American Plays: New & Featured

TheatreBooks stocks plays in English from around the world and, of course, all plays published in Canada. We stock and sell plays from Samuel French Ltd., Dramatists Play Service and Dramatic Publishing Co., and the leading play publishers in Great Britain. We carry books on all aspects of theatre production, as well as opera and dance. If you don't find the title or playwright you are looking for, please stop by the store and ask, or contact us at action@theatrebooks.com, by phone at 416.922.7175, toll-free at 1.800.361.3414 or by fax at 416.922.0739.

My Husband's Wild Desires
John Tobias
A wildly succesfull commedy on four continents, this is a hilarious play about sex, marriage and shaking things up. 3M, 2F. Softcover, 95 pp. $11.99. Softcover, 95 pp. $11.99.

American Soldiers
Matt Morillo
A Long Island family full of war veterans and politicians fights to hold together in the face of traumatic experiences and emotional scars, both old and new. 3M, 2F. Softcover, 84 pp. $11.99.

Emma
Michael Bloom
A delightful adaptation for the stage of Jane Austen's classic novel. 6M, 6F (plus ensemble). Softcover, 94 pp. $11.99.

Aphrodisiac
Rob Handel
Misogyny, mystery and politics collide in this dazzling, cynical black comedy. 1M, 2F. Softcover, 48 pp. $11.99.

Phoenix
Scott Organ
Four weeks ago Bruce and Sue hooked up. It was nice, but it didn't exactly work out. Yet now they find themselves on a 4,00 mile journey well beyond the confines of their carefully structured worlds. 1M, 1F. Softcover, 70 pp. $11.99.

The Shipment / Lear
Young Jean Lee
The Shipment goes from a strange and disturbing cabaret, playing with black stereotypes, to a traditional yet wacky one act comedy. Lear is a radical reinterpretation of King Lear, exploring the themes of loneliness, mortality, and filial responsibility. Softcover, 100 pp. $19.95.

Large Animal Games
Steve Yockey
In a series of fluid scenes, Large Animal Games takes a comically skewed and razor sharp look at modern relationships as a group of friends stumble through adventures in love, sex, bullfighting and big game hunting. 4M, 3F. Softcover, 60 pp. $12.99.

Perfect Mendacity
Jason Wells
A spying friend, a prying wife, and an expert hired to help beat a lie detector all send Walter Krentzer on a desperate journey towards the perfect lie, a journey wich becomes a spiral into paranoia and bitter reckoning. 4M 1F. Softcover, 77 pp. $11.99.

The Irish Curse
Martin Casella
A group of successful Irish New Yorkers meet weekly for their support group for men who are having difficulty with the "shortcomings" in their sexual physicality. The Irish Curse is a devilishly funny look at how men deal with the sex, body image, and masculinity. Softcover, 68 pp. $11.99.

The Happy Ones
Julie Marie Myatt
A man with the "perfect" life loses everything. In his search for meaning and happiness he finds an unlikely ally in the man inadvertently responsible for the death of his family. Sadness and redemption take centre stage in this surprising new play. 3M 1F. Softcover, 96 pp. $11.99.

The Break of Noon
Neil LaBute
Bad boy playwright Neil LaBute is in familiar territory in The Break of Noon, examining simultaneously the difficulty in making a connection with those around us and the hurt that erupts from that failure. John, a cruel womanizer, is the sole survivor in a horiffic office shooting, and feels he has been selected by God to spread the message of "being good". No one seems to be able to believe his transformation, thus frustrating his mission. Softcover, 103 pp. $16.95.

Our House
Theresa Rebeck
In this darkly comic new play by master playwright Theresa Rebeck one household's twisted dynamic becomes a testing ground for unearthing the line where reality ends and 'Reality TV' begins. Softcover, 68 pp. $11.99.

Millicent Scowlworthy
Rob Handel
A girl found murdered in the cellar on Christmas morning. A massacre at the high school. The grownups of the community want to forget, but the children have begun to meet in the middle of the night to remember. Nine teenagers gather at an overgrown memorial and reenact the story. Softcover, 7M 5F, 59 pp. $11.99.

Loves and Hours
Stephen Metcalfe
This is the story of Dan Tilney, newly divorced empty nester and a man now totally at a loss as to what to do with the rest of his life. In this gentle comedy, his friends and family try to help him through his mid-life crisis. 4m, 6f. Softcover, 85 pp. $11.99.

Christmas Shorts
Matt Hoverman
An engaging evening of hilarious short holiday comedies. A wonderful alternative for theatres tired of mounting the traditional seasonal play. Christmas Shorts offers five original plays that humorously comment on holiday themes: family, the nativity, Xmas cards, and elves. Softcover, 51 pp. $11.99.

Oedipus at Palm Springs
The Five Lesbian Brothers (Maureen Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey, Lisa Kron)
This play follows the dark adventure of two couples on a retreat to a resort in Palm Springs. While new parents Fran and Con try desperately to jump-start their sex life, May-December love bunnies Prin and Terri can't keep their hands off each other. What begins as a hilarious, boozey weekend takes a horrific turn after a secret is revealed. Softcover, 89 pp. $11.99.

Prayer for My Enemy
Craig Lucas
In Prayer for my Enemy, two middle-class families in suburban New York State confront their private demons against the public backdrop of the American incursion into Iraq. As their paths cross in ways that are both comic and terrifying, lies and secrets are at last exposed and an honest, hard-earned redemption is achieved for both. 3m, 3f. Softcover, 59 pp. $11.99.

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Roses in December: A Play in Letters
Victor L. Cahn
In this play of letters, a young official in a college alumni office invites a celebrated but reclusive author to the thirty-fifth reunion of his class. When he declines, she charmingly prods him, and thereby begins a witty and revelatory correspondence that becomes part mystery, part memory, and part romance. 1m, 1f. Softcover, 43 pp. $11.99.

Slasher
Allison Moore
When she's cast as the "last girl" in a low-budget slasher flick, Sheena thinks it's the big break she's been waiting for. But news of the movie unleashes her malingering mother's thwarted feminist rage, and Mom is prepared to do anything to stop filming ... even if it kills her. 2m, 4f. Softcover, 79 pp. $11.99.

Time Stands Still
Donald Marguiles
Returning from Kandahar scarred and badly injured after a horiffic accident in Kandahar Sarah, an adventurous photojournalist approaching middle-age, is presented with the possibility that capturing images of war-torn countries might not be as noble and important an act as she had previously assumed. She and her partner try reclaim their relationship and their lives in the aftermath of deep physical and emotional trauma in Donald Marguiles traditional and compelling drama. Softcover, 86 pp. $18.95.

Baby Taj
Tanya Shaffer
The legendary Taj Mahal is the next assignment for Rachel, an American travel writer whose failed romances have led her to ask: why not have the baby she craves -- on her own? She finds unexpected answers and larger questions among the glittering legacies of India's past. Alive with the sounds and colours of a remarkable country, this bittersweet comedy of mischevious matchmaking raises provocative questions about love, friendship, family, and what it means to be ready to be a parent. Softcover, 89 pp. $12.99.

Marble
Marina Carr
A premonition of impending disaster precedes a collision between the conscious and subconscious lives of two married couples. Hidden fantasies and passions conflict with the calls of friendship and fidelity. The characters' everyday existences and their struggles to accept mortality provide the backdrop to Marble's exploration of the tragedy of dying of an empty heart. 2m, 2w. Softcover, 51 pp. $11.99.

A Sleeping Country
Melanie Marnich
A dreamy comedy about sleep lost and hope found. Julia, a woman from New York City with a serious case of insomnia, travels to Venice seeking help from a sleepless heiress who might be a distant relative. What she discovers is the difference between being an insomniac. 1m, 3w (doubling). Softcover, 50 pp. $11.99.

Sweet Storm
Scott Hudson
Rural Florida, September 1960. Young revival preacherman Bo Harrison sweeps his lovely bride, Ruthie, up into the tree house he's built as a surprise for their wedding night, unaware that the fury of an infamous storm is rolling in from the gulf. Ruthie, recently paralyzed from the waist down, tentatively finds her way in their "honeymoon suite in the sky" -- and in the mystery, wonder and promise of her role as a newlywed. The human heart's wild longing for union in conflict with its abiding need for self-preservation. 1m, 1w. Softcover, 38 pp. $11.99.

Becky's New Car
Steven Dietz
Have you ever been tempted to flee your own life? Becky Foster is caught in middle age, middle management and in a middling marriage -- with no prospects for change on the horizon. Then one night, a socially inept and grief-struck millionaire stumbles into the car dealership where Becky works. Becky is offered nothing short of a new life ... and the audience is offered a chance to ride shotgun in a way that most plays wouldn't dare. 4m, 3w. Softcover, 65 pp. $11.99.

Prelude to a Kiss
Craig Lucas
At Peter and Rita's wedding, a mysterious old man insists on kissing the bride. While honeymooning, Peter gradually realizes that the woman by his side is not his wife. The wedding kiss caused Rita's soul and the old man's to change places. Peter must track down the old man and free his young love's spirit trapped in an aging and diseased body before it's too late. 9m, 5w (doubling, flexible casting). Softcover, 61 pp. $11.99.

The Tempermentals
Jon Marans
"Temperamental" was the code for "homosexual" in the early 1950s, part of a created language of secret words that gay men used to communicate. The Temperamentals tells the story of two men -- the communist Harry Hay and the Viennese refugee and designer Rudi Gernreich -- as they fall in love while building the first gay rights organization in the pre-Stonewall United States. 5m (doubling). Softcover, 75 pp. $11.99.

Dividing the Estate
Horton Foote
Matriarch Stella Gordon is determined not to divide her 100-year-old Texas estate, despite her family's declining wealth and the looming financial crisis. But her three children have another plan. Old resentments and sibling rivalries surface as the members of this hilariously dysfunctional family go head to head to see who might claim the biggest piece of the pie. 4m, 9w. Softcover, 67 pp. $11.99.

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Last modified December 15, 2010.
Please note that all prices are in Canadian dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice.