The playtext is reproduced here with footnotes which will be of no help to anyone and a letter from the authors to the Queen.

    Ives's characters plunge into black holes called "Philadelphias," where the simplest desires are hilariously thwarted. Chimps named Milton, Swift, and Kafka are locked in a room and made to re-create Hamlet. And a con man peddles courses in a dubious language in which "hello" translates as "velcro" and "fraud" comes out as "freud."At once enchanting and perplexing, incisively intelligent and side-splittingly funny, this original paperback edition of Ives's plays includes "Sure Thing," "Words, Words, Words," "The Universal Language," "Variations on the Death of Trotsky," "The Philadelphia," "Long Ago and Far Away," "Foreplay, or The Art of the Fugue," "Seven Menus," "Mere Mortals," "English Made Simple," "A Singular Kinda Guy," "Speed-the-Play," "Ancient History," and "Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread."

    The musical tale of a domineering stage mother's inadvertent creation of a burlesque stripper, now available in paperback for the first time.

    He is also an accomplished screenwriter who has in the past few years turned his hand to writing plays. The results, collected here, hilariously explore serious questions of love, happiness and the meaning of life; they are rich with equal parts of pain and slapstick humour, torment and wit.

    From nine months of interviews with more than two hundred people, Smith has chosen the voices that best reflect the diversity and tension of a city in turmoil: a disabled Korean man, a white male Hollywood talent agent, a Panamanian immigrant mother, a teenage black gang member, a macho Mexican-American artist, Rodney King's aunt, beaten truck driver Reginald Denny, former Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates, and other witnesses, participants, and victims. A work that goes directly to the heart of the issues of race and class, Twilight ruthlessly probes the language and the lives of its subjects, offering stark insight into the complex and pressing social, economic, and political issues that fueled the flames in the wake of the Rodney King verdict and ignited a conversation about policing and race that continues today.

    Jody is in his forties and runs a map store. Not one for the outside world, he stays in his store all the time. His friend, Carl is in his late thirties and has been bringing chairs of dead friends into Jody's store and leaving them there. When Jody needs to take an AIDS test, Carl tries to convince him it is not only okay to leave the store, but also that he must take responsibility for his life. If he doesn't, he will join the set of chairs that Carl has taken great pains to place in the right spots around the store. Jody finally leaves the map store to take his HIV test and return to find Carl sitting in a chair of his own. With this gesture, we know that Carl has joined the many of their friends who have died, but now Jody must take Carl's place as the caretaker.

    "Jessie Helms may have given Marc Wellman trouble, but he also gave him great material, " said "The Los Angeles Times" of Wellman's "7 Blowjobs." (Plays/Drama)

    The first play, Tughlaq, is a historical play in the manner of nineteenth-century Parsee theater. The second, Hayavadana was one of the first modern Indian plays to employ traditional theatrical techniques. In Naga-Mandala, the third play, Karnad turns to oral tales, usually narrated by women. This selected work of one of India's best known playwrights should attract the attention of students and scholars of comparative literature, or any reader interested in South Asian literature.

    "What Lenny Bruce was to the 1950s, Bob Dylan to the 1960s, Woody Allen to the 1970s--that's what Eric Bogosian is to this frightening moment of drift in our history."--Frank Rich, The New York Times

    

    His intellectual characters are tremendously passionate and expressive, so it's hard not to care about what they care about, and what happens to them.” –Washington Post“A juggernaut of a play.” -San Francisco Weekly“Unabashedly political, thought-provoking, a little scary and frequently a good deal of theatrical fun… intoxicatingly visionary.” –Sid Smith, Chicago TribunePulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner’s powerful portrayal of individual resolution, irresolution and dissolution in the face of political catastrophe, A Bright Room Called Day follows a group of artists and political activists struggling to preserve themselves in 1930s Berlin as the Weimar Republic surrenders to the seduction of fascism. Often exquisitely lyrical, always exhilaratingly intelligent, the poetic world of the play moves beyond the bounds of historical reality with the morally outraged outpourings of a contemporary New York woman. Her fury at the Reagan and British presidencies brings into stark relief the discomfiting similarities between then and now, and challenges us to remember that although evil may seem inevitable, it is never irresistible.Tony Kushner’s plays include Angels in America; Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Brown; The Illusion, adapted from the play by Pierre Cornelle; Slavs!; A Bright Room Called Day; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’s film of Angels in America and for Steven Spielberg’s Munich and Lincoln. His books include The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon.Among many honors, Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.

    This is convincing proof that Manual Puig was one of our most talented writers - no matter what the medium. Puig is the author of seven novels, translated into fourteen languages.

    It is "one of the most brilliantly original and entertaining new plays I have seen in years: wild, weird and funny, serious, compassionate and shocking, blasphemous and reverential, intellectual and frivolous, a factual fantasy, a demented farce, a black nightmare." (Sunday Times)

    From the publisher's synopsis: "Jeffrey, a gay actor/waiter, has sworn off sex after too many bouts with his partners about what is "safe" and what is not. In gay New York, though, sex is not something you can avoid. Whether catering a ditzy socialite's "how-down for AIDS" or cruising at a funeral; at the gym or in the back rooms of an anonymous sex club; at the annual Gay Pride Parade, or in the libidinous hands of a father-confessor, Jeffrey finds the pursuit of love and just plain old physical gratification to be the number one preoccupation of his times - and the source of plenty of hilarity."

    

    As a woman, as an African-American, her artistic objectivity and sensitivity to history combine with, but do not overshadow, her capacity to dig for truth and present it flat out as she sees it – with a finger snap or a shout and sometimes with a wink. Among the most satisfying roles I’ve undertaken on stage is surely Miss Leah in Flyin’ West. She brings the bushel nuggets of drama and humor that capture the ear, the heart and the imagination. She’s devilish, too.” –Academy Award® Nominee Ruby Dee“Ms. Cleage writes with amazing grace and killer instinct.” –Alvin Klein, New York Times “Pearl Cleage is a brilliant storyteller. I am always engrossed in the drama and compassion she brings to her characters. Flyin’ West, Bourbon at the Border, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Late Bus to Mecca and Chain are marvelous examples of a playwright at the top of her form, bravely moving into the new century.” –Woodie King, Jr., Producing Director, New Federal TheatrePearl Cleage’s body of work for the stage provides us with a remarkable and penetrating look at the African-American experience over the last 100 years. This volume collects her major full-length plays and one-acts, including Flyin’ West, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Bourbon at the Border, Chain and Late Bus to Mecca.PEARL CLEAGE is an Atlanta-based writer whose recent plays have premiered at The Alliance Theatre Company with subsequent productions throughout the country. Her first novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day was a recent Oprah’s Book Club Selection and a national bestseller. She is a former columnist of the Atlanta Tribune and a contributor to Essence Magazine.

    The six plays presented in this volume are as unalike as the women who wrote them-nothing narrow about the range of themes ans issues addressed here and, happily, little that would permit one to make any overarching generalization about women's playwriting.

    

    It is driven by the figure of Ossian Flint, a seventy-year old swinging vicar who believes in "crossing lines not drawing them" and espouses the romanticised Communism of Lenin and Guevara; In the BBC play The Bankrupt, Ellis Cripper, a woman aged fifty has become bankrupt through operating at "the dishonourable end of the system…capitalism"; An Afternoon at the Festival centres around a version of middle-aged man Leo Brent who is an extreme egoist and a failure in his personal relationships; Duck Song was first produced in the dying days of the failing Heath government and the characters represent a society in decline as the younger characters attempt to find a solution through feminism or psychiatry, it presents "a world to which one cannot relate, which one cannot control, which one can't understand, and which one can't manipulate"; The Arcata Promise centres around the attraction betwen an actor and an inexperienced girl and the destructive conclusion of such an attraction; Find Me returns to the theme of ideological conflict and Eastern Europe; Huggy Bear, a Yorkshire Television production that depicts Hooper, an infantile and philosophical dentist with a "failure to integrate".

    Wimbledon Theatre. Sunday night. Norman Wisdom. Norman WisdomThe death of Benny Hill prompts this comedy about impotence, sex therapy and the English sense of humour. Eleanor wants what Richard won't give her. Richard wants to be left in peace. Benny would rather rest in peace, but for tonight, at least, his fans won't let him.Dead Funny premiered at the Hampstead Theatre London in January 1994.

    Dick Higgins makes a metaphysics out of spoken language, a turning of language against itself. With two friends he played eleven scoreless games of Scrabble, using the lists of words formed to write the play's eleven scenes. The players began each game with "Buster Keaton" spelled out in the center of the board. The play's dream-like speeches and stage directions refract Buster Keaton's film plots showing an outsider pasing through phases of rejection and desire until the qualities which make him an outsider allow him to triumph in the end. "Is there a toy for Buster? / there was a fire of toys / at the gazebo / where he had purred. / in the movies?" As Keaton said, "Think slow, act fast."

    

    What should have been a run-of-the-mill orienteering exercise turns into a slapstick nightmare when Neville's team boat hits the rocks leaving them stranded on an uninhabited island the first people ever to be shipwrecked inland. These middle-aged men are not suited for life in the wilds and quickly begin to show it. Neville, the captain of the team, tries to be objective and practical; Gordon quickly moves from caustic to cruel, and stays there, taking little responsibility for anything; Roy, recovering from a recent mental breakdown, goes deeper into prayer; and the mild-mannered Angus does his best to remain cheerful until Gordon's constant hounding drives him to violence. Their attempts at teamwork create one humorous situation after another as they backfire, and after which Gordon's belittling drives them apart. Roy seems to suffer another breakdown, running into the woods with just the right equipment to hang himself, causing Angus to snap and come at Gordon with a knife. The situation pitches on the brink of catastrophe when suddenly a chopper spots them and begins to descend. But the events on the island have changed them so much that even imminent rescue can't bring back who they were.

    Feydeau, the supreme master of farce, displays all his dramatic tricks as his characters are pulled back and forth spinning dizzily in a surrealistic climax of complications. This translation of An Absolute Turkey (Le Dindon) received its London premiere at the Globe Theatre in December 1993.

    "If ya had the choice would ya rather love a woman whose top half was a fish and whose bottom half was a woman or a woman whose top half was a woman and whose bottom half was a fish?" Harry asks. "Good question," responds Sam. The questions are off the wall, but they slowly reveal the two men's characters, and allow them to take stock of each other while avoiding mundane, but important, life matters. These life matters are woven into their interchanges-hints about their lives apart from one another. Harry and his wife, Marge, are having troubles. In the first scene, Harry mentions he's sleeping on the couch; in the next, he is sleeping in his car; later he asks Sam if he can stay at his house; and after that, he jokes that he is sleeping in another state. Sam is wrapped up in New Age books, and tries to dispense their philosophy to enhance the dialogues. But when Harry finds one of Sam's books in Marge's possession, he realizes Sam is having an affair with Marge. Sam apologizes and tries to explain, but the event drives them apart and they do not speak for a time. The two are incomplete without each other however, and the incident forces Harry to reconsider his chosen form of communication (or lack thereof) and to work on his marriage and salvage it. In the final scene, Harry and Sam meet by chance in their favorite bar and reconcile, with Harry using an analogy of dunking Ding-Dong's, in what you thought was milk but which turns out to be orange juice, to say that you don't throw away years of friendship or marriage because of one mistake, which is as much his fault as theirs.

    Turner presents a cross-section of African American drama written from the 1920s to the 1990s. The plays, selected from each decade, furnish a representative history of the African American playwright's development. The themes and settings the artists evoke create a historical portrait as well—from the early nineteenth century to the 1990s. Current as well as perennial issues of black life are rendered in a variety of forms—historical, realistic, romantic, mythical, revolutionary, and ritualistic—by artists who have national reputations in professional theatre as practicing playwrights. Black Drama in America offers a balanced selection of well-known plays and dramas that have not been widely anthologized, and includes nine plays that were not published in the first edition. Discussions of the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, women playwrights, and the Negro Ensemble Company supplement the comprehensive introduction from the first edition, and an expanded bibliography rounds out the volume.