Robert Louis Stevenson, author
Frederick Gaines, playwright

72 pgs. 1 female, 9 male +ensemble
Originally produced in CTC's 1970-71 season
Doubling is possible

The story of Treasure Island launched the popular iconography of pirates including treasure maps and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders. The tale begins with young Jim Hawkins who helps his mother run their inn, the Admiral Benbow, and their customer, an old and menacing sea captain called Billy Bones. Bones tells Jim to keep an eye out for a man with one leg who's looking for Bones and the treasure map of Captain John Flint. One day a man named Black Dog comes looking for Bones. The men scuffle and Black Dog escapes, but Bones collapses of a stroke. Bones warns Hawkins and Dr. Livesey, an aristocratic patron of the inn, that others are coming as he has been given the black spot (a pirate death sentence), and gives Jim his chest to hide from them. As the first of the old crew comes for Billy Bones he dies. Jim and his mother narrowly escape Bones' old crew and discover the treasure map in Bones' chest.
Jim shows the treasure map to Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney, and they excitedly decide to put together a crew to collect Captain Flint's treasure from Skeleton Island. The crew includes Captain Smollett, John Silver, and several other pirates. Before they set sail, Smollett warns that he fears a mutiny as he's learned the crew knows of the treasure. He sends Jim to work with John Silver, the 'cook', in the galley. At sea, Jim overhears Silver and other pirates plan for a mutiny. Jim tells Smollett of the plans, then sneaks into the pirates' boat and goes ashore with them. When they arrive at Skeleton Island, Jim runs off and hides and witnesses Silver murder a pirate who refuses to join the mutiny. As Jim tries to flee he runs into Ben Gunn, a crazy rhyming pirate from Captain Flint's original crew who has been marooned on the island for three years.
Meanwhile, the aristocrats have lost their ship after coming ashore to find Jim. They have a gunfire duel with the Pirates, injuring both Silver and Smollett. Jim takes a chance and steals Gunn's boat to find the ship. Jim gets to the ship to find two drunk pirates fighting, one killing the other. Aboard the ship, Jim is forced to kill the remaining pirate to save his own life. When he returns to the stockade, Jim finds it's been occupied by the pirates. Silver tries to convince Jim to join them, and when he refuses Silver takes him hostage in an effort to save both of their lives. The pirates continue the search for the treasure, but as they finally get close they hear a ghostly voice (Ben Gunn speaking into a conch shell). Silver directs the pirates to a phony treasure spot, and the aristocrats come out of an ambush and with the help of Silver kill all of the pirates. Gunn helped them find the real treasure. Jim tells the aristocrats that Silver saved his life, which in turn saves Silver's life. In the end Jim learns what it really means to live a pirate's life.