Book picks similar to
The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence by Madeleine George
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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
Angels in America
Tony Kushner - 1993
Prior is a man living with AIDS whose lover Louis has left him and become involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative whose wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown. These stories are contrasted with that of Roy Cohn (a fictional re-creation of the infamous American conservative ideologue who died of AIDS in 1986) and his attempts to remain in the closet while trying to find some sort of personal salvation in his beliefs.
The Nerd
Larry Shue - 1981
He has written to Rick to say that, as long as he is alive, "you will have somebody on Earth who will do anything for you," so Willum is delighted when Rick shows up unexpectedly at his apartment on the night of his thirty-fourth birthday party. But his delight soon fades as it becomes apparent that Rick is a hopeless "nerd," a bumbling oaf with no social sense, little intelligence, and even less tact. Rick stays on and on, his continued presence among Willum and his friends leading to one uproarious incident after another, until the normally placid Willum finds himself contemplating violence, a dire development which, happily, is staved off by the surprising "twist" ending of the play.
Collected Stories
Donald Margulies - 1998
Changing styles in feminist thought, the tangled connections between creativity and ideology, the writer’s odd place in our money-centered world, the way we turn our friends into surrogate families—while always fluid and lively, the play is thick with ideas, like a stockpot of good stew.” –Michael Feingold, Village Voice“Beautifully layered. Margulies delivers a spot-on glimpse of New York's literary scene: the power of a Times book review, or the milestone of the 92nd Y's authors series, or the significance of a little-known but much-revered lit mag like the now-defunct Grand Street. He's even better at teasing the sense of betrayal that can dissolve creative friendships…the ethics of friendship and fiction smack into each other.” –Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post“[Collected Stories] digs into its engaging tale of aesthetics and ethics with intelligence and sharp, literate humor….Mr. Margulies has found fertile material in the struggles of the creative classes to reconcile the demands of ambition with the exigencies of life.” –New York Times“This provocative piece of theater serves as a timely reminder that we are defined by our feelings and memories — and such precious thoughts are sacred.” –Matthew J. Palm, Orlando SentinelCollected Stories explores the vexed emotional and legal question of a writer's right to create art from the biographical material of another person's life-particularly when that other person is also a writer. Meditating upon the recent, real-life conflict between poet Stephen Spender and novelist David Leavitt, Margulies has created two of the most vivid and moving fictional characters of his career: Ruth Steiner, an aging, highly regarded author who never wrote about her youthful affair with real-life poet Delmore Schwartz, and Lisa Morrison, a student of Steiner's who, after publishing a much-ballyhooed first short-story collection under Steiner's direction, follows up with a novel that draws upon the Schwartz affair. The result is charged drama with the depth and weight of the finest prose fiction. Winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for Best New Play.Donald Margulies received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dinner with Friends. The play received numerous awards, including the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, the Dramatists Guild/Hull-Warriner Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and a Drama Desk nomination, and has been produced all over the United States and around the world. In addition to his adaptation of God of Vengeance, his many plays include Collected Stories, The Country House, Sight Unseen, The Model Apartment, The Loman Family Picnic, What’s Wrong with This Picture? and Time Stands Still. Mr. Margulies currently lives with his wife and their son in New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches playwriting at Yale University.
Fairview
Jackie Sibblies Drury - 2019
Beverly is organizing the perfect dinner, but everything seems doomed to go awry--the silverware is all wrong, the radio is on the fritz, and the rest of the family can't be bothered to lift a hand to help. And yet, what appears at first to be a standard family dramedy takes a sharp, sly turn into a startling examination of deep-seated paradigms about race in America.
The Gin Game
D.L. Coburn - 1977
Weller Martin is playing solitaire on the porch of a seedy nursing home. Enter Fonsia Dorsey, a prim, self righteous lady. They discover they both dislike the home and enjoy gin rummy so they begin to play and to reveal intimate details of their lives. Fonsia wins every time and their secrets become weapons used against one another. Weller longs for a victory to counter a lifetime of defeats but it doesn't happen. He leaves the stage a broken man and Fonsia realizes her self-righteous rigidity has led to an embittered, lonely old age. "A thoroughly entertaining lesson in the fine art of theatrical finesse. The closest thing the theatre offers to a duel at 10 paces."-The New York Times"Extremely intelligent..fine bittersweet comedy...Funny, sad, profane, eloquent, touching, beautiful."-WABC-TV"Perfect...A vibrant study on loneliness, disillusion, old age and death yet fiercely funny."-The Boston Globe
Seascape With Sharks and Dancer
Don Nigro - 1985
The play is set in a beach bungalow. The young man who lives there has pulled a lost young woman from the ocean. Soon, she finds herself trapped in his life and torn between her need to come to rest somewhere and her certainty that all human relationships turn eventually into nightmares. The struggle between his tolerant and gently ironic approach to life and her strategy of suspicion and attack becomes a kind of war about love and creation which neither can afford to lose. This is an offbeat, wonderful love story. Note: The play contains a wealth of excellent monologue and scene material.
The Shadow Box
Michael Cristofer - 1976
The three are attended and visited by family and close friends: Agnes and her mother Felicity, estranged further by the latter's dementia; Brian and Beverly whose martial complications are exacerbated by Brian's new lover, Mark; and Joe and Maggie, unready for the strain of Joe's impending death and it's effect on their teenage son.
The Skin of Our Teeth
Thornton Wilder - 1942
. . and human endurance, this beautiful new edition features Wilder's unpublished production notes, diary entries, and other illuminating documentary material, all of which is included in a new Afterword by Tappan Wilder.Time magazine called The Skin of Our Teeth "a sort of Hellzapoppin' with brains," as it broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama. Combining farce, burlesque, and satire (among other styles), Thornton Wilder departs from his studied use of nostalgia and sentiment in Our Town to have an Eternal Family narrowly escape one disaster after another, from ancient times to the present. Meet George and Maggie Antrobus (married only 5,000 years); their two children, Gladys and Henry (perfect in every way!); and their maid, Sabina (the ageless vamp) as they overcome ice, flood, and war -- by the skin of their teeth.
As Bees in Honey Drown
Douglas Carter Beane - 1998
Book annotation not available for this title.
Spring's Awakening
Frank Wedekind - 1891
Its fourteen-year-old heroine Wendla is killed by abortion pills. The young Moritz terrorized by the world around him and especially by his teachers shoots himself. The ending seems likely to be the suicide of Moritz's friend Melchior but in a confrontation with a mysterious stranger (the famous Masked Man) he finally manages to shed his illusions and face the consequences.
She Kills Monsters
Qui Nguyen - 2012
When Agnes finds Tilly's Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she stumbles into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was Tilly's refuge. In this high-octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture, acclaimed young playwright Qui Nguyen offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all.