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MEREDITH OAKES (1946 - ) |
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Nationality: Australian Email: n/a Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: Casarotto Ramsay and Associates Ltd |
Meredith Oakes is an Australian playwright (born Sydney, 1946) who has lived in London since 1970. She has written plays, adaptations, translations, opera texts and poems, and taught play-writing at Royal Holloway College and for the Arvon Foundation. She also wrote music criticism for The Independent newspaper and the Daily Telegraph in Australia, as well as contributing to a variety of magazines including The Listener. Her first performed play was The Neighbour for the Royal National Theatre in 1993. Other plays have included The Editing Process (1994), Faith (1997), and Scenes from the Back of Beyond (2006) at the Royal Court Theatre, Mind the Gap (1995) at Hampstead Theatre, Man for Hire (2002) at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, and Shadowmouth (2006) at the Crucible Studio in Sheffield. Her most recent plays were a trio of shorts, The Fisherman, Short Lease and SATB, written for actor-musician students at Rose Bruford College and staged at Battersea Arts Centre in June 2007. Oakes wrote the libretto for The Tempest based on Shakespeare's play with music written by the English composer Thomas Ades. The opera was given its premiere performance in February 2004 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. It was subsequently staged at the Opera National du Rhin in Strasbourg and at Operaan in Copenhagen, and in summer 2006 in a new production by Jonathan Kent in Santa Fe. She wrote the text for the television opera The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit (1995) by the Irish composer Gerald Barry, commissioned by Channel 4. In summer 2002 this was staged in a production by director/designer Nigel Lowery for Almeida Opera, at the Aldeburgh Festival and in London, and also performed in the autumn at the Berlin Festwochen. Other opera texts she has written include Miss Treat for Des Oliver, staged by Tete a Tete in 2000, Jump into My Sack (based on a story by Italo Calvino) for Julian Grant, staged bv Mecklenburg Opera in 1996, and Solid Assets for Colin Huehns, staged by ENO opera studio in 1993, Her cycle of poems, Edward John Eyre, was written to be set to music by the Australia composer Barry Conyngham in 1970. Both The Neighbour and Faith have been staged in the USA, the former in Los Angeles, and the latter off-Broadway in New York. Oakes's plays are mostly published by Oberon Books. The text of The Tempest is published by Faber Music. Her radio plays have included Glide (1998, with incidental music by Gerald Barry), Trampoline (2000), and The Mind of the Meeting (2002), all for BBC Radio Three. She also translated the French Algerian playwright Fatima Gallaire's Pebbles for Your Thirst (Des Cailloux pour la Soif , Radio 4, 2002). For television she originated Prime Suspect 4 in 1994. Oakes has also written adaptations of some classic works such as Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy presented at the Southwark Playhouse, London in 2006. Her new version of Mozart's Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario) was staged by Garsington Opera in 1995. Her translation of Werner Schwab's famous modern classic Die Präsidentinnen was staged in the West End in a production by Richard Jones at the Ambassadors Theatre in 1999, with the title Holy Mothers. She translated Fatima Gallaire's Princesses for the Royal Court Theatre. Other translations of classic and modern plays have included Thomas Bernhard's Elizabeth II and Lenz's The New Menoza, both staged at the Gate Theatre in the early 1990s, and Strindberg's Miss Julie staged at the Young Vic. Her translations from German also include Schiller's Kabale und Liebe (Luise Miller), Odon von Horvath's Italian Night, and two contemporary plays, Moritz Rinke's The Man Who Never Yet Saw Woman's Nakedness, and Christoph Nussbaumeder's To the South Seas by Gherkin-plane. Oakes is a seventh generation Australian who was educated at Cheltenham Girls High School, Sydney from 1959 to 1963, and then at the University of Sydney where she took double honours in French and Music. She studied violin with Gordon Bennett of the Sydney String Quartet and piano as a second instrument. In London she initially worked for the magazine Music and Musicians as an editorial assistant and writer, and later was public relations officer for Allied Artists Agency from 1972 to 1973 when they were presenting the London Music Digest, a series of contemporary concerts at the Round House. Her dramaturgical work included Stephen Daldry's only opera staging to date (Manon Lescaut in Dublin, 1991), and advising on his production of von Horvath's Judgment Day at the Old Red Lion, Islington in 1989. She also worked as dramaturg on opera productions by Tim Coleman in Dublin and Belfast, and with Tim Hopkins on Forest Murmurs for Opera North in Leeds. She married the writer and music journalist Tom Sutcliffe in 1973, and lives in south London.
Plays by Meredith Oakes
Editing Process, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1994 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1870259467 | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #25982 | |||
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: | Satire | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| Set in the offices of a magazine publishers, Meredith Oakes' comedy of fragile values in the media will not restore your faith in human nature, but it is guaranteed to help you get on in publishing without really succeeding | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Elizabeth II | ||
| 1st Produced: | London | 1992 | ||||
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 | #25983 | |||
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: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Thomas Bernhard | |||||
Synopsis: |
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Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Faith | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1997 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Oberon Books, London >>>, 1997 | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1870259807 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #25984 | |||
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 | 5 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| A vision of military conflict as a testing ground for English values | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Fisherman, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2008 | |||||
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 | #67881 | |||
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: | One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | part of triple bill | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Heldenplatz | ||
| 1st Produced: | 12 Feb 2010 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1840029956 | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #111810 | |||
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: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 6 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Thomas Bernhard, translated by Meredith Oakes and Andrea Tierney | |||||
| Thomas Bernhard is widely considered to be one of the most important German playwrights in the post-war era. Highly acclaimed, he has written over twenty plays and novels and gained a reputation as one of Austria's most controversial authors. He wrote Heldenplatz in 1988 as a response to the fiftieth anniversary of the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria by Hitler's Germany. Highly controversial in Austria, the play concerns a Jewish professor who returns to Vienna after the Second World War and discovers that his fellow Austrians are as anti-semitic as ever. Heldenplatz' is the square in Vienna where the Austrian-born Hitler made his first speech after the Anschluss. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Her Mother And Bartok | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1999 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1840021861 | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #40803 | |||
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 | 1 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| A perceptive and witty tale of love, focusing on a husband and wife as they discuss their first meeting from the perspective of the less-than-inspiring present. We gradually discover that each fell in love with aspects of the other that were unreal, that required changing and that such attraction can only ever have a limited life. Insightful and revealing, Oakes' great skill lies in the powerful simplicity of her storytelling. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Holy Mothers | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Oberon Books, London >>>, 1999 | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1840021136 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #25985 | |||
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: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | 3+ | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Werner Schwab | |||||
| the holy mothers are three ordinary women, their lives are grotesque and their fantasies lurid | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2008 | |||||
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 | #80019 | |||
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: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | 27 actors | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Peter Handke | |||||
Synopsis: | Set in a bright, empty town square, 450 characters played by just 27 actors dart fleetingly across the stage, creating hundreds of miniature stories about the world we live in and the people we meet.'The trigger for the play was an afternoon several years ago. I sat on the terrace of a cafe and watched life pass by. I got into a state of real observation, perhaps this was helped along a bit by the wine. Every little thing became significant (without being symbolic). The tiniest procedures seemed significant of the world' | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Iphigenia | ||
| 1st Produced: | 21 Sep 2011 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1849431644 | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #132044 | |||
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: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Goethe | |||||
| The Greek fleet bound for Troy is becalmed. For the sake of a wind, Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces, is persuaded that he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. But as the priest raises his knife to slit the child's throat, the goddess Diana spirits her away. Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, believing her beloved daughter to be dead, slays her husband in revenge on is return from the Trojan wars. Their son, Orestes, avenges his father's death by killing his mother. Now, years later, as Iphigenia, a prisoner of the temple of Diana, looks across the sea to Athens, longing to return home, her brother Orestes arrives to rescue her. . . | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Italian Night | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1840021527 | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #25986 | |||
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 | 3 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Odon von Horvath | |||||
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Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Man For Hire | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2002 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1840022833 | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #36008 | |||
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 | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | The job is a big step up with a lot of responsibility. The place is immaculate and expensive, quietly tucked away in the middle of London. The people are nice. Will they like him? He just wants to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. Will it be enough? | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Man Who Never Yet Saw Woman's Nakedness, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1840022299 | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #40804 | |||
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: | Translation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | cast size 14 | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Moritz Rinke | |||||
| a strange man comes to audition for a production of Romeo and Juliet, and the boundaries between life and theatre begin to blur | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Mind The Gap | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1995 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Published, | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #40802 | |||
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 | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Miss Julie | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1996 | |||||
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 | #25987 | |||
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 | 10 | Female | 9 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - August Strindberg | |||||
Synopsis: | presents, with startling clarity, the conflict between sexual passion and social position | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Neighbour, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1993 | |||||
Company: | Springboards | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1870259319 | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #25988 | |||
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 | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| Two young men living on a council estate suddenly become enemies, invoking destructive forces beyond their control. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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New Menoza, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Edinburgh | 1993 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Lenz, three plays" Oberon Books, London, 1993 | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1870259335 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #25989 | |||
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 - Jacob Lenz | |||||
| Prince Tandi sails from Cumba in Europe in search of culture and fall in love with Wilhelmina. Count Chameleon travels across Germany fleeing from his wife and fall in love with Wilhelmina. Donna Diana searches the country for her unfaithful husband. squire and mrs Worthy have a long lost son and a daughter rip fro marriage. . .. . . . . | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Revenger's Tragedy, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2006 | |||||
Company: | Doublethink Theatre & Halflight | |||||
| 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 | #50541 | |||
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: | large cast | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Thomas Middleton | |||||
Synopsis: | Murder, vengence, rape, cuckolding and calumny. That's just the first two scenes. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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SATB | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2007 | |||||
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 | #67880 | |||
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: | One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | part of triple bill | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Scenes From The Back Of Beyond | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2006 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Oberon Books, London >>>, 2006 | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1840027088 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #57991 | |||
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 | 1 | ||
Parts other: | 1b (about 10) 1g (about 15) | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| Bill is sustained by his deep sense of a wider culture and an improving world. The only thing the human race needs to do is learn. When he meets a person who embodies this idea, he naturally likes them. Especially if his wife doesn't. Set at the end of the 1950s, Scenes explores the comfort, hopes and fragility of family life in a new Sydney suburb. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Shadowmouth | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2006 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1840026790 | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #55358 | |||
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 | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| A troubled teenager is thrown out of home by his single mother and is taken in by a lonely middle-aged pederast. The man watches the boy - the object of his desire - as if watching a film unfold inside of his head, while the teenager's night-time odysseys through the city lead him first to become involved with crazy Daisy and then in a destructive gay relationship with the emotionally manipulative Paul. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Short Lease | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2009 | |||||
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 | #67882 | |||
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: | One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | part of triple bill | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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