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.

Rent


Jonathan Larson - 1996
    Sweeping all major theater awards, including the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama, as well as four 1996 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score for a Musical, Rent captures the heart and spirit of a generation, refleting it onstage through the emotion of its stirring words and music, and the energy of its young cast. Now, for the first time, Rent comes to life on the page -- through vivid color photographs, the full libretto, and an utterly compelling behind-the-scenes oral history of the show's creation. Here is the exclusive and absolutely complete companion to Rent, told in the voices of the extraordinary talent behind its success: the actors, the director, the producers, and the librettist and composer himself, Jonathan Larson, whose sudden death, on the eve of the first performance, has made Rent's life-affirming message all the more poignant.

Once


Enda Walsh - 2012
    A hit musical Off-Broadway, Once premiered on Broadway in spring 2012 to rave reviews.Enda Walsh is the author of five Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Award-winning plays, including Penelope, The Walworth Farce, and The New Electric Ballroom. He also co-wrote the film Hunger, which won the Camera d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival.Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová are the stars and songwriters of the 2006 film Once, for which they won an Academy Award for Best Song. The two comprise the musical folk-rock duo The Swell Season, which is currently touring the United States. A documentary film of the duo, The Swell Season, was an official selection of the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. Hansard is also a member of the Irish band The Frames and Irglová is a classically trained Czech pianist and vocalist.

Arcadia


Tom Stoppard - 1993
    Focusing on the mysteries--romantic, scientific, literary--that engage the minds and hearts of characters whose passions and lives intersect across scientific planes and centuries, it is "Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date, a play of wit, intellect, language, brio and... emotion. It's like a dream of levitation: you're instantaneously aloft, soaring, banking, doing loop-the-loops and then, when you think you're about to plummet to earth, swooping to a gentle touchdown of not easily described sweetness and sorrow... Exhilarating" (Vincent Canby, The New York Times).

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.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof


Tennessee Williams - 1955
    The play also daringly showcased the burden of sexuality repressed in the agony of her husband, Brick Pollitt. In spite of the public controversy Cat stirred up, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award for that year. Williams, as he so often did with his plays, rewrote Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for many years—the present version was originally produced at the American Shakespeare Festival in 1974 with all the changes that made Williams finally declare the text to be definitive, and was most recently produced on Broadway in the 2003–2004 season. This definitive edition also includes Williams&rsquoi; essay “Person-to-Person,” Williams’ notes on the various endings, and a short chronology of the author’s life. One of America’s greatest living playwrights, as well as a friend and colleague of Williams, Edward Albee has written a concise introduction to the play from a playwright’s perspective, examining the candor, sensuality, power, and impact of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof then and now.

Steel Magnolias


Robert Harling - 1988
    Presents the script of a 1988 play about a group of women in Chinquapin, Louisiana, who learn to draw upon their underlying strength and love to meet the challenges of life.

Stage Door


Edna Ferber - 1926
    The scene is Mrs. Orcutt's boarding house, where the hopes and ambitions of sixteen young women are revealed in scenes of entertaining comedy. Contrasted with this are the cases of the girl without talent and the elderly actress whose days are over. The central plot has to do with courageous Terry Randall, who fights against discouragement to a position in the theater where we are sure she will conquer. One of her fellow aspirants gives up in despair, one gets married, and one goes into pictures, but Terry, with the help of idealistic David Kingsley, sticks to her guns.

Same Time Next Year


Bernard Slade - 1975
    It remains one of the world's most widely produced plays. The plot follows a love affair between two people, Doris and George, married to others, who rendezvous once a year. Twenty-five years of manners and morals are hilariously and touchingly played out by the lovers. "Delicious wit, compassion, a sense of humor and a feel for nostalgia."-The New York Times "Genuinely funny and genuinely romantic."-The New York Post

That Championship Season


Jason Miller - 1972
    The occasion begins in a light-hearted mood but gradually, as the pathos and desperation of their present lives are exposed and illuminated, the play takes on a rich power of rare dimension. One former player is now the inept mayor of the town-and facing a strong challenge for re-election. Another, the frustrated principal of the local high school, is his ambitious campaign manager. A third, now a successful (and destructive) businessman, is wavering in his financial support of the mayor. While the fourth is a witty, but despairing alcoholic. As the evening progresses all that these men were-and have become-is revealed and examined with biting humor and saving compassion. In the end self-preservation, abetted by the unconscious cynicism and bigotry of their coach, draws them together. But they are lost, morally bankrupt men holding onto fraudulent dreams that have poisoned their present lives and robbed them of the future that was once so rich in promise.

Vietgone


Qui Nguyen - 2015
    A love story between two Vietnam War refugees who meet in an Arkansas relocation camp, the show features a dramatization of the fall of Saigon.Play: 2 acts; 6 scenes; Epilogue

Oslo


J.T. Rogers - 2017
    Combining investigative zeal and theatrical imagination with insider access, Oslo invites you into the chambers where the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization were forged during nine fraught months in 1993.” — New York Times“A riveting political thriller. Oslo makes a complex historical event feel intimate and profoundly affecting.”— Associated Press“Gripping, big-boned and remarkably entertaining. Oslo feels excruciatingly necessary and timely.”—New York MagazineWhen the Israeli prime minister and the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization shook hands on the White House lawn in 1993, the world watched in awe. Oslo tells the story of the key people who orchestrated this momentous occasion, emphasizing the intricate (and sometimes comical) human journey that led to this historic event. The diplomats and politicians from Israel, Palestine, Norway, and America who participated in the behind-the-scenes discussions come to life in Rogers’ wonderfully complex characters. As much a story about people as politics, Oslo casts a bright light on the humans behind the history.Oslo premiered in the fall of 2016 in a sold-out run at Lincoln Center and opens on Broadway in April 2017.J.T. Rogers’ plays include Blood and Gifts, The Overwhelming, White People, and Madagascar. He was nominated for a 2009 Olivier Award for his work as one of the original playwrights for The Great Game: Afghanistan. He is a 2012 Guggenheim fellow in playwriting. Other recent awards include NEA/TCG and NYFA fellowships, the Pinter Review Prize for Drama, the American Theatre Critics Association’s Osborne Award, and the William Inge Center for the Arts’ New Voices Award.A politically charged drama from acclaimed playwright J.T. Rogers

Sense and Sensibility


Kate Hamill - 2016
    Set in gossipy late 18th-century England, with a fresh female voice, the play is full of humor, emotional depth, and bold theatricality. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY examines our reactions, both reasonable and ridiculous, to societal pressures. When reputation is everything, how do you follow your heart?

Fortinbras


Lee Blessing - 1992
    Book annotation not available for this title.Title FortinbrasAuthor Blessing, LeePublisher Dramatists Play ServicePublication Date 19920101Number of Pages Binding Type PAPERBACKLibrary of Congress 92165606

Dancing at Lughnasa


Brian Friel - 1990
    In a house just outside the village of Ballybeg live the five Mundy sisters, barely making ends meet, their ages ranging from twenty-six up to forty. The two male members of the household are brother Jack, a missionary priest, repatriated from Africa by his superiors after twenty-five years, and the seven-year-old child of the youngest sister. In depicting two days in the life of this menage, Brian Friel evokes not simply the interior landscape of a group of human beings trapped in their domestic situation, but the wider landscape, interior and exterior, Christian and pagan, of which they are nonetheless a part.