Book picks similar to
Halcyon Days by Steven Dietz
plays
fiction
fiction-historical
recycled
Those Who Can’t, Teach
Haresh Sharma - 2010
As the teachers struggle daily to nurture and groom, the students prefer to hang out and “chillax”. With upskirting and Facebooking, griping and politicking, school takes on a whole new meaning as the colourful characters struggle to prove that those who can, teach.Written by Singapore’s most prolific playwright Haresh Sharma, Those Who Can’t, Teach was first staged by The Necessary Stage in 1990 to critical acclaim. Twenty years later, Sharma revisits this classic to revitalise it for the Singapore Arts Festival 2010, transforming it into a powerful portrayal of the pressures and challenges facing teachers (and students) in schools in the 21st century.“The play throws up questions on the roles of parents, students and teachers, but does not collapse into an impotent tirade against society. The script is joyous. The laughter is warmly wry, not caustic.” —The Straits Times“Those Who Can’t, Teach does much to do away with the stereotypes and fallacies of the teaching profession.” —The Business Times
Humble Boy
Charlotte Jones - 2001
Thirty-five-year-old Felix Humble is a Cambridge astro-physicist in search of a unified field theory. Following the sudden death of his father, Felix returns to his middle England home and his difficult and demanding mother, where he soon realises that his search for unity must include his own chaotic home life.Humble Boy premiered at the Royal National Theatre, London, in August 2001, and transferred to the Gielgud Theatre, London, in 2002. The play was the winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Award 2001, the Critics' Circle Best New Play Award 2002, and the People's Choice Best New Play Award 2002.
The Women of Lockerbie (Acting Edition)
Deborah Brevoort - 2005
She meets the women of Lockerbie, who are fighting the U.S. government to obtain the clothing of the victims found in the plane s wreckage. The women, determined to convert an act of hatred into an act of love, want to wash the clothes of the dead and return them to the victim s families. THE WOMEN OF LOCKERBIE is loosely inspired by a true story, although the characters and situations in the play are purely fictional. Written in the structure of a Greek tragedy, it is a poetic drama about the triumph of love over hate. Winner of the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition and the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays award.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Stage Adaptation)
Tim Supple - 1998
With the help of David Tushingham, he has adapted Salman Rushdie's classic children's novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories for the stage. Set in an exotic eastern landscape peopled by magicians and fantastic talking animals, Rushdie's novel inhabits the same imaginative space as Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. Haroun sets out on an adventure to restore the poisoned source of the sea of stories. On the way he encounters many foes, intent on draining the sea of all its storytelling powers.
Jesus Christ Superstar -- A Rock Opera: Piano/Vocal
Tim Rice - 1970
Songs include: Heaven on Their Minds * Everything's Alright * Hosanna * Pilate's Dream * I Don't Know How to Love Him * The Last Supper * I Only Want to Say (Gethsemane) * King Herod's Song * Superstar.
Colder Than Here
Laura Wade - 2005
There are boilers to be fixed, cats to be fed, and the perfect funeral to be planned. As a mother researches burial spots and biodegradable coffins, her family is finally forced to communicate with her and each other as they face up to the future. A dark comedy about death and life going on.
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.
Love Letters and Two Other Plays: The Golden Age, What I Did Last Summer
A.R. Gurney - 1990
R. Gurney has wittily captured the manners of upper-middle-class WASP America, but never as gracefully or with such dazzling economy as in Love Letters. Tracing the lifelong correspondence of the staid, dutiful lawyer Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and the lively, unstable artist Melissa Gardner, the story of their bittersweet relationship gradually unfolds from what is written--and what is left unsaid--in their letters. A smash hit both off and on Broadway, Love Letters captures Andy and Melissa with a precision of detail and depth of feeling that only Gurney can command. Two other, thematically related plays by Gurney, The Golden Age and What I Did Last Summer, are included, providing a trio of wry and affectionate paeans to love lost, found, and fleetingly glimpsed.
A Thurber Carnival
James Thurber - 1990
A perfect evening of comedy. Scenes Include:ACT ONEWord Dance (Part One)The Night the Bed FellFables for Our Time (Part One)The Wolf at the DoorThe Unicorn in the GardenThe Little Girl and the WolfIf Grant Had Been Drinking at AppomattoxCasuals of the KeysThe Macbeth Murder MysteryGentleman ShoppersThe Last FlowerACT TWOThe Pet DepartmentFile and ForgetMr. Preble Gets Rid of His WifeTake Her Up TenderlyThe Secret Life of Walter MiddyWord Dance (Part Two) Only material authorized for the production of this play may be used."Of belly laughs there is abundance...Small, cozy, and completely captivating revue...a sheer delight... joyous, magnificently lunatic festival" - New York Daily News
Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays
Steve Martin - 1994
He is also an accomplished screenwriter who has in the past few years turned his hand to writing plays. The results, collected here, hilariously explore serious questions of love, happiness and the meaning of life; they are rich with equal parts of pain and slapstick humour, torment and wit.
The Pitchfork Disney
Philip Ridley - 1991
Manifesting Ridley's vivid and visionary imagination and the dark beauty of his outlook, the play resonates with his trademark themes: East London, storytelling, moments of shocking violence, memories of the past, fantastical monologues, and that strange mix of the barbaric and the beautiful he has made all his own.The Pitchfork Disney was Ridley's first play and is now seen as launching a new generation of playwrights who were unafraid to shock and court controversy. This unsettling, dreamlike piece has surreal undertones and thematically explores fear, dreams and story-telling. First produced in 1991, it has gone on to be recognised as the annunciation of Ridley's dark and seductive world.
The Matchmaker
Thornton Wilder - 1954
He employs a matchmaker a woman who subsequently becomes involved with two of his menial clerks, assorted young and lovely ladies, and the headwaiter at an expensive restaurant where this swift farce runs headlong into a hilarious complications. After everyone gets straightened out romantically and has his heart's desire, the merchant finds himself affianced to the astute matchmaker herself. He who was so shrewd in business is putty in the hands of Dolly Levi. He is fooled by apprentices in a series of hilarious hide and seek scenes, and finally has all his bluster explode in his face.