JEFF WANSHEL
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Plays by Jeff Wanshel
Auto-Destruct |
| 1st Produced: | The Magic Theater of San Francisco | 1972 | ||
| 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: | - | Comedy | Parts: | Male | 7 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Briefly described, the action of the play is "the story of a man who robbed the Bank of Mexico and married a gas station attendant." To be sure, there's a bank robbery; a double-cross; a get-away scene; and a passel of sneaky, slimy Mexican heavies who, after being shot, shortly reappear in different costumes. And the hero does marry the person who repairs his car-although with identities shifting so rapidly it's not always easy to tell who's who. But, in this wildly funny parody of the Hollywood western, it is the action that counts, and the zany, offbeat, imaginative lunacy that the author provides in nonstop profusion. | ||||
Diamond Cut Diamond |
| 1st Produced: | Cricket Theatre, Minneapolis | 1989 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Playscripts.com | 2006 | ||
| 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 | 7 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: The dazzling Riviera to fashionable Paris to the floor of the London Stock Exchange (for a crash and panic) to trial at the Old Bailey as a notorious confidence man and his charming female accomplice swindle one of the richest men in Europe and his urbane secretary | ||||
Disintegration Of James Cherry, The |
| 1st Produced: | The Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center | 1969 | ||
| 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 | 7 | Female | 5 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: After announcing at the outset that what follows is his "nightmare," young James Cherry leads us through a series of hilarious and revealing episodes from his life. Awful things keep happening to those around him, and for some reason it always seems to be James Cherry's fault. His grandparents fall down stairs to their deaths; his father is eaten by crocodiles; his sister leaps off the roof. When James goes off to the big city to pursue an acting career, his roommate is devoured by the pig he keeps as a pet; his car is eaten by a large truck; he accidentally shoots his agent during the course of an audition. And through it all James Cherry, innocent, earnest, agreeable-and perhaps doomed without knowing it-goes on trying to piece together the bizarre elements and people of his existence into something reasonable and acceptable. But as his knowledge of what he is up against grows he can only go deeper and deeper into his nightmare-and on to the disintegration that inevitably awaits. | ||||
Double, The |
| 1st Produced: | Shenandoah Playwrights Festival | 1992 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 8-9 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Adapted from the Dostoevsky novella | ||||
Synopsis: The adventures of Mr. Golyadkin (and Mr. Golyadkin), in which a meek St. Petersburg clerk meets his mirror image, who befriends, betrays, and annihilates him. Quoth Nabokov: "the best thing he ever wrote" (concerning the Russian original, mind you). | ||||
Dream Come True, A |
| 1st Produced: | unproduced | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | One Act | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: from the story by Juan Carlos Onetti | ||||
Synopsis: One-act adaptation of a surrealist fiction. A washed-up producer stages a one-night-only performance starring a burnt-out Romeo in a play without dialogue crafted by an enigmatic femme fatale | ||||
Fog And Mismanagement |
| 1st Produced: | University of Rhode Island | 1975 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 7-9 | Female | 2-3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Aboard an enormous ocean liner, a beautiful young woman is abducted by a malignant and lecherous dwarf with supernatural powers. SEE lovely young Virginia MacKintosh sexually possessed during the dance of the serpentess! SEE magical W.B. Bogus juggle two balls simultaneously! GROAN with passenger Turner Slotpole who hasn't seen his virgin bride since the monster ran off with her! | ||||
Fun In Nuclear Park |
| 1st Produced: | Serial readings at colleges in Westchester County, NY | 2003 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | Sci Fi Satire | - | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Written in a pop-cartoonish, science-fiction B-movie style, "Fun in Nuclear Park" is a comedy which follows the intrigues and exploits of detective Tick Dacy as he spars with public officials, scientists, and all manner of villains to uncover an explosive secret. The play's subtitle, "A Science-Fiction Detective-Thriller Political-Satire," hints at the play's unique structure, which blends Wanshel's considerable knowledge of the subject in an artful, humorous fusing of eclectic styles. | ||||
General Brutus |
| 1st Produced: | Williams College | 1972 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | War Play | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | 6 - infinity (all men) | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Roman legions invade China with disastrous result. Warlike Shakespeare upside down, inside out and backward. Referenced Vietnam; might apply to Iraq as well, with tweaking | ||||
Gogol's Wife |
| 1st Produced: | Music Theatre Group / Lenox Arts Center in Stockbridge | 1983 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | One Act | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: from the story by Tommaso Landolfi | ||||
Synopsis: Stage version of the underground classic tragic farce concerning the tempestuous Russian's passion for a rubber balloon. Pokes fun at biography and romantic melodrama; spoofs male fantasies of a passive, pliable, ever-willing woman. | ||||
Holeville |
| 1st Produced: | Dodgers at The Brooklyn Academy of Music | 1979 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | Rock Musical | Musical | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | 4 or 5 M. 1 W; plus musicians, if done with music | |||
Notes: songs and direction by Des McAnuff | ||||
Synopsis: Something's not-quite-right in Holeville. Is it Gus, who's new in town? Or Rich and Sal (who's not captain of the football team or president of the senior class, he's . . . "disturbed")? Will Mom and Mr. Frisks, a Doberman Pinscher, get back from the supermarket to their endangered trailer at the edge of an abyss before a deadly game of "scapegoat" reaches an inevitable climax? | ||||
Isadora Duncan Sleeps With The Russian Navy |
| 1st Produced: | 1977 | |||
| 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: | Entertainment | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | 7 or 8 M, 2 or 3 W; plus 2 kids if you've got them | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: As the play begins we are in Hollywood, where a failed author has been offered a contract to write a film on the life and loves of Isadora Duncan. Reluctant at first, he decides to go ahead with the project, and as he creates the various scenes which will in time become the movie, these are acted out by the real-life participants-including Stanislavsky, Walt Whitman, Rodin, Gordon Craig and, of course, Isadora herself. As he probes ever more deeply into the marriages, lovers, and often shocking exploits of her life, the writer comes to regard Isadora as the first modern woman: totally free and unfettered by convention. But, inevitably, the demands of Hollywood must be met, and the truth distorted by the realities of the box office. The result is a pitched battle between the now dedicated author and the crass producer-a battle which yields scenes of colorful action and wild hilarity, but which, in the final essence, serves to enhance the timeless image of this uninhibited, deeply creative, and undeniably great artist. | ||||
Metamorphosis In Miniature, A |
| 1st Produced: | Music Theatre Group / Lenox Arts Center, NYC | 1981 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: music by Noa Ain. | ||||
Synopsis: Full-length (but brief) adaptation of the Kafka story fashioned for director/choreographer Martha Clarke | ||||
Modern Entrepreneur |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | One Act | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: A parking valet in Los Angeles borrows money from a drug dealer to start a car wash | ||||
Night Catching Up |
| 1st Produced: | reading at Sundance Theater Lab | 1996 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: When a lucid dreaming experiment goes awry, a man cast adrift in a phantasmagoric world of violent sexual jealousy struggles to fight his way back to the "real". Structurally innovative, the action branches off from core ("root") scenes in corkscrewing variations | ||||
Ophelia |
| 1st Produced: | The National Theater of the Deaf | 1992 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Playscripts.com | 2006 | ||
| 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: | - | Show | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | 7 M, 2 or 3 W | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Hamlette - an adaptation of "Hamlet" in which the prince yields center stage to the maide (whose part is greatlie more prominent). | ||||
Rhesus Umbrella, The |
| 1st Produced: | Yale Rep Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut | 1970 | ||
| 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: | Comedy | One Act | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: The setting is a laboratory, where scientists are probing into the nature of love by experimenting with giant Rhesus monkeys. The son of one of the scientists is in love with the daughter of another-but she is committed to her father's research. The solution: The son dresses in a monkey suit; thereby fooling the nearsighted scientists; winning the fair maiden; and bearing out the theory that while love between Rhesus monkeys is an impossibility, love between a monkey and a human being may well be the wave of the future | ||||
Robot Hotel |
| 1st Produced: | read at The Yale Drama Alumni Project in Los Angeles | 1996 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | One Act | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Joey Tobacco (from "Target: Jersey"), in Singapore with moll Flo, runs into a robot revolt. An ultra-debased "Honeymooners" set in an ultramodern state just like everywhere else but more so. | ||||
Slice Of Pie, A |
| 1st Produced: | 1988 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | 13 or 14 M, 1 W | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: With his pull at the polls and the coppers in his pocket, "sunny psychopath" Dion O'Banion's Irish Northside gang plucked Chicago's ripe plums. Then a certain Mr. Torrio and Mr. Capone drew them into an uneasy coalition. A comedy turns bloodbath, as American stories will. | ||||
Suspended |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | One Act | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: When three tourists meet in the shadow of the pinnacle monasteries at Meteora, Greece, all is not as it seems. Men vs. women; America vs. Europe; marriage vs. sex slavery | ||||
Target: Jersey |
| 1st Produced: | Read at The Magic Theater of San Francisco | 1991 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | One Act | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: When a flying saucer moors off the Jersey coast and abducts two mobsters cruising the turnpike for a handsome spot to dump toxic waste, earth's fate hangs on the pride of Prosaic: men whose intelligence doesn't budge the needle on an alien scale | ||||
Times and Appetites of Toulouse-Lautrec |
| 1st Produced: | 1985 | |||
| 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 with songs | Musical | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 5 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Lyrics by Michael Feingold | ||||
Synopsis: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, in rebellion against the constraints of his breeding and background, heads for Paris and, to the dismay of family and friends, takes up residence in a bordello. In art school his radical ideas bring him into conflict with his conservative teachers. Lautrec's natural milieu is more the bistros and fleshpots of Montmartre than the staid ateliers of the Academy, and as his life becomes drunken and dissolute his art flourishes, producing the posters and paintings which now symbolize Paris of the "belle epoque". As it bleeds in and out, we come to realize that one "reality" underlying the play is an asylum for alcoholics where Lautrec is confined. Will they keep him there forever ("like in a bank vault", as he says) or can he draw his way out? Punctuating the action are authentic songs of the period written by Aristide Bruant and others (with updated English lyrics) and sung and danced (with piano and accordion accompaniment) by such famed entertainers of the time as Jane Avril, Yvette Guilbert, and La Goulue | ||||
Trifling Divide, A ("Show Of Kindness") |
| 1st Produced: | Read at Shenandoah | 1995 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | 6 or 7 M, 2 or 3 W | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: When a can-do American salesman turns up in the court of "the Scourge of the Desert" and tries to interest him in a bridge between neighboring countries separated less by a picayune river than centuries of bad blood, the Khazami sheik mistakes him for a gun-seller hawking an intriguing new weapon (the Gatling Gun) and showers him with gifts. Then the real gun-seller shows up. This politically incorrect comedy puts a spotlight on man's capacity for self-deception in pursuit of self-interest | ||||
Wild Goose, The |
| 1st Produced: | The Magic Theatre of San Francisco | 1977 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | - | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: After searching twenty years, Joseph Cleary finds the fabled bird, has it stuffed, and returns triumphantly to America, where, as spiritual advisor to millions, he flies, dies, and reincarnates live on television | ||||