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SEBASTIAN MICHAEL |
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Nationality: British/Swiss Email: Click here to contact Website: Click here to visit |
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Literary Agent: n/a |
Sebastian was found in a wicker basket at Basel airport on a mild summer night in the mid nineteen-sixties, having arrived on a plane from Manchester UK where he had been born barely six weeks earlier. Fortunately, he was taken home by a kindly lady (as it turned out, his mother), and visitors to Switzerland will notice that this happy event is still celebrated every year on the 1st of August, with jolly brass bands and elaborate firework displays. . . Following an uneventful childhood, Sebastian spent his teenage years experimenting with writing, before enrolling at Basel University, where he largely managed to avoid being drawn into any lectures or seminars, and instead used his time to great effect with the university's English language drama group and a theatre company he co-founded: under the guidance of professional directors, theatertheaterEdelGrau performed his first two plays, Sentimental Breakdown. . . and Dialog. Encouraged by these early forays, Sebastian abandoned his university studies and returned to England to pursue a career in the theatre, this time settling in London, his favourite place in the world, which is where he's been living ever since. By the late Eighties, Sebastian had founded a new theatre company, Aesthetics on Stage, with which he produced four of his plays on the London and Edinburgh fringe, and in 1991, after simultaneously completing a part-time degree in Social Sciences, a part-time acting course at the City Lit, and doing a full-time job with a frontline drugs agency in Soho, Sebastian finally joined the post-grad acting course at The Drama Studio London in Ealing. Sebastian then spent the rest of the Nineties working mainly as a writer and actor. Together with theatre director Michael Cabot, Sebastian set up the production company Michael & Michael which among others brought the British premiere of Dea Loher's award-winning play Tattoo to London in their own translation. By the mid-nineties, Sebastian, together with actress Charlotte Bicknell, set up Kissing the Goldfish, the music comedy act which attained near cult status with appearances at three Edinburgh Festivals, two Glastonburys and other festivals and performances in Asia, Australia and Europe. A break in the performance schedule for 'Goldfish' in 1998 led to Sebastian developing his own solo show Agreeably Mad which he performed at several London venues and at the Edinburgh Pleasance in 2000. Parts of this show were also shown at the Komedia in Brighton and at the Drill Hall London as part of the English Chanson season in early 2003. In 1998, Sebastian's play The Power of Love was shortlisted for the coveted Verity Bargate new writing award. The play was then disqualified from the competition because a highly acclaimed production at The Southwark Playhouse opened before an announcement of the winner had been made and so rendered it ineligible as an 'unperformed' play. The piece nevertheless ushered in a significant development for Sebastian, as it persuaded top London literary agents Rod Hall and Clare Barker of the Rod Hall Agency to represent him as a writer. Furthermore, US publisher Smith & Kraus selected no fewer than five excerpts from the play for their 1999 editions of Best Men's Monologues and Best Women's Monologues. The Power of Love is part one of The Love Trilogy. The second play, Love Hurts, was developed in close collaboration with the Arcola Theatre (winner of the 2001 'Open Space Award' and dubbed the 'new Almeida') where it received workshops and a rehearsed public reading. Time After Time is the third and final play in the series and was completed in the Summer of 2004. It reached the 'final ten' of that year's Verity Bargate Award at the Soho Theatre. Having previously written a couple of full-length on-spec screenplays, Sebastian wrote and directed his first short film Twenty-Six Takes on Life Without Allen in 2004. With Charlotte Bicknell and Matt Emery in the leading roles and Miles Conder as Director of Photography, this 30-minute drama was produced under the 'label' of Sebastian's new production company OptimistCreations and has since been screened at festivals in Chicago, LA, Lisbon and Padua. This was followed in 2006 by a second short film, The Study of Bunkers & Mounds in a Temperate Climate (Relatively Speaking) which at that year's TCM Classic Shorts Competition was "highly commended". Since then, Sebastian has written a new full-length script, Soho, Night 9X9, which is now in development and set to become his first feature-length film. Other work includes the novel Angel, libretto and lyrics for Monstersound (music by David Klein, Olivier Truan and Nicky Reiss, shortlisted for the Musical of the Year Competition 1994 in Copenhagen), and the libretto for the musical Alvaro's Balcony in collaboration with Mercury Workshop Award winner Jonathan Kaldor.
Plays by Sebastian Michael
All The World | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1990 | |||||
Company: | Aesthetics on Stage | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43207 | |||
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 | 4 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Set in the West End dressing room of opulent star Peggy Weishaupt, 'All The World' offers a breathlessly excited backstage look at the tawdry glamour and ingenious artifice of the theatrical profession. Peggy is larger-than-life, with a lived-in body and husky, smoky voice: successful, yet desperately insecure; feted, but possessed by voices from the past. A faint air of doom hangs about her intense relationship with adored son David. . . . Everybody falls in love with everybody else, comes to grief, and decides the show must go on! . . . Straightforward realism alternates with hightened fantasy, with the script veering from the workaday to the poetic. Suzy Feay, Time Out | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Alvaro's Balcony | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2008 | |||||
Company: | Theatrica in association with the Landor Theatre | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #87060 | |||
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: | Musical | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | mixed ensemble, min 5 | |||||
Notes: | Book by Sebastian Michael; Music & Lyrics by Jonathan Kaldor | |||||
Synopsis: | 1928. The whole world is enthralled by Constance Nielsen, a beautiful American debutante who marries into one of Europe's ancient Royal Families. In doing so, she almost single-handedly puts the tiny Alpine principality of Centoluci on the map, and investment, high-class tourism and international glamour rapidly follow what is the 'Wedding of the Century' so far. Soon though she realises that her marriage to the Crown Prince is a loveless arrangement of state convenience, and she embarks on an impassioned affair with her music teacher Alvaro who gives her the love, respect and purpose that her official role is unable to provide. As their 'friendship' threatens to spark uproar, a house fire engulfs Alvaro's old town attic, and news of both their deaths turns her from living legend into tragic heroine and timeless icon. 1972. Forty-four years later, her famous jewelry surfaces on the black market, and on a remote Caribbean island, Miss Vine, a piano teacher in her sixties, claims to be Princess Constance: very much alive, and with a priceless story to tell. . . | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Baur Au Lac | ||
| 1st Produced: | rehearsed reading at Actors Centre, London | 26 Mar 2010 | ||||
Company: | OptimstCreations | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #112643 | |||
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 | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | susannah york and illona linthwaite play two sisters whose lives, having gone on very separate trajectories, are thrown into turmoil over a loss that is shared in a sense that is all too real. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Carambolage (Sleaze) | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2000 | |||||
Company: | Steam Machine | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43206 | |||
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: | Satirical Farce, part verse Satire | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 9 | Female | 5 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | A Tory would-be PM's political ambitions unravel when his teenage rent boy of yore turns up on the Greek island where he's spending a pre-leadership campaign holiday | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Elder Latimer is in Love | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2009 | |||||
Company: | OptimistCreations in coproduction with Arcola Theatre | |||||
| 1st Published: | http://www.optimistcreations.com/books/elderlatimer.html | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1409297055 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #99431 | |||
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 | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | The playtext is earmarked for publication to coincide with the inaugural production at Arcola Theatre. More info soon. | |||||
| Can love conquer all? Can reason? Elder Jaden Latimer is a young Mormon missionary from the States, here to talk to people about what he knows to be the truth. When he falls in love with Dina, a young Muslim who's even more convinced of her faith than he is of his, that question takes on a whole new meaning, because while Jaden is beginning to see all manner of things in the new light of a new city, Dina's determination to do what she knows is right has no limits: Love becomes a matter of life and death, and not just for Jaden. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Exit | ||
| 1st Produced: | Canal Cafe Theatre London | 1991 | ||||
Company: | Aesthetics on Stage | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #24069 | |||
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: | 90 min Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Recount[s] Lena's escape from Nazi Berlin across the Swiss border, her subsequent career, 'making an impact' as a designer, and her painful death under treatment for lung cancer. There is movement from externals (dresses pinned on dummies) inwards (the diseased torso), but the play crosses vast terrains (the Holocaust, the Wall, euthanasia). Kate Bassett, Time Out | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Judgement Day | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1994 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #24068 | |||
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: | Adaptation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Odon von Horvath | |||||
Synopsis: |
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Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Love Hurts | ||
| 1st Produced: | Workshopped at the Arcola Theatre, London | 2002 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43202 | |||
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: | Contemporary Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Part Two of the Love Trilogy | |||||
Synopsis: | A group of London urbanites in their thirties juggle their complicated lifestyles while coming to terms with tragedy in their midst, as the recent past catches up with them more quickly than they imagined | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Love Trilogy, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43200 | |||
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: | Trilogy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Power Of Love, The; Love Hurts; Time After Time | |||||
Synopsis: | The Love Trilogy is a series of plays about relationships, life, death, friendship and love, and doing things your own sweet way. At its core it charts the 'growing up' of Tender, a London thirty-something who, through one arguably minor slip-up, brings disaster into his marriage, with consequences that will last him a lifetime. Tender's journey is tied to that of Eugen, his best friend who in turn is still learning to reconcile his characteristically contemporary longing for independence with the unruly demands of his heart. Over the course of seven years, the three plays introduce a group of characters who each juggle the imperatives of their own complex lifestyles, sometimes in triumph, sometimes in tears, and mostly in the hope and belief that there is, after all, a 'good way' of being human. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Nemesis | ||
| 1st Produced: | Reading at BAC London | - - - | ||||
Company: | Greater London Productions | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43205 | |||
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 | 8 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | 1 boy; 4-8 extras | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | A liberal government minister loses her son in an IRA bomb attack and sets out to avenge her child's death | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Power Of Love, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Southwark Playhouse London | 1998 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43203 | |||
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: | Contemporary Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Part One of the Love Trilogy | |||||
Synopsis: | 'The Power of Love' is about young people in the nineties grappling with sex, careers, drugs and AIDS, but it does not exhibit the soulless banality of so many plays with these themes. This is 'Shopping and Fucking' with more humour and more heart - the plot meanders and teases while always keeping an assured grip on the audience's attention: black comedy, tragedy, poetry, soap opera and philosophy jostle joyfully together - 'The Power of Love' draws authenticity from the strength of its characterisation. The friendship between the two main male characters, Tender and Eugen, is the engine that powers the play. It is quirky but absolutely believable and, as an unashamedly emotional portrayal of male love - ventures into relatively unexplored theatrical territory. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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QED | ||
| 1st Produced: | Edinburgh Fringe | 1989 | ||||
Company: | Aesthetics on Stage | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43209 | |||
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: | Concept Multi-Media Performance | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | On walking into the performance area, all my ghosts were exorcised. QED is advertised as theatre but uses dance, a slide show and an original soundtrack as well as the spoken word. The performance fairly bubbles with intellectual playfulness. But this hardly implies that the concepts confronted within are slight. Sequences of movement and words are used as building blocks. These are repeated, with minor variations by all the cast. Through this repetition, the bizarre becomes commonplace and we are warned against this. . . . The dynamics of the stage action combine with this to exhilarating effect. . . . Put it this way: I want the accompanying T-shirt. Pete Strover, Forth Action Review | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Rinaldo | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | |||||
Company: | Steam Machine | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43204 | |||
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 | 3 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Two brothers' incestuous relationship flares up on the occasion of the older's wedding | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Sisters | ||
| 1st Produced: | Edinburgh Fringe | 1989 | ||||
Company: | Aesthetics on Stage | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43208 | |||
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: | Surrealist Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | From the title, one might expect some feminist tract, or a worthy family narrative, but you get neither, but a quite engrossing but playful meditation on the idea of sisterhood, fleshed out with arresting and unusual stage antics. The scene is at an airport, where two sisters, both formidable women in their own rights, meet to attend a family funeral. The play develops the two characters, Camelia - a stunningly magnetic woman, successful journalist and irrepressible minx, and Anja, more conventionally feminist. Sparks fly as opening naturalistic scene gives way to a surreal sequence in which the audience itself becomes, in a small way, part of the action. Joy Hendry, The Scotsman | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Stranger's House | ||
| 1st Produced: | rehearsed reading Royal Court theatre upstairs | 1997 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #67337 | |||
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: | contemporary drama Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Dea Loher | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Tattoo | ||
| 1st Produced: | New Grove Theatre, London | 1994 | ||||
Company: | michael & michael | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #67338 | |||
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: | contemporary drama Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Dea Loher. Translated by Sebastian Michael and Michael Cabot | |||||
Synopsis: | With the relentless and poetic qualities of an ancient Greek tragedy, this play pierces to the heart of a family enslaved by its father | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Time After Time | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43201 | |||
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: | Contemporary Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Part Three of the Love Trilogy | |||||
Synopsis: | Tender sets about salvaging his second marriage after a 'minor glitch' early on in the proceedings, while best friend Eugen tries to reconcile his love ideal with 'reality', though not quite as most people know it. Meanwhile, mutual friend Anna comes up trumps with her own brand of surprises | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Top Story | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | |||||
Company: | The Accidental Festival / OptimistCreations | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #84869 | |||
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: | Apocalyptic Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | A meteor the size of LA is about to hit LA. In London, a couple of friends spend the last seven days of the world on the sofa, watching the news, reinventing chess and rewriting the rules for some of the other games in their universe: generally putting things into perspective; at once paralysed and inspired by the 'overallness of it all'. Getting ready, as best they can, to die together, the enormity of what's about to happen completely overwhelms them, but it also brings out in them a whole burst of creative energy, and so as the Top Story unfolds before their eyes, they inadvertently become its co-authors, while in a dimension far beyond their imagination their soul-mates-in-spirit are having something of an unexpected ball. . . | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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