Book picks similar to
The Other Room by Ariadne Blayde


plays
almost-favorites
fiction
performed-seen

Back Trouble


Clare Chambers - 1994
    It only needed a discarded chip on a South London street to lay him literally flat. So, bedbound and bored, Philip naturally starts to write the story of his life. But the mundane catalogue of seaside holidays and bodged DIY, broken relationships and unspoken truths, reveals more surprises, both comic and touching, than Philip or his family ever bargained for. Even, perhaps, a happy ending ...

An Experiment with an Air Pump


Shelagh Stephenson - 1998
    1999 - In a world of scientific chaos, cloning and genetic engineering, the cellar of the same house reveals a dark secret buried for 200 years.

Comedians


Trevor Griffiths - 1976
    Telling jokes for money offers an escape from the building site or the milk round. But the humour is a deadly serious business that also involves anger, pain and truth.' Financial Times'Trevor Griffiths has not shown his brilliance as a writer more clearly than in Comedians.' Daily Telegraph

Insatiable


Marne Davis Kellogg - 2001
    loyal, trustworthy, and discreet. But his adored employer — the internationally famed portrait painter Jacqueline di Fidelio — suddenly finds herself in hot water with the IRS, the FBI, and two dangerous, attractive men. And Nigel discovers his duties expanding in a most unexpected way....As Madam jets from one glamorous playground to the next, Nigel turns spy and protector to fend off those who would do Jacqueline wrong. For in Nigel’s opinion, his irresistibly alluring employer’s torturous past has rendered her as unstable as a house of cards. Yet when one of Jacqueline’s simpering socialite clients is murdered — and then another mysterious death follows while Jacqueline is on the scene — Nigel begins to wonder if he has it all wrong. Is the woman to whom he has dedicated his life simply an innocent victim of careless, callous men? Or is she a heartless manipulator whose mask of black Prada and pearls hides the tortured secrets of a ruthless killer?

The Pain and the Itch


Bruce Norris - 2007
    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.

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.

The Pitchfork Disney


Philip Ridley - 1991
    Manifesting Ridley's vivid and visionary imagination and the dark beauty of his outlook, the play resonates with his trademark themes: East London, storytelling, moments of shocking violence, memories of the past, fantastical monologues, and that strange mix of the barbaric and the beautiful he has made all his own.The Pitchfork Disney was Ridley's first play and is now seen as launching a new generation of playwrights who were unafraid to shock and court controversy. This unsettling, dreamlike piece has surreal undertones and thematically explores fear, dreams and story-telling. First produced in 1991, it has gone on to be recognised as the annunciation of Ridley's dark and seductive world.

Animals (Williamstown Theatre Festival)


Stacy Osei-Kuffour - 2020
    Wine bottles and years of unspoken tensions are uncorked, and, before the evening is through, Lydia must confront her long-held fears and feelings if she’s going to commit to a future with Henry. Directed by Whitney White, Stacy Osei-Kuffour’s world premiere comedy marches into the muddy intersection of romantic entanglement, identity, pride, and survival.

Caroline, or Change


Tony Kushner - 2004
    You’ve never seen anything quite like Caroline, or Change and likely won’t again anytime soon. There’s never a moment that the part-pop, part-opera, part-musical-theater score Jeanine Tesori has conjured up doesn’t ideally match Tony Kushner’s meticulously chosen words with clarion precision.” –Matthew Murray, talkinbroadway.com“A monumental achievement in American musical theater. Joyful, wholly successful, immensely moving, told with abundant wit and generosity of heart.” –John Helipern, New York ObserverLouisiana, 1963: A nation reeling from the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement and the Kennedy assassination. Caroline, a black maid, and Noah, the son of the Jewish family she works for, struggle to find an identity for their friendship after Noah's stepmother, unable to give Caroline a raise, tells Caroline that she may keep the money Noah leaves in his pockets. Through their intimate story, this beautiful musical portrays the changing rhythms of a nation. Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori have created a story that addresses contemporary questions of culture, community, race and class through the lens and musical pulse of the 1960s.Tony Kushner’s plays include Angels in America; Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Brown; The Illusion, adapted from the play by Pierre Cornelle; Slavs!; A Bright Room Called Day; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’s film of Angels in America and for Steven Spielberg’s Munich and Lincoln. His books include The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon.Among many honors, Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.Jeanine Tesori composed the scores for Tony Award-winning musicals Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek the Musical as well as Violet and Caroline, or Change. She is the recipient of multiple Drama Desk and Obie Awards, and her film composition credits include Nights in Rodanthe, Winds of Change, Show Business, and Wrestling With Angels.

Out Of The Wilderness


Anita K. Greene - 2012
    A newfound faith in God has him longing to restore his integrity. His new mission is to qualify for a job with the SeaMount Agency so he can be one of the good guys. In the midst of a wilderness survival trial he discovers a woman and her children lost in the forest. Abandoning his own mission in order to help them could disqualify him for the job.Sophie Moore has fought to hold heart and home together since her husband’s death. To lose custody of her daughters to his influential parents would be her undoing. Determined to make every moment together count, Sophie plans a weekend away. Almost at their destination, she takes a wrong turn and becomes lost in a labyrinth of logging roads. The scruffy, hard-edged soldier that finds them is their only chance at survival.From the wilderness of Maine to the SeaMount Agency headquarters on the coast of Rhode Island, Gray works to expose the criminal plot behind Sophie’s custody battle. He jeopardizes getting the job he wants for having the love of the woman he needs. Being a good guy may cost him his one shot at redemption.

Sex with Strangers


Laura Eason - 2014
    As attraction turns to sex, and they inch closer to getting what they want, both must confront the dark side of ambition and the near impossibility of reinventing oneself when the past is only a click away. Sex with Strangers had its world premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre Company; it will have its New York premiere at Second Stage Theatre in June 2014, directed by David Schwimmer.

We Were Brave


Cap Daniels - 2019
    Imprisoned inside his own psyche, Millhouse believes his death is the only path capable of finally putting his demons to rest. An unlikely friendship with Anna, a young college student and aspiring novelist, reminds him of the importance of telling the story that lies inside all of us. Their friendship and stories may have the power to pull him from the depths into which he’s allowed himself to plummet. As Anna’s past is revealed and redemption hangs in the balance, Millhouse must overcome his deepest regrets to face the truth that the most disgraceful act of his past may have been the defining moment of salvation for a family torn apart by war and personal tragedy.The emotional journey of lives intertwined by loss, loneliness, and unseen common bonds unfolds in this unforgettable story of overcoming mental illness and the agony wrought by dark deeds, to finally reveal the beauty that so often grows from the remnants of tragedy.

Accidental Lawyer


Kim Hamilton - 2017
    Her face and name appear on billboards and buses throughout the city, and if that isn’t enough to embarrass her mother, there’s a television commercial in the works. Her elevated status has her wrangling with a local mob boss, duping a drug dealer, and confronting phony clients. With the help of her bold and brassy sidekick, Kari, Jess develops a remarkable proclivity for this ignoble profession by wrapping up difficult cases and finding new business in unexpected places. When trumped-up murder charges are brought against her boss, she faces her biggest challenge yet—tracking down a killer. Along the way, Jess builds a new kind of family for herself, her own tribe, made up of friends, colleagues and clients, many of whom are sure to raise eyebrows at her mother’s dinner table.

The Philosophical Detective


Bruce Hartman - 2014
    Nick Martin has just started graduate school when he’s dragooned into serving as the driver, guide and confidant of a blind poet by the name of Jorge Luis Borges. Together they must address an extraordinary series of crimes and the equally baffling conundrums of literature and philosophy, including Zeno’s paradoxes, the mind/body problem, and the mysteries of destiny, personal identity and artistic creation. Nick plays the parts of Watson, Sancho Panza, Dante and Stephen Daedalus, and before the story ends he hears the last tale of Scheherazade and finds the love of his life. Forty-five years later, struggling with pain and grief, he looks back with wonder at the magical year when he wandered into the labyrinth and took his first steps to self-understanding.Lighthearted but deeply serious, The Philosophical Detective is a unique journey into the visionary world of a genius.Kirkus Reviews called The Philosophical Detective “...a suspenseful, pitch-perfect novel with an unlikely lead detective: a fictionalized version of iconic Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)..... An intelligent, original detective novel.”Note: With my apologies, at this time the book is available only in the United States.

Leaving Home


David French - 1972
    The first part of what has come to be known as the Mercer Series, Leaving Home tells the story of a Newfoundland family that has emigrated and lost all sense of its place in the world.Leaving Home was named one of the "100 Most Influential Canadian Books" by the Literary Review of Canada.