A “skillfully-told story that engages the emotions as well as the brain,” Golden Child explores the impact of these decisions on each of his great-grandfather’s three wives, and succeeding generations (Entertainment Focus).David Henry Hwang is the author of the Tony Award-winning M. Butterfly, Yellow Face (OBIE Award, 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalist), Golden Child (1997 OBIE Award), FOB (1981 OBIE Award), Family Devotions (Drama Desk nomination), and the books for musicals Aida ( co-author), Flower Drum Song (2002 Broadway revival), and Tarzan, among other works. David Henry Hwang graduated from Stanford University, attended the Yale School of Drama, and holds honorary degrees from Columbia College in Chicago and The American Conservatory Theatre. He lives in New York City with his wife, actress Kathryn Layng, and their children, Noah David and Eva Veanne.

    Recommended for all collections." - Choice

    Grey Gardens is based on the 1975 Albert and David Maysles film about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's eccentric aunt and cousin. The touching and sometimes heart-wrenching musical adaptation explores the dysfunctional relationship between former socialite Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Little Edie, as they languish in a derelict East Hampton manor, Grey Gardens. Propelled by Christine Ebersole's tour-de-force performance, the gorgeous score, and intricate lyrics, the Broadway musical has garnered much critical praise. "An experience no passionate theatergoer should miss." Ben Brantley, The New York Times

    When Agnes finds Tilly's Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she stumbles into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was Tilly's refuge. In this high-octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture, acclaimed young playwright Qui Nguyen offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all.

    In The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, four kitchen chairs represent an automobile and a family travels seventy miles in twenty minutes. And in Pullman Car Hiawatha, we board an imaginary railroad car and hear the thoughts of passengers, the populace speeding by -- even the planets above.Here are five one-act plays encompassing the full range of Thornton Wilder's theatrical vision: from the experimental to the humorous to the fantastic. As The New York Times has written, "Wilder's plays are now more than ever in rhythm with our changing habit of theatergoing....He relates the moment to eternity, seeks the infinite in the immediate, finds the universal in each grain of wheat."

     Danger is no stranger to the heartaches of the world. After losing her adoptive mother, she almost crumbles under a domino effect of misfortune. When she meets Sleep, she thinks she’s finally found a captain to save her, but when she learns his main goal is to pimp her out, Danger wastes no time getting from under his thumb. On the run to get as far away from Sleep as possible, she lands in Dallas, where she reunites with her bestie. Free is the true definition of dangerous curves. A BBW with enough personality to steal any show, she’s quick to flash a smile that hides her own set of demons. It’s hard to be comfortable in your skin, especially when family is the main one trying to tear you down, but Free is determined to stunt on everybody that has a problem with her weight— family included. Add the kind of street smarts that make a natural born hustler, and Free is every hitta’s dream come true. Whether they can handle her is the real question. Stranger is a self-made boss in his own right, a dude whose name rings bells in the streets and commands respect even while he’s locked up. Growing up with a schizophrenic for a mother made him unbreakable, but not above the law when he gets caught slipping. Done serving his time, he only has two things on his mind: hitting the streets and getting to the money by any means necessary. After stumbling across a connect and an offer he can’t refuse, Stranger agrees to collect a blood debt in exchange for the keys to the streets. Will his decision cost him more than he’s willing to give up? Where Stranger is a silent killer, Spazz, his younger brother, leaves a path of destruction with anything he touches. Wild, rude, and reckless, he’s ready to get it poppin’ if you even look at him wrong, and there’s only one thing that can tame his temper: his five-year-old daughter. With a mouth to feed and a street legacy to claim, he’s down with no hesitation when Stranger brings him into his plan to re-claim the streets. With his brother by his side, Spazz is ready to put his city on the map. Stranger never let his heart take his focus off the money, until he meets Danger. Mesmerized by her effortless beauty, he just has to have her, but there’s one problem: she’s on the arm of the same guy he’s planning to take down. Is he willing to kill for love? Spazz always gets what he wants, and he knows Free will be his from the minute he meets her. Never being attracted to BBWs in the past, he’s powerless against Free’s hypnotizing thickness, and her confidence and slick mouth are just the type of bonus that makes her worth the chase. Will he convince Free to take a chance on a real one? Ain’t nothin’ like lovin’ a savage, and once you get inside the head of one, your life will never be the same. Take a journey with Danger, Free, Stranger, and Spazz as they try to cheat the past for the future. Nothing goes as planned in love, especially once you’re Turned out by a Savage.

    

    Jody is in his forties and runs a map store. Not one for the outside world, he stays in his store all the time. His friend, Carl is in his late thirties and has been bringing chairs of dead friends into Jody's store and leaving them there. When Jody needs to take an AIDS test, Carl tries to convince him it is not only okay to leave the store, but also that he must take responsibility for his life. If he doesn't, he will join the set of chairs that Carl has taken great pains to place in the right spots around the store. Jody finally leaves the map store to take his HIV test and return to find Carl sitting in a chair of his own. With this gesture, we know that Carl has joined the many of their friends who have died, but now Jody must take Carl's place as the caretaker.

    That current is best identified by its catch-labels--Theater of the Absurd, Black Comedy, the Theater of Cruelty--which is to say the theater of alienation, of moral anarchy and despair. To the practitioners of those philosophies Man of La Mancha must seem hopelessly naive in its espousal of illusion as man's strongest spiritual need, the most meaningful function of his imagination. But I've no unhappiness about that. "Facts are the enemy of truth," says Cervantes-Don Quixote. And that is precisely what I felt and meant."--Dale Wasserman, from the Preface.

    R. Gurney has wittily captured the manners of upper-middle-class WASP America, but never as gracefully or with such dazzling economy as in Love Letters. Tracing the lifelong correspondence of the staid, dutiful lawyer Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and the lively, unstable artist Melissa Gardner, the story of their bittersweet relationship gradually unfolds from what is written--and what is left unsaid--in their letters. A smash hit both off and on Broadway, Love Letters captures Andy and Melissa with a precision of detail and depth of feeling that only Gurney can command. Two other, thematically related plays by Gurney, The Golden Age and What I Did Last Summer, are included, providing a trio of wry and affectionate paeans to love lost, found, and fleetingly glimpsed.

    Includes: Accident Waiting to Happen * Bride's Lament * Cold Feets * I Am Aldolpho * I Remember Love * Show Off * Toledo Surprise * and more.

    The show's unconventional structure consists of Cathy, the woman, telling her story backwards while Jamie, the man, tells his story chronologically; the two characters meet only once, at their wedding in the middle of the show.Jason Robert Brown won Drama Desk Awards for the music and the lyrics after the Off-Broadway premiere in 2002 starring Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott. The show has since been produced at almost every major regional theater in the U.S., and has been seen in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Germany, Italy, Canada, Spain, and the UK.

    When others begin to speak freely around him, he not only becomes privy to secrets both dangerous and frivolous, he also discovers an adventurous extrovert within himself.

    Jack, a possible paranoid schizophrenic with a Messiah complex, inherits the title of the 14th Earl of Gurney after his father passes away in a bizarre accident. Singularly unsuited to a life in the upper echelons of elite society, Jack finds himself at the centre of a ruthless power struggle as his scheming family strives to uphold their reputation.Bubbling with acerbic wit and feverish energy, Olivier Award-winning and Oscar-nominated-writer Peter Barnes's razor-sharp satire combines a ferocious mix of hilarity and horror whilst mercilessly exposing the foibles of the English nobility.This edition of the play is published to coincide with the first-ever revival of this classic cult comedy at the Trafalgar Studios, London, on 16 January 2015.

    It would be about being present and being committed to the artistic process every single day, regardless of the ‘weather.’ It became a daily meditation, a daily prayer celebrating the rich and strange process of a writing life.”—Suzan-Lori Parks On November 13, 2002, the incomparable Suzan-Lori Parks got an idea to write a play every day for a year. She began that very day, finishing one year later. The result is an extraordinary testament to artistic commitment. This collection of 365 impeccably crafted pieces, each with its own distinctive characters and dramatic power, is a complete work by an artist responding to her world, each and every day. Parks is one of the American theater’s most wily and innovative writers, and her “stark but poetic language and fiercely idiosyncratic images transform her work into something haunting and marvelous” (TIME).