Description
Green Room Press, Inc., Published 1974. Wraps, 50 pp., followed by 14 pp. of vocal score and five pages of black-and-white production photographs, unpaginated; 22 cm; hand-lettered pictorial front cover.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
112
![Adventures of Benjamin Beetle [Play], photograph 1 of 12](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fepilonian.s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com%2F20260918007%2F20260918007_001.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
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Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In Very Good condition. Yellow pictorial paper covers, staple bound. Mild shelf wear with bumping and creasing to edges and corners, a few small nicks to edges, and light sunning, toning and soiling. Pale stain to front cover beside the title, with a small dark spot at lower left. Binding tight. Pages clean. Otherwise unmarked. Children's musical play for a company of nine player-musician-dancers, adapted from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Beetle": Benjamin Beetle, who insists he is not a bug but a very rare insect with an illustrious family tree, demands gold horseshoes after the stable racehorse Secretary is given a set, leaves home when he is called insignificant, and works his way through a backyard of flowers, a caterpillar, frogs, a Sensitive Plant and a Venus Fly-Trap, and the vaudeville double-act Professors Hip and Hop before returning to marry Libby Beetle. Players sing, dance, play instruments and make the sound effects; roles double and triple for a cast of nine, or the company may be enlarged so each actor takes a single part. Production notes cover set pieces, the eight-foot puppet lady, papier-mache and mask construction for the horse, insect make-up, costume, lighting and a score written to work with a real orchestra or with guitars, kazoos and homemade percussion. Vocal score for Hello, Hello; Friends From Your Own Backyard; and Goodbye, Goodbye. Photographs record the two premieres of May 1974, both listed with full casts: MiraCosta College, Oceanside, on May 10, directed by Jorgensen and sponsored by the Harlequin Players and Community Services, and Fairview School, Goleta, on May 31, choreographed by Shawn Winters of UCSB. Royalty terms of $15.00 for a first performance and $10.00 thereafter printed on the copyright page. Rear cover and final leaf advertise two further Starr and Jorgensen plays from the same press, Peach Boy and The Magic Bow. WorldCat records a single library holding.