Autobahn


Neil LaBute - 2005
    In Autobahn, Neil LaBute's provocative new collection of one-act plays set within the confines of the front seat, the playwright employs his signature plaintive insight to great effect, investigating the inchoate apprehension that surrounds the steering wheel. Each of these seven brief vignettes explore the ethos of perception and relationship--from a make-out session gone awry to a kidnapping thinly disguised as a road trip, a reconnaissance mission involving the rescue of a Nintendo 64 to a daughter's long ride home after her release from rehab. The result is an unsettling montage that gradually reveals the scabrous force of words left unsaid while illuminating the delicate interplay between intention and morality, capturing the essence of middle America and the myriad paths which cross its surface.

A Steady Rain


Keith Huff - 2010
    But when a domestic disturbance call takes a turn for the worse, their friendship is put on the line. The result is a difficult journey into a moral gray area where trust and loyalty struggle for survival against a sobering backdrop of pimps, prostitutes, and criminal lowlifes.A dark duologue filled with sharp storytelling and biting repartee, A Steady Rain explores the complexities of a lifelong bond tainted by domestic affairs, violence, and the rough streets of Chicago.

Marjorie Prime (TCG Edition)


Jordan Harrison - 2014
    Through deeply drawn characters—both real and in the form of artificial intelligence companions, or “Primes”—Harrison burrows into troubling questions of the digital age: What would we remember, and what would we forget, given the power of authorship? Will we be any less human, once computers know us better than ourselves?

Orphans


Lyle Kessler - 1985
    Two brothers live in a house in North Philly. Although adults, there is something child-like about these orphans. The eldest supports himself and his slightly retarded brother by petty thievery. One night he brings home a rich older man to get him drunk and rob him. It turns out that the man-Harold is very rich and on the lam from a hitman. Harold establishes the house as a base of operations and, in a strange, hilarious and moving way, becomes the father figure the boys have always yearned for. "A weird, wonderful thriller filled with suspense, pathos and packing an emotional wallop."-WMCA Radio "Keeps you transfixed."-New York Daily News

Cost of Living


Martyna Majok - 2018
    John, a brilliant and witty doctoral student, hires overworked Jess as a caregiver. As their lives intersect, Majok's play delves into the chasm between abundance and need and explores the space where bodies--abled and disabled--meet each other.(Dramatists Play Service)

Stop Kiss


Diana Son - 1999
    Son's story is deceptively simple: two young women in New York meet, talk about their boyfriends, feel a growing, unspoken attraction for each other, and finally kiss. And that one innocent kiss sets off a savage gay-bashing. But even as Stop Kiss confronts the reality of physical violence, Son's imaginative, moving, and surprising comedy brings audiences -- and her principal characters -- to unexpected places.Callie is holding down a job as a radio traffic reporter when she meets Sara, a midwesterner who, against her parents' wishes, has moved to the city to teach third-grade students in the Bronx. Both have boyfriends, but as they get to know each other, their shared experiences and sense of humor create a strong bond. The tragic consequences of their kiss -- the center of this powerful drama -- serve as both an indictment of hatred and a moving study of the perils inherent in living life fully.

A Bright New Boise


Samuel D. Hunter - 2011
    Hunter's A Bright New Boise is a earnest comedy about the meager profits of modern faith. In the bleak, corporate break room of a craft store in Idaho, someone is summoning The Rapture. Will, who has fled his rural hometown after a scandal at his Evangelical church, comes to the Hobby Lobby, not only f

Sunday in the Park with George


Stephen Sondheim - 1983
    A complex work revolving around a fictionalized Seurat immersed in single-minded concentration while painting the masterpiece, the production has evolved into a meditation on art, emotional connection, and community. This publication contains the entire script of the musical. "Sunday is itself a modernist creation, perhaps the first truly modernist work of musical theatre that Broadway has produced ... a watershed event that demands nothing less than a retrospective, even revisionist, look at the development of the serious Broadway musical."- Frank Rich, The New York Times Magazine

Fool for Love and Other Plays


Sam Shepard - 1984
    This brilliant American dramatist creates what The New Yorker dubbed "Shepard Country"--a landscape of the imagination, a unique theatrical experience that captures our culture and consciouness, our fears and fantasies.FOOL FOR LOVE * ANGEL CITY * GEOGRAPHY OF A HORSE DREAMER * ACTION * COWBOY MOUTH * MELODRAMA PLAY * SEDUCED * SUICIDE IN BbWith an Introduction by Ross Wetzsteon"Sam Shepard is phenomenal...the best practicing American playwright." --The New Republic "Sam Shepard is the most exciting presence in the movie world and one of the most gifted writers ever to work on the American stage." --Marsha Norman"The most ruthlessly experimental and uncompromising of today's young writers." --John Lahr"Sam Shepard fills the role of professional playwright as a good ballet dancer or acrobat fulfills his role in performance. That is, he always delivers, he executes feats of dexterity and technical difficulty that an untrained person could not, and makes them seem easy." --Michael Feingold, The Village Voice "One of the most original, prolific, and gifted dramatists at work today." --The New Yorker "Increasingly recognized as one of the more significant dramatists in the English-speaking world." --Charles R. Bachman, Modern Drama

I Remember Mama: Broadway Version


John Van Druten - 1945
    Mama, a sweet and capable manager, sees her children through childhood, manages to educate them and to see one of her daughters begin her career as a writer. Mama's sisters and uncle furnish a rich background for a great deal of comedy and a little incidental tragedy, while the doings of the children manage to keep everyone in pleasant turmoil. No description can do justice to the rich characterizations that fill the author's canvas. A High School version (ISBN 0-8222-0550-5) is also available at the same price. Groups interested should specify which version."

This is Our Youth


Kenneth Lonergan - 1999
    His hero-worshipping friend Warren has just impulsively stolen $15,000 from his father, an abusive lingerie tycoon. When Jessica, a mixed-up prep school girl, shows up for a date, Warren pulls out a wad of bills and takes her off, awkwardly, for a night of seduction. A wildly funny, bittersweet, and moving story, This Is Our Youth is as trenchant as it was upon its acclaimed premiere in 1996.

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.

Hurlyburly & Those the River Keeps


David Rabe - 1995
    This edition contains the definitive versions of these works, a foreword in which Rabe examines the interwoven relationship of the plays, and an afterword in which he discusses the process of their construction.

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).

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs


William Inge - 1960
    Inge has taken us back to the early 1920s and into the home of the Flood family in a small Oklahoma town. Here we find Rubin, a traveling salesman for a harness firm, Cora his sensitive and lovely wife, Sonny their little boy and Reenie their teen-age daughter The plot of Mr. Inge's comedy drama is less one story than a series of short stories the fight between a husband and wife; the fear of an overly shy young girl on going to a dance; the problems of an introverted little boy who feels that the whole world, including his family is against him; the outwardly peaceful and inwardly corroding marriage of Cora's rowdy sister; the tragedy of a military school cadet whose mother has never provided him with a home and who suffers from the stigma of being a Jew in an alien community. What Mr. Inge is saying, with a power and tenderness of speech, is that there is dark at the top of everyone's stairs, but that it can be dissipated by understanding, by tolerance, by compassion and by the brand of companionship that demands not conformity but love For Mr. Inge has made in his play a statement of faith for all people who, if they accepted it, would live in a far better world."