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( Nun’s Priest’s Tales)
A family-oriented barnyard musical 

An interactive, family-oriented barnyard musical
The Nun’s Priest weaves us a delightful, interactive barnyard romp in which Chanticleer dreams that a Fox is coming to eat him. Chanticleer’s indignant wife accuses him of being a chicken (so to speak), kicking off a fantasy journey through portentous dreams to prove the point that we should pay attention to our dreams. At last, to appease his sweetheart, Chanticleer throws caution to the wind, just in time for the flattering Fox to appear. How does the clever fox nab our Chanticleer? How will Chanticleer escape? Find out in this tale where chicken coops are filled with dreams and foxes filled with fowl desire.


Booking: 

The Knight’s Tale (A tale of chivalry, love & honor)

5 actors - 2 hours, 15 minutes

Two young knights, royal cousins held captive by Duke Theseus, both fall in love with their captor’s sister-in-law. When one knight is set free but banished, and the other breaks from prison, the battle that ensues over the woman they both love draws the attention and deep interest of all Athens, including Theseus.


Booking: September - U.S. and U.K.

The Wife of Bath Musical

Devil Makes Plans  -click image to enlarge

(Wife’s, Friar’s & Summoner’s Tales)
A fun-filled musical, and sometimes devilish, frolic that takes a look at who’s in charge

The famous Wife of Bath is sometimes outrageously outspoken regarding her marital adventures with the five husbands she has survived. Secretly she lives with the terrible fear that her own aging will kill her attractiveness to men. Her Arthurian tale of rape and a knight’s redemption through the grace of a woman’s spirit frames this fear and attempts to resolve it. After forcing himself on a young maiden, a churlish knight finds his fate placed in the hands of King Arthur’s queen who sends him on a desperate quest to discover what all women most desire.
The Friar next tricks the Summoner into making a deal with the Devil and loses all when he tries to blackmail an old widow. Taking his storytelling revenge on the Friar, the Summoner then traps the Friar into a droll dilemma: he must equally divide the gift of an odoriferous fart with his fellow friars.

Booking: U.K. / U.S. National
Chanticleer & the Fox (Monk’s & Nun’s Priest’s Tales)

The Chase! click image to enlarge

A family-oriented barnyard musical with Fortune and Flattery

 4 actors – approx. 1.5 hours 

This fun-filled show is done with a panto style, bringing the audience into the action with their shouts of helpful support. We start with a host of heroic men and women such as Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar and Zenobia who face the most momentous consequences when they gamble with Dame Fortune. Ranging from the comic to the tender, the Monk brings us a pageant of the prideful. The Nun’s Priest then brings us a delightful barnyard romp in which he
becomes the cock, Chanticleer, in a tale where chicken coops are filled with
dreams and foxes filled with fowl desire. Chanticleer wakes from a nightmare and describes a fearful fox from that dream to his favorite chicken-wife Pertelote. Dame Pertelote is scandalized to think her husband rooster is a coward (or a chicken, if you will). So begins a domestic debate that takes our barnyard animals into a surreal world of famous scary dreams from history that came true. After winning the argument, Chanticleer regains his courage but forgets his dream. And then, Russell the Fox, a flattering trickster makes his fated appearance! But just when all seems lost, who is the trickiest? The audience knows and will come to the rescue.


Booking: U.S. National

Obsessions (Squire's & Franklin's Tales)

6 actors - approx. 2 hours

Chaucer continues his exploration of relationships between women and men in this Arabian Nights fable filled with obsession and magic, music and dance. In a fanciful fable of love, with flying horses and talking birds, a tender-hearted princess becomes the confidante of a lovelorn falcon, heartlessly abandoned by her mate. Then, the Franklin tells of a young man obsessed with another man’s wife who calls upon dark magic to trick her into a promise that will violate her marriage.

Booking: September
U.K./U.S.:West & East Coasts

The Miller’s Tale Musical (Miller’s & Reeve’s Tales)
 A fun and bawdy bedroom farce

6 actors – approx. 2 hours

In one of Chaucer’s most famous tales, a clever clerk tricks an old carpenter into believing Noah’s flood is returning so that the clerk can rendezvous with the carpenter’s young wife. Meanwhile, the parish clerk, also hoping to win the wife’s attentions, finds himself literally kissing her behind. Breaking wind and a hot firebrand brings this to a hilarious, ‘tail-spinning’ conclusion. In retaliation for the insult of this tale, Oswald the Reeve parries with his own tale of deception and sexual retaliation, thrusting home with a double victory of a cheating miller’s wife and daughter. Sex is in the air, boisterous, happy and sometimes completely unexpected!


Booking: U.K. / U.S. / Australia

Chanticleer & the Fox (Monk’s & Nun’s Priest’s Tales)
A family-oriented barnyard musical with Fortune and Flattery

4 actors – approx. 1.5 hours 

This fun-filled show is done with a panto style, bringing the audience into
the action with their shouts of helpful support. We start with a host of
heroic men and women such as Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar and Zenobia who face the most momentous consequences when they gamble with Dame Fortune. Ranging from the comic to the tender, the Monk brings us a pageant of the prideful.
The Nun’s Priest then brings us a delightful barnyard romp in which he
becomes the cock, Chanticleer, in a tale where chicken coops are filled with
dreams and foxes filled with fowl desire. Chanticleer wakes from a nightmare and describes a fearful fox from that dream to his favorite chicken-wife Pertelote. Dame Pertelote is scandalized to think her husband rooster is a coward (or a chicken, if you will). So begins a domestic debate that takes our barnyard animals into a surreal world of famous scary dreams from history that came true. After winning the argument, Chanticleer regains his courage but forgets his dream. And then, Russell the Fox, a flattering trickster makes his fated appearance! But just when all seems lost, who is the trickiest? The audience knows and will come to the rescue.

Booking: U.S. /Australia

Piety & Pleasure (Lawyer's & Sailor's Tales)
 Feminine Adventures

6 actors – approx. 2 hours

The Lawyer’s Tale is crafted around romantic love that gets caught in the grip of prejudice and religious intolerance. In this Christian romance, religions collide with painful and sometimes fatal results when young Constance is sent off to be married to the recently converted Sultan of Syria. Her powerful mother-in-law is not pleased with this turn of events and resorts to violence. Faced head-on with hatred and intolerance, young Constance’s faith and endurance are put to the test.  Driven from what was to be her home and after years adrift at sea, Constance finds a new home, new trials of her faith, a beloved husband, and another intolerant mother-in-law. Then to lighten up, we have a merchant so absorbed with his money, that his poor, lovely young wife feels neglected - until a lusty monk comes to her rescue.

Booking: September

Reaper's Toys (Physician's & Pardoner's Tales)
A dark musical that explores lust and greed

7 actors – 1 hour 45 minutes

Judicial corruption leads to tragic end when the local judge tries to gain possession of a knight's lovely daughter. This short tale leads us down a path where the escape from potential shame and abuse is death by her father's hands. This is followed by a kind of surreal parable of the Pardoner's Tale in which three drunken rogues seek out Death to destroy it. It is their own greed that leads them to death in the end - death at each other's hands.

Those under this point in the page may not currently be available:

The Wife of Bath Musical! (Wife’s, Friar’s & Summoner’s Tales)
A fun-filled musical, and sometimes devilish, frolic that takes a look at who’s in charge

5 actors – approx. 2 hours

Perhaps the most famous Pilgrim in the Canterbury Tales cycle, the Wife of Bath is sexually frisky, and sometimes outrageously outspoken in her commentary on her marital adventures with the five husbands she has survived. Secretly she lives with the terrible fear that her own aging will kill her attractiveness to men, an unbearable possibility. Her Arthurian tale of rape and a knight’s redemption through the grace of a woman’s spirit frames this fear and attempts to resolve it for both women and men. After forcing himself on a young maiden, a churlish knight finds his fate placed in the hands of King Arthur’s queen who sends him on a desperate quest to discover what it is that all women most desire. The Friar next tricks the Summoner into making a deal with the Devil and loses all when he tries to blackmail an old widow. Taking his storytelling revenge on the Friar, the Summoner then traps the Friar into a droll dilemma: he must equally divide the gift of an odoriferous fart with his fellow friars.


Clerk’s & Merchant’s Tales

7 actors – approx. 2 hours 

In these two very different views of marriage, the Clerk’s patient and faithful Griselda is swept from poverty into a marriage of anguished love by a powerful Marquis. Unable to believe how good and true she seems to be, he finds himself driven to test her love and constancy. The love that they share, in spite of the anguish they suffer, carries us beyond the expected marital norms into the calm place within the eye of the storm where love conquers and prevails. At the opposite end of the faithfulness scale, the Merchant’s Tale is Chaucer at his bawdiest, with an old and lusty knight, his pretty but faithless young wife, and his clever, young, love-sick squire. The knight takes a young wife who has no interest in requiting his amorous advances. When approached by the squire she finds a place in her heart for him, though opportunities to advance the relationship are few with her jealous husband at hand. When her old husband goes blind, the young lovers’ resourcefulness leads to a most outrageous liaison in a pear tree.

Tale of Melibee
War or peace – decisions on the brink

3 actors - 75 minutes

An excellent centerpiece for discussions about world peace, the Tale of Melibee places us on the brink of war. In the Tale of Melibee a powerful young lord’s family is attacked, thus instigating a potential war. In his anger he immediately sets his heart on obtaining vengeance. His wife Prudence, herself a victim of this violence, strives to serve as the voice of reason, counseling for peace. Themes of anger, vengeance, war, peace, forgiveness and seeking and evaluating good counsel drive the action forward within the context of a loving marriage. The very fact that it is the woman’s voice that prevails is perhaps less remarkable in our own time than it would have been in the fourteenth century. That she is both heard and that her husband loves and respects her enough to follow any of her counsel says a tremendous amount about the strength of their bond as well as Chaucer’s perspective and respect for women.

Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale
A musical of alchemy and the desire to acquire quick wealth

4 actors, 1 keyboard artist - 80 minutes

When a Canon who practices alchemy and his Yeoman arrive, the Yeoman grabs his chance to escape his master’s lack of ethics and weaves a fun but thoughtful tale that shows us how easily we can be deceived when we are driven by avarice. A simple nun is duped into believing base metals can be made into true silver. The song and dance routine of the slippery world of alchemy keeps everyone on his/her toes. Includes some audience participation: one of the refrains is taught prior to the show and the audience is encouraged to sing along during the performance. Can also be done as a dinner theatre piece.

The Knight’s Tale
A tale of chivalry, love & honor

5 actors - 2 hours, 15 minutes

Two young knights, royal cousins held captive by Duke Theseus, both fall in love with their captor’s sister-in-law. When one knight is set free but banished, and the other breaks from prison, the battle that ensues over the woman they both love draws the attention and deep interest of all Athens, including Theseus.

Lawyer’s Tale
A tale of love in the face of intolerance

7 actors - 2 hours

The Lawyer’s Tale is crafted around romantic love that gets caught in the grip of prejudice and religious intolerance. In this Christian romance, religions collide with painful and sometimes fatal results when young Constance is sent off to be married to the recently converted Sultan of Syria. Her powerful mother-in-law is not pleased with this turn of events and resorts to violence. Faced head-on with hatred and intolerance, young Constance’s faith and endurance are put to the test. This is only the beginning of her trials, however. Driven from what was to be her home and after years adrift at sea, Constance finds a new home, new trials of her faith, a beloved husband, and another intolerant mother-in-law. In the Lawyer’s Tale, Chaucer presents us with two sides of the same coin by using two different storytelling levels: the prejudice and hatred aimed at the protagonist and a more subtle suggestion of prejudice on the part of Sir Lawyer himself.

Tale of Sir Thopas & Tale of Melibee

4 actors – approx. 1 hour 25 minutes
What would the great writers of the past have to say about today’s headlines? Geoffrey Chaucer has already put in his two cents on terrorism and how to respond. In his famous Canterbury Tales, the Tale of Melibee addresses the issue of how to respond to attack. Incorporating masks and music in this unique production by Chaucer & Co., Uncommon Sense: Tales of Melibee & Sir Thopas places us on the brink of war, when a powerful young lord’s family is attacked. Lord Melibee responds emotionally, as most of us would (and did on Sept. 11): outraged at the injustice of the attack on his wife and daughter and filled with a desire for revenge.

Surprisingly, his wife, Dame Prudence, herself a victim of this violence, strives to serve as a voice of reason, counseling for peace. The ensuing debate over the appropriate political and/or military response, set within a domestic battleground of emotion versus reason, makes for a deeply compelling and sometimes amusing drama laced with wisdom. Intermingled with the Tale of Melibee are dream-like visions from the Tale of Sir Thopas, in which a love-sick knight battles a 3-headed giant in an effort to win the elf queen of his dreams.

Clerk’s & Merchant’s Tales
7 actors – approx. 2 hours

"The Pear Tree" click image to enlarge

Two tales that show very different views of marriage. In a poignant and heart-rending drama, the Clerk’s patient and faithful Griselda is swept into a marriage of anguished love by 
a powerful Marquis who goes to cruel extremes in his compulsion to test his young wife’s commitment to him. At the opposite end of the faithfulness scale, the Merchant’s Tale is Chaucer’s bawdiest tale of all, with an old and lusty knight, his pretty but faithless young wife, and his clever, young, love-sick squire.

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