Shadowlands


William Nicholson - 1989
    Lewis and American poet Joy Gresham. Shadowlands shows how love, and the risk of loss, transformed this great man's relationships, even with God. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: Arthur Hanket, Harriet Harris, Nicholas Hormann, Martin Jarvis, Christopher Neame, Kenneth Schmidt, W. Morgan Sheppard

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.

How to Enjoy Poetry (Little Ways to Live a Big Life)


Frank Skinner - 2020
    I referred them to Doctor Who's Tardis.'Frank Skinner wants you to read more poetry. Wait, wait - don't stop reading. Whether you're a frequent poetry reader or haven't read any since sixth form, Frank's infectious passion for language, rhythm and metre will win you over and provide you with the basic tools you need to tackle any poem.In this short, easy-to-digest and delightful book, Frank guides us through the twists and turns of 'Pad, pad' by Stevie Smith, a short, seemingly simple poem that contains multitudes of meaning and a deceptive depth of emotion. Revel in the mastery of Stevie Smith's choice of words, consider the eternal mystery of the speaker of the poem and be moved by rhyming couplets like you never have before.Give it a go. You never know, you might even enjoy it.

The Bird that Sang in Color


Grace Mattioli - 2021
    However, he remains single, childless, and subsists in cramped apartments. She harbors guilt for her supposed failure until she discovers a sketch-book he’d made of his life, which prompts her own journey to live authentically.While this textured story combines serious issues such as alcoholism, death, and family conflict, it’s balanced with wit and humor and is filled with endearing, unforgettable characters. The story spans decades, beginning in 1970 and ending in the present. Readers will be immersed in this tale as it poses an intriguing question: “What pictures will you have of yourself by the end of your life?”“hugely moving, beautifully rendered, and brilliant,” Lidia Yucknavitch

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.

The Language Archive


Julia Cho - 2012
    Closer to home, though, language is failing him. He doesn't know what to say to his wife, Mary, to keep her from leaving him, and he doesn't recognize the deep feelings that his lab assistant, Emma, has for him.

SELECTED & NEW POEMS


Jim Harrison - 1982
    During this period Harrison wrote Legends of the Fall--a collection of novellas--and two novels: Farmer and Warlock. He evolved a new approach to his poetry, hoping to avoid both academic formalism and the vogue of hygienic confessions. The voice of the selected poems speaks with the courage, intelligence, and wit that is Harrison's alone."Jim Harrison grew up in northern Michigan and shares with that other Michigan poet, Theodore Roethke, not only the longing to be part of the instinctual world, but also the remarkable knowledge of plant and animal life that comes only with long familiarity and close observation. This raises an incidental question: How many more poets of this kind will we see in the United States? It is a melancholy thought that Mr. Harrison may be the last of the species."--Poetry

Pizza Man


Darlene Craviotto - 1986
    Her boss made a pass at her and she said no so she got a pink slip with her check. Julie's broke and disillusioned, so she drinks and turns on the stereo full blast to make the pain go away. Then her roommate comes home in the midst of an eating frenzy; her boyfriend has gone back to his wife so Alice has turned to food to forget. Julie suggests another way to vent their man

The Bookshop of Yesterdays


Amy Meyerson - 2018
    But on Miranda’s twelfth birthday, Billy has a mysterious falling-out with her mother and suddenly disappears from Miranda’s life. She doesn’t hear from him again until sixteen years later when she receives unexpected news: Billy has died and left her Prospero Books, which is teetering on bankruptcy—and one final scavenger hunt.

If Only I Could Tell You


Hannah Beckerman - 2019
    Her two grown-up daughters, Jess and Lily, are estranged, and her two teenage granddaughters have never been allowed to meet. A secret that echoes back thirty years has splintered the family in two, but is also the one thing keeping them connected.As tensions reach breaking point, the irrevocable choice that one of them made all those years ago is about to surface. After years of secrets and silence, how can one broken family find their way back to each other?

A Certain Age


Beatriz Williams - 2016
    Theresa Marshall of Fifth Avenue and Southampton, Long Island, has done the unthinkable: she's fallen in love with her young paramour, Captain Octavian Rofrano, a handsome aviator and hero of the Great War. An intense and deeply honorable man, Octavian is devoted to the beautiful socialite of a certain age and wants to marry her. While times are changing and she does adore the Boy, divorce for a woman of Theresa's wealth and social standing is out of the question, and there is no need; she has an understanding with Sylvo, her generous and well-respected philanderer husband.But their relationship subtly shifts when her bachelor brother, Ox, decides to tie the knot with the sweet younger daughter of a newly wealthy inventor. Engaging a longstanding family tradition, Theresa enlists the Boy to act as her brother's cavalier, presenting the family's diamond rose ring to Ox's intended, Miss Sophie Fortescue—and to check into the background of the little-known Fortescue family. When Octavian meets Sophie, he falls under the spell of the pretty ingénue, even as he uncovers a shocking family secret. As the love triangle of Theresa, Octavian, and Sophie progresses, it transforms into a saga of divided loyalties, dangerous revelations, and surprising twists that will lead to a shocking transgression ... and eventually force Theresa to make a bittersweet choice.Full of the glamour, wit and delicious twists that are the hallmarks of Beatriz Williams' fiction and alternating between Sophie's spirited voice and Theresa's vibrant timbre, A Certain Age is a beguiling reinterpretation of Richard Strauss's comic opera Der Rosenkavalier, set against the sweeping decadence of Gatsby's New York.

Plays 2: Softcops / Top Girls / Fen / Serious Money


Caryl Churchill - 1990
    "Softcops renders the philosophy of Foucault as a music-hall turn and Victorian freakshow "theatre and history combine to give such intelligent fun" —The London Standard "Top Girls brings five great and less-than-great women from history together for a dinner party and "has a combination of directness and complexity which keeps you both emotionally and intellectually alert"—Sunday Times Fen scrutinizes the lives of the low-paid women potato pickers of the fens (in Eastern England) and "the playwright pins down her poetic subject matter in dialogue of impressive vigour and economy"—Financial Times Serious Money is a satirical study of the effects of the Big Bang - "Pure genius…the first play about the city to capture the authentic atmosphere of the place."—Daily Telegraph

The Second Time We Met


Leila Cobo - 2012
    He is on the verge of a professional soccer career-when a car accident throws his future into doubt. Suddenly, Asher begins to wonder about his past, and about the girl who gave him up for adoption in Colombia two decades ago. And so begins his search for a woman named Rita Ortiz. From the teeming streets of Bogata to a tiny orphanage tucked into a hillside, Asher untangles the mystery of Rita's identity, her abrupt disappearance from her home, and the winding journey that followed. But as Asher comes closer to finding Rita, his own parents are faced with fears and doubts. And Rita must soon make her own momentous choice: stay hidden in her hard-earned new life, or meet the secret son who will bring painful memories-or the promise of a new beginning . . .

Cabaret: A Roman Riddle


Lily Prior - 2005
    Freda Lippi comes home one afternoon to find her apartment overrun by the police and her ventriloquist husband, Alberto, his dummy, and her parrot, Pierino, gone without trace.Though distraught about Pierino, her true soul mate, Freda feels nothing short of exaltation at the thought that the husband she despises may never return.From there, she chronicles the surreal events of the days that follow with flashbacks to her own tragic life that explain why she married Alberto; from the horrific accident that devastated her world as a teenager, to the life-changing cruise around the Mediterranean with a sinister but hilarious one-armed companion; from the funeral parlor where Freda works by day as an embalmer, to the seedy cabaret where she performs at night, unleashing her repressed passions.

Great Short Works of Willa Cather


Willa Cather - 1989
    A luminous collection--with an introduction, notes, chronology, and bibliography--of ten of Willa Cather's short works written from 1900 to 1920.