Book picks similar to
Street Talk: Character Monologues for Actors by Glenn Alterman


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At the Edge of Honor


Robert N. Macomber - 2002
    The Civil War is leaving its bloody trail across the nation as Peter Wake, born and bred in the snowy North, joins the U.S. Navy as a volunteer officer and arrives in steamy Florida for duty with the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. The idealistic Wake has handled boats before, but he's new to the politics and illicit liaisons that war creates among men. Assigned to the Rosalie, a tiny, armed sloop, Captain Wake commands a group of seasoned seamen on a series of voyages to seek and arrest Confederate blockade-runners and sympathizers, from Florida's coastal waters through to near the remote out-islands of the Bahamas. Wake risks his reputation when he falls in love with Linda Donahue, whose father is a Confederate zealot, and steals away to spend precious hours with her at her Key West home. Their love is tested as Wake must make the ugly decisions of war in a beautiful, tropical paradisedecisions that will take Peter Wake right up to the edge of honor.

The Revisionist


Jesse Eisenberg - 2013
    The play had its world premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York in spring 2013, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Vanessa Redgrave and directed by Kip Fagan.In The Revisionist, young writer David arrives in Poland with a crippling case of writer’s block and a desire to be left alone. His seventy-five-year-old second cousin Maria welcomes him with a fervent need to connect with her distant American family. As their relationship develops, she reveals details about her postwar past that test their ideas of what it means to be a family.

Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics


Morley Winograd - 2008
    America’s demand for change in the 2008 election will cause another of our country’s periodic political makeovers. This realignment, like all others before it, will result from the coming of age of a new generation of young Americans—the Millennial Generation—and the full emergence of the Internet-based communications technology that this generation uses so well. Beginning in 2008, almost everything about American politics and government will transform—voting patterns, the fortunes of the two political parties, the issues that engage the nation, and our government and its public policy. Building on the seminal work of previous generational theorists,Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais demonstrate and describe, for the first time, the two types of realignments—“idealist” and “civic”—that have alternated with one another throughout the nation’s history.  Based on these patterns, Winograd and Hais predict that the next realignment will be very different from the last one that occurred in 1968. “Idealist” realignments, like the one put into motion forty years ago by the Baby Boomer Generation, produce, among other things, a political emphasis on divisive social issues and governmental gridlock. “Civic” realignments, like the one that is coming, and the one produced by the famous GI or “Greatest” Generation in the 1930s, by contrast, tend to produce societal unity, increased attention to and successful resolution of basic economic and foreign policy issues, and institution-building. The authors detail the contours and causes of the country’s five previous political makeovers, before delving deeply into the generational and technological trends that will shape the next.  The book’s final section forecasts the impact of the Millennial Makeover on the elections, issues, and public policies that will characterize America’s politics in the decades ahead. For additional information go to:Millennial Makeover website.

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 Other Side Of Nowhere


Danniella Westbrook - 2006
    For a while she was the nation's most famous drug addict. This is her story of recovery from the despair of addiction, told with total emotional honesty and courage.

Consent (NHB Modern Plays) (Nick Hern Books)


Nina Raine - 2017
    The key witness is a woman whose life seems a world away from theirs. At home, their own lives begin to unravel as every version of the truth is challenged.Consent, Nina Raine’s powerful, painful, funny play, sifts the evidence from every side and puts Justice herself in the dock. It premiered as a co-production between the National Theatre and Out of Joint, directed by Roger Michell at the National Theatre in 2017.

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.

Talking With...


Jane Martin - 1983
    is a series of women's monologues tackling many different aspects of the complex female psyche.

Hand to God: A New American Play


Robert Askins - 2017
    But when the young members of the Christian Puppet Ministry put those teachings into practice, one devout young man's puppet takes on a shocking personality that no one could have expected. In this hilarious black comedy, a foul-mouthed sock puppet named Tyrone soon teaches those around him that the urges that can drive a person to give in to their darkest desires fit like a glove. In Hand to God, a "true tour de force" (New York Times), Robert Askins has written a play of "unerring perfection" (Huffington Post). The must-see hit of the 2015 Broadway season, starring Steven Boyer and Geneva Carr, garnered an Obie Award and five Tony Award nominations, including Best Play, following its sold out, critically acclaimed off-Broadway runs at MCC Theater and Ensemble Studio Theatre.

The Sugar Syndrome


Lucy Prebble - 2003
    She's just 17, hates her parents, skives college and prefers life in the chatrooms. What she's looking for is someone honest and direct. Instead she finds Tim, a man twice her age, who thinks she is 11 and a boy.What seems at first to be a case of crossed wires, ends up as an unlikely, and unsettling friendship between the two, which culminates in a shocking, and morally challenging revelation.

Terminus


Mark O'Rowe - 2007
    Hold tight as the ordinary turns extraordinary in Mark O’Rowe’s exhilarating new play. A blackly comic vision of Dublin infested with demons, from the author of Howie the Rookie.

The Wild Duck / Hedda Gabler


Henrik Ibsen - 1977
    In Michael Meyer's fluent, idiomatic translations, The Wild Duck and Hedda Gabler stand as masterpieces of naturalist drama.

Pomona


Alistair McDowall - 2014
    Searching Manchester in desperation, she finds all roads lead to Pomona - an abandoned concrete island at the heart of the city.Here at the centre of everything, journeys end and nightmares are born.A sinister and surreal thriller from Alistair McDowall, Pomona received its world premiere at the Orange Tree Theatre, London, on 12 November 2014.

Another Part of the Forest


Lillian Hellman - 1948
    Marcus Hubbard, rich, despotic and despised, made a fortune during the Civil War by running the blockade and worse. In his family life he is equally injurious: one son he bulldozes while the other he holds in contempt for his frailty. By Marcus's side stands his mentally deranged wife and, finally, Regina, the adored daughter amoral, conniving, and beautiful as an evil flower. Marcus, it would seem, has been on the top of the heap long enough and someone must depose him. Turning the tables on a tyrant has always made for high drama, and when Hellman puts her brilliant talents to work on such a theme the result is a play of great theatrical intensity.

Grey Gardens


Doug Wright - 2007
    Grey Gardens is based on the 1975 Albert and David Maysles film about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's eccentric aunt and cousin. The touching and sometimes heart-wrenching musical adaptation explores the dysfunctional relationship between former socialite Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Little Edie, as they languish in a derelict East Hampton manor, Grey Gardens. Propelled by Christine Ebersole's tour-de-force performance, the gorgeous score, and intricate lyrics, the Broadway musical has garnered much critical praise. "An experience no passionate theatergoer should miss." Ben Brantley, The New York Times