Books published by publisher Samuel French Inc.

Comedy Characters: 3 male, 8 femaleInterior Set Allan Felix has this thing about Humphrey Bogart. If only he had some of Bogart's technique... Bookish and insecure with women, Allan's hero, Bogey comes to the rescue, with a fantastic bevy of beauties played out in hilarious fantasy sequences. Fixed up by friends with gorgeous women, he's so awkward that even Bogey's patience is tried. Allan mostly resembles a disheveled, friendly dog and this is what ultimately charms his best friend's wife, Linda into bed. It's a tough life, making it in the world of beautiful people but if you can't be a hero it helps to have one... "Hilarious...a cheerful romp. Not only are Mr. Allen's jokes and their follow ups, asides and twists audaciously brilliant, but he has a great sense of character."-The New York Times "A funny, likeable comedy that has a surprising amount of wistful appeal."-New York Post

Drama / Casting: 7m, 6f / Scenery: Interior Produced with great success on Broadway, this striking drama has established itself among the important plays of our time. It is based on the poetic conception of death suspending all activities for three days during which he falls in love with a beautiful girl and through her realizes why mortals fear him. The mood of the play is established with remarkable skill and while it is charged with exciting moments, it is a perfect background for a love story that is as simple as it is appealing. The character who symbolizes Death is a very human person, with no conventional claptrap dragged in for mere effect. Here is a play that stimulates discussion and presents a novel and optimistic philosophy of the problems of love and death. This is one of the most popular and successful plays for amateurs.

Drama Fay Kanin and Michael Kanin Characters: 6 male, 3 female Exterior SetThe famous stories of Akutagawa were adapted for Broadway for Claire Bloom, Rod Steiger, Akim Tamiroff and Oscar Homolka. The wife of a Samurai officer is assaulted and her husband killed by a roving bandit. Contradictory versions of what happened are reenacted at the trial by the bandit, the wife and the dead husband who speaks through a sorceress. Each version is true in its fashion. "Delicate and dynamic, sensitive and savage, packed with color, suspense and seamy wit. A triumph of stagecraft." N.Y. Mirror. "Rashomon is pure art of the theatre. Out of a legend, it conjures a mood. No one need despair of a commercial theatre that can deal in elusive materials with so much delicacy, expertness and charm." N.Y. Times.

"'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." But wait! A mouse is stirring - because Santa missed his house last year. Before you can say "Merry Christmas!", we're off on the wild adventures of a mouse, an elf, and a spunky little girl who just won't take no for an answer. Don't miss this joyful tribute to the holiday season!

Comic Drama / Casting: 4m, 3f / Interior SceneryWinner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award By America's great comic playwright, this memory play is set in a Yonkers in 1942. The hit Broadway production featured Irene Worth, Mercedes Ruehl and Kevin Spacey in award-winning performances. Bella, is 35-years-old, mentally challenged and living at home with her mother, stern Grandma Kurnitz . As the play opens, ne'r do-well son Eddie deposits his two young sons on the old lady's doorstep. He is financially strapped and taking to the road as a salesman. The boys are left to contend with Grandma, with Bella and her secret romance, and with Louie, her brother, a small-time hood in a strange new world called Yonkers."The best play Simon ever wrote."-New York Post"Broadway desperately needs a comedy, a drama, and a hit. With Lost in Yonkers, Mr. Simon has given us all three."-Wall Street Journal"One of Simon's most impressive and funniest plays."-New York Daily News"Laughter and tears have come together in a new emotional truth. There are moments in this play when you experience a new kind of laughter for Simon, a silent laughter that doesn't explode into a yuk but implodes straight into your heart."- Newsweek

Full Length, Comic Drama / 3m, 4f / Comb. Ints/Ext. Here is part one of Neil Simon's autobiographical trilogy: a portrait of the writer as a young teen in 1937 living with his family in a crowded, lower middle-class Brooklyn walk-up. Eugene Jerome, standing in for the author, is the narrator and central character. Dreaming of baseball and girls, Eugene must cope with the mundane existence of his family life in Brooklyn: formidable mother, overworked father, and his worldly older brother Stanley. Throw into the mix his widowed Aunt Blanche, her two young (but rapidly aging) daughters and Grandpa the Socialist and you have a recipe for hilarity, served up Simon-style. This bittersweet memoir evocatively captures the life of a struggling Jewish household where, as his father states "if you didn't have a problem, you wouldn't be living here." "Brings a fresh glow to Broadway...In many respects his funniest, richest and consequently the most affecting of his plays."-New York Daily News "Simultaneously poignant and funny. The characters are fully dimensional, believable... An outstanding show...the best seen on Broadway in too long a time."-Variety "Hilarious comedy...His finest play...A delightful and enriching experience."-CBS-TV

NOTE:This a dramatic play of the Agatha Christie titles.Ten guilty strangers are trapped on an island. One by one they are accused of murder; one by one they start to die. In this superlative mystery comedy statuettes of little soldier boys on the mantel of a house on an island off the coast of Devon fall to the floor and break one by one as those in the house succumb to a diabolical avenger. A nursery rhyme tells how each of the ten "soldiers" met his death until there were none. Eight guests who have never met each other or their apparently absent host and hostess are lured to the island and, along with the two house servants, marooned. A mysterious voice accuses each of having gotten away with murder and then one drops dead - poisoned. One down and nine to go! The excitement never lets up in this ideal play for schools, colleges, and community theatres.

An announcement in the local paper states the time and place when a murder is to occur in Miss Blacklock's Victorian house. The victim is not one of the house's several occupants, but an unexpected and unknown visitor. What follows is a classic Christie puzzle of mixed motives, concealed identities, a second death, a determined Inspector grimly following the twists and turns, and Miss Marple on hand to provide the final solution at some risk to herself in a dramatic confrontation just before the final curtain.

Drama John LoganCharacters: 5 male, 2 female Various sets. This compelling drama by the author of Never the Sinner begins just moments before the 1936 execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, the German immigrant who was convicted of murdering the Lindbergh's baby. With prison guards doubling as other characters in flashback, Hauptmann tells his gripping story. "It is one of rising anti German sentiment in America, of rich versus poor, of the state versus the indivi