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Musical. Music and lyrics by Michael Rice. Book by Jack Heifner, Romulus Linney, Kent R Brown, Hank Bates, Mary Rohde Scudday, and Cliff Fannin Baker. Cast: 7w. (expandable to 20+w.) and 1 m. offstage voice. "American Beauty spoofs beauty contests…but, first and last, it values the human beings who participate in them. The effect is lump-in-the-throat stunning. This show is a delight" (Richmond News Leader). This wonderfully entertaining musical dramatizes the hopes of seven women as they pursue their dreams of winning the Miss Delta Queen Beauty Pageant. The first act focuses on key events leading up to the last night of competition, while the second act sweeps us from the contestants' opening parade to the final moment of coronation. The talent competition featuring a montage of country, pop and operatic singers, a marimba player, a tap dancer, a twirler and an ill-performed dramatic monologue, is hilarious. Through a medley of serious and satiric monologues and scenes, American Beauty also introduces us to an array of secondary characters including backstage mothers, pageant judges, commercial sponsors, and flamboyant choreographers. In a satisfying plot twist at the end of the show, the audience discovers that each of the contestants was crowned "Miss Delta Queen" in competitions ranging from the present to the past. Songs include: "I'm in a Pageant!," "Pageant Mothers and Daughters," "Something's Gonna Happen" and "Fireflies and Shooting Stars." American Beauty captures all the anxiety, the fear and the elation involved in competition, while underscoring each contestant's courage and determination. "American Beauty has a big heart" (Richmond Times). Unit set. Approximate running time: 2 hours
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| High School | College and Adult | | High Schools | College Theatre | Community Theatre | Stock & Lort |
| 0871299291 |
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|  | Cliff Fannin Baker, the founding producing artistic director of Arkansas Repertory Theatre, has overseen the growth and expansion of The Rep since its creation in 1976. He has directed in cities throughout the country and has a particular passion for new plays. To that end, he has produced more than 30 world and regional premieres, including the musical adaptation of ...More | | Hank Bates is a playwright, novelist and environmental attorney who lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. In addition to American Beauty, his plays include Zeke's Vision, Into the Deep and Twilight's Last Gleaming. He has received grants from, among others, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. He is the recipient of a Rotary International Fellowship to ...More |  | Kent R. Brown is an educator, director, editor and playwright whose works have been produced throughout Canada, Belgium, The Netherlands, Australia and the United States. American venues include People's Light & Theatre Company, Walnut Street Theatre, Greenbrier Valley Theatre, Orlando Repertory, BoarsHead Theater, West Coast Ensemble, Boston Theatre Works, Moving Arts, The Side Project and Pulse Ensemble. Titles include Valentines ...More |  | Jack Heifner is best known for his play Vanities, which ran for five years in New York and became of the longest running plays in off-Broadway history. His is also the author of Patio/Porch, Natural Disasters, Running on Empty, Bargains, Jumping for Joy, Boys' Play, Home Fires, Heartbreak, Comfort and Joy, The Lemon Cookie, Dwarf Tossing, Key West, Earth to ...More | | Romulus Linney is the author of three novels and many plays produced on, off-, and off-off-Broadway, and in resident theatres internationally. They include The Sorrows of Frederick, Childe Byron, Holy Ghosts, The Love Suicide of Schofield Barracks and Laughing Stock, chosen by Time magazine as one of the best plays in 1984. He has received NEA, Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships, ...More |  | Michael Rice graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1977 with an emphasis on classical piano. A resident of New York City, he has written, with Eric Bentley, an adaptation of Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan, which received its New York premiere in 1998 (originally produced at the Arkansas Rep in 1985). He provided music for the 1983 Best ...More |  | Mary Rohde Scudday is an actress and playwright whose first play, Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home, was nominated by the American Critics' Association as one of the 10 best new plays produced regionally in the late 1970s. Ladybug was subsequently published in an anthology, Texas Plays, edited by William Martin. Her plays have been produced in numerous theaters and adapted ...More |
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* Please note that royalties quoted in our catalog are intended for K-12 schools with a standard curriculum only. All other producing groups must submit a completed
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