. . . A tragic and hilarious vision of life in an English country community. Butterworth’s new work was the most talked about new work of the season."—The London Paper

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    When a young actor from the big city lives with two aging bachelor farmers to gather stories about rural life, the farmers' lives are irrevocably altered when art attempts to imitate life and the line between truth and fiction is crossed.

    "By turns hilarious and chilling....the culmination of this playwright's work to date....Riveting theater."-Frank Rich, New York Times; "A brilliant black comedy, a dazzling dissection of Hollywood cupidity and another tone poem by our foremost master of the language of moral epilepsy... On its deepest level it belongs with the darker disclosures of movie-biz pathology like Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon. In a sense Speed-the-Plow distills all of these to a stark quintessence: there's hardly a line in it that isn't somehow insanely funny or scarily insane... [It is a] scathingly comic play."-Jack Kroll, Newsweek

    After their mother's death, two estranged half-sisters discover a book of rare stamps that may include the crown jewel for collectors. One sister tries to collect on the windfall, while the other resists for sentimental reasons. In this gripping tale, a seemingly simple sale becomes dangerous when three seedy, high-stakes collectors enter the sisters' world, willing to do anything to claim the rare find as their own.

    The tragicomedy of race, class, manners and naivete of liberalism.

    Her plays have been produced in many theatres across the U.S. including Second Stage (NY), South Coast Rep (Costa Mesa), Yale Repertory Theatre (New Haven), Alliance Theatre (Atlanta) and Steppenwolf (Chicago). She has won the Heideman and the White Bird awards and was a runner-up for the Susan Blackburn award.

    As a child in the segregated Baltimore of the early 1960s, Smith absorbed the words of her parents, teachers, neighbors—even train conductors—and realized that there was something more being communicated than the actual words:The conductor's voice had a mild kind of grandeur that was a cousin to the vocal tones I had heard at funerals—"Ashes-to-ashes"—and at christenings and weddings. These are words that have been said many times, but the person who speaks them understands that each time it must be said as if it matters, because it does matter. We never know what lies ahead, and we never know what just happened, and all words must house respect of those two unknowns.In Talk to Me, Smith looks back at a singular career as a seeker and interpreter of language in America, revealing the methodology behind her extraordinary search for the truth and nuances of verbal communication. For thirty years, the defining thesis of Smith's work has been that how we speak is just as important in communicating truth and identity as what we say. Everything from individual vocal tone to grammar, Smith demonstrates, can be as identifiable and revealing as a fingerprint. Her journey has taken her from the rarefied bastions of academia to riot-torn streets; she has conducted hundreds of interviews with subjects ranging from women prisoners to presidents of the United States. In 1995, her ongoing investigation led her to Washington, D.C. After all, what better place to wage an inquiry into the power of language and the language of power than in the city where "message" is a manufactured product? What happens when we as citizens accept—which we seem to be doing more and more—our chosen leaders' failure to tell the truth? And how can we know that we are hearing what Washington really has to say when everything we receive is filtered through the media? Armed with a blazing intellect and a tape recorder, Smith tackled these questions head-on, conducting more than four hundred interviews with people both inside and outside the power structure of Washington. She recorded these sessions in her trademark verbatim transcripts, which include every tic and verbal utterance of her subjects. More than thirty of these remarkable documents appear in this book, including interviews with Bill Clinton, Anita Hill, Studs Terkel, George Bush, Mike McCurry, and Helen Thomas. After five years of searing investigation into the world of the politicians, spin doctors, and power brokers who are steering the course of our country from inside the beltway, Smith has come away with a revelatory assessment—by turns devastating and hopeful—of the lexicon of power and politics in America. Talk to Me is a landmark contribution from a woman whose pioneering insights into language speak volumes.

    He or she must have a working knowledge of how the various technical aspects of the theater work (scenery, props, costumes, lights and sound), be part director, part playwright, part designer and part producer, and be prepared to act as confidant, counselor and confessor to everyone else in the company.This book addresses all of these considerations in detail and offers the reader-professional or amateur, veteran or beginner-helpful guidance and practical advice, supported by many forms and examples to illustrate the points covered in the text.The three phrases of mounting and performing a show are covered. Part I takes the reader through the pre-production phase-research, the script, planning and organization, and auditions. Part II covers the rehearsal process-rehearsal rules, blocking, cues, prompting, information distribution, technical and dress rehearsals. Part III discusses the performance phase-calling the show, maintaining the director's work, working with understudies and replacements, and more.Part IV provides insights into the organizational structure or some theaters and aspects of human behavior in those organizations. Many stage managers of long-running commercial productions believe that-once the show is up and running-only ten percent of their work is related to everything covered in Parts I, II and III. The other ninety percent is associated with issues in Part IV; i.e. managing human behavior and maintaining working relationships.

    A young lieutenant directs rehearsals of the Restoration comedy, The Recruiting Officer. With a cast of convicts, opposition from sadistic officers and a leading lady who is due to be hanged, Australia's first theatrical production is in trouble from the start.

    In a series of elegant, nonchronological scenes spanning the years from 1946 to 2015, the play hopscotches through Mary Page Marlowe’s quiet existence as an accountant from Ohio—complicating notions of what it means to lead a “simple life.”

    In the play, Martin—a hugely successful architect who has just turned fifty—leads an ostensibly ideal life with his loving wife and gay teenage son. But when he confides to his best friend that he is also in love with a goat (named Sylvia), he sets in motion events that will destroy his family and leave his life in tatters.The playwright himself describes it this way: “Every civilization sets quite arbitrary limits to its tolerances. The play is about a family that is deeply rocked by an unimaginable event and how they solve that problem. It is my hope that people will think afresh about whether or not all the values they hold are valid."

    In its fifth edition, THE WADSWORTH ANTHOLOGY OF DRAMA broadens its scope to offer even more plays than ever before.

    

    But at the moment, she's living in New York City and writing advertising jingles to pay the rent while her fiancé, Jack, pursues his singing career. So when Amanda's mother, Kim, calls one evening from New Hampshire and asks for her help with something she can't discuss over the phone, Amanda is only too happy to leave New York. Once home, Kim reveals that she's leaving Amanda's father and needs help packing. Amanda balks and ends up (gently) hitting the postman, who happens to be her first boyfriend. They spend the night together in an apple orchard, where Amanda tries to tell Billy how her life got sidetracked. It has something to do with being a young woman in a profession that only recognizes famous men. Billy acts like he might have the answer, but doesn't. Neither does Amanda's mother. Or, for that matter, her father. A Feminine Ending is a gentle, bittersweet comedy about a girl who knows what she wants but not quite how to get it. Her parents are getting divorced, her fiancée is almost famous, her first love reappears, and there's a lot of noise in her head but none of it is music. Until the end. "Ending′ is a promising beginning...the playwright has a sense of humor that brings to mind a budding Wendy Wasserstein and a liberated sense of form that evokes a junior Paula Vogel."-Los Angeles Times "Darkly comic. FEMININE ENDING has undeniable wit." -New York Post. "Appealingly outlandish humor." -The New York Times. "Courageous. The 90-minute piece swerves with nerve and naivete. Sarah Treem has a voice all her own." -Newsday.