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Ellen McLaughlin

ELLEN MCLAUGHLIN

  (1957 - )
Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    The Gersh Agency, NY  

Ellen McLaughlin's plays have received numerous national and international productions. they include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity's House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, the Trojan Women, Helen, the Persians, Oedipus, Ajax in Iraq, Kissing the Floor, and Penelope. Producers include: Actors' Theater of Louisville, the Actors' Gang L.A., Classic Stage Co., N.Y., the Intiman Theater, Seattle, Almeida Theater, London, the Mark Taper Forum, L.A., the Public Theater in NYC, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the National Actors' Theater, New York, the Getty Villa, California., and the Guthrie Theater, Minnesota, among other venues. Grants and awards include: Great American Play Contest, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the NEA, the Writer's Award from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, the Berilla Kerr Award for playwrighting. T.C.G./Fox Residency Grant -- for Ajax in Iraq, written for the A.R.T. Institute. She has taught playwrighting at Barnard College since 1995. Other teaching posts include Breadloaf School of English, Yale Drama School and Princeton University, among others. Ms. McLaughlin is also an actor. She is most well known for having originated the part of the Angel in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, appearing in every U.S. production from its earliest workshops through its Broadway run.

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below is a list of Ellen McLaughlin's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Ajax in Iraq         Days And Nights Within         Helen         Infinity's House         Iphigenia and Other Daughters         Kissing the Floor         Lysistrata         Narrow Bed, A         Oedipus         Penelope         Persians, The         Septimus and Clarissa         Tongue Of A Bird         Trojan Women, the

Ajax in Iraq

Synopsis:
Past and present collide in Ellen McLaughlin's mash-up of Sophocles' classic play Ajax and today's war in Iraq. the play follows the parallel narratives of the ancient Greek military hero Ajax and a female American soldier, both undone by the betrayal of a commanding officer. Originally developed over sixteen months in 2009 with the graduate acting students at A.R.T. and inspired by material collected from interviews with Iraq war veterans, Ajax in Iraq explores the timeless ways soldiers struggle to make sense of war

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Flamboyan Theater, 107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY 10002     04 Jun 2011

Organisations:
Flux Theatre

1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc   -

Music:
-

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/Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Days And Nights Within

Synopsis:
In a prison in East Berlin in 1950, a woman accused of spying matches her intellect and determined strength against the full power of the state and the keen insights of her interrogator

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
TCG in Plays in Process.,    -

Music:
-

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:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Helen

Synopsis:
Everyone knows the story of Helen of Troy, wife of Menelaus, mistress of Paris, whose face launched 1,000 ships. But what if Helen never actually made it to Troy? 'that story is not true. You never sailed in the benched ships. You never went to the city of Troy,' wrote the 6th century poet Stesichorus. Instead, he proposes, she remained pure and safe in Egypt while her phantom, or eidolon, went on to Troy. What is the story of that Helen, the one who could only watch from the sidelines as cities were burned and epics sung? Inspired by such questions, Euripides's tragedy Helen is presented with this alternate, Egypt-bound version
- press release

Notes:
Original Playwright - Euripides

1st Produced:
Public theater
425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10003     01 Apr 2002

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc   -

Music:
-

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:
Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Infinity's House

Synopsis:
As Oppenheimer and his colleagues await the detonation of the first nuclear warhead, specters of past American pioneers converge in a desert dreamscape. This provocative play is an epic exploration of humanity's ceaseless struggle to control the world, tracing our uncertain progress in the journey toward infinity

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
TCG in Plays in Process,    -

Music:
-

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:
Two Acts Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  13            Female:  3            Other:  1c

Further Reference:
-

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Iphigenia and Other Daughters

Synopsis:
Years ago, the Greeks told stories of war: the murders, the fathers who sacrificed, the sons who avenged deaths, and the women who waited for them. Iphigenia and Other Daughters is Ellen McLaughlin's fascinating retelling of these stories. With biting and lyrical dialogue, set in a timeless, war-torn home, this play violently and tenderly explores these women: the daughters sacrificed, the mothers left childless, and the others left pondering their places in a man's world of war, a world destined to become his story

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Temporary Theater Company

1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc   -

Music:
-

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:
Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Kissing the Floor

Synopsis:
Annie tries to protect her brother Paul

Notes:
part of the Ernst C. Stiefel 7@7 Reading Series

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in "New York Theater Review" 2009   -

Music:
-

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/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Lysistrata

Synopsis:
This fresh, fast-paced comedy, inspired by the Aristophanes play, follows Lysistrata, an Athenian housewife, who calls for the women of Greece to help end the Peloponnesian War. She proposes a radical plan: all Greek women must refuse to engage in love making until the men see reason, lay down their arms and come home to lay down with their wives in peace. the women agree to make the sacrifice and all hell breaks loose as men wander the country in an agony of unsatisfied lust. Will Lysistrata and her crew accomplish what the politicians could not?

Notes:
Original Playwright - Aristophanes

1st Produced:
University Of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Oh     2006

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc (2010)   -

Music:
-

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:
60-80 min Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  13            Female:  7            Other:  (13-26 actors possible: 8-16 females, 5-10 males

Further Reference:
-

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Narrow Bed, A

Synopsis:
two women coping with loneliness and loss as the last members of a rural commune founded in the 60's

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     1987

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Samuel French, NY,    -

Music:
-

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/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Bibliographies/VN_drama_bib.php

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Oedipus

Synopsis:
A plague grips the city of thebes. Desperate to save his people, King Oedipus sends a messenger to the oracle at Delphi and discovers that the city's salvation lies in finding and punishing the murderer of the former king, Laius, who was brutally slain by a stranger at a crossroads years ago. When Oedipus orders a manhunt, he unknowingly sets the wheels of his own destruction in motion. This lean, contemporary version brings a new, poignant power to this primal work that is the cornerstone of Western Drama.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Sophocles

1st Produced:
Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis, Mn     15 Jan 2005

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc   -

Music:
-

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:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  1            Other:  6 either

Further Reference:
-

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Penelope

Synopsis:
A woman's ex-husband appears at her door after an absence of 20 years, suffering from brain damage. A veteran of a modern war, he doesn't know who he is and she doesn't know who he's become. While they wait together for his return to himself, she reads him the Odyssey, and in the journey of that book, she finds a way into her former husband's memory and the terror and trauma of war
- press release

Notes:
book And lyrics Ellen McLaughlin; music Sarah Kirkland Snider

1st Produced:
Public Theater, NY     2008

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Persians, The

Synopsis:
In this moving and poetic adaptation of Aeschylus' Drama, Queen Atossa and her subjects anxiously await news of their King Xerxes' expedition to Greece. What they hear is inconceivably horrifying: the vast Persian Empire has fallen, with an entire army lost. Now the scant survivors of a catastrophic campaign, including Xerxes himself, must find a way to continue to live in the shattered world they once called home.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Aeschylus

1st Produced:
National Actor's Theatre, NY     2003

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc   -

Music:
-

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:
Translation

Parts:
Male:  10            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Septimus and Clarissa

Synopsis:
This is a developmental production of a new play based on Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Looking through the eyes of a veteran and a wealthy socialite whose past comes back to haunt her, this new play offers a politically charged and shockingly relevant story of war and its aftermath.

Notes:
Based on "Mrs Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf

1st Produced:
East 13th Street Theatre, 136 East 13th Street, New York, NY 10003     25 Jun 2010

Organisations:
Red Bull Theater

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Tongue Of A Bird

Synopsis:
lyrical exploration of loss as search and rescue pilot is engaged to search for 12 year old girl who has been kidnapped

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
American Theatre Magazine, NY - March, 1999    -

Music:
-

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/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Trojan Women, the

Synopsis:
In the wake of their devastating defeat, the women of Troy, all now widows, wait on the beach below the ravaged city to be claimed by their Greek conquerors as slaves and concubines. Though the war is over, exile and degradation lie ahead and the fates of these women, including Queen Hecuba, her daughter Cassandra, the doomed, mad prophetess, and her daughter-in-law Andromache, widow of the great Hector, are still in the balance.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Euripides

1st Produced:
Fordham University, NY     2003

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc   -

Music:
-

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:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  12            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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