A Party Line in Plenty: A Comedy of Errors by John RC Potter

In a rural Canadian community in the early 1960s, a young girl fails to hang up the receiver of the family’s antiquated wall phone properly, miffed that a neighbour is on it and tying up the party line. She then makes disparaging comments about the woman, who is a ‘phone hog,’ but unbeknownst to her, the woman can hear what the young girl is saying. A comedic tempest-in-a-teapot ensues when the girl and her mother see the irate woman marching up the road in full battle mode. In short order, other ‘off the wall’ neighbours become involved. The amusing and gossipy cast of characters includes the following: Babs Tyler (a young girl, 10 years old); Lorna Tyler (a married woman in her mid-30s); Ethel Burns (a married woman in her late 30s); Frieda Clackson (a widowed woman in her early 70s), Elmer Flood (a single man in his late 60s); & Henk Dijkman (a single man in his mid-20s). Keywords: comedy, rural, 1960s, misunderstandings, SW Ontario Genre: Comedy Acts: 3 Run time: 75 minutes Content notes: Contains mild swearing. Involves only one set (Tyler's Kitchen). The intermission could come at the end of Act II or Act III. The three-act structure can easily be changed to two acts. At the end of Act I, there could be only a Curtain; then the Intermission could take place at the end of Act II. Cast size: 6 actors Male roles: 2 Female roles: 4