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Wild Mushroom
by Anne PieComedy / 2m,3f, / Interior / This present-day comedy set in the Bronx, revolves around life in the Benny Scrivente family as seen through the eyes of Benny's thirteen year-old son, Joey. Benny is no match for Joey. a gifted, wise-mouthed boy. A widowed postal worker, Benny struggles to raise Benny and his two beautiful daughters, Dodie and Regina, hoping to marry them the old-fashioned Italian way so he can pursue his dream of opening a trattoria. / Sweet, simple-minded Dodie, lacking in the IQ department, (which drives Joey to his wit's end) is already engaged to Mario, a man of questionable character. Sensual Regina prefers to play the field, much to Benny's consternation. Joey, feeling neglected by them all, manages to attract more than just his family's attention. He pens a literary masterpiece that borders on being an exposé. / Enter clairvoyant Aunt Rose, Benny's older sister. She is a true eccentric and Joey's champion. Her constant shower of predictions makes her a perpetual source of irritation to Benny. Proud of her father's cooking, Dodie unwittingly invites the Mafia over for Sunday dinner, which sends Benny into a tizzy. It's Aunt Rose's unorthodox hors d'oeuvres which pack the wallop that results in a happy ending.
Working on the Railroad: An Adaptation of a Traditional Song
by Brooke Harris Vincent ViglaNIMAC-sourced textbook
Your Screenplay Sucks!: 100 Ways To Make It Great
by William M. AkersA lifetime member of the Writer's Guild of America who has had three feature films produced from his screenplays, Akers offers beginning writers the tools they need to get their screenplay noticed.
Zeami: Performance Notes (Translations from the Asian Classics)
by Motoyiko ZeamiZeami (1363-1443), Japan's most celebrated actor and playwright, composed more than thirty of the finest plays of no drama. He also wrote a variety of texts on theater and performance that have, until now, been only partially available in English. Zeami: Performance Notes presents the full range of Zeami's critical thought on this subject, which focused on the aesthetic values of no and its antecedents, the techniques of playwriting, the place of allusion, the training of actors, the importance of patronage, and the relationship between performance and broader intellectual and critical concerns. Spanning over four decades, the texts reflect the essence of Zeami's instruction under his famous father, the actor Kannami, and the value of his long and challenging career in medieval Japanese theater. Tom Hare, who has conducted extensive studies of no academically and on stage, begins with a comprehensive introduction that discusses Zeami's critical importance in Japanese culture. He then incorporates essays on the performance of no in medieval Japan and the remarkable story of the transmission and reproduction of Zeami's manuscripts over the past six centuries. His eloquent translation is fully annotated and includes Zeami's diverse and exquisite anthology of dramatic songs, Five Sorts of Singing, presented both in English and in the original Japanese.
[boxhead]
by Darren O'DonnellDr. Thoughtless Actions, a young geneticist, awakes one morning to find a cardboard box secured to his head. Unable to wrench it off, he attempts suicide, not only failing but also, unbeknownst to himself, cloning himself, creating Dr. Wishful Thinking. The two losers fall in love, fall in science, and fail to make a baby. Their conversation, an intricately woven semantic circus, traverses boxedness, love, and the more ridiculous areas of metaphysical speculation. Through a series of rapid exchanges, verbal games, and musical numbers, they discover that all their thoughts come from God, all their words come from the devil, and their desire for love is a habit acquired from the cinema. Sound familiar? Don't be so hard on yourself. [boxhead]: a bedtime story for your brain.
The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam
by Ann Marie FlemingA full-color graphic memoir inspired by the award-winning documentary-and the life and mystery of China's greatest magician. Who was Long Tack Sam? He was born in 1885. He ran away from Shangdung Province to join the circus. He was an acrobat. A magician. A comic. An impresario. A restaurateur. A theater owner. A world traveler. An East-West ambassador. A mentor to Orson Welles. He was considered the greatest act in the history of vaudeville. In this gorgeous graphic memoir, his great-granddaughter, the artist and filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming, resurrects his fascinating life for the rest of the world. It's an exhilarating testament to a forgotten man. And every picture is true.Watch a QuickTime trailer for this book.
A Woman of No Importance
by Oscar WildeOscar Wilde's audacious drama of social scandal centres around the revelation of Mrs Arbuthnot's long-concealed secret. A house party is in full swing at Lady Hunstanton's country home, when it is announced that Gerald Arbuthnot has been appointed secretary to the sophisticated, witty Lord Illingworth. Gerald's mother stands in the way of his appointment, but fears to tell him why, for who will believe Lord Illingworth to be a man of no importance?
4 Beekman
by Ron ClarkComedyCharacters: 6 male, 3 female (w/ doubling) . Interior set . . Deanne and Robert, a May-December couple, have just returned from their honeymoon, and Deanne is shocked to find that Robert has unwittingly bought the very same apartment that she used to live in with her ex-husband, Skip. Not only that, but Skip has also bought the apartment right next door to theirs. It becomes apparent in time that Deanne and Skip are still in love, and getting the couple back together is facilitated by Robert falling for Deanne's mother, Louella. All ends right in this swift-moving romantic comedy from master comic writer Ron Clark.
5 Easy Pieces
by Jason Milligan5 one act plays by accomplished playwright Jason Milligan. . Contents:. Rituals One Way Street Paul's Ghost The Fire-Breathing Lady and the Sugarplum Fairy Key Lime Pie
A Christmas Pudding
by David BirneyEdited and adapted by David Birney / 3m., 3f., plus chorus 8 to 12 singers / Holiday Play with music /Simple Unit Set A Christmas celebration told in songs, stories, poems and tales by Dickens, Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Shaw, Longfellow, St. Luke and many others collected with a host of traditional carols and holiday songs. This piece provides a perfect evening to warm hearts, stir memories and give laughter during the holiday season.
A Critical History of French Children's Literature: Volume One: 1600–1830 (Children's Literature and Culture)
by Penelope E. BrownThese books are the first full-length, comprehensive study written in English of French children’s literature. They provide both an overview of developments from the seventeenth century to the present day and detailed discussion of texts that are representative, innovative, or influential best-sellers in their own time and beyond. French children’s literature is little known in the English-speaking world and, apart from a small number of writers and texts, has been relatively neglected in scholarly studies, despite the prominence of the study of children’s literature as a discipline. This project is groundbreaking in its coverage of a wide range of genres, tracing the evolution of children’s books in France from early courtesy books, fables and fairy tales, to eighteenth-century moral tales and educational drama, nineteenth-century novels of domestic realism and adventure stories and contemporary detective fiction and fantasy novels. The discussion traces the relationship between children’s literature and social change, revealing the extent to which children’s books were informed by pedagogical, moral, religious and political agenda and explores the implications of the dual imperatives of instruction and amusement which have underpinned writing for young readers throughout the centuries.
A Critical History of French Children's Literature: Volume Two: 1830-Present (Children's Literature and Culture)
by Penelope E. BrownThis two-volume critical history of French children’s literature from 1600 to the present helps bring awareness of the range, quality, and importance of French children’s literature to a wider audience. The works of a number of French writers, notably La Fontaine, Charles Perrault, Jules Verne, and Saint-Exupéry were, and continue to be, widely translated and adapted, and have influenced the development of the genre in other countries.
A Delightful Quarantine
by Mark DunnComedy / 4m, 10f / What would it be like to be confined with people you don’t really know? Strange visitors leave behind a deadly disease that leaves seven separate households unexpectedly quarantined. Seven story lines are deftly balanced as people are forced to confront their personal issues. A heart-warming original comedy/drama about how people react when there’s nowhere else to go.
A Don't Hug Me Christmas Carol
by Phil OlsonMusical Comedy / 3m, 2f / Interior / Oh, for cryin’ in yer snow shoes! It’s the coldest day of the year in Bunyan Bay when a slick karaoke salesman arrives at the bar and turns the locals’ lives upside down. With its over the top songs and crazy characters, this “Minnesota love story with singin’ and stuff” will have you laughing until the spring thaw! Don't Hug Me takes place in Bunyan Bay, Minnesota. Cantankerous bar owner, Gunner Johnson, wants to sell the business and move to Florida. Clara, his wife and former Winter Carnival Bunyan Queen, wants to stay. Bernice Lundstrom, the pretty waitress, wants to pursue a singing career. Her fiance, Kanute Gunderson, wants her to stay home. It's a battle of wills, and when a fast-talking salesman, Aarvid Gisselsen, promises to bring romance into their lives through the 'magic' of karaoke, all heck breaks loose!
A Man for All Seasons (SparkNotes Literature Guide Series)
by SparkNotesA Man for All Seasons (SparkNotes Literature Guide) by Robert Bolt Making the reading experience fun! Created by Harvard students for students everywhere, SparkNotes is a new breed of study guide: smarter, better, faster. Geared to what today's students need to know, SparkNotes provides: *Chapter-by-chapter analysis *Explanations of key themes, motifs, and symbols *A review quiz and essay topicsLively and accessible, these guides are perfect for late-night studying and writing papers
A Queer History of the Ballet
by Peter StoneleyDesigned for students, scholars and general readers with an interest in dance and queer history, A Queer History of the Ballet focuses on how, as makers and as audiences, queer men and women have helped to develop many of the texts, images, and legends of ballet. Presenting a series of historical case studies, the book explores the ways in which, from the nineteenth century into the twentieth, ballet has been a means of conjuring homosexuality – of enabling some degree of expression and visibility for people who were otherwise declared illegal and obscene. Studies include: the perverse sororities of the Romantic ballet the fairy in folklore, literature, and ballet Tchaikovsky and the making of Swan Lake Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and the emergence of queer modernity the formation of ballet in America the queer uses of the prima ballerina Genet’s writings for and about ballet. Also including a consideration of how ballet’s queer tradition has been memorialized by such contemporary dance-makers as Neumeier, Bausch, Bourne, and Preljocaj, this is an essential book in the study of ballet and queer history.
Abstract Expressions
by Theresa RebeckAfter a scathing review 15 years ago, a once-celebrated painter faded into impoverished obscurity. Can one chance encounter resurrect this volatile artist from obscurity and re-launch him to overnight success? Theresa Rebeck skillfully compares the gritty urban realities of lives lived on the edge with the capricious intrigues of the uptown gallery scene where fame might just be a matter of who you know and reputations can be bought and sold.
Acting from Shakespeare's First Folio: Theory, Text and Performance
by Don WeingustActing from Shakespeare's First Folio examines a series of techniques for reading and performing Shakespeare's plays that are based on the texts of the first ‘complete’ volume of Shakespeare's works: the First Folio of 1623. Do extra syllables in a line suggest how it might be played? Can Folio commas reveal character? Don Weingust places this work on Folio performance possibility within current understandings about Shakespearean text, describing ways in which these challenging theories about acting often align quite nicely with the work of the theories' critics. As part of this study, Weingust looks at the work of Patrick Tucker and his London-based Original Shakespeare Company, who have sought to discover the opportunities in using First Folio texts, acting techniques, and what they consider to be original Shakespearean performance methodologies. Weingust argues that their experimental performances at the Globe on Bankside have revealed enhanced possibilities not only for performing Shakespeare, but for theatrical practice in general.
Adore: A Novella
by Doris Lessing“A keen sociological eye for class and ideology; an understanding of the contradictory impulses of the human heart; an ability to conjure a place, a mood and a time through seemingly matter-of-fact descriptions.” — Michiko Kakutani, New York TimesShocking, intimate, often uncomfortably honest, Adore reaffirms Doris Lessing’s unrivaled ability to capture the truth of the human condition.Roz and Lil have been best friends since childhood. But their bond stretches beyond familiar bounds when these middle-aged mothers fall in love with each other's teenage sons—taboo-shattering passions that last for years, until the women end them, vowing to have a respectable old age.
Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation
by Ato QuaysonFocusing primarily on the work of Samuel Beckett, Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, and J. M. Coetzee, Ato Quayson launches a thoroughly cross-cultural, interdisciplinary study of the representation of physical disability. Quayson suggests that the subliminal unease and moral panic invoked by the disabled is refracted within the structures of literature and literary discourse itself, a crisis he terms "aesthetic nervousness." The disabled reminds the able-bodied that the body is provisional and temporary and that normality is wrapped up in certain social frameworks. Quayson expands his argument by turning to Greek and Yoruba writings, African American and postcolonial literature, depictions of deformed characters in early modern England and the plays of Shakespeare, and children's films, among other texts. He considers how disability affects interpersonal relationships and forces the character and the reader to take an ethical standpoint, much like representations of violence, pain, and the sacred. The disabled are also used to represent social suffering, inadvertently obscuring their true hardships.
African Theatres and Performances
by Osita OkagbueAfrican Theatres & Performances looks at four specific performance forms in Africa and uses this to question the tendency to employ western frames of reference to analyze and appreciate theatrical performance. The book examines: masquerade theatre in Eastern Nigeria the trance and possession ritual theatre of the Hausa of Northern Nigeria the musical and oral tradition of the Mandinka of Senegal comedy and satire of the Bamana in Mali. Osita Okagbue describes each performance in detail and discusses how each is made, who it is made by and for, and considers the relationship between maker and viewer and the social functions of performance and theatre in African societies. The discussions are based on first-hand observation and interviews with performers and spectators. African Theatres & Performances gives a fascinating account of these practices, carefully tracing the ways in which performances and theatres are unique and expressive of their cultural context.
Age of Arousal
by Linda GriffithsIt's a time of passion and confusion. Virtue is barely holding down its petticoats. People are bursting their corsets with unbridled desire. It's 1885, and the typewriter and the suffrage movement are sending things topsy-turvy. In the midst of it all, five ambitious New Women and one Newish Man struggle to find their way. Miss Mary Barfoot runs a school for secretaries with her young lover, Miss Rhoda Nunn. But when the Misses Madden spinsters Virginia and Alice and beautiful young Monica arrive, along with the attractive Dr. Everard Barfoot, things can never be the same.Age of Arousal is a lavish, sexy, frenetic ensemble piece about the forbidden and gloriously liberated self genre-busting, rule-bending, and ambitiously original. The book includes notes and a rousing, thoughtful essay on Victorian womens' suffrage by the playwright.'Endlessly witty, vigorous, funny... brilliantly inventive.' - Calgary Herald 'Griffiths is one of Canada's 'originals' known not only for the quality of her work, but for the sheer range of her career.' - Maclean's
Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus
by Euripides Diane Arnson Svarlien Robin Mitchell-BoyaskThis new volume of three of Euripides' most celebrated plays offers graceful, economical, metrical translations that convey the wide range of effects of the playwright's verse, from the idiomatic speech of its dialogue to the high formality of its choral odes.
All That Glittered
by Ethan MorddenFrom the late 1920s to late 1950s, the Broadway theatre was America's cultural epicenter. Television didn't exist and movies were novelties. Entertainment took the form of literature, music, and theatre. During this golden age of Broadway, actors and actresses became legends and starred in now classic plays. Laurence Olivier, Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontaine were names to remember, etching plays into memory as they brought the words of Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neill to life. Joseph Cotton romanced Katherine Hepburn in Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story while Laurette Taylor became The Glass Menagerie's Amanda Wingfield. Frederic March, Florence Eldridge, Jason Robards Jr. and Bradford Dillman showed us life among the ruins in Long Day's Journey Into Night. In All That Glittered, Ethan Mordden, long one of Broadway's best chroniclers, recreates the fascinating lost world of its golden age.
All This Intimacy
by Rajiv JosephDramatic Comedy / Characters: 2 male, 4 female / Unit Set. / Ty Greene is a normal guy with three very big problems. In an unprecedented (for him) run of promiscuity, Ty has managed to impregnate three women in the span of one week: His ex-girlfriend, his 40-something married next-door neighbor, and his 18 year-old student. In this edgy comedy by playwright Rajiv Joseph, Ty's problems illuminate every triumph and failure of his life, and as the women in his world converge and figure out what's happened, Ty realizes that his life is adrift, and that he only has a limited time to try to piece it back together. All This Intimacy, which according to The New York Times has "a certain can't-look-away pull," is a comedy about friendship and lust and how the two don't mix. . "**** FOUR STARS! It's the best show I've seen in months! It's one worth catching!" -Matt Windman, amNY . "HAS A CAN'T-LOOK-AWAY PULL!" -The New York Times . "RIFE WITH GENUINE FUN & PINPOINTS OF POIGNANCY!" -Broadway.com . "A VERY BRAVE TOUCH WITH CHARACTERS & THEMES!" - New York Sun . "VERY FINE WRITING!" -TheaterMania.com