2M,3F. Full-length. Story idea by L Marcus Williams. In this high-class horror comedy combining the tones of Jane Austen with Edgar Allan Poe, three Victorian women in a desperate situation find their lives turned upside down when a mysterious, possibly malevolent stranger arrives at their house one night.
This play has also been adapted into a feature-length screenplay.
- Winner of 7 Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards for Best Overall Performance of a Play, Best Director, Best Ensemble Acting, Best Lead Actor, Best Lead Actress, Best Costume Design, and Best Sound Design, 2018
- Winner of Feel the Reel International Film Festival Screenplay Competition, 2019
- Winner of Best First Time Screenwriter Award at Vegas Movie Awards, 2021
- Winner of Special Jury Award from Gona Film Festival, 2021
- 2nd Place in Nawada International Film Festival, 2021
- Nominated for 12 Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards including the above, as well as Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Set Design, and Best Lighting Design, 2018
- Top 5 Finalist in Georgia Shorts Film Festival Best Georgia Screenplay Competition, 2019
- Finalist in Filmmatic Comedy Screenplay Awards, 2019
- Finalist in Kitchen Dog Theatre's New Works Festival, 2017
- Top 10 Semifinalist in the Stanley Drama Award Competition, 2017
- Quarter Finalist in Filmmakers International Screenwriting Awards, 2019
- Semifinalist in Atlanta Comedy Film Festival, 2019
- Semifinalist in Atlanta Screenplay Awards, 2024
- Semifinalist in Houston Comedy Film Festival Screenplay Competition, 2019
- Semifinalist in Screenplay Festival, 2019
- Semifinalist in Faro Concurso de Cinema Mediterraneo e Mundial, 2024
- Official Selection in Northeast Mountain Film Festival, 2020
- Official Selection in KinoDrome International Motion Picture & Screenplay Festival, 2021
- Nominated for the Gene Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award, 2018
- Nominated for 10 BroadwayWorld Atlanta Theatre Awards for Best Play, Best New Work, Best Director, Best Actor (2), Best Actress (3), Best Scenic Design & Best Technical Design, 2018
- Nominated for 2 BroadwayWorld Atlanta Awards for Scariest Play and Play We Would Watch on Loop if We Could, 2021
"Employing equal parts dry and dark humor, the script is an amusing stage farce that slowly morphs into something strange and mysterious. Characters are well-realized and naturally combative, their personalities bouncing off of one another in funny and tense ways. The script's sense of tension and escalation is excellent, with small gestures, such as Babcock breaking a window, creating an air of menace that hangs over the action. As a stage play adaptation, the script adeptly translates the play into cinema by employing visual flashbacks during monologues that add flavor and weight to what the characters are saying... The script could easily be produced on a low budget. Audience appeal is niche, given the naturally stagey atmosphere of the story (from being an adapted play) and from the strange turns it takes, but the tone is a unique mixture of period farce and bizarre supernatural thriller that will likely gain attention. Overall, a low-risk investment with a high chance of garnering notice for its originality. Score: 8/10" (Evaluation on The Black List, 2020)
"THE THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON has an absurd tone that works very well. It's established early and allows for the implausible moments to occur without it ever being too jarring. All of the characters are fully realized and each speaks from a specific perspective. There are some really strong reveals and turns." (Evaluation on The Black List, 2020)
"It’s not often a play arrives in DeKalb County mixing laughs, wit, heart, axe murder, betrayal, a true interpretation of the Victorian era and provides opportunities to take the art of local theater to new heights... THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON proves to be an exception... One of the play's main strengths is in its script. Guyton’s ability to combine tragedy and comedy seems to come as second nature. Neither is lingered upon too heavily and audiences will find themselves both laughing and crying at the fortune and misfortune of the characters... THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON is a strange and wonderful addition to the realm of theater that arrives on cue for Halloween. The play captures the gothic, the Victorian, the familial tragedy and sardonic comedy of examining an era in which there seemed to be little, if any benefactors. Both laugh-out-loud funny and tissue-worthy tragic, it’s good to know plays like this are still being written and making their debut at local theaters such as Onion Man Productions." (R. Scott Belzer, The Dekalb County Chamption, 2017)
"I love it. Great dialogue, twists, and stories... just fantastically written, dark, and humorous through and through." (Michael Weems, Cone Man Running Productions, 2017)
"Wonderful, Funny, Weird, and Frightening Fun!" (Beverly Austin, Working Title Playwrights, 2017)
"There are reasons why I was drawn to new plays, to theatre. Seeing something brand new take shape, witnessing creative artists giving all they can to bring a new work to life, and just the love I have for a writer that can use language but also in doing so tell a damn good story. Daniel Guyton does all this and more in THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON. This tale is almost beyond original in that it is cracking open something that peeks into another realm. Something fiercely new and ancient at the same time. It is what great art should be - transformative." (James Beck, Onion Man Productions, 2017)
"The dialogue is unquestionably the most effective element of THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON. First, the characters' voices sound very period appropriate, which helps transport the reader... to 1800s England... This piece also does a nice job giving each of its characters recognizable idiosyncrasies in their dialogue to bring their individual personalities to life more vividly. For instance, Maude's refrains, such as "puh" and "feeble-minded", make her distinct, and Mr. Fennimore's accent is well-captured throughout and especially unique. There are some funny moments in this screenplay as well. Elenore repeating her line, "How odd. The edges near his heels are frayed," a second time on page 43 is fun, for example, and Fennimore casually admitting, "Oh no, he's a murderer all righ'," is darkly funny as well." (Evaluation on The Black List, 2020)
"I've had the good fortune to see this play through several stages of development up to its award-winning production at Onion Man Productions in 2017. Daniel Guyton has crafted a wonderfully macabre work which alternates between dark humor and gothic horror, exposing a number of skeletons in the closet of a trio of ladies in Victorian England. Perfect entertainment for a dark and stormy evening of theatre. Highly recommended." (GM Lupo, New Play Exchange, 2019)
"THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON brings belly laughs in a smart, poignant small cast play. It has all the fun of The Importance of Being Earnest, but with a little fantasy, a little sex, and much more empowered women. I highly recommend this for open-minded groups who want to work on a challenging and hilarious play." (Joelle Re Arp Dunham, Circle Ensemble Theatre, 2018)
"Saw it tonight - great evening! The play is what happens when Dickens marries Rocky Horror [Picture] Show. Great costumes, scenery and lighting provide a perfect setting for a talented cast to emote with gusto. Go to see Lorilyn Harper get the vapors, Maddie Latham as the shy maiden, and more of Steve Tarnow than you probably need to see. Robin Burke understudied tonight, turning a secondary role into a show-stopping scoundrel. Congratulations to Robin for putting it all together!" (Bob Gebhardt, Threshold Repertory Theatre, 2019)
"We enjoyed the Oct 13th opening night of the world premiere in Chamblee of THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON. Written by Daniel Guyton, and directed by Scott Rousseau, the dark comedy kept us laughing and had surprising suspense. The acting is so good! The set design/costumes are so creative! Beware - Rated R for nudity! He's gorgeous." (Anonymous review, NextDoor App, 2017)
"Went to see THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON last night at Onion Man Productions in Chamblee. GO SEE IT!!! Daniel Guyton has written a deliciously wacky script that is authentically brought to life by Tyler Buckingham, Sadye Elizabeth, and company. Perfectly directed by Scott Rousseau. (Mature Audiences Only)." (Jayson Werner Smith, The Walking Dead, 2017)
"Your superb play was the highlight of my holiday to Atlanta, we couldn't stop talking about it for days afterwards... There aren't enough superlatives for the cast except to say that they were all utterly brilliant." (Colette Rene, audience member and resident of the town of Orpington, 2017)
"It’s always delightful when the last moment of a play ties up everything that’s only been hinted at before. Daniel Guyton’s THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON is such a play. The final sound effect of a glass jar being shattered explains why window panes are broken to gain entry to a house and why a character appears wet on the driest of days. There’s a supernatural element to it all that... all ties together with a satisfying spookiness. Amy Levin’s sound design works quite well, with surround sound effects adding to the sense of impending dread in the material. Musical interludes cover the frequent set changes, with the music getting spookier and more insistent as the play proceeds... Nancye Hillye’s costumes do a good job of setting the time period. This is a handsome production, including Chris Franken’s props, fine makeup all around, particularly for Sadye Elizabeth and Lisa Gordon, fine blood effects in Tyler Buckingham’s kinetic fight choreography, James Beck’s charming lighting design, which includes an evocative fireplace effect and Scott Rousseau’s set that uses a minimum of set pieces to portray various locations within a house... The blocking is first-rate throughout... Overall, this is a terrific production that makes wonderful use of the tiny Onion Man stage and tells an intriguing tale audiences are lapping up." (Playgoer, TheaterReview.com, 2017)
"The brilliance of the writing makes this material that can be studied for its symbolism and complexity. The conversations go on and on." (Lisa Ball Gordon, Actor, 2018)
"It is startlingly, shockingly good." (Benjamin Carr, Playwright, 2018)
"The women—a mother, grandmother and daughter, respectively—are recovering from the death of the family patriarch and facing financial ruin. While the grandmother, Maude, seems to float between sorrow, dementia and abrupt wit, Henrietta, the mother, schemes to recover the family fortune by romancing the local undertaker, Mr. Fennimore. Meanwhile, Henrietta’s daughter, Elenore, mourns her poor complexion and envisions a world where men actually desire her. Once Henrietta finally gets her daughter and mother on her side, the women’s incompetence is interrupted by a devious stranger, Marvin Babcock. At one moment, Babcock is romancing Elenore. At the next, he’s telling tales of supreme power and making demands unbecoming of a guest. Before the three women realize it, Babcock is forcing his wishes and running the estate. THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON is a perfect treat for the arrival of Halloween, mixing laughs, wit, heart, axe murder and betrayal, while capturing the gothic, the Victorian, the family tragedy and cynical comedy of the era. It’s both laugh-out-loud funny and tissue-worthy tragic." (Press Release, Threshold Repertory Theatre, 2019)
- Staged Reading by Process Theatre in Atlanta, GA, 2017
- Produced by Onion Man Productions in Atlanta, GA, 2017
- Produced by Cone Man Running Productions in Houston, TX, 2018
- Published by Next Stage Press, 2018
- Excerpt Published in Best Men's Stage Monologues by Smith & Kraus, 2018
- 3 Excerpts Published in Best Women's Stage Monologues by Smith & Kraus, 2018
- Produced by Threshold Repertory Theatre in Charleston, SC, 2019
Article about THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON at MAT Awards by The Union-Recorder (2019)
Article on the Suzi Award Winners by Kathy Janich of Fashionado Magazine (2018)
Article about THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON at MAT Awards by John Millsaps of GSU News Hub (2018)
Article about THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON at MAT Awards by John Thompson of Fayetteville Citizen (2018)
Official Winners List of the MAT Awards (2018)
Article about THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON at MAT Awards by Christopher Dunn of Fayette News (2018)
Article about THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON at MAT Awards by Tessa Green of Red and Black (2018)
Review of THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON at Onion Man Productions by Playgoer of TheaterReview.com (2017)
Press Release for THREE LADIES OF ORPINGTON at Threshold Repertory Theatre in Charleston, SC (2019)
