Things don’t go to plan, and the specimen is far from perfect.

Milner’s ‘Frankenstein or, The Man and the Monster’ (1826)īased off of Mary Shelley’s novel ‘Frankenstein or, the Modern Prometheus’, Milner’s ‘Frankenstein or, The Man and the Monster’ follows the story of a gifted scientist and his journey in creating a living entity. Fancy reading them? Links have also been provided, so check them out! So exactly which stories of the past are now in the public domain? Our Theatre Haus team have compiled a list of 20 shows, all of differing variations, which are available. In addition, theatremakers are encouraged to be respectful to playwrights of the past, to give credit where credit is due, and to ensure reproductions of historic pieces are not just legal, but ethical. This is, however, not extended to adaptations or modern revisions of the text, so theatremakers should still be mindful of the scripts they utilise. Well, a public domain work can be produced, reinterpreted, or recreated without the need to pay royalties. But what does this mean for theatremakers? While there are exemptions to this rule, most works written by an author who died before 1950 can be considered part of the public domain. In Australia, works are generally no longer under copyright once the author has been deceased for more than 70 years. They say that every romance is a recreation of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and every tragedy linked to ‘Macbeth’, but there is something invigorating about bringing old scripts to life, particularly when their status in the public domain gives the creative team an extended licence to reimagine the stories.

30 minute plays with free scripts