Drama
Armer, Alan, and Walter E. Grauman. The Glass Slipper. In Breaking Loose, ed. James Olsen and Lawrence Swinburne. New York: Noble and Noble, 1969.
Barrie, J. M. A Kiss for Cinderella. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920. Reprinted in The Plays of J. M. Barrie, in one volume. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928.
Bratt, Elizabeth. Cinderella. Macclesfield: New Plywrights’ Network, 1988.
Brighouse, Harold. Hobson’s Choice: A Lancashire Comedy in Four Acts. London: Samuel French, 1916. Originally first produced in America at the Princess Theater, New York, 2 November 1915. First English production on 22 June 1916, at the Apollo Theatre, London.
Caldor, M. T. Social Charades and Parlor Operas. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1873.
Carpenter, Edward Childs. The Cinderella Man. New York. 17 January 1916.
Cartwright, Jim. The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. Metheun, 1992.
Cinderella Wore Combat Boots. An Adaptation by Jerry Chase. New York: Dramatists Play Service Inc., 1980. First presented by Off Center Theatre, 15 September 1966, dir. Tony McGrath, at Good Shepherd-Faith Presbyterian Church 166 W. 66th Street, NYC. Then, after great success in the church the production moved to the streets of New York for joyful performances “free of charge, in every weird and wonderful neighborhood of that incomparable City” (p. 3). First copyright 1976 by Jerry Chase, Tony McGrath, and Abbey McGrath under the title “Cinderella 1976 (A Collaborative Adaptation).”
Cinderella Play/Mask Book. Illustrated by Peter Stevenson and Katie Davies. Mahwah, N.J.: Watermill Press, 1990.
Coffin, Gregg. Five Course Love . Geva Theater Center. Rochester, New York. May 5-June 14 2010.
Cast: Troy Britton Johnson, Kevin Ligon, Kristen Mengelkoch.
-----. Little Plays, For Little Actors. London: Dean and Son, Threadneedle-Street, 1865.
Dennys, Joyce. Cinderella. London: Samuel French, 1962.
Duffy, Carole Ann. See Grimm Tales and More Grimm Tales, below.
Dugan, Caro Atherton. The King’s Jester, and Other Short Plays for Small Stages. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1899. 364 pp.
Every Evening at 9. A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts Entitled, Dr. Bill. Avenue theatre, London. London: A.S. Mallett, Allen & Company, 1890.
Field, Henrietta Dexter, and Roswell Martin Field. The Muses Up-to-date. Chicago: Way and Williams, 1897. xi, 3, 278 pp.
George, Charles. Just Like Cinderella. New York: Samuel French, 1942.
Gleason, William. Breaker Calling Cinderella. Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Company, 1977.
Glowacki, Janusz. Cinders. Public/LuEsther Theatre, New York. Opened 20 February 1984. 56 performances. Produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival; Producer, Joseph Papp. Translated by Christian Paul. Directed by John Madden. Scenery by Andrew Jackness. Lighting by Paul Gallo. Costumes by Jane Greenwood. Incidental music by Richard Peaslee. Musical director, Deena Kaye. Fights staged by B. H. Barry. Stage managers, James Harker and Tracy B. Cohen.
Henley, Anne, and Stanley Schell. Cinderella: Illustrated Play in Four Scenes for Children. New York: Edgar S. Werner, c. 1913. 21 pp.
Hills, Richard. Cinderella. Macclesfield: New Playwrights’ Network, 1991.
Hittell, Theodore Henry (1830-1917). Cinderella, A Parlor Play in three Acts. San Francisco, 17 February 1900.
Homer, Frances. Cinderella of Loreland. Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Company, 1961.
Hopwood, Avery (1884-1928). Naughty Cinderella. London and New York: Samuel French.
Hotchner, Steve. Cinderella, Cinderella. Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Company, 1977.
Hulley, Lincoln. Ariel and Cinderella: A Comedy in Five Acts. Deland, Florida: E. O. Painter, 1925.
Keating, Eliza H. Cinderella: A Fairy Play in One Act. London & New York: Samuel French, 18??. 24 pp.
Kidder, Edward E. (1849?-1927). A College Cinderella. New York: Samuel French, 1915.
Koste, Virginia Glasgow. The Cinderella Syndrome. Boston: Baker’s Plays, 1983.
Lesbian Plays II. London: Methuen, 1989.
Ludlow, Fitz-Hugh (1836-1870). Cinderella. New York: Gray & Green, 1864. 32 pp.
McNally, Terrence. Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune. 1987.
Moch, Cheryl. Cinderella, the Real True Story. Directed by Nona Shepphard. Music by Holly Gewandler. Performed at Drill Hall, 16 Chenies Street, London WC1. 26 December 1997 to 10 January 1998.
Nigro, Don. Cinderella Waltz: A Play. London: Samuel French, 1978, 1984, 1987. First produced in June and July 1978 by Indiana State University Summer Repertory Theatre in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Potter, Dennis. Almost Cinderella. [Unpublished.] TV script written in the fall of 1966, by agreement with the BBC, signed 22 August.
Shaw, George Bernard. Candida. 1895. First produced by the Stage Society at the Strand Theatre, London, 1 July 1900, with Janet Achurch as Candida and Harley Granville Barker as Marchbanks.
Thompson, Hilary. Madame Fou-Fou and the Apricot Mousse; or, Cinderella Comes of Age. Halifax: Dramatists’ Co-op of Nova Scotia, 1979.
Tydeman, Richard. Red Hot Cinders: A Minidrama. London: Samuel French, 1955.
Walt Disney Productions. Cinderella Puppet Show. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949.
[Smitty, a dark teenager, nice-looking but not handsome, meets Duchess, about seventeen, slender to the point of appearing bony, and wearing borrowed clothes, on the dance floor. As they inquire into each other’s lives both, through innuendo, imply that they are better off and more secure than they in fact are. It takes considerable reflection and careful reading for them to get past their disguises and to accept each for the anxious person he/she is.]Audiberti, Jacques. The Evil Spreads (1947). No English translation available. Published as “Le Mal court, Piéce en trois actes,” Theatre 1, Paris: Gallimard, 1948.
[Alarica, the Cinderella figure, is a princess from a small, poor country betrothed to Parfait, King of the great neighboring realm of Occident. The night before her wedding she learns that Parfait will not marry her after all; she has been used as a pawn in political machinations, guided by the Cardinal, to match Parfait with a sister of the king of Spain. Confronted with this blatant demonstration of worldly power, Alarica gives up her naive fairy tale values and embraces evil. She takes a lover, deposes her pathetic father, and proposes to modernize her poor country with ruthless efficiency. The spreading evil destroys her fairy tale, but Alarica seizes power and becomes Cinderella anyway–though not by the usual route. An ironical Cinderella play in which brutal but honest cynicism subverts fairy tale idealism, much to the audience’s disquiet”–David Nicholson.]Barbee, Lindsey. Cinderella and Five Other Fairy Plays. Illustrated by Harlan Tarbell. Chicago: T. S. Denison and Company, 1922.
Barrie, J. M. A Kiss for Cinderella. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920. Reprinted in The Plays of J. M. Barrie, in one volume. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928.
[Set during the first world war, the play is a vehicle for feminist and class issues as well as a critique of poverty and a European hegemony at odds with itself. The serving girl is labelled Cinderella by her artist employer who becomes suspicious about wood which she apparently has taken. She is tracked by a detective who discovers a second life for the girl as a soothsayer and guardian of orphan girls from France, Belgium, Italy, and Germany, all of whom know and adore the Cinderella myth and imagine that a prince will come for their angel. It turns out that she is not of noble origins, that such distinctions have been levelled meaningless by the war, and rather than be saved by the artist Mr. Bodie, who plays Pygmalion with his statue of Venus, or his benevolent sister, the physician Dr. Bodie, Cinderella, dying of pneumonia, her feet having been amputated from frost bite, consents to marry the policeman, but only after having the privilege of refusing him first. There is some discussion of the suffragette movement along the way. Was adapted as a movie in 1925. See the entry under Movies .]Bell, Florence Eveleen Eleanore Olliffe, Lady (1851-1930). Nursery Comedies: Twelve Tiny Plays for Children. London: Longmans, Green, 1892.
[Includes a Cinderella play.]Bergman, Hjalmar. Mr. Sleeman Is Coming (1917). In Four Plays of Hjalman Bergman, trans. Walter Johnson. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968, pp. 273-298.
[Anne-Marie, in the care of two aunts after the death of her mother, does menial tasks making coffee, removing slipcovers, etc. Aunt Mina yearns after her niece’s sexual opportunities and would marry her to Mr. Sleeman, an emaciated death figure. Anne-Marie flees to the woods with a woodsman/hunter named Walter. But Mr. Sleeman will not be put off. Nicholson (1982) compares his letter, dropping from heaven, to Cinderella’s doves except that “the unmistakable meaning of her good fortune has nothing to do with the recognition of hidden spiritual worth, as in ‘Cinderella,’ and everything to do with her gender, her youth and attractiveness, and her domestic and musical talents–i.e., her saleable skills. The ironical treatment of the Cinderella tale carries out a devastating critique of bourgeois social and commercial values, the deathly nature of which is summed up in the grotesque figure of Mr. Sleeman” pp. 232-233). Anne-Marie ends up in the hands of the grotesque, at home in the aunts’ deadly parlor, rather than in the light, supple green world.]Bingle, Kerri L. Cinderella and Five Other Plays. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1985.
Bratt, Elizabeth. Cinderella. Macclesfield: New Plywrights’ Network, 1988.
Brighouse, Harold. Hobson’s Choice: A Lancashire Comedy in Four Acts. London: Samuel French, 1916. Originally first produced in America at the Princess Theater, New York, 2 November 1915. First English production on 22 June 1916, at the Apollo Theatre, London.
Cast: Alice Hobson (Lydia Bilbrooke), Maggie Hobson (Edyth Goodall), Vickey Hobson (Hilda Davies), Albert Prosser (Reginald Fry), Henry Horatio Hobson (Norman McKinnel), Mrs. Hepworth (Dora Gregory), Timothy “Tubby” Wadlow (Sydney Paxton), William Mossop (Joe Nightingale), Jim Heeler (J. Cooke Beresford), Ada Figgins (Mary Byron), Fred Beenstock (Jefferson Gore), Dr. MacFarlane (J. Fisher White). Producted by Norman McKinnel.
Synopsis of Scenes: The Scene is Salford, Lancashire, and the period is 1880. Act I: Interior of Hobson’s Shop in Chapel Street. Act. II: The same scene. Act III: Will Mossop’s Shop. Act IV: Living-room of Hobson’s Shop.
[Numerous Cinderella parallels: Mother deceased, father a blowhard alcoholic who tries to dominate his children; three daughters, two of whom are pretty and frivolous, the third of whom (Maggie) is smart and hardworking, the one who keeps things going despite he oppressive father and lazy sisers. Maggie attempts to survive the father’s patriarchal suppression of women by breaking free. The fairy godmother is the wealthy Mrs. Hepworth, who comes to the bootery to praise the work of Will Mossop. Maggie sees her chance to escape and sets out on her own, taking Will with her; she educates him, gives him confidence sufficient to set out on his own. Together, with the financial backing of Mrs. Hepworth, they set up their own bootery, winning all the fashionable and wealthy shoe business away from Hobson. Maggie gets the two frivolous daughters married to men of wealth and fashion. But as the father becomes overwhelmed with alcohol the three daughters are called back to the house. Like Goneril and Reagan the two reject the father, leaving the task to the Cinderella/Cordelia-like Maggie, who agrees to move back in, but on her and Will’s terms. Their dream comes true. Maggie and Will become well-suited to each other (thanks to the practical control of Maggie). With their down-to-earth, hard-working values, they succeed as neither the frivolous sisters nor their wealthy husbands are able to do. Maggie and Will make well-fitting shoes and market them together.]Brown, Alan. Cinderella, or, The Sweet Little Maid and the Magic Shoes, or, Love is a Game that We Need Not Lose. London: Samuel French, 1986.
Caldor, M. T. Social Charades and Parlor Operas. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1873.
[Includes “Diamonds and Toads,” “Accelerate,” “Curiosity,” “Parsimony,” “Conjuration,” “The Pilgrim’s Choice,” “Cinderella,” and “Elocution.” 169 pp. “Cinderella. A Charade of Four Syllables. In Two Acts, and the Whole Word in Pantomime,” pp. 145-156, begins with a scene of Two Syllables, Cin-der: Mrs. Bangtown sits knitting by candle light when Mr. Bangtown enters “got up in Brother Jonathan style, his eye bandaged, the darkey boy, Sin, with carpet-bag, behind him.” Mrs. B wonders why her husband has brought this “nig” and exclaims: “La sakes! what in the name of the ace of spades is this?” Mr. B compliments Mrs. B on her spades joke–“About the right comoplexion, ain’t he?”–and says he’s more the knave than the ace, but that he is his “New-Year’s present to you.” Sin proves to be a comic eye-rolling, thick-lipped, kinky-haired incompetent who loves cake and sweets and, in the eyes of Mrs. B, lives up to his name “Sin.” Sc. 2: Mrs. B bakes a cake for the minister, then goes to visit Miss Pry, who has a servant girl named Ella to whom Sin has taken a fancy. While she is gone, Sin and Ella eat up the cake and drink the elderberry wine Mrs. B has prepared for the minister who is about to visit. Mrs. B and Miss Pry arrive home just as the two culprits finish off the cake. A knock at the door announces the minister’s arrival. Curtain. Act II: The Whole Word in Pantomime, Cinderella, a charade that opens with a tableau of Cinderella by the fireplace in the presence of the haughty sisters and stepmother. Then follows Perrault’s glass slipper story from their abuse of Cinderella to their departure to the ball and the fairy godmother’s arrival to transform pumpkin, mice, and rats into coach, horses, and coachman, and Cinderella into a princess. Sc. 2: Set at midnight, a clock strikes twelve on an empty stage across which Cinderella rushes with a glass slipper in her hand. She sits by the fire and feigns sleep as the rest of the family arrive home. The “Prince’s reward” is announced (in pantomime). The two sisters try on the slipper but fail. Cinderella, “wrapped in a long water-proof, steals in meekly to her seat by the fireplace. The page points to her, and by gestures inquires if she shall not try the slipper.” The mother says no, but the prince says yes; the shoe fits and she produces the matching slipper. The prince rushes to her, FG appears and transforms Cinderella into her ball dress as the water-proof drops. She is led forward to front centre of the stage while the step-family shows “discomfiture in their faces.” Curtain.]Calderon, George (1868-1915). Three Plays and a Pantomime. London: G. Richards, 1922.
Carpenter, Edward Childs. The Cinderella Man. New York. 17 January 1916.
[This play was the source for the 1917 movie of the same name. See Movies .]Carter, Margaret. Cinderella. London: Samuel French, 1928.
Cartwright, Jim. The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. Metheun, 1992.
[Originally produced at Cottesloe Theatre in London (June 1992) then moved to the Aldwych (October 1992) for a long run, with Jane Horrocks as Little Voice, Alison Steadman as Mari Hoff, and Pete Postlethwaite as Ray Say. Set in the north of England: a severely oppressed and depressed girl voices her feelings in an upper room of her own through records and impersonations of Judy Garland in Oz, Edith Piaf, Marilyn Monroe, Shirley Bassey, Gracie Fields, etc. Exploited by Mari, her alcoholic mother, who enslaves LV, dumps ashes on her, and wishes to go to the ball herself, and by Ray Say, a sleazy entertainment promoter and temporary lover of Mari, Little Voice escapes the prison-like house through the assistance of Billy, a telephone repairman who is nearly as shy as LV but who operates a cherry picker and, in his secret life, does light shows. The phonograph records by means of which Little Voice learns to sing were left her by her deceased father. Mari and Ray promote LV’s singing in taverns, whereby they make good money from her labor. But at last Billy rescues her through her bedroom window by means of his cherry picker.]Cheatham, Val R. Cinderella Finds Time. In Free to Fly. Glenview, Ill.: Scott Foresman & Company, 1993, pp. 90-102.
[A children’s play in three scenes. Uses a narrator at the outset.]Chorpenning, Charlotte Barrows. Cinderella. Anchorage, Kentucky: The Children’s Theatre Press, 1940. Written for the Goodman Theatre of Chicago.
Cast: Cinderella, First and Second Sister, Mother, Prince, Roland, Fairy Godmother, Galafron, Curdkin, Felicia, Queen, Page.
[Synopsis: Act One. Cinderella’s home, the night of the Prince’s Ball. The sisters and mother scorn Cinderella and tear up the dress she has made from their discarded dresses. They will not permit her to attend the ball, assigning her instead to harvest the pumpkins. While she is working Roland comes by and admires Cinderella’s courtesy. She is dressed like a beggar but bows like a princess. He is delighted talking with her and tells the Prince about her. The Prince comes disguised as a beggar. The sisters scorn him, but he tells them that he knows the Prince and warns them about Galafron and Curdkin, whom they should scorn and play pranks on if they are to win the Prince’s favor. He admires Cinderella and yearns for her. After the others leave the Godmother transforms Cinderella’s dress and helps her with the magic words that turn the pumpkin into the coach. Cinderella exits through the wall since the doors have all been locked.Cinderella: An Opera in Three Acts. Boston: n. pub., 18??.[Act Two. The Palace Garden, before and after mignight. Felicia helps the Prince and Roland escape from Galafron and Curdkin, who get stuck with the sisters. The sisters do their best to perturb the lackeys. The Prince wonders where the third sister is whom he fell in love with in his beggar disguise. When she appears he is wowed but does not recognize her. Her slipper keeps falling off, and she must leave at twelve, despite his commands that she stay. She tells him she is only Cinderella and gets away. The Queen thinks the Prince has forgotten all about the ragged maid he was waiting for and is reassured by Galafron and Kurdkin that the Queen now has nothing to fear. They catch Cinderella near the gate looking for her lost shoe. They take her other slipper from her and try tie her to a bench on the Queen’s orders, but, with the help of the Fairy Godmother, she escapes. The Prince and Roland set out to find the woman who fits the slipper. Cinderella, in hiding, hears of the search and steals home, weeping and frantic.
[Act Three. Cinderella’s Home, a few minutes later. The sisters count the pumpkin harvest, noting that one is missing. Cinderella appears from her room, out of breath and weeping. They scold her for the missing pumpkin, but as they turn to count again the missing one has been restored. Cinderella knows the Fairy Godmother has helped her again. She hears the Crier’s call and reflects that at least no one can take her memory of wearing the slipper away from her. FG asks her about the slippers, and she laments that she has lost them both. FG gives her one back, which she hides in her pocket. The sisters try to fit into Cinderella’s little shoes as practice but can’t get into them, though the second sister manages to force one foot in. Cinderella wonders that even if they were to mangle a foot into the slipper whether the Prince would not know that they were not the right women? They say no. Then Cinderella wonders if they might not in fact already know who the princess is. They mock her but become suspicious and wonder if Cinderella might not have been to the ball after all. They figure she must have had a key to get out of the locked doors. As they search her they find the slipper instead of the key and accuse her of stealing the slipper. They try to fit into it but cannot. It fits only Cinderella, which infuriates them, and they carry her out bodily, just as Roland flings open the door. Roland tells the Prince that this is where the ragged maiden lived that he loved this morning, but the Prince says he is no longer interested in her–he loves the maiden in blue and gold. Roland stands up for the little cinder-flower, but the Prince insists on searching for the princess who fits the slipper. The mother and sisters appear for the fitting. The second sister gets into the slipper and produces the mate. The Prince is aghast, but Curdkin and Galafron are delighted. The Prince then asks her to dance. She objects, but the music of Cinderella’s vision in Act One starts playing, and as the Prince begins dancing the second sister falls to the floor groaning–“Take them off! My feet! Take them off! They do not fit!” Roland pulls the slippers off as she screams in pain. The mother claims they found the slipper in the garden, but just then they all hear Cinderella weeping. The mother scolds her, but Roland demands that she be brought up from the cellar. The Prince recognizes her instantly, the slipper fits, and Galafron recognizes her as well as the ragged maid at the Palace. The Prince claims her as bride and grants her a wish. She asks that her two sisters be given husbands at court. The Prince gives them to Galafron and Curdkin, and they exit in processional, the clowns with their unwanted brides, the proud mother strutting behind them, and the Prince and Cinderella last, looking into each other’s eyes in joy.]
[Prompt-book, without music. In MS 23, 9, 15 leaves.]Cinderella. Under the auspices of the Auxiliary Society of Modern Standard Drama. Vol. 1. 18??.
Cinderella Wore Combat Boots. An Adaptation by Jerry Chase. New York: Dramatists Play Service Inc., 1980. First presented by Off Center Theatre, 15 September 1966, dir. Tony McGrath, at Good Shepherd-Faith Presbyterian Church 166 W. 66th Street, NYC. Then, after great success in the church the production moved to the streets of New York for joyful performances “free of charge, in every weird and wonderful neighborhood of that incomparable City” (p. 3). First copyright 1976 by Jerry Chase, Tony McGrath, and Abbey McGrath under the title “Cinderella 1976 (A Collaborative Adaptation).”
Cast: Story Teller/Fairy Godperson (Abigail Rosen), King Charming (Tony McGrath), Prince Charming (Jerry Chase), Motherella (Phyllis McGrath), Mazzarella (Lynn Swann), Godzella (Ella Cabe), Cinderella (Carol Hardin).
[Synopsis: Story-teller announces the plot. The King talks to the Prince, who is a young 38 years old and an enthusiastic dragon hunter, about marriage. “Aw, dad, girls are sissies. (Front.)–Right?” But the King insists that he will throw a ball; the Prince agrees to attend (rather than catch it!). The Story-teller introduces Cinderella and stepfamily. The stepdaughters are pretty on the outside but ugly inside. They bait Cinderella with various tasks, which she accepts. With the announcement of the ball they really set her to work fixing them up, which requires all sorts of tools from hammers and steel brushes to acetylene torches. After they go to the ball the story-teller announces “the greatest moment in American Theatre” as she stands in as Fairy Godperson, dresses Cinderella and changes mice and pumpkin into coach and horses. At the ball the Prince is downhearted, especially in response to Godzella and Mazzarella. He slips out and bumps into Cinderella, newly arrived in the trophy room. They bop, disco, and talk–“Wow! I didn’t know girls could be fun.” He tells about dragon hunting and what dragons are good for, and admires her great boots. She offers to get a pair for him, and he asks her to marry her, just as the clock strikes bong bong. She flees leaving him with the combat boot. He likes the smell and searches for her. When he finds her she’s amazed that he is the Prince, but they are happy anyway. The stepsisters are given the chance to learn that work is not something to be shuffled off onto your sister.]Cinderella, With Five Set Scenes and Nine Trick Changes. London: Bodley Head, 1981.
Cinderella Play/Mask Book. Illustrated by Peter Stevenson and Katie Davies. Mahwah, N.J.: Watermill Press, 1990.
[Includes four masks: Cinderella, with bows and with crown, either of which attaches to the mask so that she can change her dress; the Prince, with a feather in his cap; the stepmother, with a horned headpiece adorned with pearls; and the Fairy godmother, with a pointed hat adorned with stars and moons. The play script tells the story through its cast of characters in dialogue, with a few stage directions to help move the play along. The play script is simple but well done. Includes instructions on how to assemble the masks.]Clinton-Baddeley, Victor Clinton (1900-1970). Cinderella; or, Love Makes the World Go Round. London: Samuel French, 1952.
Coffin, Gregg. Five Course Love . Geva Theater Center. Rochester, New York. May 5-June 14 2010.
Cast: Troy Britton Johnson, Kevin Ligon, Kristen Mengelkoch.
Cooper, Fox. The Bottle: An Original Domestic Drama in Two Acts. The Colored Acting Drama No. 2. London: F. Mitchell, 39 Holywell Street, Strand, 1855. Cast: Mr. Morden (Mr Archer), Charles Courage (Fitzgerald), Capt. Flatcatcher Cheek (Montague), Dickey Drudge (Huntley), Warrant (Rogerson), Mr. Allworth (Yarnold), Policeman L47 (Oxberry), Grimes (Smith), Spiderlimb (Mr. Jones), Morden's Children (Miss Coleman, etc.), Mrs. Morden (M. Atkins), Margery Mag (E. Terry), Edith (Kent), Genius of Temperance (Mrs. Woollindge).[This musical details one woman’s clichéd fantasies of love borne from reading romance novels before she finds an actual relationship through a series of vignettes. The play begins with Matt (“A Very Single Man”) on his way to meet someone he has met through a dating service. He enters what he thought was a sushi-bar to discover that he is at “Dean’s Old Fashioned All-American Down Home Bar-B-Que Texas Eats.” His date quickly begins to seduce him in “Jumpin’ the Gun.” Their brief relationship ends before the check can arrive when he reveals that his name is Matt. She is at the restaurant to meet a man named Ken, since she is Barbie and sings “I Loved You When I Thought Your Name Was Ken.” Barbie leaves Matt for her date who has arrived, and Dean, the owner, tells Matt that his date has not arrived. He sings “Morning Light” as he pines for an opportunity to fall in love. The narrative shifts to a restaurant where a waiter, Carlo, serves Sofia and Gino. Carlo fears that Sofia’s husband Nicky will kill him (“If Nicky Knew”) for covering up the couple’s affair, and Sofia attempts to end the affair despite Gino’s protests (“Give Me This Night”). Sofia gets a phone call and realizes “Nicky Knows.” As she attempts to calm her enraged husband, Gino reveals that he has used Sofia to hurt Nicky for taking over the family business, which Gino should have inherited. Sofia shoots Gino and walks out to Nicky’s car hoping he will forgive her. The scene then shifts to a small German pub. Heimlich, the owner, sings “Shelter-Lied” as he notes how people try to heal after love fails. His day is quickly ruined when his secret girlfriend, who is forbidden to come to his restaurant, arrives. She proudly declares “‘No’ is a Word I Don’t Fear” before telling Heimlich that she has been cheating on him and wants to end their relationship. Klaus, her lover, and Heimlich’s secret boyfriend arrives, and Klaus and Gretchen sing “Break-Up Underscore.” The trio then sings “Der Bumsen-Kratzentanz,” during which Klaus and Heimlich realize that they wish to continue their relationship (“Risk Love”), and both dump Gretchen. She sings about the dangers of shutting off one’s heart and choosing lust over love in “Gretchen’s Lament.” The scene again changes as two men enter a cantina. Ernesto is a hard-working, typical man, and Guillermo is an outrageous outlaw who breaks women’s hearts. They sing “The Ballad of the Guillermo” as Ernesto keeps changing the lyrics to mock Guillermo who finally sings “The Ballad of Me” to show himself off. Rosalinda enters, and Guillermo tries to seduce her (“Come Be My Love.” Ernesto interrupts, claiming he is a better partner for her, pledging his love rather than lust, and both men sing “Pick Me” as Ernesto promises to be a good partner, while Guillermo vows to be an excellent lover. After weighing her options (“Rosalinda’s Choice”) and kissing both men, she chooses the adventure Guillermo promises. Ernesto sings “The Blue Flame” to describe his continuing devotion to Rosalinda, and Kitty, a young woman in a diner, joins him. She is reading of his grief in her romance novel and ardently wants to hear more of his pain. The scene shifts again to the Star-Lite Diner. Kitty waits for Clutch in a takeoff on Grease; she has sent him a secret note with a description of herself. Pops, her boss, sees her books and discusses how these fantasies are not love. Clutch arrives and eagerly awaits his partner as all three sing “True Love at the Star-Lite Tonight.” Kitty tries to help Clutch realize that she sent the letter (“It’s a Mystery”) but grows increasingly frustrated as he cannot see her. After he leaves, she considers each of her romance novels, one involving a mobster, one a German pub owner, and another the story of Guillermo. Each of the men appear and remind her to look for love outside of the pages of her book and take their respective book away from her, thereby releasing her from the limitations of the fantasy. Kitty sings “Hey, Cupid” and asks for an actual relationship instead of a fantasy, and her boss claims to need to run an errand as Matt, the still single man from the first episode enters. He has been struggling with his loneliness, and Pops, her boss, speaks with him briefly. As Kitty comes to take Matt’s order, their eyes meet, and they fall in love singing “Love Looking Back At Me” as Pops appears above them again, now as Cupid finally answers their respective prayers for a relationship and love in the “real” world.] [Annotation by Martha Johnson-Olin]
[Although this play is not a Cinderella narrative, it is linked to the Dickens/Cruikshank debate over the use of fairytale for political issues. Cruikshank's life and family had been virtually ruined by alcohol, and he rewrote and illustrated a fairytale (Hop o' my Thumb) to espouse temperance. (See Cruikshank, under Modern Fiction, above). Dickens assailed him for using the genre for his political ends, making a case for the preservation of the legacy of conviviality and merry England that the austere temperance moralists would destroy. (See Dickens, under Criticism.) Dickens wrote a Cinderella take-off to ridicule Cruikshank. But Cruikshank responded in 1854 by writing his own temperance Cinderella, which he did indeed take seriously. Cooper's play, published the next year, is illustrated with a Cruikshank-like engraving of a husband (Mr. Morden) attacking his wife with a gin bottle while their daughter Mary tries to hold him off. Morden uses a Dickens-like argument in defense of conviviality, which his wife rejects, to her own peril. Morden drunkenly squanders their money, goes deeply in debt, loses his job, has the furniture repossessed, steals money to pay debts but uses it for more gin and brandy, and ultimately, in a drunken rage, bludgeons his wife with the bottle, killing her. Then, in a deus-ex-machina epilogue, the Genius of Temperance appears, and the previous plot is turned into a bad dream: Morden awakens, says he dreamed he had killed his wife, and reforms for a happier ending. The play has a subplot of streetlife featuring a Twelfth Night-like fop Captain Flatcatcher Cheek, who tries to seduce women, girls who try to get their drunken fathers to come home for supper, Dickey Drudge, a beer vender who cites Shakespeare with every breath, and Margery Mag, his little girl friend who is impressed by Shakespeare but mainly loves to give people comfort as they like it. Margery was played by a very young Ellen Terry! (She was eight years old.) The play does not amount to much apart from its melodrama, but it does tie in in fascinating ways to the Cruikshank/Dickens controversy and issues using art and tradition for propagandaa. The appearance of the Spirit of Temperance at the end is like the Fairy Godmother who introduces the harlequinade deus ex machina conclusions to many Cinderella pantomimes of the period.]Corner, Julia (1798-1875). Cinderella and the Glass Slipper. London: Dean, 1854.
-----. Little Plays, For Little Actors. London: Dean and Son, Threadneedle-Street, 1865.
Dennys, Joyce. Cinderella. London: Samuel French, 1962.
Duffy, Carole Ann. See Grimm Tales and More Grimm Tales, below.
Dugan, Caro Atherton. The King’s Jester, and Other Short Plays for Small Stages. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1899. 364 pp.
[Includes “The King’s Jester,” “Cinderella,” “The Gypsy Girl of Hungary,” “The Queen’s Coffer,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” “Pandora,” “The Gift of Aphrodite,” “Nino’s Revenge,” “The Apple of Discord,” “Undine,” and “The Flight of the Sun Goddess.” All except “Cinderella” and “Pandora” contain music.]Eustis, Fred J. (1851?-1912). The Crystal Slipper; or, Prince Prettywitz and Little Cinderella. A Spectacular Burlesque in Three Acts and Fourteen Tableaux. Chicago: Press of America, c. 1888. 31 pp.
Every Evening at 9. A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts Entitled, Dr. Bill. Avenue theatre, London. London: A.S. Mallett, Allen & Company, 1890.
Field, Henrietta Dexter, and Roswell Martin Field. The Muses Up-to-date. Chicago: Way and Williams, 1897. xi, 3, 278 pp.
[Includes “A Mythological Liberty in Two Acts with a Prologue,” “Cinderella: A Fairy Comedy in Three Acts,” “Trouble in the Garden: A Horticultural Episode in Three Acts with Living Pictures,” “The Modern Cinderella: An Exploded Fairy Tale in Three Brief Acts,” “The Wooing of Penelope: An Incident of Depravity in Five Acts,” “A Lesson from Fairy Land: A Tribute to Early Convictions in Three Acts and an Intermezzo.”]Field, Rachel Lyman (1894-1942). Six Plays: Cinderella Married, Three Pills in a Bottle, Columbine in Business, The Patchwork Quilt, Wisdom Teeth, Theories and Thumbs. Forward by George P. Baker. New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1924.
George, Charles. Just Like Cinderella. New York: Samuel French, 1942.
Gleason, William. Breaker Calling Cinderella. Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Company, 1977.
Glowacki, Janusz. Cinders. Public/LuEsther Theatre, New York. Opened 20 February 1984. 56 performances. Produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival; Producer, Joseph Papp. Translated by Christian Paul. Directed by John Madden. Scenery by Andrew Jackness. Lighting by Paul Gallo. Costumes by Jane Greenwood. Incidental music by Richard Peaslee. Musical director, Deena Kaye. Fights staged by B. H. Barry. Stage managers, James Harker and Tracy B. Cohen.
Cast: Lucinda Jenney (Cinderella), Christopher Walker (Director), Dori Hartley (Prince), Greta Turken (Fairy Godmother), Melissa Leo (Stepmother), Anna Levin and Johann Carlo (Ugly Sisters), Eli Marder (Mouse), Peter McRobbie (Inspector/Soundman), George Guidall (Principal), Robin Bammell (Deputy), Martha Ghman (Father), Kevin McClarnon (Electrician), Jonathan Walker (Cameraman).
[Glowacki came to US from Poland in 1981 at the time of the crack-down against Solidarity. The plot of Cinders revolves around a staging of “Cinderella” in a girls’ reform school, and addresses how a totalitarian regime breaks the will of its critics.]Golden Land of Fairy Tales, The. A Fairy Play translated and adapted by A. H. Quaritch and Maurice Raye. Music by Heinrich Bert. Aldwych Theatre, London. Opened 14 December 1911.
Cast: Mary Glynne (Cinderella), Bobbie Andrews (Prince Richard), Lena Flowerdew (Stepmother), Rhode Beresford and Honoria Elliot (Stepsisters), Maud Cressall (Fairy Queen), Shakespeare Stewart (King), Blanka Stewart (Queen), GBasil Seymour (Minister of State), Ada Glynne (Page), Alfred Latell (Bull Dog), Charles A. White (Court Marshal, Arthur Cleave (Master of Churchill).
Gombrowicz, Witold. Ivona, Princess of Burgundia (1935). Translated by Krystyna Griffith-Jones and Catherine Robins. London: Calder and Boyars; New York: Grove Press, 1969.[Like Anne-Marie in Bergman’s Mr. Sleeman, Ivona is a Cinderella figure who marries death rather than happiness. Ivona, an ugly unappealing girl meets Prince Philip in the park. He is bored with easy sexual conquests and, deciding to play Prince to Cinderella, brings Ivona to the palace and says he will marry her. The court is horrified but they are unable to change her essence. She IS ugly. The king sees his own sins in her; the queen sees in her the secret horrors she writes of in her poetry. The prince finds himself trapped by his game and tries to break off his engagement to her by taking up with another woman of the court but fails to break free. She reveals to the Prince “the cruel and brutish behavior of which he and his friends are capable” (Nicholson 1982 p. 241). The only out is to kill Ivona which, with the consent of king and queen, they try to do, but fail. Finally they arrange for her to choke to death on a fish bone at a state banquet, which she does do, thus solving the problem. In Jungian terms Ivona is Shadow for everyone in the play; only her death relieves their sense of oppression.]Grimm Tales. Adapted by Carol Ann Duffy. Young Vic Company. London, December 1994-1995. Directed by Tim Supple. Music by Adrian Lee. Set and Costumes by Melly Still. Lighting by Chris Davey. Associate Designer Mike Bailey.
[Includes: Hansel and Gretel; The Golden Goose; Ashputtel; A Riddling Tale; The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage; Iron Hans; The Lady and the Lion; The Magic Table, the Gold Donkey and the Cudgel in the Sack. The production of Ashputtel included graphic cutting off of heals and toes, and the plucking out of the eyes, one at a time, by the doves. The cast for Ashputtel included Linda Kerr Scott and Sarah G. Cameron (stepsisters), Natasha Pope (Ashputtel), Rory Murray (Prince), Paul M. Meston (Father) Alan Perrin (Stepmother), Dan Milne (Mother Spirit). See also More Grimm Tales, below.]Hammerstein II, Oscar. The Light. Presented by Arthur Hammerstein. Directed by Walter Wilson. Shubert Theatre, New Haven. 21 May 1919. 4 performances.
Cast: David Higgins (Ben Harding), Lois Frances Clarke (Emma Porter), Sadie Radcliffe (Mary Walker), Vivienne Osborne (Nancy), Brandon Peters (Charles Harrison), J. Frank McGlynn (Allan Porter), Saxon Kling (John Trowbridge), Florence Huntington (“Blackie” Smith), Charlotte Carter (“Babe”), Gertrude Gustin (Maid), John Flood (George Dent), George Westlake (Mr. Burnham).
[Not musical. Act I: Home of Allan Porter. Three years ago. Act II: Same. The next morning. Act III: Apartment of “Blackie” Smith. Time, Present. Act IV: Nancy’s Boudoir in “Blackie’s” apartment. The plot has some components of the Cinderella plot–pressure at home, exile, drudgery, then happiness. To escape an unpleasant homelife Nancy agrees to marry a man other than the one she loves and with whom she has had an affair. When her fiancé is killed, she runs away to avoid another arranged marriage. While working in a gambling resort she is eventually reunited with her first love. The play was panned by New Haven critics, though one reviewer in the New Haven Journal-Courier found some characterizations “alarmingly true to life.” The play did not move on to New York.]Harris, Crispin. Mousella. A children’s Christmas play, performed during the 1997-1998 holiday season until January 8 at Drayton Court, 2 The Avenue, West Ealing, W13 West Ealing, London.
[The story of Cinderella as told by the mice.]Hauptmann, Gerhart. The Assumption of Hannele (1893). In The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann. Vol. 4: Symbolic and Legendary Dramas, ed. Ludwig Lewisohn. New York: The Viking Press, 1927.
[A naturalist fairy play set in a harshly brutal environment in which Hannele hallucinates her fairy tale, where the villain pursues her even in her dreams. A motherless child she is consoled by the people of the village, her classmates, her mother’s spirit, angels, a fairy tale prince, and Christ himself as they mourn, praise, and console her in the play staged in her head. In her dream her stepfather orders her out of bed to light the fire. She collapses in the ashes. A tailor finds her and adorns her in fine clothing and a pair of crystal slippers, “the smallest in the land.” She is elevated as the True Bride to a position of highest favor. The fantasy enables Hannele to face death until Gottwald (her Prince Charming/Christ-figure) redeems her.]Helfin, Matthias, Rev. Cinderella. Brooten, Minn., Catholic Dramatic Company, 1925.
Henley, Anne, and Stanley Schell. Cinderella: Illustrated Play in Four Scenes for Children. New York: Edgar S. Werner, c. 1913. 21 pp.
[Earlier copyright: 1895.]Hill, Miranda. The “Little Folks” Plays. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1900; London: Cassell and Company, 1906.
Hills, Richard. Cinderella. Macclesfield: New Playwrights’ Network, 1991.
Hittell, Theodore Henry (1830-1917). Cinderella, A Parlor Play in three Acts. San Francisco, 17 February 1900.
Homer, Frances. Cinderella of Loreland. Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Company, 1961.
Hopwood, Avery (1884-1928). Naughty Cinderella. London and New York: Samuel French.
Hotchner, Steve. Cinderella, Cinderella. Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Company, 1977.
Hulley, Lincoln. Ariel and Cinderella: A Comedy in Five Acts. Deland, Florida: E. O. Painter, 1925.
Cast: Grandmother, Aunt Harriet, Aunt Louise, Aunt Mary, Uncle Ben, Anne, John, James, Marcia-Jane, Mary-Eloise, Barbara-Joan, The Baby, Ariel, Cinderella, Oberon, Titania, Queen Mab, Puck, Habundia, A King, A Prince, A Butler, A Fairy Godmother, Sisters of Cinderella, Trolls, dwarfs, bugbears, elves, fays, water-nymphs, gnomes, hobgoblins, brownies, kelpies, bogles, wraiths, fauns, dryads, pixies, imps, nix, and Jinn.
[Act I: sc. 1: The Family Circle of a Summer House at Lakeside, Ohio. Aunt Harriet talks with the children about fairy tales. Sc. 2: Aunt Louise enters and they chat further about fairies. Sc. 3: Aunt Louise tells the story of Sleeping Beauty. Sc. 4: Next day they discuss the story. Sc. 5: Uncle Ben comments on such matters.Ibsen, Henrik. Et Dukkehjem (A Doll’s House) (1879). First British production 1889.[Act II: Ariel and Cinderella. Sc. 1: Cinderella works in the kitchen, consoled mainly by her cat. Sc. 2: Ariel alights from a tree-top and bounds into the kitchen bringing the Fairy Godmother. They prepare Cinderella for the ball. She wonders how she might pay for all they have done, and the Fairy Godmother tells her can help the fairies, once she is queen, bestow happiness on little children. Sc. 3: A ballroom. Ariel keeps Cinderella’s identity from her sisters. Cinderella has a lovely time, leaving at midnight. Sc. 4: Back at the Garret she discusses the ball with the sisters and asks to borrow a yellow frock for the next night. She is refused. Sc. 5: The Kitchen. The prince brings the fur slipper to the house, it fits Cinderella, and the sisters ask forgiveness.
[Act III: The Children’s Bed-time Hour. Sc. 1: Ariel compares his life as slave to Sycorax to Cinderella’s life before the ball. They hide to watch the children. Sc. 2: The family recites various nursery rhymes. Sc. 3: The adults gather in the living room to discuss the value of stories. Sc. 4: The Children’s Bedroom. Aunt Mary tells the story of Midas. Sc. 5: More adult discussion of stories, Uncle Remus, especially.
[Act IV: The Fairies. Sc. 1: Ariel and Cinderella under the trees talk about what they will do for they children. Ariel will put untold resources in their childish hearts, and Cinderella will chase away all phantoms born of fear. Sc. 2: A greensward near Lakeside. Ariel and Cinderella talk about nature and the loveliness of animal, bird, and insect life. Puck, Oberon, and Queen Mab join the discussion. Sc. 3: Ariel, Cinderella, and the fairies visits the children’s bedroom, performing their blessings.
[Act V: Morning: The Picnic party. Sc. 1: The children awaken. Sc. 2: The group prepares for the picnic. Sc. 3: They gather on the grass under the trees. Sc. 4: With Grandmother the children play Cinderella, sing songs, play Turkey in the Straw, and agree with Grandmother that they believe in fairies.]
[Written in Rome in Ibsen’s fiftieth year. A Christmas setting in which Nora does her best to uphold illusions of goodness, magic, and glamour. Despite her poor background, she has married well, and, Cinderella-like, has sacrificed with great toil everything to save her husband Torvald’s life and then to pay off the debt she accrued in saving him. He does not know of her heroic effort and patronizingly treats her as his doll, his little bird in a cage, a doll in her own house, where he indulges her and has her dance for him as she did during their courtship. Her friend Kristine functions as godmother to help her to see better. Once her eyes are opened to the depravation of Torvald’s princely condescension, she leaves husband and children to return to her home village in hopes of educating herself in who she is, what she desires, and what she can do herself that she might respect. Given its concern over repressed and oppressed women, the play has been Ibsen’s most popular play in the later twentieth century. Ingmar Bergman adapted it to focus more sharply on the female protagonists in his play Nora. See Movies for adaptations of the play to the screen.]Jennings, Gertrude E. Whiskers and Co. London: Samuel French, 1943.
Keating, Eliza H. Cinderella: A Fairy Play in One Act. London & New York: Samuel French, 18??. 24 pp.
Kidder, Edward E. (1849?-1927). A College Cinderella. New York: Samuel French, 1915.
Koste, Virginia Glasgow. The Cinderella Syndrome. Boston: Baker’s Plays, 1983.
Lesbian Plays II. London: Methuen, 1989.
Ludlow, Fitz-Hugh (1836-1870). Cinderella. New York: Gray & Green, 1864. 32 pp.
[Prompt-book with MS notes.]Marvin, Blanche. Cinderella, A Comedy of Manners (styled after Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”). In 11 Plays for Children, Blanche Marvin. Vol. 2. The Merry Mimes Press, 1991. Printed by O’Reilly Clark, London. Distributed by Samuel French, New York. In three acts, set in Edwardian days.
Cast: Cinderella, Prince, Stepmother Lady Letitia (modelled after Lady Bracknell), stepsister Angela (male part, satirizing Cecily), stepsister Minerva (male part, near-sighted older sister exaggerating Gwendolyn), the Chamberlain Lord Horatio, Fairy Godmother Britannia.
[Act I: Britannia, crooked scales in hand, greets the boys and girls with many waves and gests about her cousin Columbia, Gem of the Ocean, who always has one arm in the air, and is also referred to as Liberty. Her first act of magic is to open the curtain on Lady Letitia’s morning tea, where the family squabbles and Cinderella does all the work. Chamberlain Horatio arrives to announce the ball, thereby creating more competitions between the women. The stepsisters dress like overstuffed dolls and set out, leaving Cinderella to the Godmother, who dresses her magically, glass slippers and all, turns a pumpkin into a coach, and sets her off–Tally Ho. Act II: The Palace with foyer and ballroom: The stepsisters vie for a dance with the prince, while Letitia dances with the Chamberlain and hits it off well, discovering that they are long lost loves of thirty years ago. Cinderella arrives, dazzles the prince who insists he’d love her in rags or riches, then flees at midnight, losing the slipper. Act III: Back at the house. Happy Cinderella thanks the Godmother, then inquires of the ball when the stepfamily returns. Cinderella almost reveals her secret when inquiring about the mysterious princess’s dress, but the Chamberlain arrives with some consternation at meeting Letitia again. The slipper fits none of them, only tickles. Angela becomes so impatient during the “fitting” that she calls for Cinderella to help. The prince, learning that there is a cindermaid in the house plans, a joke to humiliate the sisters and insists that the maid try on the slipper. Cinderella is hurt that he doesn’t recognize her in rags, all are amazed when the slipper fits, the prince most of all; the stepmother faints, the Chamberlain catches her, the girls cry on each other’s shoulders. But love wins out, there will be a marriage, Britannia returns to much “hailing,” and the Chamberlain asks that it be a double proclamation. The stepmother chooses a few maids and lads of honour from the audience and all depart to a wedding march (“Land of hope and glory”).]McLoughlin Brothers. Directions for Games of Cinderella, Where is Johnny, Cock Robin, House That Jack Built, Old Mother Hubbard, Little Red Riding Hood. New York: McLoughlin Brothers, 18??.
McNally, Terrence. Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune. 1987.
[A play in two acts; the couple, both losers, use Cinderella and the Prince tropes to gain confidence and come to an acceptance of each other.]Meredith, Laura. A Cinderella Kitchen. New York: Samuel French, 1941.
Moch, Cheryl. Cinderella, the Real True Story. Directed by Nona Shepphard. Music by Holly Gewandler. Performed at Drill Hall, 16 Chenies Street, London WC1. 26 December 1997 to 10 January 1998.
[“This sparkling, subversive, all female fairy tale is a twist on the classic story. Cinderella goes to the ball, as usual, only this time she wins the heart of a beautiful princess. Scandalised by their lesbianism, the King sends Cinders to accomplish some deadly quests. Proving herself an able heroine, he sets her and her sisters the ultimate test of surviving the narrow-mindedness of middle class England. Equipped with an ebullient cast, it is the comic riches of the performances which are the production’s greatest asset. With some delightfully dotty choreography and versatile musical accompaniment, this is a colourful, uproarious night out which far transcends the occasional protracted didacticism” - Time Out, December 31, 1997-January 7, 1998, no. 1428, p. 124.]Molnar, Ferenc. The Glass Slipper: A Comedy. First Produced by The Theatre Guild at the Guild Theatre, New York. Opened 19 October 1925. 65 performances. Acting Version and Direction by Philip Moeller. Settings and Costumes by Lee Simonson. Stage Managers, Ralph MacBan and Rowland Hoot.
Cast: June Walker (Irma Szabo), George Baxter (Paul Csaszar), Helen Westley (Adele Romajzer), Armina Marshall (Kati), Lee Baker (Lajos Sipos), Martin Wolfson (Stetner/Police Clerk), Erskine Sanford (Captain Gal/Police Sergeant), Veni Atherton (Adele’s MOther), Maud Brooks (Viola), Ethel Westley (Julcsa), Louis Cruger (Bandi Sasz/Sergeant at Arms), Day Tuttle (Parish Priest), Elizabeth Bendleton (Cook), Stanley G. Wood (Janitor), Amelia Summerville (Mrs. Rotics), Jeanne La Gue (Mrs. Rotics’ Companion), Ralph MacBane (Dr. Theodore Sagody), John McGovern (Photographer), Roland Hoot (Assistant Photographer), Ethel Valentine (llona Keczeli), Milton S. Salisbury (Policeman). Edward Fielding (Police Magistrate). Eddie Wragge (Lilly).
More Grimm Tales , adapted by Carole Ann Duffy. Directed by Tim Supple. Music by Adrian Lee. Designed by Melly Still. Lighting by Paule Constable. Young Vic Theatre, London, 17 December 1997 to 31 January 1998.[“A follow-up to this company’s 1994 hit (see Grimm Tales, above), this evening - or afternoon - gloriously proves that adults don’t have to be goofy or patronising to make children’s theatre. This collection of animated stories reminds us that these are among the most sweet, surreal, gruesome and bewitching tales ever written. Don’t just take the kids, take all your friends, and take pleasure. The actors certainly do; this nine-strong ensemble broaches with visible relish, honesty and flamboyant theatricality the wicked queens, wily hedgehogs and squaking geese who populate this handful of folklore gems. As in Supple’s equally enchanting Comedy of Errors, meanwhile, Lee has devised another exotic, magical soundscape inextricable from the production’s success. There’s no effort to obscure the stories’ more sinister side, and, as the show progresses, those stories become less pithy, more morally ambiguous. What’s unambiguous is that this is, in the truest sense of the word, wonderful theatre” - Time Out, Dec. 17-31, 1997. No. 1426/7, p. 199. The “tales” include Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Little Red Cap, The Musicians of Breman, and Brother Scamp. For three weeks at the end of December and the beginning of January More Grimm Tales ranked number one in Time Out’s Critic’s Choice.]Newton, Ruth. Cinderella. New York: Samuel French, 1962.
Nigro, Don. Cinderella Waltz: A Play. London: Samuel French, 1978, 1984, 1987. First produced in June and July 1978 by Indiana State University Summer Repertory Theatre in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Cast: Rosey Snow, Mr. Snow (her father), Mrs. Snow (her stepmother), Goneril and Regan (her stepsisters), Prince Alf, Troll (his servant), Mother Magee (a fairy godmother), Zed (the village idiot).
Setting: The yard before the Snow family hovel in the middle of a great forest on the outskirts of Cinderville. A porch, an abandoned hog trough, a tree and a grave by a well.
[Nigro includes an essay at the end (pp. 80-86) on the Cinderella story, King Lear, and their relationship to his play. Rosey is the Cordelia figure; Zed, the Edgar figure. Both Zed and Prince Alf are victims of the social and economic structure they have been born into. Regan is the happiest of the three sisters, living very much in the present, with only a vague sense of the future, and little torment from the past. Goneril is suspicious and resentful opportunities to escape from her misery. “Rosey has been living in a fantasy world–protecting herself from the unpleasantness of her situation by imagining an impossibly beautiful other world inhabited by the rich, a world very unlike the one that Prince Alf actually lives in, with his harridan mother and tyrant father” (p. 81). The fairy godmother is “coarse, scatterbrained, lusty, wildly eccentric and rather a mess” (p. 82). Zed becomes increasingly articulate as the play progresses. He makes music boxes and teaches Rosey to dance. The ball turns out to be about what Rosey expected it to be–more or less a fantasy. But “the basic problem and hidden nightmare at the core of every form of success is that, having struggles against nearly impossible odds to reach a certain state, one finds oneself, once one has arrived there, turning step by step into a person very much like one’s former enemies” (p. 83). Rosey gradually comes to see this and, when the prince comes with the slipper, and after watching the stepmother wield her axe trying to make feet fit, she drops the slipper into the well, insisting that it would have fit Goneril. The Prince accepts that possibility, sees good breeding stock and something of his mother in the big bone structure of Goneril, and chooses her. Rosey is left with Zed, first to discuss the trashing of her dreams, and then to dance. “In this play, Rosey is given a choice–to accept the role the traditional fairy tale assigns to her, and thus to act as any respectable fairy tale heroine is expected to act, and to fulfill her childhood fantasy and become a Princess, or to make a much darker and, to the other children in her world, perfectly insane choice, to investigate the more ambiguous and dangerous world represented by Zed, who spends his time not, like the Prince, killing small animals for amusement, but rather in making little mechanisms that generate beauty and joy and cause people to come together in that complex ritual of shared movement and intimacy, the waltz. What began as a Cinderella story turns out to have been all along actually a version of ‘Beauty and the Beast’” (pp. 85-86). The play makes interesting use of absurdist social commentary and Freudian neuroses, particularly with regard to the comfortable role of victim and the fear of having some say and responsibility in the course of one’s life.]Oswald, Peter. Cinderella and the Coat of Skins. [Unpublished]. A Hysterica Passio production presented at the Battersea Arts Center, London, from 6 December 1995 to 13 January 1996. Directed by James Menzies-Kitchin. Set Design by Julie Nelson. Lighting by Dave Horn. Costumes by Estelle Butler. Choreography by Kim Thornton.
Cast: Lara Bobroff (Anne), Osmund Bullock (King Rufus), Michael Creco (Huntsman), James Kemp (Prince Henry), Sarah Knight (Mary), Lucy Maurice (Mother), Caroline Nichols (Belinda, a war-mongering witch), Derek Howard (Cyril, Belinda’s sidekick), Julian Rivett (Curdie, a simpleton who thinks he’s a chicken), Alison Seddon (Old Woman), Joshua Towb (Chamberlain), Billie-Claire Wright (Princess).
[The inspiration for Oswald’s complex plot comes from three tales of the Grimm Brothers–Manypelts, Ashiepattle, and The Goose Girl (in David Luke’s translation), and a Polish folk tale The Three Weazels of Gdansk. At her death, the Queenr extracts from King Rufus the promise not to marry until he finds one as lovely as she. The Princess (Billie-Claire Wright), who acts as judge in that choice, rejects various lovely candidates, including the witch Belinda who, with a great wig, is sure that her hair will be as golden and lovely as that of the deceased mother. Belinda wishes to wed Rufus to restore the wars and power craze that she has thriven upon in years past. A statue of the mother is rolled out for comparison in such beauty contests. It, and its spirit, serve as protection for the Princess. When Belinda’s wig falls off, exposing her ugliness, she vows revenge. The horny Rufus, being thwarted in his choice of several beauties, turns his lust toward his daughter herself, who escapes into the wood under coat of many animals and birds, which she did not think her father could supply as she attempted to thwart him. Caught by hunters and their dogs she is set to work in the kitchen of Prince Henry, as a scullery slave. The Prince is a peaceable youth under the regency of Belinda, who perpetually tries to stir him to war. Although Cinderella is abused in the kitchen by the aggressive woman cook, Curdie, a simpleton raised by chickens and who thinks he is one, takes pity on her and assists her in her relationship with Prince Henry, who falls in love with her when she appears at the ball in a lovely gown supplied by the spirit of her mother. The Princess-in-disguise tries to convince the Prince that he must be able to love her as the poor scullery maid, and so too does the huntsman, who wishes to marry Anne, one of the ladies in waiting, but cannot because of class barriers. If the Prince were to break those barriers, then the huntsman’s own love might be blessed. Belinda convinces King Rufus to attack Henry’s kingdom at festival time, when the frontier is not on alert. She knows who Cinderella is and wishes to destroy her. But love wins out in the end, assisted by the spirit of the deceased mother. After much convincing, Prince Henry accepts Cinderella, even in her cinders dress. Peace is restored between Rufus and his daughter, and the spirit of the mother releases Rufus from his vow so that he can have a happy sex life once more. Anne and the huntsman are likewise united. The tone of the play is sinister as well as comic, with a dark side that haunts the vigorous action.]Plays Children Love. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
Potter, Dennis. Almost Cinderella. [Unpublished.] TV script written in the fall of 1966, by agreement with the BBC, signed 22 August.
[The piece was, according to Kenith Trodd (BBC story editor), to be “our Christmas show… a version of the fairy tale, probably set in a contemporary princeling state (such as Monaco)” (see W. Stephen Gilbert’s account in Fight and Kick and Bite: The Life and Work of Dennis Potter, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995, p. 146). Potter delivered the script on 17 October and was paid half his fee of £425. But the producers found the work to be distasteful and unsuitable for a Christmas show. According to Hunter Davies, in the Sunday Times, October 30: “Prince Charming turns out to be a sexual degenerate who on the stroke of midnight does something rather nasty to Cinderella. Other festive bits include a TV broadcast by the Prime Minister on the economic freeze in which he attacks a certain family for spending a lot of money on a big ball. The King and Queen are watching and argue about who should turn it off…. There is a scene with Prince Charming and a prostitute on a gravestone” (Gilbert, p. 147). The BBC had difficulty breaking off the contract. Although they paid Potter the other half of the commission, the controversy over what might be produced continued into mid December and beyond. Gerald Savory, Director-General of the BBC, reported in December that “the character of the miniskirted Cinderella was by far the best characterisation and that it was in this style that I had imagined the play to be written when I countersigned the commission note. Also, I felt it a pity that Cinderella had been reduced to a small part. Potter said that he considered Prince Charming the leading character and I said I found the scene in the graveyard where he meets a promiscuous girl hard to take. I assured him I had no quarrel with the content, that I was not a Monarchist, not a purist, nor prurient…. He told me what he was trying to get at in the play but I told him that, in my view, he hadn’t written what he really intended…. He thought it was his best play to date and that he had not been able to work since… I proposed that I should read Almost Cinderella a third time in the light of our conversation…. My impression is that Potter himself went to the press” (Gilbert, pp. 147-148). As the Times and The Stage picked up the controversy others became involved. Mary Whitehouse, President of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, telegramed Savory: “Warmest congratulations on decision not to film Cinderella. Strongest objection to public money being spent twisting the magic stories of childhood into perverted fantacies [sic] of sexual behaviour.” Potter was meanwhile contacting several newspapers with separate releases. In the Daily Mail he indicated that it was his intention “to bring out the impact of the story on adults rather than retell it as they saw it when they were children at the pantomime” (Gilbert, p. 148). The debate was picked up in Parliament. Labour MP William Hamling tabled a question to the Postmaster-General about “the new approach to pantomime by television producers,” asking that BBC governors be directed “to preserve the romance and humour,” and others attacked it for “altering traditional children’s stories” and introducing “perversion and violence” (Gilbert, pp. 148-149). Potter observed six years later, “Tinkering with a fairy story is a worse blasphemy to [the BBC] than tinkering with the Bible” (Gilbert, p. 149). The play remains “lost” until Potter’s estate decides to make it available. See W. Stephen Gilbert, under Criticism.]Robertson, Walford Graham (1866-1948). “The Slippers of Cinderella: An Impossibility in One Act.” In The Slippers of Cinderella and Two Other Plays. London: William Heinemann, 1919, pp. 1-53. The other two plays in the volume are “Alexander the Great” and “Archibald.”
Cast: Myra Tremaine (a tall girl of fourteen), Polly and Dolly Tremaine (twins), Jimmy Tremaine, Belinda Tremaine, Agatha-Next Door, Jane, Eliza, The Fairy Godmother.
[The children pass the evening alone on Halloween, waiting for news of their father’s job search and the arrival of their aunt, Lady Errington. The room is shabby. Myra, the oldest child, sews a patch on the worn elbow of Jimmy’s coat. Myra would like to go to the Economy Lecture. They fantasize that a fairy godmother might come and provide a suitable equipage and gown to go the lecture just as she did for Cinderella at the ball. So the children wish and then are alarmed as fairy godmother arrives and the wishes begin to come true. Myra sprouts a splendid gown with an enormous train, gems galore, and a headress of great white ostrich plumes, none of which can be removed. Then the equipage arrives with a flourish of trumpets, white horses, postilions, and a coach of gold and crystal as big as a haysteek. Even the King and Queen are there. Voices start announcing Princess Myra’s Carriage. Terrified and unable to stop the sweep of events (even the servant Jane has been transformed into a splendid French dress and comes crashing through the door bearing a gigantic pasty prepared to look like a peacock), Jimmy and the twins think about calling the police, but then Jimmy gets the clever idea of setting the grandfather clock ahead so that it strikes twelve. As it strikes the street clears, and they return to normal. A telegram arrives announcing that Dad has got his appointment. They will be saved from poverty after all. Myra announces, “I wouldn’t stand in Cinderella’s shoes again for anything you liked to offer” (p. 53), just as Lady Errington arrives to greet them with outstretched hands.]Rosenzweig, Sid, adaptor. Cinderella. Directed by Marcy Gamzon. Music and Lyrics by Patricia Chadwick. Choreography by Tom Giancursio. Set Design by Jonathan Sabo. Rochester Children’s Theater. Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York, 29 November 1991 to 26 December 1991. 22 performances.
Cast: Elaine Good (Stepmother), Jodi Beckwith (Cinderella), Lucia Ennocenti (Gabby), Kathy Clarke (Minerva), J.C. Alton (Herald, Prince), Terrence J. Hill (Servant I), Tom Giancursio (Servant II), Jim Scoles (King), Sonya Raimi (Nanny, Fairy Godmother).
[Synopsis: Sc. 1: The Stepmother’s House. Sc. 2: The Prince’s bedroom in the palace. Sc. 3: The Stepmother’s house and outside. Sc. 4: The garden outside the palace. Sc. 5: The Stepmother’s house.]St. Clair, Robert. Sally Ann Smith: A Comedy of a College Cinderella. Franklin, Ohio: Eldridge Entertainment House, 1934.
Cast: Sally Ann Smith, who works in a lunch shop and dreams of college and becoming a writer; Claire Barstow, the daughter of the owner of the lunch shop, who dreams of marriage; “Mother” Winslow, a widow who dreams of spite; Miss Carstairs, housemother of an exclusive sorority, who dreams of romance; Betty Backster, a sorority girl who doesn’t need to dream; Gracie Clark, Betty’s roommate who doesn’t dream either; Bert Lamport, a handsome young athlete and college boy; Buck Sawyer, his college chum; Jeff Winslow, Mother Winslow’s nephew and Claire’s fiancee; Clem Barstow, Claire’s father and owner of the Lunch Shop who once had a crush on Mother Winslow until she married someone else; Professor Hancock, another dreamer who, like Miss Carstair, is shy; Slim Jasper, an uneducated handsome hard-working young idealist, whose dreams are varied, even as he works as cook in the Lunch Shop.
Setting: Clem’s Quick Lunch Shop in a college town.
[Act I: Late afternoon of the last week of school. Sally, a waitress, is a busybody who tries her best to help others out. She arranges for Jeff and Claire to get together against their parents wishes, the consequence of which is that Jeff and Claire have a fight, Mother Winslow sets up a restaurant across the street from Clem’s establishment, and Clem fires Sally. Act II: Afternoon, one week later. Sally continues to invent scenarios that she thinks may bring happiness to others. By having a date with Jeff she brings Claire and Jeff back together. Slim the cook insists he will quit unless Clem rehires Cinderella Sally, which he does. Sally gets Miss Carstairs and the Professor together; they go off to get married. And Sally convinces Mother Winslow, who is a widow, that she really loves Clem and gets them together. Act III: Early evening, one month later. Clem and Mother Winslow are married and have consolidated their business, and Claire and Jeff now work for them. So Sally is let go, to everyone’s grief. She says she will go back to Minnesota to work on the farm. But the Professor appears and tells her that the short story she wrote has been admired by the faculty, and they have given her a tuition waiver to attend USC. Gracie and Betty appear and tell her that she has been invited to pledge their sorority, which wants to have famous authoresses in it. And Miss Carstairs, now the Professor’s wife, needs a secretary at the sorority where she is house mother. So Slim’s labelling of Sally as Cinderella comes true, and, she allows, Miss Carstairs is her fairy godmother. Meanwhile, Slim has won the national swimming competition and become famous. He returns from his victory, glad for his Cinderella Sally, because now, he says, they are going to be married “and you’ll be proud of a famous husband.” But Sally replies, “Oh, Slim, I–I want to go through school first, you know.” That is fine with Slim, because he has no need for school now. He is going to be too busy, an enterprising prince in his new profession.]St. John, Billy. Cindy Ella’s Going to the Ball, Baby. A Comedy in One Act. New York: Samuel French, Inc., 1999.
[Cindy Ella, a sweet, quiet young girl, lives with Lucinda, her stepmother and not a nice lady. Lucinda has two daughters - Missy (Melissa) and Prissy (Priscilla), who are both loud and obnoxious. It’s senior prom time and the stepsisters are at each other’s throats over which one is going to win the heart of Joe Prince. Lucinda is going too, since she has her eye on Philip Head, the school councilor. Cindy wants to go, but they overwhelm her with work. She has made a dress for herself, but the stepsisters tear it up even before Cindy gets to put it on. As she weeps alone, after the others have gone, Big Mama, a large and sassy gal, appears and says she will help. She calls her two over-the-hill assistants, Bluebell and Brunhilda, to help, and they deck Cindy out is one fancy outfit. Joe, self assured and sexy, has a friend named Buddy, who is sensitive and good natured and has a crush on Cindy. But Buddy is too shy to let his feelings be known. At the dance Joe falls for Cindy, whom he calls Beauty. Buddy talks with Cindy, whom he recognizes immediately, despite her fancy dress. She is kind and sympathizes with him and the difficulty he says he has in approaching the one he loves. Joe Prince wants to get Cindy alone, but midnight comes, and she disappears along with Big Mama, Bluebell, and Brunhilda, who have come to the dance too as chaperones (much comedy here). In her flight Cindy loses a shoe. Buddy helps Joe search for the one who lost the shoe, knowing it’s Cindy’s, but keeping his true feelings to himself. They come to Cindy’s house last of all. Joe doesn’t recognize her and has no interest whatsoever in getting to know her; all he can talk about is the beauty he saw at the ball. He does ask Cindy to try the slipper on, just so his search would be complete. She stuffs the toe with paper so that it won’t fit. Joe leaves, saying that at least he got a dream out of the experience. Buddy stays and asks Cindy why she rigged the slipper so that it wouldn’t fit. The reason becomes clear as they express their true regard for each other. They will have as many dances together as they’d like. Big Mama and her assistants prepare to leave amidst debate over whether Brunhilda or Bluebell is lovely. Missy and Prissy rush on stage, their faces green from misapplied beauty cream that discolored their skin. Philip appears too, and Big Mama decides to say: “Don’t wait up for me girls. Big Mama might be awhile.” A spotlight focuses on Philip who makes a wish to have his wish tonight. Crystals start tinkling, a smile comes over his face, and there is a quick blackout.]Schwarz, Ernest J. Aladdin and His Magic Lamp, Cinderella, Sam and the Tigers. Toronto: Plawrights Canada, 1983.
Shaw, George Bernard. Candida. 1895. First produced by the Stage Society at the Strand Theatre, London, 1 July 1900, with Janet Achurch as Candida and Harley Granville Barker as Marchbanks.
[The heroine comes from working-class background, but has married well and moves comfortably and confidently in all circles. Her husband, a do-good minister, imagines himself her protecter, though in fact she is the intellectual as well as the emotional center of the house. Shaw saw the play as an answer to Ibsen’s Doll’s House. This Cinderella is very much in control of her men (husband, father, and would-be lover) as well as her environment, knows how to use language even better than the educated Lisa Doolittle in Pygmalion, though Candida bears a number of resemblances to that play.]-----. Pygmalion. 1913. First produced in London & New York, 1914. First published 1916. The “definitive text” is Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts, ed. Dan H. Laurence, with over a hundred drawings by Feliks Topolski. London: Penguin Books, 1957.
[From gutter snipe to “Hungarian princess” at the ball, Eliza at the end rejects Henry Higgins (her “creator”), and sets off to start a life of her own as a teacher, leaving Higgins roaring with laughter at the very thought of her marrying Freddie Eynsford Hill. In his essay appended to the “definitive text” Shaw says Elisa did marry Freddy and, for economic reasons, she runs a flower store. She wishes she could make love to Pickering, but she likes neither Higgins nor Doolittle. “Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable.”]Sologub, Feodor. The Triumph of Death: A Tragedy in Three Acts (1907). Trans. John Cournos. The Drama, 6, no. 23, August 1916, pp. 346-384.
[Based on a legend of Queen Bertha the Long-legged, mother of Charlemagne. Bertha, one leg longer than the other, installs her servant girl in her bed on her wedding night. When Bertha creeps in next morning to take her place the substitute bride wounds herself and accuses Bertha of attacking her. Pepin the king believes the imposter and orders the true queen into exile in a wood where she wanders and takes up with a miller. Years later the king visits the miller where he spends the night with Bertha, thinking she is the miller’s daughter. Bertha explains who she is and proves it by her long leg; where upon the king punishes the usurper and restores Bertha to her rightful place at his side. Sologub tells the story from the point of view of Algista, the imposter, who is noble and wise, thus turning the story into a tragedy. After the first performance Sologub added a prologue to clarify the play’s meaning: Aldonza, the unrecognized Queen of Beauty, is forced to carry water Cinderella-like as a servant. She meets the King, the Poet, and the Lover, all of whom refuse to recognize her. She struggles, nonetheless, for recognition lest ugliness be triumphant and beauty uncrowned. In the play itself Algista becomes a kind of Christ figure who challenges the disbelievers who fail to value the beautiful substitute with the biblical words “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”]
Sondheim, Stephen, and James Lapine. Into the Woods. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1987.
Stone, Suzanne. Mime Plays. London: Samuel French, 1930.[This musical mixes several Grimm fairy tales with a larger look at the psychological aspects of the stories. Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Jack and the Beanstalk drive the majority of Act 1, and Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are briefly touched on in Act 2. The story of a childless baker and his wife is added to the Rapunzel storyline along with a witch’s quest to recover her lost youth. The stories are interwoven with characters helping each other and obtaining items for their individual quests. The plot in Act 1 revolves around the idea of “I wish” and the future it can obtain, but Act 2 looks at the costs of that future as reality and themes of marital dissatisfaction, child rearing, mental illness, death, grief, despair, and desire are all explored. For the purpose of this bibliography, the Cinderella story occupies key portions of the plot. “On the Steps of the Palace” is the heroine’s pinnacle song where she explores the perils of choice in not wanting to stay at her father’s house or the palace. She ultimately chooses passivity by making the prince locate her as she leaves him her slipper. When their marriage falls apart in the second act, she discusses wanting a life in between that of the dreamy palace or the nightmare she endured at home. The original Broadway cast (1987) included Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason, and Chip Zien. Since then, several revivals have occurred. One of special importance is the Regent’s Park Open Air Theater production in 2010 that used a child as the narrator to suggest that Acts 1 and 2 occur in his mind as he acts out the strain of watching the end of his parent’s marriage. The same actor (Mark Hadfield) plays his father and the baker.
In 2014, Walt Disney Pictures turned the musical into a movie, Into the Woods. [Annotation by Martha Johnson-Olin]
Storybook Playhouse: Cinderella. Retold by Jan Hooten. Designed by Judi K. Howen. Illustrated by Ronald M. LeHew. Kansas City, MO: Hallmark, n.d., c. 1960?.
[This fun for-all-ages spiral book includes the story to read, four stand-up settings which open up as the front and back covers are brought together to form four foldout playing areas, and a set of punch out dolls to use in the staging of the play. The cardboard dolls include Cinderella in rags, Cinderella in ball gown, her father, the fairy godmother, a stepmother, the prince, and the prince and Cinderella dancing, plus a couple of moveable props (chairs). After the story is told (it is nicely illustrated in an late 18th- early 19th-century woodblock style) a page with a herald blowing his horn announces on the banner attached to the trumpet: Now Turn the Page! You Can Make the Story of Cinderella Come to Life! The book then may be turned into the four standup staging areas upon which the child creates the play.]Taylor, Alison. The Cinderella of Chulo. London: Samuel French, 1959.
Thompson, Hilary. Madame Fou-Fou and the Apricot Mousse; or, Cinderella Comes of Age. Halifax: Dramatists’ Co-op of Nova Scotia, 1979.
Tydeman, Richard. Red Hot Cinders: A Minidrama. London: Samuel French, 1955.
[“A Potted Version of the Cinderella Pantomime in 3 Acts, but the whole thing lasts only 20 minutes…. This piece of nonsense for a dozen or more characters of either sex is playable on a bare stage or in curtains. Furniture required: one chair. Costumes from the rag-bag. Can be performed with only one rehearsal – or two at the most. Biggest part to learn: eleven and a half lines, except the Compere (who has a book anyway!)” Follows the basic lost slipper plot. In doggeral rhyme with lots of literary allusions. Production note suggests the “hammier” the better. Transformation scene: “Cinderella should wear evening dress, and over it a ragged overall, preferably cut open down the back so that with a shrug of the shoulders she can slip it off. The two Mice crawl in covered with brown blankets, and the Rat covered with a grey blanket. As the fairy waves her wand, Cinderella bursts her yellow (pumpkin) balloon with a pin. All stand up, Mice keep blankets on, but hold plumes up to their heads, for they are now horses. Rat throws blanket over left arm, revealing himself as a Coachman, and dons a cocked hat; at the same time he unrolls a large sheet of paper attached to a stick over his right shoulder. On this paper is a crude picture of the side of a coach, with a window cut out of it in the proper place. Cinderella stands behind the paper and looks out through the window. On the cue ‘Off they go’, all exit L., Cinderella waving to the audience through the window as they go. When Cinderella runs away at midnight, it is an effective piece of business for her to pause at the side of the stage, and in full view of the audience wrench off her shoe and throw it at the Prince’s feet before running off…. The Compere needs to be a cross between a Circus Ringmaster and a B.B.C. Announcer – with a dash of the Music Hall Chairman thrown in” (p. 8).]Umansky, Kaye. Cinderella. Illustrated by Caroline Crossland. London: A & C Black, 1996.
A Curtain Up! Photocopiable Play, designed for production by children. Includes instructions by the playwright with notes on staging, scenery and props, lighting, casting and how to hold auditions, tips for the main characters and the stage-management team, sketches for costumes, comments about the music, dances, and sound-effects.
Cast: The Mice (Main Mouse, Skweek, Tiptoe, Longtail, Wetnose, Snitch and as many more as you wish), Grabber the Cat, Cinderella, Buttons, Semolina, Ravioli, Gary the Guard, Prince Charming, Old Woman/Fairy Godmother, Baron Hardup, Courtiers and Guests, Footman.
Scenes and Locations: Prologue: Mouse Talk (Front of stage area), Act I: Sc. 1: Poor Cinderella (The Kitchen), Sc. 2 Rotten Relations (The Bedroom), Sc. 3: Chance Meetings (The Wood), Sc. 4: Great News! (The Kitchen). Act 2: Sc. 1: The Transformation (The Kitchen), Sc. 2: Having a Ball! (The Palace Ballroom), Sc. 3: The Shoe Fits (The Kitchen), Sc. 4: Happy Ever After (Front of Stage). Playing time: 45 minutes without interval.
[In rhymed verse. The stepsisters have disgusting eating habits (stirfry in bed, etc.); Grabber runs into the woods; when Cinderella pursues she meets the Old Woman, who has back trouble, but also the Prince, who is hunting. At the ball Princess Crystal (Cinderella) and the Prince get along when the discover that they both like lettuce sandwiches. When the shoe fits the mice enter to pronounce the epilogue. The last scene (Happy Ever After) is an elaborate curtain call. Gary the Guard is “Sweet but dim; a shocking coward,” and Buttons is a cheery, cheeky type. Baron Hardup is kind but timid, afraid the stepdaughters will stop his pocket money. Grabber the cat is spoilt, with a vicious streak. The mice are rhythmic, endearing, and love cheese.]Vaneck, Florence Marion. The Art and Technique of Puppetry with Dramatizations of Cinderella and Hansel and Grethel. St. Louis, Missouri: Hart, 1934.
Walt Disney Productions. Cinderella Puppet Show. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949.
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