Book picks similar to
Oil and Water by Robert Chafe
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Boeing-Boeing
Marc Camoletti - 1967
This 1960's French farce adapted for the English-speaking stage features self-styled Parisian lothario Bernard, who has Italian, German, and American fiancees, each beautiful airline hostesses with frequent "layovers." He keeps "one up, one down and one pending" until unexpected schedule changes bring all three to Paris and Bernard's apartment at the same time.
Three Plays: Our Lady of 121st Street / Jesus Hopped the A Train / In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings
Stephen Adly Guirgis - 2003
A masterful poet of the downtrodden, his plays portray life on New York's hardscrabble streets in a manner both tender and unflinching, while continually exploring the often startling gulf between who we are and how we perceive ourselves. Gathered in this volume is his current off-Broadway hit, Our Lady of 121st Street, a comic portrait of the graduates of a Harlem Catholic school reunited at the funeral of a beloved teacher, along with his two previous plays: the philosophical jailhouse drama Jesus Hopped the A Train and In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings, an Iceman Cometh for the Giuliani era that looks at the effect of Times Square's gentrification on its less desirable inhabitants.
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and Other Plays: The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Psycho Beach Party, The Lady in Question, Red Scare on Sunset
Charles Busch - 2000
Of his latest play, The New York Times has written, "Uproarious ... wall-to-wall laughs ... Mr. Busch has swum straight into the mainstream and stays comfortably afloat there." Busch is the author of such plays as Vampire Lesbians of Sodom -- one of the longest-running plays in Off-Broadway history -- and Psycho Beach Party, a cross between Gidget and Spellbound. After a successful Off-Broadway run at New York City's Manhattan Theater Club, Busch moves to Broadway with The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, a hilarious comedy about a self-absorbed Upper West Side doctor's wife whose life is devoted to mornings at the Whitney, afternoons at the Museum of Modern Art, and evenings at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her world is shaken and transformed when a childhood friend makes an unexpected visit.
The Boys Next Door
Tom Griffin - 1988
Norman, who works in a doughnut shop and is unable to resist the lure of the sweet pastries, takes great pride in the huge bundle of keys that dangles from his waist; Lucien P. Smith has the mind of a five-year-old but imagines that he is able to read and comprehend the weighty books he lugs about; Arnold, the ringleader of the group, is a hyperactive, compulsive chatterer, who suffers from deep-seated insecurities and a persecution complex; while Barry, a brilliant schizophrenic who is devastated by the unfeeling rejection of his brutal father, fantasizes that he is a golf pro. Mingled with scenes from the daily lives of these four, where "little things" sometimes become momentous (and often very funny), are moments of great poignancy when, with touching effectiveness, we are reminded that the handicapped, like the rest of us, want only to love and laugh and find some meaning and purpose in the brief time that they, like their more fortunate brothers, are allotted on this earth.
The Son
Florian Zeller - 2018
Believe me. I don't know what's happened, but something has. He's changed. He . . . And I'm wondering if . . . To be absolutely honest with you . . . I'm even wondering if . . . Nicolas, just two years ago a smiling boy, is going through a difficult phase after his parents' divorce. He's listless, skipping classes, lying. He believes moving in with his father and his new family may help. And a different school, a fresh start. When he doesn't feel comfortable there, when he senses he isn't wanted, he decides that going back to his mother's may be the answer. But at some point, options are going to dry up. And then what?I'm telling you. I don't understand what's happening to me. Florian Zeller's The Son forms the final part in a trilogy with The Mother and The Father, all of which are translated by Christopher Hampton. The Son premieres at the Kiln Theatre, London, in February 2019.
Dry Land
Ruby Rae Spiegel - 2015
Amy is curled up on the locker room floor. DRY LAND is a play about abortion, female friendship, and resiliency, and what happens in one high school locker room after everybody’s left.
Flesh & Blood: Stories
Michael Crummey - 1998
Set largely in the small Newfoundland mining town of Black Rock, but straying as far west as Vancouver and as far east as China, these stories are subtle, stark portrayals of people alternately looking for or trying desperately to escape their place in the world.A young boy confuses love and allegiance, then stumbles into the complexities of adulthood; a brother and sister fall in love with the same woman; a frustrated wife protests her husband’s neglect by going on strike with the miners’ union; a lover’s drug habit reunites a woman with the sister she has lost.Anchor Books is proud to publish an expanded edition of Michael Crummey’s brilliant collection Flesh and Blood, which includes three original stories written just for this edition. Graceful, affecting, and generous of spirit, these stories are unforgettable.
In the Heart of America and Other Plays
Naomi Wallace - 2000
Her characters suffer and survive against the enormous weight of the times with a dignity that inspires. Her work challenges the audience and reader to reexamine the conflicts and meaning of our everyday lives through her singular, poetic imagery and language.Includes: One Flea SpareIn the Heart of AmericaSlaughter CityThe War BoysThe Trestle at Pope's Creek
The Light in the Piazza
Craig Lucas - 2005
The Light in the Piazza has ravishing power. It’s as if Guettel were determined to capture the golden light of Tuscany in a bottle. His lyrics are remarkable, and the book, written by Craig Lucas, is written with characteristic empathy and humor. Brilliant.” –Frank Rich“The Light in the Piazza beautifully captures the eternal allure of Italy. . . . The story wraps itself around your heart.”—Chicago Sun-Times“Sumptuous and romantic. Guettel’s music and lyrics represent a genuine expense of spirit. The Light in the Piazza offers a complex contemplation of the well-defended emptiness of every man and woman. It doesn’t want theatergoers to feel good; it wants to make them feel deeply. And it does.” –New YorkerComposer Adam Guettel, best known for his Floyd Collins, has teamed with Prelude to a Kiss playwright Craig Lucas to create a passionate and soaring new musical. Based on Elizabeth Spencer’s 1960 novella, The Light in the Piazza is the story of a young American woman whose chance encounter with a charming young Italian man in a Florentine piazza sets off a whirlwind romance, with an unsettling revelation.Craig Lucas is a playwright, screenwriter and director. His plays include Prelude to a Kiss, Reckless, Blue Window, God’s Heart, The Singing Forest and Small Tragedy. His screenplays include Longtime Companion, The Secret Lives of Dentists and The Dying Gaul, which he also directed. Mr. Lucas’ awards include the L.A. Drama Critics Award, an OBIE Award for Best Play and Best Director, and the Excellence in Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.Adam Guettel is a composer/lyricist living in Seattle, where he is Artist in Residence at the Intiman Theatre. His other work includes Floyd Collins and Saturn Returns (recorded by Nonesuch Records as Myths and Hymns). Mr. Guettel’s awards include the Stephen Sondheim Award, the ASCAP New Horizons Award, and the American Composers Orchestra Award.
Elizabeth Rex
Timothy Findley - 2000
In this daring and original production of Timothy Findley's Governor-General Award winning play, William Shakespeare and the formidable Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I, are brought together in a remarkable encounter on the night of April 22, 1616. The night the Queen's Lover will be executed, by the Queen's decree.
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.
Early Works: Actos / Bernabe / Pensamiento Serpentino
Luis Valdez - 1990
EARLY WORKS: ACTOS, BERNABE AND PENSAMIENTO SERPENTINE is three books in one: 1) a collection of one act plays by Valdez and the famous farmworker theater, El Teatro Campesino, 2) one of the first fully realized, full-length plays by Valdez alone, and 3) an original narrative poem by Luis Valdez. In the first part are collected the original, improvised works of El Teatro Campesino that deal with the exploitation of Mexican farm labor in the California fields, the discrimination found by Mexicans in the schools, and Mexicans being turned into cannon fodder by the U.S. Army in Vietnam. Bernabe is a touching, Lorcaesque poetic drama about a town fool's enchantment and ultimate unity with the earth. Pensamiento serpentino is a long, philosophical poem, based on Mayan thought and cosmology, which analyzes the cultural, religious and political circumstances of Mexican Americans and prepares a metaphysical framework for their future.
Short Haul Engine
Karen Solie - 2001
Short Haul Engine is one great twist of fate and fury after another. The writing is clear, striking and open to all sorts of possibilities. Even at their most playful, these poems dive much deeper than initially expected. There's a remarkably dark sense of humour at work here, but tempered with a haunting vulnerability that makes even the sharpest lines tremble.from "Signs Taken for Wonders" ... Too delicate for these dog-days, small, clover-blonde, my sister sews indoors. I ask her to fashion me into something nice, ivory silk. I am a big girl, sunburnt skin like raw meat, sweating two pews in front of the Blessed Virgin....
Kimberly Akimbo
David Lindsay-Abaire - 2003
Winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Playwright, David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly-Akimbo focuses, with uncanny depth and quirky wit, on a sixteen-year-old girl suffering from a disease that causes her body to age nearly five times faster than it should.
Hockey Card Stories: True Tales from Your Favorite Players
Ken Reid - 2014
Some of the cards are definitely worth a few bucks, some a few cents — but every story told here is priceless. Sportsnet’s Ken Reid presents the cards you loved and the airbrushed monstrosities that made you howl, the cards that have been packed away in boxes forever, and others you can’t believe ever existed. Whether it’s a case of mistaken identity or simply a great old photo, a fantastic 1970s haircut and ’stache, a wicked awesome goalie mask or a future Hall of Famer’s off-season fashion sense, a wide variety of players — from superstars like Bobby Orr, Denis Potvin, and Phil Esposito to the likes of Bill Armstrong who played only one game in the NHL — chime in on one of their most famous cards.