A SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. TITLE

Happy Birthday, Wanda June

Full-Length Play, Comedy  /  2w, 5m, 2any gender (adult)

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

"Can be richly and often pertinently funny [...] [with] a sure instinct for the carefully considered irrelevance [...] A great deal of incidental hilarity [...] [and] inspired idiocy." - The New York Times

Happy Birthday, Wanda June

  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    2w, 5m, 2any gender (adult)
  • Duration
    Duration
    90 minutes
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult, Senior, Teen (Age 14 - 18)

Details

Summary
A woman with a little boy has two suitors: a doctor and a vacuum cleaner salesman. Her husband, a famous big-game hunter and adventurer, disappeared years ago in the Amazon. She is about to be declared a widow when in he walks, khaki breeches, puttees, and all, together with the pilot with whom he crashed in the Amazon valley. It happens to be his birthday, an event which all those present had decided to celebrate and for which they had just purchased a cake on the spur of the moment. The cake had been intended for somebody named Wanda June, who apparently never got to celebrate at all. The adventurer turns out to be a wild champion of havoc who alienates friends and demolishes violins. He fails in his effort to get his son to shoot him – the boy doesn’t believe in that kind of old-fashioned heroism – and then in his own effort to shoot himself. He is a social flop out.
Cast Attributes

PENELOPE RYAN - 30.

PAUL RYAN - 12, her son.

HAROLD RYAN - 55, her husband.

COLONEL LOOSELEAF HARPER - 5O, her husband's sidekick.

HERB SHUTTLE - 35, a suitor.

DR. NORBERT WOODLY - 35, a suitor.

WANDA ]UNE - 10, a ghost.

MAJOR SIEGFRIED VON KONIGSWALD - 50, a German ghost.

MILDRED - 45, Harold's former wife, a ghost.

  • Time Period Present Day
  • Features Contemporary Costumes / Street Clothes
  • Duration 90 minutes

Media

"Can be richly and often pertinently funny [...] [with] a sure instinct for the carefully considered irrelevance [...] A great deal of incidental hilarity [...] [and] inspired idiocy." - The New York Times

Music

  • Musical Style N/A (Not a musical)
  • Vocal DemandsN/A (Not a musical)
  • Chorus Size N/A (Not a musical)

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: $110 per performance

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Authors

Author

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

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