n/a

New York

1964

-

in "War and Four Other Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1967

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama

One Act

3

2

-

-

A delightfully acerbic spoof of the unreal world of show business, and the fradulent sentiment from which it is contrived. Successfully produced on the National Educational Televison Network.

28 Apr 1965

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY,

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Three 1 Act Plays

One Act

4

4

-

-

INTERVIEW. As Norman Nadel describes "Four masked, smiling interviewers interview a scrubwoman, a house painter, a banker and a lady's maid. It is commonplace and familiar enough, except that suddenly, the most innocent statements are foreboding. As the interviews progress, we are stung by the intensity and viciousness of the contest. The questioners are trying to destroy the dignity of the four clients, and the latter fight to hold their self-respect. It is never resolved. Abruptly the scene changes-a street, a subway, a psychiatrist's office, a confessional-but throughout, this compelling involvement continues. And the sense of familiarity continues as well. We are not seeing something new, except in the bizarre design of the play itself, but we are recognizing something which has been before us all the time. Therein lies the shock effect of AMERICA HURRAH and its power, as well. None of it is happening to others; it is happening to us-or rather, it is recalling things that have happened to us. We are thrust into awareness. The insulation burns off, and we have no choice but to perceive." (4M, 4W). TV. As recounted by Walter Kerr of the NY Times: "In a television studio, three very normal workers glance at the monitor now and then, where busy performers with striped faces-they look like so many up-ended zebras-go through all the violent, cloying, synthetic motions that pass for companionable entertainment on the national airwaves. But there is no relation between the workers and the work; a yawning gulf, big enough to drown us all, has opened between the real concerns of real people and the imaginary concerns of our imaginary archetypes. One of the real workers nearly strangles to death on a bone in his chicken-salad sandwich. But the burly chanteuse who pours affection across the land as though she were an open fire hydrant of boundless goodwill goes right on beaming her thousand good nights. Disaster is irrelevant in a time of eternal delight." And suddenly we become aware of the desperate futility of our efforts to shield ourselves from coming to grips with what is by simulating a cozy escape into what might be. The spectacle is funny, sad and alarming, all at the same time. (4M, 4W). MOTEL. As the NY Post describes: "Three giant colorfully styled dolls, with actors within: a motel landlady on Route 666 and the guy and the blonde, more or less out of IN COLD BLOOD, who have taken a room there for the night. Nobody speaks except the landlady, and she in the excellent recorded Great Plains voice of Ruth White. While the landlady spiels 15 minutes of platitudes about the hooked rugs and self-flushing toilets and other features of her motel, guy doll and blond doll crawl and draw graffiti on doors and walls and rip or smash everything in sight&" to the tune of a booming rock 'n roll number, leading up to a driving, galvanizing finish. And a finish, furthermore, which not only shocks but gives pause. In a real sense we are the mindless dolls, and their actions reflect the ugly impulses which lurk in all of us-finding an outlet in actions which can only leave us feeling ashamed and concerned, and aware of the aching emptiness at the heart of our modern way of life. (3M or 3W in "doll" masks and bodies; off-stage voice).

U of Colorado, Boulder

1991

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Play/Drama

4

1

-

-

A play about a gay artist with HIV/AIDS. "Van Itallie's hero. . .a manic, mercurial artist, embodies everything that's wonderful and horrible in New York's gay male vie de boheme, downtown style. . ." - Michael Feingold, Village Voice.

New York

1979

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1979

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama

One Act

-

1

-

-

In the words of in the New York Times this is "vintage van Itallie" a perceptive, articulate and always arresting evocation of big city life captured through the complex characterization of an itinerant "bag lady." "The play is not, as one might expect, a literal transcription from the street, but a poetic interpretation by a discerning playwright and actress." -NY Times. "What Mr. van Itallie, Ms. Chaikin, and their collaborators have in fact done is give New York City a voice and an image" -Village Voice.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

1985

American Repertory Company

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

translation/adaptation

-

7

5

-

Original Playwright - Jean Genet

The madame and VIP clients of a kinky brothel take over the country -- or do they? "Again and again we allow ourselves to be seduced by glamorous larger-than-life erotic images - political, religious, cultural, and commercial 'stars.' The more we worship these, give over our emotional centers to them, the bigger they grow while we grow smaller and our power diminishes." J-CvI

03 Nov 1965

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

3 min

-

-

-

-

BANG was a production in which 29 plawrights each wrote a three minute sketch. It was a benefit because the Buildings Department made us do extensive electrical repair. It was organized by Robert (O'Connor) Patrick. The following is a list of the plawrights involved: Joyce Aaron, Anthony Bastiano, Jean Claude Van Itallie, Walter Brown, Daniel Clark, Tom Eyen, Ted Harris, Robert Heide, William Hoffman, Douglas Kahn, Donald Kavares, Bruce Kessler, H.M. Koutoukas, Leonard Melfi, Mary Mitchell, Harvey Perr, Jean Reavey, Phill Bill Niblock, Lanford Wilson, Ruth Yorck.
- La mama Website

-

New York

1977

-

Grove Press, New York, 1977

-

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-

Adaptation

9

5

extras

Original Playwright - Anton Chekhov

The action takes place at the country estate of Madame Ranevskaya, an estate famed for its beautiful cherry orchard-and soon to be sold at auction unless the delinquent taxes are paid. As the play begins Madame Ranevskaya has returned from Paris, where she has frittered away the last of her fortune on a cynical young lover, and it is soon apparent that neither she, nor her family and friends, can come to grips with the crushing reality which they must face, or truly fathom the loss which threatens them. Instead they continue to go on as if nothing had changed, and only the rich merchant Lopakhin, the nouveau riche son of a peasant, seems to realize the gravity of the situation. Ironically it is he who bids successfully for the estate and who sets his men to felling the trees as, in the bittersweet finale, Madame Ranevskaya departs again for Paris and the fragile promise of a new and perhaps better life.

1983

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1983

-

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Three Related Short Plays

-

2

2

-

Early Warnings is an evening of three short plays: Bag Lady, Sunset Freeway, and Final Orders. Bag Lady is a l woman monologue. So is Sunset Freeway. Final Orders is for 2 men. So the total for Early Warnings: 2 women and 2 men.

In SUNSET FREEWAY, a young actress on her way to an audition is trapped in traffic. Nibbling away at a generous supply of snacks, she primps and chatters on about her life and career hopes, oblivious to the increasingly menacing reports on the car radio of an impending nuclear disaster resulting from computer error. (1 woman). In FINAL ORDERS, two astronauts soaring through space dutifully follow a prearranged daily schedule until even their brief moments of amusement seem programmed. And, just as dutifully and dispassionately, they execute orders to detonate the nuclear device entrusted to their care as they hurtle toward oblivion. (2 men).

Denver

1971

-

in "Seven Short and Very Short Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1975

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Comedy

One Act

1

1

-

-

A biting satire in which a frowzy housewife, absorbed in her TV is visited by an eccentric rapist-whose demands are somewhat different from what might be anticipated.

New York

1975

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1976

-

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Collaborative Piece

Musical

4

4

-

music by Richard Peaslee. Created by members of New York's famed Open Theatre

The action begins, once upon a time, in the village of People Who Fish in the Lake, where everyone longs nostalgically for the Golden Time, when happiness and harmony reigned supreme. In quest of what has been lost the haughty king sends a traveler off in pursuit of the beast that is stifling the kingdom-a search filled with uncertainty and lurking terrors. As she progresses in her journey the traveler is beset on every side, and her task grows more complex: How will she find the beast? How will she recognize him? How will she kill him? Scenes of high humor alternate with those of dark menace as she presses on, building inexorably into a brilliant and evocative mosaic which, in the end, distills and expresses the very elements of the life force itself.

Theatre for a New Audience, NY, USA >>>

2006

Theater for the New City

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

farcical tragedy

-

7

3

-

-

Hilarious, harrowing, politically radical take on Bush II White House - how a cruelly dysfunctional First Family results in a cruelly dysfunctional foreign policy.

1983

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1983

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

One Act

2

-

-

in Early Warnings

two astronauts soaring through space dutifully follow a prearranged daily schedule until even their brief moments of amusement seem programmed. And, just as dutifully and dispassionately, they execute orders to detonate the nuclear device entrusted to their care as they hurtle toward oblivion.

Los Angeles

1967

-

in "Seven Short and Very Short Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1975

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama

One Act

1

1

-

-

A girl sings; a soldier speaks of love and war; and a sense of the very nature of our tortured universe is poignantly evoked.

Art Bank, Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts

1997

Pilgrim Theater

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

monologues for three actors

-

3

-

-

-

Series of monologues written and performed by Court Dorsey, Kermit Dunkelberg, and Jean-Claude van Itallie.

Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, New York, NY 10009 >>>

1972

-

in "Seven Short and Very Short Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1975

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama

One Act

2

1

-

originally part of King of the United States

Two doctors examine a patient (played dually by an actor and a dummy) methodically dismembering the dummy to prove that it is in the best of health.

New York

1964

-

in "War and Four Other Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1967

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama

One Act

1

1

-

-

Humurous, fantastic, and yet telling in its perceptions, this brief but arresting exercise in absurdist style delights and intrigues both by what is said and what is left unsaid.

New York

1964

-

in "War and Four Other Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1967

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama

One Act

1

1

-

-

Gay Paris, a young American tourist, a dashing Italian guide, and romance-all handled with a marvelously stylized tongue-in-cheek approach which treats the play as if it were a movie being filmed.

28 Apr 1965

-

in "America Hurrah", Coward McCann, New York, 1967

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Fugue

One Act

4

4

-

part of American Hurrah. aka Pavane

As Norman Nadel describes "Four masked, smiling interviewers interview a scrubwoman, a house painter, a banker and a lady's maid. It is commonplace and familiar enough, except that suddenly, the most innocent statements are foreboding. As the interviews progress, we are stung by the intensity and viciousness of the contest. The questioners are trying to destroy the dignity of the four clients, and the latter fight to hold their self-respect. It is never resolved. Abruptly the scene changes-a street, a subway, a psychiatrist's office, a confessional-but throughout, this compelling involvement continues. And the sense of familiarity continues as well. We are not seeing something new, except in the bizarre design of the play itself, but we are recognizing something which has been before us all the time. Therein lies the shock effect of AMERICA HURRAH and its power, as well. None of it is happening to others; it is happening to us-or rather, it is recalling things that have happened to us. We are thrust into awareness. The insulation burns off, and we have no choice but to perceive."

Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, New York, NY 10009 >>>

1972

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY,

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

Play with Music

4

3

-

-

Creating a mosaic of imaginative and stylistically diverse scenes, interspersed with original songs, the author provides a close and revealing examination of our American penchant for selecting leaders who remind us as much as possible of ourselves. Sharply satiric, the action underscores not only the platitudes and tawdriness of American politics, but also the blind reflexiveness of the voters. We do, in effect, get what we deserve-and it is increasingly apparent that the line between president and king, democracy and monarchy (or even totalitarianism), has grown slimmer than we might care to contemplate.

Theater at Boston Court, Pasedena, California

2004

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Play/Drama

2

1

-

French version, LUMIERES, Voltaire, la Mathematicienne et le Roi de Prussse. text is available from author;s agent: Morgan.Jenness@abramsart.com

The sexy, witty love triangle of a king, beautiful scientist marquise, and Voltaire, the most famous man in Europe. A passionate, painful, incandescent voyage to enlightenment and revolution.

Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, New York, NY 10009 >>>

1993

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY,

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

Adaptation

11

2

flexible casting

From a translation of Bulgakov's novel by Sergei Kobiakoff

Van Itallie's play from Mikhail Bulgakov's novel (translated by Sergei Kobiakoff) originally commissioned by Public Theater, NYC. Premiered Theater for the New City, NYC, 1993. "Dear to the hearts of Russians, Master and Margarita, a suppressed cult novel in Stalinist days, expresses forbidden truths with wild spirit, humanity and humor." - DPS "As one might expect, Jean-Claude van Itallie's stage adaptation of Master and Margarita keeps an audience startled and amused for a couple of hours." - NY Times. "Master and Margarita captures all the wildness, wit, and sadness of Bulgakov's work. . . There isn't a dull moment."- Theater Week.

Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

1979

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Adaptation

5

5

2 children

Original Playwright - Euripides

The classic tale, fiercely and simply translated, of Medea's tragic revenge for her abandonment by her husband Jason.

28 Apr 1965

-

in "America Hurrah", Coward McCann, New York, 1967

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

One Act

3

3

in "doll" masks and bodies; off-stage voice

part of American Hurrah

As the NY Post describes: "Three giant colorfully styled dolls, with actors within: a motel landlady on Route 666 and the guy and the blonde, more or less out of IN COLD BLOOD, who have taken a room there for the night. Nobody speaks except the landlady, and she in the excellent recorded Great Plains voice of Ruth White. While the landlady spiels 15 minutes of platitudes about the hooked rugs and self-flushing toilets and other features of her motel, guy doll and blond doll crawl and draw graffiti on doors and walls and rip or smash everything in sight&" to the tune of a booming rock 'n roll number, leading up to a driving, galvanizing finish. And a finish, furthermore, which not only shocks but gives pause. In a real sense we are the mindless dolls, and their actions reflect the ugly impulses which lurk in all of us-finding an outlet in actions which can only leave us feeling ashamed and concerned, and aware of the aching emptiness at the heart of our modern way of life.

La MaMa The Club
74A East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

15 Oct 2010

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Play/Drama

-

-

-

-

This past summer director Josh Adler and two of his Theatre Research Ensemble actors, Helen Nesteruk and Noelle Neglia, took an "Acting and Being" workshop in Western Massachusetts at playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie's Shantigar Foundation for Theater, Meditation and Healing. Van Itallie and Adler were inspired to collaborate on a new production from van Itallie's legendary America Hurrah (to contain "Motel" and part of "Interview") plus a new play of van Itallie's, "The Mother's Return," based on van Itallie's recent political dreams. As of this writing, Adler and his company, with van Itallie, are rehearsing America Hurrah (Revisited) and The Mother's Return, a work in progress with Itallie's collaboration.
- nytheatre.com

Cherry Lane Theatre, NY, USA >>>

1973

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1973

-

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Play/farce

-

5

3

-

-

The action is set in the chic living room of a U.S. Senator, during a cocktail party. Present are the Senator; his wife; his schizophrenic bisexual son (played by two actors); a beautiful young woman who may be the son's fiancee; a rather pompous Harvard professor; a quietly efficient butler; and a lady mystery writer from next door. It is the mystery writer who holds the key to the bizarre events that follow, as she explains to the actors and the audience what will happen next and what part each character will play in the action about to follow. At the snap of her fingers each sequence begins, as this one is stabbed, that one drinks poisoned coffee, another is blown up-until only the mystery writer and the true culprit remain. But, as the "corpses" keep popping up to add to the conversation, the plot continues to thicken-providing both a delightful metaphysical spoof and a scathing assessment of the social and political hypocrisy of our disjointed times.

unproduced

-

-

in "Wordplays 1", Performing Arts Journal Publications, New York, 1980

-

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short full-length play for puppets and people

-

-

-

-

Music by Steve Gorn. First done in workshop at Yale Drama School, directed by Lee Breuer, somewhere in the 70s. I didn't like what Lee did with it. Later when it was in rehearsal at Theater for New City in NYC I so hated what I saw that I pulled the production before it opened. A few years later it was in rehearsal at LaMama but again I pulled it before it opened because I didn't like what I saw. I've never done that with any other play. I conclude that the play is greatly flawed. The only way I'd want it produced is if I were inspired to rewrite it completely.
- Jean-Claude van Itallie

New York

1973

-

in "Open Theater", Drama Book Specialists, New York, 1975

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

-

-

-

-

Nightwalk was a (the last) collaborative piece by the Open Theater. There were three writers -- me, Sam Shepherd, and Meg Terry but control of the piece was in the hands of the director, Joe Chaikin . I don't think I even have a full script. It was produced in NYC (in a loft?) around 1972 or 3. That's all I can tell you.
- Jean-Claude van Itallie

Actor's Alley Repertory Theatre, LA., California

1987

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Drama

-

13

5

-

-

A play about Theresienstadt, the Nazi detention camp in Czechoslovakia for artists.

28 Apr 1965

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

One Act

-

-

-

aka Interview, part of America Hurrah

-

Los Angeles

1969

-

in "Seven Short and Very Short Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1975

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama

One Act

1

1

-

-

While their taped voices carry on a random, but revealing, conversation, two people regard each other silently-as still as two photographs.

McCarter Theater, Princeton, NJ

c 1982

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Ten min

2

1

-

First done as part of Seven Deadly Sins

-

-

-

in "Seven Short and Very Short Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1975

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama

One Act

-

1

-

-

A nun, riding home on the subway, says her Rosary-and the depth of her personal anguish is poignantly revealed.

McCarter Theatre, Princeton, New Jersey

1973

-

Harper, New York, 1977

-

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-

Adaptation

7

6

-

Original Playwright - Anton Chekhov

The setting is the estate of the wealthy Sorin, where a group of family and friends are spending the languid summer months. Included are Madame Arkadina, Sorin's sister and famous actress; her sensitive would-be-writer son, Treplyev; and the charming, successful author Trigorin. The action concerns the interweaving of their lives with the others, and all the romance, intrigue, hopes and disappointments that this life leads to. It is an absorbing and compelling tapestry and evocation of real life and real people and, ultimately, a deeply moving and revealing human experience.

Anne Guerrieris Teatro del Arte, Rome

1968

Open Theatre ensemble

Athenaeum, New York, 1969

-

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Ceromony

-

-

-

Approximately 16 performers: minimum of 7 men, 7 women

Subtitled "A ceremony written by Jean-Claude van Itallie in collaboration with The Open Theatre under the direction of Joseph Chaikin,"

The Boston Herald Traveler comments: "While most of the work is choreographed movement, pantomime, human sounds and music made by bells, horns, whistles, tambourines and other hand-held instruments, there is an accompanying text from the Bible and a number of speeches with contemporary sentiments. From the beginning, man searches for happiness, for self-realization and union with other men, seems to be the underlying theme. He is thwarted by violence, both from within himself and from other men. Eve is tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden, yields, eats the forbidden apple, tempts Adam to eat, too-and man's eternal battle begins between self-gratification and obedience to external authority&There is a ritual enactment of the discovery of sexual love played by the group against the intoned recital of how the descendants of Adam begat the family of man that leaves little to the imagination. It is a passionate celebration of love. Passion gives way to maternal tenderness and the celebrants grow into doddering senility. They sink slowly to the floor and collapse into sleep. A hum starts and becomes a group song. 'We were sailing along on moonlight bay&,' they sing, rising and moving into the aisles and up the stairs. They're smiling and their looks of love embrace the audience. They finish singing and stand there. The ceremony is completed. THE SERPENT is a fascinating experience."

Taper Too, Los Angeles, CA

1991

Mark Taper Forum

in "Best One-Act Plays:1990-1991", Applause, New York, 1991

-

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monologue, 50 minutes

-

1

-

-

written by Jean-Claude van Itallie and Joseph Chaikin

Born in Lebanon, the aphasic hero of "Struck Dumb" lives in Venice, California. "These words are about wonder. When an earthquake shakes the brain, and you stumble out alive, there's an odd exhilaration. . .like a baby, you begin all over again doping out the world with the intensity of a Talmudic scholar." - Dan Sullivan, LA Times.

1983

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1983

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Play

One Act

-

1

-

in Early Warnings

a young actress on her way to an audition is trapped in traffic. Nibbling away at a generous supply of snacks, she primps and chatters on about her life and career hopes, oblivious to the increasingly menacing reports on the car radio of an impending nuclear disaster resulting from computer error.

Eric Bentley's DMZ Cabaret, NYC

1968

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY,

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama

One Act

7

1

-

-

In this brief, disturbing playlet the victims of air pollution assemble their own mausoleum, while recounting the helpless horror of their demise.

Under St. Marks, NY, USA >>>

1965 ?

Open Theater

in "Seven Short and Very Short Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1975

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama 8 min

One Act

1

1

-

written with Sharon Thie, in Collision Course

This anti-war 8 minute play written with Sharon Thie takes you into the vividly imaginative minds of of two acquaintances who happen to meet on the street and exchange pleasantries.

New York

1979

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1979

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

Adaptation

9

5

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Original Playwright - Anton Chekhov

Trapped in a provincial Russian town after the death of their father, three sisters lament the passing of better times and long for the excitement of Moscow. One of them has married a local high school teacher; another has become a teacher herself; the third has settled for a dull job in the local telegraph office. Their principal interest is focused on the officers of the local regiment, of which their father had been commandant, men who bring a sense of sophistication and the world outside to their stultified existence. Much of the action is concerned with the events of daily life: their brother's dull marriage; bittersweet flirtations with the regimental officers; and the gossip and restrictions of small town life. In the end the fateful pattern of their existence is made clear-their dreams will be denied but, despite all, there must always be hope, however futile, and the ways of the world are to be accepted, if not understood.

11 Jan 1983

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Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1983
Text also published as "Tibetan Book of the Dead for Reading Aloud," North Atlantic Books (available Amazion.com)

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(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Theatre Piece

Piece

3

3

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music by Steve Gorn

Based on a classic Buddhist text, the play shows the journey of the soul after death and the choices to be made as it labors in limbo. Brilliantly theatrical in concept,, the play blends music, mime, dance, movement and the spoken word in a stream of colors, sensations and illusions that seek to frighten, seduce, and distract the spirit. Envisioned as taking place within a human skull, the soul is tossed from place to place within the mind, striving to come to terms with ambitions, wants, jealousies and fears until, incapable of stepping off the wheel of existence, it can rejoin the living "like a king" -head held high. ". . . a magnificent text. Van Itallie has created a powerful dramatic version of this classic. . .invites us to a solemn, ecstatic celebration of life and death. . .after five minutes I knew I was witnessing a masterpiece." - Rosette Lamont, Other Stages.

Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles, CA

1987

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America Hurrah and Other Plays, Grove Press

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full length

Play/Drama

4

4

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Also produced 1988 Haymarket Theatre, Leicester, England and Almeida Theatre, London, with David Threlfall. Inspired by van Itallie's longtime companion actor/director Joe Chaikin suffering stroke and aphasia. "Deeply compassionate exploration not only of the complexity of language and of the human brain, but almost of the soul itself." Pat Ashworth,

Pocket Theatre, NYC

1966

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in "America Hurrah", Coward McCann, New York, 1967

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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Comedy Drama

One Act

4

4

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part of American Hurrah

As recounted by Walter Kerr of the NY Times: "In a television studio, three very normal workers glance at the monitor now and then, where busy performers with striped faces-they look like so many up-ended zebras-go through all the violent, cloying, synthetic motions that pass for companionable entertainment on the national airwaves. But there is no relation between the workers and the work; a yawning gulf, big enough to drown us all, has opened between the real concerns of real people and the imaginary concerns of our imaginary archetypes. One of the real workers nearly strangles to death on a bone in his chicken-salad sandwich. But the burly chanteuse who pours affection across the land as though she were an open fire hydrant of boundless goodwill goes right on beaming her thousand good nights. Disaster is irrelevant in a time of eternal delight." And suddenly we become aware of the desperate futility of our efforts to shield ourselves from coming to grips with what is by simulating a cozy escape into what might be. The spectacle is funny, sad and alarming, all at the same time

30 Aug 1983

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Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1980

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Adaptation

5

4

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Original Playwright - Anton Chekhov

The scene is a country estate in the declining days of Czarist Russia, the home of an old and ailing professor, his young wife, and various other family members. For years the estate, under the management of Uncle Vanya, brother of the professor's first wife, has yielded a modest income, but now, with the professor older and bored, he offers the idea of selling the estate and investing the money in bonds-a prospect most unsettling for those who have come to regard the place as their home. Counterpointed against the professor's unrest are the situations of others in the family: his daughter Sonya's unrequited passion for the local doctor, Astrov, who visits often; Vanya's love for the professor's young wife; and her own unspoken attraction to another. Throughout there is the bittersweet, deeply human aura of real people helplessly in thrall to events and feelings beyond their control. In the end the estate is not sold and, as the summer wanes, the professor and his wife depart, leaving the others to settle back into the uneventful but bearable routine that has become their way of life.

New York

1963

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in "War and Four Other Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1967

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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

Drama

One Act

2

1

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Two actors, one young, one old, and a bizarre lady, engage in a series of fantasy-like improvisations, articulating the relentless war which humankind is doomed to wage against harsh reality and the inexorable passage of time.

Highways, Santa Monica, California

1998

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I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

one person show

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1

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Jean-Claude van Itallie's autobiographical one person show (with accompanist Steve Sweeting). Starts with van Itallie and his family fleeing the Nazis. Continues with coming out as gay, and with success in the Off-Broadway NY scene of the sixties. Good reviews in LA and NY Times. [full length; 1 man; contact author's agent]

New York

1965

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in "War and Four Other Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1967

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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

Drama

One Act

5

4

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A brilliant, haunting, and strikingly imaginative play, which illuminates the shadowy reaches of a man's dream-taking place in that brief but timeless moment between sleep and sudden wakefulness.