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Richard Greenberg

RICHARD GREENBERG

  (1958 - )
Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    Creative Artists Agency CA  

Greenberg grew up in east Meadow, New York, a middle-class Long Island town in Nassau County, east of New York City. His father, Leon Greenberg, was an executive for New York's Century Theaters movie chain and his mother Shirley was a homemaker. Greenberg graduated from east Meadow High School in 1976 and later went on to attend Princeton University, where he graduated magna cum laude. At Princeton, Greenberg studied creative writing under Joyce Carol Oates and roomed with future Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw. He later attended Harvard for graduate work in English and American Literature, but later dropped out of the program when he was accepted to the Yale School of Drama's playwriting program in 1985 - Wiki

Research:    Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)

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

         American Plan, The         Assembled Parties, The         Author's Voice, The         Bal Masque         Bloodletters, The         Breakfast at Tiffany's         Dance Of Death, The         Dazzle, The         Eastern Standard         Everett Beekin         Extra Man, The         Far From Heaven         House In Town, The         Hunger Artist, The         Hurrah At Last         Injured Party         Jenny Keeps Talking         Life Under Water         Maderati, The         Naked Girl On the Appian Way, A         Neptune's Hips         Night And Her Stars         Our Mother's Brief Affair         Pal Joey         Swing Of The Sea, The         Take Me Out         Three Days Of Rain         Vanishing Act         Violet Hour, The         Well-Appointed Room, The

American Plan, The

Synopsis:
This thoughtful and mysterious play dissects a portion of upper-class American society at mid-century and finds a troubled young girl's dream of love shattered by her mother's definition of happiness. "Greenberg has created some compelling characters . . . the dialogue is lyrical, the characters absorbing . . ." -NY Daily News. "How Greenberg achieves the end is nothing less than spellbinding. His characters shift and shimmer like reflections on the resort's lake." -Variety. the STORY It is the Catskills, in the summer of 1960. By the shore of a lake, Lili adler, the troubled twenty-year-old daughter of a wealthy German-Jewish refugee, meets Nick Lockridge, a golden young man who looks to her as if "nothing ever happened to him." Over the summer, Lili comes to view Nick as her saviour and Nick's fondness for Lili grows; but to eva, Lili's autocratic mother, Nick is an object of suspicion, and the romance that blossoms between him and Lili is an unfortunate condition that must be indulged before it can be oblitera

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York City Center - Stage I, 131 West 55th Street, New York, NY    04 Dec 1990

Organisations:
Manhattan Theatre Club

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1990   -

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/Drama. - - Gay, theme/character full length

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Assembled Parties, The

Synopsis:
The Assembled Parties welcomes us to the world of the Bascovs, an Upper West Side Jewish family in 1980. In a sprawling Central Park West apartment, former movie star Julie Bascov and her sister-in-law Faye bring their families together for their traditional holiday dinner. But tonight, things are not usual. A houseguest has joined the festivities for the first time and he unwittingly - or perhaps by design - insinuates himself into the family Drama. Twenty years later, as 2001 approaches, the Bascovs seemingly picture-perfect life may be about to crumble. A stunning new play infused with humor, The Assembled Parties is an incisive portrait of a family grasping for stability at the dawn of a new millennium.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th Street, New York, NY 10036    17 Apr 2013

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, Inc   978-0822229872

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:
comedy drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Author's Voice, The

Synopsis:
Smitten with her latest protege, a handsome young writer with a "special voice," a pretty editor accompanies him back to his apartment-the better to see from whence his inspiration springs, and also to toast their new creative partnership. But while she is captivated by the writer's good looks and laid-back, low-key manner, she begins, increasingly, to wonder (to the audience) at the emptiness-even banality-of his conversation. In fact the only time he isn't boring is when he is quoting poetic passages from his novel in progress. the reason is soon apparent: the real author is a poor misshapen, Quasimodo-like creature whose physical ugliness has forced him to remain closeted, while his literary brilliance is credited to another (whose main contribution is, in fact, his striking jacket photograph). the revelation of this "Beauty and the Beast" phenomenon is, as might be expected in the cynical publishing business, received with more diffidence than dismay but, thanks to some clever and very funny twists and turns of plot, everyone does, in the end, get exactly what he or she deserves.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1987

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1987   -

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:
Comedy One act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Bal Masque

Synopsis:
Three couples in three apartments after Truman Capote's Black and White Ball. An abstract painter has picked up a socialite in the hopes she will be useful to his career. In another room their spouses are dallying. In the third room an older couple wonder where their youth went

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Theatre J, Washington D C    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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Bloodletters, The

Synopsis:
Teenage Corky has an unusual disease that causes him to smell very badly. His mother spends her money on air fresheners and paying another High School boy who has had an aneurism to be his friend. Corky's brother Reid has spilt up with his wife annie. annie now spends her time having one affair after another. Reid finds himself being attracted to a gay friend Callie

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:
Drama. - - Gay, theme/character full length

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Breakfast at Tiffany's

Synopsis:
Holly Golightly is the "it girl" of New York cafe society. She is unemployed, spare the full-time job of socializing with wealthy men (her suitors include a millionaire playboy and the future president of Brazil); according to Capote, Golightly is an "American geisha." In the autumn of 1943, Golightly becomes acquainted with "Fred" a confirmed bachelor that has just moved into her Upper east Side brownstone. Breakfast at Tiffany's is the story of their year-long relationship amidst the glitterati as war rages across the ocean.

Notes:
adapted from the Truman Capote novElla of the same name

1st Produced:
Cort theatre
138 West 48th Street, New York, NY 10036    20 Mar 2013

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:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Dance Of Death, The

Synopsis:
as their twenty-fifth anniversary approaches, alice and edgar, ever at each other's throats, find their mutual hatred at an all-time high. their latest maid has just quit; their children have abandoned them; and they can't keep company with any of the locals on their remote island because they despise them. after twenty-five years, they can't abide one another either. their miserable lives get a jolt when alice's cousin Kurt arrives, newly stationed on the island. Kurt becomes the pawn used by edgar and alice to finally get the best of each other in what truly becomes a dance of death. Strindberg's 1900 masterpiece was the first naturalistic portrait of a marriage in modern Drama, and the trail it blazed made possible Long Day's Journey into Night and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Notes:
Original Playwright - August Strindberg

1st Produced:
Lyric, London    2003

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

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:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Dazzle, The

Dazzle, The
In their Harlem mansion, during the early years of the twentieth century, the Collyer brothers share an eccentric life, still within reason. Langley is a concert pianist by profession but prefers his studies of the world's minutiae, all of which he considers collectible. His older brother, Homer, a former admiralty lawyer and aspiring intrigant, maintains the household and dreams of wilder times. these seem about to begin when the beautiful socialite Milly inserts herself into the Collyer menage, bringing with her money, secrets and designs on Langley. as the first act unfolds, a wedding is strategized; as it ends, the wedding is aborted. In the second act, the Collyers and Milly are reunited under vastly altered conditions. Time passes, then destroys them, one by one.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Gramercy theatre
127 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010    05 Mar 2002

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Dazzle and everett Beekin" published by James Bennett 2006
Dramatists Play Service, NY   978-0571211234

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/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Eastern Standard

Synopsis:
the play begins in a trendy Manhattan restaurant, where Stephen, a young architect, and his best friend, Drew, a Soho artist, are lunching. at an adjacent table are Phoebe, a Wall Street investment banker, and her brother, Peter, a discouraged television producer who, as he confides to his sister, has aIDS. Stephen is attracted to Phoebe, and Drew (who is gay) is intrigued by Peter and, after several raucous (and very funny) episodes involving a bottle-throwing bag lady at still another table, and a long-suffering waitress, the two couples strike up an acquaintance, which quickly ripens into friendship. In act Two, a month later, they, along with ellen, the waitress from the restaurant and a would-be actress, and May, the bag lady, assemble at Stephen's beach house, determined to make some sense out of their lives and to overcome the alienation and sense of purposelessness which they all share. Inevitably, this leads to a series of very funny yet affecting incidents in which various relationships, non-relationships, mistaken motives and often shaky alliances are cleverly set forth and examined. In the end, sobered but still game, the two couples, one heterosexual, one homosexual, who formed as they play began, have managed to remain together, well aware that their best hopes may never be realized, but bravely raising a toast to the "accidental happiness" that, with luck, may yet come their way.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Grove Press, New York, 1989   -

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:
Gay, full length comedy

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Everett Beekin

Everett Beekin
Part One ("the Shabbos Goy") takes place in the late '40s on the Lower east Side where we meet the Fox women-sweet, hopeful anna, pregnant with her first child and reveling in her new life as a young matron in Levittown; caustic Sophie, anna's older sister, married to Jack, a nearly silent eater; youngest sister Miri, the darling of the family who is confined to her bedroom with "a light, summer cold"; and fretful, embittered Ma, who, though a born American, still speaks in the cadences of the old country. Into this gathering enters Jimmy Constant, a young man about to move to California to start a pharmaceuticals firm with the visionary everett Beekin; Miri's suitor, Jimmy will have to run a gauntlet of Fox women if he hopes to take Miri with him. Part Two ("the Pacific") skips a generation and crosses the continent to take us to Orange County, California, where anna's children, Celia and Nell, reunite for the wedding of Nell's daughter, Laurel, to ev, the charmingly inarticulate scion of the Beekin pharmaceuticals empire.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Mitzi Newhouse theater
150 West 65th Street, New York, NY 10023    14 Nov 2001

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Dazzle and everett Beekin" published by James Bennett 2006
Dramatists Play Service, NY   978-0571211234

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/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Extra Man, The

Synopsis:
Keith, the "extra man" unattached and perfect for dinner parties with his wit and endless supply of gossip. Many years ago he had published a book of short stories but never seems to have done much since. He manipulates married book editor Laura into an affair with Jess a lonely film critic for no other reason than his own enjoyment

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Costa Mesa, California    1991

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "the Best Plays 191 - 1992" published by Applause Theatre Books 1992   -

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:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Far From Heaven

Synopsis:
Cathy Whitaker seems to be the picture-perfect wife and mother in 1957 suburban Connecticut. But roiling beneath the surface, secret longings and forbidden desires cause her world to unravel, with incendiary consequences. With a lush score that is both jazz-inflected and hauntingly lyrical, Far From Heaven is a powerful story of romance, betrayal, and intolerance, as a woman grapples with her identity in a society on the verge of upheaval.

Notes:
Book by Richard Greenberg; Music by Scott Frankel; Lyrics by Michael Korie; Based on the Vulcan Productions motion picture written & directed by Todd Haynes

1st Produced:
Playwrights Horizons Mainstage
416 West 42nd Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10036    18 May 2013

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:
musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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House In Town, The

Synopsis:
Set in the early months of 1929 in a townhouse on Millionaire's Row (23rd Street between 9th and 10th avenues) in New York, the House in Town is an intimate portrait of a marriage.
nytheatre.com

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Mitzi Newhouse theater
150 West 65th Street, New York, NY 10023    19 Jun 2006

Organisations:
Lincoln Center Theater

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 2008   -

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/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Hunger Artist, The

Synopsis:
the life and works of Franz Kafka.

Notes:
written by Richard Greenberg And Martha Clarke And company, work by Kafka

1st Produced:
New York    1987

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:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Hurrah At Last

Synopsis:
"Mother, I'm the only boy who was ever named after a character in Little Women, what do you expect?". Laurie is worried that ex-lover Oliver is making a hash of the screenplay of his hit novel

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Gramercy theatre
127 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010    03 Jun 1999

Organisations:
Roundabout Theatre Company

1st Published:
in Three Days Of Rain and other plays, Grove,    -

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/Drama. - - Gay, full length

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  large dog

Further Reference:
-

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Injured Party

Synopsis:
Seth is in need of money. His 92 year old grandmother is very rich and there must be a way for him to get his hands on some of her cash.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
South Coast Repertory Theater, San Diego    2007

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:
Comedy

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Jenny Keeps Talking

Synopsis:
In three monologues, one actress plays three women. First we meet Jenny, an established left-wing columnist whose newspaper is in the throes of a takeover. No thanks to her editor, with whom Jenny used to sleep and who promised he'd be able to save her job, she's tossed out after fourteen years of service. No longer considering herself young enough to start life over, she reluctantly calls upon the charity of her grandmother who lets her stay at a leaky family cottage on a forgotten island off the coast of Maine. there she meets an (at first) overly friendly handyman whom by the play's end we find out isn't so bad after all. She also gets angry enough about the way she's been treated to write a book of essays, which ultimately sweeps her back onto the national scene and then some. In the second monologue, we meet Jenny's ne'er-do-well sister, Claudia, an Upper West Side bohemian and failed opera singer whose life has been a string of get-rich-quick schemes and disastrous sublets (both in terms of real estate and relationships). "My future," she says, "is in breakfast"-meaning she intends to open a breakfast-only restaurant in Jenny's cottage. This starts a series of answering machine arguments between Claudia and her sister as they vie for Jenny's home and expose past wounds that have never healed between them. By the end of Claudia's scene she too gets tossed out of her familiar surroundings when the landlord finds out she's been renting illegally. In the play's last scene, the women's grandmother recounts how she's secretly saved up enough money to take care of both her granddaughters, if only they could do something she respected. the doorbell rings, and all three are about to get together for a bumpy evening of settling their scores.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1992

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

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:
Comedy Drama Comedy

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Life Under Water

Synopsis:
the setting is the present day Hamptons, that sun drenched stretch of expensive ocean frontage where the rich and privileged while away their summers. Two attractive college girls, amy-Joy and amy-Beth, are looking for a good time, and think they have found it in the person of Kip, a handsome preppie who is in flight from the lavish home he shares with his divorced, domineering and bitingly sophisticated mother and her narcissistic married lover. and romance does develop, if not quite in the manner anticipated, as the triangular affair of the young people is deftly counterpointed against the vapid relation-ship of the older couple. But while high comedy and sharp observation prevail, the play yields a lacerating portrait of a contemporary upper middle-class that is, sadly and humorously, bored, self-indulgent and emotionally reckless.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
One-act Play Marathon

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1985   -

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:
Comedy One act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Maderati, The

Synopsis:
Focusing on the self-centered concerns of a rather inbred group of Manhattan "yuppies," the action of the play deals with the ultimately hilarious misunderstandings which arise when one of their number, a frustrated, somewhat overweight and definitely suicidal poet named Charlotte, is temporarily detained in a mental hospital. the news of Charlotte's plight is misunderstood by the couple to whom it is reported (Dewy, an ambitious would-be photographer, and Ritt, her stockbroker husband, who is given to sudden "epiphanies") and assuming that Charlotte has died they eagerly impart this privileged information to the others in their set. This leads to a series of inventive and brightly satiric scenes as the "news" is passed along (with incremental exaggeration) from couple to couple, and culminates in an impromptu get-together honoring the "deceased" at which Charlotte herself shows up as a surprise guest! among the others involved in the antic doings are a literary couple, Chuck and Rena (who first reported Charlotte's absence); a sexually ambivalent publisher who affects an english accent; a young poet who tends to fall asleep without warning; a man-crazy feminist named Cuddles Molotov; and the current object of her desire, a "hunky" and faithless method actor, Danton, whose primitive grunts apparently have an aphrodisiac effect on the other women present, and whose hilarious obtuseness gives a fine point to the overall irony of the play.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Playwrights Horizons
416 West 42nd Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10036    19 Feb 1987

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1987   -

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:
Comedy

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Naked Girl On the Appian Way, A

Synopsis:
Bess Lapin is a television celebrity chef, her husband Jeffrey is writing a book. When two of their children arrive back from an extended holiday in europe they announce that they are never going to leave home again. the next-door neighbour is a lesbian with an overbearing mother

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Roundabout's American Airlines Theater, New York    2005

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:
Comedy. - - Lesbian, theme/character, full length

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Neptune's Hips

Synopsis:
Emma a bitter thirty something is spending the summer at a seaside b&b. Days before she is due to leave Terry arrives and they end up in bed

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
One-act Play Marathon

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Night And Her Stars

Synopsis:
probing study of greed and power, exploring America's need for a hero; the transformation of the new medium of television as a subversive power; and the corrupting influence of fame. Based on the real events of the legendary Congress inquiry into the Quiz-Show scandals of the 1950s. Herbert Stempel is the first winner of the big money quiz show 21 and the man who took a dive for the scandal's more famous victor, Charles Van Doren. Orchestrated by 21's producer Dan enright-a television incarnate, an abstract force of evil who persuades both Stempel and Van Doren to cheat - we watch both of the exceptionally gifted contestants fall from grace and analyze each of their weaknesses. Stempel sells his soul for an attempt to be an actor; Van Doren tries to break away from his life governed by strict rules and expectations from a family with ideals he struggles to meet. enright, also serving as the play's glib, seductive narrator, has the uncanny ability to reveal each of the contestants' vulnerabilities and manipu

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York City Center - Stage Ii, 131 West 55th Street, New York, NY    29 Mar 1995

Organisations:
Manhattan Theatre Club

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1997   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  2            Other:  flexible

Further Reference:
-

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Our Mother's Brief Affair

Synopsis:
Two siblings discover that their mother had an affair many years ago

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
South Coast Repertory Theatre, Costa Mesa, California    03 Apr 2008

Organisations:
Pacific Playwrights Festival

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/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Pal Joey

Synopsis:
Joey a second rate dancer and club MC has big ambitions - he wants his own club - "Chez Joey". He meets naive Linda and impresses her with his big talk. Later at the club bored married Vera arrives. Joey insults her and she leaves. Joey is ordered to apologise and the next time Vera is in the club she is so charmed they start an affair. One day when Joey is out with Vera at a shop where she is buying him new clothes Linda meets them and is shocked at what Joey is doing. Vera buys a club for Joey. On opening night two of the staff plot to blackmail Vera - Linda overhears and tells her. Vera calls in the police. Vera decides that Joey is not worth the bother and closes the club. She tells Linda that she can have him - but Linda does not want him either. Linda and Joey meet - but he ignores her to chase after another woman.

Notes:
musical by Rodgers And Hart

1st Produced:
Huntington Theatre Company, Boston, Ma    1992

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:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Swing Of The Sea, The

Synopsis:
Patriarch Max has died, leaving behind two sons, Brett and Alec, and a lover Vivi. All three reunite for one evening in Vivis New York apartment. Secrets, passions and ghosts of the past emerge for this trio as each of them faces an uncertain future.

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Take Me Out

Take Me Out
Darren Lemming, the star center fielder of the world champion New York empires, is young, rich, famous, talented, handsome and so convinced of his popularity that when he casually announces he's gay, he assumes the news will be readily accepted by everyone. It isn't. Friends, fans and teammates react with ambivalence, and when the slipping empires call up the young phenom Shane Mungitt to close their games, the ambivalence turns to violence. angry, lonely, guilt-ridden and confused, Darren finds some unlikely solace in the form of friendship with his new business manager, Mason Marzac-a brilliant but repressed guy, who, as everyone around him copes with disenchantment, blooms in the ecstatic discovery of baseball.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
James Bennett 2006
Dramatists Play Service, NY   978-0571211180

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:
PlayDrama. - - Gay, full length

Parts:
Male:  11            Female:  -            Other:  doubling

Further Reference:
-

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Three Days Of Rain

Three Days Of Rain
a year after he disappeared on the day of his father's funeral, Walker Janeway returns to New York. He takes up temporary residence in the unused space where thirty-five years earlier, his Father Ned, and Ned's late partner theo, both architects, lived and designed the great house that would make them famous. Sleepless and emotionally jangled, Walker scours the old empty space for clues, evidences or keys to the tortured family history. Discovering his father's journal hidden under the bed, he finds it as unforthcoming as his nearly silent Father had been. Walker is joined by his sister, Nan, and their friend from childhood, Pip, theo's son, to hear the reading of Ned's will. It is there that Walker forces the confrontation that the others need. after an evening of harrowing and sometimes comically inadvertent revelations, Walker disappears once more. This time he returns later that evening with a surprising, but to him, definitive solution to the family puzzle. We travel back to 1960, when Ned's journal begins. We meet the parents at the same age their children are in act One: Ned, who seems very different from the cold monster the children conjured; the charismatic and putative genius, theo; and Lena, Walker and Nan's mother, the delightful, troubled "Southern woman who admits to thirty." In the guise of a love story, we are offered all the information needed to devise an alternative reading of the sad, unexpectedly romantic family story.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York City Center - Stage Ii, 131 West 55th Street, New York, NY    12 Nov 1997

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1998
Perseus Oto 2006   978-0802142801

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/Drama. - - Gay, theme/character full length

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Vanishing Act

Synopsis:
Young anya's hair must be brushed exactly one hundred times (if it's stroked even one hundred and one, she is convinced that she may die). the task falls to her older sister, Minna, who, as she brushes, tells a dark tale of a woman who murdered her neighbor. Meanwhile the other members of the family are engaged in their own pursuits: their brother, Spence, contemplates suicide; their mother is occupied with various hobbies (including architecture); and their grandFather deliberately feigns decrepitude. When Minna's shiftless fiance, Sky, fails to help her escape the madness which she sees growing in her family, she apparently wills her own death-and is replaced onstage by Carla, the woman who figured in her macabre bedtime story. and Carla, in turn, brushes her own daughter's hair and spins her own tales of evil deeds and gnawing guilt. Moving from a starlit dock to a languid summerhouse, the play captures a sense of consuming ennui and futility; of people whose self-absorption robs their lives of purpose; and, in the end, conveys the simple truth that while individuals may be replaceable (and often slightly ridiculous) the family unit remains-and prevails-and embodies what meaning life can offer.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
One-act Play Marathon

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1987   -

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 One act

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Violet Hour, The

Violet Hour, The
It's April 1st, 1919, and the young independent publisher John Pace Seavering is setting up his office: a couple of dilapidated rooms in a romantic Manhattan tower. With only enough capital to put out one book, John finds himself besieged by two authors. Denny McCleary, John's brash, and gifted college friend, has produced a manuscript so unruly it lives in a trio of crates. Denny has a surprise imperative: He's fallen in love with the enchanting heiress Rosamund Plinth, and if John doesn't agree to publish his book today, he'll lose her forever. But John is also being strenuously lobbied by Jessie Brewster, the popular black jazz singer who is also John's very secret mistress. She's written her memoirs and is determined to have her story known. as John temporizes with these two, another Drama is playing out in the anteroom: a machine of mysterious provenance and purpose has arrived and is spewing out stacks of pages while John's hapless assistant, Gidger, strives vainly to stem the flood. What's written on these pages will throw John's every hope and plan into disarray.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Faber and Faber 2004
Dramatists Play Service, NY   978-0571211845

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:
Tragicomedy Tragedy

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Well-Appointed Room, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Steppenwolf Theater Company, New York, NY    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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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