Best of
Plays

2004

Caroline, or Change


Tony Kushner - 2004
    You’ve never seen anything quite like Caroline, or Change and likely won’t again anytime soon. There’s never a moment that the part-pop, part-opera, part-musical-theater score Jeanine Tesori has conjured up doesn’t ideally match Tony Kushner’s meticulously chosen words with clarion precision.” –Matthew Murray, talkinbroadway.com“A monumental achievement in American musical theater. Joyful, wholly successful, immensely moving, told with abundant wit and generosity of heart.” –John Helipern, New York ObserverLouisiana, 1963: A nation reeling from the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement and the Kennedy assassination. Caroline, a black maid, and Noah, the son of the Jewish family she works for, struggle to find an identity for their friendship after Noah's stepmother, unable to give Caroline a raise, tells Caroline that she may keep the money Noah leaves in his pockets. Through their intimate story, this beautiful musical portrays the changing rhythms of a nation. Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori have created a story that addresses contemporary questions of culture, community, race and class through the lens and musical pulse of the 1960s.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.Jeanine Tesori composed the scores for Tony Award-winning musicals Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek the Musical as well as Violet and Caroline, or Change. She is the recipient of multiple Drama Desk and Obie Awards, and her film composition credits include Nights in Rodanthe, Winds of Change, Show Business, and Wrestling With Angels.

Tick, Tick ... Boom!


Jonathan Larson - 2004
    An acclaimed three-person musical, tick, tick ... BOOM! is an autobiographical piece from the late Jonathan Larson, the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of Rent . Our songbook features 12 tunes from the production: Come to Your Senses * Green Green Dress * Johnny Can't Decide * Louder Than Words * No More * Real Life * See Her Smile * Sugar * Sunday * Therapy * 30/90 * Why.

The Long Christmas Ride Home


Paula Vogel - 2004
    . . even more ambitious than Vogel's "How I Learned to Drive" . . . it covers more ground and is bolder in its storytelling. Vogel's language is at its most poetic, eloquent and elegiac. In fact, its vivid imagery rivals the prose style of any great American short story writer. The play sounds like it might have been adapted from a beautiful, undiscovered novella."-"New Haven Register""One of the most absorbing evenings of theatre to come along in some time."-"Variety"Past and present collide on a snowy Christmas Eve for a troubled family of five. Humorous and heart-wrenching, this beautifully written play proves that magic can be found in the simplest breaths of life. Combining the elements of No theatre and Bunraku with contemporary Western sensibilities, Vogel's "Ride" is a mesmerizing homage to the works of Thornton Wilder, including "Our Town." A moving and memorable study of the American family careening near the edge of oblivion.Paula Vogel's plays include "The Baltimore Waltz," "Mineola Twins," "Hot 'n' Throbbing," "Desdemona," "And Baby Makes Seven," among others. Ms. Vogel will be the resident playwright during the Signature Theatre's 2004?05 season dedicated to her works. She has taught at Brown University in the MFA playwriting program since 1985.

Festen


David Eldridge - 2004
    Missing from the roster of invitees is Christian's twin sister, Linda, who recently committed suicide. The reason for her action and the repercussions from it, form the basis of the shocking and painful events that transpire during a twenty-four hour period. In the midst of dinner, Christian makes a startling accusation and, even as the disbelieving guests are choosing sides, the play slowly unwraps the truth.David Eldridge powerful new play is adapted from Thomas Vinterborg's screenplay of the very successful film, Dogme.Published to tie in with Almeida Theatre production in March 2004 directed by Rufus Norris

The History Boys


Alan Bennett - 2004
    A maverick English teacher at odds with the young and shrewd supply teacher. A headmaster obsessed with results; a history teacher who thinks he's a fool.In Alan Bennett's classic play, staff room rivalry and the anarchy of adolescence provoke insistent questions about history and how you teach it; about education and its purpose.The History Boys premiered at the National in May 2004.

The Greek Plays


Ellen McLaughlin - 2004
    Which fruitTo pick from the nodding tree."This chilling passage is from Ellen McLaughlin’s new adaptation of The Persians by Aeschylus, the earliest surviving play in Western literature, an elegy for a fallen civi-lization and a warning to its new conqueror. As Margo Jefferson wrote in the New York Times, "The play is a true classic: we see the present and the future right there, inside the past. And when writers give us a ‘new version’ (a translation or adaptation) of a classic, they both serve and use it. They serve the playwright’s gifts by refusing to simplify. But they can’t just imitate. Every age has its own rhythms and drives. The classic must make us feel the new acutely. Ellen McLaughlin serves and uses The Persians with true power and grace."Also included in this volume: Iphigenia and Other Daughters (from Euripides and Sophocles); The Trojan Women (Euripides); Helen (Euripides); and Lysistrata (Aristophanes), all powerfully realized and as relevant today as when they were first performed.Ellen McLaughlin’s plays include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity’s House and Tongue of a Bird, which have been widely produced. She is a past finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and was the co-winner of the Great American Play Contest. Also an accomplished actor, Ms. McLaughlin is most known for having originated the part of the Angel in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, appearing in every U.S. production through its Broadway run.

American Idiot: Easy Piano


Billie Joe Armstrong - 2004
    Titles: American Idiot * Holiday * Boulevard of Broken Dreams * Are We the Waiting * Last of the American Girls/She's a Rebel * Last Night on Earth * Before the Lobotomy * When It's Time * Know Your Enemy * 21 Guns * Wake Me Up When September Ends * Whatsername.

Seven Plays by Witkiewicz


Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz - 2004
    Also included is “A Few Words about the Role of the Actor in the Theatre of Pure Form,” a key section of his major theoretical treatise.

The Panza Monologues


Virginia Grise - 2004
    Written, compiled, and collected by Virginia Grise and Irma Mayorga and fashioned into a tour-de-force solo performance, The Panza Monologues features the words of Chicanas speaking with humor and candor. Their stories boldly place the panza front and center as a symbol that reveals the lurking truths about women's thoughts, lives, loves, abuses, and living conditions.This second edition of The Panza Monologues presents the performance script in its entirety, as well as a rich supporting cast of dramaturgical and pedagogical materials. These include a narrative history of the play’s development by the playwrights; critical materials that enhance and expand upon the script’s themes and ideas (a short introduction to San Antonio, where the play was developed; playwright autogeographies; and a manifesto on women of color making theater); and a selection of pedagogical and creative ideas, including guidelines and advice for staging a production of the play and for teaching it in the classroom, community-making activities (screenings, hosting “Panza Parties,” community/group discussions), and creative writing activities connected to the play.

Plays 1: Closer / Dealer's Choice / After Miss Julie


Patrick Marber - 2004
    Dealer's Choice premiered at the Royal National Theatre, London, in 1995 and subsequently transferred to the West End. It won the 1995 Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy and, the Writers' Guild for Best West End Play.'An exceptionally accomplished first play . . . though I know nothing about poker, I testify to the compulsive grip this play exerts and to the accumulation of meanings it ignites in your head.' Financial TimesAfter Miss Julie relocates August Strindberg's Miss Julie (1888) to an English country house in July 1945. In this radical re-imagining of theatre's first 'naturalistic tragedy' the events of Strindberg's original are transposed to the night of the British Labour Party's 'landslide' election victory.Closer: 'Love and sex are like politics: it's not what you say that matters, still less what you mean, but what you do. Patrick Marber understands this perfectly, and in Closer he has written one of the best plays of sexual politics in the language: it is right up there with Williams' Streetcar, Mamet's Oleanna, Albee's Virginia Woolf, Pinter's Old Times and Hare's Skylight.' The Sunday Times

God of Vengeance


Donald Margulies - 2004
    For his daughter Rivkele, however, Jack aspires for something more—respectability through her marriage to a religious scholar. But Rivkele’s tender love affair with Manke, one of Jack’s prostitutes, threatens to destroy the upcoming marriage, and with it, Jack’s dream of redemption. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donald Margulies transforms Sholom Asch’s classic mortality tale into a work of spellbinding power.Donald Margulies received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dinner with Friends. The play received numerous awards, including the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, the Dramatists Guild/Hull-Warriner Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and a Drama Desk nomination, and has been produced all over the United States and around the world. In addition to his adaptation of God of Vengeance, his many plays include Collected Stories, The Country House, Sight Unseen, The Model Apartment, The Loman Family Picnic, What’s Wrong with This Picture? and Time Stands Still. Mr. Margulies currently lives with his wife and their son in New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches playwriting at Yale University.

Hannah And Martin


Kate Fodor - 2004
    In Germany in the 1920s, Heidegger and Arendt have a tumultuous love affair while he is a professor and she is his admiring student. But as the National Socialists come to power, Heidegger uses his fame and brilliance to help further the goals of the party. After the devastation of World War II, Arendt, who has fled to America and become a respected public figure in her own right, returns to Germany and visits Heidegger at the home he shares with his wife. There she struggles to come to terms with his involvement with the Nazis and to understand what he still means to her.

Chavez Ravine (L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collection) [UNABRIDGED]


Culture Clash - 2004
    The controversial history of Chavez Ravine, the immigrant community that once existed on the site that is now Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, is explored with humor, brutal honesty, and pulse-racing music by the nation's premier Chicano/Latino theatre troupe, Culture Clash.

Inventing van Gogh


Steven Dietz - 2004
    Patrick Stone, a contemporary painter, is hired to forge this final masterpiece and finds himself squaring off, across the years, with van Gogh himself. The result is a compelling mystery about the obsession to create and the fine line that separates truth from myth.

Wada Trilogy


Mahesh Elkunchwar - 2004
    From "Old Stone Mansion", to "The Pool", to "Apocalypse", we follow the fortunes and struggles of the Deshpandes of Dharangon. This new edition supplements the text with a new introduction and an interview with the playwright.

Crowns


Regina Taylor - 2004
    Hats are everywhere, in exquisite variety, and the characters use the hats to tell tales concerning everything from the etiquette of hats to their historical and contemporary social functioning. There is a hat for every occasion, from flirting to churchgoing to funerals to baptisms, and the tradition of hats is traced back to African rituals and slavery and forward to the New Testament and current fashion. Some rap but predominantly gospel music and dance underscore and support the narratives. The conclusion finds the standoffish young woman, whose cultural identity as a young black Brooklyn woman has been so at odds with the more traditional and older Southern blacks, embracing hats and their cultural significance as a part of her own fiercely independent identity.

Journey to the West


Mary Zimmerman - 2004
    Yu’s translation, takes as its point of departure the true story of a seventh-century monk and his fabled pilgrimage from China to India in search of sacred texts. Mixing whimsy with spiritual weight, Zimmerman’s script combines comedy, adventure, and satire in a moving allegory of human perseverance.

Bright Ideas


Eric Coble - 2004
    Their three-year-old son, Mac, is next on the waiting list to get into the Bright Ideas Early Childhood Development Academy—and everyone knows once you're in there, your life will unfold with glorious ease. Josh and Gen have had to scramble all their lives to get this far...and now they are one fatal dinner party away from the ultimate success as parents: The Right Pre-School. You may never look at pre-school—or pesto—the same way again...

[boxhead]


Darren O'Donnell - 2004
    Thoughtless Actions, a young geneticist, awakes one morning to find a cardboard box secured to his head. Unable to wrench it off, he attempts suicide, not only failing but also, unbeknowst to himself, cloning himself, creating Dr. Wishful Thinking. The two losers fall in love, fall in science, and fail to make a baby. Their conversation, an intricately woven semantic circus, traverses boxedness, love, and the more ridiculous areas of metaphysical speculation. Through a series of rapid exchanges, verbal games, and musical numbers, they discover that all their thoughts come from God, all their words come from the devil, and their desire for love is a habit acquired from the cinema. Sound familiar? Don't be so hard on yourself.[boxhead]: a bedtime story for your brain.

A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 3


A.H. Bullen - 2004
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

The Left Hand Singing


Barbara Lebow - 2004
    As the parents of Honey, Linda, and Wes cope with their loss, they become inescapably linked the heirs of their lost children s dreams. Throughout the next three decades, the connections among these people with very disparate backgrounds are tested against the fire of the country s social and political turbulence. The structure of the play mixes naturalism with a surprising time curve that evokes the whirl of events surrounding the parents interwoven journeys.

I Am My Own Wife


Doug Wright - 2004
    A transvestite and celebrated antiques dealer who successfully navigated the two most oppressive regimes of the past century-the Nazis and the Communists--while openly gay and defiantly in drag, von Mahlsdorf was both hailed as a cultural hero and accused of colluding with the Stasi. In an attempt to discern the truth about Charlotte, Doug Wright has written "at once a vivid portrait of Germany in the second half of the twentieth century, a morally complex tale about what it can take to be a survivor, and an intriguing meditation on everything from the obsession with collecting to the passage of time" (Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times).

Plays 5: The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus / Square Rounds


Tony Harrison - 2004
    . . It's so brilliant you leave the theatre in a kind of exhilarated pessimism.' Boston Globe'It would be a stony soul who didn't salute Harrison's reckless theatrical audacity . . . A stunningly original piece of theatre.' Guardian'Let's hand it to Tony Harrison: when it comes to taking theatrical risks, he has no rival.' The TimesTony Harrison is the recipient of the Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award 2004.

Espresso


Lucia Frangione - 2004
    One of Lucia Frangione’s blasphemy plays,’ it inverts the Catholic stereotypes of feminine sexuality to boldly examine their corresponding masculine sexual emblems of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. In an erotic world where men are traditionally cast as either fathers to be looked up to or sons to be looked after, where, for women, is the possibility of a flesh-and-blood lover, challenging her to open her heart without trespassing her will—a lover as he appears in the Song of Solomon: passionate, earthy, creative, vulnerable and beautiful— the avatar of the holy spirit? There has been a horrible car crash, and Vito, the patriarch of an immigrant family, has had his body smashed and his heart lacerated, his life hanging by threads of tubes and wires in an intensive care ward. His family has rushed in from all over the country for an anxious vigil of hope, prayer and memory by his bedside. In this crucible of anxiety, a single actress alternately narrates and enacts her own and her family’s history along with an uninvited narrator/actor, Amante (“lover” in Italian). As Amante engages all the women of the clan Rosa plays in a swirl of sharply portrayed characters—Vito’s mother, Nonna, forced into marriage at 13 but only now, at 67, experiencing the first intimations of her body’s desire; the pit-bull martyrdom of Vito’s second wife, Vincenza; and Rosa herself in her own thin, urbane skin stretched tight to hold in the red, passionate blood that boils just below the surface—we are never sure whether Rosa has created Amante or he has created her.Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

Polish Joke and Other Plays


David Ives - 2004
    Nine-year-old Midwesterner Jan Bogdan Sadlowski, nicknamed, Jasiu, is told by his uncle that Poles are thought to be" backward, stupid, inept, and gloomy." The only way out is for Jaisu "to impersonate someone not Polish."Don Juan In Chicago, called in which a Renaissance innocent makes a deal with the devil only to become a reluctant Latin lover.Ancient History, this comedy-drama about the holy war that breaks out when two people from two very different cultures fall in love.The Red Address, the searing portrait of a man with a secret who is forced by tragedy into self-revelation.

The East/West Quartet


Ping Chong - 2004
    His work more than any other artist has explored the ways Asian cultures have intersected with contemporary American society and throughout history.This volume collects four of his masterworks created over the past decade, including:Deshima (1990), a documentary collage of the history of the West and Japan;Chinoiserie (1995), spans centuries, continents and cultures, where the mysterious East meets the mysterious West;After Sorrow (1997), explores the legacy of war in Vietnam;Pojagi (1999), a poetic documentary on Korea from the sixteenth century to today.The Washington Post has said these works are "like poems in their simplicity and power to evoke . . . -carefully wrought and beautifully designed.Artfully and elegantly conceived, rich in metaphor, political yet deeply personal, the four works in The East-West Quartet tell us much about the pitfalls and ironies of history, the various contradictions, collisions and collusions within the East and the West, and the search for national and personal identity. A true citizen of the world, Ping Chong refuses to be pigeonholed and goes his own way, as much at home on the streets of Beijing and Paris as he is on the Canal Street in New York. He continues to make work that bristles with intelligence, that is filled with empathy for the human condition, that is angry yet beautiful - work that matters. It is all here in this book." - Jessica Hagedorn, from her preface"As an artist , I’m an outsider in American society. As an experimental artist, I’m an outsider in the art world. As a person of color, I’m an outsider; as an immigrant, I’m an outsider; as a gay man, I’m an outsider. It’s the position that fate has allotted me, but it’s a valuable postion to be in, because I think every society should have a mirror held to it by the outsider."—Ping Chong, 1999Ping Chong was born in 1946 and raised in the Chinatown section of New York City. He began his theatrical career with Meredith Monk and later founded his own company in 1975, which later became Ping Chong and Company. It was created to explore the meaning of contemporary theatre and art on a national and international level. He has created over fifty major works for the stage, including Humboldt’s Current, Nosferatu, Kind Ness, and Undesirable Elements. His works have received numerous Obie and Bessie Awards and are performed throughout the world.

Urinetown: Vocal Selections


Mark Hollmann - 2004
    14 vocal selections from the Broadway sensation that earned 3 Tony Awards in 2002. Songs include: Act One Finale * Don't Be the Bunny * Follow Your Heart * I See a River * It's a Privilege to Pee * Look at the Sky * Mister Cladwell * Run, Freedom, Run! * Tell Her I Love Her * Urinetown * We're Not Sorry * We're Not Sorry - Reprise * What Is Urinetown? * Why Did I Listen to That Man? Includes 7 full-color pages with production photos.

Shakespeare 101: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Man, His Life and Times, and His Works


Michael LoMonico - 2004
    Michael LoMonico has gathered over 150 lists embracing anything and everything about the world's best-known author. A witty compilation—a pretty foil for the Bard himself—you'll soon know a groat from a farthing and pick up of history's best insults, expressions (now cliches), and all sorts of naughty bits. Meet his most sinister villains, learn arcane coinages (boiled-brains, clodpole, and clapper claw), and find out why wife Anne was left his "second-best" bed. Shakespeare 101 leaves no doubt that William Shakespeare was and remains the master of the English language.

The Einstein Project


Paul D'Andrea - 2004
    It rejects iconic clich

Two Days: Two Short Plays


Donald Margulies - 2004
    This double-cast double-bill opens with a twenty-minute chamber piece, Last Tuesday, which finds commuters on a train from New York to New Haven absorbed with the sometimes comical, quotidian details of their lives as the horror of the outside world insistently—and shockingly—intrudes. July 7, 1994 is a haunting hour-long exploration of a day in the life of a female physician working in an inner-city health clinic.

The Domino Heart


Matthew Edison - 2004
    Mortimer is sleepless in his hospital room. Leo is camped out in his office at Lucas, Triggs & Berkhoff. In the night sky above, a helicopter carries the organ that will connect them all.

A Christmas Carol


Neil Bartlett - 2004
    This stage version was adapted for the festive season of 2002-3, and played to full houses and critical acclaim at both the Lyric Hammersmith, London, and the Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow.

Hamlet; "The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke", 1602 - Richard II; The Tragedie of King Richard the Second (play), 1595


William Shakespeare - 2004
    This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Hamlet, Prinz Von Danemark: Trauerspiel In 6 Aufz.: Nebst Brockmann's Bildniss, Als Hamlet, U. D. Zu D. Ballet Verfertigten Musik William Shakespeare, Friedrich Ludwig Schroder Voss, 1795

Awake & Singing: Six Great American Jewish Plays


Ellen Schiff - 2004
    No wonder. The evolution of Jewish life in America teems with richly dramatic material: immigration, "making it " intergenerational family relationships, the impact of the Great Depression, two World Wars, the Holocaust, the establishment of Israel, and the emergence of feminism and alternative life styles. And pre-eminently and enduringly, the dilemma of identity: how to acculturate without losing one's Jewish identity. A retrospective of the American Jewish repertoire of the last 80 years tells us a good deal about how Jews have perceived themselves and America and how America has perceived Jews. Schiff's collections, Awake and Singing (1995) and Fruitful and Multiplying (1996) were the first ever to represent the magnitude and importance of the American Jewish repertoire. This new edition brings together five plays from those pioneering anthologies: Elmer Rice's Counsellor-at-Law; Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!; Sylvia Regan's Morning Star; Paddy Chayefsky's The Tenth Man; and Herb Gardner's Conversations with My Father. They are joined by Broken Glass, Arthur Miller's first play to focus specifically on deeply disturbing American Jewish problems: assimilation, self-hatred and terrified awareness of the Nazi threat to European co-religionists. The introductory essay provides a cultural and historical overview and there are generous headnotes to each play.

The Wind Cries Mary: Loosely Adapted From Ibsen's Hedda Gabler


Philip Kan Gotanda - 2004
    

A Teatro Trilogy: Selected Plays


Stewart Lemoine - 2004
    Each play, &quotShockers Delight!&quot, &quotPith!&quot, and &quotThe Margin of the Sky&quot respond to the question: Well . . . what if THIS happened?

Plays 1: Airswimming / In Flame / Martha / Josie and the Chinese Elvis / Humble Boy


Charlotte Jones - 2004
    

Selected Plays


Arthur Laurents - 2004
    But he has done much more, including directing, screenwriting, and playwriting. Here, for the first time, is an anthology of seven of Laurents' most acclaimed and challenging plays. It begins with Home of the Brave, the play that launched Laurents' career. This wartime drama known for its frank treatment of anti-Semitism and war trauma remains as potent today as it was when it was opened on Broadway in 1945. The anthology continues through some of Laurents' most recent work, including 2 Lives, a witty, frequently poignant portrait of an elderly gay couple confronting mortality and coming to terms with their lives. Also included are The Enclave, Jolson Sings Again, My Good Name, Closing Bell, and Attacks on the Heart. Spanning nearly 60 years and covering a variety of topical and emotional terrain, this is an important book from an American theatre legend.

Seven Black Plays: The Theodore Ward Prize for African American Playwriting


Chuck SmithCharles Smith - 2004
    This collection, edited by a director and educator who has been affiliated with the contest for fifteen of its seventeen years, showcases a selection of the award-winning plays and offers a rich and varied view of the best of two decades of evolving African American drama.These seven plays, which span the Ward Prize's history, represent a wide range of talents, experience, and perspectives brought to bear on diverse themes, from a unique moment in the history of baseball's Negro League to a working-class couple contending with a neighborhood bully; from a child's memories of negotiating desegregation to coming of age amidst the ravages of racism, child abuse, and AIDS. By turns poetic and moving, brave and rousing, uproarious and unsettling, these works written by established and emerging playwrights allow actors, directors, theatergoers, and readers to sample the multifarious dramatic experience being limned by African American playwrights today.

The Spot


Steven Dietz - 2004
    But with clueless directors, a ruthless campaign advisor, and an actress with too much heart, it's hard to tell who is telling the truth, who is playing the game, and who is dominating the polls.

Plato's Republic and Shakespeare's Rome: A Political Study of the Roman Works


Barbara L. Parker - 2004
    It contends that Plato's theory of constitutional decline provides the philosophical core of these works; that Lucrece, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra form a Platonic tetralogy collectively spanning the stages of timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny; that this decline is prefigured and encapsulated in Titus Andronicus; and that all five works are oblique commentaries on England's political milieu. Shakespeare equates the ruin of Rome with what he foresees as the corresponding decline of England deriving from England's kindred political ills, in particular the burgeoning democratic impulses fostered by the policies of both Elizabeth and James - impulses potentially leading to popular rule and the ruin of the state.