It's winter in Minnesota, and a Zimbabwean family is preparing for the wedding of their eldest daughter, a first-generation American. But when the bride insists on observing a traditional African custom, it opens a deep rift in the household. Rowdy and affectionate, Familiar pitches tradition against assimilation, drawing a loving portrait of a family: the customs they keep, and the secrets they bury.
The turbulent life of Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, is told, viewed through the outrageous comic lens of master parodist Charles Busch. Evoking both 1930's Hollywood epics and the grand 19th Century romantic theatre of Sarah Bernhardt, this version of the life of the ill-fated Egyptian Queen takes her from her teenage seduction of the Roman leader Julius Caesar through her volatile tragic romance with Mark Antony and to her ultimate death. Charles Busch's Cleopatra has echoes of the man
Betty is rich; Betty is lonely; Betty's busy working on her truck; Betty wants to talk about love, but Betty needs to hit something. And Betty keeps using a small hand mirror to stare into parts of herself she's never examined. Five different women named Betty collide at the intersection of anger, sex, and the "thea-tah."
From the nationally recognized Educational Theatre Association's Thespian Playworks competition come four short scripts - all created by high school-aged playwrights! Included in this volume are: Escalator by Tanner HeathAtlas's Equal by Austin HughesThe Okay Kids by Hunter McKenzieIt's Gonna Rain by Matthew Waterman
"Bennett is really trying to keep it together right now. He broke up with his boyfriend and moved in with his best friend, Cooper. It's election season, and he's the speechwriter for Georgia's only gay state senator, who's engaged in a bloody campaign against a conservative darling. Then Bennett's ex is attacked in the parking lot of a gay bar. Bennett and Cooper are informed that the assault can't be classified as a hate crime - because in Georgia, hate crimes against homosexuals don't legally exist. Their frustration and fear eventually turn to rage as they realize "acceptance" simply isn't enough. They're still living in a society that relegates them to second-class status. They're not respected. They're not feared. It's time for that to change"--Page [4] of cover.
Al has to take the rap for his pal Duane's botched robbery, but before he goes, he leaves his drunken ex-beaty queen wife Sylvie in the care of his father Jefe. In the year he is gone, Jefe and Sylvie fall in love, and when Al is granted early parole, he enlists Duane in a mad and murderous hunt for the fleeing lovers. In the course of their search, they meet China, a weird changeling who wields a water gun filled with ammonia and purports to know where his wife has been taken.
Meet Milo Mazowski - a campus security guard who's determination to woo a lovely local bar owner is only hampered by one thing: his unlimited memory which makes him spout out pretty much every unromantic thing he's ever heard in his life. A bittersweet comedy about learning how to forget.
Ancient ideals and modern musings rub up against each other in Blue Wizard / Black Wizard, a philosophical musical fantasia. Two referees adjudicate the proceedings as the Black and Blue Wizards battle to save themselves and humanity from the Great Mediocrity. Warping the conventions of musical theatre and classical art song to intersect with the sensibilities of electronic music, Blue Wizard / Black Wizard is a pop culture smash-up of fantasy language and contemporary parlance. What unfolds is a ritualistic sporting event, the likes of which audiences have never seen.
Amidst the late-night din of St. Patrick's Day in New York City, Donna comes home to find a highly intoxicated man named Theo, who is dressed like a leprechaun, in her apartment. Mistaking Theo for her roommate Jamie's sublet, Donna puts him into the empty room only to learn that Jamie is still home. With no explanation of how he got in, Donna and her roommates try to figure out where Theo came from and how to get him out of the apartment. Theo's undeniable charm and seemingly magical habits, ho
Mom found her soul-mate on Facebook, and he lives in Iowa. So Becca says goodbye to her beloved math teacher, bulimic best friend, neighborhood pony and her mildly deficient teenage life, and she follows her wayward mother to a new, uncharted beginning. But in this fanciful, absurdist, and intoxicating musical play from the imagination of Jenny Schwartz and Todd Almond nothing can prepare them for what they'll find.
What happens when you mix the brilliant wit of Noel Coward with the intricate plotting of Agatha Christie? Set during a weekend in an English country manor in 1932, Death by Design is a delightful and mysterious "mash-up" of two of the greatest English writers of all time. Edward Bennett, a playwright, and his wife Sorel Bennett, an actress, flee London and head to Cookham after a disastrous opening night. But various guests arrive unexpectedly - a conservative politician, a fiery sociali
Merrily We Dance and Sing is a slapstick, madcap musical farce. While a small-town community theater performs an original operetta The Naughty Boy, an escaped serial killer gets loose in the theater - eventually hiding from the local police on the stage - which forces the actors to improvise new plot lines, rewrite dialogue, and take the opportunity to invent their own happy endings. Imagine "Gilbert & Sullivan Meet the Marx Brothers." With book & lyrics by Van Zandt & Milmore and original music
Winner! The Ashland New Plays FestivalTom is a Virginia Senator and rising star in the Republican Party. When a long-time family friend resurfaces and offers the opportunity of a lifetime, Tom faces a crisis of conviction while his marriage hangs precariously in the balance. The God Game is a play about faith and politics, marriage and friendship, choices and consequences."A deeply satisfying, superbly acted exploration of personal values, honesty, integrity and accommodation
Jerome Teppel, a recently married, fairly well-off CPA, discovers that among his wife Francine's monthly purchases was a gun. Shortly after that, Jerome is informed by his neighbor, Lenore Franklin, that his wife and her husband are having a torrid affair. What ensues next is murder, betrayal, a little sex and a lot of laughs.
She Talks to Beethoven, written by pioneering avant-garde playwright Adrienne Kennedy in 1989, offers a layered discourse on politics, revolution and loss. Set in Ghana, Suzanne waits in her room listening to radio broadcasts about her husband who has mysteriously disappeared while she attempts to write about and communicate with composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Her world is infiltrated by snatches of Ghanaian string music, the revolutionary words of Frantz Fanon and strains of Beethoven's
Madame Bovary is the tragic, yet scintillating story of a woman who longed for a life she could never fully achieve. Emma Bovary is a woman who desires the illustrious and romantic world she has only read about in books or observed from afar. As this desire grows, Emma must seek to fulfill it, whatever the cost, in an ultimate quest to become the Madame Bovary of her wildest and most passionate dreams. Telling Emma's story through the eyes of her own daughter, Adrienne Kennedy brings a fr
Welcome back to First Baptist of Ivy Gap. After a fire that resulted in the death of the church's beloved pastor, the sanctuary has been renovated and a new pastor has been called. There to welcome him are Olene, a reformed Vegas stripper who fancies a star-studded career in religious music; Mae Ellen, the church's rebellious organist who may find that love comes along when least expected; Vera, the sharp-tongued wife of the chairman of the church's board of deacons, who covets the role of the
Nate Wright, a detention-riddled sixth grader (and drummer for the greatest garage band in the history of the galaxy, Enslave the Mollusk!) hopes to capture beautiful Jenny's heart by winning "The Nickelodeon", the first prize in his school's Battle of the Bands. But when Artur and Jenny team up with Nate's arch-rival Gina to form the sap-pop band Rainbows and Ponies, he's gotta take his game to an all-star level. Using his superior cartoon skills, Nate concocts a super-charged,
A small town arts council has $20,000 to award to a local artist with an "under-represented American voice." Should they choose the teacher/painter of modest talent or the self-taught artist who creates religious figures out of trash? This comedy explores how gossip, politics and opinions of art can decide who is the most deserving.
In Hollywood, film star Mary Dale discovers her husband has succumbed to the power of the local Communist party by way of a method acting class. She further discovers a left-wing plot to abolish the star system. Mary wages a private war not only to save her husband, but to hopefully save her country, turning the McCarthy era on its head.
This tale of a mother accused and convicted of the deaths of her two young babies is a horrific yet powerful. By adopting a form commonly associated with verbatim theatre, the subject is imbued with a clarity that is at once both unrelenting and utterly engaging, as it slowly emerges that these events are not truth at all, but Kelly masquerading theatrical illusion as truth. What unfolds is a bleak yet tender exploration of grief, exploitation, and the innate hypocrisies of reportage.
In Collapse, Hannah, tries desperately to hold the façade of her perfect life together, even as her husband, David, mysteriously calls in sick to work. Day after day they struggle with infertility, and Hannah herself is on the verge of being laid off. When Hannah's sister appears on their doorstep, she brings with her a renegade attitude and an illicit package that send David and Hannah on a 12-hour odyssey into the heart of their deepest fears. Will they survive? Will their relationship
From the celebrated and award winning composer, Dave Malloy comes Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electropop opera based on a scandalous slice of Leo Tolstoy's War & Peace. Young and impulsive, Natasha Rostova arrives in Moscow to await the return of her fiancé from the front lines. When she falls under the spell of the roguish Anatole, it is up to Pierre, a family friend in the middle of an existential crisis, to pick up the pieces of her shattered reputation. Following a critica
"Based on the old folk story of 'Juan Darien' by Horacio Quiroja [i.e. Quiroga], relating the morlaistic [i.e. moralistic?] value of 'a life for a life' and the transformation it makes in the life of the avenger, the animal becomes a human and then reverts back to an animal by an act of revenge"--Page 4 of cover.
Cougar The Musical unleashes three divine but disillusioned women who develop a taste for hot, young men. They let their inner cougar roar and purr, finding self-love and empowerment in the process. The sexy, ferocious cast of three fabulous-over-forty women and one multi-talented boy toy sing and dance their way through a satiating range of original songs, from grinding blues, to doo-wop, to pop to "Julio," a romantic ballad, sung to a vibrator. Hilarious, soulful and heartwarming, Co
Allen and Michelle have been living together for eighteen months. It is the first real relationship for both of them. Michelle thinks they should marry; Allen isn't sure. His hesitancy drives her home to her parents for advice. Michelle's Father isn't aware that it is Allen's mother he has been seeing for the last six months and would now like to get rid of, nor does Michelle's mother know that it is Allen's father she has just spent the night with and would like to see more of. The pieces fall
JC Lee's probing play about a suspicious teenager addresses issues of privlege, race, and trust. When a teacher makes an alarming discovery about Luce, an all-star high school student, Luce's parents are forced to reckon with their idealized image of their son, adopted years ago from a war-torn African country. Told primarily from the perspective of the adults, Luce also raises questions about the roles that parents and teachers play in the lives of these teenage students.
Hampton has a problem. He is a vampire and tired of being invisible. Against the wishes of his family, he appears on television, contracts to write a book and heads up a movement to establish vampires as a recognized minority group in America. What follows is a public that wishes to exploit him, a government that wants to suppress him and a family that wants to disown him. Lurking in the background is Lord Evido, a.k.a. Earl. He is Hampton's worst fear: an old fashioned vampire who knows the dan
A fictionalized account of two black South African actors who have traveled to America to perform but are caught up in the world's boycott of their country's apartheid system.
Sword Against the Sea is an adaptation of William Butler Yeats' six one-act plays and some of his most stirring poems about the Celtic hero Cuchulain. Arranged in the chronological order of Cuchulain's life and drawing exclusively on Yeats' own magnificent poetry, this two-act play presents the hero's failed attempt as a young man to achieve eternal life at the Hawk's Well; his tragic slaying of his own son and the realization that drives him in despair to fight the sea; his wife Emer's noble sacrifice to save his life by renouncing her love; and Cuchulain's death and spiritual transcendence as an aged warrior. Like the original Yeats' Cuchulain plays themselves, this adaptation calls for collaborations among different kinds of artists in the creation of masks, the use of dance and the possibility of including instrumental and sung music. These Cuchulain plays and poems are compressed, simplified, and reshaped for a rich, uplifting evening of theater.
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