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Bruce Jay Friedman

BRUCE JAY FRIEDMAN  (1930 - )

 Nationality:    USA
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    Aspland Management  


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below is a list of Bruce Jay Friedman's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

 23 Pat O'Brien Movies         Car Lovers, The         Farewell To Tanya, A         First Offenders         Foot In The Door, A         Have You Spoken To Any Jews Lately         Mother's Kisses, A         New Bit, The         Sardines         Scuba Duba         Steambath         Trial, The

23 Pat O'Brien Movies

Synopsis:
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Notes:
adaptation of own story

1st Produced:
Place Theater, NYC    1966

Company:
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1st Published:
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Music:
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Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Car Lovers, The

Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
NYC    -

Company:
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1st Published:
Esquire, 1968   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Farewell To Tanya, A

Synopsis:
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1st Produced:
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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 One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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First Offenders

Synopsis:
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Notes:
written with Jaques Levy. Aka Turtlenecks

1st Produced:
New York    1973

Company:
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1st Published:
-   -

Music:
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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:
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Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

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Foot In The Door, A

Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:

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1st Published:
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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Have You Spoken To Any Jews Lately

Synopsis:
concerns the situation of two friends who are living in a deserted summer community(during winter) and discover that they are the only two Jews left alive in the world.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
The American Jewish Theatre in Manhattan    1995

Company:
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1st Published:
-   -

Music:
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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  2 - 3 actors

Further Reference:
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Mother's Kisses, A

Bruce Jay Friedman
Joseph is 17 tall and gangly. His Mother wants to be there for him all the time - even going to college with him

Notes:
Music And lyrics by Richard Adler; book by Bruce Jay Friedman. Based on the novel "a Mother's Kisses" by Bruce Jay Friedman

1st Produced:
Shubert Theatre, New Haven    23 Sep 1968

Company:
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1st Published:
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Music:
Original cast recording: demo only 1968

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Genre:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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New Bit, The

Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
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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 One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Sardines

Synopsis:
a love story aboard the Spanish armada with a Captain who has never been to sea; the ten-year-old bride he left behind; a ravishing mistress who steals aboard to chronicle his adventures; Queen Elizabeth, Sir Francis Drake, and a whole cast of outrageous characters

Notes:
starring Peter Boyle; Another production Neighborhood Playhouse, N.Y2006

1st Produced:
East Hampton, NY    1994

Company:
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1st Published:
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Music:
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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:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Scuba Duba

Synopsis:
In Richard Watts Jr.'s words: ". . .concerns the misadventures of an American in the South of France. His wife has just gone off with a black skin-diver, and he is trying to be very fair and non-racial about it, although with indifferent results. His next-door neighbor is a bikini-clad American girl, who drops in chiefly to tell him pointless stories. She is also willing to comfort him, but his main interest is dramatizing himself as interchangeably forgiving and vengeful. The other visitors include a thief and a policeman who, being French, patriotically takes the French thief's side against him. The fatuous psychiatrist shows up, as does an impossible American who thinks he understands other races. The wife and her two black friends arrive, one the skin-diver who puts on a bogusly genial kind of minstrel act, the other a romantic type who makes love poetically. They are a well-assorted and, on the whole, an amusing set of people." and, in fact, perhaps the most singular, hilarious and ingratiating group of characters to be encountered on the American stage since You Can't Take It with You made history of a similar kind in its own time.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Off Broadway, New York    1967

Company:
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1st Published:
Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968   -

Music:
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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:
Tense Comedy

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Steambath

Bruce Jay Friedman
Life is a steambath and we're all just waiting for our turn in the stalls. From the author of Scuba Duba. The men's area in a steambath is a microcosm into which a girl walks, takes a public shower and then retires leaving the stage to two homosexuals who do a song and dance in lip sinc. after this prelude, a Puerto Rican gives orders to a scanning TV monitor which result in two car crashes, an act of incest and a theft in a bus terminal. Some of the wishes he projects are vindictive: giving one area more unwanted rain or throwing a dart into someone's eye. Some are erotic. a new arrival does not believe that this person has so much power. He himself is a trickster hung up on whiskey sours. There is a scene of transfiguration with beautiful lighting and music to make the audience wonder whether or not this is God.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Off Broadway, New York    1970

Company:
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1st Published:
Knopf, New York, 1971   978-0394469041

Music:
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To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Satirical comedy Satire. - - Gay, theme/character full length

Parts:
Male:  12            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Trial, The

Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
-    -

Company:
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1st Published:
-   -

Music:
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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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Apart from very popular and world touring productions, many performing arts events are largely forgotten about in a matter of months. Traces may remain in various collections, but few collecting agencies, such as libraries, catalogue each flyer or program individually. Hence, unless one knows that an event took place at a certain time in a certain place, tracking down such an event as part of a research project is often a matter of chance. Where research needs to be carried out on high profile and well-documented productions only, this is not a problem. However, both the historian and the analyst will attest that the cultural, political, or sociological context in which a performing arts event takes place is also of major importance, as are the other events that took place in close proximity, either in place or time. A good overview of such productions provides us with a 'social document' that can greatly enhance cultural studies in ways that extend far beyond the narrow confines of theatre history. For instance, data such as this can be used to monitor the health of communities, particularly when used in association with data obtained from other social science disciplines. When one researches a particular playwright one might want to know about all the productions of plays by that author; if one wants to investigate what choices a particular audience had over a period of history and compare this to, say, an ethnic breakdown of the population, one would need to know broadly all the events that took place during that time. If one wanted to do a statistical analysis on the shift in popularity of a genre over one or more generations, it is important to have knowledge of most of the relevant major and minor performance events that took place. In this context, issues of aesthetic quality and the professionalism of a production - which will of course have an impact on such studies - are not the determining factors when deciding to include or exclude events, since all events are the raw material for such research.