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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.
What of the Night?
Maria Irene Fornes
Maria Irene Fornes has written over 40 plays, musicals, and adaptations, and bilingual works for the stage. Featured in this volume are: Abingdon Square, What of the Night?, Enter THE NIGHT, and The Summer in Gossensass. This collection is an ideal introduction to her work. Softcover, 218 pp. $23.00.
Oh, the Humanity and other good intentions
Will Eno
The five short plays make up Oh, the Humanity and other good intentions move toward feeling by way of thought, and toward gratitude by way of loss. These largely sane plays feature people alone or in pairs, or both, attempting to present themselves in the best light, or ultimately, desperately, in any light. Softcovre, 63 pp. $20.95.
Jerome Bixby's "Man from Earth"
Richard Schenkman
After history professor John Oldman unexpectedly resigns from the University, his startled colleagues impulsively invite themselves to his home, pressing him for an explanation. But they're shocked to hear his reason for premature retirement: he claims that he must move on because he is immortal, and cannot stay in one place for more than ten years without his secret being discovered. M-6, F-3. Softcover, 65 pp. $11.99.
Grace
Mick Gordon & A.C. Grayling
Grace is an eminent scientist committed to a view of the world without God, a view which puts her in direct conflict with her son, Tom, when he decides to become a priest. M-2, F-2. Softcover, 74 pp. $23.00.
The Three Musketeers
Ken Ludwig
This adaptation is based on the timeless swashbuckler by Alexandre Dumas, a tale of heroism, treachery, close escapes and above all, honor. The story set in 1625, begins with d'Artagnan who sets off for Paris in search of adventure... Softcover, 136 pp. $11.99.
Crooked
Catherine Trieschmann
Fourteen year old Laney arrives in Oxford, Mississippi with a twisted back, a mother in crisis and a burning desire to be a writer. When she befriends Maribel Purdy, a fervent believer in the power of Jesus Christ to save her from the humiliations of high school, Laney embarks on a hilarious spiritual and sexual journey that challenges her mother's secular worldview and threatens to tear their fragile relationship apart. Softcover, 68 pp. $11.99.
The Awesome 80s Prom
Ken Davenport
The Awesome 80s Prom is a brand new blast-from-the-past party in the style of Tony 'n Tina's Wedding and The Donkey Show, set at Wanaget High's Senior Prom...in 1989! All your favorite characters are at the prom, from the captain of the football team to the asian exchange student, and they're all competing for prom king and queen. The audience decides who wins! Softcover, 49 pp. $11.99.
The Little Flower of East Orange
Stephen Adly Guirgis
In this unconventional family drama, celebrated playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis gives us a mother and son who must face a long family legact of abuse in order to find the true meaning of grace. 5 F / 5 M. Softcover, 108 pp. $17.50.
All That I Will Ever Be
Alan Bell
Alan Ball's All That I Will Ever Be is a darkly funny tale of cultural provocation and our eternal search for belonging as seen through the relationship of two young men in contemporary Los Angelas: Dwight, a privileged native Angeleno, and Omar, an enigmatic immigrant from the Middle East. Softcover, 62 pp. $10.99.
Dead Man's Cell Phone
Sarah Ruhl
A hallucinatory poetic fantasy play that blends the mundane and the metaphysical, the blunt and the obscure. As Dead Man's Cell Phone takes surprising twists and leaps, the lament for the supposed coziness of pre-digital culture takes on layers of nuance and contradiction. In Ruhl's new play, a woman is forced to confront her own assumptions about morality, redemption, and the need to connect in a technologically obsessed world. 4 F / 2 M. Softcover, 104 pp. $15.95.
The Overwhelming
J.T. Rogers
As a middle-aged American academic who desperately needs to publish a book in order to gain tenure, Jack Exley leaps at the chance to go to Rwanda to write about his old college classmate Dr. Joseph Gasanam, who in the intervening years has specialized in treating children stricken by AIDS. But when Jack arrives in Kigali in early 1994, he is not only unable to find Joseph, he is unable to find anyone who will even admit to having known the Tutsi doctor. Jack and his family slowly become enmeshed in the tension and terror, the professional risks and personal betrayals, that they ultimately realize mark the start of a genocidal war - a horror that they can sense is coming but cannot comprehend or control. 3 F / 8 M. $11.99.
Dark Play or Stories for Boys
Carlos Murillo
During a college sexual encounter, the girl in Nick's bed wants to know why his abdomen is covered in scars. Does Nick tell the truth, or does he do what he does so well—weave an elaborate tale? The question launches him into a memory. An outsider at age fourteen, Nick discovers the intoxicating pleasures of inventing fake personalities in the chat rooms of the World Wide Web. Adam's online profile, and the words "I want to fall in love," pique his curiosity. Nick invents Rachel, the girl of Adam's dreams, and his curiosity becomes obsession. As Adam mounts the pressure to meet his Internet love in the real world, Nick creates ever more elaborate deceptions to fuel Adam's desire. When the boys finally meet in the real world, the consequences are catastrophic. A tale of deception, fluid personality and sexual license in the Internet age, Dark Play examines what happens when the real world and virtual world collide. 3 M / 2 W. $11.99.
La Gringa
Carmen Rivera
La Gringa is about a young woman's search for her identity. Maria Elena Garcia goes to visit her family in Puerto Rico during the Christmas holidays and arrives with plans to connect with her homeland. Although this is her first trip to Puerto Rico, she has had an intense love for the island. Once there, her uncle Manolo spiritually teaches her that identity isn't based on superficial and external definitions, but rather is an essence that she has had all along in her heart. Softcover, 84 pp. $13.99.
August: Osage County
Tracy Letts
Tracy Letts' Pulitzer prize winning play about a Southern family on the brink has become an instant classic of the American stage. August: Osage County may well be the finest play to come out of the USA in a generation. 8W, 5M. Softcover, 138 pp. $17.95.
The Drunken City
Adam Bock
Off on the bar crawl to end all bar crawls, three twenty-something brides-to-be find their lives going topsy-turvy when one of them begins to question her future after a chance encounter with a recently jilted handsome stranger. The Drunken City is a wildly theatrical take on the mystique of marriage and the ever-shifting nature of love and identity in a city that never sleeps. Softcover, 69 pp. $11.99.
A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams
This atmospheric recording of Tennessee Williams's powerful classic stars Rosemary Harris and James Farentino as Blanche and Stanley - roles they performed to acclaim in a smash revival at New York's Lincoln Center. Audio CD. $21.95.
Land O'Fire
Luis Santeiro
Land O'Fire is an insightful and often humorous examination of life interfered with and forever changed by association with a "superior" culture. Softcover, 60 pp. $10.99.
Last of the Boys
Steven Dietz
Ben and Jeeter fought in Vietnam, and for thirty years they have remained united by a war that divided the nation. Joined by Jeeter's new girlfriend and her off-the-grid, whiskey-drinking mother, these friends gather at Ben's remote trailer for one final hurrah. As the night deepens, the past makes a return appearance, and its many ghosts come flickering to life. This is a fierce, funny, haunted play about a friendship that ends - and a war that does not. Softcover, 64 pp. $10.99.
The Piano Teacher
Julia Cho
Mrs. K is an elderly widow who lives by herself in a small suburban town. She whiles away her time reminiscing about her late husband and the children she taught long ago as a piano instructor. One day, she finds herself compelled to call her old students, but is it out of loneliness or some other, darker need? As Mrs. K discovers, it may not be what we cannot know that troubles us the most; it may be what we cannot bear to know. Softcover, 36 pp. $10.99.
Some Men
Terrence McNally
Some Men is Tony Award-winner Terrence McNally at his best. Often funny and sometimes touching, Some Men looks at same-sex life and love against a background of some of the events that shaped the last century. Softcover, 67 pp. $10.99.
Speech & Debate
Stephen Karam
Three teenage misfits in Salem, Oregon discover they are linked by a sex scandal that's rocked their town. When one of them sets out to expose the truth, secrets become currency, the stakes get higher, and the trio's connection grows deeper in this searching, fiercely funny dark comedy with music. Softcover, 96 pp. $10.99.
Things We Want
Jonathan Marc Sherman
A dirty, sexy suicide comedy. Three adult brothers are living together once again in their childhood apartment, struggling to redefine themselves while pursuing their desires and coping with the void left behind by their parents' deaths. Drastic shifts in their dynamics occur after a neighbor names Stella ecomes a part of their lives. A sweet and sour look at the illusions we have about what makes us happy -- and what is within our power to change. Softcover, 57 pp. $10.99.
Scarcity
Lucy Thurber
In a small town in Western Massechusetts, the Lawrence family struggles with poverty, boredom and lost potential. Into this isolated town comes Ellen, a highly educated, wealthy and well-traveled young woman who wants to give back to her country through education. She starts teaching in the public high school where Billy and Rachel Lawrence go, and she develops an obsession with Billy's intelligence. Her desire to lift Billy out of poverty tears the family apart. Softcover, 57 pp. $10.99.
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