n/a

Los Angeles

1986

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Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1988

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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

7

3

-

-

The action of the play is made up of a series of concurrent actions, some set in a tacky motel, somewhere else, involving a group of disparate, but curiously related, people. There is the young night clerk, Pauline, who studies her high school English Lit notebook while growing increasingly fearful of the unseen and unwanted suitor who lies in wait in the motel parking lot; a raucous carnival barker touting his giant crocodile, Bonecrusher; a pair of seedy bar denizens who occasionally break into song; a dim-witted handyman, Chuckles, who performs pointless errands; a deranged scientist who believes that he is in contact with creatures from outer space; an abandoned woman who waits restlessly for a lover who will probably never return; and a mysterious drifter, Faber, who somehow becomes the catalyst which fuses all these divergent elements into a cohesive, and often wildly funny, whole. And, in so doing, makes the play both an encapsulation of the American myth and, at the same time, a telling commentary on

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-

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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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0

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Based on "The Birds" by Aristophanes

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Minneapolis

1982

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Theatre Communications Group, New York, 1983

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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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Adaptation

-

0

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novel by Voltaire

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-

-

Sun & Moon Press, Los Angeles, 1993

9781557131683

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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-

-

0

-

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The Flea Theater (New York, NY, United States)

2006

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-

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

10-20 min

Drama

2

2

2 males, 2 females (4-5 actors possible: 2-3 males, 2-3 females)

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Four characters on Christmas Eve. A rooming house in an American city. An old pitchman prepares dinner when a young girl knocks on his door. The landlady knits while her silent super shovels coal. Moments in their lives. . .and a song or two. (This play can also be performed as part of the full-length play 'Twas the Night Before. . .)

San Francisco

1983

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Contained in "Three Plays by Len Jenkin" Broadway Play Publishing Inc,

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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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Adaptation

-

0

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story by Kafka

New York

1981

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Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1982

-

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

Comedy/Drama

Comedy

6

4

-

-

Is comprised of a series of vignettes involving characters who, at first, appear to bear no relation to each other. A mysterious figure gives a scholar an ancient manuscript to translate; a thief steals an enormous jewel; a woman assures us that life is all coincidence; a dream-like waitress serves her customers all manner of thoughts and suggestions, but no food. The images created are bizarrely funny and provocative and, in time, coalesce into a pattern of driving concerns and obsessions which come into focus when the various characters finally meet at an oculists convention in Mexico City. Phantasmagoric and convoluted, the play is a journey which, in the final essence, transcends the physical world to explore the seat of true reality—the inner recesses of the mind.

Los Angeles

1974

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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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0

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-

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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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0

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Seattle

1981

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1986

9780822204053

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

3

2

-

-

Deals with the parallel lives of New York tenement dwellers, who live next door to each other but whose paths do not cross until one fateful moment, which spells disaster for them all. One apartment is occupied by Mark, a young writer who churns out pornography while planning the "big novel" he will someday write, and his live-in girlfriend, Lee, an anthropology grad who works as a waitress. Their next door neighbor is Herman, a mentally deficient messenger who speaks in a language all his own and amuses himself by calling 800 numbers to make hotel reservations he has no intention of keeping. When Lee is offered a chance to join an anthropological expedition to Sri Lanka, Mark is faced with a crisis—the loss of both her companionship and her income. With the connivance of his ex-con buddy, Eddie, a street-smart would-be mercenary, Mark decides to prop up his finances by robbing Herman's apartment, in the misguided belief that the poor eccentric has been hoarding money. But, instead, what they find is the bizarre detritus of a stunted life—a life which is abruptly ended when Herman, coming upon them, is startled into a fatal epileptic fit. Fearful and guilt-ridden, Mark and Eddie try to cover their tracks—but as the play ends it is also clear that no matter how far or fast they flee they will never escape the spectre of the lonely misfit whose pathetic world they have so thoughtlessly and fatally shattered.

New York

1976

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in "Theatre of Wonders", Sun and Moon Press, Los Angeles, 1986

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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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0

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New York

1973

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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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0

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Westbeth Theatre Center, NYC

1980

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Dramatists Play Service, 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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One Act

1

0

-

part of Limbo Tales

a man suddenly decides to drive to his girlfriend's house, which is 200 miles away. He becomes obsessed with the thought that each car which passes may be his girlfriend coming to visit him—and as he begins to lose touch with time and place he becomes convinced that he has moved back to another century, another civilization.

Westbeth Theatre Center, NYC

1980

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Dramatists Play Service, 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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One Act

1

0

-

part of Limbo Tales

a down-on-his-luck encyclopedia salesman sits in a flea bag hotel room, eating Chinese food which is delivered by a disembodied arm, while listening to the squabbling of his neighbors and contemplating the aridity of his limbolike existence.

Westbeth Theatre Center, NYC

1980

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Dramatists Play Service, 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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One Act

1

0

-

part of Limbo Tales

a Master of Ceremonies announces, in hilarious detail, all the exotic acts which will not be on the bill that evening; while in the final play, HOTEL, a down-on-his-luck encyclopedia salesman sits in a flea bag hotel room, eating Chinese food which is delivered by a disembodied arm, while listening to the squabbling of his neighbors and contemplating the aridity of his limbolike existence. Each of the three plays calls for 1 man; and each may be presented with simplified settings and a minimum of props and special effects.

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Dramatic Publishing Company,

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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

-

-

-

0

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Based on the novel "The Invisible Man" by H G Wells

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San Francisco

1977

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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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0

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Stratford, Connecticut

1972

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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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0

-

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Walkerspace, NY

2007

Push Productions, Inc.

Broadway Play Publishing

9780881452983

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

-

Historical

4

3

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music by Scott O'Brien

Kraken explores the true-life encounter between legendary American novelists Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1856. Melville, in the midst of a spiritual journey to the Holy Land, stops to visit with his old friend Hawthorne, now the American consul in Liverpool. As they spend the evening together, they discuss and confront their, fears, failures, things of this world and the next, books and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters.
Press Release

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Contained in "Three Plays by Len Jenkin" Broadway Play Publishing Inc,

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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

-

-

7

6

doubling

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Coconut Joe is looking for the perfect consignment of coconuts for the biscuit factory he works for. His search has taken him to Berlin, where he is double crossed by a beautiful woman and ends up as a prisoner in a nuclear waste plant. He escapes and makes his way to Venice. He boards a ship but it sinks. But Joe manages to escape on a life raft with a Pirate Queen. They are washed up on an island and end up in a hotel that is full of down and outs who cannot pay their rent. They put on a puppet show to amuse themselves.

Westbeth Theatre Center, NYC

1980

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Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1982

-

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

Three Short Plays

One Act

-

0

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includes Highway, Hotel, Intermezzo

The New York Post writes: "…the plays are character studies of two men who have distinctly different, but related, experiences of physical and spiritual dislocation." In the first play, HIGHWAY, a man suddenly decides to drive to his girlfriend's house, which is 200 miles away. He becomes obsessed with the thought that each car which passes may be his girlfriend coming to visit him—and as he begins to lose touch with time and place he becomes convinced that he has moved back to another century, another civilization. (1 man). In the short INTERMEZZO, a Master of Ceremonies announces, in hilarious detail, all the exotic acts which will not be on the bill that evening. (1 man). In the final play, HOTEL, a down-on-his-luck encyclopedia salesman sits in a flea-bag hotel room, eating Chinese food which is delivered by a disembodied arm, while listening to the squabbling of his neighbors and contemplating the aridity of his limbo-like existence. (1 man).

Los Angeles

1985

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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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0

-

music by Philip Glass

2005

The Flea Theater

Broadway Play Publishing

9780881453034

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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-

-

0

-

-

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New York

1975

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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

-

-

-

0

-

-

1984

New York Shakespeare Festival

Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1984

-

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

Comedy/Drama

Comedy

7

4

-

-

Uncle Sam was a novelties salesman who died one night, alone and broke, in a Pittsburgh hotel. But he was also a larger-than-life figure, a mythic hero, to his nephew—who now seeks to discover his uncle's true story. His quest is a quixotic and picaresque one, involving a seductive night club singer who promises to marry Sam if he can locate his ne'er-do-well brother (who absconded with the proceeds from a robbery), and developing into a series of sometimes funny sometimes hair-raising episodes as the nephew "becomes" his uncle in his youth and journey's to a remote lighthouse, a rather sinister university laboratory, an opium den, the clinic of a Mexican quack, and a very odd miniature golf course—all intriguingly distorted, as though viewed through a funhouse mirror. In the end it is really the landscape of the mind which is explored and illuminated, as the trail leads back to Old Sam and the disquieting knowledge that dreams and reality are, in the final essence, often one and the same, with the "truth" still remaining tantalizingly out of reach.

New York

1979

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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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0

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Seattle

1991

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Contained in "Three Plays by Len Jenkin" Broadway Play Publishing Inc,

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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

-

-

-

0

-

-

Seattle

1987

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in Dark Ride and Other Plays, Sun & Moon Press, Los Angeles, 1993

-

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

-

0

-

-

-

-

-

Dramatic Publishing, Woodstock, Illinois, 1994

-

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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Adaptation

-

0

-

from book by Beverly Cleary

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-

-

H Holt, New York, 1996

-

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

-

-

-

0

-

-

New York

1986

-

-

-

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

-

Adaptation

-

0

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libretto by Ramuz, music by Stravinsky

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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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0

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Written by Len Jenkin and Mac Wellman

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2006

The Flea Theater & The Chelsea Art Museum

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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

60-85 min

Comedy/Drama

5

3

5 males, 3 females, 8 either (11-41 actors possible: 5-33 males, 3-31 females)

Part of a program of ten-minute works by playwrights Christopher Durang, Len Jenkin, Roger Rosenblatt, Elizabeth Swados, and Mac Wellman. The Flea commissioned this group of writers to create short works using the famous holiday poem "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement Clark Moore as an inspiration.

A collection of five Christmas-themed short plays from New York City's acclaimed Flea Theater. From a family sitting down to read "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" with unexpected results (Not a Creature Was Stirring), to elves rapping about bloody films (Holiday Movies), to an irreverent take on the story of Jesus' birth (Away in the Manger), these comedies and dramas take on the holiday season like never before. To purchase this book of 5 plays, click "Add to Shopping Cart" above. To perform an individual play, click on its title below: