1484: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Heir

Cast:

• Royal Court
• Jester
• Brothers Grimm (Moderately Grimm and Relatively Grimm)
• Beautiful Maiden
• Distraught Father
• Handsome Prince
• Generic Witch
• Bit Parts: Small Boy, Ample Man, Town Crier, Delivery Person Page One and Page Two (Non-Speaking)

Synopsis:

Begins with a greeting by the Jester, followed by the Royal Procession. All dialogue is supplied for the Wassail and Boar’s Head festivities. Following the dessert, the Jester enters and involves the audience in reactions to what is happening on stage. The Brothers Grimm (Moderately and Relatively Grimm), appear on towers on either side of the stage, narrating the story of Rapunzel as it evolves below them, one saying the nouns, and one saying the rest of the sentences. (You have to hear it to believe it!)

The Jester auditions the players for the evening’s entertainment, and the hilarious unfolding of the familiar story begins, but not at all like the story as you know it. The comments from the Grimm Brothers, the extensive audience involvement, the seventeen feet of hair, all go together to make this charming script great fun to rehearse and perform.

How could you go wrong in story with a Handsome Prince riding through the audience on a pretend horse, a Generic Witch not flying through the audience on a real broom, a Beautiful Maiden who did herself in by trying to be clever, and seventeen feet of hair. Jolly good fun for all involved! At the end of the performance, the Jester bids a touching farewell to the audience prior to the recessional. Some of the dialogue is rhymed. (The rest of it isn’t.)