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Stephen Most

STEPHEN MOST

  (1943 - )
Nationality:    USA
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    n/a

Stephen Most is an author, playwright, and documentary filmmaker. His plays include Poe, Medicine Show, Raven's Seed, Watershed, A Free Country, and Forces of Nature. In addition, he has written plays for and with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Dell'Arte Players Company. Most is the writer/producer of the documentary River of Renewal, which won the "best documentary feature" award at the American Indian Film Festival. His book River of Renewal, Myth and History in the Klamath Basin was co-published by the University of Washington Press and the Oregon Historical Society Press. Other films he has written in recent years include Oil On Ice, which is about the controversy over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; the Greatest Good, a two-hour history of the U. S. Forest Service; and A Land Between Rivers, a documentary history of central California. Wonders of Nature, which he wrote for the Great Wonders of the World series, won an Emmy for best special non-fiction program. Promises, on which he worked as Consulting Writer and Researcher, won Emmys for best documentary and outstanding background analysis and research. the Bridge So Far: A Suspense Story, won a best-documentary Emmy. Berkeley in the Sixties, which Most co-wrote, received an Academy Award nomination. He was Consulting Writer for Mothers of the Plaza and Freedom on my Mind as well as Promises, all of which also received Academy Award nominations.

Research:    Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)

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

         Crossing Borders         Forces of Nature         Free Country, A         Intrigue At Ah-Pah         Loon's Rage         Poe         Raven's Seed         Watershed         Whiteman Meets Bigfoot

Crossing Borders

Synopsis:
A radical lesbian marries a Salvadoran refugee so he can stay in the United States, but she doesn't tell him she's gay or her lover that she's married.

Notes:
Story And script by Stephen Most, revisions during rehearsals by Michele Linfante

1st Produced:
Traveling Outdoor Production     01 Sep 1985

Organisations:
San Francisco Mime Troupe

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

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Genre:
Musical farce. - - Lesbian, theme/character, full length

Parts:
Male:  2+            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Forces of Nature

Synopsis:
This play portrays the relationships of three great American conservationists.the conflict between conservating natural resources for human use and preserving nature from human interference came to a head over the issue of whether to dam the Hetch Hetchy Valley to provide power and light for San Francisco.

Notes:
the Connecticut Forest & Park Association commissioned this play As A fund-raiser. the play premiered As A staged reading in which James Naughton played John Muir, John Benjamin Hickey played Gifford Pinchot, And Brian Denneny was TR.

1st Produced:
Belding Theater At The Bushnell Center For The Performing Arts, Hartford, Connecticut     09 Nov 2007

Organisations:
Connecticut Forest & Park Association

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

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Free Country, A

Synopsis:
Two strangers, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World and an unemployed shipyard worker, meet in a shack in Seattle's Hooverville during the winter of 1930-31. Although both MAC and LEON are residents of the same squatter's community and although both were members of the Northwest workforce during the early decades of this century, they have lived on opposite sides of two social divides: the color line, for LEON is black and MAC white, and the picket line, for LEON's best-paying jobs have come when a union went on strike.

Notes:
the first scene of A Free Country Appears in Duo, the Best Scenes for Two in the 21st Century. the rest of the play is unpublished.

1st Produced:
Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, Washington     1996

Organisations:
Seattle Group Theatre

1st Published:
For MAC, the color line is "a pigment of the imagination"; the significant divide between them is the fact that LEON was never a union member. From LEON's perspective, joining the union was precluded by racial injustice in which the union movement, like the wider society, participated both wittingly and unwittingly. A FREE COUNTRY Dramatizes the fact that the social reality of African-Americans is quite different from that of European Americans. MAC and LEON live, in effect, in different countries: separate and not equal.   978-1557837028

Music:
-

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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:  2            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Intrigue At Ah-Pah

Synopsis:
In this 'eco-thriller,' female detective Scar Tissue sets out on a vacation fishing trip only to end up on the trail of a killer. She falls in love with the wrong guy, but uncovers a plot to dam the wild rivers of Northern California. Noirish, with many comic scenes.

Notes:
written by Joan Schirle, Michael Fields, Donald Forrest, Jael Weisman, Stephen Most, Mara Sabinson

1st Produced:
-     1979

Organisations:
Dell'Arte International

1st Published:
West Coast Plays, Vol 8 (1981)   -

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:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Loon's Rage

Synopsis:
Animal characters from Northwest Indian folktales confront nuclear physicists who run a nuclear power plant. Loon, a prophetic bird, warns of disaster, and disaster comes in the form of a meltdown.

Notes:
Written by Stephen Most, Joan Holden And Jael Weisman

1st Produced:
Traveling Outdoor Production     1976

Organisations:
Dell'Arte Players Company

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

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Genre:
Commedia dell'arte

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  4

Further Reference:
-

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Poe

Synopsis:
In the autumn of 1849, Edgar Allen Poe had announced his intention to marry for the second time. He went to Baltimore en route to New York to pick up some of his belongings. He was found unconscious, without identification or money, on a Baltimore street. Poe died in a pauper's hospital after four days of feverish ravings. In this play, the dying Poe sees episodes that he lived and imagined flash through his mind

Notes:
Poe won the Award for the best original play in 1971 from the Evanston Drama Society.

1st Produced:
Organic Theatre, Chicago     1971

Organisations:
Organic Theatre

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

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  raven

Further Reference:
-

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Raven's Seed

Synopsis:
Human beings have taken the power of the stars and put it into a nuclear fusion laboratory. When the animals discover that their world is contaminated by radwaste from the nuclear facility, Raven emulates his heroic ancestor by disguising himself as a human and stealing their power.

Notes:
This play transforms the male physicist characters from Loon's Rage into Stan & Ollie types, And it Adds Raven to the Animal characters in Loon's Rage to tell the story of how Raven Stole the Sun. Originally produced As A musical, it is now A "physical comedy."

1st Produced:
People's Theatre, Fort Mason, San Francisco     01 Apr 1984

Organisations:
Sansei Productions

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:
Commedia dell'arte

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  5

Further Reference:
-

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Watershed

Synopsis:
A Yurok fishing family, facing a federal operation to curtail Indian gillnetting on the Klamath River, asks a family member who works for TV news to broadcast news of their struggle. Sandy, who is white as well as Indian, has to decide whether to stay in the "mainstream" or side with her people.

Notes:
This play draws from the oral history of A Yurok family by Helene Oppenheimer. Stephen Most tells the story of this family And the Salmon War in his book River of Renewal, Myth And History in the Klamath Basin And in the film River of Renewal that he wrote And produced. See www.riverofrenewal.org.

1st Produced:
Julia Morgan, Berkeley, California     1992

Organisations:
Tale Spinners Theater and Turtle Island Ensemble

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

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Whiteman Meets Bigfoot

Synopsis:
This stage version of R. Crumb's famous comic book is narrated by Mr. Natural.

Notes:
Stephen Most was the Dramaturg for this play And for INTRIGUE AT AH-PAH, which he Also wrote with the Dell'Arte Players Company.

1st Produced:
Dell'Arte Theatre, Blue Lake, California     1980

Organisations:
Dell'Arte Players Company

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

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Genre:
Commedia dell'arte

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  extras

Further Reference:
-

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