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JOHN FREEDMAN (1954 - ) |
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Nationality: USA Email: Click here to contact Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: n/a |
Please send me a biography and information about this Playwright
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Plays by John Freedman |
Bald/Brunet | ||
| 1st Produced: | Stanislavsky Theater (in Russian) | 1991 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Harwood Academic, 1996 | ISBN/ASIN: | 3-7186-5781-3 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107735 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Daniil Gink | |||||
Synopsis: | An aging musician reluctantly is drawn into dialogue by a strange figure who may be his friend, his double, or his conscience, and a woman who may or may not want to comfort him. But the more he tries to answer the questions put to him, the less he understands the life he has lived. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Dancing, Not Dead | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107732 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Translated into Russian by Alexei Burykin. | |||||
Synopsis: | An elderly, but feisty and attractive mother returns home following the funeral of her husband with her beautiful but dependent daughter. As they engage in small-talk, the peculiar details of the women's relationship with their men begin to emerge in unexpected detail. Did the mother kill her husband? Does the daughter love her husband, or is he nothing but a hindrance to her freedom? The astonishing, and, perhaps, supernatural, appearance of the daughter's great-grandfather causes plenty of consternation, but also explains much about this unusual family of extraordinarily strong women. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Flying | ||
| 1st Produced: | Towson University (staged reading) | Nov 2008 | ||||
Company: | Towson University Department of Theatre Arts | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107733 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Olga Mukhina. This translation was developed in a workshop for the New Russian Drama: Voices in a Shifting Age project mounted by Towson University and Philip Arnoult's Center for International Theatre Development. Directed by Yury Urnov. | |||||
Synopsis: | The hip, attractive, wealthy and successful employees of a popular youth-oriented television station slip and slide through an easy, glamorous lifestyle until, unexpectedly for them, the conflicting influences of money, drugs and burgeoning spirituality began to unravel their neat lives. The catalyst in the changes that begin overtaking them is the appearance in their midst of an innocent young woman from distant Siberia, and a suspicious, but lovelorn, policeman. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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I Am the Machine Gunner | ||
| 1st Produced: | Marder Theatre, Towson University | 04 Dec 2009 | ||||
Company: | Generous Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107729 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Yury "Strike" Klavdiev. Directed by David M. White | |||||
Synopsis: | In this one-man monologue a young gang member in a tough, provincial Russian city mixes the story of his own violent life with the stories of heroism his beloved grandfather used to tell, eventually arriving at some hard conclusions about heroism, honor and violence. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Love of Karlovna, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Contemporary Play School (in Russian) | 1998 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | TheatreForum 1999 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107737 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Olga Mukhina | |||||
Synopsis: | A young woman living in a communal apartment is in despair because the love of her life has abandoned her and left the country. She is surrounded, however, by great and eccentric friends who do everything in their power to buoy her spirits. They party, engage in long late-night conversations, and generally go about living the life any young person should - loud, lively and independent. The spirit of love lost, however, is a mighty and, sometimes, terrible transforming force that cannot be denied. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Meeting About Laughter, A | ||
| 1st Produced: | Chambers Theatre Company, Australia | 2002 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "A Meeting About Laughter: Sketches, Interludes and Theatrical Parodies by Nikolai Erdman with Vladimir Mass and Others", 1995 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #12599 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Nikolai Erdman and Vladimir Mass. March - April, 2002 in seven Australian towns. Directed by Cecelia Specht and Jasper Bagg | |||||
Synopsis: | In the Soviet Union in the 1930s a meeting has been called among workers to discuss what to do about the problems of comedy: "Laughter in our day is no laughing matter!" The authorities are insistent that good comedy is necessary in the new workers' paradise, but they want to make sure that the right things and the right people are being skewered by comic writers. Homer, Shakespeare and Jewish jokes are all discussed in a free-for-all that arrives, sort of, at the conclusion that jokes about Jesus Christ and and personal telegrams are acceptable on the condition that they do not "deliver blows to the head" or "arouse instincts -" | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Nijinsky | ||
| 1st Produced: | 814 Theatrical Association (in Russian) | 1993 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Harwood Academic, 1996 | ISBN/ASIN: | 3-7186-5781-3 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107736 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Alexei Burykin | |||||
Synopsis: | Nijinsky, the great Russian ballet dancer, always ready to fly off into the land of unfettered inspiration and creativity, is confronted by an amorphous character called The Actor, who constantly seeks to pull the great dancer back into the world of reality. Their battle, which leads to the verge of a duel, just might be a dramatization of the dueling, schizophrenic personalities that the real Nijinsky revealed in his famous memoirs. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Polar Truth, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Towson University | 12 Nov 2009 | ||||
Company: | Towson University Department of Theatre | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107730 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | Up to 8 male | Female | Up to 3 female | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Yury "Strike" Klavdiev. First presented as part of the New Russian Drama: Voices in a Shifting Age project mounted by Towson University and Philip Arnoult's Center for International Theatre Development. Directed by Joseph Ritsch. | |||||
Synopsis: | Several young people who have contracted HIV come together in an abandoned building in the northern Russian city of Norilsk. Despairing and lonely, they slowly begin banding into a "new society," rejecting the prejudice, stupidity and violence of "regular" society. They must, however, defend their newfound "freedom" from those who would take it away from them. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Repress and Excite | ||
| 1st Produced: | Et Cetera Theater (in Russian) | 09 Dec 2006 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | TheatreForum (in English), 2008 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107731 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Ironic, satirical melodrama Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 10 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Maksym Kurochkin | |||||
Synopsis: | A successful and popular actor travels briefly to his hometown in a small city and is confronted by his past, his sins, his indiscretions, his doubts about his own success. When an old friend asks him to apeak at a benefit dinner for an old colleague and rival, he cannot bring himself to do it, thus setting in motion a chain of connected and unconnected events that strike him, his wife and his friends to the core. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Rothschild's Fiddle | ||
| 1st Produced: | Yale Repertory Theatre and Moscow New Generation Theater | 2004 | ||||
Company: | co-production of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the New Generation Theater of Moscow | |||||
| 1st Published: | in TheatreForum, 2004 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #12600 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Kama Ginkas after Anton Chekhov. This play was performed in New Haven in Russian, accompanied by English supertitles drawn from Freedman's complete translation | |||||
Synopsis: | Yakov Ivanov, nicknamed Bronza, is a coffin maker, but people are not dying fast enough for him to turn a profit. To make extra income, he plays the fiddle in a local Jewish band. Like many ordinary provincial people, he dislikes Jews, especially the wimpy redhead Rothschild. Once, being in a really foul mood, he even threatens to beat him up, sending Rothschild into tears of fear. Everything in Yakov's life turns up a loss. He counts the money he loses by not working on Sundays and holidays; he moans about daily expenses and forces his wife of fifty-two years to drink hot water instead of tea. When she falls ill and dies, Yakov begins to question his relationship with his place in the universe. He has an epiphany: The only way to save money is to die. Lying in a grave one doesn't have to be fed or clothed; over years of peaceful rest, it's a windfall of millions. Even though he had abused his wife and neglected his marriage, Yakov can't go on alone. Only two days after she passes way, he takes to his own deathbed. He regrets making wrong choices, being mean to his wife, forgetting that they once had a baby and that the child died. He regrets being mean to the Jew and frightening him. Overwhelmed with grief and feeling of eternal loss, he picks up the fiddle and produces the most beautiful, visceral melody, which Rothschild overhears and, despite his fear of Yakov, comes closer to enjoy. They both weep. Finally, when a priest asks Yakov to confess his sins, he whispers: "Give Rothschild the fiddle.". | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Russian National Postal Service, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2004 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #12601 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Oleg Bogaev | |||||
Synopsis: | In 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ceased to exist. For its 293 million inhabitants, life would change irrevocably. Some stood poised to benefit from this change-personally, ideologically, financially. Others, especially the elderly, struggled to come to grips with its meaning. The Russian National Postal Service presents the story of one man in the midst of these historical events: Ivan Sidorovich Zhukov. As he gets older, Ivan Sidorovich's world grows smaller and smaller. He has lost his wife and his friends. Post-Soviet inflation has devalued his pension. Even his television set has broken down. The routines and the certainties that once sustained him have now completely collapsed. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Simpleton, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Laboratory Theater (in Russian) | Nov 1994 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Harwood Academic, 2000 | ISBN/ASIN: | 90-5755-081-4 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107734 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Tragifarce Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Sergei Kokovkin | |||||
Synopsis: | In this play of mystification, an arsonist prowls through a theater grumbling about the presence of spectators. Will they stop him burning down the corrupt, inhuman theater he works in? Thus begins a violent power-play that not only draws the entire company into conflict, it also separates the rebels from the sycophants in a way that nobody could have expected. In the age-old tradition of Russian theater, this piece tackles the timeless problems of personal freedom and inner independence running up against the brick wall of civic responsibility. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Suicide, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Oregon State University | 2000 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "The Major Plays of Nikolai Erdman", 1995 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #12602 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 11 | Female | 10 | ||
Parts other: | a choir, 9 male extras, 2 female extras | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Nikolai Erdman. Meany Studio Theater at Washington State University, February, 2003. Directed by Mark Vail | |||||
Synopsis: | Semyon Podsekalnikov lies in bed with his wife Masha wondering if there is any liverwurst left over from dinner. He is hungry. But the nocturnal tete a tete between the husband and wife turns into an argument and Semyon storms out angrily. His has been jobless for as long as he can remember and he is on edge. Masha thinks he might be suicidal and goes to their neighbor Kalabushkin for help in averting disaster. Instead, disaster is what she brings down on her husband and herself. Kalabushkin decides to make some money speculating on Semyon's despair. For a fee, he tells disgruntled people that Semyon may commit suicide and that he might be convinced to leave a note publicizing their causes. Thus begins a crazy parade of supplicants - among them the intellectual Grand-Skubik, the butcher Pugachyov, the writer Viktor Viktorovich and the ladies of ill-repute Cleopatra Maximovna and Raisa Filippovna- who dearly want to use Semyon's death for their own purposes. Semyon, meanwhile, thinks he might make a nice living if he could play the tuba. But according to the tuba instruction book he buys, he first needs to buy a piano in order to learn how to play the scales. If he could afford a piano, he wouldn't need to play the tuba. It's a vicious circle he cannot escape. The heart of "The Suicide" is the way a simple man suddenly finds himself on the brink of extinction when a few unthinking words run up against a duplicitous action or two. By extension, it exposes the foul nature of those who would distort words and exploit others to achieve their selfish and dastardly ends. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Tanya-Tanya | ||
| 1st Produced: | California Institute of the Arts School of Theater | 2005 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Two Plays by Olga Mukhina", 1998 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #46491 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Olga Mukhina | |||||
Synopsis: | Vasily Okhlobystin is a hospitable man approaching that age when he suddenly realizes there is no turning back to youth. He loves Tanya, who, although angry at her husband for his not-so-innocent flirtations with a Girl also named Tanya, cannot and will not return Okhlobystin's affections. Tanya does move into Okhlobystin's house along with his other house guest, the delightfully obtuse and ferociously independent Zina, long enough to get a perspective on her husband's behavior. Zina loves Okhlobystin, who sees in her little more than an outlet for his flirtatious energy. Ivanov's jealousy of his wife leads him to ignore the Girl, who suffers her rejection so deeply she is barely able to tolerate the devotion which the Boy heaps on her. He drowns his sorrows by courting the significantly older Zina, who, out of pity and understanding, encourages him more than Okhlobystin would have her do. In the middle of this highly ironic swarm of fluctuating affections, the comic figure of the Worker-named Uncle Vanya-appears to repair the damage done to Okhlobystin's house by the jealous Ivanov. The play rings with laughter, hope and music, and it rings with the transparent but insistent warning that behind the intense joys of life something potentially dark and hollow lurks. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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YoU | ||
| 1st Produced: | Lark Theater (workshop) | 2001 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Harwood Academic, 1998 | ISBN/ASIN: | 90-5755-079-2 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #107738 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 6 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Olga Mukhina | |||||
Synopsis: | The Moscow of this play is caught in the grips of an unidentified war that no one wants to acknowledge. It doesn't matter that "heroes" are coming home from the front, and that airplanes are strafing the city - no one pays any attention. Old and young are busy falling in love, climbing the heights of bliss or falling clumsily into the despair of losing love. Who has time to think of war when life is so rich and deceitful? And who are those two strange old women who repeatedly interrupt the goings-on, spouting a mix of nonsense and wisdom? What are they trying to say? | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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