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Bill Gunn

BILL GUNN  (1930 - 1989)

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

Literary Agent:    n/a


William Harrison Gunn, playwright, actor, director, novelist and screen writer. Born in Phiadelphia, Pa. Mr. Gunn also wrote two novels, all The Rest Have Died' (1964), and Rhinestone Sharecropping' (1981). Mr. Gunn was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980, and upon his death in 1989, the William H. Gunn Scholarship award in Creative Writing was instituted at Temple University.

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

 Black Picture Show         Family Employment         Forbidden City, The         Johannas         Marcus In The High Grass         Rhinestone

Black Picture Show

Synopsis:
The destruction of a black artist who realizes too late that art in white America is just another form of politics

Notes:
book by Bill Gunn; music And lyrics by Sam Waymon

1st Produced:
Vivian Beaumont Theatre, Lincoln Center, New York    1975

Organisations:
New York Shakespeare Festival (NYSF) and Joseph Papp

1st Published:
Reed, Cannon & Johnson, Berkeley, Ca, 1975   -

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:
2 acts Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  3 BM ,2 BF, 3 WM, 1 WF

Further Reference:
-

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Family Employment

Synopsis:
The story of an upwardly mobile black middle-class family whose wealth and power have come mainly from exploitation of the black community through gambling

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
NYSF Public Theatre    1975

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:
domestic drama Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Forbidden City, The

Synopsis:
a dysfunctional black family disintegrates

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    1989

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:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Johannas

Synopsis:
Deals with the problems of a talented young black boy who attempts to come of age in racist America and finally must commit suicide as the ultimate form of protest

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Chelsea Theatre Center, New York    1965

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Drama Review, vol. 12, no.4, Summer 1968,    -

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:
Tragedy One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  1 BM, 1 BF, 1 BB, 2 BG, 2 WM

Further Reference:
-

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Marcus In The High Grass

Synopsis:
a youngster, born out of wedlock, searches for his father, not knowing that his uncle" is really his father

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Greenwich Mews Theatre, New York    1960

Organisations:
Theatre Guild

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:
full length Melodrama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  4            Other:  2c

Further Reference:
-

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Rhinestone

Synopsis:
Explores the director-writer relationship between a racially insensitive European producer and a sensitive black screenwriter who has been assigned to do a screenplay of a film about a famous black football hero

Notes:
adapt. by Gunn from his novel Rhinestone Sharecropping (1982). Music And lyrics by Sam Waymon

1st Produced:
New York    1982

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:
3 acts Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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