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MICHAEL BLACK (1962 - ) |
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Nationality: British Email: Click here to contact Website: Click here to visit |
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Literary Agent: n/a |
Michael Black was born in Liverpool. He attended Wilmslow High School, before studying English and History at York University. He then completed a doctorate in South African literature at Cambridge University. He has worked as a website designer and journalist as well as as a playwright. Scripts are available for download from his website.
Plays by Michael Black
Amber Room, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1998 | |||||
Company: | Hostage Productions | |||||
| 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 | #3429 | |||
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: | Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Insane people of all nationalities converge on Kaliningrad in search of the long lost Amber Room, a treasure Peter the Great once received from a German king. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Life To Come, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1984 | |||||
Company: | Cambridge Rainmakers Theatre Co | |||||
| 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 | #63325 | |||
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 | 3 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | "MICHAEL BLACK, who wrote this lively play about a fast and loose young Englishman's attempt to sort the world, the flesh and the devil, is unquestionably a name to watch. With a sure hand he explores what makes a rotter, giving us in the process both crackling philosophical dialogue and contemporary social comment. James, his hero, gets drunk and seduces a female pal, Anna. James feels morally bound to stay with Beth, his girlfriend, but continues anyway a secret affair with Anna. Beth discovers herself pregnant and life for James becomes a series of wrong turnings. All the characters are vividly and poignantly believable as portrayed by a talented cast. The action ends, wittily, a mile in the air when Beth, having been through a harrowing abortion, calls unexpectedly at James's flat and finds Anna. The curtain falls and the audience is denied all sight of the life to come. . . Bonnie Lee, The Scotsman." | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Madame Viardot | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1984 | |||||
Company: | Cambridge Rainmakers Theatre Co | |||||
| 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 | #63326 | |||
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: | Melodrama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 5 | ||
Parts other: | Various other minor roles | |||||
Notes: | Written with the aid of an Arts Council Options award. A reading of this play took place at the Genesius Guild, New York, in 2004 | |||||
Synopsis: | "We are given the story of Ivan Turgenev's 30-year relationship with his mistress Pauline Viardot, the French opera star of the 1840s, who met Turgenev on a tour of Russia and was the inspiration for his epoch making work A Month In The Country. Historically, Mr. Black's saga is accurate and interesting. . . and . . . when Mr. Black is good he is very good; his narrator's patter is catchy, and the longer scenes, unfolding for us some of Turgenev's deeper friendships, have a warmth and whimsy tentatively realised by Chris Lailey. Bonnie Lee, The Scotsman" . . . the story of the rather egocentric opera singer Pauline Viardot and her enigmatic relationship with two men, her husband Louis and the Russian novelist Turgenev. Michael Black's lively and powerful play explores this triangular relationship of love and deception: Viardot puts her career above all else, and consequently her marriage suffers; Turgenev's writing career is threatened by his deep, yet unobtainable love for Viardot. The play moves swiftly. . . while the passage of time is explained by a critic/commentator at the beginning of each act. The cast work extremely well together and there is little to criticise in this very enjoyable production. I.M., Festival Times | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Minotaur, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Carr's Pub and Restaurant, 1st Arrondissement, Paris | Apr 2009 | ||||
Company: | Moving Parts (www.movingparts.org.uk) | |||||
| 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 | #68604 | |||
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 | 3 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | This is Michael Black's most recent play, finished April 2007 | |||||
Synopsis: | The play is set in Paris in 1945 immediately after the liberation of the city from the Nazis and concerns the relationships between Pablo Picasso and his three mistresses. Picasso had lived in Paris throughout WWII. One, Dora Maar, has a mental breakdown and is given ECT. One, Marie-Therese Walter has a child by him and wants money from him, and the youngest one, Francoise Gilot, wants to be the only one. Meanwhile a homosexual American GI trades in Picasso's paintings and the meanings of modern art are discussed aplenty, whilst the attraction of Picasso's personal charisma is thoroughly examined. The American GI also challenges Picasso's political views, Picasso being a Communist at the time. The ethics of psychiatry are also examined, Dora Maar's psychiatrist being the well known Jacques Lacan. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Panharmonicon | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2002 | |||||
Company: | Nottingham Playhouse | |||||
| 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 | #63327 | |||
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: | Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 10 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | This was a reading only. Written with the aid of an Arts Council bursary. | |||||
Synopsis: | A European comedy about Beethoven disguising his increasing deafness, the reaction of the Austrian court to the Napoleonic wars, economic crisis and the invention by one Maelzel of a mechanical orchestra . The Austrian Emperor sacks the Court orchestra as a consequence, and all hell breaks loose. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Propaganda Fide (Pure Walking Evil) | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1989 | |||||
Company: | Hostage Productions | |||||
| 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 | #3430 | |||
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: | Chamber epic Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | A play about the extremities of faith, politics and religion during the rise and fall of Nazism. The Nazi Minister for Propaganda Dr. Josef Goebbels, rises to power and becomes obsessed by the opposition of the Lutheran priest Pastor Martin Niemoller to his rule. Dismayed by this and the general extremities of the Second World War, the wife of Dr. Goebbels, Magda, opposes her husband as best she can (whilst lacking true facts), and falls in love with a junior German officer who has been spying on Pastor Niemoller all along. The play finally depicts the climax of differing faiths that belong to the perverted Dr. Goebbels and the stalwart Pastor Niemoller. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Wedding, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Questor's Theatre, Ealing, London | 2002 | ||||
Company: | Questor's 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 | #63328 | |||
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: | Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Written with the aid of an Arts Council bursary, 1997. | |||||
Synopsis: | A comedy of manners and family relationships, burglaries, and mental health. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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