Shakespeare's Lost Christmas Play

Holiday Plays

By: Dwayne Yancey
Cast: 2 M, 1 F, 10 flexible
Performance Time: Approximately 60-75 minutes, 51 pgs

HOLIDAY COMEDY. It’s the 1600s and peasants in the tiny English village of Little Moldingham-on-Cheese are set on performing a Christmas play, even though they lost all their costumes, props, and scripts when they accidentally burned down the theatre during last year’s Christmas show. With nothing to perform, the director contacts William Shakespeare to see if he will write them a Christmas play. In the meantime, the Plague Doctor and Royal Herald arrive and announce that a plague has descended upon the kingdom and that everyone must stand six feet apart and “all ‘entertainments’ are hereby canceled.” Luckily, the stage manager finds a loophole: If the Christmas play isn’t entertaining, then it can’t be canceled because it isn’t “entertainment”! Easy to stage.

Freeviews: To read play excerpts click here.

Dwayne Yancey is a playwright from the Blue Ridge Mountains whose plays have been produced in 47 states and 17 countries. Mr. Yancey is a veteran of the community theatre stage.