Book picks similar to
Sylvia by A.R. Gurney
plays
theatre
drama
theater
The Rainmaker
N. Richard Nash - 1953
At the time of a paralyzing drought in the West we discover a girl whose father and two brothers are worried as much about her becoming an old maid as they are about their dying cattle. For the truth is, she is indeed a plain girl. The brothers try every possible scheme to marry her off, but without success. Nor is there any sign of relief from the dry heat. When suddenly from out of nowhere appears a picaresque character with a mellifluous t
Uncle Vanya
Anton Checkhov - 2014
Baker practices astonishing verbal magic over and over again." - Clancy Martin, Paris Review"Strikingly intimate... Free of the stilted or formal locutions that clutter up some of the more antique-sounding translations... Ms. Baker has given the play a natural but distinctly contemporary American sound." - Charles Isherwood, New York Times"Devastatingly beautiful... People are going to be talking about this one for years." - Jacob Gallagher-Ross, Village Voice"More than a modern-dress treatment of a classic work, it's a fresh rethinking of the material from the perspective of a modern mind." - Marilyn Stasio, VarietyAnnie Baker, one of the most celebrated playwrights in the United States, lends her truthful observation and elegant command of the colloquial to Anton Chekhov's despairing masterpiece Uncle Vanya. A critical hit in its sold-out Off-Broadway premiere, Baker's telling is a refreshingly intimate and modern treatment of a Chekhovian classic.Annie Baker's plays include The Flick (The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Obie Award), The Aliens (Obie Award), Circle Mirror Transformation (Obie Award) and Body Awareness. Her work has been produced at more than a hundred theaters in the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries internationally. Recent honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Steinberg Playwright Award and New York Drama Critics Circle Award. She is a resident playwright at the Signature Theatre.
Shakespeare in Love
Lee Hall - 2014
Their forbidden love soon draws everyone, including Queen Elizabeth, into the drama, and inspires Will to write the greatest love story of all time: Romeo and Juliet. Based on the Oscar-winning screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love has been deftly adapted for the stage by Lee Hall and has been playing to rave reviews and a sold-out theatre at the Noël Coward in London. The London production is directed by Declan Donnellan and designed by Nick Ormerod, the driving force behind the world-renowned theatre company, Cheek by Jowl. A Broadway transfer is planned for Spring 2015.
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 Laramie Project
Moisés Kaufman - 2001
But for the people of Laramie–both the friends of Matthew and those who hated him without knowing him–the tragedy was personal. In a chorus of voices that brings to mind Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, The Laramie Project allows those most deeply affected to speak, and the result is a brilliantly moving theatrical creation.
Oslo
J.T. Rogers - 2017
Combining investigative zeal and theatrical imagination with insider access, Oslo invites you into the chambers where the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization were forged during nine fraught months in 1993.” — New York Times“A riveting political thriller. Oslo makes a complex historical event feel intimate and profoundly affecting.”— Associated Press“Gripping, big-boned and remarkably entertaining. Oslo feels excruciatingly necessary and timely.”—New York MagazineWhen the Israeli prime minister and the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization shook hands on the White House lawn in 1993, the world watched in awe. Oslo tells the story of the key people who orchestrated this momentous occasion, emphasizing the intricate (and sometimes comical) human journey that led to this historic event. The diplomats and politicians from Israel, Palestine, Norway, and America who participated in the behind-the-scenes discussions come to life in Rogers’ wonderfully complex characters. As much a story about people as politics, Oslo casts a bright light on the humans behind the history.Oslo premiered in the fall of 2016 in a sold-out run at Lincoln Center and opens on Broadway in April 2017.J.T. Rogers’ plays include Blood and Gifts, The Overwhelming, White People, and Madagascar. He was nominated for a 2009 Olivier Award for his work as one of the original playwrights for The Great Game: Afghanistan. He is a 2012 Guggenheim fellow in playwriting. Other recent awards include NEA/TCG and NYFA fellowships, the Pinter Review Prize for Drama, the American Theatre Critics Association’s Osborne Award, and the William Inge Center for the Arts’ New Voices Award.A politically charged drama from acclaimed playwright J.T. Rogers
Oleanna
David Mamet - 1993
Innocuous remarks suddenly turn damning. Socratic dialogue gives way to heated assault. And the relationship between a somewhat fatuous teacher and his seemingly hapless pupil turns into a fiendishly accurate X ray of the mechanisms of power, censorship and abuse.
Equivocation
Bill Cain - 2009
King James commissions Shakespeare to write a play about the Gunpowder Plot.
Caroline, or Change
Tony Kushner - 2004
You’ve never seen anything quite like Caroline, or Change and likely won’t again anytime soon. There’s never a moment that the part-pop, part-opera, part-musical-theater score Jeanine Tesori has conjured up doesn’t ideally match Tony Kushner’s meticulously chosen words with clarion precision.” –Matthew Murray, talkinbroadway.com“A monumental achievement in American musical theater. Joyful, wholly successful, immensely moving, told with abundant wit and generosity of heart.” –John Helipern, New York ObserverLouisiana, 1963: A nation reeling from the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement and the Kennedy assassination. Caroline, a black maid, and Noah, the son of the Jewish family she works for, struggle to find an identity for their friendship after Noah's stepmother, unable to give Caroline a raise, tells Caroline that she may keep the money Noah leaves in his pockets. Through their intimate story, this beautiful musical portrays the changing rhythms of a nation. Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori have created a story that addresses contemporary questions of culture, community, race and class through the lens and musical pulse of the 1960s.Tony Kushner’s plays include Angels in America; Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Brown; The Illusion, adapted from the play by Pierre Cornelle; Slavs!; A Bright Room Called Day; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’s film of Angels in America and for Steven Spielberg’s Munich and Lincoln. His books include The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon.Among many honors, Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.Jeanine Tesori composed the scores for Tony Award-winning musicals Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek the Musical as well as Violet and Caroline, or Change. She is the recipient of multiple Drama Desk and Obie Awards, and her film composition credits include Nights in Rodanthe, Winds of Change, Show Business, and Wrestling With Angels.
The Front Page
Ben Hecht - 1924
Hildy wants to break away from journalism and go on a belated honeymoon. There is a jailbreak and into Hildy's hands falls the escapee as hostage. He conceals his prize in a rolltop desk and phones his scoop to his managing editor. Their job is to prevent other reporters and the sheriff from opening the desk and finding their story. Some hoods are enli
Ruined
Lynn Nottage - 2009
. . . Lynn Nottage’s beautiful, hideous and unpretentiously important play [is] a shattering, intimate journey into faraway news reports.”—Linda Winer, Newsday“An intense and gripping new drama . . . the kind of new play we desperately need: well-informed and unafraid of the world’s brutalities. Nottage is one of our finest playwrights, a smart, empathetic and daring storyteller who tells a story an audience won’t expect.”—David Cote, Time Out New YorkA rain forest bar and brothel in the brutally war-torn Congo is the setting for Lynn Nottage’s extraordinary new play. The establishment’s shrewd matriarch, Mama Nadi, keeps peace between customers from both sides of the civil war, as government soldiers and rebel forces alike choose from her inventory of women, many already “ruined” by rape and torture when they were pressed into prostitution. Inspired by interviews she conducted in Africa with Congo refugees, Nottage has crafted an engrossing and uncommonly human story with humor and song served alongside its postcolonial and feminist politics in the rich theatrical tradition of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage.Lynn Nottage’s plays include Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Fabulation, and Intimate Apparel, winner of the American Theatre Critics’ Steinberg New Play Award and the Francesca Primus Prize. Her plays have been widely produced, with Intimate Apparel receiving more productions than any other play in America during the 2005-2006 season.
The Graduate
Terry Johnson - 2000
It premiered in April 2000 at the Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, starring Kathleen Turner as Mrs RobinsonCalifornia in the 60s. Benjamin's got excellent grades, very proud parents and, since he helped Mrs Robinson with her zipper, a fine future behind him… A cult novel, a classic film, a quintessential hit of the 60s, now Benjamin's disastrous sexual odyssey is brought vividly to life in this world stage premiere production."Terry Johnson is that rare creature: a moralist with wit. He writes with responsible gaiety" (Guardian)