Please purchase my published scripts from Australian Plays Transform (APT), links beside each script below. You can also preview those scripts on the APT website. Here is the link to my author page on APT's website https://apt.org.au/author/?authorinfoid=20
Just send me an email requesting to read any of the other scripts that interest you, or for any other queries. Printing and licensing can all be simply arranged.
I sincerely welcome your interest and love to see my plays performed far and wide.
- Janet
janetbrown.m@gmail.com
BUYING TIME – DRAMA (90 MINUTES) work in progress.
(This play was invited to participate in the 12th Women Playwrights International Conference, Montreal, 2021. Unfortunately, due to Covid, the conference was cancelled).
Set in Melbourne, Australia in 2005. Eve was a sperm-donor baby born in the late
1970s. Her biological father, Paul, at last agrees to meet her. He has an
ulterior motive. Paul is an academic and a world renowned bridge designer. Eve's
a PhD student studying Waterloo Teeth, which were the first false teeth that
came from the bodies of dead soldiers from the battlefields. Eve's mother Jane
was very unwell, with challenging mental health. As the relationships between Paul and Eve, his wife
Helen and son Adam twist and change, questions are asked about the role of
fathers in today's society and the commodification of childbirth and appropriation
of the human body. Working with nature or working around nature? It is a
tragedy.
Male:s 2-3, Female: 2-3
Fear, stigma, stress, panic, voices, trauma, anxiety, secrets, tiredness…Hope.
Seven people with mental health challenges sharing their powerful, personal stories and a special song.
Birdman is frightened. Sally needs people to listen. Jill’s trauma is in her backpack. Young Lizzie stopped eating. Dave’s sick with panic. Louise hears voices. And how did Michael end up in a locked psychiatric ward?
Their compelling true stories are honoured and the unyielding power of Hope celebrated in The Hope Song, a verbatim theatre project. The words spoken by the actors are the words spoken by seven people with mental health challenges who shared their insights and experiences with writer Janet Brown.
(Produced at Sydney Fringe in 2019 by Crying Chair Theatre, directed by Socratis Otto.
Three Victorian seasons performed by Anglesea Performing Arts at Anglesea, La Mama Courthouse Carlton, and Geelong Platform Arts in 2017 and 2018, directed by Iris Walshe Howling and supported by SANE Australia).
Purchase scripts online
at https://apt.org.au/script/ASC-1902
by Janet Brown
In the 1940s glamorous Hollywood screen legend, Hedy Lamarr, is considered the most beautiful girl in the world. Composer George Antheil calls himself the Bad Boy of Music. Together these amateur inventors develop a jam-proof radio guidance system for torpedoes. Their incredible invention is used today for our mobile phones, wifi and most military communications. 'When Hedy Met George' tells the story of this surprising collaboration.
(Produced by Skin Of Our Teeth, 2019, staged in Anglesea and Waurn Ponds, Victoria)
40 minute one act play. Cast: 2 males, 2 females
Set on Bruny Island, Tasmania, ASTRID and KARLY are sisters who have a difficult relationship. Their mother has recently died after a long illness. ASTRID aged 42, married to BEN, and they have a six year old daughter named CHARLOTTE. She lives in Hobart and works in the office of an accountant. KARLY is 35, single, a research scientist, who for the past several years lives mostly in Cairns and works on a green turtle project on Raine Island, in the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland. KARLY has returned to Bruny Island to meet ASTRID at their mother’s old cottage in Adventure Bay, a very pretty town by the sea in July. The last time the sisters were together was six months ago when KARLY visited in January. KARLY did not return for her mother’s funeral in May so this is the first time they’ve seen each other since their mother died. It is a very cold rainy day. ASTRID is sorting through her mothers’ clothes, putting them in piles and boxes to go to the op shop.
Their conversation implies they are circling each other, attacking, retreating – just like the green turtles circle each other, swimming round and round; the dog swam in circles when it was trapped, then they swam in circles…and she opened her flippers. ASTRID is now worried about who is the father of KARLY’s baby.
(Public Rehearsed Reading at Anglesea Artspace performed by Cherie Roessler and Kate Hunter 2017)
- Drama
- 30 minutes
- 2 female
- Astrid - 42; Karly - 35
- 18+
- young adult, adult
- Australian Script Centre
Purchase scripts online at https://apt.org.au/script/ASC-2175
A woman returns to her ‘happy place’ under unusual circumstances.
Whilst the current owners are away on holiday, she breaks into the suburban home she raised her family in many years ago.
She reminisces about those happier times, her son frantically joins her to get her out of the house, and the owner unexpectedly returns home.
This is a heartfelt, tense comedy with a twist.
Purchase scripts online at https://apt.org.au/script/ASC-2247
25 minutes. Comedic drama. 2 Females, one male
Produced by Skin Of Our Teeth (SOOT) in 2016, directed by Cherie Roessler.
This is a story with many characters, including powerful men at the centre of the decision-making at the time: Prime Minister Andrew Fisher, Catholic Bishop Mannix, Major General Bridges. Alongside these characters, the poignancy of the story about Archibald Jordan – a soldier of whom so little is known, and ‘Sandy’ the only horse to return to Australia, who was given to the army by a young farmer from Tallangatta. The challenges of the script to carry the audience on Sandy’s journey across continents, from 1914-1918 in 50 minutes are achieved by adroit transitions in the performances of the actors to skilfully shift emotion and time and place.
Actors 1-5 play the roles of all the various characters. They immediately transform their characters to do so. Five actors play 20 characters, and simultaneously, act as members of a pseudo Greek chorus. They comment, they narrate, they re-iterate, but most importantly they are charged with the purpose of bearing witness to the actions, to the intent and the folly of the over-arching story.
Whilst it is an ensemble piece, the main protagonist is the character of Archibald Jordan, and it is through his journey that the story of the war is evoked. He is almost the ‘unknown soldier’. And Sandy, the only horse chosen to return to Australia from more than 130,000 that went to the war? He is there, on stage, present as a powerful force. He is patted, groomed, called upon for solace, and it is in the tenderness of the miming that the audience recognises and is moved: voiceless, powerless, utterly depended upon. No puppetry, no tricks, but he is there in all his equine glory.
Note: The cover photo of Sandy, held by Major General William Throsby Bridges, Commander of the Australian Imperial Force and the 1st Australian Division. Taken in Egypt. Picture: Australian War Memorial, ID No. P05290.001
- Drama (naturalistic with non naturalistic elements)
- 50 to 60 minutes
- 2 female, 3 male
- actors play multiple roles
- 18+
- teen, young adult, adult
- Australian Script Centre
Purchase scripts online at https://apt.org.au/script/ASC-2119
Produced by Skin Of Our Teeth (SOOT) for the Centenary Commemoration of ANZAC, 2015. Shenton Theatre, Geelong. Directed by Christine Davey.
LE JARDIN DE MA MERE (My Mother’s Garden)
by Janet Brown
– DRAMA 70 MINUTES
(Script is in the English language). French writer Colette wrote 'Sido' as a tribute to her mother in 1929. Janet Brown's adaptation of this story is performed in 4 movements. The play is narrated by Colette as she reflects on her childhood in provincial France with her adored mother Sido.
Premiered at Wintergarden Gallery Geelong in 2010 in conjunction with an art exhibition inspired by the story. Directed by Judy Ellis, exhibition curated by Jill Shalless. Toured the Bellarine, Surfcoast and Melbourne. Brown Fairthorne Theatre Projects. Females: 2
Purchase scripts from Janet, email: janetbrown.m@gmail.com
This play is based on the real life story of Dolly Stainer.
as told in ‘Kew Cottages: The world of Dolly Stainer (Cliff Judge and Fran van Brummelen, Spectrum Publications 2002) .
Dolly was admitted to Kew Idiot Asylum as a child of five in 1915. It was to be her home for the next seventy five years. A neglected and recalcitrant child, she was labelled a 'lunatic’ from admission, although she most certainly was not. Dolly soon learns how things operate at Kew and her natural abilities earn her the status of ‘working girl’, running the laundry and looking after other residents. How does Dolly develop her powerful, loving and complex personality in this institution? Dolly’s poignant story highlights her world of institutionalised care in twentieth century Australia. An earlier version of this play was published by Currency Press and listed for VCE Theatre and Drama Studies.
Directed by David Myles for Soul Theatre, La Mama Courthouse, 2006
- Drama; naturalism and non-naturalism; based on a true story
- 70 minutes
- 2 female, 1 male
- Actors can play multiple roles; cast can be of various ages
- 12 to 16, 16 to 18, 18+
- teen, young adult, adult
- Australian Script Centre
Purchase scripts online at https://apt.org.au/script/ASC-1621
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A Hole In The Ground explores what happens in a community that works together on a strategic campaign against an unpopular proposal by big business that is supported by the government.
With two narrators - an environmental activist and a government minister - arguing about power, responsibility and control, the play illuminates the impact on people's lives when they commit to working on such a campaign. The play is based on the Werribee No Toxic Dump campaign of the 1990s.
- Drama
- 120 minutes
- 3 female, 5 male
- 18+
- teen, young adult, adult
- Australian Script Centre
Purchase scripts online from https://apt.org.au/script/ASC-2300
Directed by David Myles. La Mama Courthouse and Wyndham Cultural Centre, 2004.
CHERISHED - DRAMA ( 90 MINUTES)
Inspired by two of Colette's novels - 'Cheri' and 'the Last of Cheri'. Set just before the Afghanistan War begins in 2001, we are in Paris. Fred ('Cheri'), the young son of a wealthy woman has been having a long term affair with Lea, a middle-aged friend of his mother. Fred is forced to give up the six-year relationship when he marries young Edmee, but he cannot forget his former lover. Ten years later, after time in the war zone, and returning to an unsatisfying life and marriage in Paris, he re-visits Lea. Colette, the writer, appears in the play as a narrator and her scenes are set in 1948 when she is elderly and visited for an interview about her life and work by a young Truman Capote. A drama. Male: 2, Female: 3
(script available from Janet)
THE LADYBIRD – DRAMA
(60 MINUTES)
An adaptation of The Ladybird, a novella by D H Lawrence (published in 1923). A Bohemian count
is a wounded prisoner of war, recovering in a military hospital in England. He
is visited by an English woman whose husband is a soldier in the war. As she
continues to visit him, they develop an unusual and compelling relationship.
This is a moving and emotional play that explores notions of loss, belonging
and need. Males: 2, F: 1 (script available from Janet)
THE SHADED SIDE - DRAMA
(M:2-5, F 3-8)
This play explores
secrecy, stigma and taboo. Jenny, aged in her fifties, is seeking the identity
of her birth mother. Much of the story is set in Melbourne in the 1940s, when Ellen
is a young woman and a patient at a tuberculosis sanatorium. Ellen, a devout
Catholic, gives birth
to Jennifer as an unmarried mother. Mary formally adopts Jennifer who is told the common
lie in the 1940s that 'Your mother died at your birth and
your Father died in the war.' Ellen's life is diminished by her guilt, shame
and vulnerability. Now a mature woman, how will Jenny
react to the truth? An adaptation of Janet's novel 'The Shaded Side' (Edco Services, published in 2003).
ONE PLAIN, ONE PURL - A Winner of The Write Stuff playwrighting award. 10 minutes to 70 MINUTES (FULL VERSION). It can be staged as just one of the monologues or up to the full six A selection of the monologues has been produced as a radio play by 3RPH (2006).
This play is set in
various places in Australia. It consists of a series of interrupted
monologues. Each character tells their story while they are knitting. Jenny is
co-ordinator of a Migrant Resource Centre in Melbourne's inner suburbs which
has just been closed due to financial mismanagement. She's pre-occupied by
Prime Minister John Howard's treatment of refugees. Mary's a grandmother with a
nasty streak. Trevor's wondering whether or not to 'try again' with his
long-time lover, Duncan. Margaret's shy, middle aged and married - and having
an affair with beautiful Oliver. Mr B is a frustrated secondary school creative
Arts and Drama teacher. Dave is a lawyer and about to assist his dearest friend
with euthanasia.
First staged by Anglesea Performing Arts (APA), directed by Nikki Watson, 2005. M 1-4; F 1-3
SHORT PLAYS:
WATER, WATER – (17 MINUTES) FEMALE: 1
She's experienced
devastating floods in her country town. Now it's time to decide where her
'place' will be. An ode to the complexities of decisions, decisions.
Part of
the Making Waves touring production of 5 short plays , first premiered at Qdos
Arts Lorne 2011, Brown Fairthorne Theatre Projects
DEFECTION – (TRUE
STORY) Males 2, Females 2.
In 1980 Heidi
Giersch defected from East Berlin as a ballet dancer on tour in Australia with
the renowned Komische Oper Berlin. She immediately sought political asylum. 'Defection' is
a short play about her experiences.
First staged at QDos Arts Lorne in 2011 as
part of the Making Waves touring production of 5 short plays by Brown Fairthorne
Theatre Projects.
THE DEPTHS – Males:2
It's the fall-out
of the GFC. A businessman has just about lost the lot - his job, his wife, his
home. He's asleep on a cray boat. When he wakes he has some explaining to do to
the enigmatic fisherman.
Part of the
Making Waves touring production of 5 short plays, at Qdos Arts Lorne 2011,
Brown Fairthorne Theatre Projects.
MAD MADGE – Female:1
It's 1670. The
eccentric Margaret Cavendish, quite possibly England's first woman of science,
wants to meet you. Part of the Small Bites touring production of 6 short plays.
Premiered at The Potato Shed Drysdale, 2010. Brown Fairthorne Theatre Projects
A PRINCESS, A
PEA -
Female: 1
The queen is
reminiscing. This is her earthy, sultry version of the famous fairytale: expect
the unexpected.
Part of the Small Bites touring production of 6 short plays,
premiered at The Potato Shed Drysdale, 2010. Brown Fairthorne Theatre Projects.
YOU – Male:1,
Female:1
Two lives in one
verse, 'You' is a poetic and poignant exploration of a long marriage.
Part of the Small Bites touring production of 6 short plays, produced in 2010 by Brown Fairthorne Theatre Projects. Then by Short and
Sweet , Gala Melbourne, Chapel Off Chapel in December 2010.
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