H D Greaves: 9 books

Atascadero! is a One-Act Farce adapted by H.D. Greaves from Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale, The Swineherd. This version takes place in Brazil and tells of the handsome Prince Paolo of Ipanema who falls in love with the beautiful Princess Miranda of Bahia. Unfortunately, Miranda’s beauty is...

Should you be sufficiently adventurous as to purchase this volume of poetry, I say “Thanks!” I hope you will enjoy at least some of my poems and disregard any that appear to you to have been written in what may be best described as an addled mental and emotional condition. I do not now nor ever...

Based on a Russian folk tale, this One Act Play tells of the magical Firebird and her quest to destroy Kastchei, a sorcerer who has hidden his death. A Matched Set of Thirteen Princesses is under his spell, which must be broken before Princess Sonya can marry Prince Ivan. Zopak, the Prince’s friend,...

This brief Radio Play is adapted from Hans Christian Andersen’s story In the Duckyard. We are so used to thinking of Hans Andersen as a sweet-tempered children’s storyteller (a point of view perpetrated by Victorian adaptations and sentimental movies), we forget that he wrote many of his stories...

Disagreement in Eden, A Comedy in One-Act, is an irreverent satire about Adam and Eve and their conflict about the Forbidden Fruit. While the Lord and Satan, awaiting the outcome, play chess, Gabriel, a cynical cornet-player, asks, “And what, my Lord, is ‘Sin’? It sounds like an inspired name...

The Marsh King's Daughter is one of Hans Christian Andersen's least known stories, but it is a good yarn and worth a wider audience, which is why I chose to dramatize it so long ago. The year was 1966, and this work developed because I had seen so much badly written and produced theatre...

We can never learn too much about the specifics of dysfunctional parents, those unfortunates who unknowingly, and only rarely with malice aforethought, create and pass on to their children so much havoc and such a heritage of hurt. How such wretched behaviour affects youngsters is, therefore, always...

Gnatwing! A Farce for Clowns is Theatre-of-the-Absurd for youngsters. Featuring direct audience involvement in a frantic game of hide-and-seek, and a chase that mirrors animated cartoons, Gnatwing!—in clown face and exaggerated movement—is incredibly zany. Based on a Scandinavian folk tale, this...

Do you have a theatre group that wants to do an epic melodrama, with equal parts comedy and terror? Here it is!The ages-old tale of the dwarf who changes straw into gold in exchange for the heroine’s first-born is created anew in this highly entertaining epic melodrama. Successfully and elaborately...