Best of
Plays

2009

Next to Normal


Brian Yorkey - 2009
    "A brave and breathtaking musical."--The New York Times

An Oresteia


Anne Carson - 2009
    After the murder of her daughter Iphegenia by her husband Agamemnon, Klytaimestra exacts a mother’s revenge, murdering Agamemnon and his mistress, Kassandra. Displeased with Klytaimestra’s actions, Apollo calls on her son, Orestes, to avenge his father’s death with the help of his sister Elektra. In the end, Orestes, driven mad by the Furies for his bloody betrayal of family, and Elektra are condemned to death by the people of Argos, and must justify their actions—signaling a call to change in society, a shift from the capricious governing of the gods to the rule of manmade law.Carson’s accomplished rendering combines elements of contemporary vernacular with the traditional structures and rhetoric of Greek tragedy, opening up the plays to a modern audience. In addition to its accessibility, the wit and dazzling morbidity of her prose sheds new light on the saga for scholars. Anne Carson’s Oresteia is a watershed translation, a death-dance of vengeance and passion not to be missed.

Ruined


Lynn Nottage - 2009
    . . . Lynn Nottage’s beautiful, hideous and unpretentiously important play [is] a shattering, intimate journey into faraway news reports.”—Linda Winer, Newsday“An intense and gripping new drama . . . the kind of new play we desperately need: well-informed and unafraid of the world’s brutalities. Nottage is one of our finest playwrights, a smart, empathetic and daring storyteller who tells a story an audience won’t expect.”—David Cote, Time Out New YorkA rain forest bar and brothel in the brutally war-torn Congo is the setting for Lynn Nottage’s extraordinary new play. The establishment’s shrewd matriarch, Mama Nadi, keeps peace between customers from both sides of the civil war, as government soldiers and rebel forces alike choose from her inventory of women, many already “ruined” by rape and torture when they were pressed into prostitution. Inspired by interviews she conducted in Africa with Congo refugees, Nottage has crafted an engrossing and uncommonly human story with humor and song served alongside its postcolonial and feminist politics in the rich theatrical tradition of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage.Lynn Nottage’s plays include Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Fabulation, and Intimate Apparel, winner of the American Theatre Critics’ Steinberg New Play Award and the Francesca Primus Prize. Her plays have been widely produced, with Intimate Apparel receiving more productions than any other play in America during the 2005-2006 season.

Jerusalem


Jez Butterworth - 2009
    . . . A tragic and hilarious vision of life in an English country community. Butterworth’s new work was the most talked about new work of the season."—The London Paper

When the Rain Stops Falling


Andrew Bovell - 2009
    From the writer of the award-winning film Lantana.It interweaves a series of connected stories as seven people confront the mysteries of their past in order to understand their future, revealing how patterns of betrayal, love and abandonment are passed on. Until finally, as the desert is inundated with rain, one young man finds the courage to defy the legacy.

Equivocation


Bill Cain - 2009
    King James commissions Shakespeare to write a play about the Gunpowder Plot.

The Whipping Man


Matthew López - 2009
    The Civil War is over and throughout the south, slaves are being freed, soldiers are returning home and in Jewish homes, the annual celebration of Passover is being celebrated. Into the chaos of war-torn Richmond comes Caleb DeLeon, a young Confederate officer who has been severely wounded. He finds his family's home in ruins and abandoned, save for two former slaves, Simon and John, who wait in the empty house for the family's return. As the three

Title of Show


Jeff Bowen - 2009
    Our matching folio includes 13 piano/vocal arrangements: Development Medley * I Am Playing Me * Monkeys and Playbills * An Original Musical * September Song * Two Nobodies in New York * Untitled Opening Number * and more.

Plays 2: Vincent River / Mercury Fur / Leaves of Glass / Piranha Heights


Philip Ridley - 2009
    All four plays collected here resonant with Ridley's trademarkthemes - East London, storytelling, moments of shocking violence,memories of the past, fantastical monologues, and that strange mix ofthe barbaric and the beautiful he has made all his own. Vincent River: '? a grieving mother and a traumatized teenagermeet as adversaries, rough each other up and eventually bond over abarbaric act of cruelty?Ridley asksquestions, lots of them, about how people respond to the loss ofinnocence in their lives, how they hold onto their sanity in the faceof savagery and how they fight to keep the bonds of humanity intact ina mad, mad world.' Variety Mercury Fur: '?depicts a scary, post-apocalyptic London where, intheir struggle to survive, a group of youths are reduced to organisingparties that cater for the most perverted tastes.' Independent Leaves of Glass: 'There is a different kind of murder going on here:the murder of truth that goes on in all families to a lesser or greaterdegree. As with nations, a family's history is written by the victors.' Guardian Piranha Heights: 'The extravagance of Ridley's dark vision suggests adangerously confused society in which individuals seize on randomgobbets of semi-digested information and use them to construct theirown personal narrative.' TheTimes

Mrs. Packard


Emily Mann - 2009
    Packardis informative, lively and engrossing.” –Talkin’ Broadway“Elizabeth Packard emerges as a vibrant, passionate force of nature.”—The New York TimesIllinois, 1861: Without proof of insanity, Elizabeth Packard is committed by her husband to an asylum. Based on historical events, Emily Mann’s play tells of one woman’s struggle to right a system gone wrong in this winner of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award.Emily Mann is a playwright and director. Her plays include Execution of Justice, Still Life and Having Our Say, among others. She is currently Artistic Director of Princeton, New Jersey’s McCarter Theatre—recipient of the 1994 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Her numerous awards for artistic excellence include a Guggenheim, a Playwrights Fellowship and Artistic Associate Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a McKnight Fellowship and a Rosamund Gilder Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in the Theatre. In recognition of her achievements illuminating the possibilities for social, cultural and political change, Ms. Mann was awarded the Lee Reynolds Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women/NY.

Broadway Presents! Teens' Musical Theatre Anthology: Female Edition: A Treasury of Songs from Stage & Film, Speciallydesigned for Teen Singers! [With


Lisa DeSpain - 2009
    Using the original vocal scores, the songs have been selected and adapted with the ranges and skills of teen singers in mind. Authoritative historical and contextual commentary, audition tips, and 16-bar cut suggestions for each song make this the most useful and relevant collection of its kind. CD includes accompaniment tracks. (br)(br)Titles: A Little Brains, a Little Talent (from (i)Damn Yankees(/i)) * All for You ((i)Seussical the Musical(/i)) * Always True to You in My Fashion * ((i)Kiss Me Kate(/i)) * Astonishing ((i)Little Women(/i)) * Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered * ((i)Pal Joey(/i)) * Boy Wanted ((i)My One and Only(/i) * Don't Rain on My Parade ((i)Funny Girl(/i)) * Gimme Gimme ((i)Thoroughly Modern Millie(/i)) * Hold On ((i)The Secret Garden(/i)) * Home ((i)The Wiz(/i)) * How Are Things in Glocca Morra? ((i)Finian's Rainbow(/i)) * I Had Myself a True Love ((i)St. Louis Woman(/i)) * I Speak Six Languages ((i)The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee(/i)) * I'm Not At All in Love ((i)The Pajama Game(/i)) * Is It Really Me? * ((i)110 in the Shade(/i)) * Mama Who Bore Me ((i)Spring Awakening(/i)) * Mamma Mia ((i)Mamma Mia(/i)) * Much More ((i)The Fantasticks(/i)) * The Music That Makes Me Dance ((i)Funny Girl(/i)) * The New Girl in Town ((i)Hairspray(/i)) * Part of Your World ((i)The Little Mermaid(/i)) * Practically Perfect ((i)Mary Poppins(/i)) * Princess ((i)A Man of No Importance(/i)) * Raunchy ((i)110 in the Shade(/i)) * Roxie ((i)Chicago(/i)) * Show Me ((i)My Fair Lady(/i)) * Shy ((i)Once Upon a Mattress(/i)) * The Simple Joys of Maidenhood ((i)Camelot(/i)) * Somewhere That's Green ((i)Little Shop of Horrors(/i)) * Waiting for Life ((i)Once on This Island(/i)) * Whispering ((i)Spring Awakening(/i)) * Your Daddy's Son (Ragtime).

Le Cid and The Liar


Richard Wilbur - 2009
    He continues this wonderful work with two plays from Pierre Corneille: Le Cid is Corneille’s most famous play, a tragedy set in Seville that illuminates the dangers of being bound by honor and the limits of romantic love; The Liar is a farce, set in France and dealing with love, misperceptions, and downright falsifications, which ends, of course, happily ever after. These two plays, together in one volume, work in perfect tandem to showcase the breadth of Corneille’s abilities. Taking us back to the time he portrays as well as the time of his greatest success as a playwright, they remind us that the delights to be found on the French stage are truly ageless.

Fatboy


John Clancy - 2009
    This satire on modern America's insatiable appetites--from gobbling up 72oz. steaks to small nations--is presented as a live-action Punch and Judy show. In this fast-moving, shocking, profane, dead-on, funhouse mirror reflection of the world today, the brutish allegory known as Fatboy, along with his monstrous wife, Queen Fudgie the First, stands trial for war crimes. Despite overwhelming evidence the court refus

A History of Falling Things


James Graham - 2009
    You know. In the face. Oh and, uh, I love you.'Prisoners of their fear of falling things - keraunothetophobiacs - Jacqui and Robin are restricted to living indoors. When they meet online a relationship begins which forces them to confront their fear and discover what's real in their lives and what really matters.A History of Falling Things, a new play by the acclaimed young playwright James Graham, is a gentle love story that is fearful, funny and moving. The play premiered at Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Wales, in April 2009 before transferring to the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff.

Plays 2: One Minute / Country Music / Motortown / Pornography / Sea Wall


Simon Stephens - 2009
    The range of plays in this volume displays a tough sensibility and a courage to confront the more unsettling challenges of our times.One Minute, first produced in 2003 and revived in London in 2008, has an uncomfortable resonance as it follows five characters variously affected by the disappearance of Daisy, an 11-year-old girl, from Seven Dials, Covent Garden. Country Music spotlights four fateful moments in the life of Jamie Carris during and after the prison sentences he has served for glassing one man and for killing another. Motortown, written in response to the War on Terror, is a blistering account of a young soldier's return home from Basra to an England he no longer recognises or connects with. Pornography captures Britain as it crashes from the euphoria and promise of the 2012 Olympics announcement into the devastation of the London bombings of 7/7. The final play, Sea Wall, is a one-act monologue about grief, following the drowning of a young child.

Ragtime the Musical: Complete Vocal Score


Lynn Ahrens - 2009
    Celebrate the wonderful music of the 1998 musical Ragtime with Ragtime the Musical: Vocal Score (Complete) . Now you can play the Tony Award-winning music in your own home with the complete vocal score, professionally arranged for piano/vocal.

Apologia


Alexi Kaye Campbell - 2009
    A disastrous family reunion is the occasion for a sharp and perceptive look at what has happened to the children of '60s idealists.

Irena's Vow


Dan Gordon - 2009
    19-year-old Irena Gut is promoted to housekeeper in the home of a highly respected Nazi officer when she finds out that the Jewish ghetto is about to be liquidated. Determined to help twelve Jewish workers, she decides to shelter them in the safest place she can think of: the basement of the German commandant's house. Over the next two years, Irena uses her wit, humor, and courage to hide her friends until the end of the German occupation, concealing them in the midst of countless Nazi parties, a blackmail scheme, and even the birth of a child. Her story is one of the most inspiring of our time.

Three Plays: Dividing the Estate / The Trip to Bountiful / The Young Man from Atlanta


Horton Foote - 2009
    This anthology brings together three of his most critically acclaimed plays.

The 39 Steps


Patrick Barlow - 2009
    Taking place only months before the outbreak of World War One (and written during the conflict) it focuses on Hannay’s attempts to warn the government of an unfolding plot to steal Great Britain’s military plans. Throughout the book Hannay must escape from German spies and the British police, who falsely believe that he has murdered the very man who revealed the plot to him. The book would prove incredibly popular upon its release and has been cited as the first “man-on-the-run” style story which has been re-used in films in literature ever since. The novel itself has been adapted for the screen no less than four times.

You Can't Take It With You - Radio Script


George S. Kaufman - 2009
    Kaufman and Moss Hart.

None of the Above - Acting Edition


Jenny Lyn Bader - 2009
    Book by Jenny Lyn Bader

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (A Lively Learning Guide)


Shmoop - 2009
    Or grab a flashlight and read Shmoop under the covers.Shmoop's award-winning learning guides are now available on your favorite eBook reader through the Barnes & Noble eBook Store. Shmoop eBooks are like a trusted, fun, chatty, expert literature-tour-guide always by your side, no matter where you are (or how late it is at night).You'll find thought-provoking character analyses, quotes, summaries, themes, symbols, trivia, and lots of insightful commentary in Shmoop's literature guides. Teachers and experts from top universities, including Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Harvard have lovingly created these guides to get your brain bubbling.Shmoop is here to make you a better lover of literature and to help you discover connections to other works of literature, history, current events, and pop culture. These interactive study guides will help you discover and rediscover some of the greatest works of all time. For more info, check out Shmoop Literature

The Russian Play and Other Short Works


Hannah Moscovitch - 2009
    In The Russian Play, the flower-shop girl tells the story of her love for the gravedigger. Essay casts a teaching assistant in the shadow of his professor as they argue the merits of a female student’s paper. In USSR, a young woman relates her journey to Canada from Russia, and Mexico City follows Henry and Alice on their vacation in 1960. These four plays bring each character to life in full colour, jumping off the page before you and onto the stage.

The Essential Molière Collection


Molière - 2009
    Waller, 1668- The Blunderer or the Counterplots [L'Etourdi], 1653- The Bores [Les Facheux], 1661- The Countess of Escarbagnas [La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas], translated by Charles Heron Wall, 1671- Don Garcia of Navarre or The Jealous Prince [Le Prince Jaloux]. 1661- The Flying Doctor [Le Medecin Volant], 1659- The Imaginary Invalid [Le Malade Imaginaire], translated by Charles Heron Wall, 1673- The Impostures of Scapin [Les Fourberies de Scapin], translated by Charles Heron Wall, 1671- The Jealousy of le Barbouille [La Jalousie du Barbouille]- The Learned Women [Les Femmes Savantes], translated by Charles Heron Wall, 1672- The Love-Tiff [Le Depit Amoureux], 1656- The Magnificent Lovers [Les Amants Magnifiques], translated by Charles Heron Wall, 1670- The Middle Class Gentleman [Le Bourgeois Gentihomme], translated by Philip Dwight Jones, 1670- The Miser [L'Avare], translated by Charles Heron Wall, 1668- Monsieur de Pourseaugnac, translated by Charles Heron Wall. 1669- The Pretentious Young Ladies [Les Precieuses Ridicules], 1659- Psyche, translated by Charles Heeron Wall- The School for Husbands [L'Ecole des Maris], 1661- Sganarelle or the Self-deceived Husband], 1660- The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman [Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme], translated by Charles Heron Wall, 1670- Tartuffe or the Hypocrite, translated by Curtis Hidden Page, 1664.

The Flint Street Nativity (Paperback)


Tim Firth - 2009
    

A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 4


A.H. Bullen - 2009
    

Cock


Mike Bartlett - 2009
    Filled with guilt and indecision, he decides there is only one way to straighten this out....Mike Bartlett's punchy new story takes a playful, candid look at one man's sexuality and the difficulties that arise when you realise you have a choice.Cock premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on November 13, 2009.

The Collected Plays


Mart Crowley - 2009
    These six plays—all professionally produced and two never before published—interrelate and revive the protagonist of the explosive gay drama Boys in the Band in his relationships with his family and friends, both gay and straight. Mart Crowley is an acclaimed playwright, television producer, and children’s book author who lives in New York.

Hello Failure


Kristen Kosmas - 2009
    HELLO FAILURE was presented in the Prelude Festival in 2007, and produced at PS 122 in March 2008. "The play opens quietly, more or less, on the Eastern Seaboard and then closes, more or less miraculously, somewhere else altogether, achieving on its happy and troublous way all the things a reader or audience member could hope for-- distance, speed, heart, submersion, emergence, truth, mystery, and more. By the end, in a plain and simple and fairly sad way, everything stands for everything else, nothing is not filled with mystery, and to be a living human being is seen to be--despite the drawbacks--the most enviable thing of all"--Will Eno. "One day people are going to realize that Kristen is the Chekhov of our time"--Laylage Courie. "You can hate if you want but you're wrong"--Andy Horwitz.

Four Plays and Three Jokes


Anton Chekhov - 2009
    This volume offers lively and accurate translations of Chekhov's major plays and one-acts (complete contents listed below) along with a superb Introduction focused on the plays' remarkably enduring power to elicit the most widely divergent of responses, the life of the playwright in its historical and aesthetic contexts, suggestions for reading the plays under a microscope, and notes designed to bring Chekhov's world into immediate focus--everything needed to examine his drama with fresh eyes and on its own artistic terms.

East of Berlin


Hannah Moscovitch - 2009
    It has been seven years since he stood in that same spot; seven years since he left his family and their history behind him.As a teenager, Rudi discovered that his father was a doctor at Auschwitz. Trying to reconcile his inherited guilt, Rudi lashed out against his family and his friends, and eventually fled to Germany. While there, he follows in his father's footsteps by studying medicine, and falls in love with Sarah, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.Questioning redemption, love, guilt, and the sins of the father, East of Berlin is a tour de force that follows Rudi's emotional upheaval as he comes to terms with a frightening past that was never his own.

Good Boys and True - Acting Edition


Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa - 2009
    Book annotation not available for this title.Title: Good Boys and TrueAuthor: Aguirre-Sacasa, RobertoPublisher: Dramatist's Play ServicePublication Date: 2009/09/30Number of Pages: 54Binding Type: PAPERBACKLibrary of Congress:

Collected Works of August Strindberg


August Strindberg - 2009
    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Park...


Manav Kaul - 2009
    It tells the story of a part of park which contains 3 bench. 3 man fight over one bench due to their own reasons.

Selected Plays


Shahid Nadeem - 2009
    This selection of 6 plays is reflective of bold social and political themes and innovative form. While the plays break down barriers by addressing bold themes, there is a strong link with tradition and heritage. These plays have not only established theatre as a legitimate and effective form for dialogue and discourse, but they have also put Pakistan on the theatre map of the world. These plays are fine examples of socially-committed literature which does not compromise the literary and aesthetic elements of the writing. Music, dance, and humor are an integral part of these plays. Even when handling depressing subjects like the trafficking of women in Dukhini, or a serious expression of Sufi thought in Bulha, Shahid Nadeem successfully brings in humor to heighten the impact and maintain the audience's interest.

Of One Blood (Library Edition Audio CDs) (L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collections)


Andrew White - 2009
    A poignant and distrurbing play about the infamous murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.

The Stone


Marius von Mayenburg - 2009
    

The Selkie Wife


Kelley Jo Burke - 2009
    No ordinary secret, this. As it turns out, Mary is a "selkie"--a seal who sheds her skin to mate with a human male, then returns to the water with her offspring. But Mary, happy with Cal, decided to stay on land. And now, twenty years later, Gen has come to take her back into the water.Accompanying Gen is Dylan, her vital young seal lover (in human form), whose animal attraction to Brigit is immediately evident. In a very short time, the ordinary world Mary has built is turned upside-down.The situation is ripe for laughter, and there are moments of uproarious comedy throughout the play. But Burke's themes are serious, and the questions her characters face go to very the essence of their lives; The Selkie Wife is a dramatic meditation about love and sex, about freedom and oppression, about making concessions and making choices.

Plays: . . . And How to Produce Them


David Carter - 2009
    Additional sections deal with special concerns and interests such as producing plays in the open air, school productions, producing plays with non-English speakers, expatriate productions, plays without scripts, and producing Shakespeare and Brecht. Other helpful features include sample rehearsal schedules, sample plans for blocking scenes, and excerpts and quotes from leading drama practitioners.

The Greek Mythology Olympiaganza (Full-Length)


Don Zolidis - 2009
    

Make Believe


Kristin Anna Froberg - 2009
    She's clever, creative, can describe the plot of every episode of "Battlestar Galactica," and hasn't left the house in five years. Her sister, Lena, is an energetic, popular, occasionally cruel high-school cheerleader-or was, the last time Natasha saw her. As Natasha works her way through delayed adolescence and a strangely evolving relationship with her tutor, her family works to move forward without a sister, without a daughter, and with

Fifty Words (Acting Edition)


Michael Weller - 2009
    Adam's attempt to seduce his wife before he leaves on business the next day begins a suspenseful nightlong roller-coaster ride of revelation, rancor, passion and humor that explores a modern-day marriage on the verge of either a breakup or deepening love and understanding.

Skin Deep


Jon Lonoff - 2009
    They both know they're perfect for each other, and in time they come to admit it. They were set up on the date by Maureen's sister Sheil

Up


Bridget Carpenter - 2009
    Walter's greatest moment of glory - a flight on a lawn chair festooned with helium balloons - is now long behind him, though Walter dreams of inventing something wonderful once more. His wife, Helen, has become disillusioned and frustrated at being the family's only breadwinner. Their teenage son, Mikey, harbors dreams of his own: after befriending Maria, a pregnant girl in his class, Mikey becomes involved in her family's phone sales business, with surprising results. When Walter finally takes a job, Mike keeps his a secret, and Helen allows herself to dream of a more secure life. But when Helen discovers the truth about Walter's employment, it becomes clear to this family that life itself is lived on a wire not unlike Petit's, this one strung between happiness and sadness. "A brilliant play...original, poignant, moving, sad and funny. I have rarely sat in a theater audience that laughed so hard at one moment and, at the next, sat so still you'd swear you could hear the actors' hearts beating together on stage." - Eugene Register-Guard "The incredible and beautiful conclusion leaves the audience thinking, philosophizing and talking in the car all the way home...a perfect mix of comedy and drama." - Grants Pass Daily Courier "Not only has the playwright nailed the ultra-cool cadence of the next generation, but she also has captured an essential truth about the lure of the impossible dream, its freedom and its danger." - Mercury News

The Wedding Day


Elizabeth Inchbald - 2009
    At the age of 19 she went to London in order to act. In 1772 she agreed to marry the actor Joseph Inchbald (1735-1779). For four years the couple toured Scotland with West Digges's theatre company, a demanding life. After Joseph Inchbald's death in 1779, she continued to act for several years, in Dublin, London, and elsewhere. Between 1784 and 1805 she had nineteen of her comedies, sentimental dramas, and farces (many of which were translations from the French) performed at London theatres. Eighteen of her plays were published, though she wrote several more; the exact number is in dispute though most recent commentators claim between 21and 23. Her two novels have been frequently reprinted. She also did considerable editorial and critical work. A four-volume autobiography was destroyed before her death upon the advice of her confessor, but she left some of her diaries. The latter are currently held at the Folger Shakespeare Library and an edition was recently published.

Ruben Guthrie


Brendan Cowell - 2009
    Hes 29, hes the Creative Director of a cutting-edge advertising agency, hes engaged to a Czech supermodel and Sydney is his oyster. He pours himself a drink to celebrate, a drink to work, a drink to sleep and one spectacular night he drinks so much he thinks he can fly.

Three Plays: The Early Metaphysical Plays of Charles Williams


Charles Williams - 2009
    

Masked


Ilan Hatsor - 2009
    An explosive Israeli play about three Palestinian brothers. Set during the Intifada with the Israeli-Arab struggle as its backdrop, Masked depicts the tragedy of one family torn between duty, kinship, principles and survival. "Powerful! Remarkably of the moment..." -The New York Times "Provocative drama. An articulate calculus of loyalty and betrayal." -The New Yorker "A contemporary emotionally charged family drama." -Time Out New York "Passionate. Fascinating. A heartbreaker. H

At Home at the Zoo


Edward Albee - 2009
    More than fifty years later, master playwright Edward Albee (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?) wrote a prequel to this classic. Home Story contains the events in Peter’s life immediately preceding his encounter with Jerry on the park bench and is every bit as powerful as the original. We meet Ann, Peter’s wife, and see the conversation that compelled Peter to go for that fateful walk in the park. For the first time collected in one volume, At Home at the Zoo is a must for any theater lover.

My First Time


Ken Davenport - 2009
    I was alone at the time!" (Story #6509) "I still have the Metallica shirt he wore that night." (Story #23960) "File mine under clumsy and awkward!" (Story #4294) My First Time features four actors in hysterical and heartbreaking stories about first sexual experiences written by real people. In 1998, a decade before blogging began, a website was created that allowed people to anonymously share their own true stories about t

OUROBOROS


Tom Jacobson - 2009
    Stigmata, alchemy, adultery, and St. Catherine of Siena's severed head plague a nun and a minister in this circular love story that is a comedy if performed forward and a tragedy if performed backward. "Critic's choice ... Either direction's a rewarding trip, the reversible OUROBOROS provides two distinctive experiences. Only the most skillful and meticulous construction could allow Tom Jacobson's love story involving the repeatedly intersecting spiritual quests of two American couples - each traveling through time in the opposite direction - to be performed in either of two chronological sequences (a circular construction reflected in the title reference to the mythical snake that devours its own tail). Jacobson considers the piece played one way a comedy and a tragedy when played in reverse, these labels apply only in the classical sense, depending on whether the conclusion is happy or not ... this witty, moving narrative palindrome!" -Los Angeles Times "Critic's pick ... You must experience this play. Or is it plays? Tom Jacobson's world premiere follows two unrelated couples, visiting five Italian cities, who are trapped in a hellish collision of fate as they live out cross-referenced realities. This mixture of deja vu and shocking Twilight Zone-like inevitability results in a five-scene time continuum captivatingly performed in reverse order ... Seen together or alone, this is a thought-provoking pair of hits!" -Backstage West "Recommended ... Tom Jacobson's enchanting metaphysical etude." -L A Weekly "Three stars ... Either way you happen to slice, twist or pretzel it, OUROBOROS is riveting ... As intelligent and thought-provoking as it is entertaining!" -Daily News "Wow! This innovative play is a stunner that renders its audience baffled and rewardingly exhausted throughout and for long after curtain call. I've never seen anything like it! A powerfully mesmerizing trip into the unknown, and a wildly worthy night of theatre that challenges your imagination, it keeps your psyche hopping! Captivatingly written by Tom Jacobson, this is complicates, eerie, heady stuff!" -The Tolucan Times "Pick of the week ... OUROBOROS ... is one of the best productions to hit L A this season. Tom Jacobson's mysterious and intellectually challenging new puzzle featuring two plays in one ... this quickly blossoming and Los Angeles nurtured playwright, someone who will soon be universally recognized, in a perfect world where things happen as they should and in ascending order!" -Entertainment Today

The Electra Plays


Peter Meineck - 2009
    Aeschylus: The Libation Bearers; Euripides: Electra; Sophocles: Electra

Kursk


Bryony Lavery - 2009
    The crew sleep, eat, drill, long for word from home, and silently shadow their target. Their lives, at once extraordinary and mundane, are shattered by a global crisis from which uniquely personal stories emerge.Inspired by the Russian submarine disaster of August 2000, in collaboration with Sound&Fury, Bryony Lavery's play imagines the life of submariners, deep below the icy seas on the fraying front line of the cold war. Kursk was iproduced at the Young Vic Theatre 2009 and revived to great acclaim in 2010.

Roaring Trade


Steve Thompson - 2009
    This is what life was like in the big financial institutions before the ceiling fell in. Topical and fast-paced, Roaring Trade exposes just how far people would go to secure the highest-risk, highest-earning jobs.

Not Black and White


Roy Williams - 2009
    Roy Williams, Kwame Kwei-Armah and Bola Agbaje tackle the prison system, the mayoralty and immigration in their respective plays.Category B by Roy WilliamsSaul runs a tip-top wing - the screws love him for it, especially Angela. Prisoners follow his rules, and it's all gravy. But Saul's number two position is vacant, new inmates are flooding in, so everyone's feeling the heat. No-one wants to go to Cat B, but the world on the outside is a different story.Seize the Day by Kwame Kwei-ArmahJeremy Charles could be London's first black mayor. He has the face to represent it - a well-spoken, good-looking Londoner, with an appetite for change. He's sold his pitch on reality TV, but can he be the real people's candidate?Detaining Justice by Bola AgbajeJustice is locked in a cold dark cell, his asylum application pending. His sister Grace would like to help, but has been told to leave it in God's hands. Crown Prosecutor Mark Cole has an infallible reputation for successful prosecutions - however he has had a change of heart - and job. His first case is for the defense of Justice - but, in his new role, is Cole the man to help? Published to coincide with the Not Black and White season at the Tricycle, where the three dramas played in rep in 2009.

Samuel Beckett and the Problem of Irishness


Emilie Morin - 2009
    Emilie Morin shows that such autonomy is only apparent, and that Beckett's avant-garde practices remain bound to the exigencies that govern their very development.

Six Works


Eugene O'Neill - 2009
    Six classic plays by Eugene O'Neill with an active table of contents.Works include:AbortionAnna ChristieThe Emperor JonesThe First ManThe Hairy ApeThe Straw

The Adamus Exul Of Grotius: Or The Prototype Of Paradise Lost (1839)


Hugo Grotius - 2009
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.