ISRAEL HOROVITZ (1939 - )
| Nationality: | American |
| Literary Agent: *: | |
| Email: | n/a |
| Website: |
* If shown, click on the literary agent's name for full contact details and links to all the Playwrights they represent.
Plays by Israel Horovitz
50 Years of Caddying |
| 1st Produced: | 2001 | |||
| Company: | American Stage Festival/ Gloucester Stage | |||
| 1st Published: | in Boston Theatre Marathon of Ten Minute Plays Volume 3, Bakers 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: | play | Ten Min | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
50 Years Of Caddying |
| 1st Produced: | 2006 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | 90 min | Play/Drama | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Shifts between present day, with a racist, young black golfer and his old white caddy -- and 50 years ago, with a racist old white man and his young black caddy | ||||
75th, The |
| 1st Produced: | American Cultural Center, Paris | 1974 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Dramatists Play Service, NY | 1977 | ||
| 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 | One Act | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: part of The Quannapowitt Quartet | ||||
Synopsis: The scene is a private dining room in a restaurant overlooking Lake Quannapowitt, the occasion the seventy-fifth reunion of a high school class-of which only two members remain. Now in their nineties, the two, Arthur "Cookie" Silverstein and Amy Chamberlain, don't remember each other at first, but, as they review their memories and recall old friendships, the past begins to clarify and emerge. Touching, funny and revealing, the play captures the sweep of long life, and the sense of how significant, in our later years, are the decisions and actions at which we arrive so casually in our youth. | ||||
Acrobats |
| 1st Produced: | Theatre de Lys, New York | 1971 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Dramatists Play Service, NY | 1971 | ||
| 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: | - | One Act | Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Two acrobats go valiantly through the complexities of their routine, smiling toothily, bowing on cue, and, all the while, conducting a sotto voce but lacerating marital spat. He threatens to drop her, she vows to leave him-but then the lights come up, the final bows are taken, and, subtly but surely, we are aware that their mutual dependency is still stronger than the tensions which have been so wittily and amusingly exposed. | ||||
Affection in Time |
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Row Studio, NY | 2007 | ||
| Company: | Barefoot Theatre 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 | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: part of Israel Horovitz's New Shorts | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Alfred Dies |
| 1st Produced: | Actors Studio, New York | 1976 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in "The Wakefield Plays", Avon, New York | 1979 | ||
| 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 | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: part of The Wakefield Plays | ||||
Synopsis: Alfred and Emily discover incestuous roots that have caused the tragedy of their marriage, and lives lost together. Enormously theatrical, a profoundly moving final play in The Alfred Trilogy | ||||
Alfred The Great |
| 1st Produced: | American Cultural Center, Paris | 1972 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Harper, New York | 1974 | ||
| 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 | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: First in The Alfred Trilogy and of the seven-play cycle, The Quannapowitt Quartet | ||||
Synopsis: Alfred Webber visits his old family home where Margaret, his ex-girlfriend of many years ago, and her husband, Will, now live. Margaret still carries a torch for Albert, driving Will to extremes of jealousy. Even the child Alfred and Margaret share who had been given up for adoption, still permeates Margaret's psyche and her marriage. Alfred uses all these neurosis, plus, some of his own, to find out the truth about his brother's mysterious murder. Though the murder happened years ago, Alfred has his hunches about Will, and on the pretext of coming to visit his father's grave, stays in the old homestead and catches up on old times. When Alfred's wife, Emily, shows up, her presence throws the visit into disarray, but also provides Alfred with the strength to set Will up for a confession to the murder. Through deception, seduction, revelation and even torture, Alfred discovers his father is really alive, Margaret reveals a suppressed past, and a confession of murder is dragged out of Will. The facts are sketchy | ||||
Barking Sharks |
| 1st Produced: | 1995 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, NY | 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: | heroic, romantic. 2 hrs | - | Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 4 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: A Storm Brewing, in the Middle-Aged Soul and at Sea | ||||
Synopsis: A large, compelling story of a Gloucester-born man who quits as head of a successful NYC ad agency, to return home to Gloucester to become a fisherman. | ||||
Beirut Rocks |
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Row Studio, NY | 2007 | ||
| Company: | Barefoot Theatre 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 | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: part of Israel Horovitz's New Shorts | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Brownstone |
| 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: | - | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Brownstone is mentioned in the National Playwrights Directory, I have no other information. | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Cappella |
| 1st Produced: | New York | 1978 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Harper & Row (ISBN: 0060119624 ) | 1973 | ||
| 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: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: novel by Horovitz, with David Boorstin | ||||
Synopsis: this adaptation of Horovitz's highly-praised novel travels through the centuries to tell the story of a young poet of endless hope, trapped with an old man of endless complaint | ||||
Captains And Courage |
| 1st Produced: | T. Schreiber Studio, NY | 2000 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Dramatists Play Service, NY | 1999 | ||
| 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: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 10 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | 1b 1g (flexible) | |||
Notes: Designed for a multi-racial cast of 14 or more actors playing multiple roles, CAPTAINS COURAGE intermingles Kipling's 19th century tale of Gloucester fishermen with playwright Israel Horovitz's own tale of the modern-day descendants of Kipling's character | ||||
Synopsis: In Kipling's nineteenth-century story, Harvey Cheyne, an obnoxious rich boy, falls from the deck of a luxury liner and is rescued by a fishing boat, the "We're Here," owned by a black captain, Disko Troop. Aboard the "We're Here," Harvey learns about hard work, about courage, and about life. In Horovitz's twentieth-century counterpart (the two stories alternate in parallel development), Manny Shimma, a sixteen-year-old homeless wiseguy, in trouble with the law, finds himself hiding out on a tiny fishing boat, the "Sylvie the 2nd," captained by Ben Cheyne, Harvey Cheyne's great-great-great grandson, with a single crewman, Roland Troop, Disko Troop's great-great-great grandson. Aboard the "Sylvie the 2nd," Manny, too, learns about hard work, courage, and life. Modern and traditional sea-chanteys are sung by cast and chorus throughout the play. Live musicians can be used, on-stage and off. CAPTAINS AND COURAGE is a play of high adventure, full-blown emotion, and great dignity, a perfect choice for theater groups | ||||
Cat Lady |
| 1st Produced: | 2004 | |||
| Company: | Gloucester Stage Company | |||
| 1st Published: | in Israel Horovitz Plays 1, Methuen, London | 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 | Ten Min | Parts: | Male | - | Female | 1 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: monologue about an elderly Cat Lady ascends to a couldn't-see-it-coming cosmic twist | ||||
Cat Lady |
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Row Studio, NY | 2007 | ||
| Company: | Barefoot Theatre 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 | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: part of Israel Horovitz's New Shorts | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Chopin Playoffs, The |
| 1st Produced: | New York | 1986 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in "An Israel Horovitz Trilogy", Nelson Doubleday, New York | 1987 | ||
| 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: | - | Adaptation | Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | Two boys, two pianos, one girl | |||
Notes: stories by Morley Torgov. Part of The Growing-Up-Jewish Trilogy | ||||
Synopsis: The time is 1947, and Stanley Rosen and Irving Yanover, lifelong friends now approaching young manhood, find themselves pitted against each other on two fronts. Both are piano prodigies, and will be rivals in a forthcoming, and prestigious, competition. And both, unfortunately, are smitten by the same girl, the lovely Fern Phipps, who (to the dismay of both the Rosen and Yanover families) is not even Jewish. But friendship wins out over ambition when both boys contrive to play poorly in the competition-so that neither will win. Also, as Fern has decided to award her favor to the winner of the piano contest, that problem is dealt with as well. And, again, all is put forth with such good humor and warmth that the play, like the others in the trilogy, becomes a lesson in the value of simple, family virtues and the essential brotherhood of man. | ||||
Christmas Carol, A: Scrooge And Marley |
| 1st Produced: | Centre Stage, Baltimore, MD | 1978 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Dramatists Play Service, NY | 1979 | ||
| 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: | Christmas Play | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | Casting flexible, minimum of 22 players | |||
Notes: book by Charles Dickens | ||||
Synopsis: Famous the world over, the often bizarre and ultimately heart-warming story of Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and the others needs no detailing here. Mr. Horovitz's adaptation follows the Dickens original scrupulously but, in bringing it to life on the stage, adds elements of inventiveness and brilliant theatricality which enhance and strengthen its timeless virtues. The end result is a theatre piece of unique eloquence, which will delight audiences of all ages, and draw forth the best efforts of all engaged in its presentation. | ||||
Clair-Obscur (Clearly-Obscure) |
| 1st Produced: | theatre 108 in Aix in Provence, France | 1999 | ||
| 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 | 3 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: the subject is rather disconcerting: a family of Blacks takes a pill in order to become white, i.e. to release itself socially from the white domination. However this change will not affect their cultural attitudes and will not change their past | ||||
Comeback, The |
| 1st Produced: | Emerson Theatre, Boston, MA | 1958 | ||
| 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: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Compromise |
| 1st Produced: | 2005 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | Comedy/Drama, 95 min | Comedy | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: staged readin Gloucester Stage, 2002. French Language premiere,Theatre de L'ile, 2003 | ||||
Synopsis: about a scientist and his cleaning lady. Moving and marvelous!" Boston Globe. 95 min | ||||
Dance Play |
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Row Studio, NY | 2007 | ||
| Company: | Barefoot Theatre 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 | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: part of Israel Horovitz's New Shorts | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Death Of Bernard The Believer, The |
| 1st Produced: | South Orange, New Jersey | 1960 | ||
| 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: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Dr. Hero |
| 1st Produced: | Great Neck, NY | 1972 | ||
| Company: | Shade Company | |||
| 1st Published: | Dramatists Play Service, NY | 1973 | ||
| 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: | Vaudeville | - | Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | 1M + 7 M or W | |||
Notes: aka Hero | ||||
Synopsis: The hero, who is named Hero, is born onstage. Thereafter come scenes of childhood, education, army service, and then marriage-as Hero becomes Dr. Hero (Ph.D.) and begins to assume the "greatness" that he knows is destined to be his. As he moves forward (including his especially hilarious entry into the advertising business) his charisma-and ego-grow apace, and even old age fails to dim the surging spirit that, through a long and turbulent life, has won and sustained for him the singular title of "The World's Greatest Man." | ||||
Drole de Mari Francais, Un (A Funny French Husband) |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in Israel Horovitz Collected Works Volume III, Smith & Kraus | 1997 | ||
| 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 | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Faith |
| 1st Produced: | New York | 1988 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | in Faith, Hope and Charity, Dramatists Play Service, New York | 1989 | ||
| 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 | One Act | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: Written for the Horovitz-McNally-Melfi 1988 reunion triptych, Hope, Faith and Charity | ||||
Synopsis: a group of 1960s radical writers hold a reunion, twenty years later, in front of the statue of the Polish King Jagiello in New York's Central Park. Reared in an age of sex, booze, drugs and explicit language, the group finds that time, and the demands of making a living, have both drained their passions and left their dreams half-realized. But the daughter of one of them, speaking for her own generation, confronts them with the legacy of cynicism and hopelessness which they have passed on, whether or not they realize it. | ||||
Fast Hands |
| 1st Produced: | 2003 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | Comedy/Drama | Comedy | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: A comic drama set in a boxing gym and various fight-arenas, focusing on the relationship between a young black prizefighter and an older white ex-prizefighter, who the young man seeks out and finds - and who proves to be his biological father. 90 min | ||||
Fat Guy Gets Girl |
| 1st Produced: | Theatre Row Studio, NY | 2007 | ||
| Company: | Barefoot Theatre 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 | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: part of Israel Horovitz's New Shorts | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Fat Guy Gets the Girl, The |
| 1st Produced: | 2005 | |||
| Company: | Gloucester Stage Company | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | play | Ten Min | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: - | ||||
Fighting Over Beverley |
| 1st Produced: | 1993 | |||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Doubleday Books | 1995 | ||
| 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: On the day World War II ends, Beverley, a young Englishwoman, jilts her British beau, runs off with an American flyer. Now, all three are 70+ years old. The Brit appears at Beverley's Gloucester, Mass. home, proclaims "He's had you for 45 years! Enough's enough! I'm taking you back with me!" In the end, she leaves: alone. 2 hrs. | ||||
Firebird At Dogtown |
| 1st Produced: | - | 1987 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | play with music and dance | - | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: A play with music and dance, intermingling a grizzly murder in wooded Downtown with the biography of eccentric billionaire, Roger Babson, who spent much his childhood in Dogtown. 90 min | ||||
First, The, The Last, And The Middle |
| 1st Produced: | New York | 1974 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | - | - | ||
| To Buy This Play: | I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com | |||
| Genre: | Comedy Triptych | - | Parts: | Male | - | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: | ||||
Former One-On-One Basketball Champion, The |
| 1st Produced: | Actors Studio, New York (Gloucester Stage Co, Gloucester, MA ?) | 1977 | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Dramatists Play Service, NY | 1982 | ||
| 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 | One Act | Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | - |
| Parts Other: | one is a teenager | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: The scene is a city playground, where an undersized teenager is shooting baskets. An enormously tall man of middle age stops to watch; then to give pointers to the boy; and finally to challenge him to a one-on-one competition. As they play, it is quickly evident that the older man was once a professional and, in fact, the boy is aware of who he is and of what happened to his once promising career. It also develops that the father of the boy was killed by the son of the older man during a robbery-and now the man has come to atone for his son's crime. He wants to even the score, by letting the boy shoot him (as his father was shot), or, less drastically, by allowing the boy to win over him on the basketball court. But the boy rejects both alternatives-when he wins he wants to "win straight," and all he asks for is a rematch in ten years, when he will be taller, stronger, and more skilled, and able to go "one-on-one" without any concessions given. | ||||
Free Gift |
| 1st Produced: | - | - | ||
| Company: | - | |||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, 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 | One Act | Parts: | Male | - | Female | 2 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: A one-act play, telling the story of an older white woman, who is mother of an adopted child, and the young black woman who left the child on the older woman's doorstep, several years earlier. Gentle and daring. 45 min. | ||||
Good Parts, The |
| 1st Produced: | Actors Studio, New York | 1979 | ||
| 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 (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||
| Genre: | - | Comedy | Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 3 |
| Parts Other: | - | |||
Notes: - | ||||
Synopsis: Brian Levine and Eugene Jacoby, two New York lawyers and lifelong friends, are restive under t | ||||