What is The Tale of Tales play?

Around this time last year, I announced the premiere of a brand new play, The Tale of Tales. Considering I’m in the midst of a many year project of adapting Giambattista Basile’s Tale of Tales collection in a dozen different ways, people were confused as that could be the title of a lot of different things I’ve been working on. What exactly is this play?

Well, I’m finally making it available to the public so now’s the best time to see for yourself!

The Tale of Tales

By Hillary DePiano

Adapted from the collection of fairy tales by Giambattista Basile

Comedy, 4-100+ actors possible
Customizable Length (10 min-2+ hours possible)

It’s a highly customizable play that can be done with as few as four actors but has over 100 possible speaking roles. Like David Ives’s All In The Timing for modernized commedia-style fairy tales, it’s designed for you to Mix and Match the individual tales to create the show that best fits your needs when it comes to content, casting and time. Perform as many or as few of the parts as you wish and in any order, to build your ideal evening. With flexible staging and gender casting, lots of room for an ensemble and opportunities for improvisation, puppets and other creative elements, you’re going to love how much you’ll be able to make this show your own. Those of you that know my adaptations of The Love of Three Oranges or The Green Bird will find that this has a similar wacky comedy style with lots of modern references to appeal to an audience of today.

If the name of this play sounds familiar, it’s because there was also an award winning film adaption of this collection starring big names like Salma Hayek and John C. Reilly which came out in the US last year. Though the tales in the movie aren’t any of the ones I’ve adapted (so far anyway), the name recognition is still a draw you can use to fill seats!

While I’ll be adding to the pool of plays available as I finish adapting new tales, here’s what’s ready to go right now…


(click any image above for more details)

I’d love for you to have a free perusal copy of this play! Email me here to request one.