The Violet Hour


Richard Greenberg - 2004
    He has two manuscripts but lacks the funds to publish both. His difficult decision--whether to publish his lover's memoir or the novel written by his best friend--is further complicated by the arrival of a mysterious machine that produces pages predicting the future of the play's protagonists, affecting their lives and relationships in haunting and unexpected ways. "The Violet Hour" opened on Broadway on November 6, 2003, starring Robert Sean Leonard.

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.

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.

The Metal Children: A Play


Adam Rapp - 2010
    Its directionless New York City author arrives in town to defend the book and finds that it has inspired a group of local teens to rebel in strange and unexpected ways. A timely and unforgettable drama about the failure of urban and heartland America to understand each other, The Metal Children explores what happens when fiction becomes a matter of life and death.

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.

Boeing-Boeing: A Farce in Two Acts


Beverley Cross - 2011
    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.

the dreamer examines his pillow


John Patrick Shanley - 1998
    The first scene of the play is a conversation between two lovers, Tommy and Donna, who broke up some time earlier but who are obviously still attracted to each other. Donna is enraged because Tommy, a would-be artist, is now having an affair with her younger sister, but Tommy, stretched out on his recliner (which, apart from a refrigerator full of beer, comprises the entire furnishings of his spartan apartment), is seemingly unmoved by her harangue. In the second scene Donna visits her father, a once successful artist who stopped painting at the death of his wife, whom he had bullied and betrayed despite his professed love for her. Combative and complex (but also very funny) the father sits and drinks and eventually gives in to his daughter's demand that he force Tommy to marry her or beat him up. Then, in the third and final scene, the father and Tommy confront each other, with results that are sometimes menacing, sometimes antic, with a lively discussion about art and women eventually leading to a sort of tenuous truce—and a grudging recognition of the responsibility that love, in its various guises, imposes.

All This Intimacy


Rajiv Joseph - 2010
    In an unprecedented (for him) run of promiscuity, Ty has managed to impregnate three women in the span of one week: His ex-girlfriend, his 40-something married next-door neighbor, and his 18 year-old student. In this edgy comedy by playwright Rajiv Joseph, Ty's problems illuminate every triumph and failure of his life, and as the women

Men on Boats


Jaclyn Backhaus - 2017
    Four boats. One Grand Canyon. MEN ON BOATS is the true(ish) history of an 1869 expedition, when a one-armed captain and a crew of insane yet loyal volunteers set out to chart the course of the Colorado River.

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.

Mary Page Marlowe (TCG Edition)


Tracy Letts - 2017
    In a series of elegant, nonchronological scenes spanning the years from 1946 to 2015, the play hopscotches through Mary Page Marlowe’s quiet existence as an accountant from Ohio—complicating notions of what it means to lead a “simple life.”

The Kitchen; A Play In Two Parts, With An Interlude


Arnold Wesker - 1957
    

The Realistic Joneses


Will Eno - 2013
    . . . Mr. Eno's voice, which teases out the poetry in the pedestrian and finds glinting humor in the static that infuses our faltering efforts to communicate, is as distinctive as any American playwright's today."—The New York Times"Weird and wonderful . . . Eno's familiar sudden-shifting between profound and playful verbiage is delightfully disarming and sometimes awfully funny."—VarietyA wonderfully moving new play by the Pulitzer Prize–finalist author of Thom Pain (based on nothing).Meet Bob and Jennifer and their new neighbors John and Pony, two suburban couples who have more in common than their identical last names. Boasting the playwright's quintessential existential quirkiness, this new comedy finds poetry in the banal while humorously exploring our ever-floundering efforts at communication. Listed as one of New York Times's Best Plays of 2012, The Realistic Joneses will receive its Broadway premiere in spring 2014 starring Toni Collete, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts and Marisa Tomei.Will Eno is the author of Thom Pain (based on nothing), which ran for a year Off-Broadway and was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Other works include Middletown, The Flu Season, Tragedy: a tragedy, Intermission, and Gnit, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt. His many awards include the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theatre Award, the Horton Foote Prize, and the first-ever Marian Seldes/Garson Kanin Fellowship by the Theater Hall of Fame.

The Woolgatherer


William Mastrosimone - 1986
    Into her life saunters Cliff, a hard working, hard drinking truck driver. He is rough and witty and just as starved for love as she is. Produced to great success at New York's Circle Repertory, this delicate two-character drama starred Peter Weller and Patricia Wettig. The Woolgatherer features several excellent monologues. "Energy, compassion and theatrical sense are there."-The New York Times "[Mastrosimone] has a knack for composing wildly humorous lines at the same time that he is able to penetrate people's hearts and dreams."-Hollywood Reporter

Reckless - Acting Edition


Craig Lucas - 1985
    She meets and joins up with Lloyd Bophtelophti, a true "original" who has changed his name to avoid alimony payments and who now lives with a paraplegic named Pootie (who also pretends to be deaf in order to get double disability). Thus begins a series of picaresque escapades involving numerous psychiatrists, a TV game show, and, eventually, an ill-fated reunion with her husband. Filled with bizarre characters and events, the play reflects the fractured lifestyles which have become the norm for so many in our tenuous times.