Book picks similar to
The Effect by Lucy Prebble
plays
drama
theatre
play
Nocturne: A Play
Adam Rapp - 2002
The father is so incapable of forgiveness he puts a gun in his son's mouth; the mother so shattered, she deserts the family and eventually takes leave of her sanity altogether; the son--only 17 years old at the time--sets out for New York City. There, he seeks an uneasy refuge in books and reinvents himself as a writer. Across the decade and a half that follows he tries to cope with the ramifications of his own anguish and estrangement while making a desperate search for redemption. A devastating, elegant, and gripping dissection of the American dream, Nocturne signals a brave new voice in American theater.
The Mousetrap: A Play
Agatha Christie - 1952
Who can it be? One by one the suspicious characters reveal their sordid pasts until at the last, nerve-shredding moment the identity and the motive are finally revealed.The Mousetrap is the longest-running play in the history of London's West End
Dying City
Christopher Shinn - 2006
. . Dying City is a political play and also a psychodrama about what Arthur Miller called the politics of the soul. It’s about public conscience and private grief, and real and symbolic catastrophes.”?The New York Observer
“Anyone who doubts that Mr. Shinn is among the most provocative and probing of American playwrights today need only experience the . . . sophisticated welding of form and content that is Dying City.”?The New York Times
In Christopher Shinn’s new play Dying City, a young therapist, Kelly, whose husband Craig was killed while on military duty in Iraq, is confronted a year later by his identical twin Peter, who suspects that Craig’s death was not accidental. Set in a spare downtown-Manhattan apartment after dark, scenes shift from the confrontation between Peter and Kelly, to Kelly’s complicated farewell with her husband Craig. Shinn’s creepy, sophisticated drama?infused with references to 9/11 and the war in Iraq?explores how contemporary politics and recent history have transformed the lives of these three characters.
Christopher Shinn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and lives in New York. His plays include Where Do We Live, Other People, What Didn’t Happen, and On the Mountain, which have been widely produced in New York, across the United States, and in London. He is the recipient of an OBIE Award in Playwriting, as well as the Robert S. Chesney Award. He teaches playwriting at The New School for Drama.
Take Me Out
Richard Greenberg - 2002
An extraordinary athlete, he fills both his fans and his teammates with awe at his abilities and his presence on the field and off. When he makes the matter-of-fact announcement that he's gay, he throws his team into turmoil and confusion, while he also emboldens his closeted accountant, Mason Marzac, to come to terms with his own sexuality and to fully experience the pure joy of watching great athletes play a sport as well as it can be played. But Darren's announcement brings to the fore the confused and twisted hostilities of the Empires' brilliantly talented but deeply racist and homophobic pitcher, Shane Mungitt from whose rage tragic consequences ensue.The American premiere of Take Me Out took place at the Public Theater in New York City in September 2002. It will move to the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in February 2003.
The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Janice Galloway - 1989
The problems of everyday living accumulate and begin to torture Joy, who blames her problems not on her work or on the accidental drowning of her illicit lover, but on herself. While painful and deeply serious, this is a novel of great warmth and energy: it's the wit and irony found in moments of despair that prove to be Joy's salvation. First published by Polygon in 1989 and Dalkey Archive Press in 1994, now available again.
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.
The Humans
Stephen Karam - 2015
Unfolding over a single scene, this "delirious tragicomedy" (Chicago Sun-Times) by acclaimed young playwright Stephen Karam "infuses the traditional kitchen-sink family drama with qualities of horror in his portentous and penetrating work of psychological unease" (Variety), creating an indelible family portrait.
Middletown
Will Eno - 2010
Will Eno has been called "a Samuel Beckett for the John Stewart generation" (New York Times); Middletown features a wide array of characters—Cop, Mechanic, Librarian, to name just a few—who together populate the play with his trademark subversive style.Will Eno is the author of Thom Pain (based on nothing), which ran for a year Off-Broadway and was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Other works include Oh, the Humanity and other good intentions, The Flu Season, Tragedy: a tragedy, and Intermission.
Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays
Steve Martin - 1994
He is also an accomplished screenwriter who has in the past few years turned his hand to writing plays. The results, collected here, hilariously explore serious questions of love, happiness and the meaning of life; they are rich with equal parts of pain and slapstick humour, torment and wit.
Dry Land
Ruby Rae Spiegel - 2015
Amy is curled up on the locker room floor. DRY LAND is a play about abortion, female friendship, and resiliency, and what happens in one high school locker room after everybody’s left.