Dear Evan Hansen
Steven Levenson - 2017
Evan is shy, lonely, and bullied for it―teeming with the irrepressible emotions all too familiar with anyone who's ever been a teenager. After a tragedy strikes, Evan's life suddenly gets turned around, but is it ultimately for the better?
The Bald Soprano and Other Plays
Eugène Ionesco - 1958
He went on to become an internationally renowned master of modern drama, famous for the comic proportions and bizarre effects that allow his work to be simultaneously hilarious, tragic, and profound. As Ionesco has said, "Theater is not literature. . . . It is simply what cannot be expressed by any other means."
Every Brilliant Thing
Duncan Macmillan - 2015
Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid’. She finds it hard to be happy.So you start to make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything that’s worth living for.1. Ice Cream. 2. Kung Fu Movies. 3. Burning Things. 4. Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose 5. Construction cranes. 6. MeYou leave it on her pillow. You know she’s read it because she’s corrected your spelling. Soon, the list will take on a life of its own.A new play about depression and the lengths we will go to for those we love.
Emily of Emerald Hill
Stella Kon - 1989
You play the part of Emily's friend to whom she confides the story of her life and gradually exposes the secrets of her mind.The play is a journey through human consciousness, and through time. As Emily tells you about her life, we are introduced to a host of striking characters. We see sharp vignettes of a period in Singapore which is no longer familiar. And when we have heard her story, we ask: Who is Emily? Is she a nurturer or a destroyer, a domestic tyrant or a frightened child? Is she a traditional Asian wife, or Singapore's first truly liberated lady? Can we really understand her? Does she understand herself?The play leaves us fascinated. It enlarges our experience of life.Since its award-winning appearance in 1985, Emily of Emerald Hill has become an icon of the English-language theatre in Singapore and Malaysia. Many different actresses have played the role, and it has been seen by more people than any other locally-written play.
The Women of Lockerbie (Acting Edition)
Deborah Brevoort - 2005
She meets the women of Lockerbie, who are fighting the U.S. government to obtain the clothing of the victims found in the plane s wreckage. The women, determined to convert an act of hatred into an act of love, want to wash the clothes of the dead and return them to the victim s families. THE WOMEN OF LOCKERBIE is loosely inspired by a true story, although the characters and situations in the play are purely fictional. Written in the structure of a Greek tragedy, it is a poetic drama about the triumph of love over hate. Winner of the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition and the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays award.
The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Mary Lefkowitz - 2016
Not only is the influence of Greek drama palpable in everything from Shakespeare to modern television, the insights contained in Greek tragedy have shaped our perceptions of the nature of human life. Poets, philosophers, and politicians have long borrowed and adapted the ideas and language of Greek drama to help them make sense of their own times.This exciting curated anthology features a cross section of the most popular--and most widely taught--plays in the Greek canon. Fresh translations into contemporary English breathe new life into the texts while capturing, as faithfully as possible, their original meaning.This outstanding collection also offers short biographies of the playwrights, enlightening and clarifying introductions to the plays, and helpful annotations at the bottom of each page. Appendices by prominent classicists on such topics as "Greek Drama and Politics," "The Theater of Dionysus," and "Plato and Aristotle on Tragedy" give the reader a rich contextual background. A detailed time line of the dramas, as well as a list of adaptations of Greek drama to literature, stage, and film from the time of Seneca to the present, helps chart the history of Greek tragedy and illustrate its influence on our culture from the Roman Empire to the present day.With a veritable who's who of today's most renowned and distinguished classical translators, The Greek Plays is certain to be the definitive text for years to come.Praise for The Greek Plays"Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm deftly have gathered strong new translations from Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Emily Wilson, as well as from Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm themselves. There is a freshness and pungency in these new translations that should last a long time. I admire also the introductions to the plays and the biographies and annotations provided. Closing essays by five distinguished classicists--the brilliant Daniel Mendelsohn and the equally skilled David Rosenbloom, Joshua Billings, Mary-Kay Gamel, and Gregory Hays--all enlightened me. This seems to me a helpful light into our gathering darkness."--Harold Bloom
Prometheus Bound
Aeschylus
John Herington, one of the world's foremost Aeschylean scholars, will come as a revelation. Scully and Herington accentuate the play's true power, drama, and relevance to modern times. Aeschylus originally wrote Prometheus Bound as part of a tragic trilogy, and this translation is unique in including the extant fragments of the companion plays.
The Shipment and Lear
Young Jean Lee - 2009
She understands and exploits the unique strengths of her medium: the ability to viscerally connect with an audience.” –The EconomistExperimental Korean American theatre artist Young Jean Lee has been called “one of the best experimental playwrights in America” (Time Out New York). This volume contains two of her recent works:In The Shipment, Lee provides a provocative look at African-American identity in our not-yet post-racial society. The New York Times calls this take on cultural images of black America “a subversive, seriously funny new theater piece… Ms. Lee wields sharp, offbeat humor to point up the clichés, distortions and absurdities” (Charles Isherwood, New York Times).LEAR is Lee’s own version of Shakespeare’s tragedy, focusing on the king’s three daughters. A production in which Lear himself never appears, LEAR is a “wacky blend of ‘To be or not to be,’ Beckett, and Pirandello…full of exhilarating, illuminating moments” (Village Voice).Young Jean Lee has written and directed shows in New York with Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company and toured her work to over twenty cities around the world. Her plays include Straight White Men, We’re Gonna Die, Untitled Feminist Show, The Shipment, Lear and Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven. Awards include two Obies, the Festival Prize of the Zuercher Theater Spektakel, a Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Doris Duke Artist Award.
The Seagull
Anton Chekhov - 1895
Two years later it was revived by Nemirovich-Danchenko at the newly-founded Moscow Art Theatre with Stanslasky as Trigorin and was an immediate success. Checkhov's description of the play was characteristically self-mocking: "A comedy - 3F, 6M, four acts, rural scenery (a view over a lake); much talk of literature, little action, five bushels of love".Michael Frayn's translation was commissioned by the Oxford Playhouse Company.
Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight: A Comedy in Three Beds
Peter Ackerman - 2000
Ever been racially slurred in the sack? Ever been subjected to strangers yelling at you at 3am about the most intimate details of your life? Ever been to New York? Six characters from wildly different backgrounds make love, war and hysteria late one night in the cultural, sexual and generational smorgasbord that is Manhattan.