New Books in Theatre 2020-2021
Below is a list of books added to the collection from September 2020 to April 2021.
See the list of Playscripts and Monologue Collections below.
American Theatre Ensembles Volume 1: 1970-1995. Mabou Mines, Theatre X, Goat Island, Lookingglass, Elevator Repair Service and Siti Company by
Across two volumes, Mike Vanden Heuvel and a strong roster of contributors present the history, processes, and achievements of American theatre companies renowned for their use of collective and/or ensemble-based techniques to generate new work. This first study considers theatre companies that were working between 1970 and 1995- it traces the rise and eventual diversification of activist-based companies that emerged to serve particular constituencies from the countercultural politics of the 1960s, and examines the shift in the 1980s that gave rise to the next generation of company-based work, rooted in a new interest in form and the more mediated and dispersed forms of politics. Ensembles examined are Mabou Mines, Theatre X, Goat Island, Lookingglass, Elevator Repair Service, and SITI Company. Preliminary chapters provide a sweeping overview of ensemble-based creation within the general historical and cultural contexts of the period, followed by a detailed study of the evolution of ensemble-based work. The case studies consider factors such as influence, funding, production, and legacies, as well as the forms of collective devising and creation, while surveying the continuing work of significant long-running companies. Contributors provide detailed case studies of the 6 companies from the period and cover- * A chronicle of development and methods * Key productions and projects * Critical reception and legacy * A chronological overview of significant productions From the long history of collective theatre creation, with its sources in social crises, urgent aesthetic experimentation and utopian dreaming, American ensemble-based theatre has emerged at several key points in history to challenge the primacy of author-based and director-produced theatre. As the volume demonstrates, US ensemble companies have collectively revolutionized the form and content of contemporary performance, influencing experimental, as well as mainstream practice.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1350051543Publication Date: 2020-11-12
American Theatre Ensembles Volume 2: Post-1995 : the Builders Association, Pig Iron Theatre, Rude Mechs, Radiohole, the Civilians, and 600 Highwaymen by
A companion to American Theatre Ensembles Volume 1, this volume charts the development and achievements of theatre companies working after 1995, bringing together the diffuse generation of ensembles working within a context of media saturation and epistemological and social fragmentation. Ensembles examined include Rude Mechs, The Builders Association, Pig Iron, Radiohole, The Civilians and 600 Highwaymen. Introductory chapters provide a sweeping overview of ensemble-based creation within the general historical and cultural contexts of the period, followed by a detailed study of the evolution of ensemble-based work. Contributors examine matters such as influence, funding, production and legacies, as well as the forms of collective devising and creation, while presenting close readings of the companies' most prominent works. The volume features detailed case studies of the 6 companies from the period and cover- * A history of development and methods * Key productions and projects * Critical reception * A chronology of significant productions US ensemble companies since 1995 have revolutionized the form and content of contemporary performance, influencing experimental as well as mainstream practice. This volume provides the first encompassing study of this vital development in contemporary American theatre by mapping its evolution and key developments.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1350051632Publication Date: 2021-02-11
Contemporary Women Stage Directors by
Contemporary Women Stage Directors opens the door into the minds of 27 prolific female theatre directors, allowing you to explore their experience, wisdom and knowledge. Directors give insight into their diverse approaches to the key challenges of directing theatre, including choosing projects, engaging with scripts, conceptualizing visual and acoustic production elements, collaborating with actors and production teams, building their careers, and navigating challenges and opportunities posed by gender, race and ethnicity. The directors featured include Maria Aberg, May Adrales, Sarah Benson, Karin Coonrod, Rachel Chavkin, Lear deBessonet, Nadia Fall, Vicky Featherstone, Polly Findlay, Leah Gardiner, Anne Kauffman, Lucy Kerbel, Young Jean Lee, Patricia McGregor, Blanche McIntyre, Paulette Randall, Diane Rodriguez, Indhu Rubasingham, KJ Sanchez, Tina Satter, Kimberly Senior, Roxana Silbert, Leigh Silverman, Caroline Steinbeis, Liesl Tommy, Lyndsey Turner, and Erica Whyman.These women are making profoundly exciting theatre in some of the most influential organizations across the English-speaking world-from Broadway to the West End, from the National Theatre in London to Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. As generally mid-career professionals, they are informed by both their hard-earned expertise and their forward-looking energy. They offer astute observations about the current state of the art form, as well as inspiring visions of what theatre can accomplish in the decades to come.
Call Number: Available ONLINE and in print: PAC PN2053 .M3725 2019ISBN: 9781474268547Publication Date: 2019-03-21
Critical Companion to Native American and First Nations Theatre and Performance by
This foundational study offers an accessible introduction to Native American and First Nations theatre by drawing on critical Indigenous and dramaturgical frameworks. It is the first major survey book to introduce Native artists, plays, and theatres within their cultural, aesthetic, spiritual, and socio-political contexts. Native American and First Nations theatre weaves the spiritual and aesthetic traditions of Native cultures into diverse, dynamic, contemporary plays that enact Indigenous human rights through the plays' visionary styles of dramaturgy and performance. The book begins by introducing readers to historical and cultural contexts helpful for reading Native American and First Nations drama, followed by an overview of Indigenous plays and theatre artists from across the century. Finally, it points forward to the ways in which Native American and First Nations theatre artists are continuing to create works that advocate for human rights through transformative Native performance practices.Addressing the complexities of this dynamic field, this volume offers critical grounding in the historical development of Indigenous theatre in North America, while analysing key Native plays and performance traditions from the mainland United States and Canada. In surveying Native theatre from the late 19th century until today, the authors explore the cultural, aesthetic, and spiritual concerns, as well as the political and revitalization efforts of Indigenous peoples. This book frames the major themes of the genre and identifies how such themes are present in the dramaturgy, rehearsal practices, and performance histories of key Native scripts.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781350035072Publication Date: 2019-10-03
Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy by
Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy offers fresh perspectives on how dramaturgs can support a production beyond rigid disciplinary expectations about what information and ideas are useful and how they should be shared. The sixteen contributors to this volume offer personal windows into dramaturgy practice, encouraging theater practitioners, students, and general theater-lovers to imagine themselves as dramaturgs newly inspired by the encounters and enquiries that are the juice of contemporary theater. Each case study is written by a dramaturg whose body of work explores important issues of race, cultural equity, and culturally-specific practices within a wide range of conventions, venues, and communities. The contributors demonstrate the unique capacity of their craft to straddle the ravine between stage and stalls, intention and impact. By unpacking, in the most up-to-date ways, the central question of "Why this play, at this time, for this audience?," this collection provides valuable insights and dramaturgy tools for scholars and students of Dramaturgy, Directing, and Theater Studies.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780429445316Publication Date: 2020-03-25
Holocaust Theater: dramatizing survivor trauma and its effects on the second generation by
Facts about the Holocaust are one way of learning about its devastating impact, but presenting personal manifestations of trauma can be more effective than citing statistics. Holocaust Theater addresses a selection of contemporary plays about the Holocaust, examining how collective and individual trauma is represented in dramatic texts, and considering the ways in which spectators might be swayed viscerally, intellectually, and emotionally by witnessing such representations onstage. Drawing on interviews with a number of the playwrights alongside psychoanalytic studies of survivor trauma, this volume seeks to foster understanding of the traumatic effects of the Holocaust on subsequent generations. Holocaust Theater offers a vital account of theater's capacity to represent the effects of Holocaust trauma.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1351596098Publication Date: 2017-12-22
Inclusive Character Analysis: Putting Theory into Practice for the 21st Century Theatre Classroom by
"Inclusive Character Analysis foregrounds representations of race, gender, class, ability, and sexual orientation by blending script analysis with a variety of critical theories in order to create a more inclusive performance practice for the classroom and the stage. This book merges a traditional Stanislavski-based play analysis with multiple theoretical frameworks, such as Gender Theory, Standpoint Theory, and Critical Race Theory, to give students in early level theatre courses foundational skills for analyzing a play, while also introducing them to contemporary thought about race, gender, and identity. Inclusive Character Analysis is a valuable resource for beginning acting courses, script analysis courses, the directing classroom, early design curriculum, dramaturgical explorations, the playwriting classroom, and introduction to performance studies classes. Additionally, the book offers a reader-style background on theoretical frames for performance faculty and practitioners who may need assistance to integrate non-performance centered theory into their classrooms"--
Call Number: PAC PN2075 .T56 2021ISBN: 9780367358327Publication Date: 2020-12-01
Introduction to Puppetry Arts by
Introduction to Puppetry Arts shares the history, cultures, and traditions surrounding the ancient performance art of puppetry, along with an overview of puppet construction and performance techniques used around the world. From its earliest beginnings in the ancient Middle East and Asia, through its representations in Medieval/Renaissance Europe, up until its modern-day appearances in theatre, television, and film, this book offers a thorough overview of how this fascinating art form originated and evolved. It also includes easy-to-follow instructions on how to create puppets for performance and display and an in-depth resource list and bibliography for further research and information. Written for students in puppetry arts and stagecraft courses, Introduction to Puppetry Arts offers a comprehensive look at this enduring craft and provides a starting point for creating a wide range of puppets, from marionettes and hand puppets to mascots and character costumes.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780429442858Publication Date: 2019-11-13
Macbeth in Harlem : Black Theater in America from the Beginning to Raisin in the Sun by Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1978810024Publication Date: 2020
The Mikado to Matilda: British Musicals on the New York Stage by
In The Mikado to Matilda: British Musicals on the New York Stage, Thomas Hischak provides an overview of British musicals that made their way to Broadway, covering their entire history up to the present day. This is the first book to look at the British musical theatre with reference to those London musicals that were also produced in New York City. The book covers 110 British musicals, ranging from 1750 to the present day, including the popular Gilbert and Sullivan comic operettas during the Victorian era, the Andrew Lloyd Webber mega-musicals of the late twentieth century, and today's biggest hits such as Matilda. Each London musical is discussed first as a success in England and then how it fared in America. The plots, songs, songwriters, performers, and producers for both the West End and the Broadway (or Off Broadway) production are identified and described. The discussion is sometimes critical, evaluating the musicals and why they were or were not a success in New York.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781538126066Publication Date: 2020-05-29
Movement Directors in Contemporary Theatre: Conversations on Craft by
'When directors understand the value of a movement director they remove any sense of hierarchy within the room and place movement directors firmly by their side for they are and should be their co-pilot, navigating and creating the world of the play.' Joan Iyiola Movement directors work with the physical, living bodies at the heart of theatre productions, creating movement languages with actors and directors. Through a series of in-depth interviews with leading theatre practitioners, Ayse Tashkiran charts the growth of the movement director in contemporary theatre. The voices of Jane Gibson, Sue Lefton, Kate Flatt, Toby Sedgwick, Si n Williams, Struan Leslie, Ellen Kane, Peter Darling, Steven Hoggett, Ann Yee, Imogen Knight and Shelley Maxwell explore processes of creativity, collaboration and innovation for the moving body in performance. The conversations open up- Growth of movement direction through the 20th century New insights into embodied theatre practice Diverse movement approaches and creative preparation Physical trainings and influences Working methods with directors and actors in the rehearsal room Movement for actors in opera, film, television and musical theatre Relationships between movement direction and theatre choreography Potential future developments in the field
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781350054455Publication Date: 2020-07-09
New York's Yiddish Theater by
In the early decades of the twentieth century, a vibrant theatrical culture took shape on New York City's Lower East Side. Original dramas, comedies, musicals, and vaudeville, along with sophisticated productions of Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov, were innovatively staged for crowds that rivaled the audiences on Broadway. Though these productions were in Yiddish and catered to Eastern European, Jewish audiences (the largest immigrant group in the city at the time), their artistic innovations, energetic style, and engagement with politics and the world around them came to influence all facets of the American stage. Vividly illustrated and with essays from leading historians and critics, this book recounts the heyday of "Yiddish Broadway" and its vital contribution to American Jewish life and crossover to the broader American culture. These performances grappled with Jewish nationalism, labor relations, women's rights, religious observance, acculturation, and assimilation. They reflected a range of genres, from tear-jerkers to experimental theater. The artists who came of age in this world include Stella Adler, Eddie Cantor, Jerry Lewis, Sophie Tucker, Mel Brooks, and Joan Rivers. The story of New York's Yiddish theater is a tale of creativity and legacy and of immigrants who, in the process of becoming Americans, had an enormous impact on the country's cultural and artistic development.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780231541077Publication Date: 2016-03-08
Pina Bausch and Dance Theater: Company, Artistic Practices, and Reception by
Pina Bausch and Dance Theater. The Art of Translating offers new and ground-breaking perspectives on the work of the Tanztheater Wuppertal. The development and performance of its oeuvre, the passing on of choreographic material and reactions by the public are presented as complex, interdependent, and reciprocal processes of translation. For the very first time, this book focuses on the artistic research involved in the company's international co-productions and features extensive empirical material in form of interviews with dancers, collaborators, and spectators, as well as ethnographic insights. This book introduces a praxeology of cultural and aesthetic translation as a viable key concept for research into dance and art.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9783839450550Publication Date: 2020-06-08
The Polish Theatre of the Holocaust by
Grzegorz Niziolek's The Polish Theatre of the Holocaust is a pioneering analysis of the impact and legacy of the Holocaust on Polish theatre and society from 1945 to the present. It reveals the role of theatre as a crucial medium of collective memory - and collective forgetting - of the trauma of the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis on Polish soil. The period gave rise to two of the most radical and influential theatrical ideas during work on productions that addressed the subject of the Holocaust - Grotowski's Poor Theatre and Kantor's Theatre of Death - but the author examines a deeper impact in the role that theatre played in the processes of collective disavowal to being a witness to others' suffering. In the first part, the author examines six decades of Polish theatre shaped by the perspective of the Holocaust in which its presence is variously visible or displaced. Particular attention is paid to the various types of distortion and the effect of 'wrong seeing' enacted in the theatre, as well as the traces of affective reception: shock, heightened empathy, indifference. In part two, Niziolek examines a range of theatrical events, including productions by Leon Schiller, Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeusz Kantor, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Warlikowski and Ondrej Spisák. He considers how these productions confronted the experience of bearing witness and were profoundly shaped by the legacy of the Holocaust.The Polish Theatre of the Holocaust reveals how -- by testifying about society's experience of the Holocaust -- theatre has been the setting for fundamental processes taking place within Polish culture as it confronts suppressed traumatic wartime experiences and a collective identity shaped by the past.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781350039681Publication Date: 2019-05-30
Puppetry in Theater by
The creation and manipulation of puppets for a play is a fine art. Perhaps the most famous puppets today are the Muppets, but the use of puppets has a long history in entertainment. Readers learn some of the finer points in how to make and move these wonderful creations.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781502630063Publication Date: 2017-12-15
Puppetry in Theatre and Arts Education by
Connecting the art of puppetry with deeper learning for children, this workbook offers a comprehensive guide on how to bring puppetry into the classroom. It places puppet design, construction and manipulation at the heart of arts education and as a key contributor to 'manual intelligence' in young people. Packed with practical, illustrated exercises using materials and technology readily available to teachers, Puppetry in Theatre and Arts Education shows you how the craft can enliven and enrich any classroom environment, and offers helpful links between puppetry, the curriculum and other aspects of education. Informed by developments in assessments and cognitive research, this book features approachable puppetry activities, educational strategies and lesson plans for teachers that expand any syllabus and unlock new methods of learning, including- - Making puppets from basic materials and everyday objects - Puppetizing children's literature - Puppetizing science - Film-making with puppets Puppetry in Theatre and Arts Education is a core text for arts education courses as well as an essential addition to any teacher's arsenal of teaching strategies.
Call Number: PN1979.E4 S65 2019ISBN: 9781350012912Publication Date: 2019-02-21
Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal by
Between 1935 and 1939, the United States government paid out-of-work artists to write, act, and stage theatre as part of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), a New Deal job relief program. In segregated "Negro Units" set up under the FTP, African American artists took on theatre work usually reserved for whites, staged black versions of "white" classics, and developed radical new dramas. In this fresh history of the FTP Negro Units, Kate Dossett examines what she calls the black performance community--a broad network of actors, dramatists, audiences, critics, and community activists--who made and remade black theatre manuscripts for the Negro Units and other theatre companies from New York to Seattle. Tracing how African American playwrights and troupes developed these manuscripts and how they were then contested, revised, and reinterpreted, Dossett argues that these texts constitute an archive of black agency, and understanding their history allows us to consider black dramas on their own terms. The cultural and intellectual labor of black theatre artists was at the heart of radical politics in 1930s America, and their work became an important battleground in a turbulent decade.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1469654423Publication Date: 2020-02-24
The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance by
The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance is an outstanding collection of specially written essays that charts the emergence, development, and diversity of African American Theatre and Performance--from the nineteenth-century African Grove Theatre to Afrofuturism. Alongside chapters from scholars are contributions from theatre makers, including producers, theatre managers, choreographers, directors, designers, and critics. This ambitious Companion includes: A "Timeline of African American theatre and performance." Part I "Seeing ourselves onstage" explores the important experience of Black theatrical self-representation. Analyses of diverse topics including historical dramas, Broadway musicals, and experimental theatre allow readers to discover expansive articulations of Blackness. Part II "Institution building" highlights institutions that have nurtured Black people both on stage and behind the scenes. Topics include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), festivals, and black actor training. Part III "Theatre and social change" surveys key moments when Black people harnessed the power of theatre to affirm community realities and posit new representations for themselves and the nation as a whole. Topics include Du Bois and African Muslims, women of the Black Arts Movement, Afro-Latinx theatre, youth theatre, and operatic sustenance for an Afro future. Part IV "Expanding the traditional stage" examines Black performance traditions that privilege Black worldviews, sense-making, rituals, and innovation in everyday life. This section explores performances that prefer the space of the kitchen, classroom, club, or field. This book engages a wide audience of scholars, students, and theatre practitioners with its unprecedented breadth. More than anything, these invaluable insights not only offer a window onto the processes of producing work, but also the labour and economic issues that have shaped and enabled African American theatre.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781315191225Publication Date: 2018-12-07
The Sense of Brown by
The Sense of Brown is José Esteban Muñoz's treatise on brownness and being as well as his most direct address to queer Latinx studies. In this book, which he was completing at the time of his death, Muñoz examines the work of playwrights Ricardo Bracho and Nilo Cruz, artists Nao Bustamante, Isaac Julien, and Tania Bruguera, and singer José Feliciano, among others, arguing for a sense of brownness that is not fixed within the racial and national contours of Latinidad. This sense of brown is not about the individualized brown subject; rather, it demonstrates that for brown peoples, being exists within what Muñoz calls the brown commons--a lifeworld, queer ecology, and form of collectivity. In analyzing minoritarian affect, ethnicity as a structure of feeling, and brown feelings as they emerge in, through, and beside art and performance, Muñoz illustrates how the sense of brown serves as the basis for other ways of knowing and being in the world.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1478011033Publication Date: 2020-10-02
Sistuhs in the Struggle: An Oral History of Black Arts Movement Theater and Performance by
The first oral history to fully explore the contributions of Black women intellectuals to the Black Arts Movement, Sistuhs in the Struggle reclaims a vital yet under-researched chapter in African American, women's, and theater history. This groundbreaking study documents how Black women theater artists and activists--many of whom worked behind the scenes as directors, designers, producers, stage managers, and artistic directors--disseminated the Black aesthetic and emboldened their communities. Drawing on nearly thirty original interviews with well-known artists such as Ntozake Shange and Sonia Sanchez as well as less-studied figures including distinguished lighting designer Shirley Prendergast, dancer and choreographer Halifu Osumare, and three-time Tony-nominated writer and composer Micki Grant, La Donna L. Forsgren centers Black women's cultural work as a crucial component of civil rights and Black power activism. Sistuhs in the Struggle is an essential collection for theater scholars, historians, and students interested in learning how Black women's art and activism both advanced and critiqued the ethos of the Black Arts and Black Power movements.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780810142572Publication Date: 2020-10-15
Staging Holocaust Resistance by
Plunka argues that drama is the ideal art form to revitalize the collective memory of Holocaust resistance. This comparative drama study examines a variety of international plays - some quite well-known, others more obscure - that focus on collective or individual defiance of the Nazis.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781137000613Publication Date: 2012-04-24
Theater in the Middle East: Between Performance and Politics by
The collected essays from noteworthy dramatists and scholars in this book represent new ways of understanding theater in the Middle East not as geographical but transcultural spaces of performance. What distinguishes this book from previous works is that it offers new analysis on a range of theatrical practices across a region, by and large, ignored for the history of its dramatic traditions and cultures, and it does so by emphasizing diverse performances in changing contexts. Topics include Arab, Iranian, Israeli, diasporic theatres from pedagogical perspectives to reinvention of traditions, from translation practices to political resistance expressed in various performances from the nineteenth century to the present.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781785274480Publication Date: 2020-07-27
The Theatre and Its Double by Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781847493323Publication Date: 2013
Theatrical Performance During the Holocaust by
This new anthology traces the multifaceted evolution of Heiner M#65533;ller the playwright, poet, and eloquent observer of his century's violent trajectory. The writings collected here range from M#65533;ller's earliest work, including short stories and early poems from the 1950s, to some of his last works, including Germania 3Ghosts at Dead Man. His work presents a phantasmagoric vision of culture and history.
Call Number: Coming Soon in Print!ISBN: 9781555540746Publication Date: 2006-04-01
Theory for Theatre Studies: Sound by
Sound provides a lively and engaging overview of relevant critical theory for students and researchers in theatre and performance studies. Addressing sound across history and through progressive developments in relevant technologies, the volume opens up the study of theatrical production and live performance to understand conceptual and pragmatic concerns about the sonic. By way of developed case studies (including Aristophanes's The Frogs, Shakespeare's The Tempest, Cocteau's The Human Voice, and Rimini Protokoll's Situation Rooms), readers can explore new methodologies and approaches for their own work on sound as a performance component. In an engagement with the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of sound studies, this book samples exciting new thinking relevant to theatre and performance studies. Part of the Theory for Theatre Studies series which introduces core theoretical concepts that underpin the discipline, Sound provides a balance of essential background information and new scholarship, and is grounded in detailed examples that illuminate and equip readers for their own sonic explorations. Volumes follow a consistent three-part structure: a historical overview of how the term has been understood within the discipline; more recent developments illustrated by substantive case studies; and emergent trends and interdisciplinary connections. Volumes are supported by further online resources including chapter overviews, illustrative material and guiding questions. Online resources to accompany this book are available at: https://bloomsbury.com/uk/theory-for-theatre-studies-sound-9781474246460/
Call Number: PAC PN2091.S6 B46 2019ISBN: 9781474246477Publication Date: 2019-05-16
Western Theatre in Global Contexts: directing and teaching culturally inclusive drama around the world by
Western Theatre in Global Contexts explores the junctures, tensions, and discoveries that occur when teaching Western theatrical practices or directing English-language plays in countries that do not share Western theatre histories or in which English is the non-dominant language. This edited volume examines pedagogical discoveries and teaching methods, how to produce specific plays and musicals, and how students who explore Western practices in non-Western places contribute to the art form. Offering on-the-ground perspectives of teaching and working outside of North American and Europe, the book analyzes the importance of paying attention to the local context when developing theatrical practice and education. It also explores how educators and artists who make deep connections in the local culture can facilitate ethical accessibility to western models of performance for students, practitioners, and audiences. Western Theatre in Global Contexts is an excellent resource for scholars, artists, and teachers that are working abroad or on intercultural projects in theater, education, and the arts.
Call Number: PN2075 .W44 2021ISBN: 9780367204976Publication Date: 2020-08-01
New Playscripts and Monologue Collections 2020-2021
- American Blues by THE STORIES: MOONY'S KID DON'T CRY. A short play about a worker, his wife and child. (1 man, 1 woman.) THE DARK ROOM. A tragic sketch about an Italian woman and a welfare worker. (1 man, 2 women.) THE CASE OF THE CRUSHED PETUNIAS. A delightful, humCall Number: PAC Script PS3545.I5365 A65ISBN: 0822200252Publication Date: 1990-10-01
Audition Arsenal for Men in Their 20's by Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781937738105Publication Date: 2005-10-01
Audition Arsenal for Men in Their 30's by Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781937738129Publication Date: 2005-10-01
Audition Arsenal for Women in Their 20's by Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781937738143Publication Date: 2005-10-01
Audition Arsenal for Women in Their 30's by Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781937738082Publication Date: 2005-10-01
Barbecue / Bootycandy by
"Searing and sensationally funny... As raw in its language and raucous in spirit as it is smart and provocative."--The New York Times "Funny, smutty and enticingly subversive. . . . A toxically satiric portrait of American life."--Washington Post "When I told my mother that a theater was putting on my play Bootycandy, her response was, 'What?! Bootycandy? These white folks are going to let you put on a play called Bootycandy?!? Are they crazy?' And my response was, 'Yes. Yes indeed.'"--Robert O'Hara Sutter is on an outrageous odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms, and even nursing homes. The journey uncovers characters who are at once fascinating, zany, controversial, and even a bit smutty, painting a portrait of life as a societal outlier. Based on the author's personal experience, Bootycandy is a kaleidoscope of sketches that interconnects to portray growing up gay and black. This subversive, uproarious satire crashes headlong into the murky terrain of pain and pleasure and . . . BOOTYCANDY! Robert O'Hara is a playwright and director. His play Antebellum received a world premiere production from Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, and earned him a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play. He reworked The Wiz for its revival at La Jolla Playhouse. He wrote and directed the world premiere of Insurrection: Holding History (Public Theater, Oppenheimer Award for Best New American Play). As a director, he has won an Obie Award and an NAACP Best Director Award and has worked at acclaimed theaters throughout the United States.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1559364955Publication Date: 2016-11-15
Blood Knot and Other Plays by
These three Port Elizabeth plays, which established South African playwright Athol Fugard's international reputation more than twenty years ago, examine with passion and grace close family relationships strained almost unendurably by the harshest of economic and political conditions. "A rare playwright, who could be a primary candidate for either the Nobel Prize in Literature or the Nobel Peace Prize."--Mel Gussow, The New Yorker
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781559366878Publication Date: 1993-01-01
The Children by
Lucy Kirkwood's play The Children premiered at the Royal Court, London, in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs on 17 November 2016, in a production directed by James Macdonald.The Children was named Best Play at the 2018 Writers' Guild Awards.
Call Number: Available ONLINE and in print: PR6111.I76 C45 2017ISBN: 9781848426184Publication Date: 2017-09-12
Chinglish by
Acclaimed playwright David Henry Hwang’s hilarious comedy Chinglish has been described as "a sly, funny, multi-tiered joke with a laugh-out-loud surface that conceals a movingly somber aftertaste” (Village Voice) and "a triumph in any language” (New York Magazine). Springing from the author's personal experiences in China, Chinglish follows a Midwestern American businessman desperately seeking to score a lucrative contact for his family's firm as he travels to China, only to discover how much he doesn't understand. Named for the unique and often comical third language that evolves from attempts to translate Chinese signs into English, Chinglish explores the challenges of doing business in a country whose language--and underlying cultural assumptions--are worlds apart from our own. David Henry Hwang's "best new work since M. Butterfly, this shrewd, timely and razor-sharp comedy" (Chicago Tribune) received its Broadway premiere in fall 2011, and a film adaptation is currently in development. David Henry Hwang is the author of the Tony Award-winning M. Butterfly, Yellow Face (OBIE Award, 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalist), Golden Child (1997 OBIE Award), FOB (1981 OBIE Award), Family Devotions (Drama Desk nomination), and the books for musicals Aida ( co-author), Flower Drum Song (2002 Broadway revival), and Tarzan, among other works. David Henry Hwang graduated from Stanford University, attended the Yale School of Drama, and holds honorary degrees from Columbia College in Chicago and The American Conservatory Theatre. He lives in New York City with his wife, actress Kathryn Layng, and their children, Noah David and Eva Veanne.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781559364263Publication Date: 2012-06-05
Collaborators by
This "gripping, disturbing, and often blackly comic drama" explores the historic connection between Stalin and Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov (The Daily Telegraph, UK). A "rare and special" play by the screenwriter of Trainspotting and Shallow Grave, Collaborators is inspired by the true story of another play: one that Mikhail Bulgakov was forced to write in commemoration Joseph Stalin's sixtieth birthday (The Times, UK). Moscow, 1938. Stalin has been in power for sixteen years and his purges are underway. Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is lying unpublished in a desk drawer, and his latest play Molière has been banned following terrible reviews in Pravda. As a secret policeman dryly puts it, this has opened up a convenient "gap in his schedule." This "gap" is to be filled by writing a play about Stalin's life. As Bulgakov loses himself in a world of secrets, threats, and paradoxes, he begins to fall ill from kidney disease. His feverish dreams of conversations with Stalin become reality in his mind, just as the state's lies become truths in his play. Collaborators is a darkly comic portrait of the impossible choices facing an artist living under dictatorship, and a surreal journey into the imagination of a writer as he loses himself in the subject of his drama. Winner of the 2012 Laurence Olivier Awards Best New Play
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780802193988Publication Date: 2013-01-15
Contemporary Monologues for Teenagers: Female by
Playwrights include Vivienne Franzmann, Stacey Gregg, Arinzé Kene, Tracy Letts, Rona Munro, Henry Naylor, Lynn Nottage, Evan Placey, Jessica Swale, Jack Thorne and Tom Wells.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1848426089Publication Date: 2020-04-07
Contemporary Monologues for Teenagers: Male by
Playwrights include Jez Butterworth, Annie Baker, Ella Hickson, Stuart Slade, Jessica Swale, Jack Thorne, Glenn Waldron, Enda Walsh and Tom Wells.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781848426078Publication Date: 2020-04-07
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by
My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and the capital cities. And every prime number up to 7507.Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs Shears's dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight, and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington. He has an extraordinary brain and is exceptional at maths, but he is ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But Christopher's detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that turns his world upside-down.Simon Stephens's adaptation of Mark Haddon's bestselling, award-winning novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time offers a richly theatrical exploration of this touching and bleakly humorous tale.This edition contains some strong language and may not be suitable for all school curricula. Other editions are available.
Call Number: Available ONLINE and in print: PR6119.T455 C87 2012ISBN: 9781408173367Publication Date: 2012-08-23
Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 And 3) by
"By turns philosophical and playful, lyrical and earthy, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), swoops, leaps, dives and soars, reimagining a turbulent point in American history through a cockeyed contemporary lens . . . The finest work yet from this gifted writer."—The New York Times "Thrilling. . . . A masterpiece . . . A story that engages the deepest possible issues in the most gripping possible ways."—New York Offered his freedom if he joins his master in the ranks of the Confederacy, Hero, a slave, must choose whether to leave the woman and people he loves for what may be another empty promise. As his decision brings him face to face with a nation at war with itself, the ones Hero left behind debate whether to escape or wait for his return, only to discover that for Hero, freedom may have come at a great spiritual cost. A devastatingly beautiful dramatic work, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3) is the opening trilogy of a projected nine-play cycle that will ultimately take us into the present. Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Topdog/Underdog in 2002. Her other plays include The Book of Grace, In the Blood, Venus, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Fucking A, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom and The America Play. In 2007 her 365 Days/365 Plays was produced at more than seven hundred theaters worldwide. Parks is a MacArthur Fellow and the Master Writer Chair at the Public Theater.
Call Number: Available ONLINE and in print: PS3566.A736 F38 2015ISBN: 9781559368179Publication Date: 2015-06-01
Funnyhouse of a Negro by Call Number: PAC Script PS3561.E4252 F8 2011ISBN: 0573621667Publication Date: 2011- Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus byCall Number: PAC Script PS3613.A218 G37 2019ISBN: 0822241099Publication Date: 2019
Global Queer Plays by
A unique anthology bringing together stories of queer life from international playwrights, these seven plays showcase the dazzling multiplicity of queer narratives across the globe: the absurd, the challenging, and the joyful. From the legacy of colonialism in India to the farcical bureaucracy of marriage law in Kosovo; from a school counsellor in Taiwan coming out as HIV+, to coming of age in an Israel-Palestine coexistence camp, this is a genre-spanning collection of global writing. Originally selected and performed as part of the Arcola Queer Collective's Global Queer Plays call-out event.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1786825066Publication Date: 2018-12-11
Humana Festival 2019 by
The Humana Festival of New American Plays has been a leading home for extraordinary playwrights and their imaginations for more than four decades, making Actors Theatre of Louisville one of the nation's preeminent powerhouses for new play development. For six weeks every spring, Louisville exerts a gravitational pull on producers and theatre lovers from around the country, who travel from far and wide for the adventure of seeing a diverse slate of fully-produced new plays. Many Humana Festival plays have gone on to garner awards and subsequent productions, making a sustained impact on the international dramatic repertoire. Humana Festival 2019: The Complete Plays brings together all five scripts from the 43rd annual cycle of world premieres, featuring a remarkable array of work by some of the most exciting voices in the American theatre. This anthology makes the Humana Festival plays available to an even wider audience, allowing readers to experience the collision of perspectives, styles and stories that makes the festival such an invigorating celebration of the art form. This compilation features the full-length plays Everybody Black by Dave Harris; The Thin Place by Lucas Hnath; The Corpse Washer, adapted for the stage by Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace, from the novel of the same name by Sinan Antoon; How to Defend Yourself by Liliana Padilla; and We've Come to Believe, a collaboratively-written play by three writers-Kara Lee Corthron, Emily Feldman, and Matthew Paul Olmos.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781538136362: The Complete PlaysPublication Date: 2020-09-01
The Humans by
Breaking with tradition, Erik Blake has brought his Pennsylvania family to celebrate Thanksgiving at his daughter’s apartment in Manhattan. Unfolding over a single scene, this "delirious tragicomedy” (Chicago Sun-Times) by acclaimed young playwright Stephen Karam "infuses the traditional kitchen-sink family drama with qualities of horror in his portentous and penetrating work of psychological unease” (Variety), creating an indelible family portrait.
Call Number: Available ONLINE and in print: PS3611.A72 H86 2016ISBN: 9781559368636Publication Date: 2016-05-02
Incident at Vichy by
In Vichy France in 1942, eight men and a boy are seized by the collaborationist authorities and made to wait in a building that may be a police station. Some of them are Jews. All of them have something to hide--if not from the Nazis, then from their fellow detainees and, inevitably, from themselves. For in this claustrophobic antechamber to the death camps, everyone is guilty. And perhaps none more so than those who can walk away alive. In Incident at Vichy, Arthur Miller re-creates Dante's hell inside the gaping pit that is our history and populates it with sinners whose crimes are all the more fearful because they are so recognizable. "One of the most important plays of our time . . . Incident at Vichy returns the theater to greatness." --The New York Times
Call Number: Available ONLINE and in print: PS 3525.I5156I5ISBN: 0140481931Publication Date: 1985-04-02
Indecent by
When Sholem Asch wrote God of Vengeance in 1907, he didn’t imagine the height of controversy the play would eventually reach. Paula Vogel’s newest work traces the trajectory of the show’s success through its tour in Europe to its abrupt and explosive demise on Broadway in 1923 -- including the arrest of the entire production’s cast and crew.
Call Number: Available ONLINE and in print: PS3572.O294 I53 2017ISBN: 9781559368681Publication Date: 2017-04-24
Les Blancs: the Collected Last Plays by
Here are Lorraine Hansberry's last three plays--Les Blancs, The Drinking Gourd, and What Use Are Flowers?--representing the capstone of her achievement. Includes a new preface by Jewell Gresham Nemiroff and a revised introduction by Margaret B. Wilkerson.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 0679755322Publication Date: 1994-12-13
Let Me Down Easy by
Dozens of vibrant voices comprise this one-woman show, tying together a pastiche of meaningful contributions to the national health care discussion of 2008. Departing from the contentious political debate, Smith plunges into the question of how humans tend to care for their bodies, and what might happen when the systems they rely on fail.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1559368675Publication Date: 2017-06-19
The Lieutenant of Inishmore by
'There's more than one way to skin a theatrical cat; and McDonagh's chosen weapons are laughter and gore... Pushing theatre to its limits, McDonagh is making a serious point... a work as subversive as those Synge and O'Casey plays that sparked Dublin riots in the last century' Guardian'A brave satire... Swiftianly savage and parodic... with explicit brutal actino and lines which sing with grace and wit' ObserverWho knocked Mad Padraic's cat over on a lonely road on the island of Inishmore and was it an accident? He'll want to know when he gets back from a stint of torture and chip-shop bombing in Northern Ireland: he loves his cat more than life itself.The Lieutenant of Inishmore is a brilliant satire on terrorism, a powerful corrective to the beautification of violence in contemporary culture, and a hilarious farce. It premiered at the RSC's The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, in May 2001.Commentary and notes by Patrick Lonergan
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781474222143Publication Date: 2014-09-22
The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays by
Here are portraits of American life during the Great Depression and after, populated by a hopelessly hopeful chorus girl, a munitions manufacturer ensnared in a love triangle, a rural family that deals "justice" on its children, an overconfident mob dandy, a poor couple who quarrel to vanquish despair, a young "spinster" enthralled by the impulse of rebellion, and, in "The Magic Tower," a passionate artist and his wife whose youth and optimism are not enough to protect their"dream marriage." This new volume gathers some of Williams's most exuberant early work and includes one-acts that he would later expand to powerful full-length dramas: "The Pretty Trap," a cheerful take onThe Glass Menagerie, and "Interior: Panic," a stunning precursor toA Streetcar Named Desire. The plays include: * At Liberty * The Magic Tower * Me, Vashya * Curtains for the Gentleman * In Our Profession * Every Twenty Minutes * Honor the Living * The Case of the Crushed Petunias * Moony's Kid Don't Cry * The Dark Room * The Pretty Trap * Interior: Panic * Kingdom of Earth * I Never Get Dressed Till After Dark on Sundays * Some Problems for The Moose Lodge
Call Number: PS3545.I5365 M34 2011ISBN: 9780811219204Publication Date: 2011-04-25
The Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays by
The Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays is an anthology of eight exciting pieces written for and by members of the Actresses Franchise League from 1909-13. Immediately playable, they offer strong, varied roles for female casts, while also providing invaluable source material to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines.Featuring 'How The Vote Was Won' which remains one of the most popular and well known suffrage plays, the volume also includes seven shorter works:'Lady Geraldine's Speech' (1909), a fantastic, fun piece for actresses. Lady Geraldine hasn't thought through the Suffrage cause and, on a visit to an old school friend meets some charismatic, successful and intelligent women who soon enlighten and encourage her on to the right path! 'Pot and Kettle' (1909), a comic piece in which a young woman returns to her family in great distress having assaulted a suffragette who was sitting near her at a Anti-Suffragist meeting.'Miss Appleyard's Awakening' about an anti-suffrage campaigner who finds herself in the home of a sympathizer but ends up inadvertently drawing her hostesses' attention to the contradictions in her arguments 'Her Vote' by the actor and playwright Henry Esmond which provides an interesting male viewpoint on the movement, criticizing the young suffragist for wanting to be part of a movement about which she seems to understand little.'The Anti-Suffragist or The Other Side', a charming, clever monologue about a sheltered young woman who finds herself increasingly involved with her local Anti-Suffrage society and increasingly puzzled by what she learns there.'The Mother's Meeting', an entertaining monologue that uses a working class character to expose the inconsistencies in the Anti-Suffrage arguments. 'Tradition' was first performed at a matinee for the Woman Suffrage Party held at the Berkeley Theatre in New York City on Saturday 24 January 1913.The plays featured articulate the arguments of the Suffrage Movement through a variety of styles, both comic and serious, and perfectly illustrate the use of drama as a medium for social change and entertainment. Together with illustrations and an introduction charting the history of the Actresses Franchise League and exploring the context and provenance of the plays, this is an excellent resource for both study and performance.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781408176597Publication Date: 2013-01-31
Mister Paradise and other one-act plays by Call Number: PS3545.I5365 W727ISBN: 9780141188423Publication Date: 2006- Modern Korean Drama: An Anthology by Carefully selected and represented, the plays in this collection showcase both the fantastic and the realistic innovations of Korean dramatists during a time of rapid social and historical change. Stretching from 1962 to 2004, these seven works tackle major subjects, such as the close of the Choson dynasty and the aftermath of the Korean War, while delving into trenchant cultural issues, such as the marginalization of students who rebel against mainstream education and the role of traditional values in a materialistic society. Longtime scholar of Korea and its vibrant, politically acute theater, Richard Nichols opens with a general overview of modern Korean drama since 1910 and concludes with an appendix describing theater production and audience attendance in Seoul. He chooses works that aren't just for Korean audiences. These texts confront universal themes and situations, tackling the problem of ambition, the trouble with fidelity, and the complexity of sexual and interpersonal relationships. Nichols situates each work critically, historically, and culturally, including brief biographies of playwrights and extensive notes. A bibliography also provides alternative readings and the titles of additional plays currently available in English. Primed for production, these skillful translations provide Western directors with exciting new material for the stage. At the same time, they offer students and scholars a sophisticated survey of the modern Korean dramatic tradition.Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9780231520386Publication Date: 2009-10-22
- Natural shocks byCall Number: PAC Script PS3607.U5473 N38 2019ISBN: 9780822240259Publication Date: 2019
Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws and Other One-Act Plays by
This new collection of fantastic, lesser-known one-acts contains some of Williams's most potent, comical and disturbing short plays?Upper East Side ladies dine out during the apocalypse in Now the Cats With Jeweled Claws, while the poet Hart Crane is confronted by his mother at the bottom of the ocean in Steps Must Be Gentle. Five previously unpublished plays include A Recluse and His Guest, and The Strange Play, in which we witness a woman's entire life lived within a twenty-four-hour span. This volume is edited, with an introduction and notes, by the editor, acting teacher, and theater scholar Thomas Keith.
Call Number: PS3545.I5365 A6 2016ISBN: 9780811225564Publication Date: 2016-07-12
The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Plays by
From a colonial past to a precarious European present, this selection of works by contemporary writers challenges the accepted vision of the Spain to explore the national themes, historical legacies and modern-day concerns of a country of great geographical and cultural diversity. A Basque History by Borja Ortiz de Gondra (2017 Max Award, Best Playwright) explores the impact of war, regional and national identity, language and culture on the Basque people of the Iberian north. The Sickness of Stone by Blanca Domenech. An idealistic restoration expert clashes with an old-school pragmatist over the best way to acknowledge and heal the wounds of Spain's bloody and oppressive past.Cuzco by Víctor Sánchez Rodríguez. A Spanish couple travels to Peru to save their relationship, but find themselves confronted by post-colonial guilt, depression and disconnectedness. The Greyhound by Vanessa Montfort. This comic tale of a homeless greyhound explores the clash betweenthe EU's prosperous north and austerity-stricken Mediterranean. On The Edge by Julio Escalada explores the little-known underworlds of Spain's North African territories where the fight for survival leads to prejudice, volatility and violence.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1786825821Publication Date: 2019-02-19
Pass Over by
Moses and Kitch stand around on the corner--talking shit, passing the time, and hoping that maybe today will be different. As they dream of their promised land, a stranger wanders into their space with his own agenda and derails their plans. Emotional and lyrical,Pass Over crafts everyday profanities into poetic and humorous riffs, exposing the unquestionable human spirit of young men stuck in a cycle that they are desperately trying to escape. Spike Lee directed a film version of the play that premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and South by Southwest, and was produced by Amazon Studios. A provocative riff on the Book of Exodus andWaiting for Godot,Pass Over is a remarkable work of politically-charged theater by a bold new American voice. A provocative riff on the Book of Exodus andWaiting for Godot,Pass Over is a remarkable work of politically-charged theater by a bold new American voice.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 0802147429Publication Date: 2019-08-13
Red Light Winter by
It's totally familiar but dreamlike at the same time," observes one American of Amsterdam's notorious Red Light District in the stunning new work from Adam Rapp. Escaping their lives in Manhattan, former college buddies Matt and Davis take off to the Netherlands and find themselves thrown into a bizarre love triangle with a beautiful young prostitute named Christina. But the romance they find in Europe is eventually overshadowed by the truth they discover at home. Written with an unflinchingpoetic beauty,Red Light Winteris a play of sexual intrigue that explores the myriad and misguided ways we seek to fill the empty spaces inside us.
Call Number: PAC PS3568.A6278 R43 2006ISBN: 9780865479548Publication Date: 2005-12-27
The Sound Inside by
"The closest thing that the American theater currently has to a David Foster Wallace, Rapp can give you the head rush of sophisticated literary allusion and unreliable narrative trickery à la Dostoevsky, and yet talk of Plano, Illinois, and let you know that he knows exactly how it feels...A gripping stunner of a play." --Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune When Bella Baird, an isolated creative writing professor at Yale, begins to mentor a brilliant but enigmatic student, Christopher, the two form an unexpectedly intense bond. As their lives and the stories they tell about themselves become intertwined in unpredictable ways, Bella makes a surprising request of Christopher. Brimming with suspense, Rapp's riveting play explores the limits of what one person can ask of another.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781559369770Publication Date: 2020-01-14
A Strange Loop: A Musical by
Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama "To watch this show is to enter, by some urgent, bawdy magic, an ecstatic and infinitely more colorful version of the famous surreal lithograph by M. C. Escher: the hand that lifts from the page, becoming almost real, then draws another hand, which returns the favor. Which came first? A Strange Loop is complex, teasing, thrilling." --Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker Usher is a Black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical: a piece about a Black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical. This blistering musical follows a young artist at war with a host of demons--not least of which are the punishing thoughts in his own head--in an attempt to understand his own strange loop.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781559369930Publication Date: 2021-01-19
Tennessee Williams - One Act Plays by
The peak of my virtuosity was in the one-act plays. Some of which are like firecrackers on a rope. Tennessee Williams Written between 1934 and 1980, the plays of the very young writer, then of the successful Tennessee Williams, and finally of the troubled man of the 1970s, The Magic Tower and Other One Act Plays offers a panoramic yet detailed view of the themes, demons, and wit of this iconic playwright. The volume depicts American life during the Great Depression and after, populated by a hopelessly hopeful chorus girl, a munitions manufacturer ensnared in a love triangle, a rural family that deals justice on its children, an overconfident mob dandy, a poor couple who quarrel to vanquish despair, a young spinster enthralled by the impulse of rebellion, and, in The Magic Tower, a passionate artist and his wife whose youth and optimism are not enough to protect their dream marriage. This collection gathers some of Williams's most exuberant early work and includes one-acts that he would later expand to powerful full-length dramas- 'The Pretty Trap', a cheerful take on The Glass Menagerie, and 'Interior- Panic', a precursor to A Streetcar Named Desire.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1408164817Publication Date: 2012-09-05
The Thanksgiving Play by
Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in Larissa FastHorse's wickedly funny satire, as a troupe of terminally "woke" teaching artists scrambles to create a pageant that somehow manages to celebrate both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month.
Call Number: PAC Script PS3606.A784 T43 2019ISBN: 9780573707858Publication Date: 2019-04-29
Three Kings by
When Patrick is eight years old, his absent father returns unexpectedly for a brief but memorable encounter. Years later - recalling that meeting, and the revelations that followed - Patrick traces the events of his father's life, laying bare a journey of grandiose plans, aching disappointments and audacious self-delusion. Three Kings by Stephen Beresford is a heartbreaking and hilarious play for a solo actor about fathers and sons, the gifts and burdens of inheritance, and the unfathomable puzzle of human relationships. It was written for Andrew Scott to perform as part of Old Vic: In Camera, a series of live performances streamed from the Old Vic Theatre, London, in 2020. This edition includes an introduction by the director Matthew Warchus. 'A knockout - entertaining, sad and outrageous. [Stephen Beresford] is going to be a major name' Observer on The Last of the Haussmans
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 1848429770Publication Date: 2020-10-06
The Train Driver and Other Plays by
"For me [The Train Driver] is the biggest of them all. Everything I have written before has been a journey to this."--Athol Fugard "A dramatic, moving theater experience written for South Africa. . . . It will save us from hopelessness. See it."--Sunday Independent The Train Driver is classic Athol Fugard, and one of his most important plays. The playwright, known throughout the world as a chronicler of his native South Africa's apartheid past, directed its premiere at the newly opened Fugard Theater in one of Cape Town's most politically contentious areas. This seminal work was inspired by the true story of a mother who, with her three children, committed suicide on the train tracks in Cape Town. The two-person drama unfolds between the train's engineer and the grave digger who buries "the ones without names." This edition also includes Coming Home, Fugard's first work addressing AIDS in South Africa, and Have You Seen Us? his first play set in America, about a South African transplanted to San Diego, where the playwright currently resides. Athol Fugard's works includes Blood Knot, Master Harold. . .and the Boys, Boesman and Lena, Sizwe Banzi is Dead and My Children! My Africa! He has been widely produced in South Africa, London, on Broadway, and across the United States.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781559367325Publication Date: 2012-10-09
The Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook, Updated and Expanded Edition by
All actors and acting teachers need The Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook, the invaluable guide to finding just the right piece for every audition. This remarkable book describes the characters, action, and mood for more than 1,000 scenes in over 300 plays. This unique format is ideal for acting teachers who want their students to understand each monologue in context. Using these guidelines, the actor can quickly pinpoint the perfect monologue, then find the text in the Samuel French or Dramatist Play Service edition of the play. Newly revised and expanded, the book also includes the author's own assessment of each monologue.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 0823099490Publication Date: 2007-10-16
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by
Tony Award Winner, Best Play: "Hugely entertaining...deliciously madcap...offers some keen insights into the challenges and agonies of 21st-century life."--USA Today Nominated for six Tony Awards, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is one of the most lauded and beloved Broadway plays of recent years. Vanya and his adopted sister Sonia live a quiet life in the Pennsylvania farmhouse where they grew up, but their peace is disturbed when their movie star sister, Masha, returns unannounced with her twenty-something boy toy, Spike--and a weekend of rivalry, regret, and raucousness begins... Winner of the Outer Circle Critics Award for Best Play Winner of the Drama League Award for Best Production of a Play Winner of the Drama Desk Award for Best Play Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Production Winner of the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Play
Call Number: Available ONLINE and in print: PS3554.U666 V36 2013ISBN: 9780802192721Publication Date: 2013-08-13
We Are Proud to Present a Presentation about the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known As Southwest Africa, from the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884 - 1915 by
I'm not doing a German accentYou aren't doing an African accentWe aren't doing accentsA group of actors gather to tell the little-known story of the first genocide of the twentieth century. As the full force of a horrific past crashes into the good intentions of the present, what seemed a far-away place and time is suddenly all too close to home. Just whose story are they telling?Award-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury collides the political with the personal in a play that is irreverently funny and seriously brave.We Are Proud To Present . . . received its European premiere at the Bush Theatre, London, on 28 February 2014.
Call Number: Available ONLINEISBN: 9781472585103Publication Date: 2014-04-18
