The Playwrights Database
JOHN DENHAM
Nationality: USA
email: n/a Website: n/a
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a teacher of English in Kansas City Community College, this former Marine studied music at the University of Missouri after WWII arid worked in factories, machine shops, dance studios, printing shops and as a high school teacher and football coach in his career.
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below is a list of John Denham's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
California Light Lt. Deb Or the Man Who Loved Everybody Spook Spoof At the Bonne Chance Motel Stadium, The Or El Estadio TwoCalifornia Light
Synopsis:
a car salesman, Doss, forced into retirement by a stroke, lives with his daughter, Laurie and his well-to-do son-in-law, Peter in a house above La Jolla. His granddaughter, annette, also lives in the house, or so it seems until we find out that she was murdered years before by a boyfriend forced upon her by her social climbing mother. all seem content, with Laurie often contrasting the glorious light of California with the Missouri shadows in which she spent her own girlhood. Cubbie, the murderer of her daughter, is released from prison and arrives on the scene planning to kill Laurie, but she kills him instead as she has intended to do all along.
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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 3 Other: 3c optional
Further Reference:
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Top of PageLt. Deb Or the Man Who Loved Everybody
Synopsis:
a self-styled preacher travels Missouri and Kansas with his family during the twenties and thirties gaining a reputation as a lovable practical joker. His unpopular daughter, the prostitute Deb, is discovered at the end of the play to have been a saint, protecting the younger children from their father's incestuous advances.
Notes:
Winner of Harold C. Cram Drama Award 1983
1st Produced:
San Jose State University, Ca 1984
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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: 6m playing 25 parts, 4f playing 14 parts, 4c - lrn,3f, optional chorus
Further Reference:
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Top of PageSpook Spoof At the Bonne Chance Motel
Synopsis:
a nervous young man traveling through rural Louisiana stops at an old mansion which has been converted into a motor hotel. after the ominous Cajun proprietor frightens him, after a murdered woman seems to return from the dead to seduce him, the young man flees and we find 'it is all an experiment carried out by two graduate psychology students. the young man returns and the escaped mass murderer and the legend of reincarnated lovers and jealous husband proves to be true. Or so it seems. "Kansas City Star": "You can't trust anything in this play.' Won Missouri State Unicorn Play award, 1984 and produced by that theatre in Kansas City.
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Genre:
Spoof
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 2 Other: playing 14 roles
Further Reference:
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Top of PageStadium, The Or El Estadio
Synopsis:
the script for this play includes optional songs by Iris Denham. Twelve people find themselves "detained" in the vast sports stadium of a South American city as the result of a coup. el actor has seized power and the enlightened reforms of an assassinated president are wiped out. the people's hopes lie in a revolutionary priest and in a guitar-playing singer who expresses their hopes in song. But, they still adore el actor and when they hear that he is coming and will declare an amnesty, they are wild with delight. as the play unfolds, they see, in fact, the captured singer humiliated in the center of the stadium and they hear that the priest has died. He did send a message that Christ did not die for their sins, but for their worth. there is, then, no hope, no salvation outside themselves. the play ends with the liquidation of all the prisoners but el Indio alone is left in the stands-- poverty stricken, ignorant, filthy, but human.
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 12 Female: 6 Other: chorus optional
Further Reference:
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Top of PageTwo
Synopsis:
a man and woman, married to a sister and brother, accidentally come together in the clandestine apartment of their father-in-law, an ex-marine lover of martial Arts and other things Japanese. Discovering that they are victims of spouse abuse, they set out, with the help of a Japanese-black psychiatrist, an old' black woman, and the ghost of a samurai warrior, to patch up their lives.
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
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