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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 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 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.


The Last Sunday in June & other playsThe 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 JuneThe 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.


Black Drama in America: An AnthologyBlack 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?Is He Dead? A Comedy in Three Acts
Mark Twain
Hardcover, 233 pp. $37.95.

 

 


And Baby Makes SevenAnd 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 ProfessionThe 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 HomeThe 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.


Humana Festival 2002Humana Festival 2002
The Complete Plays
Tanya Palmer and Amy Wegener
Softcover, 397 pp. $29.95.




PrivilegePrivilege

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.


Crowtet 2Crowtet 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.


Six YearsSix 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.


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.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.


Thorton WilderThe 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 TownOur Town
Thornton Wilder
Softcover, 181 pp. $14.95.


 

The Skin of Our TeethThe Skin of Our Teeth
Thornton Wilder
Softcover, 160 pp. $16.95.

 

 

The Travelling Companion and Other PlaysThe 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 StandA 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 SunCandles 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 RoofCat 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 PlaysMister 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 NightingalesNot 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 StormSpring 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 RoofStairs 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.

 

 

Radio GolfRadio 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 IIKing 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 DanceRain 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 StoryThe 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 LessonA 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
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 PavilionThe 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 GardensGrey 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 PlaysThe 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.


The Arabian NightsThe 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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Last modified July 15, 2003 .
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