The Actor's Nightmare

"The Actor's Nightmare" is a short comic play by Christopher Durang. It involves an accountant named George Spelvin, who is mistaken for an actor's understudy and forced to perform in a play for which he doesn't know any of the lines. Spelvin is forced to improvise, but his confusion is amplified by the fact that he is never allowed to figure out what play he's in; the play actually incorporates scenes from Hamlet, A Man for all Seasons, Private Lives, and "Checkmate", a fictitious play by Samuel Beckett (which has echoes of actual Beckett plays).