The Book of Will


Lauren Gunderson - 2017
    But without Henry Condell and John Heminges, we would have lost half of Shakespeare’s plays forever! After the death of their friend and mentor, the two actors are determined to compile the First Folio and preserve the words that shaped their lives. They’ll just have to borrow, beg, and band together to get it done. Amidst the noise and color of Elizabethan London, THE BOOK OF WILL finds an unforgettable true story of love, loss, and laughter, and sheds new light on a man you may think you know.“THE BOOK OF WILL…unequivocally announces Gunderson as a playwright with whom to be reckoned. It is, quite frankly, one of the best plays I have ever seen. It will bring tears of both laughter and sorrow to all but the most jaded audience member’s eyes. It is, in a word, a triumph.” —Boulder Weekly (CO). “[Gunderson] has peopled the stage with lively, historically based characters…She paints a vivid portrait of the times in language sometimes formal, sometimes poetic and often…contemporary…She also gives a real feel for theater life and what it means to be an actor; you sense this is a work of both scholarship and love. …[THE BOOK OF WILL] serves as homage to those who sacrificed to make the first folio happen and to Shakespeare’s magnificent words.” —Westword (Denver, CO).

Festen


David Eldridge - 2004
    Missing from the roster of invitees is Christian's twin sister, Linda, who recently committed suicide. The reason for her action and the repercussions from it, form the basis of the shocking and painful events that transpire during a twenty-four hour period. In the midst of dinner, Christian makes a startling accusation and, even as the disbelieving guests are choosing sides, the play slowly unwraps the truth.David Eldridge powerful new play is adapted from Thomas Vinterborg's screenplay of the very successful film, Dogme.Published to tie in with Almeida Theatre production in March 2004 directed by Rufus Norris

Slave Play


Jeremy O. Harris - 2020
    It's an antebellum fever-dream, where fear and desire entwine in the looming shadow of the Master's House. Jim trembles as Kaneisha handles melons in the cottage, Alana perspires in time with the plucking of Phillip's fiddle in the boudoir, while Dustin cowers at the heel of Gary's big, black boot in the barn. Nothing is as it seems, and yet everything is as it seems.

A Memory of Two Mondays


Arthur Miller - 1955
    It chronicles the playwright at the age of eighteen during the early 1930s when he worked at an auto parts warehouse in New York to save enough money to attend college. This scholarly edition with extensive commentary and notes is ideal for students.

Freud's Last Session


Mark St. Germain - 2010
    

Fires in the Mirror


Anna Deavere Smith - 1993
    Derived from interviews with a wide range of  people who experienced or observed New York's 1991  Crown Heights racial riots, Fires In The  Mirror is as distinguished a work of  commentary on current Black-White tensions as it is a  work of drama.

A Feminine Ending


Sarah Treem - 2009
    But at the moment, she's living in New York City and writing advertising jingles to pay the rent while her fiancé, Jack, pursues his singing career. So when Amanda's mother, Kim, calls one evening from New Hampshire and asks for her help with something she can't discuss over the phone, Amanda is only too happy to leave New York. Once home, Kim reveals that she's leaving Amanda's father and needs help packing. Amanda balks and ends up (gently) hitting the postman, who happens to be her first boyfriend. They spend the night together in an apple orchard, where Amanda tries to tell Billy how her life got sidetracked. It has something to do with being a young woman in a profession that only recognizes famous men. Billy acts like he might have the answer, but doesn't. Neither does Amanda's mother. Or, for that matter, her father. A Feminine Ending is a gentle, bittersweet comedy about a girl who knows what she wants but not quite how to get it. Her parents are getting divorced, her fiancée is almost famous, her first love reappears, and there's a lot of noise in her head but none of it is music. Until the end. "Ending′ is a promising beginning...the playwright has a sense of humor that brings to mind a budding Wendy Wasserstein and a liberated sense of form that evokes a junior Paula Vogel."-Los Angeles Times "Darkly comic. FEMININE ENDING has undeniable wit." -New York Post. "Appealingly outlandish humor." -The New York Times. "Courageous. The 90-minute piece swerves with nerve and naivete. Sarah Treem has a voice all her own." -Newsday.

I Am My Own Wife


Doug Wright - 2004
    A transvestite and celebrated antiques dealer who successfully navigated the two most oppressive regimes of the past century-the Nazis and the Communists--while openly gay and defiantly in drag, von Mahlsdorf was both hailed as a cultural hero and accused of colluding with the Stasi. In an attempt to discern the truth about Charlotte, Doug Wright has written "at once a vivid portrait of Germany in the second half of the twentieth century, a morally complex tale about what it can take to be a survivor, and an intriguing meditation on everything from the obsession with collecting to the passage of time" (Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times).

A Chorus Line: The Complete Book of the Musical


James Kirkwood Jr. - 1975
    It is hard to believe that over 25 years have passed since A Chorus Line first electrified a New York audience. The memories of the show's birth in 1975, not to mention those of its 15-year-life and poignant death, remain incandescent and not just because nothing so exciting has happened to the American musical since. For a generation of theater people and theatergoers, A Chorus Line was and is the touchstone that defines the glittering promise, more often realized in lengend than in reality, of the Broadway way. This impressive book contains the complete book and lyrics of one of the longest running shows in Broadway history with a preface by Samuel Freedman, an introduction by Frank Rich and lots of photos from the stage production.

Everyman (Faber Drama)


Carol Ann Duffy - 2015
    Forced to abandon the life he has built, he embarks on a last, frantic search to recruit a friend, anyone, to speak in his defence. But Death is close behind, and time is running out.One of the great primal, spiritual myths, Everyman asks whether it is only in death that we can understand our lives. A cornerstone of English drama since the 15th century, this new adaptation by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy was presented at the National Theatre, London, in April 2015.

Radium Girls


D.W. Gregory - 2003
    Inspired by a true story, Radium Girls traces the efforts of Grace Fryer, a dial painter, as she fights for her day in court. Her chief adversary is her former employer, Arthur Roeder, an idealistic man who cannot bring himself to believe that the same element that shrinks tumors could have anything to do with the terrifying rash of illnesses among his employees. As the case goes on, however, Grace finds herself battling not only with the U.S. Radium Corporation, but also with her own family and friends, who fear that her campaign for justice will backfire.(Not to be confused with the one-act version of this story by the same title.)

Three Plays: Our Lady of 121st Street / Jesus Hopped the A Train / In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings


Stephen Adly Guirgis - 2003
    A masterful poet of the downtrodden, his plays portray life on New York's hardscrabble streets in a manner both tender and unflinching, while continually exploring the often startling gulf between who we are and how we perceive ourselves. Gathered in this volume is his current off-Broadway hit, Our Lady of 121st Street, a comic portrait of the graduates of a Harlem Catholic school reunited at the funeral of a beloved teacher, along with his two previous plays: the philosophical jailhouse drama Jesus Hopped the A Train and In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings, an Iceman Cometh for the Giuliani era that looks at the effect of Times Square's gentrification on its less desirable inhabitants.

Two for the Seesaw


William Gibson - 1958
    The lawyer is married to a beautiful, well-to-do girl in the midwest whose family sets the pace in local society and intends to run his marriage and his career as well. He has rebelled, come to New York, and taken up residence with this intriguing young woman. He is lonely and in need of consolation; she is one of those rare women whose only purpose seems to be making others happy. Their briefly fulfilling relationship is unhappily destined to failure: he is a cultured gentile with a wife and painful memories while she is a plain Jewish girl with little education and a horrible Bronx accent. They share happy and humorous moments together, but they both see with sadness the utter hopelessness of the affair."It's a whale of a hit, a bittersweet joy ride." - The New York Mirror ."An absorbing, affectionate, and funny delight." - The New York Daily News

Fool for Love


Sam Shepard - 1983
    May is hiding out at an old motel in the Mojave Desert. Eddie, an old flame and childhood friend, finds her there and threatens to drag her back into the life from which she had fled. Reality and dream; truth and lies; past and present mingle in an explosive, emotional experience.

The Normal Heart


Larry Kramer - 1985
    It tells the story of very private lives caught up in the heartrendering ordeal of suffering and doom - an ordeal that was largely ignored for reasons of politics and majority morality.Filled with power, anger, and intelligence, Larry Kramer's riveting play dramatizes what actualy happened from the time of the disease's discovery to the present, and points a moral j'accuse in many directions. His passionate indictment of government, the media, and the public for refusing to deal with a national plague is electrifying theater - a play that finally breaks through the conspiracy of silence with a shout of stunning impact. As Douglas Watt summed it up in his review for the New York Daily News,THE NORMAL HEART is "an angry, unremitting and gripping piece of political theater. You are bound to come away moved."