Lane Riosley
Lane Riosley currently has 15 plays in publication with productions by The Children's Theatre of Charlotte, The Actor's Company, The Little Top Theatre Company, The West Coast Ensemble, The Texas Renaissance Theatre, Stages Repertory Theatre, The Merry-Go-Round Theatre, Asolo Theatre and countless high schools and colleges across the nation. Formerly a script writer for the KUHT-TV/PBS television series CENTERSTAGE, Lane's work has been featured at the American Film Institute Festival in Los Angeles. Lane's science fiction theatre series "Lucky Hightops and the Cosmic Cat Patrol" played a six-year run at both EarlyStages of Houston and as a live show at Houston's Burke Baker Planetarium. Lane offers playwrighting workshops in schools and colleges and has been a featured speaker and presenter Theatrefest and the Texas Educational Theatre Association. A recipient of the 1992 Writer's Foundation Gold Award for screenplay writing Lane is a winner of the Roger L. Stevens Award in Playwrighting from the President's Committee on the Arts and the Fund for New American Plays. Most recently Lane served as a panel speaker for the 2013 Comicpalooza, a convention featuring some of the nation's leading artists, actors and writers.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Fairy Tale by Lane Riosley
35 pages
6 m, 8 w.
In this fast-paced “green” adaptation Jack and his mother are really poor now that the forest has been cut down. Sadly, all that’s left is for them to sell their cow, Milky White. (All Milky White can say is “moo” but her moos are extremely expressive!) Jack trades her for magic beans and by the next morning, the beanstalks have grown out of sight into the sky. Jack climbs up and enters into the castle of the Giant and his wife, Giganta. Ultimately Jack rescues a hen that lays golden eggs, a magic harp, and even more importantly, tree seedlings which will hel...
A Commedia Christmas Carol
Commedia by Lane Riosley
50 pages
2 m, 2 w
In this faithful 1-act adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic, a traveling troupe of commedia del arte players re-create the Victorian world of “A Christmas Carol” on a bare stage. All of the many wonderful characters are played by these four actors with cleverness, skill, and comedy. Dickens, an actor, playwright, and enthusiastic theatergoer, used many theatrical characters in his novels, especially characters from the commedia del arte tradition. The most notable of these is Ebenezer Scrooge, who is played in this adaptation by commedia’s big-nosed Punc...
The Commedia Pied Piper of Hamlin
Commedia by Lane Riosley
36 pages
2 m, 2 w
Four commedia dell’arte actors perform all roles in this fast-paced, hilarious play. The rats of Hamlin (dressed with black ball caps) are hungry and demand the Mayor “set things rat, rat now!” And so you can see how poor pronunciation of a simple word created a terrible disagreement between the rats and the citizens of the clean little hamlet. The Mayor, portrayed by Punchin, the dell’ arte character with the big, proud nose, asks the Queen of the Cats, the Duke of the Dogs, the Earl of the Eagles, the High Prince of the Possums, and even the Countess of Cat...