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Higgins in Harlem

Higgins in Harlem

By Lawrence Thelen.

Product Code: HG8000

  • Full-length Play
  • Comedy
  • Cast size: 4m., 5w.

    Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available

Rights and availability
This title can be licensed and sold throughout the World.

* Please note the royalty rate listed is the minimum royalty rate per performance. The actual royalty rate will be determined upon completion of a royalty application.

$10.95 /script

Min. Royalty Rate: $90/perf

In stock

Synopsis

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw is reset in Harlem in 1938 during the Harlem Renaissance-a time when the affluent black society of Sugar Hill found itself at odds with the uneducated blacks of Harlem struggling through the Great Depression. Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, discovers Eliza Doolittle, a homeless, Harlem girl whose speech is nearly unintelligible, outside the Apollo Theatre. Appalled at her slang-filled dialect, Higgins declares that with just six months of phonetics training, he could pass her off as a university-educated African princess! Intrigued by the idea, Eliza shows up at his Sugar Hill home the next day in search of a better life. With the help of Conrad Pickering, Higgins goes about transforming Eliza into a high-class woman of Harlem. At the end of her six months, she makes her debut at the annual Abyssinian Baptist Church Gala, where her transformation is confirmed by the minister, who declares she must be an African princess! Declaring himself the greatest teacher alive, Higgins abandons Eliza, who seeks refuge from Henry's mother. Mrs. Higgins attempts to make a match between Eliza and Freddie Hill, who is head-over-heels in love with her, but Eliza forgoes the relationship, and, in the end, must choose between a platonic existence with Higgins or a life on her own.

Notes

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Details

  • Status

    In stock

  • Type of Show Full-length Play
  • Product Code HG8000
  • Cast Size 9
  • Min. Royalty Rate $90/perf
  • Cost $10.95
  • Approx. Run Time 120 min

Categories

  • Target Audience Middle School | High School | College and Adult | Family (all ages)
  • Performing Group High School | College Theatre | Community Theatre
  • Genre Comedy
  • ISBN(13) 9781619590540
* Please note the royalty rate listed is the minimum royalty rate per performance. The actual royalty rate will be determined upon completion of a royalty application.

Media Reviews

"Higgins in Harlem invites that ever-thorny conversation about race, assimilation, cultural appropriation and America." -www.broadwayworld.com

"Delivers on its promise to be a fresh and entertaining reinvention of a theatrical masterpiece." -NBC Connecticut

"It's hard to create an adaptation that is both faithful to its original yet inspired and individual enough to allow us to experience the force of the concept anew. Thelen … pulls it off nicely." -Connecticut Wit

"Shaw's play on class and language finds a new home in another country, context and time, and it's a surprisingly fine fit." -The Hartford Courant

"Thelen … creates African-American characters who are believable, relatable and honest." -Hartford Arts Examiner