Newly Available for Licensing – August 2026 (UK)

Summer holidays are a time for adventure, exploration, memories and rest. Whether you seek comforting characters or a challenging adventure, check out these titles, newly available as of August from Concord Theatricals in the UK.

Dorothy’s Dictionary by E.M. Lewis
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1w, 1m)
In this touching and inspirational two-hander, sparks fly when Zan, an angry high school student, works off his community service assignment by helping Dorothy, an ailing librarian. Each of them might just have what the other needs… if they can only find the words. This wonderful character study reminds audiences in a time of technology overwhelm that human connection – and books! – still matter.

Ernxst, or The Importance of Being by Justin Elizabeth Sayre, Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 22 any gender)
This innovative, electro-pop musical romp through Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest maintains the original’s manners and misgivings in the search for love, but adds to Wilde’s vision by breaking down boundaries around gender and identity, reminding us all of the importance of being exactly who we are. With tracks and music available for various keys and all roles open to any actor, it embodies the true meaning of flexible, inclusive casting.

Furlough’s Paradise by a.k. payne
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
In this radiant, nuanced two-hander – a staggering plea for empathy and connection – previously inseparable cousins Sade and Mina struggle to reconnect after returning home for the funeral of Sade’s mother. While Sade is on a three-day furlough from prison and Mina experiences a brief reprieve from her career and life on the West Coast, the two try to make sense of grief, home, love and kinship. Poetic and theatrical, this “quiet triumph of intimacy, memory and liberation” (Indulge) explores restorative justice and the family dreams of a utopia yet to be realized.

Love You More by Nikhil Mahapatra
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 3 any gender)
Do you have siblings? Are you the favorite? No? Are you sure? A play about Shakespeare’s three sisters (but actually only two sisters) being sisterly – and figuring out what that means when you’re all that’s left. When Lear passes away, Goneril and Cordelia both do not know how to continue having a relationship with each other after the only thing connecting them is gone. So, they attempt to heal their fractured relationship – with mixed results.

S Gunter Klaus & the Story Before by Jon Ferguson and John Heimbuch
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 11 any gender)
In a remote village at the edge of the world, a lonely coal vendor is engaged in an epic battle with the darkness of winter. This magical story combines ancient Scandinavian folklore with tales of adventure and discovery to unearth the true origins of Santa Claus. A seasonal story for all audiences to enjoy!

Summer, 1976 by David Auburn
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
A deeply moving, tenderly insightful play about friendship, memory, and the small moments that can change the course of our lives forever. Over one fateful summer, an unlikely friendship develops between Diana, a fiercely iconoclastic artist and single mom, and Alice, a free-spirited yet naive young housewife. As the Bicentennial is celebrated across the country, these two young women in Ohio navigate motherhood, ambition and intimacy, and help each other discover their own independence.

The Floydians by Kyle Bass
(Short Play, Drama / 1w, 5m, 4 any gender)
To mark the fifth anniversary of the police murder of George Floyd, a diverse group of teens creates a new religion around their martyr. As they try to come up with the last verse of the final chapter of their sacred text (Floydians 9:29), division, shifting alliances and the deeply personal threaten the group’s cohesion, testing their faith in the possibility of a just society and a hopeful future. This one-act play written for teenage performers is a meditation on martyrdom and the pursuit of justice.

The Gershwins®’ Porgy and Bess® (Two-Piano Edition) by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, Dorothy Heyward, Diedre L. Murray and Suzan-Lori Parks
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 4w, 4m + ensemble)
Recognized worldwide as a masterpiece, George Gershwin’s final work for the musical stage, Porgy and Bess®, can now be performed with just two pianos! Based on DuBose and Dorothy Heyward’s play Porgy, this “American Folk Opera” combines elements of jazz, classical and American folk music to tell the story of a Black waterfront community in Charleston, South Carolina. The opera’s notable arias include “Summertime,” “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing,” “My Man’s Gone Now,” “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” and “I’m On My Way.”

The High Ground by Nathan Alan Davis
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 1m)
More than a century after the Tulsa race massacre killed hundreds and destroyed the prosperous Greenwood District, a Black man in army garb still stands his ground on present-day Tulsa’s Standpipe Hill – but other forces, both friendly and hostile, conspire to remove him. Traversing space and time, this play in conversation with Tulsa, Oklahoma’s 1921 race massacre tells a lyrical story about mysteries of love and loss, reminding us of what it takes to re-emerge from the devastation of a century, long after the embers have turned to ash. A complex portrait of what it means to root, to resist and to proceed from devastation.

The Reservoir by Jake Brasch
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 3w, 4m)
Josh is on medical leave from NYU. He’s come home to Denver to get his life together but can’t manage to stay sober. Struggling with fogginess, memory loss, shame and regret, he finds unlikely allies in his four zany grandparents and resolves to bring them along on the road to recovery. When he can no longer help his grandparents, they begin to help him. This heartbreaking and hilarious play explores dementia and alcoholism with aching tenderness and lots of humor.

The Time Machine by Amiel Gladstone
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 9 any gender + ensemble)
Based on H.G. Wells’ classic novel, this theatrical adaptation follows The Traveler in their quest in creating a virtual reality so lifelike that it shows what the future holds. When a demonstration for a group of different members of society sends them too far into the future, they discover Eloi, a community of young people content and almost in a daze, and Morlocks, older beings hidden from the light and fearful of change. Will they make it back safely, and will anyone believe it’s even real? A fresh take on the original novel and a modern look at technology’s effect on society.

Totally Murder! by Tracy Wells
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 5w, 2m, 16 any gender)
It’s the 1980s, and the food court at the Valley View Mall is bustling with all the usual suspects. And of course, there’s the people stuck wearing silly unforms as they dish out ice cream, hot dogs and all manner of greasy foods. But when the automatic doors to the food court stop working and the owner of the new pizza restaurant, Sarrano’s, falls down dead, things get totally heinous! It’s up to an enthusiastic mall security guard to figure out who’s guilty before the killer wigs out and claims another victim! A large-cast, totally ’80s whodunit with plenty of roles for teens.

For more new titles, read more in our Newly Available for Licensing series on Breaking Character or visit the Concord Theatricals website in the UK for more plays and musicals.