Book picks similar to
In a Word by Lauren Yee
plays
drama
contemporary
plays-i-ve-seen
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 Real Thing
Tom Stoppard - 1982
But nothing one sees on a stage is the real thing, and some things are less real than others. Charlotte is an actress who has been appearing in a play about marriage written by her husband Henry. Max, her leading man, is also married to an actress, Annie. Both marriages are at the point of rupture because Henry and Annie have fallen in love. But is it the real thing?The Real Thing was first performed at the Strand Theatre, London, on 16 November 1982.
Votes for Women: A Play in Three Acts
Elizabeth Robins - 1907
England. Jean, a young and somewhat ignorant woman, is engaged to the politician Stonor, who is up for election for Cabinet Minister. At her aunt Lady John's house, she meets the beautiful and mysterious Miss Levering, an independent lady who has lived through a great deal in her past and is now fighting for women's rights. When Jean hears Miss Levering talk about the horrible situation of young, poor and homeless women in England, she is shocked. Slowly she gets interested in the suffragette's movement, something her fiancé did not expect to be so strong. But then Jean learns that Stonor's annoyance about her involvment in the matter and her interest in Miss Levering has other reasons that dive into his past.
The Seafarer
Conor McPherson - 2006
It is absolutely intoxicating to ponder what he will give us in the future.”—Irish Echo“The unique and extraordinary aspect of McPherson’s writing is the way in which his characters reveal themselves in tiny details which almost imperceptibly build up an extensive picture of the past, present and future, not just of themselves but of Ireland.”—The Sunday Mail (London)Conor McPherson returns to his native Dublin for the setting of his new play, which he will direct in a much-anticipated production at London’s National Theatre in fall 2006. It is Christmas Eve, and James “Sharky” Harkin, erstwhile fisherman/van driver/chauffeur, gathers with friends at the dingy flat he shares with his blind brother to drink booze and play cards. As Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day, the familiar-looking stranger Mr. Lockhart reminds Sharky of the bargain he made when they last met in prison—and Sharky suddenly finds himself playing a game with the stakes set at his soul. With this magnificently atmospheric new play, McPherson is once again set to entrance his audience, this time with a new take on the Faustian theme.Conor McPherson was born in Dublin, where he still lives. His plays include This Lime Tree Bower, St. Nicholas, The Weir, Port Authority, Dublin Carol, and Shining City, which premiered on Broadway in spring 2006. One of Ireland’s leading playwrights, his work has been produced throughout the United Kingdom and the United States.
Doubt, a Parable
John Patrick Shanley - 2005
It is an inspired study in moral uncertainty with the compellingly certain structure of an old-fashioned detective drama. Even as Doubt holds your conscious attention as an intelligently measured debate play, it sends off stealth charges that go deeper emotionally. One of the year’s ten best.”—Ben Brantley, The New York Times“[The] #1 show of the year. How splendid it feels to be trusted with such passionate, exquisite ambiguity unlike anything we have seen from this prolific playwright so far. Blunt yet subtle, manipulative but full of empathy for all sides, the play is set in 1964 but could not be more timely. Doubt is a lean, potent drama . . . passionate, exquisite, important, and engrossing.”—Linda Winer, NewsdayChosen as the best play of the year by over 10 newspapers and magazines, Doubt is set in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, where a strong-minded woman wrestles with conscience and uncertainty as she is faced with concerns about one of her male colleagues. This play by John Patrick Shanley—the Bronx-born-and-bred playwright and Academy Award-winning author of Moonstruck—dramatizes issues straight from today’s headlines within a world re-created with knowing detail and a judicious eye. After a stunning, sold-out production at Manhattan Theatre Club, the play has transferred to Broadway.John Patrick Shanley is the author of numerous plays, including Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Dirty Story, Four Dogs and a Bone, Psychopathia Sexualis, Sailor’s Song, Savage in Limbo, and Where’s My Money?. He has written extensively for TV and film, and his credits include the teleplay for Live from Baghdad and screenplays for Congo, Alive, Five Corners, Joe Versus the Volcano (which he also directed), and Moonstruck, for which he won an Academy Award for original screenplay.
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.
Stage Door
Edna Ferber - 1926
The scene is Mrs. Orcutt's boarding house, where the hopes and ambitions of sixteen young women are revealed in scenes of entertaining comedy. Contrasted with this are the cases of the girl without talent and the elderly actress whose days are over. The central plot has to do with courageous Terry Randall, who fights against discouragement to a position in the theater where we are sure she will conquer. One of her fellow aspirants gives up in despair, one gets married, and one goes into pictures, but Terry, with the help of idealistic David Kingsley, sticks to her guns.
Wit
Margaret Edson - 1995
What we as her audience take away from this remarkable drama is a keener sense that, while death is real and unavoidable, our lives are ours to cherish or throw away—a lesson that can be both uplifting and redemptive. As the playwright herself puts it, “The play is not about doctors or even about cancer. It’s about kindness, but it shows arrogance. It’s about compassion, but it shows insensitivity.” In Wit, Edson delves into timeless questions with no final answers: How should we live our lives knowing that we will die? Is the way we live our lives and interact with others more important than what we achieve materially, professionally, or intellectually? How does language figure into our lives? Can science and art help us conquer death, or our fear of it? What will seem most important to each of us about life as that life comes to an end?The immediacy of the presentation, and the clarity and elegance of Edson’s writing, make this sophisticated, multilayered play accessible to almost any interested reader. As the play begins, Vivian Bearing, a renowned professor of English who has spent years studying and teaching the intricate, difficult Holy Sonnets of the seventeenth-century poet John Donne, is diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. Confident of her ability to stay in control of events, she brings to her illness the same intensely rational and painstakingly methodical approach that has guided her stellar academic career. But as her disease and its excruciatingly painful treatment inexorably progress, she begins to question the single-minded values and standards that have always directed her, finally coming to understand the aspects of life that make it truly worth living.
Other Desert Cities
Jon Robin Baitz - 2011
A once-promising novelist, she announces to her family the imminent publication of a memoir dredging up a pivotal and tragic event in the family's history - a wound that her parents don't want reopened.Brooke has come home to draw a line in the sand and is daring her family to cross it. Her brother won't play her game; her aunt knows way too much, and her parents fall into all their old routines as they plead with her to keep their story quiet. In this family, secrets are currency and everyone is rich.In simplest terms, the play is about a girl who comes home to the desert with a story about where she is from, who her people really are, what she thinks they really are. Her parents represent an Establishment that she feels has betrayed this country. She goes to war with them, and blood is spilled.
seven methods of killing kylie jenner
Jasmine Lee-Jones - 2019
When The Discourse turns on her, the line between internet personas and IRL relationships blurs, and the heightened scrutiny she comes under puts her real-life friendship under strain...seven methods of killing kylie jenner combines theatre with gifs, memes and emojis to explore stereotypes of Black womanhood, white capitalist exploitation, and the politics of social media activism.
Topdog/Underdog
Suzan-Lori Parks - 2001
The play tells the story of Lincoln and Booth, two brothers whose names were given to them as a joke, foretelling a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment. Haunted by the past, the brothers are forced to confront the shattering reality of their future.