The Great Cross-Country Race or The Hare and the Tortoise
by Alan Broadhurst

Play script adapted by Alan Broadhurst.

From England.

A lark, a merry chase, peopled with human-like animals who make better sense than people.

One exterior set, with interchanging set-pieces.

Animal and people costumes.

Cast of 9 animals, 6 F, 5 M.

Assembled for Sports Day, the animals can find nobody to compete with the fleet Hare in the cross-country race until the slow-moving Tortoise agrees to challenge him.

In the course of the race, the scatter-brained hare tends to get diverted by his encounters with members of the human race -- stopping to gorge on a Fisherman's picnic lunch, getting trapped in the urban-Notcouths' poaching bag, pausing to spy on a pair of "Soppy Dates," finally getting pinned up by the ears to Mrs. Stainer's clothes line -- while the Tortoise plods steadily and relentlessly on to the finish line.

Only the animals speak intelligible language.

The humans' gobble-de-gook is as incomprehensible to us as to our animal friends.