n/a

Lincoln Center Theater, NY, USA >>>

1999

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Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NY

-

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Comedy

3

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: If the family is the key theme of American drama, A R Gurney's ANCESTRAL VOICES: A FAMILY STORY is a beautiful chamber work in that great tradition. The short play is staged as a concert work, with five performers sitting on chairs in front of music stands, where they've laid their scripts. The five are playing membersgrandfather, grandmother, father, mother, sonof a rich WASP family in Buffalo NY between 1935 and 1942, with a brief coda from the 1960s. The son, Eddie, who goes from age eight to twelve, is our narrator, guide and point of view. . .. This lovely play unites the microcosm of family to the macrocosm of America at war. On Eddie's first date he brings his girl a paper `war-sage'. It's also about something in betweena city. It's an elegy for Buffalo, a once-glorious place whose fortunes are declining. The texture of life in Buffalo is heartbreakingly evoked in ways reminiscent of The Magnificent Ambersons. . .. This is a magical play, not a mere exercise in uncritical nostalgia, but a nuanced reminiscence full of time and change and loss and suffering--as well as joy.
- Donald Lyons, New York Post

San Diego

1986

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

1988

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Play/Drama

2

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: After many years of teaching the classics at a New England university, Henry Harper is not surprised by much - and particularly not by precocious students who want to re-write his beloved Greek masterpieces to reflect current socio-political concerns. So when a gifted young Jewish student, Judy Miller, announces that she intends to submit an updated, anti-nuclear version of ANTIGONE in place of the formal paper which he has assigned to her, Henry is adamant in his refusal. Unfortunately Judy (who needs the credit from his course to graduate) is as stubborn as her professor, and when she resolves to defy him and produce her play on campus, tensions begin to mount. Judy also lodges a complaint with the university grievance committee, which elicits a visit from the dean not only to plead with Henry to soften his stand, but also to warn him that accusations of anti-Semitism (however unfounded) have arisen. Before long it is evident that what is at issue, for Henry, is not just a matter of academic integrity, but

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Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NY

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Notes: -

Synopsis: -

Cambridge, Massachusetts

1962

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-

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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

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Notes: -

Synopsis:

Theatre Festival Williamstown

2001

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Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NY

-

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Play/Drama

-

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis:

Playwrights Horizons, Off Broadway, NY

1994

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

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Comedy/Drama

Comedy

3

3

-

Notes: Based on the stories of John Cheever.

Synopsis: John Cheever, master chronicler of America's post-war angst and alienation, and how it affected a burgeoning suburban class, left a storehouse of dramatic possibilities in his fiction, largely unexplored purely by dint of his chosen artistic medium: prose. In A CHEEVER EVENING, A.R. Gurney brings to light these possibilities through his mastery of stagecraft. Adapting no less than seventeen of Cheever's most funny and moving of stories, Gurney probes the affairs of that set of people (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) who once felt in the majority but soon found themselves in the twilight of their power and at the mercy of a changing world. Seen through the lens of A.R. Gurney's dramatic sensibility, Cheever's separate stories of a fragmented and lonely universe combine into a whole and resonant portraitthat of a culture which, while teetering on the brink of extinction, combats loss with humor, wit and feeling.

London

1974

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

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Play/Drama

2

3

-

Notes: suggested by the story "Goodbye, My Brother" by John Cheever

Synopsis: The action takes place in the summer home of a wealthy "WASP" family on a resort island off the New England coast. In residence are a middle-aged but still attractive widow; her divorced daughter; and her prep school teacher son and his wife. Their pleasant regimen is interrupted by two jarring events: the mother's announcement that she plans to marry an old family friend (which means that the house will then pass to her children); and the unexpected arrival of her younger son and his family. The younger son, "Pokey," has always been out of step with the rest of the family, and while he remains a shadowy offstage figure throughout, it is quickly evident not only that (for reasons of his own) he objects to his mother's remarriage and to the plans which his siblings have hatched for the house, but also that he can, and will, stop them. As the others lash back at Pokey much that has been repressed in them rises to the surface, and they are forced to painful (yet often funny) examinations of their own rather sterile lives. In the end, however, their resistance crumbles, and they are resigned again to things as they are and, most likely, will continue to be until the ways of the world truly change.

San Diego

1988

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Comedy

2

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: The time is the mid '70s, the place a city in upstate New York. John, a playwright, returns to his family's house, bringing with him a new play which he has written about them. His purpose is to obtain their permission to proceed with production, but his wealthy, very proper parents are cautious from the outset. For them the theatre is personified by the gracious, comforting era of the Lunts and Ina Claire, and they are disturbed by the bluntness of modern plays. And there is also John's sister, Nina, to contend with, although her reservations have to do with the fact that John has given her character such a minor role. Their confrontation takes place during the ritual of the cocktail hour, and as the martinis flow so do the recriminations and revelations, both funny and poignant. In the end it is evident that what John has written is closer to the truth than his family has heretofore been willing to admit, and that beneath their WASP reserve his parents and siblings are as beset with uncertainties and frustrations as their presumed "inferiors." But while they seem shackled by the past, and tantalized by an alien future, the ties which bind them do prevailsurmounting disputes and disappointments and, with unfailing warmth and humor, converting pained resignation into cautious but hopeful anticipation.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

1965

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

1967

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Comedy

One Act

4

2

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Notes: -

Synopsis: As outlined in the Boston Traveler: "While director Paul John Austin, portraying a reporter later identified as Homer, waits for the story to 'jell,' it's like a gay party except for the brooding Telemachus, grousing like Hamlet at his mother's wedding feast. The 100 suitors of his mother, Penelope, have cocktails in the rumpus room, only Antinous emerging now and again to goad the youth about his reading Kafka and Dostoyevsky all summer. Then enters Penelope to send him to the cellar for a big barrel of wine and paper cups, to chide him about dreaming. And finally the return of Odysseus, or rather the 're-entry' since it represents a problem, this returning home. Mr. Gurney has a lot of fun superimposing sailing and skiing, cocktail parties and servant problems, such appurtenances to modern life as bongo boards and Madras dinner jackets. It's all fun, with an underlying but glancing blow at deeper thought." But a blow that is feltas out of the biting wit comes a perceptive and telling commentary on the way people were, are and always will be.

Playwrights' Horizons Mainstage, NY, USA >>>

2007

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Broadway Play Publishing

2007

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Play/Drama

2

3

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Notes: -

Synopsis: In an attempt to account for the family inheritance, the scion of a wealthy Buffalo, NY clan and her willful, college-aged son visit their long lost cousin Mary. The catch: Mary is living in an asylum for the wealthy insane and has barely spoken in years, forcing mother and son to employ radical ends to get through.
nytheatre.com

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Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NY

-

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

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Play/Drama

-

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: -

Tanglewood, Massachusetts

1966

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Samuel French, NY

1968

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Fantasy

One Act

5

1

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Notes: -

Synopsis: David, Bathsheba, Saul and Samuel are transported to a day TV studio for David's coronation.

Playwrights Horizons, Off Broadway, NY

1982

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

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Play/Drama

3

3

playing 57 characters

Notes: -

Synopsis: The play is set in the dining room of a typical well-to-do household, the place where the family assembled daily for breakfast and dinner and for any and all special occasions. The action is comprised of a mosaic of interrelated scenessome funny, some touching, some ruefulwhich, taken together, create an in-depth portrait of a vanishing species: the upper-middle-class WASP. The actors change roles, personalities and ages with virtuoso skill as they portray a wide variety of characters, from little boys to stern grandfathers, and from giggling teenage girls to Irish housemaids. Each vignette introduces a new set of people and events; a father lectures his son on grammar and politics; a boy returns from boarding school to discover his mother's infidelity; a senile grandmother doesn't recognize her own sons at Christmas dinner; a daughter, her marriage a shambles, pleads futilely to return home, etc. Dovetailing swiftly and smoothly, the varied scenes coalesce, ultimately, into a theatrical experience of exceptional range, compassionate humor and abundant humanity.

Williamstown Theatre Festival , MA, USA >>>

1998

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Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NY

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Play/Drama

4

1

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Notes: -

Synopsis: The hero of Far East is Sparky Watts, scion of a well-to-do Midwestern American family, a young naval officer stationed in Japan just after the close of the Korean War. Sparky is fresh and confident and eager: he is here to see the world and to have lots of interesting experiences: to find himself, he hopes, and as far away from his conventional, narrow-minded family as possible. Sparky is viewed with annoyance and then with avuncular bemusement by his commanding officer, a career military man named James Anderson, a pioneer flyboy grounded after the death of his son. Anderson's wife Julia also takes a very personal interest in handsome Sparky, especially when he reveals that he is in love with a Japanese woman, and that he intends to marry her. Julia is an old friend of one of Sparky's aunts, and her bitter, racist reaction to this news prompts her to inform Sparky's family of his wayward behavior. Running parallel to the story of Sparky's Michener-esque love affair is another, sadder one, also of betrayal, involving Sparky's roommate Bob. While preparing to take a week of vacation, Bob turns over custody of some classified documents to Sparky. Sparky discovers that some items are missing; Bob eventually admits that he is being blackmailed by a man who was his lover but has turned out to be a Communist spy. Sparky's naive honesty compels him to turn his friend in; effectively ending Bob's career, of course, but also prompting a crisis of conscience for himself that he never satisfactorily resolves. Near the end of Far East, Sparky and Bob reconcile and talk about their futures. Sparky speaks romantically of a life with his Japanese fiancée, away from the strictures of his youth and his family. Bob, meanwhile, is entirely uncertain of what lies ahead: rejected by the Navy and by his mother, he literally has nowhere to go, nothing to do. Sparky says he understands; Bob replies, quietly, that he cannot. But we know that Bob is going to flourish wherever he finally lands, because he also tells Sparky that he is not going to deny his
nytheatre.comtrue nature anymore: he will live as what he is, without fear or regret. And we fear, paradoxically, that Sparky is doomed to do so as well.

Primary Stages, NY, USA >>>

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

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Comedy

2

2

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Notes: -

Synopsis: Peggy has redecorated the living room and her husband, Roger, can't stand it. Peggy's usual exquisite taste was overcome by a mysterious lapse which caused her to redo the room as if it were a stage set. Everything faces one wall, the "fourth wall," which she's left bare and which is really the audience. Unable to cope any further, and needing someone to talk to, Roger asks their old, dear friend, Julia, to fly up from New York. Julia agrees that something strange is going on, especially since everyone who enters the room begins to behave as if they were acting in a play, or even a musical when occasionally someone feels the urge to sing a Cole Porter song. Julia, affected by the room, suggests Roger call "976-NUTS" and have Peggy put away, which would allow the two of them to have the affair they've never before thought about. Roger can't do that and explains that he's got one hope left: Floyd, a local theatre professor. Roger asks Floyd to come over in hopes that he can "Doctor" Peggy's play and bring it to a close, thus allowing him and Peggy to resume their happily married life. But that doesn't work either as Floyd sees what's going on and is in complete agreement with Peggy. Peggy, following in St. Joan's footsteps at Floyd's urging, decides she must do what she must do and sets out to break the fourth wall in order to connect with her feelings. Roger rushes after her, leaving Julia and Floyd with a final Cole Porter tune.

Greenwich, London

1981

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

1985

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Play/Drama

1

2

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Notes: story The Aspern Papers by Henry James

Synopsis: The play takes place in a once elegant townhouse in Manhattan, the home of Isabel Hastings Hoyt, an aging but still charming recluse who had been a glittering figure in the literary salons of the 1920s. Now short of money, Mrs. Hoyt is concerned about the future of her granddaughter, Virginia, a twice-divorced near-alcoholic whom she hopes to see securely married before she herself, as she puts it, "kicks the bucket." In earlier years, Mrs. Hoyt was friend and confidante of many world figures, especially F. Scott Fitzgerald who, it is rumored, used her as the model of Daisy in The Great Gatsby. This fact leads Tom, an ambitious young academic, to seek her out. Tom believes that Mrs. Hoyt possesses an unpublished chapter from Gatsby which depicts passionate lovemaking between Gatsby and Daisy, a literary treasure which he is determined to procure no matter how devious the means. It is this obsession that sets up the increasingly complex and perilous relationship which develops between the three protagonistsa relationship that, inexorably, leads to the startling and ironic denouement of the play.

New York

1968

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Samuel French, NY

1967

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Fantasy

One Act

1

1

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Couple face audience and claim to be in contact with Jason and Medea.

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-

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Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NY

-

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

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-

-

-

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Notes: -

Synopsis: -

59E59 Theaters, NY, USA >>>

2006

Primary Stages

Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NY

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Play/Drama

5

3

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: about family and coming-of-age. Young Eddie uses his Indian ancestry as a cause and an excuse for his adolescent attacks on the genteel world around him. Was it his ties to the Seneca tribe or his talent as a budding artist that caused his privileged world to turn upside down?
nytheatre.com

Manhattan Theatre Club Stage 1, NY, USA >>>

1998

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Play/Drama

3

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: John is an established older playwright recovering from a bout with cancer. His latest work, which he views as his best, if possibly his last, has gained the interest of a major regional theatre, the Shubert Organization, and a possible Hollywood star. Dennis, the bright young director to whom John has given the play, shows up on the Labor Day holiday at the writer's house in rural Connecticut to ask for essential changes. Dennis feels the play has been adversely affected by the playwright's illness, becoming too inverted and sentimental. John's family has gathered for the holiday, and when they find out the play is primarily about them, they also criticize the enterprise. It is soon obvious that the playwrightand aging fatherdoesn'treally know either his family or himself. LABOR DAY reveals the age-old conflict between art and life and the hard labor it takes to reconcile the two. In the end, life wins, hands down.

Westside Theatre (Upstairs), Off Broadway, NY

1993

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Comedy Drama

Comedy

2

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Austin has spent his entire life convinced that something terrible is bound to happen to him. One night, at a party, overlooking Boston harbor, he has the pleasure of rekindling a romance begun almost thirty years ago with Ruth. Now a multiple divorcee, Ruth's personal life is in such turmoil that mutual friends look to Austin as Ruth's last shot at normalcy. At the same time, these friends are hoping the wildly unpredictable Ruth will help loosen Austin from the grip of years of depression and lifelessness. Comically, and sometimes painfully, these two people rediscover each other and themselves while a bevy of free-spirited other guests rally behind them and remind them of the infinite possibilities that life holds, should one only choose to pursue them

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-

-

-

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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

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-

-

-

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Notes: -

Synopsis: -

Boston

1970

-

in "Best Short Plays 1970", ed Stanley Richards,Chilton, Philadelphia

1971

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One Act

2

2

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Notes: also part of Public Affairs

Synopsis: A university literature course on love is taught by male and female professors with different views on life.

New Haven, Connecticut

1958

-

-

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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

-

-

-

-

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Notes: -

Synopsis:

New Haven, Connecticut

1988

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Play/Drama

1

1

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner, both born to wealth and position, are childhood friends whose lifelong correspondence begins with birthday party thank-you notes and summer camp postcards. Romantically attached, they continue to exchange letters through the boarding school and college yearswhere Andy goes on to excel at Yale and law school, while Melissa flunks out of a series of "good schools." While Andy is off at war Melissa marries, but her attachment to Andy remains strong and she continues to keep in touch as he marries, becomes a successful attorney, gets involved in politics and, eventually, is elected to the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, her marriage in tatters, Melissa dabbles in art and gigolos, drinks more than she should, and becomes estranged from her children. Eventually she and Andy do become involved in a brief affair, but it is really too late for both of them. However Andy's last letter, written to her mother after Melissa's untimely death, makes it eloquently clear how much they really meant, and gave to, each other over the yearsphysically apart, perhaps, but spiritually as close as only true lovers can be.

Los Angeles

1977

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

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Comedy

2

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: The action takes place in the trophy room of a rather stuffy men's club in a midwestern city. As the play begins we meet Barney, the son of the club president, as a teenagerand already a rebel against the WASP-ish virtues so dear to his family. He is infatuated with Eleanor, a local girl of good background, but she is wary of his wildness, and opts to date, and then marry, his stolid brother, Billy. In a series of flashbacks we encounter Barney at various stages of his life: as he runs away to join the Navy during the Korean war; as a campus activist in California; as a graduate student; and ultimately, as a successful producer of porno films. The flashbacks take Barney and Eleanor from youth to middle ageand throughout Barney, to his father's growing distress, continues to profess his love for Eleanor and to challenge the validity of the lifestyle she has chosen. He remains the zany, charming, unpredictable rebel, shocking family and friends alike with his outrageous behavior until, at his father's death, a kind of reconciliation is reachedas changing times and fading youth soften Barney's belligerency and offer the promise of quieter, but happier, years to come.

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Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NY

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Play/Drama

-

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: -

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-

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Broadway Play Publishing, New York

2003

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Play/Drama

-

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: &Gurney's play manages to reach beyond its topical premise to pack a big, heartbreaking wallop. This is not a story about anything so cold as politics. Above all, it's about a man struggling to balance his ideals and personal relationships against a high-pressure career. . ..

New York

1991

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Play/Drama

4

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Sam, a successful politician and diplomat, is invited to speak at the dedication of a new building named for his old school friend, Perry, and paid for by Perry's wealthy mother. The knowledge that Perry died of AIDS galvanizes Sam as memories of his own homophobic response to Perry's sexuality are played out in flashback. Sam's solution had been to arrange a marriage between Perry and one of Sam's discarded girlfriends, Alison. Faced now with the embittered Alison and a dawning sense of his own complicity in Perry's fate, Sam must decide whether or not to speak out on the issue of tolerance and jeopardize his chance for the governorship. He has to choose between his conscience and the old boy network which has served him so well.

Waltham, Massachusetts

1973

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Samuel French, NY

1971

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One Act

-

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: a love affair between two academics

Boston

1969

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Samuel French, NY

1968

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased b