Leading Ladies: A New Comedy

Comedy / 5m, 3f / Unit set. In this hilarious comedy by the author of Lend Me A Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo , two English Shakespearean actors, Jack and Leo, find themselves so down on their luck that they are performing "Scenes from Shakespeare" on the Moose Lodge circuit in the Amish country of Pennsylvania. When they hear that an old lady in York, PA is about to die and leave her fortune to her two long lost English nephews, they resolve to pass themselves off as her beloved relatives and get the cash. The trouble is, when they get to York, they find out that the relatives aren't nephews, but nieces! Romantic entanglements abound, especially when Leo falls head-over-petticoat in love with the old lady's vivacious niece, Meg, who's engaged to the local minister. Meg knows that there's a wide world out there, but it's not until she meets "Maxine and Stephanie" that she finally gets a taste of it. "Ken Ludwig is a national treasure. He has almost single-handedly kept alive the sense of humor of Philip Barry, Billy Wilder, Preston Sturgis, George S. Kaufman, and the Marx Brothers. With Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo, Ludwig established himself as the American playwright to look to for the fast and furious comedic stylings of those masters...Slapstick goofiness, scrambled Shakespeare, and good-natured laughs make Leading Ladies an irresistible treat." - Montana Reperatory Theatre "Ludwig's newest farce is so funny, it will make sophisticated and reasonable men and women of the 21st century cackle till their faces hurt." - Houston Press "Leading Ladies is consistently funny-indeed, increasingly hilarious as it progresses." - Houston Chronicle