LEE BLESSING   (1949 - )


Lee Blessing
   Nationality:
USA
   Literary Agent: *:
   Email:
n/a
   Website:
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Plays by Lee Blessing

LEE BLESSING
Authentic Life Of Billy The Kid, The
1st Produced:
Washington D.C.
1979
Company:
-
1st Published:
Samuel French, NY
1980
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
4
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Pat Garrett lives alone but is visited by man who claims he is the real Billy the Kid, not the one Garrett shot
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LEE BLESSING
Black Sheep
1st Produced:
2001
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
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Genre:
Comedy/Drama
Comedy
Parts:
Male
3
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: A prominent family's "black sheep" nephew, the son of an interracial marriage, comes to stay with them after being released from prison. But do they want him? And what does he want from them? In this dark comedy issues of race, sex and family values play out with wildly comic and disturbing results
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LEE BLESSING
Body Of Water, A
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
2007
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
1
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Two people wake up together every morning - but do not know who or where they are
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LEE BLESSING
Chesapeak
1st Produced:
New York
1999
Company:
-
1st Published:
Broadway Play Publishing
-
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Genre:
-
Adaptation
Parts:
Male
1
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Kerr is a gay performance artist and is very upset when bible-bashing Senator Therm Pooley has his Arts Funding withdrawn. Kerr plans his revenge - he decides to kidnap the Senator's dog - but things go wrong and both Kerr and the dog are killed. When he recovers consciousness - Kerr realises that he has been reincarnated - but as a dog. Senator Pooley buys the dog. Kerr realises that he will only have his human memories for a short while before becoming completely dog. So he tries to influence the Senator which he does by typing messages on the computer.
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LEE BLESSING
Christmas Carol Jerry Patch, A
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: -
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LEE BLESSING
Cobb
1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut
1989
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
1991
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
4
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: The character of controversial baseball legend Ty Cobb is split into three differently aged versions of himself: The Peach, aged nineteen, at the beginning of his long career with the Detroit Tigers; Ty, in his early forties, at the end of his playing days; and Mr Cobb, in his early seventies, at the point of death from cancer. The play floats freely in time, moving back and forth among the Cobbs as they contend with each other, and the audience, over whom Ty Cobb really was and what he represented. Invading this self-imposed "argument in limbo" is Oscar Charleston, a black player of Cobb's time who, though relegated to the Negro Leagues, was dubbed the "Black Cobb" by the white press. Ty tries to avoid Charleston just as he always avoided playing exhibition games against him or any other black players. As Cobb fights both popular opinion, and himself, to justify his life, Charleston provides a deeper challenge to his self-esteem. Ultimately we come to know Cobb in his full complexity-as a sports hero of the
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LEE BLESSING
Cobb - Mr. Cobb
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
in Baseball Monologues, Heineman Educational (ed Lavonne Mueller)
1997
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Genre:
monologue
One Act
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: -
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LEE BLESSING
Cobb - Oscar Charleston
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
in Baseball Monologues, Heineman Educational (ed Lavonne Mueller)
1997
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
monologue
One Act
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: -
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LEE BLESSING
Down The Road
1st Produced:
La Jolla, California
1989
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: centers on a convicted serial killer and the husband and wife writing team hired to help him write an account of his crimes. The killer, Bill Reach, has admitted to the murders of nineteen women, but there may have been more. Over many weeks of interviews, the couple-Dan and Iris Henniman-grow more and more uncertain of the ethics of what they are doing. Are they simply relating terrifying events, or are they helping readers consume rape, murder and mutilation as if they are consuming any other product of our society? Are they, in fact, helping to turn Bill Reach into a celebrity?
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LEE BLESSING
Eleemosynary
1st Produced:
St Paul, Minnesota
1985
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
1987
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
3
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Staged with utmost simplicity, using platforms and a few props, the play probes into the delicate relationship of three singular women: the grandmother, Dorothea, who has sought to assert her independence through strong-willed eccentricity; her brilliant daughter, Artie (Artemis), who has fled the stifling domination of her mother; and Artie's daughter, Echo, a child of exceptional intellect-and sensitivity-whom Artie has abandoned to an upbringing by Dorothea. As the play begins, Dorothea has suffered a stroke, and while Echo has reestablished contact with her mother, it is only through extended telephone conversations, during which real issues are skirted and their talk is mostly about the precocious Echo's single-minded domination of a national spelling contest. But, in the end, after Dorothea's death, both Artie and Echo come to accept their mutual need and summon the courage to try, at last, to build a life together-despite the risks and terrors that this holds for both of them after so many years of ali
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LEE BLESSING
Flag Day
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
2007
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
5
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: A play in two plays, FLAG DAY examines white/black relations in our society with an unblinking eye. The first play, GOOD, CLEAN FUN, is a darkly funny office comedy pitting two workersone black, one whiteagainst each other as they try to complete a high-pressure project. The office racism intensifies as we learn that one of them has stolen the others wife. (2 men.) The second, DOWN AND DIRTY, evokes recent white-on-black and black-on-white killings in the American South. In a style poised carefully on the edge of absurdism, we discover a man dying in a cars windshield as people argue over whether or not to save him. (3 men, 1 woman.)
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LEE BLESSING
Fortinbras
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Comedy
Parts:
Male
10
Female
4
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: depending upon whom you marry, you become slightly different. AA
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LEE BLESSING
Going To St. Ives
1st Produced:
1996
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: May N'Kame, the mother of an African dictator, travels to England to see Dr. Cora Gage about medical treatment for her failing eyesight. Dr. Gage uses the consultation as an opportunity to raise the issue of the imprisonment of some of her colleagues. Meanwhile, May N'Kame's true motive in visiting the doctor is to obtain a poison with which to kill her murderous son. GOING TO ST. IVES is the story of two impressive women brought together by that which is personal and divided by that which is political as both seek to accomplish the greatest good.
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LEE BLESSING
Heaven's My Destination
1st Produced:
2008
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: adapted from the Thornton Wilder novel
Synopsis: -
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LEE BLESSING
Independence
1st Produced:
1983-84
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
1985
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
4
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: The setting is the small town of Independence, Iowa, the lifelong home of Evelyn Briggs. Her oldest daughter, Kess, is a university professor in Minneapolis, but she has come home at the request of her sister, Jo who is concerned for Evelyn's mental health. Kess, a professed lesbian, wants to cut her family ties once and for all; Jo, an incurable romantic and longtime virgin, has now become pregnant; while Sherry, salty-tongued and amoral, wants only to finish high school so she can leave home for good. In the end, there is no accommodation possible but, instead, only a kind of arbitrary independence for each of the protagonists, as they come to realize that each must find her own heaven-or hell-in her own way.
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LEE BLESSING
Lake Street Extension
1st Produced:
Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati Ohio
1992
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
3
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Trace 19, the estranged son of Fuller returns home and finds that in his absence his father has given his room to a young refugee from El Salvador, Gregorio. Trace has been surviving on the streets as a rent boy and is very suspicious of the new comer he does not believe that he is a genuine refugee and he is sure that his father must be having a sexual relationship with Gregorio because it was due to his father's sexual abuse of Trace that he left home. Trace's bitterest memories of when he was at home with his father was of the time his father "hired" him out to another paedophile as payment for a debt that was owed. He obsesively tries to find this man only having a vague memory of his name and telephoning anyone in the telephone book that has that name or a similar one. When he finally tacks the man down he gets severely beaten. Trace was right about Gregorio he is not an innocent political refugee - he took part in a massacre of opponents and is on the run from them. Trace and Gregorio decide that they have had enough of Fuller and leave taking his car. They are stopped by police - Gregorio is sent back to El Salvador where his body is found later with a bullet in the back of his head. Trace disappears and ten years later Fuller is still trying to find him.
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LEE BLESSING
Lonesome Hollow
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Lonesome Hollow is a penal facility for sexual offenders. Nye is a serial rapist but Tuck is a photographer whose photos have been obscene.
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LEE BLESSING
Nice People Dancing To Good Country Music
1st Produced:
1982
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
1983
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Comedy
Parts:
Male
2
Female
2
Parts Other:
1 boy (around 15
Notes: (Formerly existed as two one-act plays under the titles, Toys For Men and Nice People Dancing To Good Country Music.)
Synopsis: Eve Wilfong, who lives over the "Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music Bar," is paid a visit by her niece Catherine Empanger, a novice nun who's been asked to leave her convent. It seems Catherine suffers from a curious compulsion to yell obscenities at the wrong moment, and even, on occasion, bark like a dog. Roy, an honest if simple fellow from the bar downstairs, wants to court Catherine whether she's a nun or not. Eve feels she should give her niece the benefit of her experiences with men before allowing her to venture back into the mad modern country world. What follows is not simply comic and well-observed, but romantic and affecting as well.
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LEE BLESSING
Old-Timers Game
1st Produced:
1981-82
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
1988
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Comedy
Parts:
Male
9
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: The place is the locker room of the Northshore (Minnesota) Otters, a Triple-A baseball club struggling through a lackluster season. It's the day of the annual Oldtimers Game, and several former Otters are on hand, including "Old John" Law, a Hall of Famer; Dave Pearl, now a star center fielder in the big leagues; Jim Nealy, a once promising player who retired early because of injury; and Crab Detlefson, whom the others have difficulty recalling, despite his tales of daring-do on the field. The present-day Otters are represented by Sut Davis, a talented (but impatient) young hitter who wants desperately to move up to the majors; the catcher, Harry Nix, whose sharp tongue (and fondness for booze) have hindered his career; the agile shortstop, Jesus Luna, who is resigned to being marooned in the minor leagues; and their long-suffering manager, Cal Timmer, a seasoned veteran who, despite all, still believes that the Otters are destined for greatness. And, finally, there is the rookie owner, Mr. Thompson, an aggre
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LEE BLESSING
Patient, A
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Commissioned by the Bergalis family to explore Kimberly's case of contracting the AIDS virus, the playwright becomes part of the story as an essential observer to the story. Kim's encounters with Lee reflect their relationship in real life as well as the "playwright" and "character" in the play. A third character, Matthew, represents a composite of the thousands of gay men who have suffered in the AIDS epidemic. As the play recounts Kim's case, spotlighting the media and political circuses surrounding it, we see all three characters struggle with the debate and with their innermost feelings about themselves and each other.
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LEE BLESSING
Real Billy The Kid, The
1st Produced:
-
1975/76
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: "In late 1975 or early 1976 I played Pat Garret in Lee Blessing's play "The Real Billy The Kid", which later became "The Authentic Life Of Billy The Kid". At the time, Lee was a student at the University of Iowa. (I believe he was in a masters degree program.) "< /br>"Richard Wilson"
Synopsis: -
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LEE BLESSING
Riches
1st Produced:
1984-85
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, Inc. and by Methuen in Lee Blessing Four Plays.
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
Comedy/Drama
Comedy
Parts:
Male
1
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: aka War of the Roses
Synopsis: David and Carolyn Rose would seem to "have it all"-a generous income, two expensive cars, a son in a good college, and twenty-one years of wedded bliss. Now, on their anniversary, they have returned, with another couple, to the hotel in Red Wing, Minnesota, where they spent their honeymoon. The other couple wants the Roses to join them in the bar for a pre-dinner drink, but David, more in love than ever, has other ideas-and it is his amorous persistence which moves the play quickly to its crisis point. To his shock and amazement, Carolyn not only turns aside his overtures, but calmly announces that she wants a divorce. Stunned, and then angry, David demands reasons, but Carolyn can give none more cogent than that she doesn't like the shape of his nose (and never has) and that he seems to her to have "shrunk." No other man, no better life that she covets-just the awareness that their relationship has quietly but finally become arid and empty. Unable to comprehend or accept Carolyn's infuriating calmness in the
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LEE BLESSING
Roads That Lead Here, The
1st Produced:
2002
Company:
-
1st Published:
in Humana Festival 2003: The Complete Plays, Edited by Tanya Palmer and Amy Wegener, Smith and Kraus
2003
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
Comedy
Parts:
Male
3
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: Running time: 10-15
Synopsis: Three brothers reunite annually to share their contributions to "the project," a nationwide road trip to collect pictures, sounds, and objects from a vanishing America -- but this year their sponsor, "the Eminent," has other plans in store. . .
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LEE BLESSING
Snapshot
1st Produced:
2002
Company:
-
1st Published:
Humana Festival 2002: The Complete Plays, ed Tanya Palmer & Amy Wegener, Smith & Kraus
2002
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
Drama/Comedy
-
Parts:
Male
11
Female
11
Parts Other:
-
Notes: by Tanya Barfield, Lee Blessing, Michael Bigelow Dixon, Julie Jensen, Honour Kane, Sunil Kuruvilla, David Lindsay-Abaire, Victor Lodato, Quincy Long, Deb Margolin, Allison Moore, Lynn Nottage, Dan O'Brien, Val Smith, Annie Weisman, Craig Wright and Chay Y
Synopsis: A photograph captures and documents a single moment in time and space -- a snapshot of history, of a reality bounded by the photo's frame. But what lies outside, beyond, behind the photograph? And what stories, memories, or associations does an image of place inspire? In this multi-writer project from Actors Theatre of Louisville, a diverse assortment of talented playwrights encounter and transform Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, 1969, a compelling image of the monument by renowned photographer Lee Friedlander. Their thought-provoking scenes and monologues range from delightful comedy to utterly serious tragedy, each approaching the photo's themes through a new lens.
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LEE BLESSING
Thermopolis
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
One act
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: A girl is kidnapped by her step-father
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LEE BLESSING
Thief River
1st Produced:
2000
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
6
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: the story of two men and their fifty-three-year relationship. Ray marries and remains closeted in the small town where they grew up. Gil moves to the city to seek his freedom. Throughout their lives they struggle with their feelings for each other in a society that doesn't know how to make room for them, while their bond-shaped by a dark and violent event in their youth-forever draws them together.
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LEE BLESSING
Two Rooms
1st Produced:
La Jolla, California
1988
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
1990
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: The two rooms of the title are a windowless cubicle in Beirut where an American hostage is being held by Arab terrorists and a room in his home in the United States which his wife has stripped of furniture so that, at least symbolically, she can share his ordeal. In fact the same room serves for both and is also the locale for imaginary conversations between the hostage and his wife, plus the setting for the real talks which she has with a reporter and a State Department official. The former, an overly ambitious sort who hopes to develop the situation into a major personal accomplishment, tries to prod the wife into taking umbrage at what he labels government ineptitude and inaction, while the State Department representative is coolly efficient, and even dispassionate, in her attempt to treat the matter with professional detachment. It is her job to try to make the wife aware of the larger equation of which the taking of a hostage is only one element, but as the months inch by it becomes increasingly difficul
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LEE BLESSING
Tyler Poked Taylor
1st Produced:
2002
Company:
-
1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc
2003
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
Comedy
Parts:
Male
1
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: Running time: 3-7
Synopsis: In his annual ritual at the foot of Mt. Rushmore, an 18-year-old reveals his erotic presidential fantasies.
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LEE BLESSING
Walk In The Woods, A
1st Produce