Book picks similar to
Wait Until Dark by Frederick Knott
plays
drama
theatre
mystery
Same Time Next Year
Bernard Slade - 1975
It remains one of the world's most widely produced plays. The plot follows a love affair between two people, Doris and George, married to others, who rendezvous once a year. Twenty-five years of manners and morals are hilariously and touchingly played out by the lovers. "Delicious wit, compassion, a sense of humor and a feel for nostalgia."-The New York Times "Genuinely funny and genuinely romantic."-The New York Post
My Fair Lady
Alan Jay Lerner - 1956
Higgins wagers that he can pass her off as a Duchess in a matter of weeks. But what will become of Eliza when the bet is over? This edition of ‘My Fair Lady’ includes the complete script and a selection of black and white stills from the Oscar-winning film starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia Highsmith - 1955
In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal but grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante. A dark reworking of Henry James's The Ambassadors, The Talented Mr. Ripley—is up to his tricks in a 90s film and also Rene Clement's 60s film, "Purple Noon."
The Seagull
Anton Chekhov - 1895
Two years later it was revived by Nemirovich-Danchenko at the newly-founded Moscow Art Theatre with Stanslasky as Trigorin and was an immediate success. Checkhov's description of the play was characteristically self-mocking: "A comedy - 3F, 6M, four acts, rural scenery (a view over a lake); much talk of literature, little action, five bushels of love".Michael Frayn's translation was commissioned by the Oxford Playhouse Company.
Malevolent
Jana Deleon - 2015
Everyone wondered about Shaye Archer’s past. Including Shaye. Shaye Archer’s life effectively began the night police found her in an alley, beaten and abused and with no memory of the previous fifteen years, not even her name. Nine years later, she’s a licensed private investigator, with a single goal—to get answers for her clients when there aren’t supposed to be any. And maybe someday, answers for herself. Emma Frederick thought her nightmare was over when she killed her abusive husband, but someone is stalking her and tormenting her with mementos from her past. With no evidence to support her claims, the police dismiss her claims as post-traumatic stress, but Shaye is convinced that someone is deliberately terrorizing Emma…playing a cat and mouse game with only one goal in mind. To kill Emma.
Disturbed
Jennifer Jaynes - 2017
She was found hiding in her apartment’s bathtub, barely clinging to life.With only fragments of shattered memory, she’s been trying her best to move past the nightmares ever since. Now in Boston, she lives a somewhat reclusive life, working from home as a medical transcriptionist and bingeing on mindless television shows.She can’t shake the fear that her attacker is out there, waiting to finish what he started, and Elizabeth, a nurse she met after the murders, is the only person she can trust.When someone from her past reemerges, Chelsea starts receiving disturbing messages and worries that her every move is being watched. As the messages mount and her memories begin to return, she’s led to a very terrifying and lonely place. But she needn’t be afraid. She won’t be alone there for long.
Proof
David Auburn - 2000
His death has brought into her midst both her sister, Claire, who wants to take Catherine back to New York with her, and Hal, a former student of Catherine's father who hopes to find some hint of Robert's genius among his incoherent scribblings. The passion that Hal feels for math both moves and angers Catherine, who, in her exhaustion, is torn between missing her father and resenting the great sacrifices she made for him. For Catherine has inherited at least a part of her father's brilliance -- and perhaps some of his instability as well. As she and Hal become attracted to each other, they push at the edges of each other's knowledge, considering not only the unpredictability of genius but also the human instinct toward love and trust.
Moon Over Buffalo
Ken Ludwig - 1995
This backstage farce by the author of Lend Me a Tenor brought Carol Burnett back to Broadway co-starring with Philip Bosco as her megalomanic, drunken husband and leading man. Fate has given these thespians one more shot at starring roles in The Scarlet Pimpernel epic and director Frank Capra himself is en route to Buffalo to catch their matinee performance. Will Charlotte appear or run off with their agent? Will George be sober enough to emote? Will Capra see Cyrano, Private Lives or a disturbing mixture of the two? Hilarious misunderstandings pile on madcap misadventures, in this valentine to Theatre Hams everywhere.
Fires in the Mirror
Anna Deavere Smith - 1993
Derived from interviews with a wide range of people who experienced or observed New York's 1991 Crown Heights racial riots, Fires In The Mirror is as distinguished a work of commentary on current Black-White tensions as it is a work of drama.
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.
The Stonemason: A Play in Five Acts
Cormac McCarthy - 1994
The Telfairs are stonemasons and have been for generations. Ben Telfair has given up his education to apprentice himself to his grandfather, Papaw, a man who knows that "true masonry is not held together by cement but...by the warp of the world." Out of the love that binds these two men and the gulf that separates them from the Telfairs who have forsaken -- or dishonored -- the family trade, Cormac McCarthy has crafted a drama that bears all the hallmarks of his great fiction: precise observation of the physical world; language that has the bite of common speech and the force of Biblical prose; and a breathtaking command of the art of storytelling.
Shining City
Conor McPherson - 2004
In Dublin, a man seeks help from a counselor, claiming to have seen the ghost of his recently deceased wife. But what begins as just an unusual encounter becomes a struggle between the living and dead—a struggle that will shape and define both men for the rest of their lives.Also included here is the one-act, Come on Over, about a Jesuit priest sent to investigate a “miracle” in his hometown, where he re-encounters the woman who loved him 30 years before.Conor McPherson was born in Dublin, Ireland, where he still lives. His plays include This Lime Tree Bower, St. Nicholas, The Weir, Port Authority and Dublin Carol.