Book picks similar to
Cost of Living by Martyna Majok
plays
drama
pulitzer
pulitzer-prize
Endgame & Act Without Words
Samuel Beckett - 1957
"Endgame, " originally written in French and translated into English by Beckett himself, is considered by many critics to be his greatest single work. A pinnacle of Beckett's characteristic raw minimalism, it is a pure and devastating distillation of the human essence in the face of approaching death.
Three Days of Rain
Richard Greenberg
He takes up temporary residence in the unused space where thirty-five years earlier, his father Ned, and Ned's late partner Theo, both architects, lived and designed the great house that would make them famous. Sleepless and emotionally jangled, Walker scours the old empty space for clues, evidences or keys to the tortured family history. Discovering his father's journal hidden under the bed, he finds it as unforthcoming as his nearly silent father had been. Walker is joined by his sister, Nan, and their friend from childhood, Pip, Theo's son, to hear the reading of Ned's will. It is there that Walker forces the confrontation that the others need. After an evening of harrowing and sometimes comically inadvertent revelations, Walker disappears once more. This time he returns later that evening with a surprising, but to him, definitive solution to the family puzzle. We travel back to 1960, when Ned's journal begins. We meet the parents at the same age their children are in Act One: Ned, who seems very different from the cold monster the children conjured; the charismatic and putative genius, Theo; and Lena, Walker and Nan's mother, the delightful, troubled "Southern woman who admits to thirty." In the guise of a love story, we are offered all the information needed to devise an alternative reading of the sad, unexpectedly romantic family story."
These Shining Lives
Melanie Marnich - 2010
Catherine and her friends are dying, it's true; but theirs is a story of survival in its most transcendent sense, as they refuse to allow the company that stole their health to kill their spirits—or endanger the lives of those who come after them.
The Whipping Man
Matthew López - 2009
The Civil War is over and throughout the south, slaves are being freed, soldiers are returning home and in Jewish homes, the annual celebration of Passover is being celebrated. Into the chaos of war-torn Richmond comes Caleb DeLeon, a young Confederate officer who has been severely wounded. He finds his family's home in ruins and abandoned, save for two former slaves, Simon and John, who wait in the empty house for the family's return. As the three
The Shape of Things
Neil LaBute - 2001
After a chance meeting at a museum, Evelyn and Adam embark on an intense relationship that causes shy and principled Adam to go to extraordinary lengths, including cosmetic surgery, and a betrayal of his best friend, to improve his appearance and character. In the process, Evelyn's subtle and insistent coaching results in a reconstruction of Adam's fundamental moral character. Only in a final and shocking exhibition does Evelyn reveal the nature of her interest in Adam, of her detached artist's perspective and sense of authority--to her, Adam is no more than "flesh.... one of the most perfect materials on earth. Natural, beautiful, and malleable." Labute's latest work is an intense and disturbing study not only of the uses of power within human relationships, but also of the ethics involved in the relationship of art and life. To what extent is an artist licensed to shape and change her medium or to alter the work of another artist? What is acceptable artistic material? At what point does creation become manipulation, and at what point does creation destroy? Or, is the new Adam, handsome and confident if heart broken, an admirable result of the most challenging artistic endeavor? The Shape of Things challenges society's most deeply entrenched ideas about art, manipulation, and love.
The Children
Lucy Kirkwood - 2016
They like to live by the sea.Two retired nuclear scientists in an isolated cottage by the sea as the world around them crumbles. Then an old friend arrives with a frightening request.Lucy Kirkwood's previous plays include Chimerica (winner of the Olivier Award for Best Play, the Evening Standard Award, the Critics' Circle Best New Play Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), small hours, NSFW, and it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now. The Children premiered at the Royal Court, London, in November 2016 and will receive its US premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club in the fall of 2017.
Aunt Dan and Lemon
Wallace Shawn - 1985
Lemon tells the audience about the overwhelming influence in her life of her parents' friend "Aunt Dan," an eccentric, passionate professor whose stories and seductive opinions enthrall Lemon from the time she is a young girl. The relationship that develops between Lemon and Aunt Dan and the conversations that went on in a small house on the bottom of an English garden form the focus of this play about political orientation and the allure of certain ideas-even if they lead to murder. A forceful play exposing the banality of society's evil, Aunt Dan & Lemon explores the ease with which good and bad become reconciled in the human mind.
The Nether
Jennifer Haley - 2014
No one has been able to draw a conclusive correlation between virtual behaviour and behaviour in-world.
The Nether is a virtual wonderland that provides total sensory immersion. Just log in, choose an identity and indulge your every desire. But when a young detective uncovers a disturbing brand of entertainment, she triggers an interrogation into the darkest corners of the imagination.Winner of the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, The Nether is both a serpentine crime drama and haunting sci-fi thriller that explores the consequences of living out our private dreams.Jennifer Haley's The Nether received its UK premiere in July 2014 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in a co-production with Headlong.
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.