Book picks similar to
The Handbook of Psychodrama by Paul Holmes
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Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
Molière - 1669
Oronte has promised his daughter to Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, a bourgeois of Limoges. The lovers seek a solution that will allow Julie to escape the marriage. For this they use a matchmaker Nérine and a Napolitan cheat Sbrigani. When Monsieur de Pourceaugnac arrives, they do everything to ridicule him, to make it look like he’s crazy, to make it look like he’s somebody with many debts ... And when that doesn’t work, Sbrigani goes find the poor man to tell that Julie is just a nasty coquette and she does not deserve him to marry her. Julie enters the scene and claims to be madly in love with the unfortunate young man. Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, convinced of the vanity of his bride refuses to marry her. When Pourceaugnac wants to leave the scene, two women pick on him and say he is the father of their many children. Monsieur de Pourceaugnac has now only one possibility to escape a charge of polygamy: to run. Disguised as a woman he manages to escape. Sbrigani then convinces Orontes that Pourceaugnac has kidnapped his daughter, and when Éraste "saves" her, Orontes gives their marriage his blessing.
Some Girl(s)
Neil LaBute - 2005
And so begins a single man's odyssey through four hotel rooms as he flies across the country in search of the perfect woman (that he's already broken up with). Some Girl(s) is the latest work from Neil Labute, American theater's great agent provocateur. In grand LaBute fashion, this by turns outrageously funny and deadly serious portrait of the artist as a young seducer casts a truthful, hilarious light on a typical young American male as he wanders through the heart of darkness that is himself. This edition includes a deleted scene.
Yellow Face
David Henry Hwang - 2008
The play begins with the 1990s controversy over color-blind casting for "Miss Saigon," before it spins into a comic fantasy, in which the character DHH pens a play in protest and then unwittingly casts a white actor as the Asian lead. "Yellow Face" also explores the real-life investigation of Hwang's father, the first Asian American to own a federally chartered bank, and the espionage charges against physicist Wen Ho Lee.
Burning Vision
Marie Clements - 2003
It is also a scathing attack on the “public apology” as yet another mask, as a manipulative device, which always seeks to conceal the maintenance and furtherance of the self-interest of its wearer.Clements’s powerful visual sets and soundscapes contain curtains of flames which at times assume the bodies of a chorus passing its remote judgment, devoid of both pity and fear, on the action: a merciless indictment of the cross-cultural, buried worm of avarice and self-interest hidden within the terrorism of the push to “go with the times,” to accept the iconography of a reality defined, contextualized and illuminated by others.Marie Clements writes, or, perhaps more accurately, composes, with an urbane, incisive and sophisticated intellect deeply rooted in the particulars of her place, time and history.Cast of five women and 12 men.
Fronteras Americanas
Guillermo Verdecchia - 1993
This one-person play works through bold juxtapositions and satiric reference points: Simón Bolívar and Speedy Gonzales; Columbus and Fodor’s travel guides; Ricky Ricardo and the Latin Lover; �La Bamba’ and Placido Domingo; Carlos Fuentes and American made-for-TV drug-wars movies. Verdecchia twirls stereotypes and clichés, offers comparative histories, examines myths and mysticism, and provides lessons in language and dancing.Cast of one man.
The Seagull
Anton Chekhov - 1895
Two years later it was revived by Nemirovich-Danchenko at the newly-founded Moscow Art Theatre with Stanslasky as Trigorin and was an immediate success. Checkhov's description of the play was characteristically self-mocking: "A comedy - 3F, 6M, four acts, rural scenery (a view over a lake); much talk of literature, little action, five bushels of love".Michael Frayn's translation was commissioned by the Oxford Playhouse Company.
Circle Mirror Transformation
Annie Baker - 2010
I think this was a really, really great start.Five lost people come together at a community centre class to try and find some meaning in their lives. Counting to ten can be harder than you think. Over six tangled weeks their lives become knotted together in this tender and funny play.
The Second Circle: How to Use Positive Energy for Success in Every Situation
Patsy Rodenburg - 2008
Are you as successful as you could be? Are your good ideas appreciated? Could your sex life be more fulfilling? In this high-paced yet lonely world, Patsy Rodenburg teaches you how to communicate more effectively and intimately—at home, at work, at school, and, most importantly, with yourself. Her remarkable program transforms your negative patterns of energy into a positive presence that she calls “the second circle”—the optimal state between the first circle of introversion and self-negation and the third circle of aggression and narcissism. Containing a wealth of insights that will break the habits that constrict your real power, The Second Circle helps you deal with the debilitating and manipulative behaviors of your immediate family, friends, and colleagues while bringing out their best qualities. Filled with easy-to-apply exercises (breathing, voice, posture), The Second Circle, in dealing with such emotional issues as loss, violation, and self-esteem, will begin a journey that will revitalize your life.
Red Velvet
Lolita Chakrabarti - 2012
It makes the blood rush."Olivier-award winning actor Adrian Lester plays Ira Alridge in the world premiere of Lolita Chakrabarti's new play, Red Velvet, which launches Indhu Rubasingham's reign as the Tricycle Theatre's new Artistic Director. The play is set in the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1833. Edmund Kean, the greatest actor of his generation, has collapsed on stage whilst playing Othello. A young black American actor, Ira Aldridge, has been asked to take over the role. But, as the public riot in the streets, how will the cast, critics and audience react to the revolution taking place in the theatre?Written by the 2012 Most Promising Playwright (Evening Standard Awards) Lolita Chakrabarti, Red Velvet uses imagined experiences based on the often-forgotten, but true, story of Ira Aldridge, an African-American actor who, in the nineteenth century, built an incredible reputation on the stages of London and Europe.
Woza Albert!
Percy Mtwa - 1983
This brilliant two-man show from the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, took the Edinburgh Festival then London by storm in September 1982, playing to standing ovations every night. It was also seen in Berlin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia and twice on BBC TV.This edition contains a new introduction by Yvette Hutchison
Stupid Fucking Bird
Aaron Posner - 2016
A nubile young actress wrestles with an aging Hollywood star for the affections of a renowned novelist. And everyone discovers just how disappointing love, art, and growing up can be. In this irreverent, contemporary, and very funny remix of Chekhov’s The Seagull, Aaron Posner stages a timeless battle between young and old, past and present, in search of the true meaning of it all. Original songs composed by James Sugg draw the famously subtextual inner thoughts of Chekhov’s characters explicitly to the surface. STUPID FUCKING BIRD will tickle, tantalize, and incite you to consider how art, love, and revolution fuel your own pursuit of happiness.
Appropriate
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins - 2013
As his three adult children sort through a lifetime of hoarded mementos and junk, they collide over clutter, debt, and a contentious family history. But after a disturbing discovery surfaces among their father's possessions, the reunion takes a turn for the explosive, unleashing a series of crackling surprises and confrontations.Winner of the 2014–2015 Obie Award for Best New American Play.
The Trial of the Catonsville Nine
Daniel Berrigan - 1970
They removed military draft records, took them outside, and set them afire with napalm. The Catholic activists involved in this protest against the war included Daniel and Philip Berrigan; all were found guilty of destroying government property and sentenced to three years in jail. Dan Berrigan fled but later turned himself in.The Trial of the Catonsville Nine became a powerful expression of the conflicts between conscience and conduct, power and justice, law and morality. Drawing on court transcripts, Berrigan wrote a dramatic accountof the trial and the issues it so vividly embodied. The result is a landmark work of art that has been performed frequently over the past thirty-five years, both as a piece of theater and a motion picture.