COSMAS AND DAMIAN
by Dana Hammer
Third century, Arabia. Cosmas and Damian are Christians who serve Jesus by providing medical care for everyone in town, for free! They are passionate, enthusiastic, and bold. However, their medical practices are less than safe, and when they perform a limb transplant using the sawed-off leg of a cadaver, they provoke anger from the other town doctor, who wants to see them banished. With a hilariously tragic cast of suffering villagers, Cosmas and Damian is a historically inaccurate play that deals with eye gouging, rabies, gangrene, and religious persecution in a way that will make everyone smile.
- Cast Size: 5M 4W
- Running Time: 90+ minutes
- Royalty Rate: $75 per performance
Order Digital Download (Will NOT download to phones, cannot be printed)
About the Playwright
Dana Hammer is a playwright, screenwriter, short story writer, and novelist. Her screenplay, Red Wings, has been optioned by EMA Films, and her adult horror-comedy novel, The Cannibal’s Guide to Fasting, was released in September, 2022 by Cinnabar Moth Publishing. Her middle grade novel, My Best Friend Athena, was published by Cinnabar Moth in 2023, with a sequel coming later this year. She was a Writer in Residence Hypatia in the Woods, in summer of 2022. She has received over seventy awards and honors for her writing, few of which generated income, all of which were deeply appreciated. Her works have been and will be published in many anthologies, journals, and magazines. Two of her one-act plays will be produced in 2024 by The Wayward Artist, and a few more of her one act plays have been produced by Force of Nature Productions. Many of her plays have received staged readings.
According to the Catholic Church, twin brothers Cosmas and Damian were Christian saints who practiced medicine in the third century and are reputed to have grafted a dead Ethiopian’s leg onto a living person, as they do in the play. From this meagre reportage, Dana Hammer has constructed a hilarious satire about medical rivalries, wandering wombs, and zealous misinterpretation of scripture. It is very funny in the reading and would be even more so in performance, since there are ample opportunities for character actors of any ethnicity or gender to engage in whatever comic schtick they can come up with.
Review Cosmas and Damian.