Blues for Mister Charlie


James Baldwin - 1964
    With this act of violence--which is loosely based on the notorious 1955 killing of Emmett Till--James Baldwin launches an unsparing and at times agonizing probe of the wounds of race. For where once a white storekeeper could have shot a boy like Richard Henry with impunity, times have changed. And centuries of brutality and fear, patronage and contempt, are about to erupt in a moment of truth as devastating as a shotgun blast.In his award-winning play, Baldwin turns a murder and its aftermath into an inquest in which even the most well-intentioned whites are implicated--and in which even a killer receives his share of compassion.

Revolutionary Road


Richard Yates - 1961
    Perhaps they married too young and started a family too early. Maybe Frank's job is dull. And April never saw herself as a housewife. Yet they have always lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. But now that certainty is now about to crumble. With heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritual birthright, betraying not only each other, but their best selves.

Talking Heads


Alan Bennett - 1988
    Talking Heads is a series of dramatic monologues written for BBC television by British playwright Alan Bennett and later published as a series of books.

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.

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 Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds


Paul Zindel - 1964
    E. Hinton and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher will find much to love in Paul Zindel's books.The old, converted vegetable shop where Tillie lives is more like a madhouse than a home. Tillie's mother is bitter and cruel, yet desperate for her daughters' love. Her sister suffers epileptic fits and sneaks cigarettes every chance she gets.But despite the chaos, Tillie struggles to keep her dreams alive. Tillie—keeper of rabbits, dreamer of atoms, true believer in life, hope, and the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds...Paul Zindel’s work is bestselling, critically acclaimed, and passionately embraced by generations of readers.

Ajax / Electra / Oedipus Tyrannus


Sophocles
    The subjects of his plays were drawn from mythology and legend. Each play contains at least one heroic figure, a character whose strength, courage, or intelligence exceeds the human norm—but who also has more than ordinary pride and self-assurance. These qualities combine to lead to a tragic end. Hugh Lloyd-Jones gives us, in two volumes, a new translation of the seven surviving plays. Volume I contains Oedipus Tyrannus (which tells the famous Oedipus story), Ajax (a heroic tragedy of wounded self-esteem), and Electra (the story of siblings who seek revenge on their mother and her lover for killing their father).

The Chalk Garden


Enid Bagnold - 1955
    St Maugham and her granddaughter Laurel, a disturbed child under the care of Miss Madrigal, a governess. The setting of the play was inspired by Bagnold's own garden at North End House in Rottingdean, near Brighton, Sussex, the former home of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The work has since been revived numerous times internationally, including a film adaptation in 1964.

Shakespeare: The World as Stage


Bill Bryson - 2007
    The author of 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid' isn't, after all, a Shakespeare scholar, a playwright, or even a biographer. Reading 'Shakespeare The World As Stage', however, one gets the sense that this eclectic Iowan is exactly the type of person the Bard himself would have selected for the task. The man who gave us 'The Mother Tongue' and 'A Walk in the Woods' approaches Shakespeare with the same freedom of spirit and curiosity that made those books such reader favorites. A refreshing take on an elusive literary master.

Ghost Brothers of Darkland County


Stephen King - 2013
    

On Baile’s Strand


W.B. Yeats - 1903
    In "On Baile's Strand," King Conchubar, aware of Cuchulain's bravery and his unruly temper, makes Cuchulain swear an oath of obedience, forcing the unaware Cuchulain to fight and kill his own son Connla (begotten on the woman of the Hawk's Well, a figure who seems to represent Queen Aoife.) When informed of the truth, Cuchulain, mad with despair, runs out to fight the sea.

Ethan Frome


Edith Wharton - 1911
    But when Zeena's vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.In one of American fiction's finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio toward their tragic destinies. Different in both tone and theme from Wharton's other works, Ethan Frome has become perhaps her most enduring and most widely read book.

Missing Mom


Joyce Carol Oates - 2005
    Yet, following the unexpected loss of her mother, she undergoes a remarkable transformation during a tumultuous year that brings stunning horror, sorrow, illumination, wisdom, and even—from an unexpected source—a nurturing love.

The Normal Heart & The Destiny of Me (two plays)


Larry Kramer - 2000
    It has been produced and taught all over the world. Its companion play, The Destiny of Me, is the stirring story of an AIDS activist forced to put his life in the hands of the very doctor he has been denouncing.

Peter Pan: or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up: A Fantasy in Five Acts


J.M. Barrie - 1904
    Hook, Smee, the lost boys, pirates and the indians, and, of course, Tinker Bell, in their adventures in Never Land. However, for the first time, the play is here restored to Barrie's original intentions. In the words of John Caird: "A brief explanation of some of the decisions we took in revising the text may be useful to anyone considering their own production of this version We were fascinated to discover that there was no one single document called PETER PAN. What we found was a tantalizing number of different versions, all of them containing some very agreeable surprises We have made some significant alterations, the greatest of which is the introduction of a new character, the Storyteller, who is in fact the author himself. To a reader of the play, one of its most enjoyable ingredients is Barrie's unmistakable authorial tone. He tells the story of Peter Pan partly through dialogue and partly by means of his inimitable stage directions. In a whimsical, ambiguous and ironical manner he speaks here as clearly to adults as he does to children. Moreover, many of the play's complicated conceits are only comprehensible if Barrie's commentary can be heard in parallel with the voices of the characters. This device also allows us to prepare our audience with some essential background history of the Darling family in a brief prologue, and to extend the narrative at the end of the play to include Barrie's heartbreaking and heartwarming conclusion to Peter and Wendy's story."