Keeping Melodramas clean
Saving the World with G & PG rated plays - One Melodrama at a time!
All Hero And Villain Melodrama Scripts are Family Friendly mildly PG-rated, but making it a G-rated play is easy since we let you customize any script to your venue and community standards. Stereotypical and sometimes simple characters that are a benchmark of Melodrama. Having said that - also know that HeroAndVillain.com melodramas allow you to customize them just about any way that you want. If an old-west late-1800's occupation is one that you do not want in your production - not a problem - you have full permission to change it in any of our more than a dozen musical melodramatic plays. It is up to you. So that means - if a reference to beer or whiskey (common in the old west) might potentially be off limits for your venue or audience - go ahead and change it to root-beer or lemonade if you desire. If a play is too long - cut out a song or a few parts of dialogue.
So ... if you want to change the name of a character, or add in a local business as a shameless plug, or adjust the location - with our brand of Melodramas - you have full permission to do any of those as well ... that is another feature of our brand of Melodramas . Yes ... you read that right ... unlike other purveyors of plays that strictly prohibit any changes to their scripts ... we encorage it. If you are a eloementary school and you want to remove all referenced to libations, guns and/or other weapons that were pretty common in the old west ... go for it. Although it is an old west play so you might want to consider getting a slew of those toy weapons that have a flag that pops out with the word "bang". Only mildly politically-incorrect for sensitive venues and states. As for run-time of the Melodramas ... some playhouses and schools have turned solo songs into group numbers or eliminated a few songs to shorten play run time. Some have made an art of adding more cue-cards for additonal audience participation enjoyment. If the the references to swallows (birds) doesn't work for you - go ahead and replace it with buzzards or any other critter that loves your home town. So long as the plays remains a G or PG family-friendly play and serves the needs your venue - you have blanket-authority to trim, adjust, and modify our plays to your heart's content. You can thank us later by buying a Melodrama to perform.
I have been often asked about the use of curse words in the old west. By watching modern television shows like "Deadwood" or the HBO series about Wild Bill Hickock or modern "westerns" you'd think profanity were added to every conversation. The question is "Did the men of the "Old West" really talk like that?" The answer ..."Sure ... maybe" ... "sometimes" ... Old West Americans did use colloquially foul language just a bit more freely than today. It was not uncommon for cowpokes to have cursing contests, but the curses used were more of religious blasphemy rather than the profane insults which are more popular today. The consensus of historians is that yes ... this type of language and those words were used in the mid to late 19th century. Profanity was not used as frequently as movies would have you think.
Modern Melodrama needs to be G-rated or PG-rated
At HeroAndVIllain.com we believe that Melodramas can still be a great family entertainment experience and you will get much bigger audiences for your productions if you keep them G or PG rated. On our website we have a failry comprehensive (but not exhaustive) list of old west melodrama slang and phrases and you will find several euphemisms such as consarn or dad-gum which were used when in the presence of women folk or children. Use these and you will be much happier and have a much wider audience for your plays.