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Belles
by Mark DunnThis is a play in 2 acts and 45 phone calls. The six Walker sisters hail from Memphis, but now they are scattered all over the country. Only Peggy still lives in Memphis, where she cares for Mama. When the play begins, Peggy is phoning her sisters to tell them that Mama is in the hospital. Nothing serious she just ate some bad tuna. An intriguing story of vivid characters and involving conflicts emerges in the ensuing phone calls among the sisters. Your audiences will love this endearing play with strong roles for actresses. FEE: $75 per performance.
Belles Soeurs, Les
by Michel TremblayRaucous, reckless, and rude, the women of Les Belles Soeurs shamelessly share their most secret hopes and fears, complain stridently about their friends and relatives, and fantasize wistfully about escaping the misogynist drudgery of their lives. With the premiere of this play in 1968, Joual, the distinctive Québec vernacular, was legitimized, and Tremblay became "the father of the Québécois language."
Belleville
by Amy Herzog"A quietly devastating play... Both a perceptive drama depicting the sudden fraying of a young marriage and a nail-biting psychological thriller... Belleville is among the most suspenseful plays I've seen in years." - Charles Isherwood, New York Times"Masterly... Among the new crop of young American playwrights, Herzog is in a class by herself." - Richard Zoglin, TimeAbby and Zack, young American newlyweds, have abandoned a comfortable postgraduate life in the states for Belleville, a bustling, bohemian, multicultural Parisian neighborhood. But as secrets both minor and monumental are revealed, their fraught relationship begins to unravel. Belleville examines the limits of trust and dependency in a world where love can turn pathological and our most intimate relationships may not be what they seem.AMY HERZOG's plays include 4,000 Miles (Pulitzer Prize finalist), After the Revolution and The Great God Pan. Ms. Herzog is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Whiting Writers' Award, an Obie Award and the Helen Merrill Award for Aspiring Playwrights.
Beltaine: The Organ of the Irish Literary Theatre (Routledge Revivals)
by W. B. YeatsFirst published in 1970, this book is a faithful representation of the original edition of Beltaine, a literary magazine edited by W. B. Yeats from May 1899 to April 1900. Beltaine was the first of several magazines of the Irish Literary Theatre (later to become The Abbey Theatre) in which Yeats’s editorial role was of utmost importance. It was an occasional publication and focused on promoting current works of Irish playwrights whilst challenging those of their English opponents. The magazine mainly consists of a series of essays on the theatre in Dublin, and supplementing these are explanations and discussions of new plays, excerpts from which are often included. This book will be of interest to those with an interest in Yeats, early nineteenth-century literature, and Irish theatre.
Ben Jonson: Four Comedies
by Ben Johnson Helen OstovichThis edition of Ben Jonson's four middle comedies places the works in the popular history and culture of the times, 1605-1614, and surveys the influences, both classical and contemporary, on Jonson as a playwright. On-the-page annotations recreate the audiences perception of the plays as performances by commenting on the stage-directions, the self-conscious theatricality of characters and scenes, and the vivid colloquialisms of early modern London that give the dialogue a heightened dimension of realism. Brief introductions to each play discuss the local settings, sources, theatre history and further readings. The general introduction includes a biography of Jonson, a chronology of the plays and masques, and separate essays on each play, dealing particularly with Jonson's satirical treatments of trends and shams of the day, whether political, social, commercial, or spiritual.
Ben Jonson: His Vision and His Art (Routledge Library Editions: Renaissance Drama)
by Alexander LeggattWhile most critical writing on Jonson concentrates on the plays, poems or masques seen in isolation, this title, first published in 1981, ranges across the genres to explore Jonson’s vision as a whole. The author points to the inner connections that make of the rich variety of Jonson’s writing a single coherent body of work. We see Jonson exploring the relations between culture and society, the difficulties of ideal virtue in a far from ideal world, and above all the problems of art itself. Combining a wide-ranging discussion of Jonson’s interests with a detailed examination of his major works, this book provides a balanced critical introduction to one of the most complex and fascinating figures in English Literature.
Ben Jonson: His Craft and Art (Routledge Library Editions: Renaissance Drama)
by Rosalind MilesThough he is one of the undisputed giants of English literature, Ben Jonson is known to most people only as the author of one or two masterly plays which regularly appear in the drama repertory. He is much less well-known for his whole oeuvre, which encompasses poetry, criticism, masque-making, and a lifetime of linguistic and lexicographical study. In this book, first published in 1990, the author presents a comprehensive critical study of the whole of Jonson’s output from his earliest beginnings through to the final achievement. Looking at every word he ever wrote, in drama, masque, poetry, philosophy and literary criticism, the author reveals an interesting and varied picture of Jonson. This title will be of interest to students of English literature and Renaissance drama.
Ben Jonson: His Life and Work (Routledge Library Editions: Renaissance Drama)
by Rosalind MilesThe extraordinary character of Ben Jonson has only recently been brought into the light. Critics traditionally exalted Shakespeare, at Jonson’s expense. In this biography, first published in 1986, the author presents a full and accurate account of Jonson’s life in modern times. Rosalind Miles follows Jonson from his obscure beginnings to his burial in Westminster Abbey, as the first Poet Laureate, in 1637. Her Jonson is vivid and vigorous, equally alive in his life and in his work. This title will be of interest to students of history, English literature and Renaissance drama.
Ben Jonson (Routledge Library Editions: Renaissance Drama)
by John PalmerWhile most critical writing on Jonson concentrates on the plays, poems or masques seen in isolation, this title, first published in 1981, ranges across the genres to explore Jonson’s vision as a whole. The author points to the inner connections that make of the rich variety of Jonson’s writing a single coherent body of work. We see Jonson exploring the relations between culture and society, the difficulties of ideal virtue in a far from ideal world, and above all the problems of art itself. Combining a wide-ranging discussion of Jonson’s interests with a detailed examination of his major works, this book provides a balanced critical introduction to one of the most complex and fascinating figures in English Literature.
Ben Jonson (Routledge Revivals)
by John PalmerOriginally published in 1934, Palmer’s biography of famous playwright Ben Jonson delves into his life and works and what he achieved in both. As first poet laureate of England, Jonson’s life presents a fascinating look into the state of literature and theatre in renaissance Britain which Palmer presents in great detail. This title will be of interest to students of literature.
Ben Jonson: A Life
by David RiggsBen Jonson’s contemporaries admired him above all other playwrights and poets of the English Renaissance. He was the “great refiner” who alchemized the bleakest aspects of everyday life into brilliant images of folly and deceit. He was also a celebrated reprobate and an ambitious entrepreneur. David Riggs illuminates every facet of this extraordinary career, giving us the first major biography of Jonson in over sixty years. The story of Jonson’s life provides a broad view of the literary procession in early modern England and the milieu in which Elizabethan drama was produced. Beginning as a journeyman actor, Jonson was soon a novice playwright; his first important play was staged in 1598, with Shakespeare in the cast. He was by turns the self-styled leader of a literary elite, a writer of court masques, the first dramatist to publish his own Works, a royal pensioner, and a genteel poet. As Jonson transformed himself from an artisan into a gentleman, his need to transcend his class origins led him to murder, to his notorious quarrels with Thomas Dekker, John Marston, and Inigo Jones, and to his lifelong rivalry with Shakespeare. Riggs traces the roots of Jonson’s aggressiveness back to the turmoil of his childhood and adolescence. He offers new and convincing accounts of Jonson’s latent hostility toward his bricklayer stepfather, his reckless marriage to Anne Lewis, and his conflicted relationships with his children. This vivid portrait synthesizes six decades of scholarship and new historical evidence. Sixty halftones beautifully illustrate the story and capture the spirit of the age. With Riggs’ original interpretations of Jonson’s masterpieces and lesser known works, Ben Jonson: A Life will prove the standard account of this complex man’s life and works for many years to come.
Ben Jonson and the Art of Secrecy
by William W. SlightsSecrets accomplish their cultural work by distinguishing the knowable from the (at least temporarily) unknowable, those who know from those who don't. Within these distinctions resides an enormous power that Ben Jonson (1572-1637) both deplored and exploited in his art of making plays.Conspiracies and intrigues are the driving force of Jonson's dramatic universe. Focusing on Sejanus, His Fall; Volpone, or the Fox; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman; The Alchemist; Catiline, His Conspiracy, and Bartholomew Fair, William Slights places Jonson within the context of the secrecy- ridden culture of the court of King James I and provides illuminating readings of his best-known plays.Slights draws on the sociology of secrecy, the history of censorship, and the theory of hermeneutics to investigate secrecy, intrigue, and conspiracy as aspects of Jonsonian dramatic form, contemporary court/city/church politics, and textual interpretation. He argues that the tension between concealment and revelation in the plays affords a model for the poise that sustained Jonson in the intricately linked worlds of royal court and commercial theatre and that made him a pivotal figure in the cultural history of early modern England.Equally rejecting the position that Jonson was a renegade subverter of the arcana imperii and that he was a thorough-going court apologist, Slights finds that the playwright redraws the lines between private and public discourse for his own and subsequent ages.
Ben Jonson and Theatre: Performance, Practice and Theory
by Richard Cave Elizabeth Schafer Brian WoollandBen Jonson and Theatre is an investigation and celebration of Jonson's plays from the point of view of the theatre practitioner as well as the teacher. Reflecting the increasing interest in the wider field of Renaissance drama, this book bridges the theory/practice divide by debating how Jonson's drama operates in performance. Ben Jonson and Theatre includes: * discussions with and between practitioners * essays on the staging of the plays * edited transcripts of interviews with contemporary practitioners The volume includes contributions from Joan Littlewood, Sam Mendes, John Nettles, Simon Russell Beale and Geoffrey Rush, Oscar-winning actor for Shine.
Ben Jonson, John Marston and Early Modern Drama: Satire and the Audience
by Rebecca YearlingThis book examines the influence of John Marston, typically seen as a minor figure among early modern dramatists, on his colleague Ben Jonson. While Marston is usually famed more for his very public rivalry with Jonson than for the quality of his plays, this book argues that such a view of Marston seriously underestimates his importance to the theatre of his time. In it, the author contends that Marston's plays represent an experiment in a new kind of satiric drama, with origins in the humanist tradition of serio ludere. His works—deliberately unpredictable, inconsistent and metatheatrical—subvert theatrical conventions and provide confusingly multiple perspectives on the action, forcing their spectators to engage actively with the drama and the moral dilemmas that it presents. The book argues that Marston's work thus anticipates and perhaps influenced the mid-period work of Ben Jonson, in plays such as Sejanus, Volpone and The Alchemist.
A Bench in the Sun
by Ron ClarkHarold and Burt, longtime friends, live in a retirement home and spend their days on a bench in the garden bickering. A once famous actress has just moved in, giving them something new to argue over. When they learn that the home is about to be sold and they will have to find a new residence, the three join forces to prevent this upsetting development. "Very wise, very moving, but most of all, very funny."-Mel Brooks. . "A sunny comedy...it charms throughout."-Stamford Advocate. . FEE: $75 per performance.
Bennewitz, Goethe, 'Faust'
by David G. JohnFritz Bennewitz (1926-1995) was the director-in-chief of East Germany's Weimar National Theatre. Extraordinary in his capacity for cultural and linguistic adjustment, he directed productions in twelve countries, always adapting shows to make them meaningful to local audiences. Notably, Bennewitz conducted stagings of Goethe's Faust in four different languages over a series of seven productions -- three in pre-unification Weimar, one in the reunited Germany, and one each in New York, Manila, and Mumbai.The first comprehensive account of Bennewitz's remarkable career, Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust is also a pioneering study of intercultural interpretations of Faust. David G. John brings to light previously unknown archival materials -- including annotated playbooks, correspondence, translations, videos, and reception information -- as well as unpublished production photos from the stagings discussed in the book. Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust makes a cogent argument for this director's place alongside the twentieth century's greatest theatre innovators.
Bent
by Martin ShermanDrama / 11m / Simple sets / In 1934 Berlin on the eve of the Nazi incursion, Max, a grifter and his lover Rudy are recovering from a night of debauchery with a SA trooper. Two soldiers burst into the apartment and slit their guest's throat, beginning a nightmare odyssey through Nazi Germany. Ranked lower on the human scale than Jews, the men as awoved homosexuals, flee. Desperate and on the run, Max asks his own "discreetly" homosexual Uncle Freddie for help as the older man offers little more than suggestions on how to live, as he does, practicing homosexuality on the side. Attempting their escape, Rudy is beaten to death as Horst, another homosexual prisoner, warns Max to deny his lover. Taken to a death camp at Dachau, Max and Horst branded with the "pink triangle", hope to survive with each other for comfort and courage but it is not to be. Richard Gere created the role of Max on Broadway. / "Powerful and provocative."-The New York Times
Bent: The Play (Applause Books)
by Martin Sherman(Applause Books). Martin Sherman's worldwide hit play Bent took London by storm in 1979 when it was first performed by the Royal Court Theatre, with Ian McKellen as Max (a character written with the actor in mind). The play itself caused an uproar. <p><p>"It educated the world," Sherman explains. "People knew about how the Third Reich treated Jews and, to some extent, gypsies and political prisoners. But very little had come out about their treatment of homosexuals." Gays were arrested and interned at work camps prior to the genocide of Jews, gypsies, and handicapped, and continued to be imprisoned even after the fall of the Third Reich and liberation of the camps. The play Bent highlights the reason why: a largely ignored German law, Paragraph 175, making homosexuality a criminal offense, which Hitler reactivated and strengthened during his rise to power.
Beowulf
by Roger Avary Neil GaimanWho will come to the aid of beleaguered King Hrothgar, whose warriors have become the prey of the vengeful outcast monster Grendel?In the able hands of #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys, American Gods) and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction, Silent Hill), a timeless classic adventure takes on a astonishing new life. Here are the initial draft and final shooting script of the star-studded blockbuster film from Paramount Pictures and Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis (Forest Gump, Back to the Future), plus concept art, fascinating insights in the screenplay's evolution, an introduction by Avary, an afterword from Gaiman...AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!
The Bequest: A One-act Play
by Dale WassermanComic drama / 3m, 3f / Eyebrows rise in a small town in Wisconsin when a notorious playboy dies leaving a large bequest to a local resident, the lovely and beloved wife of a local newspaper reporter. She refuses to explain why this windfall has come her way. "A polished miniature from a playwright better known for his blockbusters ... a wicked, witty look at such piquant matters as male female politics, the secret nature of women, and that little green demon known as retroactive jealousy. In the bargain, it's a sexy sort of whodunnit which will go on teasing your mind well after the curtain's down." - What's On. FEE: $45 per performance.
The Berenstain Bears' School Talent Show (I Can Read Level 1)
by Mike BerenstainThe Berenstain Bears take part in the school talent show in this exciting addition to the classic New York Times bestselling series.From the cub’s magic tricks to Trudy’s yodeling, any student can be in the show. All you need is a talent! Beginning readers will enjoy this fun tale about their favorite family of bears.The Berenstain Bears' School Talent Show is a Level One I Can Read book, which means it's perfect for children learning to sound out words and sentences.
Bermuda Ave. Triangle
by Joseph Bologna Renee Taylor2m, 4f / This outrageous comedy by the authors of Lovers and Other Strangers and other uproarious hits starred Nanette Fabray and the authors on Broadway. It concerns the adventures of a Jewish widow and an Irish widow whose successful daughters move them to Las Vegas, where they share a retirement village condo. On an excursion, they are saved from a mugger by a charming if not quite sober gambler who is short on cash. They allow him to curl up on the living room floor and he manages to sweet talk his way into both ladies' beds. Each situation is rife with the outrageous, excessive comedy that endears these playwrights to audiences everywhere. "Bologna and Taylor possess a lively and friendly sense of the ridiculous and they have a natty way with sight gags." N.Y. Post.. FEE: $75 per performance.
Bernard Shaw: Volume 1, 1856-1898, The Search for Love
by Michael HolroydBiography of George Bernard Shaw from his birth to his marriage at age 42.
Bernard Shaw: Volume 3, 1918-1951, The Lure of Fantasy
by Michael HolroydBiography of George Bernard Shaw, from World War I to his death at age 94.
Bernard Shaw: Volume 2, 1898-1918, The Pursuit of Power
by Michael HolroydBiography of George Bernard Shaw from age 42 to age 62, at the height of his career.