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Vineyard Theater, New York

1996

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

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New York cast recording: Varese (57292)

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

drama

Musical

2

1

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Notes:
Music by Polly Pen, Lyrics by Laurence Klavan, Based on the Film by Abram Room

Synopsis:
In Moscow, in 1926, a housing crisis rages. In a cramped apartment, Ludmilla, a put-upon housewife, lives in dreamy complacency with her cheerful despot of a husband, Kolya. When one day, Kolya's handsome comrade, Volodya, arrives from the country, but can find no lodgings, Kolya offers him their sofa. When Kolya returns early from a business trip, he is shocked to discover that Ludmilla and Volodya have become lovers. Kolya moves out, but there is still nowhere to live, so he reluctantly returns, taking the sofa, leaving Ludmilla and Volodya the bed. Kolya stalls the new couple's lovemaking with endless games of checkers, so that slowly, to Ludmilla's frustration, Volodya becomes more interested in the manly sport of checkers than in sex. Finally, Volodya reveals himself to be just as much a domestic despot as Kolya. So Ludmilla banishes Volodya to the sofa and takes the bed for herself. Ludmilla's "marriage" to the two men has already had its consequence as she is pregnant. The two men bicker over who is the father and finally decree: Ludmilla must have an abortion. Acquiescing, Ludmilla waits her turn in a frighteningly efficient clinic. But seeing a living, breathing baby out the window convinces her to leave, without the procedure. She packs up and abandons her two "husbands," declaring them unworthy to be fathers, and Kolya and Volodya find themselves alone in the close Moscow flat. They have no choice: As Ludmilla rides alone into the exciting unknown, Kolya takes the bed and Volodya the sofa.

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I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com

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Musical

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Notes:
Music by Polly Pen; lyrics by Polly Pen; book by Polly Pen. Based on a novel by H G Wells.

Synopsis:
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I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com

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Notes:
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Synopsis:
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Dramatists Play Service, NY

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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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Musical

5

4

doubling

Notes:
Book by Laurence Klavan, Music by Polly Pen, Lyrics by Laurence Klavan and Polly Pen, Additional Text by Polly Pen

Synopsis:
The date: January 5, 1895. The place: the St. James Theater in Londons West End. Tonight, brilliant novelist Henry James hopes to change his life with the opening of his new venture: a play, into which he has poured his vulnerable heart. In tragic-comic scenes that evoke his love and terror of the theatre, he stalls and hallucinates before attending the ill-fated premiere of his famously disastrous play Guy Domville. Meanwhile, deep in his imagination, a parallel short story, Nona Vincent, unfolds. In it, a young, hopeful and impoverished playwright, Wayworth, is about to have his first, very commercial, play produced. He is drawn into a triangle with his elegant patron, Mrs. Alsager, and his young leading lady, Violet Grey. With increasing speed, these two stories, one real and one imaginary, drive toward their very different confrontations with destiny.

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

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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

Fantasy Musical

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2

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Notes:
written by Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon, music by Polly Pen, adapted from the poem by Christina Rossetti

Synopsis:
Two proper Victorian sisters, both now grown women and mothers, return to their childhood nursery to relive the haunting memories of their youth. Magically, they are transported back to their girlhood, as their nursery becomes a woodland glen peopled by bizarre goblins who entice them with luscious fruits and promises of unimagined ecstasies. One of the sisters, Laura, partakes of the forbidden offerings, while her sibling, Lizzie, bargains desperately with the fey creatures to save her from inexorably falling under their spell. Blending music, poetry and entrancing imagery, the play is a dazzling journey through the psyches of the two sisters as they struggle to regain the present and to reconcile the fervent, erotic yearnings of their adolescence with the matter-of-fact world that they now inhabit. Happily they succeed, but their voyage in and out of the pastand through the labyrinths of their vivid imaginations weaves an enchanted spell that will linger long in the memory.