Best of
Plays

1992

Millennium Approaches


Tony Kushner - 1992
    The play is a complex, often metaphorical, and at times symbolic examination of AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s. Certain major and minor characters are supernatural beings (angels) or deceased persons (ghosts). The play contains multiple roles for several of the actors. Initially and primarily focusing on a gay couple in Manhattan, the play also has several other storylines, some of which occasionally intersect.

The Secret Garden


Marsha Norman - 1992
    With her Tony-award winning book and lyrics, Norman recreates the classic form of the traditional American musical.

13 by Shanley


John Patrick Shanley - 1992
    Includes: "The Big Funk " "Savage in Limbo " "Danny & The Deep Blue Sea " "Welcome to the Moon " "The Red Coat " "Down & Out " "Let Us Go Out Into the Starry Night " "Out West " "A Lonely Impulse of Delight " "Women of Manhattan " "The Dreamer Examines His Pillow " "Italian-American Reconciliation " and "Beggars in the House of Plenty." Also includes an introduction by the author.

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me


Frank McGuinness - 1992
    As victims of political action, powerless to initiate change, what can they do? How do they live and survive?Frank McGuinness explores the daily crisis endured by hostages whose strength comes from communication, both subtle and mundane, from humour, wit and faith.Someone Who'll Watch Over Me premiered at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in 1992 before transferring to the West End. On Broadway, it was awarded the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Foreign Play and nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play in 1993.

The Collected Plays, Vol. 3


Neil Simon - 1992
    The third installment of the collected plays of Neil Simon.

Alexander Plays


Adrienne Kennedy - 1992
    Includes She Talks to Beethoven, The Ohio State Murders, The Film Club (a monologue), and The Dramatic Circle. A foreword is the only scholarly apparatus. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

A River Runs Through It: Bringing a Classic to the Screen


Richard Friedenberg - 1992
    

Sister ACT


Hal Leonard Corporation - 1992
    Highlights from the hit comedy starring Whoopi Goldberg. Songs include: My Guy (My God) * Rescue Me * Shout * and more. Features photos from the movie.

Transit of Venus


Maureen Hunter - 1992
    Le Gentil puts off marrying the young and wilful Celeste as he travels around the world in his attempts to plot the course of Venus across the sky, only to be undone at every turn by weather, war, and misfortune, and to find upon his final return a woman undone by his absence and ready to set her own course. Spanning eleven years in the lives of Le Gentil and Celeste, Hunter's play explores issues of faith, solitude, and the human spirit.

The Fifth Sun


Nicholas A. Patricca - 1992
    The fifth sun is a human being whose destiny is to save his people. Drama. By Nicholas A. Patricca. Cast: 8m., 5w. On March 24, 1980, during Mass, Oscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador, was assassinated. This powerful and acclaimed play presents the story of the people and the forces that transformed an ordinary man into a courageous leader. It is an experimental play that combines elements of ancient tomb rituals, Mayan temple dramas and medieval morality plays into a contemporary dramatic structure in which we see a human being ultimately embody the moral voice and vision of his people. Area staging.

Phantom


Arthur Kopit - 1992
    This mesmerizing Phantom is traditional musical theatre in the finest sense. The Tony award winning authors of Nine have transformed Gaston Leroux' The Phantom of the Opera into a sensation that enraptures audiences and critics with beautiful songs and an expertly crafted book. It is constructed around characters more richly developed than in any other version, including the original novel. "Everything is first rate." - N.Y. Daily News

Henley: Four Plays


Beth Henley - 1992
    The plays are: The Lucky Spot, The Miss Firecracker Contest, The Wake of Jamey Foster, and Abundance.

Through the Leaves and Other Plays


Franz Xaver Kroetz - 1992
    His unsparing portraits of life in Germany's lower middle class redefine the notion of realism on the stage. The only Kroetz collection available in English, this volume includes: Through the Leaves, about a female butcher and her laborer lover; The Nest, about a worker who inadvertently poisons a lake and, consequently, injures his infant son; and Mensch Meier, about a jittery, imaginative Munich assembly-line worker, his vague, housebound wife and their silently observant teenage son.

Horton Foote's Three Trips to Bountiful: Teleplay, Stageplay, and Screenplay


Barbara Moore - 1992
    The teleplay was so successful that an expanded version opened on the Broadway stage eight months later starring the same leading lady, Lillian Gish. Over thirty years later, Foote converted the play into a screenplay that became the vehicle for Geraldine Page's Oscar-winning performance as Carrie Watts, the aging widow who yearns to return to her home-place, to the vanished Texas town of Bountiful. This volume is a comparative media study that collects the three scripts and examines the way Horton Foote's words and vision make the transition from television screen to stage to film. Moore and Yellin show Foote to be a preservationist, making minimal changes as he adjusts for the restrictions of time and technology in each medium. In a general introduction the editors discuss Foote's themes - going away and coming home again, the need for a sense of continuity with the past - and define his typical characters - small-town simple folk who face the knowledge that their straitened lives probably will not improve. Moore and Yellin briefly analyze the differences and similarities among the three versions of the play, demonstrating the necessity for each to meet the demands of a profit-making business. Preceding each script the editors discuss the circumstances surrounding the production - the technical and aesthetic limitations influencing and shaping the performance. This volume also includes four interviews - with Horton Foote; with the film's co-producer, Sterling VanWagenen; with Peter Masterson, its director; and with Carlin Glynn, who played the supporting role of Jessie Mae in the film. What ultimately emerges from the discussion of the three versions is a glimpse into the way a writer can function within the structure of the entertainment industry, respond to the limitations of t

The Sound Of Silence: A Play


Jean Cocteau - 1992
    

Snapshots For A Serial Killer: A Fiction And A Play


Robert Peters - 1992
    Presents cerebral images of a gay computer programmer-serial killer whose victims' mutilated bodies are found in parks and highway ramps in Orange County, California.

Three Plays by Charles Busch


Charles Busch - 1992
    Theodora: She-Bitch of ByzantiumTimes Square AngelPardon My Inquisition

A Hard Heart; The Early Hours of a Reviled Man


Howard Barker - 1992
    

Collected Plays: "The Rules of the Game", "Each in His Own Way", "Grafted", "The Other Son" v. 3 (Calderbooks S.)


Luigi Pirandello - 1992
    First performed in 1918, the action of the play does not all take place on the surface; situations are suddenly reversed when the mind of the deceived husband becomes clear to the audience. This biting comedy verging on farce also contains a tragic moral. Each in his own Way (1924) is a variation on Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello's best known play. The interplay between the characters and their stage representations surprises and involves the audience in the nature of reality. Grafted (1917) is more conventional on the surface but hides a cunning metaphor based on the principle of the graft of a garden plant. The Other Son (1923) digs deep into the reality of peasant life in Sicily. A young doctor unearths a horrifying story in his attempt to understand why a poverty-stricken old woman writes to her far-away sons for help while ignoring another son who lives in the same village.

Bad Penny at Bow Bridge (Blue Corner Drama, No 2)


Mac Wellman - 1992
    

Genesis and Other Plays


Don Nigro - 1992
    

Dear Mrs. Martin; & Mother's Day: Two One Act Plays


Kate Aspengren - 1992
    

Selected Plays of Hugh Leonard


Hugh Leonard - 1992
    Contents: The Au Pair Man; The Patrick Pearse Motel; Da; Summer; A Life; Kill