The Waterfront Players Repertory Company has announced that “In Juliet’s Garden,” a one-act play written by the company’s artistic director Judy Elliot McDonald, has been accepted for publication by Samuel French Inc.  

The play will be published in French’s subsidiary catalog Baker Plays, which publishes short plays for competition, colleges and high schools.

The play centers around a meeting of Shakespearean heroines who have come to express grievances about their storylines to a publisher. With an abundance of characters with something to complain about, McDonald wrote about her favorites: Juliet from “Romeo and Juliet,” Katharina from “The Taming of the Shrew,” Ophelia from “Hamlet,” Desdemona from “Othello” and Portia from “The Merchant of Venice.”

McDonald developed the play with the Waterfront Players initially in 2000 as part of the production “Suggested by Shakespeare.” The early version of the play was awarded production at the Festival of Inspired Shakespeare Shorts in Calgary, Canada, in 2002. McDonald also won a statewide contest the following year with a slightly expanded version of the play in McMinnville.

McDonald rewrote and expanded the play again in 2006 for a Waterfront Players production. The cast included Carolyn Agee, Rosalia D’Amato, Hilary Clayton, Aubrae Hathaway, Wavey Shaver, Marla Taylor and McDonald, who also directed.

This final version of the play will be available through Baker by July 1.