Quills


Doug Wright - 1996
    Quills premiered at Washington, D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in 1995 and subsequently had its debut Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop. Quills garnered the 1995 Kesselring Prize for Best New American Play from the National Arts Club and, for Wright, a 1996 Village Voice Obie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting.

My Mother Said I Never Should


Charlotte Keatley - 1989
    The drama revolves around the consequences of this secret and each women's opinion on it.The stage set is minimilistic and the drama incorporates deliberately unrealistic situations to explore deeply internal issues, such as the wasteland scenes where all the characters revert back to themselves as children. The play has been translated into twenty-two languages and in 2000 it was chosen by the Royal National Theatre as one of the "Hundred Significant Plays of the Twentieth Century".Commentary and notes by Charlotte Keatley.

Chatroom


Enda Walsh - 2007
    Scenery: A bare stageThe six teenage characters communicate only via the internet. Conversations range in subject from Britney Spears to Willy Wonka to - suicide: Jim is depressed and talks of ending his life and Eva and William decide to do their utmost to persuade him to carry out his threat. From this chilling premise is forged a funny, compelling and uplifting play that tackles the issues of teenage life head-on and with great understanding.

Three Plays: The Late Henry Moss / Eyes for Consuela / When the World Was Green


Sam Shepard - 2002
    In Eyes for Consuela, based on Octavio Paz’s classic story “The Blue Bouquet,” a vacationing American encounters a knife-toting Mexican bandit on a gruesome quest. And in When the World Was Green, cowritten with Joseph Chaikin, a journalist in search of her father interviews an old man who resolved a generations-old vendetta by murdering the wrong man. Together, these plays form a powerful trio from an enduring force in American theater.

Avenue Q - The Musical: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical


Jeff Marx - 2010
    Hairspray (978-1-5578-3514-7); Rent (978-1-5578-3737-0); Fiddler on the Roof (978-0-8791-0136-7)

All This Intimacy


Rajiv Joseph - 2010
    In an unprecedented (for him) run of promiscuity, Ty has managed to impregnate three women in the span of one week: His ex-girlfriend, his 40-something married next-door neighbor, and his 18 year-old student. In this edgy comedy by playwright Rajiv Joseph, Ty's problems illuminate every triumph and failure of his life, and as the women

Seascape With Sharks and Dancer


Don Nigro - 1985
    The play is set in a beach bungalow. The young man who lives there has pulled a lost young woman from the ocean. Soon, she finds herself trapped in his life and torn between her need to come to rest somewhere and her certainty that all human relationships turn eventually into nightmares. The struggle between his tolerant and gently ironic approach to life and her strategy of suspicion and attack becomes a kind of war about love and creation which neither can afford to lose. This is an offbeat, wonderful love story. Note: The play contains a wealth of excellent monologue and scene material.

Convergent Space


John-Paul Cleary - 2011
    This is by far the best book I have read in a very long time.’ John (Wexford, USA) 'This book really was unputdownable. Perhaps one of the best new sci-fi authors I've been lucky enough to discover on my Kindle.' A. Butler "tanj666" (Coventry, UK) 'The plot and most of all, the universe it happens in, are lovingly-well imagined and described. I really enjoyed reading this.' Denny de la Haye "Denny" (London, England) ‘Unique and interesting characters, fascinating alien races and plenty of twists and turns made Convergent Space a thoroughly enjoyable read.’ Warwick Reed (Tasmania, Australia) 'This was the most readable scifi novel that I've read in a while. I just wish his next book was out already!' Simon W M Scott (Northampton, England) ‘I heartily enjoyed this book. It's space-opera at its best and it has a great twist in the tail…’ M Wolstenholme (Leeds, UK) DESCRIPTION Convergent Space is a dramatic sci-fi adventure / space opera. It is the first book in a series, with the second book due out in early 2014. It's nearly 130,000 words. Great value for money. THE STORY Jump to a few hundred years from now… Earth is a faded galactic power in a violent galaxy. Blamed for an event 200 years earlier that destroyed thousands of worlds and turned the galaxy upside-down, Earth has been shunned by galactic society ever since. Now they have a chance to turn that around. Meanwhile in the outer fringes of the galaxy, a powerful new force is emerging from the ashes. Ruthless and unstoppable, this colossal army is approaching the central planets with one aim – to cleanse the entire galaxy. Rone Tintet is one of Earth’s immense army of space-faring investigators. She discovers an artefact that may reveal what really happened 200 years ago and resurrect Earth’s fortunes. She embarks on a journey far from home but will there be anything left when she returns? In Convergent Space these two stories - one in the past, one happening right now - intertwine into a dramatic and unexpected finale. TRY THE FREE SAMPLE OF CONVERGENT SPACE ON THIS PAGE ONCE YOU START READING YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO STOP!

The Flu Season and Other Plays


Will Eno - 2006
    His work is inventive, disciplined and, at the same time, wild and evocative. His ear is splendid and his mind is agile.”—Edward Albee“An original, a maverick wordsmith whose weird, wry dramas gurgle with the grim humor and pain of life. Eno specializes in the connections of the unconnected, the apologetic murmurings of the disengaged.”—GuardianWinner of the 2004 Oppenheimer Award for best New York debut by an American playwright, The Flu Season is a reluctant love story, in spite of itself. Set in a hospital and a theater, it is a play that revels in ambivalence and derives a flailing energy from its doubts whether a love story is ever really a love story.Will Eno has been called “a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation” (New York Times)—he is a playwright with an extraordinary voice and a singular theatrical vision. Also included in this volume are Tragedy: A Tragedy and Intermission.Will Eno is the author of Thom Pain (based on nothing), which ran for a year Off-Broadway and was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Other works include Oh, the Humanity and other good intentions, The Flu Season, Tragedy: a tragedy, and Intermission.

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.

The Boy I Love


Lynda Bellingham - 2014
    It is the summer of '82 as Sally Thomas prepares to leave her job at the British Drama League in London and head off to the North of England for her very first season in repertory as an Assistant Stage Manager at the beautiful old theatre in Crewe. Flung into this new world, Sally soon finds her feet, thanks to her own steady, unspoilt nature and to the company of her best friend, Jeremy. One of the first lessons she learns is that the other actors barely need tuition in the art of stage-fighting, since they are quite adept at stabbing each other in the back. When Jeremy falls suddenly and dangerously in love, Sally needs to grow up - fast. A shadow is falling over the theatre, sparing no one, and a tragedy is gathering pace in the darkness behind the stage. The Boy I Loveis a superb evocation of theatre and real life that will stay with you long after you've read it. Be warned: it may just break your heart.

What's My Motivation?


Michael Simkins - 2004
    While his friends were out getting laid and stoned, he was tucked up at home dreaming of his name in lights, of holding an audience rapt, of perhaps becoming a TV heart-throb, or having someone, anyone, ask for his autograph in the supermarket. This is the true story of an obsessive pursuit of acting fame. It is a life marked by occasional hard-fought successes and routine helpings of ritual humiliation: scout hut Gilbert and Sullivan, dodgy rock operas, sewage farm theatre workshop, Christmas panto hell, straight-to-video film flops, leading roles in Crimewatch reconstructions and dressing up as a chicken to advertise TV dinners. It is a hilarious tale of turgid theatre, tights, trusses and tonsil tennis with Timothy Spall.

in the company of men


Neil LaBute - 1997
    The story of two white-collar managers, Chad and Howard, who maliciously plot to jointly romance the lonely, deaf, beautiful office temp Christine before simultaneously dumping her, is cool and compelling in its depiction of the worst sorts of emotional abuse. What begins as a cat-and-mouse game of one-upmanship quickly escalates into full-scale psychological warfare. Only too late does this 'frat boy' prank reveal itself as deadly serious, with a struggle between the two men at the heart of the battle. The woman is only a means to an end, a pawn easily captured and tossed aside in a dark, wicked duel for corporate ascension.

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.

Early Works: Actos / Bernabe / Pensamiento Serpentino


Luis Valdez - 1990
    EARLY WORKS: ACTOS, BERNABE AND PENSAMIENTO SERPENTINE is three books in one: 1) a collection of one act plays by Valdez and the famous farmworker theater, El Teatro Campesino, 2) one of the first fully realized, full-length plays by Valdez alone, and 3) an original narrative poem by Luis Valdez. In the first part are collected the original, improvised works of El Teatro Campesino that deal with the exploitation of Mexican farm labor in the California fields, the discrimination found by Mexicans in the schools, and Mexicans being turned into cannon fodder by the U.S. Army in Vietnam. Bernabe is a touching, Lorcaesque poetic drama about a town fool's enchantment and ultimate unity with the earth. Pensamiento serpentino is a long, philosophical poem, based on Mayan thought and cosmology, which analyzes the cultural, religious and political circumstances of Mexican Americans and prepares a metaphysical framework for their future.