Comic Melodrama. 65-75 minutes. 4-8 females, 5-9 males, plus extras (13-20+ performers possible). Suitable for middle school and older.
Everybody loves a good melodrama. But for Alda Best and her company of actors, smack dab in the middle of the 1930s and the Great Depression, their new one needs to save their theater from the wrecking ball and all of them from the streets. A visionary director (who wants to play all the parts), an egocentric diva, and an over-the-hill leading man who can't remember his lines or even his own name are the least of their problems: bank robbers have infiltrated the crew, determined to destroy the show so they can dig up the stolen loot they buried here years ago. Acting challenges abound in this play-within-a-play as melodrama meets comic mayhem.