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Thornton Wilder

THORNTON WILDER

  (1897 - 1975)

Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    The Barbara Hogenson Agency, Inc  UK representation: Lisa Foster

the official Thornton Wilder website http://www.thorntonwilder.com has provided a large amount of the information for this entry. It should be consulted for fuller details, especially Licensing Information.

Thornton Wilder. Born in Madison, Wisconsin (17 April 1897), and educated at Oberlin, Yale (B.A. 1920) and Princeton (M.A. 1925), Thornton Wilder was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works, which explore the connection between the commonplace and the cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue to be read and produced around the world. the Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of seven novels, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, as did two of his four full-length plays, Our Town (1938) and the Skin of Our Teeth (1943). Mr. Wilder's the Matchmaker was later adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly! Wilder was a master of the one act play -- the Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden and the Long Christmas Dinner were among his most celebrated titles -- and an outstanding practitioner of the mini or playlet form. Mr. Wilder also enjoyed enormous success with many other forms of the written and spoken word, among them teaching, acting, opera and film. His screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) remains a classic psycho-thriller to this day. the genius of Thornton Wilder continues to resonate. In 1998 the Bridge of San Luis Rey was selected by the editorial board of the American Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of the 20th century, and the closing lines of this work were quoted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the memorial service for victims of the attacks on September 11, 2001. In 2006, Our Town,performed at least once each day somewhere in this country, received its world premiere as an operA. Mr. Wilder's many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature. On April 17, 1997, the centenary of his birth, Mr. Wilder was honored by the United States Postal Service with a First-class stamp issued in Hamden, Connecticut, his home after 1930. He died there on December 7, 1975.

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

        Acolyte, The         Alcestiad, The         And the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead         Angel On the Ship         Angel That troubled the Waters, The         Beaux' Stratagem, The         Bernice         Brother Fire         Cement Hands         Centaurs         Childe Roland To the Dark Tower Came         Childhood         Christmas Interludes, The         Doll's House, A         Drunken Sisters, The         Emporium, The         Fanny Otcott         Flamingo Red: A Comedy Of Danger         Flight Into Egypt         Happy Journey To Trenton And Camden         Hast Thou Considered My Servant Job?         In Shakespeare And the Bible         Infancy         Leviathan         Life In the Sun, A         Long Christmas Dinner, The         Love and How To Cure It         Lucrece         Marriage We Deplore         Matchmaker, The         Merchant of Yonkers, The         Message And Jehanne, The         Mozart and the Gray Steward         Nascuntar Poetae         Now the Servant's Name Was Malchus         Our Century         Our Town         Penny That Beauty Spent         Prosperpina and the Devil         Pullman Car Hiawatha         Queens of France, The         Ringing Of Doorbells, A         Rivers Under the Earth, The         Seven Ages Of Man         Skin of Our Teeth, The         Someone From Assisi         Song Of Maria Bentedoa         Such Things Only Happen In Books         Trumpet Shall Sound, The         Unerring Instinct         Victors, The         Wreck On the Five-Twenty-Five, The         Youth


Acolyte, The

Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
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1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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Alcestiad, The

Alcestiad, The
Alcestis chose to die for her husband. We are often told that soldiers die for their country, that reformers and men of science lay down their lives for us. Who commands them? Whence, and how do they receive the command? the story of Alcestis has been retold many times. When her husband Admetus, King of thessaly, was mortally ill, someone volunteered to die in his stead. Alcestis assumes the sacrifice and dies. the mighty Hercules happened to arrive at the palace during the funeral; he descended into the underworld, strove with Death, and brought her back to life. the second act of my play retells this story. there is, however, another legend involving King Admetus. Zeus, the Father of gods and men, commanded Apollo to descend to earth and to live for one year as a man among men. Apollo chose to live as a herdsman in the fields of King Admetus. the story serves as the basis of my first act. My third act makes free use of the tradition that Admetus and Alcestis in their old age were supplanted by a tyrant and lived on as slaves in the palace where they had once been the rulers. On one level, my play recounts the life of a woman--of many women--from bewildered bride to sorely tested wife to overburdened old age. On another level it is a wildly romantic story of gods and men, of death and hell and resurrection, of great loves and great trials, of usurpation and revenge. On another level, however, it is a comedy about a very serious matter.

Notes:
aka A Life In the Sun

1st Produced:
Edinburgh     1955

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Alcestaid and the Drunken Sisters" published by Samuel French Inc, New York   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  18            Female:  4            Other:  1 boy; extras

Further Reference:
-

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And the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Angel On the Ship

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Angel That troubled the Waters, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Beaux' Stratagem, The

Synopsis:
the play tells the story of two young bucks who, having spent all their money by living too well, leave London and roam from town to town in search of love and fortune. In order to find a wealthy heiress for at least one of them, they pose as master and servant - exchanging roles from one town to the next. In Lichfield, Aimwell is the master and Archer the servant, and there they meet the lovely, wealthy Dorinda and her equally desirable sister-in-law, Mrs. Kate Sullen. they set their caps for these women, but problems abound. Kate is married to a drunken sot who despises her; the innkeeper's saucy daughter, Cherry, has set her cap for Archer; Dorinda's mother, Lady Bountiful, mistakenly believes herself to be a great healer of the sick, and she guards her daughter like a dragoness; and a band of brigands plans to rob the house of Lady Bountiful that very night, putting all schemes in jeopardy. This is a play in the great tradition of Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer and Sheridan's the Rivals and the School for Scandal. It is classic, formal, robust and hilarious.

Notes:
Original Playwright - George Farquhar. Adapted by Thornton Wilder And Ken Ludwig. In the summer of 2004, the Estate of Thornton Wilder asked Ken Ludwig to complete a play that Wilder had begun in 1939 and never finished. It was an adaptation of the Beaux' Stratagem, a classic piece of late Restoration comedy written in 1707 by the British playwright George Farquhar (author of the Recruiting Officer). Wilder had made a brilliant start - he'd finished about half of it - and Ludwig was delighted to be asked to complete the rest.

1st Produced:
Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington Dc     07 Nov 2006

Organisations:
-

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:
comedy Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  5            Other:  with doubling

Further Reference:
-

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Bernice

Bernice
Set in Chicago in 1911. Walbeck, a thoroughly hated man who cheated hundreds of people out of their money, suddenly returns home from Joliet prison when his sentence is reduced. He is greeted by two people: his attorney, who informs him that Walbeck's wife has fled to California, taking his daughter with her, and a new maid, Bernice, the self-proclaimed "best cook in Chicago" recently hired to keep the home going. Bernice, it turns out, served time for murder, and the advice she gives Walbeck on how to deal with his future allows Wilder to explore the nature of pride. Decisions have to be made quickly when Walbeck learns that his daughter is still in Chicago and coming by to see him at any moment.

Notes:
In the late '50s and early '60s, Thornton Wilder attempted to write seven one-act plays depicting the Seven Deadly Sins (later adding a proposed Seven Ages of Man to the mix). He was very excited at the time by the artistic promise of theater-in-the-round, and pleased that his first proposed "Sin," Someone from Assisi (Lust), could have its premiere in 1961-1962 on the stage of New York City's famed Circle in the Square theatre. During his lifetime only four Sins were completed to his initial satisfaction, and he withdrew two of these from circulation. Since 1997, the centenary of Wilder's birth, thanks to the rich materials in his archives, actors and readers have been able to perform and study all seven of Wilder's Sins: the Drunken Sisters (Gluttony), Bernice (Pride), the Wreck on the 5:25 (Sloth), A Ringing of Doorbells (Envy), In Shakespeare and the Bible (Wrath), Someone from Assisi (Lust) and Cement Hands (Avarice).

1st Produced:
Berlin     1957

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
first published in 1997 by TCG in the Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, edited by Donald Gallup and Tappan Wilder

in Thornton Wilder One Act Series: the Seven Deadly Sins, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>    

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:
short Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Brother Fire

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Cement Hands

Cement Hands
Diana Colvin, 21, rich and "the finest girl in the world," is engaged to marry Roger Osterman, 27, very rich and "the finest young fellow in the world." With the help of a mystified waiter, Diana's uncle (her lawyer and guardian) sets up a play within a play to make sure Diana knows what she is getting into: marriage to a supreme tightwad who can give away millions to charity, but can't leave a tip. the action--full of high-jinks as well as a serious message--takes place in a fancy New York City hotel.

Notes:
In the late '50s and early '60s, Thornton Wilder attempted to write seven one-act plays depicting the Seven Deadly Sins (later adding a proposed Seven Ages of Man to the mix). He was very excited at the time by the artistic promise of theater-in-the-round, and pleased that his first proposed "Sin," Someone from Assisi (Lust), could have its premiere in 1961-1962 on the stage of New York City's famed Circle in the Square theatre. During his lifetime only four Sins were completed to his initial satisfaction, and he withdrew two of these from circulation. Since 1997, the centenary of Wilder's birth, thanks to the rich materials in his archives, actors and readers have been able to perform and study all seven of Wilder's Sins: the Drunken Sisters (Gluttony), Bernice (Pride), the Wreck on the 5:25 (Sloth), A Ringing of Doorbells (Envy), In Shakespeare and the Bible (Wrath), Someone from Assisi (Lust) and Cement Hands (Avarice).

1st Produced:
Part Of The Macdowell Colony's Celebration Of The Wilder Centenary As A Staged Reading At The University Club In New York     01 Apr 1997

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
irst published in 1997 by TCG in the Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, edited by Donald Gallup and Tappan Wilder.

in Thornton Wilder One Act Series: the Seven Deadly Sins, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>    

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:
short comedy

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Centaurs

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Childe Roland To the Dark Tower Came

Synopsis:
"Near the scene of battle. . . the sun has set over the great marsh, leaving a yellow-brown Flemish light upon the scene." Badly wounded in battle and knowing himself to be at the point of death, Childe Roland pounds on the door of an ancient tower surrounded by a lonely marsh, believing it the portal to death and the final resting place for dead heroes and royalty. He is determined to join them. But a girl with red hair and a dark girl dressed in a gray robe bar the way.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in the Yale Literary Magazine in 1919

in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Childhood

Childhood
In this provocative, sometimes chilling comedy, Wilder renders a child's-eye view of the grown-up world, as a father, a mother and their three children play a revealing game of make-believe in which the children pretend to be orphans. Startling truths emerge on both sides, as pretense challenges the family to discard the traditional roles of parent, spouse, child, and sibling--blurring the lines between perception and reality, artifice and innocence.

Notes:
the Ages of Man is a collection of four short plays: Infancy, Childhood, Youth and Rivers Under the Earth. Inspired by Shakespeare's famous monologue about the ages of life, Wilder set out to write seven short plays chronicling the human journey from infancy through extreme old age. the first two pieces, Infancy and Childhood, are delightful comedies which have been widely produced. However, Wilder never published the remaining plays of his series. After his death in 1973, two additional plays intended for this cycle, Youth and the Rivers Under the Earth (a play believed to represent middle age), were found among the playwright's unfinished papers.

1st Produced:
Circle In The Square Theater In New York     01 Nov 1962

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Childhood was first published in November 1960 in the Atlantic Monthly

French. New York 3 vols. 1960, 1961

in the Ages of Man, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>   

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:
short comedy

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Christmas Interludes, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Doll's House, A

Synopsis:
about a waning marriage, and the social constructs between a husband and wife.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Henrik Ibsen

1st Produced:
Central City, Colorado     1937

Organisations:
-

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:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  1b, 1g

Further Reference:
-

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Drunken Sisters, The

Drunken Sisters, The
the Drunken Sisters is Wilder's satyr play that followed the Alcestiad, his adaptation of the ancient Greek "Alcestis" story. Apollo ventures into the land of the three sisters of Fate who control the threads of each man's life, and here in disguise he tricks the sisters into releasing their death hold on King Admetus. His trick: 3 flagons of wine which he declares to be Aphrodite's beauty drink but which make the sisters drunk. He then foils them with a riddle, releasing the king from their snares-- but only on the understanding that another is to die in his stead.

Notes:
In the late '50s and early '60s, Thornton Wilder attempted to write seven one-act plays depicting the Seven Deadly Sins (later adding a proposed Seven Ages of Man to the mix). He was very excited at the time by the artistic promise of theater-in-the-round, and pleased that his first proposed "Sin," Someone from Assisi (Lust), could have its premiere in 1961-1962 on the stage of New York City's famed Circle in the Square theatre. During his lifetime only four Sins were completed to his initial satisfaction, and he withdrew two of these from circulation. Since 1997, the centenary of Wilder's birth, thanks to the rich materials in his archives, actors and readers have been able to perform and study all seven of Wilder's Sins: the Drunken Sisters (Gluttony), Bernice (Pride), the Wreck on the 5:25 (Sloth), A Ringing of Doorbells (Envy), In Shakespeare and the Bible (Wrath), Someone from Assisi (Lust) and Cement Hands (Avarice).

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Samuel french, New York, 1957   

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:
short satyr play

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Emporium, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
Wilder's final, unfinished full length play

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "the Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder volume Two" published by Theatre Communications Group 1998   

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

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Fanny Otcott

Synopsis:
"Outside Mrs. Otcott's home. . . MRS. OTCOTT, that great actress in the tradition of the Siddons, the Oldfield, Bracegirdle and O'Neill, is spending a quiet month in Wales. " Mrs. Otcott is sorting through the artifacts of her past when an old lover appears. He's a former actor, now married, a father, and nothing less than an Anglican Bishop with ambitions-- i.e., a man of the cloth who needs to be sure that an earlier chapter of his life is safely buried away.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Yale University Dramatic Association     01 Dec 1917

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
published as That Other Fanny Otcott in the Yale Literary Magazine in April 1918

in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Flamingo Red: A Comedy Of Danger

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Flight Into Egypt

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Happy Journey To Trenton And Camden

Happy Journey To Trenton And Camden
A father, mother and two of their three surviving children drive from Newark, New Jersey to Camden to visit their married daughter, who has recently lost her baby in childbirth. their journey is punctuated by talk, laughter, memories (some mundane, some happy, some painful), and appreciation of the Now - ham and eggs, flowers, family, sunsets and the joy of being alive. In this family Drama, nothing much happens-and yet everything important happens. As Ma Kirby says, "there's nothin' like bein' liked by your family.""

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Yale University Theater In New Haven, Connecticut     25 Nov 1931

Organisations:
Yale Dramatic Association and the Vassar Philalethesis

1st Published:
in the Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act (New York: Coward-McCann, 1931)

in Wilder's Classic One Acts, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>   

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:
One act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Hast Thou Considered My Servant Job?

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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In Shakespeare And the Bible

In Shakespeare And the Bible
the year is 1898 and the place is an over-sumptuous parlor in New York. Mrs. Mowbrey, a mature, wealthy woman with a history to bury, makes a plan--she'll befriend her estranged niece and fiance, and their subsequent marriage will provide her own entre into respectable society. Or at least, that's what she tells the young couple. In Shakespeare and the Bible uncovers a mystery inside a meloDrama inside a meeting. Mrs. Mowbrey invites her niece, Katy and her niece's fiance Mr. Lubbock to her home separately and unbeknownst to each other. Mr. Lubbock arrives first, and is asked to become Mr. Mowbrey's attorney. Katy comes later, to meet this aunt who has fallen from her family's good graces for unknown reasons. With all three in the room, it becomes apparent that Mr. Lubbock and Mrs. Mowbrey share something that's not deemed proper for Katy to know. Yet Katy insists they tell her. When Mrs. Mowbrey leaves the room, insisting that they work things out among themselves, the mystery looms large. Katy discovers their secret and the true intent of Mrs. Mowbrey's agenda hangs in the balance: Did she intend to use her wealth to buy respectability and family relations? Or exact revenge? After much hard work with a play, which he came to see as dealing, in part, with the motif "that women need their wits about them to survive at all," Wilder put the all but completed draft of this work aside in 1957. Thanks to meticulous research by the actor/director F. J. O'Neil, however, In Shakespeare and the Bible was finally published in 1997 in Volume I of the Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder. This play, along with three other one acts found in the Wilder archive, received its world premiere as the centerpiece of the Actors theatre of Louisville's "Wilder Rediscovered" program in the fall of 1997, directed by Tazewell Thompson. In his note on the plays, Michael Bigelow Dixon quotes this line from Two Gentlemen of Verona: "By penitence the Eternal's wrath's appeased," going on to wonder whether penitence and forgiveness are in fact to be found in In Shakespeare and the Bible. How Thornton Wilder would have appreciated the question!

Notes:
In the late '50s and early '60s, Thornton Wilder attempted to write seven one-act plays depicting the Seven Deadly Sins (later adding a proposed Seven Ages of Man to the mix). He was very excited at the time by the artistic promise of theater-in-the-round, and pleased that his first proposed "Sin," Someone from Assisi (Lust), could have its premiere in 1961-1962 on the stage of New York City's famed Circle in the Square theatre. During his lifetime only four Sins were completed to his initial satisfaction, and he withdrew two of these from circulation. Since 1997, the centenary of Wilder's birth, thanks to the rich materials in his archives, actors and readers have been able to perform and study all seven of Wilder's Sins: the Drunken Sisters (Gluttony), Bernice (Pride), the Wreck on the 5:25 (Sloth), A Ringing of Doorbells (Envy), In Shakespeare and the Bible (Wrath), Someone from Assisi (Lust) and Cement Hands (Avarice).

1st Produced:
Actors Theatre Of Louisville's "Wilder Rediscovered" Program     30 Oct 1997

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
first published in 1997 by TCG in the Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, edited by Donald Gallup and Tappan Wilder

in Thornton Wilder One Act Series: the Seven Deadly Sins, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>    

Music:
-

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Genre:
short play

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  3            Other:  -

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Infancy

Infancy
Millie the nursemaid brings baby Tommy to Central Park in the hopes of a rendezvous with the handsome Patrolman Avonzino. Mrs. Boker soon arrives with baby Moe, and as the two ladies trade snacks and advice on child rearing, the infants compare notes on their parents' bad behavior and pitiful lack of understanding. Babies act like grown-ups and grown-ups act like babies in this comedy about fulfilling basic human needs.

Notes:
the Ages of Man is a collection of four short plays: Infancy, Childhood, Youth and Rivers Under the Earth. Inspired by Shakespeare's famous monologue about the ages of life, Wilder set out to write seven short plays chronicling the human journey from infancy through extreme old age. the first two pieces, Infancy and Childhood, are delightful comedies which have been widely produced. However, Wilder never published the remaining plays of his series. After his death in 1973, two additional plays intended for this cycle, Youth and the Rivers Under the Earth (a play believed to represent middle age), were found among the playwright's unfinished papers.

1st Produced:
Circle In The Square Theater In New York     01 Nov 1962

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
French. New York 3 vols. 1960, 1961

in the Ages of Man, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>    

Music:
-

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Genre:
short comedy

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

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-

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Leviathan

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

Music:
-

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Genre:
playlet

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Life In the Sun, A

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
aka the Alcestaid

1st Produced:
Edinburgh (As The Alcestaid)     1955

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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Long Christmas Dinner, The

Long Christmas Dinner, The
the Long Christmas Dinner--nine decades long--showcases the lives of several generations of the Bayard family, and some of their Christmas dinners. Wilder breaks the boundaries of time as we measure it, and invites us to partake of "one long, happy Christmas dinner"-past, present and future. As generations appear, have children, wither and depart, only the audience appreciates what changes and what remains the same. "Every last twig is wrapped around with ice. You almost never see that," young Genevieve marvels, not realizing that her mother has made this observation years earlier nor that her daughter-in-law will one day do the same.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Yale University Theater In New Haven, Connecticut     25 Nov 1931

Organisations:
Yale Dramatic Association and the Vassar Philalethesis

1st Published:
in the Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act (New York: Coward-McCann, 1931)

in Wilder's Classic One Acts, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Christmas Comedy

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  7            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Love and How To Cure It

Love and How To Cure It
This meloDramatic comedy is set in Soho, London, on the stage of the Tivoli Palace of Music in April of 1895. A young man is hopelessly in love with a teenage music-hall dancer who can't stand him, thinks he is stalking her (which he is), and fears that he is going to shoot her (which he isn't). Because she rejects him, he decides to kill himself. the girl's aunt, an actress and singer, and their friend, an over-the-hill comedian still mourning the death of his wife, try to intervene to "cure" him, and at the same time, teach the thwarted lover what true love really means. This is one of Wilder's many treatments of unrequited love.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Yale University Theater In New Haven, Connecticut     25 Nov 1931

Organisations:
Yale Dramatic Association and the Vassar Philalethesis

1st Published:
in the Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act (New York: Coward-McCann, 1931)

in Wilder's Classic One Acts, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>   

Music:
-

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Genre:
meloDramatic comedy one act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

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Lucrece

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
Original Playwright - Andre Obey. Original title "Le Viol De Lucrece"

1st Produced:
Belasco Theatre, New York     20 Dec 1932

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Boston: Houghton Nifflin 1933   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Translation

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Marriage We Deplore

Synopsis:
A blue blood Boston family contemplate the horrors of marrying beneath themselves

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Collected Short Plays Of Thornton Wilder volume Two" published by Theatre Communications Group 1998   

Music:
-

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Matchmaker, The

Synopsis:
the matchmaker, Wilder's uproarious farce about love and money, stars the irrepressible busybody, Dolly Gallagher Levi, who inspired the Broadway musical, Hello, Dolly! Through Dolly's subtle machinations, several unlikely couples come together to find happiness in 19th-century New York.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Johann Nestroy

1st Produced:
Edinburgh Festival In Scotland     01 Aug 1955

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Longmans, Green and Co, London, 1958   

Music:
-

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Genre:
adaptation, farce

Parts:
Male:  9            Female:  7            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Merchant of Yonkers, The

Merchant of Yonkers, The
the play has a long and colorful history. John Oxenford's 1835 one-act farce A Day Well Spent had been extended into a full-length play entitled Einen Jux will er sich machen by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy in 1842. In 1938, Wilder adapted Nestroy's version into an Americanized comedy entitled the Merchant of Yonkers, which attracted the attention of German director Max Reinhardt, who mounted a Broadway production. It was a dismal failure, running for a mere 39 performances. Fifteen years later, director Tyrone Guthrie expressed interest in a new production of the play, which Wilder extensively rewrote and rechristened the Matchmaker. the most significant change was the expansion of a previously minor character named Dolly Gallagher Levi, who became the play's centerpiece. A widow who brokers marriages and other transactions in Yonkers, New York at the turn of the 20th Century, she sets her sights on local merchant Horace Vandergelder, who has hired her to find him a wife. After a series of slapstick situations involving mistaken identities, secret rendezvous behind carefully placed screens, separated lovers, and a trip to night court, everyone finds themselves paired with a perfect match.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Johann Nestroy based on a Well Spent Day by John Oxenford.

probably produced in Boston prior to New York

1st Produced:
Guild Theatre, NY     28 Dec 1938

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Harper & Brothers, New York, 1939   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  9            Female:  7            Other:  -

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-

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Message And Jehanne, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Yale University Dramatic Association     01 Dec 1917

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

Music:
-

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Mozart and the Gray Steward

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

Music:
-

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Genre:
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Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

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Nascuntar Poetae

Synopsis:
"We are gazing into some strange incomprehensible painting of Piero di Cosimo. . . . "Born to be a poet, a gifted boy learns that he has been chosen for this special role in life. the literary life, he is told, will not be all fun and games, however, and the boy quickly discovers that his destiny is both a blessing and a curse-both "wonderful and terrible."

Notes:
Piero di Cosimo (ca. 1462-1521) was a Florentine painter known for his conventional religious art and his fantastical paintings of mythological subjects as well as for panels in which he fused mythology with his own imagination. Wilder drew his title from the Latin aphorism, "Nascuntur poetae, fiunt oratores," or "Poets are born, orators are made." It is important to print the ellipsis dots as part of the title as Wilder wrote it, to imply the second half of the statement. Does it stretch the imagination too far to see a foretelling of Wilder's own life in this playlet?

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
first published in the Yale Literary Magazine in 1918 under the title "the Walled City."

in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

Music:
-

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Now the Servant's Name Was Malchus

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

Music:
-

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Genre:
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Our Century

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Century Association, New York 1947   

Music:
-

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Our Town

Our Town
Our Town explores the relationship between two young Grover's Corners neighbors, George Gibbs and Emily Webb, whose childhood friendship blossoms into romance, and then culminates in marriage. When Emily looses her life in childbirth, the circle of life portrayed in each of the three acts of Our Town--growing up, adulthood, and death--is fully realized. This timeless Drama of life in the mythical village of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, has become an American classic with universal appeal. Thornton Wilder's most frequently performed play, Our Town appeared on Broadway in 1938 to wide acclaim, and won the Pulitzer Prize. From the very beginning, Our Town has been produced in amateur and professional theatres around the world. Wilder offers a couple of chairs on a bare stage as the backdrop for an exploration of the universal human experience. the simple story of a love affair is constantly rediscovered because it asks timeless questions about the meaning of love, life and death. In the final moments of the play, the recently deceased Emily is granted the opportunity to revisit one day in her life, only to discover that she never fully appreciated all she possessed until she lost it. "Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you," she says as she takes her place among the dead.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Mccarter Theater In Princeton, New Jersey     22 Jan 1938

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Coward McCann, New York 1938
Samuel French, London (2014) >>>    

Music:
-

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Genre:
3 act play

Parts:
Male:  17            Female:  7            Other:  extras

Further Reference:

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Penny That Beauty Spent

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

Music:
-

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Genre:
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Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

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Prosperpina and the Devil

Synopsis:
"A puppet show, Venice, 1640 A. D." This piece of madcap farce, featuring a play within a play, stars a Manager, two Manipulators (the term for people who manipulate marionettes), four lively marionettes, and a host of allusions to characters and places from the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, and medieval and nineteenth century European theater. Is it any wonder that, as the Second Manipulator complains, "A person can't tell which is his right hand and which is his left in this place"?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
This playlet was published in the Oberlin Literary Magazine in December of 1916, when Wilder was nineteen, and was reprinted in January 1920 in the "little magazine" S4N.

in "the Angel That Troubled the Waters And other Plays", New York: Coward McCann 1928   

Music:
-

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Genre:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

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Pullman Car Hiawatha

Pullman Car Hiawatha
his one-act comedy, set in a Pullman car on a train traveling from New York to Chicago in December, 1930, introduces techniques Wilder would use in future three-act plays: the stage is virtually bare, with only a balcony or bridge and two flights of stairs, and the play is narrated by a Stage Manager. One of the characters speaks words that foreshadow Emily's words in Our Town. the play includes a character representing Grover's Corners, Ohio-a forerunner of Our Town's Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. the cast includes the hours of the day, the weather, the planets, and supernatural beings. Conventional time is suspended, and the only true measures of existence are life and death. Pullman Car takes us on a metaphorical journey by train through the American landscape, a diverse band of travelers encapsulated in a Pullman car hurtle through time, space and a range of emotions.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Antioch College In Yellow Springs, Ohio     19 Mar 1932

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in the Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act (New York: Coward-McCann, 1931)

in Wilder's Classic One Acts, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Comedy one act

Parts:
Male:  12            Female:  5            Other:  extras

Further Reference:
-

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Queens of France, The

Queens of France, The
A con man convinces women that they are the rightful heir to the French throne.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Hill School In Pottsdown, Pennsylvania     09 Mar 1932

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
September 1931 in the Yale Review.
in the Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act (New York: Coward-McCann, 1931)

in Wilder's Classic One Acts, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>    

Music:
-

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Genre:
Comedy one act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  3            Other:  extras

Further Reference:
-

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Ringing Of Doorbells, A

Ringing Of Doorbells, A
A mother-daughter team of con-artists are putting the touch on the widows of military brass. Mrs. McCullem, housekeep for the wonderfully regal but now wheel chair-bound window of General Beattie, recognizes them in the drug store--having witnessed the two pull their game on her previous employer--and overhears them asking directions to the Beattie home! the play begins as she rushes back to warn Mrs. Beattie of the impending danger. Sure enough, the doorbell rings and our charlatans appear with quite a story. But instead of throwing them out or turning them over to the police, the widow Beattie allows the game to be played.

Notes:
In the late '50s and early '60s, Thornton Wilder attempted to write seven one-act plays depicting the Seven Deadly Sins (later adding a proposed Seven Ages of Man to the mix). He was very excited at the time by the artistic promise of theater-in-the-round, and pleased that his first proposed "Sin," Someone from Assisi (Lust), could have its premiere in 1961-1962 on the stage of New York City's famed Circle in the Square theatre. During his lifetime only four Sins were completed to his initial satisfaction, and he withdrew two of these from circulation. Since 1997, the centenary of Wilder's birth, thanks to the rich materials in his archives, actors and readers have been able to perform and study all seven of Wilder's Sins: the Drunken Sisters (Gluttony), Bernice (Pride), the Wreck on the 5:25 (Sloth), A Ringing of Doorbells (Envy), In Shakespeare and the Bible (Wrath), Someone from Assisi (Lust) and Cement Hands (Avarice).

1st Produced:
13th Annual Brown-Forman Classics In Context Festival At Actors Theatre Of Louisville.     30 Oct 1997

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

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Genre:
Short play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Rivers Under the Earth, The

Rivers Under the Earth, The
On a point of land jutting into a lake in southern Wisconsin, the Carter family enjoys a summer's eve. It's an evening like many others: Nothing happens and everything happens. Each member of the family--sixteen year-old Tom, his seventeen-year-old sister Francesca and their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Carter--shares different memories somehow connected with their surroundings. these memories color the mood of the evening. Young Tom nearly gets into a fight over a girlfriend, whose name, Violet, recalls a key image from his childhood. Francesca never liked this promontory and though she's not sure why, her parents recall their daughter burying a dead robin in that very spot. Mr. and Mrs. Carter struggle with their middle-age in the context of poignant personal memories of moments experienced on that section of rock. Throughout the action, Wilder weaves a tapestry of animosities and affections, memories and confessions, conscious and unconscious behavior and the unfathomable formation of identity.

Notes:
the Ages of Man is a collection of four short plays: Infancy, Childhood, Youth and Rivers Under the Earth. Inspired by Shakespeare's famous monologue about the ages of life, Wilder set out to write seven short plays chronicling the human journey from infancy through extreme old age. the first two pieces, Infancy and Childhood, are delightful comedies which have been widely produced. However, Wilder never published the remaining plays of his series. After his death in 1973, two additional plays intended for this cycle, Youth and the Rivers Under the Earth (a play believed to represent middle age), were found among the playwright's unfinished papers.

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

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Genre:
Short play

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Seven Ages Of Man

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Collected Short Plays volume One" published by Theatre Communications Group 1997   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Short play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

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Skin of Our Teeth, The

Skin of Our Teeth, The
Meet George and Maggie Antrobus of Excelsior, New Jersey, a suburban, commuter-town couple (married for 5,000 years), who bear more than a casual resemblance to that first husband and wife, Adam and Eve: the two Antrobus children, Gladys (perfect in every way, of course) and Henry (who likes to throw rocks and was formerly known as Cain); and their garrulous maid, Sabina (the eternal seductress), who takes it upon herself to break out of character and interrupt the course of the Drama at every opportunity ("I don't understand a word of this play!")

Notes:
Completed by the author less than a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the SKIN OF OUR TEETH (1942) broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Combining farce, burlesque, and satire, and elements of the comic strip, Thornton Wilder depicts an Everyman Family as it narrowly escapes one end-of-the-world disaster after another, from the Ice Age to flood to war.

1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut     1942

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Harper & Brothers, 1942   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  5            Other:  extras

Further Reference:
-

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Someone From Assisi

Someone From Assisi
In this play about the Deadly Sin of Lust, Saint Francis, almost blind and toothless and nearing the end of his life, revisits Assisi, where he encounters Pica, a young girl with the same name as his mother; Mother Clara of Saint Damian's Convent; and Mona Lucrezia (now a mad woman) with whom he had a love affair when he was a wild, willful young man known as Francis the Frenchman, and she was a young married woman. Saint Francis still seeks expiation for the "load of sin" with which he has offended God. the play poses questions about the true meaning of love-and, as Wilder wrote, about "the ideas of the Erotic as Destroyer and the Erotic as Creative."

Notes:
In the late '50s and early '60s, Thornton Wilder attempted to write seven one-act plays depicting the Seven Deadly Sins (later adding a proposed Seven Ages of Man to the mix). He was very excited at the time by the artistic promise of theater-in-the-round, and pleased that his first proposed "Sin," Someone from Assisi (Lust), could have its premiere in 1961-1962 on the stage of New York City's famed Circle in the Square theatre. During his lifetime only four Sins were completed to his initial satisfaction, and he withdrew two of these from circulation. Since 1997, the centenary of Wilder's birth, thanks to the rich materials in his archives, actors and readers have been able to perform and study all seven of Wilder's Sins: the Drunken Sisters (Gluttony), Bernice (Pride), the Wreck on the 5:25 (Sloth), A Ringing of Doorbells (Envy), In Shakespeare and the Bible (Wrath), Someone from Assisi (Lust) and Cement Hands (Avarice).

1st Produced:
Circle In The Square Theater In New York     01 Nov 1962

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
French. New York 3 vols. 1960, 1961

in the Ages of Man, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>   

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:
short play

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  1 girl

Further Reference:
-

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Song Of Maria Bentedoa

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

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:
playlet

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Such Things Only Happen In Books

Such Things Only Happen In Books
In this one-act, originally entitled, A Matter of Conscience, a lordly novelist, his wife, their doctor, their maid, her brother, and a visiting stranger are caught up in various deceptions, illusions and mysteries-including a murder mystery in a haunted house. Novelist John's two pleasures in life are losing at solitaire and lecturing his wife about how there are no plots in life. Of course, his wife is cheating on him with the family doctor, who reveals not only their infidelity but a whole network of jailbreaks, murders, mutilations and buried treasure, all of which has taken place in John's house.

Notes:
By 1946-and probably earlier than that date-Wilder withdrew the play from production and publication.

1st Produced:
Yale University Theater In New Haven, Connecticut     25 Nov 1931

Organisations:
Yale Dramatic Association and the Vassar Philalethesis

1st Published:
in the Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act (New York: Coward-McCann, 1931)

in Wilder's Classic One Acts, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>   

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:
short satire

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Trumpet Shall Sound, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1927

Organisations:
-

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

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Unerring Instinct

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder volume Two" published by Theatre Communications Group 1998   

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:
Short play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Victors, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
Original Playwright - Jean-Paul Sartre

1st Produced:
New York     1949

Organisations:
-

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:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Wreck On the Five-Twenty-Five, The

Wreck On the Five-Twenty-Five, The
In this play, which represents "Sloth" in Wilder's projected cycle on the Seven Deadly Sins, Herb Hawkins, a jovial New Jersey - New York City commuter with iron-bound habits, has called to say he is coming home late. This news sets his wife and daughter on edge, a condition heightened when a neighbor informs them that an unidentified man is hiding in the shadows of their front lawn, staring in at them. the police arrive to arrest the supposed prowler, only to find Herb, quietly observing his family through the windows of his own home. It seems that earlier that day, he received word of a surprise inheritance, left to him by a kind, lonely elderly woman. This sudden gift of a large sum of money prompts Herb to question the meaning and purpose of his own life. He returns to his place in the family with touches of humor, irony and despair.

Notes:
In the late '50s and early '60s, Thornton Wilder attempted to write seven one-act plays depicting the Seven Deadly Sins (later adding a proposed Seven Ages of Man to the mix). He was very excited at the time by the artistic promise of theater-in-the-round, and pleased that his first proposed "Sin," Someone from Assisi (Lust), could have its premiere in 1961-1962 on the stage of New York City's famed Circle in the Square theatre. During his lifetime only four Sins were completed to his initial satisfaction, and he withdrew two of these from circulation. Since 1997, the centenary of Wilder's birth, thanks to the rich materials in his archives, actors and readers have been able to perform and study all seven of Wilder's Sins: the Drunken Sisters (Gluttony), Bernice (Pride), the Wreck on the 5:25 (Sloth), A Ringing of Doorbells (Envy), In Shakespeare and the Bible (Wrath), Someone from Assisi (Lust) and Cement Hands (Avarice).

1st Produced:
Circle In The Square Theater In New York     01 Nov 1962

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
first published in 1997 by TCG in the Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, edited by Donald Gallup and Tappan Wilder

in Thornton Wilder One Act Series: the Seven Deadly Sins, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>    

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:
Short play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Youth

Youth
To his horror, the middle-aged Captain Gulliver finds himself marooned, dying of hunger and thirst in "the Country of the Young"--a world of youth so mistrustful of age that anyone approaching thirty is ritually dispatched. Here, he encounters an ersatz aristocracy and servant class who are both appalled by and attracted to what they see in him. By virtue of age alone, he represents everything they hate--the old men immortalized in their books who have sent younger men off to war; old men who frustrate and thwart the young in order to keep themselves in power. Yet he appeals to their latent humanity and their need to do something other than just play at childish games. Through his cunning and wisdom, Gulliver manages to gain the trust of one of his female captors and enlist the help of a talented servant-class carpenter. Together they make a narrow escape, the two young islanders looking forward to the promise of a new world in which people may someday see their children grow into manhood and womanhood and hold their grandchildren on their knees.

Notes:
the Ages of Man is a collection of four short plays: Infancy, Childhood, Youth and Rivers Under the Earth. Inspired by Shakespeare's famous monologue about the ages of life, Wilder set out to write seven short plays chronicling the human journey from infancy through extreme old age. the first two pieces, Infancy and Childhood, are delightful comedies which have been widely produced. However, Wilder never published the remaining plays of his series. After his death in 1973, two additional plays intended for this cycle, Youth and the Rivers Under the Earth (a play believed to represent middle age), were found among the playwright's unfinished papers.

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
first published in 1997 by TCG in the Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, edited by Donald Gallup and Tappan Wilder.

in the Ages of Man, Samuel French, Inc - New York (2012) >>>    

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:
short play

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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