DOUGLAS TURNER WARD   (1930 - )


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   Nationality:
African-American
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n/a
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Plays by Douglas Turner Ward

DOUGLAS TURNER WARD
Brotherhood
1st Produced:
NEC, New York
1970
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1970
ISBN/ASIN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Satire/Comedy
One Act
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
1 BM, 1 BF, 1 WM, 1 WF
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
A liberal white couple, entertain a sophisticated black couple in their rather strange, sheet-shrouded living room. The whites, filled with hypocrisy, and the blacks, concealing their contempt, put on a show of super-cordiality and friendship. But the false brightness soon palls, and the host and hostess become rattled at the simplest request from their guests. Then the black couple leave and the white couple gleefully tear away the sheets-revealing a horrendous array of plaster "pickaninnies" and other racist artifacts, while "Old Black Joe" blasts forth on the hi-fi
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DOUGLAS TURNER WARD
Day Of Absence
1st Produced:
St Mark's Playhouse, New York
1965
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1966
ISBN/ASIN
-
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:
Satirical Fantasy
One Act
Parts:
Male
8
Female
6
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
Oh no you rotters
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DOUGLAS TURNER WARD
Happy Ending
1st Produced:
St Mark's Playhouse, New York
1965
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1966
ISBN/ASIN
-
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
2
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
The story of two sisters, Ellie and Vi, who work as maid and laundress for the wealthy Harrisons. As the play begins they are sitting at the kitchen table in a tenement apartment in Harlem, lamenting the end of their good times. Mr. Harrison has discovered his wife in an act of infidelity. The sisters fear that if the marriage breaks up they will be both out of a job. Their nephew, Junie, chides them for their slavish sentiments at a time when blacks are on the march toward liberation. But Ellie explains the facts of life to him: how she feeds and dresses her relatives and furnishes their homes at the Harrison's expense. "I know the pay is bad," she declares, "but I'd be losing money on any other job." But when things look grimmest, the telephone rings with the message that the Harrisons have made up and need their maid at once as a sitter.
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DOUGLAS TURNER WARD
Reckoning, The
1st Produced:
New York
1969
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1970
ISBN/ASIN
-
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
5
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
concerns the bigoted governor of a Deep South state, who is blackmailed by his beautiful black mistress, and her procurer, into turning over all the money which graft has put in his strongbox-and also into persuading his constituents, assembled outside the statehouse, to allow a young black militant and his followers to enter the capital city unmolested. Essentially a contest of wits between the foxy governor and the even foxier pimp, the play is given contrast and dimension by the accompanying actions of the governor's boneheaded son, the prostitute, and the governor's black maid and chauffeur-who seem at first to be pure "Uncle Toms." Two long soliloquies highlight the play. In the first the pimp, facing the audience, unburdens his soul with harsh, powerful words of bitterness and loathing. In the second the governor rants of white sexual fantasies about blacks, and, perhaps unknowingly, embodies the hatred and fear which racism ignites. But when at last the girl and the pimp turn their full fury on the gov
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DOUGLAS TURNER WARD
Redeemer
1st Produced:
1979
Company:
-
1st Published:
Contact The Negro Ensemble Company, 133 Second Ave., New York, NY 10003,
ISBN/ASIN
-
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
3
Female
3
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
in Holidays and in About Heaven and Earth
Synopsis:
A diverse group of people gather for the "second coming."
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