THE EXCHANGE BY ALTHEA THURSTON

The Exchange is reprinted by permission of Althea Thurston. This play is one of the farces written in the Course in Dramatic Composition (English 109) in the University of Utah. For permission to perform, address B. Roland Lewis, Department of English, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

ALTHEA THURSTON

Althea Cooms-Thurston, one of the promising writers of the younger set of American dramatists, was born in Iowa, but soon moved with her parents to Colorado, where she spent her girlhood. She was educated in the public schools of Colorado Springs and Denver. Her collegiate training was received in the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. In 1902 she married Walter R. Thurston, a well-known engineer. At present she resides in Dallas, Texas.

Mrs. Thurston has travelled widely and has resided for periods of time in Mexico City and Havana, Cuba. She is an able linguist and has made a special study of her native English tongue and of Spanish and French, all of which she uses fluently.

From childhood she has shown dramatic ability. Her dramatic composition has been more or less directly associated with the courses in playwriting and the history of the drama which she completed in the University of Utah. Among her one-act plays are When a Man's Hungry, And the Devil Laughs, and The Exchange.

Mrs. Thurston has an aptitude for delicate and satirical farce. The Exchange is an excellent example of farce-comedy in the contemporary one-act play.

CHARACTERS

Judge, the exchanger of miseries

Imp, office boy to the Judge

A Poor Man

A Vain Woman

A Rich Citizen