Book picks similar to
The Off, Off Broadway Book: The Plays, People, Theatre by Albert Poland
theatre
hard-copy
theater-history
american-drama
Pizza Man
Darlene Craviotto - 1986
Her boss made a pass at her and she said no so she got a pink slip with her check. Julie's broke and disillusioned, so she drinks and turns on the stereo full blast to make the pain go away. Then her roommate comes home in the midst of an eating frenzy; her boyfriend has gone back to his wife so Alice has turned to food to forget. Julie suggests another way to vent their man
Our Man in Havana
Clive Francis - 2015
So when the British Secret Service asks him to become their ‘man in Havana’ he can’t afford to say no. There’s just one problem…he doesn’t know anything! To avoid suspicion, he begins to recruit nonexistent sub-agents, concocting a series of intricate fictions. But Wormold soon discovers that his stories are closer to the truth than he could have ever imagined… In Clive Francis’ adaptation, Graham Greene’s classic satirical novel becomes a wonderfully funny and fast-moving romp.
Brooklyn Boy
Donald Margulies - 2005
He explores the queasy relationships between life and art, love and estrangement, and the bane that is American identity drift, with unsparing but compassionate candor.” –Misha Berson, Seattle Times“Margulies’s remarkable gift of building characterization through realistic dialogue is undiminished. Full of aching ruefulness that underlies the comedy, Brooklyn Boy’s scenes are written with precision and humor. The play isn’t about Brooklyn, nor is it about a boy—it’s about a man without a home.” –Don Shirley, Los Angeles TimesThis new play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Dinner with Friends follows the career of Eric Weiss, a writer whose novel hits the bestseller list the same time his life begins to unravel. His wife is out the door, his father is in the hospital, and his childhood friend thinks he has sold himself to the devil. A funny and emotionally rich look at family, friends and fame.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.
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.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Tennesse Williams (York Notes Advanced)
Steve Roberts - 2007
One of his best-loved and most famous plays, it exposes the lies plaguing the family of a wealthy Southern planter of humble origins.
Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard
James N. Loehlin - 2006
In the century since its first performance, The Cherry Orchard has undergone a wide range of conflicting interpretations: tragic and comic, naturalistic and symbolic, reactionary and radical. Beginning with the 1904 premiere at Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre, this study traces the performance history of one of the landmark plays of the modern theatre. Considering the work of such directors as Anatoly Efros, Giorgio Strehler, Peter Brook, and Peter Stein, Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard explores the way different artists, periods and cultures have reinvented Chekhov's poignant comedy of failure and hope.
Find Me
Olwen Wymark - 1980
Later, she was committed to Broadmoor "from where she may not be discharged without permission of the Home Secretary." Using a technique of multiple characterization, Find Me seeks to investigate in depth the personality of the young girl - to 'find her' - and at the same time studies the effects of her behavior on those around her.
The Spoils: A Play
Jesse Eisenberg - 2015
Eisenberg will star in the New York production of The Spoils in the Spring of 2015, directed by Scott Elliott for the New Group’s inaugural season at the Pershing Square Signature Center.Nobody likes Ben. Ben doesn't even like Ben. He’s been kicked out of grad school, lives off his parents’ money, and bullies everyone in his life, including his roommate, an earnest Nepalese immigrant. When Ben discovers that his grade school crush is marrying a straight-laced banker, he sets out to destroy their relationship and win her back. The Spoils is a deeply personal and probing comedy written by one of America’s most interesting writer-thespians.
The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act
Thornton Wilder - 1931
In The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, four kitchen chairs represent an automobile and a family travels seventy miles in twenty minutes. And in Pullman Car Hiawatha, we board an imaginary railroad car and hear the thoughts of passengers, the populace speeding by -- even the planets above.Here are five one-act plays encompassing the full range of Thornton Wilder's theatrical vision: from the experimental to the humorous to the fantastic. As The New York Times has written, "Wilder's plays are now more than ever in rhythm with our changing habit of theatergoing....He relates the moment to eternity, seeks the infinite in the immediate, finds the universal in each grain of wheat."
This is How it Goes
Neil LaBute - 2005
Typical except that Cody is black--"rich, black, and different," in the words of Belinda, who finds herself attracted to a former (white) classmate. As the battle for her affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly doubt the foundation of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swath of bigotry and betrayal. Staged on continually shifting moral ground that challenges our received notions about gender, ethnicity, and even love itself, This Is How It Goes unblinkingly explores the myriad ways in which the wild card of race is played by both black and white in America.
The Mystic in the Theatre: Eleonora Duse
Eva Le Gallienne - 1965
She disposes of the hard-dying myth that the great Italian actress played simply on the inspiration of the moment. Miss Le Gallienne's thesis is that Duse's artistic triumphs resulted from her victories over herself, triumphs of character achieved through intellectual and spiritual struggle. In support of her title Miss Le Gallienne adduces evidence of Duse's long and earnest study of the writings of mystics and philosophers. This book is thoughtful, sensible, candid and literate. Miss Le Gallienne's own memories provide a fascinating glimpse into both herself and the tired, fading great actress whom she adored.
A Feminine Ending
Sarah Treem - 2009
But at the moment, she's living in New York City and writing advertising jingles to pay the rent while her fiancé, Jack, pursues his singing career. So when Amanda's mother, Kim, calls one evening from New Hampshire and asks for her help with something she can't discuss over the phone, Amanda is only too happy to leave New York. Once home, Kim reveals that she's leaving Amanda's father and needs help packing. Amanda balks and ends up (gently) hitting the postman, who happens to be her first boyfriend. They spend the night together in an apple orchard, where Amanda tries to tell Billy how her life got sidetracked. It has something to do with being a young woman in a profession that only recognizes famous men. Billy acts like he might have the answer, but doesn't. Neither does Amanda's mother. Or, for that matter, her father. A Feminine Ending is a gentle, bittersweet comedy about a girl who knows what she wants but not quite how to get it. Her parents are getting divorced, her fiancée is almost famous, her first love reappears, and there's a lot of noise in her head but none of it is music. Until the end. "Ending′ is a promising beginning...the playwright has a sense of humor that brings to mind a budding Wendy Wasserstein and a liberated sense of form that evokes a junior Paula Vogel."-Los Angeles Times "Darkly comic. FEMININE ENDING has undeniable wit." -New York Post. "Appealingly outlandish humor." -The New York Times. "Courageous. The 90-minute piece swerves with nerve and naivete. Sarah Treem has a voice all her own." -Newsday.