Stageworks

Stageworks


A SINGULAR DECEPTION

(stage play: 1w, 1m, playing multiple roles)(stage play: 2w, 5m)

The astonishing story of Margaret Ann Buckley, who masqueraded as Dr James Barry for nearly 50 years and rose to the highest medical rank in the British Army. A shocking flirt, skilled swordswoman and horsewoman, a social and medical reformer, who transformed the treatment of sexual diseases, leprosy and mental illness, she was the first doctor to carry out a Caesarean where both mother and child survived. Dr Barry and her faithful manservant Black John bring her extraordinary history to vivid life.

For scripts and rights contact: info@hilaryspiers.co.uk


LADYBIRD, LADYBIRD

(stage play: 3w, 1m (doubling))

Zoë wants a baby. Maggie wants her mum to follow her halfway round the world. Steve wants his mother-in-law to sell her Lincolnshire home. Hugo wants to get to know his new family. And Muriel? She has ideas of her own, but nobody’s bothered to ask her what they are. This wry and fast-moving comedy exposes the ties that bind us together – and how easily they start to fray.

Shortlisted for the New Perspectives Long Play Competition 2016

For scripts and rights, contact: info@hilaryspiers.co.uk


Feeding Frenzy

(stage play: 2w, 5m)

Satire on draconian government attempts to tackle the obesity timebomb. When civil servants are given their heads to ‘think the unthinkable’ and desperate ministers go along with their increasingly outlandish suggestions, they unleash some unexpected demons. ‘You of all people know what government is about. Pile in, muck everything up and then leave it for the next lot to clear up the mess.’ But can they put the genie back in the bottle?

For scripts and rights, contact: info@hilaryspiers.co.uk


First Do No Harm

(stage play: 2w, 2m (playing multiple parts))

Based on real events, this play brings to life, in short, fast-moving scenes, the extraordinary story of the impact of the arrival of one of the first Panel doctors on a small Fenland town at the start of the 20th century. Initial hostility and suspicion soon gives way to outright war between the newly-arrived Harold Leggett and his suffragist wife Maud and the establishment, culminating in riots and death. Charting the difficult birth pangs of the National Health Service, it has strong resonances today.

Shortlisted for the Ronald Duncan Playwriting Competition 2013

For scripts and rights, contact: info@hilaryspiers.co.uk


Hoovering On The Edge

(stage play: 7 w, 1 m)

Seven very different women - tutored by one hapless male - on a summer writing holiday. Sun, sangria and storytelling - what could possibly go wrong...? Meet Moira the tactless hypochondriac, Clare the dippy yoga teacher, and feisty Rita, to name but a few, as the women embark on a voyage of discovery about themselves, their hopes and their dreams - and uncover some surprising home truths.

For scripts and rights, contact: www.stagecripts.com


Pecking Order

(stage play: 5w, 1m)

Five women assemble at a luxury spa for an upmarket hen weekend - the bride, her snobbish, overbearing mother, her down-to-earth mother-in-law-to-be, her oldest friend and her most recent best friend. Through a fraught two days, class and ideological warfare erupts and friendships and family loyalties are tested to the limits as the credit crunch bites...

For scripts and rights, contact: www.stagescripts.com


Painting From Memory

(stage play: 4w, 2m)

How do we know if a memory is real? How is it can we appear to remember with brutal clarity something which did or did not happen? What is truth? Bird is the spiky, sparky centre of this play which explores the tensions in a fractured family following the death of the larger-than-life paterfamilias, a famous painter.

For scripts and rights, contact: www.stagescripts.com


Rainbow Serpent

(stage play: 15+ w (inc chorus), 2m)

A group of now middle-aged ex-Greenham Common protestors meet for a reunion. Mid-celebration, astonishing news erupts: the government, pre-empting the ScotNats' possible exit from the Union in the event of Brexit, are moving warheads back to Greenham. As the women scrabble for a response, old enmities surface.

For scripts and rights, contact: info@hilaryspiers.co.uk


Mind Your Own

(stage play: 5w, 2m)

Vera's traditional cafe in the East End of London, already damaged in the riots, is under threat from developers. A fellow shopkeeper on the parade comes up with an audacious plan to thwart the demolition. But when Vera and her regulars start to mount a vigorous campaign to enlist local support, they have not anticipated opposition from within their own ranks. Especially when the opposition comes from Tel, who has long held a torch for Vera...

For scripts and rights, contact: info@hilaryspiers.co.uk


Do Not Go Gentle

(screenplay: 12w, 13m + many extras)

Faced with the sale of their residential retirement home to a shady American development company, the residents of The Hollies decide to take a stand. Working as a team, they use all the cunning and expertise they have acquired during their long and eventful lives, to devise a plan that will force the owner to sell to them instead.

For scripts and rights, contact: info@hilaryspiers.co.uk


Thaw

(stage play: 1w, 1m)

An isolated country cottage. A severe snow storm. A woman arrives, expecting to meet her lover, but is instead confronted with an intruder who has been living there for three days. He ransacks her belongings and groceries, intending to make his escape in her car. But the appalling weather - and her highly distinctive car - confound his plans. Condemned to spend at least one night together, the pair develop an unlikely truce, sealed by his cooking and her wine. But neither is quite what they seem and as the hours pass, dark and horrific secrets emerge that bind them together ever tighter in mutual need and dependency.

For scripts and rights, contact: info@hilaryspiers.co.uk