Dwayne Lee Yancey

Dwayne Yancey can still remember all the lines from his debut performance on stage - both of them. In eighth grade. Many decades later, he is a journalist by profession but a playwright by avocation. By day (and sometimes by night), he is a senior editor at The Roanoke Times in Roanoke, Va. On the side, he writes plays. Many of his scripts reflect his interest in Shakespeare and bringing Shakespeare to the masses, even if that does mean a few, um, script changes for a modern audience. Yancey comes from a theatre family. His wife acts and directs in community theatre and both his children are stage veterans. They live in Fincastle, Va.

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Macbeth Goes Hollywood

Comedy by Dwayne Lee Yancey

61 pages

4 m, 4 w, 5-19 flexible, extras

Shakespeare's agent options his script "Macbeth" to a Hollywood producer who wants a "few" changes to make the play more contemporary. The trouble is the producer isn't sure what changes exactly should be made. Soon Shakespeare is casting the poor witches alternately as country singers, rappers, and punk rockers, while Macbeth and Lady Macbeth perform their lines as gangsters, farmers and Goths. A member of the audience is even pulled onstage at one point to help Macbeth rehearse a murder scene. If that's not bad enough, the final showdown between Macbeth and...

Code 40: Verona

Drama by Dwayne Lee Yancey

44 pages

6 m, 2 w, 14 flexible

This play begins at the ending of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" but envisions a modern twist - it's a police drama, in which incompetence and political pressure rule the day. Balthasar and Friar Lawrence still flee the bloody scene in the Capulet family tomb and are apprehended by church security guards. But this time, security calls the police, who proceed to investigate the crime. The police release the friar because they can't imagine how he would be involved and instead try to pin the crime on Balthasar. The mayor, Escalus, is under political pressure ...