LANFORD WILSON   (1937 - )


Lanford Wilson
   Nationality:
American
   Literary Agent: *:
   Email:
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   Website:
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Plays by Lanford Wilson

LANFORD WILSON
5th of July
1st Produced:
New York
1978
Company:
-
1st Published:
Hill and Wang, New York
1979
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Genre:
-
-
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis:
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LANFORD WILSON
Abstinence
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Turn
One Act
Parts:
Male
2
Female
3
Parts Other:
-
Notes: Written for the twentieth anniversary gala honoring New York's famed Circle Repertory Company (of which the author is a founding member) this witty, clever and very funny short piece pokes wicked fun at Manhattan's self-impressed "smart set."
Synopsis: The place is the front hall of a very chic Manhattan apartment, where the hostess, Winnie, is giving a party for one of her pet charities-in this case, Liars Anonymous. A late arrival, who is intercepted by the worldly wise maid, Martha, is one Danna-who claims to be both on the wagon and a very dear friend of Winnie. She is also, as it develops, rather close to Winnie's husband, Lon, as well (they claim to have shared a wild night of passion involving the bizarre use of vegetables). But if Lon is a philanderer, Winnie, according to Danna, is worse; and then there is Joe, a handsome rogue who informs the others that he is an incredibly rich physicist, has climbed Mount Everest solo, has a titled wife, and who sweeps Danna off her feet. As the conversation grows more dazzling (and the lies more extravagant) only Martha, the maid, remains unfazed by the whole mad scene-after all, she has seen it all many times before, and who cares what these crazy people do or say anyway?
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LANFORD WILSON
Angels Fall
1st Produced:
Miami's New World Festival
1982
Company:
-
1st Published:
Hill and Wang, New York
1983
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
4
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: The scene is a small mission church in a remote part of New Mexico, where a middle-aged college professor and his lovely young wife detour unexpectedly after the highway is closed because of a possible "accident" at a nearby nuclear facility. They are soon joined by Father Doherty, the benevolent but canny parish priest; a brilliant young Navajo doctor, Don Tabaha, who is about to leave his people (despite Father Doherty's opposition) to accept a prestigious research fellowship in California; Marion Clay, an art dealer and the widow of an important regional painter; and "Zappy" Zappala, her young paramour and a tournament class tennis player. Confined within the church as they await the hoped for "all clear" signal the six, after an initial reserve, begin to reveal their stories to each other-their problems and possibilities, their hopes and fears, the personal crises which have brought them not only to this place but to turning points in their lives. Sometimes brightly humorous, sometimes deeply affecting, s
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LANFORD WILSON
Balm in Gilead
1st Produced:
Caffe Cino, New York
1964
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "Balm in Gilead", Hill and Wang, New York
1965
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
16
Female
8
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: The setting is an all-night coffee shop on New York's upper Broadway, where the riff-raff, the bums, the petty thieves, the lost, the desperate of the big city come together. The movement of the kaleidoscopic in effect, a surging mosaic of overlapping and interrelating speeches and action as separate goals and characters are blended together around a common center. At the core of the play are Joe and Darlene, two young people who would seem to have the strength and the need to transcend the turmoil and ugliness of the life in which they found themselves-but are, instead, crushed by it. But their loss is quickly absorbed in the maelstrom, as the others go on desperately seeking the joy and release and purpose in life which will, most certainly, continue to escape them.
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LANFORD WILSON
Bar Play
1st Produced:
1979
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
Short play
One Act
Parts:
Male
3
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: in Holidays
Synopsis: An argument occurs when one of the regular customers at a neighborhood bar makes insinuations about the bartender's daughter
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LANFORD WILSON
Betrothal, A
1st Produced:
London
1986
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Comedy Drama
One Act
Parts:
Male
1
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: The setting is a large tent, where two flower show exhibitors have sought refuge from a sudden rainfall. She (Ms. Joslyn) is visibly annoyed at the curt treatment which the judges have given her "Little Soldier" and makes no bones about it. He (Mr. Wasserman) is equally dismayed by the fate of his "Little Tanya," but is too soft-spoken and retiring to vent his anger. They both agree that if the judges are getting soaked it serves them right, but Mr. Wasserman's attempts at friendly conversation are confounded by Ms. Joslyn's close-mouthed surliness. But gradually it develops that (a) they happen to admire each others creations (unlike the judges) and (b) they are near neighbors-all of which leads in time to the realization that if it proved possible to combine the color of his "Little Tanya" with the texture of her "Little Soldier" a new strain of flower would result which even the most obtuse of judges would be dazzled by. Quivering with anticipation they prepare to leave, as the sun comes out, and the prosp
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LANFORD WILSON
Book of Days
1st Produced:
The Purple Rose Theatre Company, Chelsea, MI
1998
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Mystery
Parts:
Male
7
Female
5
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: When murder roars through a small Missouri town, Ruth Hoch begins her own quest to find truth and honesty amid small town jealousies, religion, greed and lies. This tornado of a play propels you through its events like a page-turning mystery
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LANFORD WILSON
Brontosaurus
1st Produced:
1977
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
1978
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Genre:
Comedy Drama
One Act
Parts:
Male
1
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Deals with the encounter between a cynical, sophisticated New York antiques dealer and the taciturn young man, her nephew and house guest, who has come to the city to study theology. As reticent and unemotional as his aunt is loquacious and brittle, the young man contends that he has undergone a mystical experience-a revelation which is as unsettling to his aunt as it is fulfilling to him. As though intimidated by his inscrutable reserve, she grows increasingly voluble, revealing in her wise-cracking chatter the defense which she has constructed to keep the world at bay-and to mask the innate sensitivity and idealism which persist despite the loneliness and futility of her existence.
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LANFORD WILSON
Burn This
1st Produced:
Los Angeles
1987
Company:
-
1st Published:
Hill and Wang, New York
1988
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
3
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: The place is a Manhattan loft shared by Anna, a lithe young dancer-choreographer, and her two gay roommates-her collaborator, Robby, who has just been killed in a freak boating accident, and Larry, a world-weary, caustically funny young advertising executive. As the play begins Anna is recovering from attending Robby's funeral, comforted by her wealthy, well-meaning boyfriend, Burton, a sci-fi screenwriter whose persistent proposals of marriage Anna finds herself unable to accept. Then, with sudden, unexpected explosiveness, Robby's older brother, Pale, bursts on the scene. He has come to collect his brother's belongings-but stays on to transform the action of the play and the lives of those in it. Menacing, profane, dangerous and yet oddly sensitive, Pale is both terrifying and fascinating and, in the end, the one who brings to Anna the unsettling but compelling love that, despite her fears and doubts, she cannot turn away.
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LANFORD WILSON
Chicago
1st Produced:
1966
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
-
-
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: written by Langford Wilson & Sam Shepard
Synopsis: -
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LANFORD WILSON
Day
1st Produced:
Bay Street Theatre of Sag Harbor
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
in By the Sea By the Sea By the Beautiful Sea, Dramatist Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Play
One Act
Parts:
Male
1
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: part of By the Sea By the Sea By the Beautiful Sea, Three one-act plays by Joe Pintauro, Lanford Wilson and Terrence McNally
Synopsis: takes a playful look at Ace, a local gardener who goes to the beach on his lunch hour and runs into Macy, a sexpot yuppie (complete with a chic beach umbrella and laptop computer). Macy seduces Ace into applying her tanning lotion, but then the gardener's nutty girlfriend arrives to give them all a run for their money
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LANFORD WILSON
Days Ahead
1st Produced:
Caffe Cino, New York
1965
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "The Rimers of Eldritch and other Plays", Hill and Wang, New York
1967
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
One Act
Parts:
Male
1
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: portrays the fraught psyche of a fastidious little man as he confronts the memory of an early love which he perceives as a dusty, crumbling wall through which he must dig.
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LANFORD WILSON
Dying Breed
1st Produced:
New York
1987
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
-
-
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis:
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LANFORD WILSON
Eukiah
1st Produced:
1991-92
Company:
-
1st Published:
Samuel French, Inc. in More Ten-Minute Plays from Actors Theatre of Louisville; by Smith & Kraus in 20/20: Twenty One-Act Plays from the Twenty Year History of the Humana Festival of New American Plays; and in the journal Art Teatral: Cuadernos de Minipie
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Ten Min
Parts:
Male
2
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Butch's haunting call for Eukiah to come out of the shadows echoes through an abandoned airplane hangar. What does Eukiah know, and what does he think he knows about a plot to kill racehorses? This brooding exploration of power lures us into a dimly lit corridor where truth and trust lean precariously against one another.
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LANFORD WILSON
Family Continues, The
1st Produced:
1972
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "The Great Nebula in Orion and Three Other Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York
1973
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Drama
One Act
Parts:
Male
5
Female
5
Parts Other:
flexible
Notes: -
Synopsis: A haunting play of memory, written in a stream of consciousness, contrapuntal style, which evokes the panorama of a young man's life-birth, army service, marriage, job, parenthood, old age-within the brief span of its action. Highly innovative in its theatricality, the play illuminates not only the continuity of human life, but also the poignancy and bitterness which can infuse it.
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LANFORD WILSON
Fifth Of July
1st Produced:
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
Comedy Drama
Comedy
Parts:
Male
4
Female
4
Parts Other:
-
Notes: Lincoln Centre Theatre on Film & Tape
Synopsis: The scene is a sprawling farmhouse in rural Missouri, which is home to Ken, a legless Vietnam veteran, and his lover, Jed, a horticulturist. They are visited by Ken's sister, June, and her teenage daughter, and by Gwen and John-the former a hard-drinking, pill-popping heiress who aspires to be a rock star, the latter her wary-eyed husband and manager. All are old friends from college days, and former activists who agitated for what they hoped would be a better world. The action centers on Gwen's offer to buy the farm, which she plans to convert into a recording center, and on Ken's Aunt Sally, who has come to the family homestead to scatter the ashes of her late husband. Their talk, as the play progresses, is sharp and funny and, in the final essence, deeply revealing of lost hopes and dreams and of the bitterness that must be fought back if one is to perceive the good that life can offer.
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LANFORD WILSON
Gingham Dog, The
1st Produced:
Washington Theatre Club, Washington, D.C.
1968
Company:
-
1st Published:
Hill and Wang, New York
1970
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Gloria and Vincent, a once happily married couple, are suffering through the first days of their separation. Vincent has decided to move out, and as they divide their possessions amidst the mutual recriminations and accusations, their tolerance level for each other sinks. Vincent does indeed leave but returns early the next morning in a semi-drunken state. The household possessions that had proven to be so symbolic in defining their relationship are no longer there, for they are no longer important. They bicker again, but this time, with their defenses lowered, the young, innocent and honest couple they had been during the first year of their marriage resurfaces. Neither gets their trust up far enough to admit their shortcomings, however. They lapse into a cheery charade of friendliness, until Vincent leaves Gloria for good, casting a shadow on any hope of reconciliation
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LANFORD WILSON
Gohsts
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Adaptation
Parts:
Male
3
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: Original Playwright - Henrik Ibsen
Synopsis: In 1881 Ibsen rocked the literary and theatrical worlds with the publication of GHOSTS, a play so controversial in its time that even the head of Nya Teatern, one of Stockholm's major theatres, called it "one of the filthiest things ever written in Scandanavia." Once the uproar had died down, audiences proved far more receptive to GHOSTS than the literati had initially been, and while its dramatic subjects of promiscuity, incest and sexually transmitted disease no longer arouse the feverish denunciations of Ibsen's time, their treatment retains the power that has made the play a masterpiece of Western literature. In this crackling new translation, celebrated playwright Lanford Wilson has revivified GHOSTS for a new audience, and as we too continue to confront the specter of horrifying sexual disease, GHOSTS has never seemed more profoundly relevant.
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LANFORD WILSON
Great Nebula in Orion, The
1st Produced:
Manchester
1970
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "The Great Nebula in Orion and Three Other Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York
1973
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
Drama
One Act
Parts:
Male
-
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: This fascinating and brilliantly inventive play details the chance meeting, after many years, of two girlhood friends. One has "married well" and the other has achieved a successful career, but, for both, as their poignant and telling conversation reveals, there is an aching emptiness beneath the elegant veneer of their lives
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LANFORD WILSON
Hall of North American Forests
1st Produced:
New York
1987
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
1988
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
1 Acts
One Act
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: includes The Bottle Harp, Say deKooning, A Betrothal
Synopsis: see individual plays
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LANFORD WILSON
Home Free!
1st Produced:
Caffe Cino, New York
1964
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "Balm in Gilead", Hill and Wang, New York
1965
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
Drama
One Act
Parts:
Male
1
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Lawrence and Joanna, a brother and sister in their mid-twenties, have cut themselves off from the world "outside," living in a cluttered playroom which they share with two imaginary companions, "Edna" and "Claypone." Surrounded by toys, including a brightly colored miniature Ferris wheel, they have created an atmosphere of almost suffocating intimacy and remove, where play becomes the business of life and reality an alien force to be kept at bay. But life intrudes all the same, and their fantasies have betrayed them into Joanna's pregnancy. Yet even this cruel irony can only be dealt with in almost antic, unreal terms, as though it too were but a facet of the dream world which Lawrence and Joanna have constructed about themselves. They continue to play and talk idly of future plans-until the birth pangs begin and their house of illusion comes crashing down. But still Lawrence cannot leave, cannot face the world beyond their door. Instead he sends "Edna" for the doctor, and as Joanna's life ebbs away he holds
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LANFORD WILSON
Hot L Baltimore, The
1st Produced:
1973
Company:
-
1st Published:
Hill and Wang, New York
1973
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
10
Female
7
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: The scene is the lobby of a rundown hotel so seedy that it has lost the "e" from its marquee. As the action unfolds, the residents, ranging from young to old, from the defiant to the resigned, meet and talk and interact with each other during the course of one day. The drama is of passing events in their lives, of everyday encounters and of the human comedy, with conversations often overlapping into a contrapuntal musical flow. In the resulting mosaic each character emerges clearly and perceptively defined, and the sum total of what they are-or wish they were-becomes a poignant, powerful call to America to recover lost values and to restore itself in its own and the world's eyes.
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LANFORD WILSON
Ikke. Ikke, Nye, Nye, Nye
1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut
1971
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "The Great Nebula in Orion and Three Other Plays", Dramatists Play Service, New York
1973
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
Farce
One Act
Parts:
Male
1
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: This explosively funny and ingenious farce deals with what might have been a seduction-but while she is all for it (despite her feeble protests) he has eyes only for her telephone. And what he can't say to her face, floods out readily on the phone, with hilarious and devastating results.
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LANFORD WILSON
Lemon Sky
1st Produced:
1968
Company:
-
1st Published:
Hill and Wang, New York
1970
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
3
Parts Other:
2b
Notes: -
Synopsis: At seventeen, Alan visits the California home of his father and his father's former mistress turned wife. His father's life now centers around his two young sons, a tiresome job at an aircraft plant, and two teenage girls who are boarded with the family by the state. Alan has come expecting to go to school full time and work part time at the plant, having accepted his father's encouragement to do so. But the older man is incapable of honesty, least of all emotional honesty, and his lies about school are worth about as much as his lies about love. In the end, his cruelty, insecurity and lechery bring on an inevitable collision that destroys all that the father and son had hoped for. Alan is driven away once more, embittered by the knowledge that he must live without the father he so desperately wants and needs.
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LANFORD WILSON
Ludlow Fair
1st Produced:
Caffe Cino, New York
1965
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "Balm in Gilead", Hill and Wang, New York
1965
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
Comedy Drama
One Act
Parts:
Male
-
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: In words of the Village Voice, this: "&is a bedtime story about two girl roommates. Rachel is glamorous, fast-living, sometimes lost in her own self-dramatizations; Agnes is plain, matter-of-fact, her shyness masked by a kooky personality. The play is ostensibly about Rachael: She turned her latest boyfriend in to the police when he stole from her, and now she is remorseful-now she decides she is in love with him. Agnes tries to cheer her up with wisecracks, then tries to rekindle her self-awareness, and finally Rachael goes to sleep. Agnes is left alone, thinking about her lunch date with the boss' disappointing son tomorrow. And suddenly it is her play, the realist is the true romantic. Agnes' unprepossessing but real emotions outweigh Rachel's trumped-up, self-indulgent flourishes, and suddenly the play is simple and moving."
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LANFORD WILSON
Madness of Lady Bright, The
1st Produced:
Caffe Cino, New York
1964
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "The Rimers of Eldritch and other Plays", Hill and Wang, New York
1967
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
One Act
Parts:
Male
2
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: traces the mental breakdown of Lesley Bright, an aging homosexual whose past returns to haunt him with the emptiness of the choices he made
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LANFORD WILSON
Miss Williams: A Turn
1st Produced:
New York
1967
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
-
-
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis:
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LANFORD WILSON
Moonshot Tape, The
1st Produced:
New York
1990
Company:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
-
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
-
One Act
Parts:
Male
-
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Having come home to visit her mother, who has been placed in a nursing home, Diane, now a well known writer, is being interviewed for the local newspaper. Only she speaks. Her remarks are in answer to such questions as where she gets the ideas for her stories; whether her youth in Mountain Grove influenced her work; and why she decided to leave home. At first obliging and matter-of-fact, Diane gradually begins to reveal more than her questioner might have bargained for-a childhood marred by the loss of her father and her mother's coldness; the promiscuity which she was driven to in search of the love and concern which were denied her at home; and, most devastating of all, the molestation by her stepfather which shaped her character indelibly-and led to the harrowing event which she describes at the end of her recital. To the world at large Diane is someone who has shaken off the dust of Mountain Grove and has gone on to bigger and better things. To herself, however, it is painfully clear that what she is what
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LANFORD WILSON
Mound Builders, The
1st Produced:
1975
Company:
-
1st Published:
Hill and Wang, New York
1976
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
3
Female
4
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: At an archeological dig in the Midwest, a party of university scientists are unearthing vestiges of a lost Indian civilization. Heading the group is Dr. Howe, accompanied by his wife and daughter, and by a younger associate and his wife. They are all joined by Dr. Howe's sister, a famous and jaded novelist, who is "drying out" after many years of dissipation in remote parts of the world. There is also an outsider, the acquisitive son of a local landowner, who wants the digging site to be turned into a commercialized tourist trap. Interweaving past and present through the use of slides, the action of the play probes into the lives-and conflicts-of these disparate people. Their story evokes resonances that illuminate what we are and will surely become, and which underscore the irony of our collective blindness to the disturbing lessons that a close study of the past must inevitably reveal.
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LANFORD WILSON
No Trespassing
1st Produced:
Caffe Cino, New York
1964
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
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-
Parts:
Male
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Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis:
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LANFORD WILSON
One Arm
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
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
Genre:
-
Adaptation
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis:
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LANFORD WILSON
Poster of the Cosmos, A
1st Produced:
New York
1987
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "The Way We Live Now", Theatre Communications Group, New York
1990
To Buy This Play:
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 f