Oronte has promised his daughter to Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, a bourgeois of Limoges. The lovers seek a solution that will allow Julie to escape the marriage. For this they use a matchmaker Nérine and a Napolitan cheat Sbrigani. When Monsieur de Pourceaugnac arrives, they do everything to ridicule him, to make it look like he’s crazy, to make it look like he’s somebody with many debts ... And when that doesn’t work, Sbrigani goes find the poor man to tell that Julie is just a nasty coquette and she does not deserve him to marry her. Julie enters the scene and claims to be madly in love with the unfortunate young man. Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, convinced of the vanity of his bride refuses to marry her. When Pourceaugnac wants to leave the scene, two women pick on him and say he is the father of their many children. Monsieur de Pourceaugnac has now only one possibility to escape a charge of polygamy: to run. Disguised as a woman he manages to escape. Sbrigani then convinces Orontes that Pourceaugnac has kidnapped his daughter, and when Éraste "saves" her, Orontes gives their marriage his blessing.

    In fact, he has a hard enough time keeping the peace between the drunks in the local saloon. But with tough Sheriff Mont Naylor to back him up he figures he can handle whatever comes his way.Jim-Bob's first real assignment is no piece of cake. He must escort a ruthless outlaw into the hands of justice. All seems well with the lawless killer firmly in Jim-Bob's custody. But nothing prepares him for an angry mob, determined to take the law into their own hands and provide their own brand justice: a hangman's noose.Shadow of a Star is a gripping tale by Elmer Kelton, voted one of the best Western Writers of all time by Westerns Writers of America, Inc.

    All worth can be quantified. Artistic worth. Human worth. Material worth. Everything. Some food is simply better than other food. Isn't it? Some clothes are better than other clothes. Aren't they?The last week of a massive international tour and rock star Paul is at the height of his fame. Everybody knows his name. Whatever he wants he can have. He can screw anybody he wants to. He can buy anything he desires. He can eat anything. Drink anything. Smoke anything. Go anywhere. As the inevitability of the end of the road looms closer and a return home becomes a reality, for Paul the music is starting to jar.Birdland received its world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs on 3 April 2014.

    A famous actor pulls a trigger in the presidential balcony, leaps to the stage, and escapes, as the president lies fatally wounded. In the panic that follows, forty-six terrified people scatter in and around Ford's Theater as soldiers take up stations by the doors and the audience surges into the streets chanting, "Burn the place down!" This is the untold story of Lincoln's assassination: the forty-six stage hands, actors, and theater workers on hand for the bewildering events in the theater that night, and what each of them witnessed in the chaos-streaked hours before John Wilkes Booth was discovered to be the culprit. In Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination, historian Thomas A. Bogar delves into previously unpublished sources to tell the story of Lincoln's assassination from behind the curtain, and the tale is shocking. Police rounded up and arrested dozens of innocent people, wasting time that allowed the real culprit to get further away. Some closely connected to John Wilkes Booth were not even questioned, while innocent witnesses were relentlessly pursued. Booth was more connected with the production than you might have known—learn how he knew each member of the cast and crew, which was a hotbed of secessionist resentment. Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination also tells the story of what happened to each of these witnesses to history after the investigation was over—how each one lived their lives after seeing one of America's greatest presidents shot dead without warning.

    He explores the queasy relationships between life and art, love and estrangement, and the bane that is American identity drift, with unsparing but compassionate candor.” –Misha Berson, Seattle Times“Margulies’s remarkable gift of building characterization through realistic dialogue is undiminished. Full of aching ruefulness that underlies the comedy, Brooklyn Boy’s scenes are written with precision and humor. The play isn’t about Brooklyn, nor is it about a boy—it’s about a man without a home.” –Don Shirley, Los Angeles TimesThis new play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Dinner with Friends follows the career of Eric Weiss, a writer whose novel hits the bestseller list the same time his life begins to unravel. His wife is out the door, his father is in the hospital, and his childhood friend thinks he has sold himself to the devil. A funny and emotionally rich look at family, friends and fame.Donald Margulies received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dinner with Friends. The play received numerous awards, including the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, the Dramatists Guild/Hull-Warriner Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and a Drama Desk nomination, and has been produced all over the United States and around the world. In addition to his adaptation of God of Vengeance, his many plays include Collected Stories, The Country House, Sight Unseen, The Model Apartment, The Loman Family Picnic, What’s Wrong with This Picture? and Time Stands Still. Mr. Margulies currently lives with his wife and their son in New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches playwriting at Yale University.

    Despite her desire to pursue a career in stage acting, her mother cuts her off and Sarah has no choice but to comply. Pregnant and unmarried at sixteen, she is expected to give up her baby to the nuns, but she refuses to let him go.A natural talent and darkly beautiful, Sarah gets a few theatrical roles, thanks to her bold, innovative acting style that attracts both admiration and scorn. Audiences want to see this controversial young actress, and amazingly, she is hired by the famed Comédie Française--only to have her life torn asunder in the savagery of the 1870 Siege of Paris. Amidst the ruins of the city, Sarah nurses wounded soldiers while falling passionately in love with her leading man.Rising to the height of her fame as the toast of Paris, shocking audiences with her uninhibited acting style and portrayal of male characters, Sarah becomes world famous, touring America and Europe to sold-out crowds. Told in her own voice, this is Sarah Bernhardt's incandescent story--a fascinating, intimate account of a woman whose wholly original talent and indomitable spirit has enshrined her in history as the Divine Sarah.

    Three extraordinary people begin their life together, a life that will be full of drama, transformation, passionate and painful devotion to art and to one another. Henry Irving, the Chief, is the volcanic leading man and impresario; Ellen Terry is the most lauded and desired actress of her generation, outspoken and generous of heart; and ever following along behind them in the shadows is the unremarkable theatre manager, Bram Stoker. Fresh from life in Dublin as a clerk, Bram may seem the least colourful of the trio but he is wrestling with dark demons in a new city, in a new marriage, and with his own literary aspirations. As he walks the London streets at night, streets haunted by the Ripper and the gossip which swirls around his friend Oscar Wilde, he finds new inspiration. But the Chief is determined that nothing will get in the way of his manager's devotion to the Lyceum and to himself. And both men are enchanted by the beauty and boldness of the elusive Ellen. This exceptional novel explores the complexities of love that stands dangerously outside social convention, the restlessness of creativity, and the experiences that led to Dracula, the most iconic supernatural tale of all time.

    Ayckbourn's series of plays for 4-5 actors typify his black comedies of human behaviour. The plays are alternately naturalistic, stylised and farcical, but underlying each is the problem of loneliness. The Mother Figure shows a mother unable to escape from baby talk; in The Drinking Companion, an absentee husband attempts seduction without success; in Between Mouthfuls, a waiter oversees a fraught dinner encounter. A garden party gets out of hand in Gosforth's Fete, whilst A Talk in the Park is a revue style curtain call piece for the five actors. Whether the comedies concern marital conflict, infidelity or motherhood and take place on a park bench or at a village fete, the characters are familiar and their cries for help instantly recognisable. Principally he is respected as a radical re-inventor of form - Dominic Dromgoole.

    He heads down to Mulberry, Texas, to keep a promise to his fallen Union army brother-in-arms, Joe Farrell, to make sure that his family is safe. But what Sam finds is the Farrell family in shambles: a gang of former Confederate soldiers are harassing them because of Joe's Union service. In desperation, Joe's widow, Julia, has married the gang's sadistic leader -- a man Sam had haunting his dreams since the war. To rescue Julia, Sam will need to rely on his wits as much as his guns, and he'll need the help of the whole Farrell clan, including Joe's disarming younger sister, Mary. This is a new release of an edition originally published by C.J. Petit.

    Someone - or something - is leaving bite marks in the avocados, Clay and Kelly's little daughter has an itch, and Carol can't remember who played Gandhi. This work takes a look at phoney liberal values.

    a snare of lies... a savage act of violence... and the very contrary ways of men--all made the irresistible darlings turn to each other for all the help they could get....

    Its fourteen-year-old heroine Wendla is killed by abortion pills. The young Moritz terrorized by the world around him and especially by his teachers shoots himself. The ending seems likely to be the suicide of Moritz's friend Melchior but in a confrontation with a mysterious stranger (the famous Masked Man) he finally manages to shed his illusions and face the consequences.

    

    Warren's Profession-Shaw challenges his audiences' moral complacency in the face of serious social problems and inequities.Author Bio: George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was one of the most prolific writers of the modern theater. He invented the modern comedy of ideas, expounding on social and political problems with a razor-sharp tongue, yet never sacrificing the comic vitality that ensures regular revivals of his plays. He also wrote several important political works, including The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. Dan H. Lawrence, edited Shaw's Collected Letters, his Collected Plays with their Prefaces, and Shaw's Music and (with Daniel Leary) The Complete Prefaces. He is Series Editor for the works of Shaw in Penguin.David Edgar is a playwright, critic, and professor of Playwriting Studies at the University of Birmingham.

    Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:    New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars    Biographies of the authors    Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events    Footnotes and endnotes    Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work    Comments by other famous authors    Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations    Bibliographies for further reading    Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Oscar Wilde’s legendary wit dazzles in The Importance of Being Earnest, one of the greatest and most popular works of drama to emerge from Victorian England. A light-hearted satire of the absurdity of all forms and conventions, this comic masterpiece features an unforgettable cast of characters who, as critic Max Beerbohm observed, “speak a kind of beautiful nonsense—the language of high comedy, twisted into fantasy.” This collection also includes Oscar Wilde’s most famous comedies, Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband, as well as his poetic tragedy Salomé—all written between 1891 and 1895, Wilde’s most creative period. George Bernard Shaw said of Oscar Wilde that he is “our most thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theater.”