Playscripts

The team at Blue Apple have been creating fresh adaptations of well-known tales for large casts since 2016. They are suitable for any English-speaking school, youth theatre or community theatre group internationally. These adaptations are accessible whilst not over simplifying the works that inspired them – they make easy work of difficult novels. They are created by the cast working with playwright Richard Conlon who has decades of experience in making texts for casts of young people and adult non-professional actors.

You only need to request performance permission or pay a rights fee if you choose to mount a production. Performance rights are £45 per public performance (UK) or international equivalent (ROI Є50, US $55, CAN $75, AU $85, NZ $90). Please direct all enquiries by email to: theatre@blueappletheatre.com

There’s a new version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm available for young casts which its creators hope will make the tale accessible to both actors and audiences. Blue Apple Theatre premiered this adaptation in the summer of 2023 and would love others to see if it fits their needs.

This interpretation of the well-known story features not only Orwell himself as a character, but also his little-known wife, Eileen Blair. Though she’s been written out of literary history, Eileen was instrumental in helping her husband write this most engaging of political allegories. After more than sixty years this ‘invisible woman’ is back in the centre of the action.

All the classic characters and elements are in this piece – the devious Napoleon, the noble Boxer – ‘four legs good’ and ‘all animals are equal’… with a range of parts to serve the budding professional actor and the nervous newbie alike.

Blue Apple is also unafraid to take a few liberties where necessary – the famously downbeat ending has been given a makeover along with a discussion about who actually ‘owns’ a work of art like this. Blue Apple believes that young casts are by nature optimistic about the future and keen to see the world through new eyes. We’ve also thrown in a few jokes to make the show palatable for family audiences, though they will probably offend Orwell-purists.

This piece will accommodate a large cast of around thirty, but some roles can be adapted for a smaller cast – it’s available to read, on trust and in good faith by clicking the link below.

You only need to request performance permission or pay a rights fee if you choose to mount a production. This is a play with lots to reflect upon for young casts as they look at the world around them – it has a great deal to say about the modern world and the power imbalances within it. But Blue Apple hopes it engages as a real, robust piece of theatre instead of an academic exercise. Take a look, and see if it fits your cast – it might just be your next production.

Blue Apple created this adaptation of Frankenstein in those strange times of lockdown but we hope the fact that it’s made of three sections might actually make it easy to recreate for drama teachers and youth theatre directors. In our approach, we did two things which might feel counter-intuitive, but made sense for us: we went right back to the source material and were very faithful to it, whilst also taking major liberties to bring it into the twenty-first century.

Our approach helps unlock the very dense text which feels so alien to some young readers, it condenses and focuses on the sections which matter most – it acknowledges Mary Shelley’s genius whilst spotting a few flaws along the way, and it even has some humour in there. The scenes we have added plaited into the original narrative, are essentially one long debate about the text and we hope that is mirrored in your cast or readers. This novel still matters and will continue to matter, and the more young readers who grapple with it, the better.

Our original cast was made up of adults with a learning disability and this story shone an interesting light on the notion of a character who is ‘other’ living at the margins, excluded from the mainstream. Younger readers may see other resonances in there which will be every bit as valid. This piece will accommodate a large cast of around thirty, but some roles can be adapted for a smaller cast – all ‘student’ parts are gender-neutral. It’s available to read, on trust and in good faith by clicking the link below.

You only need to request performance permission or pay a rights fee if you choose to mount a production. This is a play with lots to reflect upon for young casts as they look at the world around them – Shelley’s tale still has so much to say about the modern world. We at Blue Apple hope it engages as a real, robust piece of theatre instead of an academic exercise. Take a look, and see if it fits your cast – it might just be the simplest way into a complex novel.

Other scripts will be published on this page as and when they become available for public release. If you would like to be notified please contact Richard Conlon by email to: theatre@blueappletheatre.com

Banner image from an original photo by ©Mike Hall Photography