Happy Birthday Dear Maggie
Maggie is travelling for business while her husband undergoes major surgery. It’s her birthday. She finds herself accidentally spending time in a hotel room with Aldrin, a clown who has a corporate gig that evening at the hotel. Her husband has been in a wheelchair since he broke his back on her birthday two years earlier. Today he’s having surgery to relieve his excruciating pain. But there are risks: the surgery could leave him paralyzed for life if it goes wrong. Maggie has chosen not to be with him. Aldrin the clown helps her deal with her feelings about birthdays as they come to understand that sometimes life-saving miracles can be weird.
Themes and issues
Bad marriages, abusive relationships, isolation, romance, clowns.
Production history
Selected from more than five hundred scripts by a team of producers, directors, writers and actors, Happy Birthday Dear Maggie is a featured theatre podcast by US-based Broken Arts Entertainment. It appears in the audio anthology series Loved Ones, season three in 2026.
Happy Birthday Dear Maggie can be heard at brokenartsentertainment.com and at the BAE channels (Broken Arts Entertainment) on YouTube, Spotify and other podcast platforms.
The play made its Canadian stage debut at the Left of Centre Festival produced by IT Productions, Brantford, Ontario, 2026. It will make its UK stage debut in October 2026 as a showcased presentation at Thestival, produced by the Butter Side Up Theatre Company in Sheffield, UK.
Genre
Black comedy, satire.
Acts and run time
One act, approximately 19 minutes.
Cast
Two actors (1 woman, 1 man). Roles may be cast with actors of any race.
Note on playing Aldrin as a clown
Aldrin is a professional clown and would have typical “clown” accessories to support his prop-based gags. A large tote bag that holds his stuff would be useful. The descriptions of the clown “props” in the script are suggestive not prescriptive. It’s not essential that they be exactly as described so long as they allow the actor to complete the gags.
For example, Aldrin’s large magnifying glass could instead be giant glasses or binoculars he uses to inspect Maggie’s face. The over-sized watch he pulls from his bag might be a large mantel or wall clock. The bouquet of flowers he presents to Maggie could be any sort of foam gag flowers such as red noses on stems or a dancing sunflower in a pot.
Performance rights
You may download a perusal copy of this copyrighted play for review. Performance rights inquiries to the playwright at rights@rbws.ca or the Playwrights Guild of Canada at playwrightsguild.ca.
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