Laughter on the 23rd Floor


Neil Simon - 1993
    From America's favorite playwright (Plaza Suite, The Odd Couple, and Lost in Yonkers), comes a "screamingly funny" (Philadelphia Inquirer) Broadway hit about a team of comedy writers in television's Golden Era.

Essential Self-Defense: A Play


Adam Rapp - 2007
    Meanwhile, all's not well on the unassuming Midwestern streets of Bloggs: with local children vanishing at an alarming rate, our hero, his lady friend, and a motley assortment of poets, butchers, and punk librarians prepare to battle the darkness on the edge of town.

The Moors


Jen Silverman - 2017
    The arrival of a hapless governess and a moor-hen set all three on a strange and dangerous path. The Moors is a dark comedy about love, desperation, and visibility.1 M, 5 F.

The Man Who Turned into a Stick: Three Related Plays


Kōbō Abe - 1971
    It is the third of three plays written over twelve years (1957-1969) meant to symbolize the different stages of life, usually shown together. The first, representing birth, is "The Suitcase". The second, "The Cliff of Time," represents life itself, or "The Process," and the third, "The Man who Turned into a Stick," is death.This play has been considered as a main example of the current of Magic Realism in Japanese Literature. Other Japanese authors with considerable literary contributions to this genre are: Yasunari Kawabata, Oe Kenzaburo and Yasushi Inoue.

Duck Hunting


Aleksandr Vampilov - 1980
    He has come to detest his boring job and the petty superior he must defer to; his marriage is falling apart; he feels betrayed by his friends, he disdains the young student who offers him the passion and sense of wonder he once derived from his wife; and he seems concerned only with his annual hunting trip which, he hopes, will restore a purpose and identity to his life. But events continue to frustrate him: his wife aborts the child who might have saved their relationship; the new apartment they have wrested from the grudging bureaucracy seems more a tomb than a home; and ultimately, suicide appears to be Zilov's only alternative. But, in the end, emboldened by vodka and defying the persistent bad weather, Zilov does go hunting for the will to live is stronger than the desire to give up, and hope remains, even in the gray sameness of an existence gone stale.

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman


Eric J. Sterling - 2008
    The topics include feminism and the role of women in the drama, the American Dream, business and capitalism, the significance of technology, the legacy that Willy leaves to Biff, and Miller's use of symbolism. The authors of the essays include prominent Arthur Miller scholars such as Terry Otten and the late Steven Centola as well as young, emerging scholars. Some of the essays, particularly the ones written by the emerging scholars, tend to employ literary theory while the ones by the established scholars tend to illustrate the strengths of traditional criticism by interpreting the text closely. It is fascinating to see how scholars at different stages of their academic careers approach a given topic from distinct perspectives and sometimes diverse methodologies. The essays offer insightful and provocative readings of Death of a Salesman in a collection that will prove quite useful to scholars and students of Miller's most famous play.

The Dear Departed: A Comedy in One Act


Stanley Houghton - 1963
    Recreation Department twenty-fourth annual one-act play tournament, The Arts Club Players present "The Dear Departed," by Stanley Houghton, directed by Herman P. Riess.

The American Clock


Arthur Miller - 1981
    The central figures are the Baums, a wealthy family whose fortune has vanished in the stock market crash, but their story is amplified and illuminated by brief glimpses of other lives; a farmer who has lost all in the dust bowl; a prostitute who exchanges her favors for dental work; a white Southern sheriff in thrall to a black short-order cook; a young man who dreams of success on Tin Pan Alley, etc. Moving deftly from scene to scene, some funny, some movingly poignant, the play becomes a deeply affecting evocation both of a tortured time in American history and of the indomitable spirit of the people who survived and prevailed in the face of unaccustomed adversity.

Three Plays: Ohio Impromptu, Catastrophe, What Where


Samuel Beckett - 1981
    'Ohio Impromptu...speaks poetically and with a stunning theatricality about a last love. Catastrophe...is a politically prescient black comedy about man's enslavement by the state. What Where, the most enigmatic of three pieces, is a cryptic gram of truth about the manipulation of man by man. A compelling triptych.' ---Mel Gussow, The New York Times

Measures Taken and Other Lehrstücke


Bertolt Brecht - 1977
    Now available in the Arcade definitive edition, the Lehrstucke (or learning plays) lie at the heart of Brechtian theater.

The Young Man from Atlanta


Horton Foote - 1995
    Will and Lily Dale Kidder try to hold onto their beliefs about their son's life and death and the possibilities for their own lives, but both are dealt a shattering blow by the young man of the title, a friend of their son's who never appears in the play. Foote's pitch-perfect characters and sensitive eye for interpersonal relationships continue to place him at the top of playwrights working today.

A Touch of the Poet


Eugene O'Neill - 1957
    The tavern is owned by a tempestuous Irishman who is a s proud as he is ill-tempered and is determined to show his pride and importance to the Yankee townsmen.

in the company of men


Neil LaBute - 1997
    The story of two white-collar managers, Chad and Howard, who maliciously plot to jointly romance the lonely, deaf, beautiful office temp Christine before simultaneously dumping her, is cool and compelling in its depiction of the worst sorts of emotional abuse. What begins as a cat-and-mouse game of one-upmanship quickly escalates into full-scale psychological warfare. Only too late does this 'frat boy' prank reveal itself as deadly serious, with a struggle between the two men at the heart of the battle. The woman is only a means to an end, a pawn easily captured and tossed aside in a dark, wicked duel for corporate ascension.

Eight


Ella Hickson - 2009
    From high-class hookers to 7/7 survivors these monologues paint a revelatory picture of Britain as it is today. After rave reviews at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival and in New York, "Eight" opened in London's West End in July 2009.

Equivocation


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