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American Plays
T to Z by playwright
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.
 Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins
Stephen Temperley
For more than half a century the name Florence Foster Jenkins has been guaranteed to produce explosions of derisive laughter. Not unreasonably so, as this wealthy society eccentric suffered under the delusion that she was a great soprano. Souvenir, by turn hilarious and poignant, tells her story through the eyes of her accompanist, Cosme McMoon. Softcover, 49 pp. $10.99.
 Voice of Good Hope
Kristine Thatcher
Thatcher has written a wise and thought-provoking homage to the late Texas
Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who was the first African-American woman to be
elected to Congress in the Deep South. Voice of Good Hope documents
the spirit of the woman who rose, against all odds, to be a powerful orator,
astute politician, great teacher and private citizen. 2M, 4W, 1 girl. Softcover,
52 pp. $9.99.
 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.
 Stay
Lucy Thurber
A first-time professor, Rachel struggles to deal with her students while hurrying to finish her novel before the deadline passes. In addition, her brother has come to stay because he has just been fired from his job. But Rachel has a secret: She has an angel that talks to her. Spending her life withdrawn from the people around her, she shares all her love, fears, and hopes with something tthat isn't human. When Julia, one of Rachel's students, reveals that she has similar powers, Rachel has to decide to share all of who she is or to close herself off forever. Softcover, 50 pp. $10.99.
 Where We're Born
Lucy Thurber
Small-town America, class distinctions, sexual politics and love. Where We're Born explores the fact that sometimes in order to leave your home you have to destroy it. Lilly is a scholarship student from a very rural town. After her first year at college, she comes home to her cousin Tony, who functions as her combination father, brother and best friend. In an attempt to bring her new world and her old world together, Lilly breaks apart everything around her. Softcover, 58 pp. $10.99.
 Killers and Other Family
Lucy Thurber
Elizabeth is about to finish her dissertation. She is very much in love with her gilrfriend and their life together. But then her brother and his best friend show up, and they are on the run. Their arrival forces Elizabeth to confront her past and finally make a choice about the kind of person she wants to be. Softcover, 38 pp. $10.99.
 The Last Sunday in June & other plays
Jonathon Tolins
Alive, vital and entertaining are just a few of the words that have been used
to describe Jonathan Tolins' work. In the first play of this collection, The
Last Sunday in June we follow the struggles of Michael and Tom as they
contemplate, on Gay Pride Day, their move from Greenwich Village to the suburbs. If
Memory Serves is a satire of repressed memory and celebrity scandal. Lastly, Twilight
of the Golds is a play about genetics and homosexuality. The Last Sunday
in June: 7M, 1W. If Memory Serves: 4M, 4W. The Twilight of the
Gods: 3M, 2W. Softcover, 301 pp. $17.95.
 The Last Sunday in June
Jonathan Tolins
It is the last Sunday in June, the day of the annual Gay Pride Parade
through New York's Greenwich Village. Tom and Micheal, partners for seven
years intend to spend the day planning their move from the Big Apple
to an upstate town, but their plans are rerouted as one friend after
another drops by to view the parade from the window of their apartment. The
Last Sunday in June is full of bold surprises, hovering between a
parody of and an homage to the "gay play". 7M, 1W. Softcover,
61 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.
 Black Drama in America: An Anthology
Darwin T. Turner
This second edition of Black Drama in America presents
a cross-section of African-American drama written from the 1920's
to the present. Offered is a balanced selection of well-known plays
and dramas, grouped by decade, that furnish a representative history
of the African American playwright's development. Softcover, 736
pp. $60.99.
 Is
He Dead? A Comedy in Three Acts
Mark Twain
Hardcover, 233 pp. $37.95.
 You've Got Hate Mail
Billy Van Zandt & Jane Milmore
A comic answer to A.R. Gurney's Love Letters. In You've Got Hate Mail, love 'bytes' all when an extra-marital affair goes horribly wrong, thanks to a juicy email left sitting on a desktop. The story is told entirely in emails from laptop computers, although the play still manages to have an unforgettable chase scene -- thanks to Blackberries and iPhones. 2m, 3f. Softcover, 51 pp. $12.99.
 And Baby Makes Seven
Paula Vogel
Anna, Ruth and Peter await the arrival of their newborn child, but
first they must rid the crowded apartment of their three imaginary
children. M-1, F-2 (doubling). Softcover, 47 pp. $11.99.
 The Oldest Profession
Paula Vogel
As Ronald Reagan enters the White House, five aging practitioners of the oldest
profession are faced with a diminishing clientele, increased competition for
their niche market, and aching joints. With wit, compassion, and humour, they
struggle to find and learn new tricks as they fight to stay in the Life. F-5.
Softcover, 48 pp. $9.99.
 The Long Christmas Ride Home
Paula Vogel
ast and present collide on a snowy Christmas Eve for a troubled family of five.
Humourous and heart-wrenching, this beautifully written play proves that magic
can be found in the simplest breaths of life. Combining the elements of Noh theatre
and Bunraku with contemporary Western sensibilities, Vogel's The Long
Christmas Ride Home is a mesmerizing homage to the works of Thornton
Wilder. A moving and memorable study of the American family careening near the
edge of oblivion. M-3, F-3, and puppets. Softcover, 99 pp. $19.95.
 Other Hands
Laura Wade
In a world of systematic, high-speed technology, some people expect to live life as efficiently as the machines they depend on. But in an age where things that don't work and can't be mended are thrown away, what do we do with something as human and messy as love?
2m, 2f. Softcover, 68 pp. $11.99.
 Third
Wendy Wasserstein
His name is Woodson Bull III, but you can call him "Third." Believing that Third's sophisticated essay on King Lear could not possibly have been written by such a specimen, Professor Jameson reports his plagiarism to the college's committee of academic standards. But is Jameson's accusation justified? Or is she casting Third as the villain in her own struggle with her relationships, her age and the increasingly polarized political environment? Softcover, 48 pp. $10.99.
 Humana Festival 2002
The Complete Plays
Tanya Palmer and Amy Wegener
Softcover, 397 pp. $29.95.
 The Accomplices
Bernard Weinraub
Based on actual events, The Accomplices is the true story of one man's fight on American soil to shatter a conspiracy of silence and inaction in the face of genocide. Softcover, 62 pp. $10.99.
 Privilege
Paul Weitz
In this heartfelt comedy, the privileged lives of two Upper East Side
teens are irrevocably changed when their father is accused of insider
trading. Two brothers look at the world with the hilarious observations
of boys on the brink of adulthood. M-1, F-2, 2 boys Softcover, 58
pp. $9.99.
 Arrangements
Ken Weitzman
When a college dropout meets a morbidly obese woman twice his age in the dank basement of a flower shop, chaos ensues. What follows is a beautiful and troubling romance in which the couple plots to unravel the tightly wound lives of all those around them. A biting comic tale of obsession and repression, abstinence and consumption, expression and repression. 4m, 2f . Softcover, 82 pp. $12.99.
 Beast
Michael Weller
Michael Weller approaches the topic of the Iraq war from an utterly new perspective. Rather thatn tackle a realistic, fact driven war drama, he instead offers a surrealistic road trip that allegorizes the spirit of a country at war. 5 M, 2W. Softcover, 54 pp. $11.99.
 Fifty Words
Michael Weller
Young parents Adam and Jan find their relationship tested as they try to make the most of their first night alone together in years. 1M, 1W. Softcover, 48 pp. $11.99.
 Crowtet 2
Mac Wellman
The two plays in this volume, Second Hand Smoke and The
Lesser Magoo, complete Wellman's quartet of plays, Crowtet,
all involving, in one way or another, characters who have taken up
with or have been highly influenced by birds. Both of these plays
combine the terror of the workplace with characters who dream of
better worlds, and often -- with strange consequences -- get what
they wanted. Softcover, 183 pp. $19.95.
 Terre Haute
Edmund White
A famous author comes fact-to-face with America's most notorious terrorist. One has a story to write, the other has a story to tell. As the clock ticks on death row, a strange bond grows between the two men. Filled with clever sparring and raw emotion, this is a taut drama that touches on the definitions of freedom and the need for love. Softcover, 49 pp. $11.99.
 Six Years
Sharr White
It is 1949 when Phil Granger finally reappears in the small Missouri town he left six years earlier for the unspeakable horrors of World War II. His wife, Meredith, is there to meet him, put him back together...and keep him home. In five scenes spanning twenty-four years of postwar life, Sharr White takes us on an intimate journey to an unspoken side of the Greatest Generation, chronicling Meredith and Phil Granger's struggles to survive together through the boom of the 1950s, the hope and unbearable losses of the 1960s, and the resounding search for redemption following the Vietnam war. Softcover, 61 pp. $11.99.
 The Hiding Place
Jeff Whitty
When Myra, an aspiring playwright and waitress, meets Karl, a well-regarded (and married) novelist, a romantic and imbalanced relationship begins. As their exchanges move beyond letter-writing to the beginning of an affair, Karl drops Myra, who then turns their letters into a barely fictionalized comedy -- and the play's leading actor is Karl's unsuspecting best friend. The Hiding Place satirizes the world of art, letters, and theatre--and pays heed to the thwarted passion that dwells in the hearts of their creators. Softcover, 53 pp. $10.99.
 Three Plays
Thorton Wilder
Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The
Matchmaker: three of the
greatest plays in American literature collected in one volume. This important
new omnibus edition features an illuminating forward by playwright
John Guare and an extensive afterword for each play drawing on unpublished
letters and other unique documentary material prepared by Tappan
Wilder. Softcover, 463 pp. $19.95.
 The
Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder
Volume 1
Thornton Wilder
On the occasion of the centenary of
Wilder's birth these plays are published for the first time in two volumes.
$28.95.
 Our
Town
Thornton Wilder
Softcover, 181 pp. $14.95.
 The
Skin of Our Teeth
Thornton Wilder
Softcover, 160 pp. $16.95.
 Tales of Desire
Tennessee Williams
"I cannot write any sort of story," said Tennessee Williams to Gore Vidal, "unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire." These five transgressive Tales of Desire -- The Mysteries of Joy Rio, One Arm, Desire and the Black Masseur, Hard Candy, and The Killer Chicken and the Closet Queen -- show the iconic playwright at his outrageous best. Softcover, 104 pp. $12.50.
 The Night of the Iguana
Tennessee Williams
The earthy widow Maxine runs a hotel on a Mexican cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean where the defrocked Rev. Shannon, his tour group of ladies from a West Texas women's college, a family of grotesque Nazi vacationers, and an iguana tied by its throat to the veranda all find themselves assembled for a rainy and turbulent night. Softcover, 189 pp. $18.50.
 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.
 The Travelling Companion and Other Plays
Tennessee Williams
Collected here for the first time, these twelve plays by Tennessee Williams embrace what Time magazine called "the four major concerns of Williams' dramatic imagination: loneliness, love, the violated heart and the valiency of survival." Softcover, 311 pp. $17.95.
 A House Not Meant to Stand
Tennessee Williams
Christmas 1982: Cornelius and Bella McCorkle of Pascagoula, Mississippi, return one stormy midnight from the funeral of their elder son to a house and a life literally falling apart -- daughter Joanie is in an asylum and their younger son Charlie is upstairs having sex with his pregnant, holy-roller girlfriend as the McCorkles enter. In this dark, expressionistic comedy, what he calls his "Southern Gothic Spook Sonata," Williams brilliantly chronicles the fragile state of out world. Softcover, 95 pp. $14.95.
 Candles
to the Sun
Tennessee Williams
Never before published, the first full-length play by (a then)
novice Tennessee
Williams, Candles to the Sun opened on Thursday, March 18, 1937 and received
rave reviews in the local press. Set in the Red Hills coal mining section of
Alabama, Candles to the Sun deals with both the attempts of the miners
to unionize and the bleak lives of their familes. M-13, F-10, extras. Softcover,
117 pp. $19.50.
 Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof
Tennessee Williams
The sensualilty and excitement of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof first
heated up Broadway in 1955 with its gothic American story of
two brothers vying for the inheritance of their dying father,
Big Daddy, amid a whirlwind of sexuality untethered, and the
burden of love repressed. Williams, as he so often did with his
plays, rewrote Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for many years --
this version was prepared by Williams for the American Shakespeare
Festival production in 1974, with all the changes that satisfied
the playwright's desire for a definitive text. M-6, F-5, children.
Softcover, 206 pp. $14.50.
 Mister
Paradise and other One-Act Plays
Tennessee Williams
This remarkable new collection of previously un-published one-acts includes some
of Tennessee Williams's most poignant and hilarious characters: the tough and
outrageous drag queens of And Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Queens;
the betrayed wife who refuses to take a lover in The Fat Man's Wife;
and the extravagant mistress who cheats on her married man in The Pink
Bedroom. Softcover, 245 pp. $23.50.
 Not
About Nightingales
Tennessee Williams
Produced sixty years after it was written Not About Nightingales shows the young playwright as a political writer, passionate
about social injustice, and reflecting on the plight of outcasts in Depression America.
$18.99.
 Spring
Storm
Tennessee Williams
Never produced or performed, and later disavowed
by the playwright, the play foreshadows characters we will meet
again and again in the Williams canon. $18.99.
 Stairs
to the Roof
Tennessee Williams
Early Williams. He called it a prayer for
the wild of heart who are kept in cages and dedicated it to
all the wage earners of the world. $16.99.
 Lower Ninth
Beau Williamson
E-Z is a rebellious young man brimming with anger. Malcolm is a reformed addict who has found strength through religion. After a devastating hurricane hits their neighbourhood, they find themselves stranded on the roof of a house, with a corpse. 3m. Softcover, 40 pp. $11.99.
 Two Trains Running
August Wilson
August Wilson's century cycle was his attempt to chronicle the African-American experience for every decade of the 20th century. In all, the ambitious series transforms historical tragedy into imaginative triumph. Two Trains Running is his distillation of the 1960s. Hardcover, 99 pp. $30.00.
 Radio Golf
August Wilson
Set in 2997 in a storefront redevelopment office in Pittsburgh's Hill District, Radio Golf is the concluding play in August Wilson's monumental ten-play cycle chronicling African American life during the twentieth century. This bittersweet drama of assimilation and alienation in nineties America traces the forces of change on a neighborhood and its people caught between history and the twenty-first century. Softcover, 81 pp. $15.95.
 King Hedley II
August Wilson
Set in 1985 in two tenement backyards in Pittsburgh's Hill District, King
Hedley II continues playwright August Wilson's monumental cycle of
plays chronicling African American life in twentieth century America. An epic
tragedy of the common man and the crushing weight of everyday and our ultimate
struggle to regain our sense of community and culture in a crumbling urban
society. M-4, F-2. Softcover, 104 pp. $20.95.
 Rain Dance
Lanford Wilson
In a ramshackle cantina in Los Alamos, New Mexico, on the night of July
15, 1945, four people await the test of the atomic bomb. Each of
them is connected directly or indirectly with the top-secret Trinity
project,
and over the course of the evening the horror of what is about to
be unleashed on the world begins to dawn on them. As tensions mount,
and
questions of science, religion and morality collide, Rain Dance makes
palpable the thrilling and terrifying journey of our first steps
into the atomic age. M-3, F-1. Softcover, 37 pp. $9.99.
 The Good Negro
Tracey Scott Wilson
In The Good Negro, three emerging black leaders try to conquer their individual demons as the local KKK fights for its old way of life, and everyday black men and women must overcome their fears -- all under the ever-watchful eye of the FBI. 7m, 2w. Softcover, 84 pp. $11.99.
 The Story
Tracey Scott Wilson
An ambitious black newspaper reporter, Yvonne Wilson, goes against
her editor, Pat Morgan, to investigate a murder and finds the BEST
story ... but at what cost? Wilson explores the elusive nature of
truth as the boundaries between reality and fiction, morality and
ambition become dangerously blurred. M-2, W-7 (doubling, flexible
casting). Softcover, 54 pp. $9.99.
 A Dance Lesson
David Wiltse
This irreverent and sexy new drama by Wiltse follows the dissolution of a small-town
family when it is invaded by a shady character from the big city. 5M, 1W. Softcover,
51 pp. $9.99.
 Tale Of 2Cities: An American Joyride On Multiple Tracks
Heather Woodbury
Tale of 2Cities is a collision of life-stories from New York and
Los Angeles spun into an epic mix by a young Echo Park DJ mourning his grandmother's
death. A live seance among generations of interwoven characters
on both coasts, Tale flashes back to 1957, when the Brooklyn Dodgers
abandoned one neighborhood, while in LA another was lost to make
way for the transplanted team's new stadium. From the rise of Senator
McCarthy to the fall of New York's Twin Towers, Manny's mix vividly
summons a lost universe of lives otherwise erased, in a style that
owes as much to DJ Shadow as John Steinbeck. Softcover, 215 pp.
$19.95.
 The Pavilion
Craig Wright
Peter returns to his twenty-year high-school reunion with dreams of winning back Kari, the girl he left behind after an unexpected pregnancy ended their relationship. Standing in Peter's way is Kari's bitter-as-ever resentment, her husband and the fact that Peter still hasn't grown up. As the night progresses, both Peter and Kari are led to face the consequences of choices made long ago and start back into life with newfound strength and bittersweet resolve. 2M, 1W (flexible casting). Softcover, 57 pp. $9.99.
 Grey Gardens The Complete Book and Lyrics
Doug Wright, Michael Korie, Scott Frankel
Based on the Maysle Bros. 1975 film about the eccentric Beales who languished in an East Hampton manor, this touching and heart wrenching musical examines the dysfunctional relationship between mother and daughter. Softcover. $20.95. Coming in August.
 The Best American Short Plays
Glenn Young
This latest edition of the highly esteemed Best American Short Plays series,
which dates back more than sixty years, contains fresh-voiced, cutting-edge
plays by twelve playwrights, both established and among the most
promising of the new millenium. Each of these plays reflects the
enormous diversity of contemporary American theatre. Softcover, 268
pp. $21.95.
 Life Science
Anna Ziegler
Four teenagers explore love, sex, religion and their dreams for the future over several months in a wealthy American suburb. 2M, 2W. Softcover, 50 pp. $11.99.
 BFF
Anna Ziegler
Best friends Lauren and Eliza are challenged by the onset of adulthood in this deeply felt and incisive meditation on young women coming of age. Softcover, 58 pp. $10.99.
 The Arabian Nights
Mary Zimmerman
Mary Zimmerman's acclaimed adaptation weaves ancient tales of wonder
into a rich and poetic testament to the transformational power
of storytelling. King Shahryar marries, loves, then kills a young
woman each night--until he encounters Scheherezade. For one thousand
and one nights, he delays her murder as he eagerly awaits her next
tale of love, lust, hilarity, or sorrow. The final scene brings
the audience back to modern-day Baghdad, and distant air-raid sirens
warn of the danger threatening the land that produced the encyclopedia
of human experience, imagination, and poetry that is The Arabian
Nights. Notes on casting staging, a transcript of a sample improvised
scene, and production photographs are included in the volume. Softcover,
144 pp. $20.00.
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