The Graduate


Terry Johnson - 2000
    It premiered in April 2000 at the Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, starring Kathleen Turner as Mrs RobinsonCalifornia in the 60s. Benjamin's got excellent grades, very proud parents and, since he helped Mrs Robinson with her zipper, a fine future behind him… A cult novel, a classic film, a quintessential hit of the 60s, now Benjamin's disastrous sexual odyssey is brought vividly to life in this world stage premiere production."Terry Johnson is that rare creature: a moralist with wit. He writes with responsible gaiety" (Guardian)

Lonely Planet - Acting Edition


Steven Dietz - 1994
    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.

8


Dustin Lance Black - 2012
    Edgar) and directed by Rob Reiner (When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men). In November 2008, California's Proposition 8 stripped the freedom to marry away from gay and lesbian couples. Now, two of the nation's most renowned attorneys, under the auspices of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, have joined forces to challenge Proposition 8 under the United States Constitution. "8" faithfully recreates the progression of the historic 2010 federal trial through original court transcripts and interviews conducted with the plaintiffs, as their stories are brought to life before a live audience.

This Close to Okay


Leesa Cross-Smith - 2021
    On a rainy October night in Kentucky, recently divorced therapist Tallie Clark is on her way home from work when she spots a man precariously standing on the side of a bridge. Without a second thought, Tallie pulls over and jumps out of the car into the pouring rain. She convinces the man to join her for a cup of coffee, and he eventually agrees to come back to her house, where he finally shares his name: Emmett. Over the course of the emotionally charged weekend that follows, Tallie makes it her mission to provide a safe space for Emmett, though she hesitates to confess that this is also her day job. But what she doesn't realize is that he's not the only one who needs healing -- and she's not the only one with secrets.Alternating between Tallie and Emmett's perspectives as they inch closer to the truth of what brought Emmett to the bridge's edge -- as well as the hard truths Tallie has been grappling with in her own life -- This Close to Okay is a vibrant, powerful story of two strangers brought together by wild chance at the moment they needed each other most.

The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey


James Lecesne - 2016
    It was directed by Tony Speciale; it was produced by Dixon Place; the original music was by Duncan Sheik; the visuals were by Matthew Sandager; and the clothing was by Paul Marlow.

Funnyhouse of a Negro


Adrienne Kennedy - 1997
    Only she and Lumumba are not dressed in white; she has a white fixation and wants to become whiter and whiter. She harangues against her father who gave her a jungle strain and then sold out to white harlotry, dreams of returning to Africa to save the continent, and hangs herself amid swirling conflicts and desires, a victim of a nightmare world.

The Shipment and Lear


Young Jean Lee - 2009
    She understands and exploits the unique strengths of her medium: the ability to viscerally connect with an audience.” –The EconomistExperimental Korean American theatre artist Young Jean Lee has been called “one of the best experimental playwrights in America” (Time Out New York). This volume contains two of her recent works:In The Shipment, Lee provides a provocative look at African-American identity in our not-yet post-racial society. The New York Times calls this take on cultural images of black America “a subversive, seriously funny new theater piece… Ms. Lee wields sharp, offbeat humor to point up the clichés, distortions and absurdities” (Charles Isherwood, New York Times).LEAR is Lee’s own version of Shakespeare’s tragedy, focusing on the king’s three daughters. A production in which Lear himself never appears, LEAR is a “wacky blend of ‘To be or not to be,’ Beckett, and Pirandello…full of exhilarating, illuminating moments” (Village Voice).Young Jean Lee has written and directed shows in New York with Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company and toured her work to over twenty cities around the world. Her plays include Straight White Men, We’re Gonna Die, Untitled Feminist Show, The Shipment, Lear and Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven. Awards include two Obies, the Festival Prize of the Zuercher Theater Spektakel, a Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Doris Duke Artist Award.

The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda


Ishmael Reed - 2020
    today."   -Gerald Horne, author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776:  Slave Resistance and the Origins of the USA This powerful play, originally produced at the Nuyorican Poets Café, comprehensively dismantles the phenomenon of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hamilton. Reed uses the musical’s crimes against history to insist on a radical, cleareyed way of looking at our past and our selves. Both durable and timely, this goes beyond mere corrective – it is a meticulously researched rebuttal, an absorbing drama, and brilliant rallying cry for justice. The perfect tie-in to both the success of and backlash to Hamilton, it is the major voice in contrast to the recent movie. It captures both the earnest engagement that fans of the musical desire, as well as the exhausted disbelief of those who can’t stand it. Teachers, students and fans of drama, literature, and history will find much to love. It is written by one of America’s most respected and original writers, who is eagerly promoting it, and who is long overdue for a renaissance.

Into the Woods


Stephen Sondheim - 1987
    Henry III, Time

Nature Poem


Tommy Pico - 2017
    For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He’d slap a tree across the face. He’d rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he’d rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole. While he’s adamant—bratty, even—about his distaste for the word “natural,” over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature. The closer his people were identified with the “natural world,” he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush. But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter. Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice.

The Christians


Lucas Hnath - 2015
    Now he presides over a congregation of thousands, with classrooms for Sunday School, a coffee shop in the lobby, and a baptismal font as big as a swimming pool. Today should be a day of celebration. But Paul is about to preach a sermon that will shake the foundations of his church’s belief. A big-little play about faith in America—and the trouble with changing your mind.- See more at: http://actorstheatre.org/shows/the-ch...

Becky Shaw


Gina Gionfriddo - 2010
    Your husband is not the Red Cross. The last time he started consoling a cute, suicidal chick, he married her. ""Becky Shaw" is an amusing and cleverly constructed comedy about ambition, the cost of being truthful, and the perils of a blind date. The fast and funny dialogue navigates between five distinctively perverse and disingenuously dysfunctional characters.The plot is as follows: from the moment that Becky arrives overdressed for her blind date with straight-talking Max, it's clear the evening won't go to plan. In the immediate fallout, Becky becomes an object of devotion for her boss Andrew, who appears to have a fetish for vulnerable women. In turn Andrew's wife Suzanna turns to her step-brother Max for comfort, and their mutual desire begins to resurface.Gina Gionfriddo's masterful play is a biting American comedy with sharp, witty dialogue and a carefully crafted yet unforced story arc. Character-driven, "Becky Shaw" is a comic tale of tangled love lives and a subtle but acerbic comedy of manners.

Little Murders


Jules Feiffer - 1968
    As their wedding day grows near, Alfred finds himself embroiled in an urban nightmare not the least of which is his fiance's family, the possiblity of marriage without Faith, muggings, and a sniper's bullet.

Girls & Boys


Dennis Kelly - 2018
    Before long they begin to settle down, buy a house, juggle careers, have kids – theirs is an ordinary family.But then their world starts to unravel and things take a disturbing turn.A tragic, violent look at parenthood and trauma.

Our Country's Good


Timberlake Wertenbaker - 1988
    A young lieutenant directs rehearsals of the Restoration comedy, The Recruiting Officer. With a cast of convicts, opposition from sadistic officers and a leading lady who is due to be hanged, Australia's first theatrical production is in trouble from the start.