.
ISBN: 0-8222-0611-0

The Kidnap Game

Play. Tudor Gates
M3 (20s, middle-age, 50s) F2 (late teens, 30s). Composite setting: an office and a street area.

Paul Kendon is a highly successful international businessman whose world is turned upside down when a man claims to have kidnapped his daughter. Although Kendon is prepared to quietly pay the ransom, his security officer calls in the police in the form of the cool, intelligent Inspector Joy Hart. Kendon must take a back seat as Hart engages the kidnapper in a battle of wits, leading to the exciting climax with unexpected twists.
ISBN 0 573 11217 7

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