Book picks similar to
Kaufman and Co.: Broadway Comedies by George S. Kaufman
library-of-america
humor
plays
anthology
Over the River and Through the Woods
Joe DiPietro - 1999
His parents retired and moved to Florida. That doesn't mean his family isn't still in Jersey. In fact, he sees both sets of his grandparents every Sunday for dinner. This is routine until he has to tell them that he's been offered a dream job. The job he's been waiting for - marketing executive - would take him away from his beloved, but annoying, grandparents. He tells them. The news doesn't sit so well. Thus begins a series of schemes to keep Nick around. How could he betray his family's love to move to Seattle for a job, wonder his grandparents? Well, Frank, Aida, Nunzio, and Emma do their level best, that includes bringing the lovely - and single - Caitlin O'Hare as bait.
Dennis Lehane Collection: Sacred, Gone Baby Gone, Prayers for Rain
Dennis Lehane - 2002
Howe, engineered by Kim King) Dying billionaire Trevor Stone hires Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro to find his missing daughter. Grief-stricken over the death of her mother and the impending death of her father, Desiree Stone has been missing for three weeks. So has the first investigator hired to find her: Jay Becker, Patrick's mentor. Gone Baby Gone (read by Robert Lawrence, directed by Bill Weideman, engineered by Jeremy Spanos) Boston PIs Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro have been hired to find a six-year-old girl who vanished from her home without a trace. Despite enormous public attention, extensive news coverage, and dogged police work, the investigation has gone nowhere. But it's a case rife with sinister circumstances: a strangely indifferent mother, a pedophile couple, a bizarre subculture of homeless parents, and a shadowy police unit with a covert agenda and no qualms about enforcing it. Prayers for Rain (read by Thomas J.S. Brown, directed by Sandra Burr, engineered by Jill Sovis) Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's relationship has hit the skids. But despite their problems, they join forces to close down a predator whose modus operandi seems to put him beyond the law. This killer's insidious murder weapon is within his victim's mind: no smoking gun, no bloody knife, just merciless manipulation that drives his targets to kill themselves.
The Real Inspector Hound & After Magritte
Tom Stoppard - 1969
The first of the plays, The Real Inspector Hound, is the longer of the two; here the author has created a looking glass comedy of great suspense and intrigue about two drama critics. The second play, After Magritte, is 'a surrealist comedy in detective form-or is it a comedy in surrealist form? A husband and wife argue whether the figure they saw in the street was a one-legged football player with the ball under his arm, or a man in pajamas with a tortoise under his arm. The play shows that Stoppard is as amusing and clever as always.'
Benchley Lost and Found
Robert Benchley - 1970
The discomforts of travel on trains, large and heavy suitcases that must be carried by unwilling porters, standing in line at the post office (then to learn that your package is improperly tied), malicious fogs that blot out the race track at the last lap, the sand that gets kicked into one's face at the beach, vitamins and their puffery, and all the petty annoyances that we grumble about ourselves but laugh at when they befall others.The 39 prodigal pieces greatly enlarge the corpus of the best Benchley. Forty-four original illustrations, mostly by Peter Arno, are included.
Italian American Reconciliation
John Patrick Shanley - 1998
He enlists the aid of his lifelong buddy, Aldo Scalicki, a confirmed bachelor who tries, without apparent success, to convince Huey that he would be better off sticking with his new lady friend, Teresa, a usually placid young waitress whose indignation flares when she learns what Huey is up to. In a moonlit balcony scene (hilariously reminiscent of Cyrano de Bergerac) Aldo pleads his lovesick friend's case and, to his astonishment, Janice capitulates although not for long. However we do learn that her earlier abuse of Huey was intended to make him "act like a man" which, at last, he does. And, more than that, he (and the audience) become aware that, in the final essence, "the greatest and only success is to be able to love" a truth which emerges delightfully from the heartwarming, wonderfully antic and always imaginatively conceived action of the play.
Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies
Mike Poulton - 2014
Son of a blacksmith, political genius, briber, charmer, bully. A man with a deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Mike Poulton's two-part adaptation of Hilary Mantel's acclaimed novels 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up the Bodies' is a thrilling and utterly convincing portrait of a brilliant man embroiled in the lethal, high-stakes politics of the court of Henry VIII. 'Wolf Hall' begins in England in 1527. Henry has been King for almost twenty years and is desperate for a male heir, but Cardinal Wolsey is unable to deliver the divorce he craves. Into this volatile court enters the commoner Thomas Cromwell, who sets out to achieve the King's desire, whilst methodically and ruthlessly pursuing his own reforming agenda. In 'Bring Up the Bodies', Anne Boleyn is now Queen, her path to Henry's side cleared by Cromwell. When the King begins to fall in love with Jane Seymour, Cromwell must negotiate within an increasingly perilous court to satisfy Henry, keep the nation safe, and advance his own ambitions. Hilary Mantel's novels are the most formidable literary achievements of recent times. She is the first writer to win the Man Booker Prize with consecutive novels.Adapted by Mike Poulton, the plays were premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in December 2013, directed by Jeremy Herrin. This edition contains a substantial set of notes by Hilary Mantel on each of the principal characters, offering a unique insight into the world of the plays and an invaluable resource to any theatre companies wishing to stage them.
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)
The Talented Mr Ripley
Phyllis Nagy - 1999
He is sent to Italy by a wealthy financier to try and coax home the rich man's son. In the process Ripley becomes both attracted and seduced, finding the murder the only way to deal with the situation. From that point Ripley tries to cover up his crime. Patricia Highsmith's beguiling tale of morality and amorality is given a dramatic rendering by contemporary dramatist Phyllis Nagy, who knew Highsmith in her later years in Paris."Each play I see by Phyllis Nagy confirms me in the belief that she is the finest playwright to have emerged in the 1990s" (Financial Times)
Complete Plays 1932–1943
Eugene O'Neill - 1988
They represent the crowning achievements of his career.O’Neill described Ah, Wilderness! as “the way I would have liked my boyhood to have been.” Set in the summer of 1906, it affectionately depicts the warm, close family of 16-year-old Richard Miller and the innocence with which he faces the trials of first love, strong drink, and sexual temptation.John Loving, hero of Days Without End, is split by his lack of faith into two selves: John and his Mephistophelian double Loving, who wears John’s death mask and plots his destruction. Burdened by guilt but desperately wanting to love, John struggles with Loving’s nihilistic hatred in what O’Neill termed his “modern miracle play.”In A Touch of the Poet, Irish tavern-keeper Con Melody is drawn by his proud past as a Byronic cavalry hero of the Napoleonic Wars toward a fatal confrontation with his wealthy Yankee neighbors, the Harfords.Throughout More Stately Mansions, the idealistic yet cunning Simon Harford, his wife, Sara Melody Harford, and his mother, Deborah, continually shift roles and alliances as they engage in an eerie psychological and sexual battle for possession of each other and their own maddeningly elusive dreams. This volume presents the never-before-published complete text of the revised typescript for this unfinished play.The derelict inhabitants of Harry Hope’s saloon in The Iceman Cometh find solace in their comradeship until their drifting calm is destroyed by the visiting salesman Theodore Hickey, who insists that they abandon all “pipe dreams” and face the truth about their lives. O’Neill carefully orchestrates the voices of over a dozen characters to form a chorus of overwhelming despair and surprising compassion.Hughie is a one-act dialogue between a reminiscing gambler and a weary hotel night clerk about the promise and loneliness of city life.Long Day’s Journey into Night unsparingly dissects the pain, rage, guilt, and love that drive a wounded family apart and bind it together. In their summer home the four Tyrones—James, a proud actor haunted by poverty, his devout, morphine-addicted wife, Mary, and their sons, Jamie, a cynical drunkard, and Edmund, an aspiring poet—slowly unveil the truth about their lives until they can no longer hope either to save or to escape one another. Published and produced posthumously, it won O’Neill his fourth Pulitzer Prize.In its elegiac coda, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Jamie Tyrone seeks the peace that has long eluded him in the arms of sharp-tongued Josie Hogan.The volume concludes with “Tomorrow” (1917), O’Neill’s only published short story.
Fish in the Dark: A Play
Larry David - 2015
This sidesplitting play, a testimony to David’s great writing talent, is also his first time on Broadway—in fact, his first time acting on stage since eighth grade. In Fish in the Dark Larry David stars as Norman Drexel, a man in his fifties who is average in most respects except for his hyperactive libido. As Norman and his family try to navigate the death of a loved one, old acquaintances and unsettled arguments resurface with hilarious consequences.Fish in the Dark has its world premiere at the Cort Theatre on Broadway on March 5, 2015, starring Larry David.
Collected Screenplays 1: Blood Simple / Raising Arizona / Miller's Crossing / Barton Fink
Ethan Coen - 2002
Of the scripts included here, Barton Fink--an intense look at the psychological ruin of a New York playwright trying to make it in 1940s Hollywood--is a masterful culmination of these themes.
Everything in the Garden
Edward Albee - 1968
Albee there is a theme beneath the surface, in this case the corruption of money and the rottenness of this bigoted exurbia where conformity to its illiberal standards and its hypocritical show of respectability is all that counts. The scene is the suburban home of Jenny and Richard, beautifully played by Barbara Bel Geddes and Barry Nelson. The only thing that seems to stand in the way of their happiness is a lack of money. The action starts in an entertaining comedy of manners style. Then abruptly there enters a Mrs. Toothe in the menacing and fascinating person of Beatrice Straight who offers Jenny the opportunity to make more money than they have ever had, to buy a greenhouse and all the other luxuries that they require for their garden and their lives. Richard's realization that their newfound money is being earned by his wife's whoring comes almost simultaneously with the return of their fourteen-year-old son from school and a champagne cocktail party which they are giving to impress their country club friends. As a result, his horror, disgust and rage has to be kept under wraps in order to keep up essential appearances until tragedy strikes, and Richard realizes that the assembled wives are all involved and their husbands are aware and condoning." More than that, they are prepared not merely to justify but defend the ends through which their means are attained and the devastated Richard, left in agonized despair by the ironic events that charge the final moments of the play, must face the fact of his own share in their communal guilt.
Six Plays of Strindberg: The Father / Miss Julie / The Stronger / Easter / A Dream Play / The Ghost Sonata
August Strindberg - 1955
It includes three examples of his naturalism -- The Father, 1887; Miss Julie, 1883; The Stronger, 1890 -- two of his expressionism -- A Dream Play, 1902; The Ghost Sonata, 1907 -- and Easter, a play whose interest derives from Its defying either of these categories.On these new translations by Elizabeth Sprigge, whose biography of Strindberg is the standard work on that figure, the American reader will have his first opportunity to know the true genius of the great Swedish playwright, for Miss Sprigge's unique achievement has been to render the original texts into an English that is at once fluent and accurate and to provide plays that capture the full vigor and impact of the original.
Acclaimed Stories from the World's Bestselling Author: Different Seasons; Skeleton Crew; Nightmares & Dreamscapes
Stephen King - 1988
Guaranteed to give you a winter's chill, this set includes Different Seasons, Skeleton Crew and Nightmares & Dreamscapes.