Book picks similar to
Language of Angels by Naomi Iizuka


plays
monologues
read-for-school
all-time-favorites

No Exit and Three Other Plays


Jean-Paul Sartre - 1947
    NO EXIT is an unforgettable portrayal of hell. THE FLIES is a modern reworking of the Electra-Orestes story. DIRTY HANDS is about a young intellectual torn between theory and praxis. THE RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE is an attack on American racism.

Dog Sees God


Bert V. Royal - 2007
    His best friend is too burnt out to provide any coherent speculation; his sister has gone goth; his ex-girlfriend has recently been institutionalized; and his other friends are too inebriated to give him any sort of solace. But a chance meeting with an artistic kid, the target of this group's bullying, offers CB a peace of mind and sets in motion a friendship that will push teen angst to the very limits. Drug use, suicide, eating disorders, teen violence, rebellion and sexual identity collide and careen toward an ending that's both haunting and hopeful.

Pipeline


Dominique Morisseau - 2017
    . . this passionate play about a family struggling to outrun social prophecy is potent and intensely acted." --The New York Times"Pipeline showcases an American play wright in full blaze." --Huffington Post"This is a writer who has a flawless ear for the way kids see the world and their ability to navigate it with surgical eloquence." --DeadlineNya, an inner-city teacher, is desperate to give her only son, Omari, opportunities he'd otherwise never have in the flawed public education system. When an incident at his private school threatens to get him expelled, Nya must con- front the full weight of the impact her parenting decisions have made on her son. Inspired by the "school-to-prison" pipeline that ensnares people of color, Morisseau brings us a powerful play that delves into issues of class, race, parenting, and education in America and questions the systematic structures that ultimately trap underserved communities.Dominique Morisseau's plays include Detroit '67, Paradise Blue, Skeleton Crew, Sunset Baby, Follow Me to Nellie's, Third Grade, Black at Michigan, Socks, Roses Are Played Out, and Love and Nappiness. Morisseau is a recipient of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama, two NAACP Image Awards, a commendation from the Primus Prize by the American Theatre Critics Association, and the winner of the 2012 Barrie and Bernice Stavis Play wright Award by National Theatre Conference.

Twelve Angry Men


Reginald Rose - 1954
    legal system. The play centers on Juror Eight, who is at first the sole holdout in an 11-1 guilty vote. Eight sets his sights not on proving the other jurors wrong but rather on getting them to look at the situation in a clear-eyed way not affected by their personal prejudices or biases. Reginald Rose deliberately and carefully peels away the layers of artifice from the men and allows a fuller picture to form of them—and of America, at its best and worst.   After the critically acclaimed teleplay aired in 1954, this landmark American drama went on to become a cinematic masterpiece in 1957 starring Henry Fonda, for which Rose wrote the adaptation. More recently, Twelve Angry Men had a successful, and award-winning, run on Broadway.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Jasper Jones


Kate Mulvany - 2016
    Overseas, war is raging in Vietnam, Civil Rights marches are on the streets, and women’s liberation is stirring – but at home in Corrigan Charlie Bucktin dreams of writing the Great Australian Novel. Charlie’s 14 and smart. But when 16-year-old, constantly-in-trouble Jasper Jones appears at his window one night, Charlie’s out of his depth. Jasper has stumbled upon a terrible crime in the scrub nearby, and he knows he’s the first suspect – that goes with the colour of his skin. He needs every ounce of Charlie’s bookish brain to help solve this awful mystery before the town turns on Jasper. Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of Craig Silvey’s award-winning novel is wise and beautiful. A coming-of-age story, Jasper Jones interweaves the lives of complex individuals all struggling to find happiness among the buried secrets of a small rural community.Whether you know the book or not, this piercing adaptation is very much worth seeing for the way it depicts – and shows ways across – some of the deep and enduring divides in our society." - Jason Blake SMH

Don't Kiss Your Brother's Sworn Enemy (Don't Kiss! Series Book 1)


Elle Gonzales - 2020
    Well, according to her twin brother Cole, that is. Cole's resentment toward him has been there for as long as she can remember.So it goes without saying that she needs to stay away from Jake if she wants to keep the peace. That should be easy, right?Except there's one problem: Jake is assigned as her partner for a school paper. And as if that's not enough, she also needs his help to get back in her best friend's good graces.Callie knows that getting close to him is not a good idea. Too bad she's starting to like him...

A Man for All Seasons


Robert Bolt - 1960
    The classic play about Sir Thomas More, the Lord chancellor who refused to compromise and was executed by Henry VIII.

In the Heart of America and Other Plays


Naomi Wallace - 2000
    Her characters suffer and survive against the enormous weight of the times with a dignity that inspires. Her work challenges the audience and reader to reexamine the conflicts and meaning of our everyday lives through her singular, poetic imagery and language.Includes: One Flea SpareIn the Heart of AmericaSlaughter CityThe War BoysThe Trestle at Pope's Creek

American Moor


Keith Hamilton Cobb - 2020
    not necessarily in that order.Keith Hamilton Cobb embarks on a poetic exploration that examines the experience and perspective of black men in America through the metaphor of Shakespeare's character Othello, offering up a host of insights that are by turns introspective and indicting, difficult and deeply moving. American Moor is a play about race in America, but it is also a play about who gets to make art, who gets to play Shakespeare, about whose lives and perspectives matter, about actors and acting, and about the nature of unadulterated love.American Moor has been seen across America, including a successful run off-Broadway in 2019. This edition features an introduction by Professor Kim F. Hall, Barnard College.

Angels in America


Tony Kushner - 1993
    Prior is a man living with AIDS whose lover Louis has left him and become involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative whose wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown. These stories are contrasted with that of Roy Cohn (a fictional re-creation of the infamous American conservative ideologue who died of AIDS in 1986) and his attempts to remain in the closet while trying to find some sort of personal salvation in his beliefs.

The Son


Florian Zeller - 2018
    Believe me. I don't know what's happened, but something has. He's changed. He . . . And I'm wondering if . . . To be absolutely honest with you . . . I'm even wondering if . . . Nicolas, just two years ago a smiling boy, is going through a difficult phase after his parents' divorce. He's listless, skipping classes, lying. He believes moving in with his father and his new family may help. And a different school, a fresh start. When he doesn't feel comfortable there, when he senses he isn't wanted, he decides that going back to his mother's may be the answer. But at some point, options are going to dry up. And then what?I'm telling you. I don't understand what's happening to me. Florian Zeller's The Son forms the final part in a trilogy with The Mother and The Father, all of which are translated by Christopher Hampton. The Son premieres at the Kiln Theatre, London, in February 2019.

A River Runs Through it and Other Stories


Norman Maclean - 1976
    A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs through It and Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx.Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiences—the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father.

Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway ... and More


Russell Simmons - 2003
    Among them: Suheir Hammad, Beau Sia, Steve Colman, Stacyann Chin, Mayda del Valle, Georgia Me, Poetri, and other well-established and up-and-coming Slam artists who have forever changed the face of poetry and offer a fresh, exuberant, insightful, and comedic look at who we are as Americans today.

Hamlet: Screenplay, Introduction And Film Diary


Kenneth Branagh - 1996
    "Its a ghost story, a thriller, an action-packed murder mystery, and a great tragedy that is profoundly moving." With an outstanding cast of international actors--including Derek Jacobi as Claudius, Julie Christie as Gertrude, Kate Winslet as Ophelia, Charlton Heston as the Player King, Robin Williams as Osric, and Gerard Depardieu as Reynaldo--Branagh's version, in which he will play the title role as well as direct, is sure to go down in film history.This beautiful volume includes Branagh's introduction and screenplay adaptation of Shakespeare's text, color and black-and-white stills, and a production diary that takes us behind the scenes for a day-to-day look at the shooting of his film.

Let The Right One In


Jack Thorne - 2013
    She doesn’t go to school and never leaves the flat by day. Sensing in each other a kindred spirit, the two become devoted friends. What Oskar doesn’t know is that Eli has been a teenager for a very long time…Jack Thorne's adaptation of Let The Right One In premiered in June 2013 at the Dundee Rep Theatre in a production by the National Theatre of Scotland, before transferring to London's Royal Court Theatre in November 2013.