Finding Plays

"In the parking lot of the Hummingbird Motel, off the titular highway near New Orleans, the hotel's residents have gathered to celebrate the life of Miss Ruby, an iconic burlesque queen who has been a mother figure to them all. Miss Ruby's life is nearing its end, and she requests that her funeral take place while she is still alive so she can attend the festivities. As the Mardi Gras-esque celebration continues into the night, the stories of the residents, their pain and disappointments unfold"--Page [4] of cover.

An astounding new play about race and power in America, explored through the lens of a family drama.Grandma's birthday approaches. Beverly is organizing the perfect dinner, but everything seems doomed to go awry-the silverware is all wrong, the radio is on the fritz, and the rest of the family can't be bothered to lift a hand to help. And yet, what appears at first to be a standard family dramedy takes a sharp, sly turn into a startling examination of deep-seated paradigms about race in America.

Mlima is a magnificent elephant trapped by the underground international ivory market. As he follows a trail littered by a history of greed, Mlima takes us on a journey through memory, fear, tradition, and the penumbra between want and need.

"Leaves you moved, refreshed and, yes, maybe even enlightened." --New York Times(Critic's Pick) In the overwhelming quiet of the woods, six runaways from city life embark on a silent retreat. As these strangers confront internal demons both profound and absurd, their vows of silence collide with the achingly human need to connect. Filled with awkward and insightful humor, Bess Wohl's beguiling and compassionate new play brilliantly captures the unique eloquence of a silent retreat and asks how we address life's biggest questions when words fail us. A major hit of the 2015-16 Off Broadway season with two sold out extended runs, Small Mouth Soundsis "wry and observant . . . long on emotions and short on words" (Daily News). ​

Two Mothers and Son explores the seeming needless, perpetual conflict between wife and mother-in-law in a typical African marriage; it is set in twenty-first century Nigeria which itself is a victim of conflicting and confusing interruptions of life. The son who is at the centre of it all, is caught between two loves, both possessive and obsessive, equally important but suffocating in a most debilitating manner. Added to this is the issue of religion which attempts to resolve the crisis but inadvertently contributes to the sad resolution of the conflict.

"Eno is at his most achingly, triumphantly humanist here. He has, in this wonderful, wonderful play, actually struck on something resembling a satisfying answer to death, buried somewhere in the knowledge that we live a million rebirths in even the smallest of gifts we leave behind." --Graham Techler, Paste Magazine What are we here for? Is time a friend or an enemy? Do we all eventually end up in the same place, but take different routes to get there? This funny, moving, and thought-provoking new play by Will Eno challenges the notion of what really matters and recognizes the importance of life's simple pleasures. (All of which might sound dreary, but there's a chance this will be a really good experience.)

"A paradoxical, puzzling, compellingly hypnotic work." --Village Voice In Annie Baker's The Antipodes, a group of people sit around a table telling, cataloging, and theorizing stories. Their purpose is never clear: are they brainstorming ideas for a TV show? A film? A mythology? This is a world where ghostly fables co-exist with mundane discussions of snacks and sexual exploits, where the vague instruction to tell stories about "something monstrous" though "it might not be a literal monster" becomes maddeningly impossible. Part satire, part sacred rite, The Antipodes asks what value stories have for a world in crisis.

"Immensely haunting... The first of many great things about Martyna Majok's Cost of Living... is the way it slams the door on uplifting stereotypes... Ms. Majok has engineered her plot to lead naturally to moments of intense and complicated pungency... If you don't find yourself in someone in Cost of Living, you're not looking." --Jesse Green, New York Times Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Cost of Living deftly challenges the typical perceptions of those living with disabilities and delves deep into the ways class, race, nationality, and wealth can create gulfs between people, even as they long for the ability to connect. Eddie, an unemployed truck driver, and his estranged ex-wife, Ani, find themselves unexpectedly reunited after a terrible accident leaves her quadriplegic. John, a brilliant PhD student with cerebral palsy, hires Jess, a first-generation recent graduate who has fallen on desperate times, as his new aide.

"The most profound and harrowing of Ms. Herzog's many fine plays." --Jesse Green, New York Times Armed with medicines, feeding tubes, and various medical equipment, Mary Jane is a single mother and indefatigable force when it comes to caring for her young, sick child. A moving play about the stalwart endurance of a devoted mother, Mary Jane demonstrates the prevailing strength of the human will when fueled by unconditional love.

One of the most-talked about new plays of the 2016 Off-Broadway season, Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves opened to enthusiastic acclaim, including two sold-out, extended runs at The Playwrights Realm/The Duke on 42nd Street.The Wolves follows the 9 teenage girls--members of an indoor soccer team--as they warm up, engage in banter and one-upmanship, and fight battles big and small with each other and themselves. As the teammates warm up in sync, a symphony of overlapping dialogue spills out their concerns, including menstruation (pads or tampons?), is Coach hung over?, eating disorders, sexual pressure, the new girl, and the Khmer Rouge (what it is, how to pronounce it, and do they need to know about it--"We don't do genocides 'til senior year.") By season's and play's end, amidst the wins and losses, rivalries and tragedies, they are warriors tested and ready--they are The Wolves.

Armagh, 1981. The Carney farmhouse in Northern Ireland is a hive of activity with preparations for the annual harvest. A day of hard work on the land and a traditional night of feasting and celebrations lie ahead. But this year they will be interrupted by a visitor. Jez Butterworth is also the author Mojo, The Night Heron, The Winterling, Parlour Song, Jerusalem and The River. His plays have premiered in London at the Royal Court Theatre and the Almeida Theatre and in New York City at the Atlantic Theatre and on Broadway. He has won numerous awards for his work, including the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Somerset, England.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced, a fast-paced economic thriller that exposes the financial deal making behind the mergers and acquisitions boom of the 1980s. Set in 1985, Junk tells the story of Robert Merkin, resident genius of the upstart investment firm Sacker Lowell. Hailed as "America's Alchemist," his proclamation that "debt is an asset" has propelled him to a dizzying level of success. By orchestrating the takeover of a massive steel manufacturer, Merkin intends to do the "deal of the decade," the one that will rewrite all the rules. Working on his broadest canvas to date, Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar chronicles the lives of men and women engaged in financial civil war: insatiable investors, threatened workers, killer lawyers, skeptical journalists, and ambitious federal prosecutors. Although it's set 40 years in the past, this is a play about the world we live in right now; a world in which money became the only thing of real value.

A darkly funny and sweeping new play,Oslo tells the surprising true story of the back-channel talks, unlikely friendships, and quiet heroics that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords between the Israelis and the Palestinians. As he did with such wit and intelligence in Blood and Gifts, J.T. Rogers presents a deeply personal story set against a complex political canvas. Rogers''s other plays include The Overwhelming, White People, Madagascar, and he is a co-author of The Great Game: Afghanistan.  

In A Particle of Dread, Sam Shepard takes one of the most famous plays in history--Oedipus Rex--and transforms it into a modern American classic. In this telling, Oedipus, King of Thebes, prophesized to kill his father and marry his mother, alternates between his classical identity and that of contemporary "Otto." His wife (and true mother), Jocasta, is also called Jocelyn, and his antagonist (and true father) is split into three characters, Laius, Larry, and Langos. Two present-day policemen from the Southwest stand in for the Greek chorus as they investigate the murder case. Dazzlingly inventive, ringing with the timelessness of myth, A Particle of Dread is an unforgettable work that grapples with questions of storytelling and destiny--the narratives that we pass down, and how they shape our lives. It is a play that lingers in the mind long after we finish the last scene.

A privileged college student and a cynical artist push the boundaries of BDSM in a new play by Kim Davies.

In this unconventional dark comedy, three misfit high school students in Salem, Oregon form a unique debate club, complete with a musical version ofThe Crucible, an unusual podcast, and a plot to take down their corrupt drama teacher. With his signature wit, Karam traces the cohort's attempts to fend off the menace of encroaching adulthood with caustic humor and subversive antics.   Stephen Karam's plays includeThe Humans (Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist), Sons of the Prophet (Pulitzer Prize finalist), and Speech & Debate. His adaptation of The Cherry Orchard premiered on Broadway for the Roundabout Theatre Company.

A topical reflection of the present and poignant outcome of America's economic decline. Filled with warm humour and tremendous heart, Sweat tells the story of a group of friends who have spent their lives sharing drinks, secrets and laughs while working together on the factory floor. But when layoffs and picket lines begin to chip away at their trust, the friends find themselves pitted against each other in a heart-wrenching fight to stay afloat. Sweat premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in October 2015, and later went on to transfer to Broadway in March 2017. It won the 2016 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Set in India in 1648,Guards at the Taj introduces two young Imperial Guards, Humayun and Babur, as they stand watch in front of the city walls. New to their roles and just recently out of training, they have been assigned the less-than-exciting "dawn watch” leaving them plenty of time for discussion about the great Tajmahal--which they have heard much about, but have never seen until now. According to rumor, Shah Jahan has issued a royal decree that anyone who took part in the building of this majestic "citywithin a city” must have their hands chopped off, so as to ensure that "nothing so beautiful as the Tajmahal shall ever be built again.” Humayun and Babur’s repartee takes a somber turn as they realize that they will be the guards tasked with carrying out this violent judgment. Mr. Wolf is a powerful play about child abduction told from the point of view of various characters: Michael and Hana’s daughter was kidnapped fourteen years ago. Julie also had a child kidnapped around a similar time. Theresa was kidnapped when she was three and knows nothing of the world except that which her captor selectively revealed to her over the years. These four lives, once altered by tragedy, now must face that nightmare once again.

The Eighth Story. Nineteen Years Later. Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage.  The play will receive its world premiere in London's West End on July 30, 2016. It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn't much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children. While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted.  As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

Breaking with tradition, Erik Blake has brought his Pennsylvania family to celebrate Thanksgiving at his daughter's apartment in lower Manhattan. Unfolding over a single scene, this "delirious tragicomedy" (Chicago Sun-Times) by acclaimed young playwright Stephen Karam "infuses the traditional kitchen-sink family drama with qualities of horror in his portentous and penetrating work of psychological unease" (Variety), creating an indelible family portrait.

The week after Thanksgiving. A bed & breakfast in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A cheerful inkeeper. A young couple struggling to stay together. Thousands of inanimate objects, watching.The description by the playwright of the setting is simple but Annie Baker's compelling new work is revolutionary in theme and structure and challenges the boundaries of what theatre can be. A kind of magic super-realism permeates throughout this quietly evolving tale with both the actors and the audience fully vested together in a mesmerizing exploration of the frailty and loneliness of human experience.

On the docks of late eighteenth-century Rhode Island, two runaway slaves find love and a near-drowned man. With a motley band of sailors, they plan a desperate and daring run to freedom. As the mysteries of their identities come to light, painful truths about the past and present collide and flow into the next generation. Acclaimed American playwright Naomi Wallace's The Liquid Plain brings to life a group of people whose stories have been erased from history. Told with lyricism and power, the play was awarded the 2012 Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play. This sweeping historical saga has enjoyed acclaimed runs at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Signature Theatre in New York.

Finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama "Brilliant... A startling and profound new drama.” -Jesse Green, New York magazine With help from an intriguingly innovative technology in a future not far from our present, Marjorie examines her past, sometimes replacing her realities with idealized memories. Through deeply drawn characters--both real and in the form of artificial intelligence companions, or "Primes”--Harrison burrows into troubling questions of the digital age: What would we remember, and what would we forget, given the power of authorship? Will we be any less human, once computers know us better than ourselves?

In this lyrical, searing one-act, an American soldier has an unexpected encounter with two Afghan sisters who are ready to embark on a new life. Their fates-and his-become entangled as the lines between their divergent realities become dangerously blurred.

(Best American Short Plays). For more than 70 years, The Best American Short Plays has been the standard of excellence for one-act plays in America. From its inception, it has identified cutting-edge playwrights Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and others who have gone on to establish award-winning careers. The Best American Short Plays 2014-2015 is the next installment from series editor William W. Demastes. This volume takes a look at the trinity Shakespeare coined as "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet." The works in this volume explore whimsical, imaginative, humorous, and romantic themes. In the introduction, Demastes writes, "What really hits home in Shakespeare's plays is how he uses his own seething brain to put things onstage that cool reason will never be able to comprehend. He shows us that the world is more than facts and figures, that humans are connected by more than a balance sheet, and that life is more than biology." The wonderful short plays in this collection delve into the spectrum of emotions that bubble beneath "cool reason" and remind us about the some of the aspects that make life worth living for better or worse the insanity, the beauty, the unbridled joy, and the mystery.

(Applause Books). Featured in this year's volume:
* Barbecue by Robert O'Hara a wildly inventive new play that proves family can be a bigger vice than any other addiction.
* New Country by Mark Roberts a rowdy, raucous rodeo and a New York Times Critics Pick.
* Lost Girls by John Pollono a hard-hitting working-class drama about people struggling to redefine family.
* Eclipsed by Danai Gurira
* The guard (black white ochre red) by Jessica Dickey
* Nice girl by Melissa Ross

Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Written with humor, tenderness, grit and wonderment, Between Riverside and Crazy is an extraordinary new play: a dark comedy about a man trying to maintain control as the world unravels around him.

This complex new work from celebrated playwright David Mamet revolves around a wealthy man, his young fiance, and an airplane. The man has just bought a new plane as a wedding present for the girl. He intends to go into semiretirement and enjoy himself. While in the process of leaving his office, and giving last minute instructions to his young assistant, he takes one final phone call.

The Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys is dedicated to the creation of strong, ethical black men. Pharus wants nothing more than to take his rightful place as leader of the school's legendary gospel choir, but can he find his way inside the hallowed halls of this institution if he sings in his own key? Known for his unique brand of urban lyricism, Tarrell Alvin McCraney follows up his acclaimed trilogy The Brother/Sister Plays with this affecting portrait of a gay youth trying to find the courage to let the truth about himself be known. Set against the sorrowful sounds of hymns and spirituals, Choir Boy premiered at the Royal Court in London before receiving its Off-Broadway premiere in summer 2013 to critical and popular acclaim.

African American women have increasingly begun to see their plays performed from regional stages to Broadway. Yet many of these artists still struggle to gain attention. In this volume, Sandra Adell draws from the vital wellspring of works created by African American women in the twenty-first century to present ten plays by both prominent and up-and-coming writers. Taken together, the selections portray how these women engage with history as they delve into--and shake up--issues of gender and class to craft compelling stories of African American life. Gliding from gritty urbanism to rural landscapes, these works expand boundaries and boldly disrupt modes of theatrical representation. Selections: Blue Door , by Tanya Barfield; Levee James , by S. M. Shephard-Massat; Hoodoo Love , by Katori Hall; Carnaval , by Nikkole Salter; Single Black Female , by Lisa B. Thompson; Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine , by Lynn Nottage; BlackTop Sky , by Christina Anderson; Voyeurs de Venus , by Lydia Diamond; Fedra , by J. Nicole Brooks; and Uppa Creek: A Modern Anachronistic Parody in the Minstrel Tradition , by Keli Garrett.

Fish in the Dark is the astonishing playwriting debut by Larry David, the multiple Emmy-winning star ofCurb Your Enthusiasm and co-creator ofSeinfeld. This sidesplitting play, a testimony to David’s great writing talent, is also his first time on Broadway--in fact, his first time acting on stage since eighth grade. InFish in the Dark Larry David stars as Norman Drexel, a man in his fifties who is average in most respects except for his hyperactive libido. As Norman and his family try to navigate the death of a loved one, old acquaintances and unsettled arguments resurface with hilarious consequences. Fish in the Dark has its world premiere at the Cort Theatre on Broadway on March 5, 2015, starring Larry David.

Above all don’t use the word good as though it meant something in evolutionary science. The Hard Problem is a tour de force, exploring fundamental questions of how we experience the world, as well as telling the moving story of a young woman whose struggle for understanding her own life and the lives of others leads her to question the deeply held beliefs of those around her. Hilary, a young psychology researcher at the Krohl Institute for Brain Science, is nursing a private sorrow and a troubling question. She and other researchers at the institute are grappling with what science calls the "hard problem”--if there is nothing but matter, what is consciousness? What Hilary discovers puts her fundamentally at odds with her colleagues, who include her first mentor and one-time lover, Spike; her boss, Leo; and the billionaire founder of the institute, Jerry. Hilary needs a miracle, and she is prepared to pray for one.

Ella is a precocious and fiercely competitive actress whose aims in life are making her famous playwright father proud—and becoming famous herself. In the aftermath of a boozy, drug-fueled evening when Ella's father is particularly hurtful, she flings herself into the arms of a young director with whom she begins to collaborate on a one-woman show . . . about her father. Halley Feiffer's dark, probing, and much-anticipated new play is a fierce, funny, and gloves-off take on the eternal struggles of parents and children to find common ground.

Art imitates Life. Life imitates Art. When two actors with a history are thrown together as romantic leads in a forgotten 1930s melodrama, they quickly lose touch with reality as the story onstage follows them offstage. Stage Kiss captures Sarah Ruhl's singular voice. It is a charming tale about what happens when lovers share a stage kiss-or when actors share a real one.

Subtitled "Three Short Visions of the Middle East," this collection includes three thematically related short plays, A STATE OF INNOCENCE, THE RETREATING WORLD, and BETWEEN THIS BREATH AND YOU, collectively entitled THE FEVER CHART. Vision One, A STATE OF INNOCENCE, is set in Rafah, Palestine, and features a Palestinian woman, an Israeli architect, and an Israeli soldier. Vision Two, THE RETREATING WORLD, concerns an Iraqi bird keeper from Baghdad and his address before the International Pigeon Convention. Vision Three, BETWEEN THIS BREATH AND YOU, takes place after hours in the waiting room of a clinic in West Jerusalem, where a Palestinian father confronts a nurse's aide, a young Israeli woman, about the meaning of the loss of his son and the impact it had on her life. These multifaceted works explore the urgency and complexity of the Middle East's political landscape through the voices and bodies of the people who inhabit it.

Wolf Hall begins in England in 1527. Henry has been King for almost twenty years and is desperate for a male heir; but Cardinal Wolsey cannot deliver the divorce he craves. Yet for a man with the right talents, this crisis could be an opportunity. Thomas Cromwell is a commoner who has risen in Wolsey's household—and he will stop at nothing to secure the King's desires and advance his own ambitions. InBring Up the Bodies, the volatile Anne Boleyn is now Queen, her career seemingly entwined with that of Cromwell. But when the King begins to fall in love with plain Jane Seymour, the ever-pragmatic Cromwell must negotiate within an increasingly perilous Court to satisfy Henry, defend the nation, and above all, to secure his own rise in the world.

100 (monologues) collects all of Eric Bogosian's monologues, originally performed as part of his six off-Broadway solo shows, including Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll; Pounding Nails in the Floor with my Forehead; Wake Up and Smell the Coffee; Drinking in America; Funhouse; Men Inside and selections from his play Talk Radio. For these solo shows, first performed between 1980 and 2000, Bogosian was awarded three Obie awards and a Drama Desk award--earning him living icon status in the downtown theater scene. One of America's premier performers and most innovative and provocative artists, Eric Bogosian's plays and solo shows include Talk Radio (Pulitzer Prize finalist); subUrbia; Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll; Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead, among many others. He has starred in a wide variety of film, TV and stage roles. Most recently, he created the character Captain Danny Ross on the long-running series Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

"A magnificent work. . . . a brilliant portrayal no less epic than the great tragedies of classic literature.”--Roma Torre, NY1 Winner of the 2014 Tony Award for Best Play, as well as Best Play awards from the New York Drama Critics’ Circle, the Outer Critics Circle, the Drama League, the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, and Boston’s Elliot Norton Award,All the Way is a masterful exploration of politics and power from Pulitzer winner Robert Schenkkan.Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston played the lead role in the play’s celebrated Broadway performance at the Neil Simon Theatre, for which he was awarded the Tony Award for Best Actor. In this volume, Cranston provides a never-before-published illuminating and personal introduction to the play. All The Way tells the story of the tumultuous first year of the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, thrust into power following Kennedy’s assassination and struggling to hold onto the White House in an election that forces him to make concessions. In 1964, this pivotal year in American history, he passes a landmark civil rights bill, but begins his fateful descent into Vietnam. LBJ is fiercely determined to lift the country out of the ashes and rebuild it into The Great Society--by any meansnecessary.

This critically acclaimed play cycle about loss, memory and remembrance follows the Apple family of Rhinebeck, New York, as they grapple with events both personal and political in their immediate present: the 2010 election (That Hopey Changey Thing), the tenth anniversary of 9/11 (Sweet and Sad), Obama's reelection (Sorry), and the fiftieth anniversary of JFK's assassination (Regular Singing). Delicately constructed and precisely observed, this quartet of plays -- each of which premiered at The Public Theater on the day it was set -- is a masterpiece of stage naturalism and a powerful reminder of the theater's unique capacity for civic dialogue and public communion.

Meet the Bascovs, an Upper West Side Jewish family in 1980. In an opulent apartment overlooking Central Park, former movie star Julie and her sister-in-law Faye bring their families together for a traditional holiday dinner on a night when things don't go as planned. Twenty years later, as 2001 approaches, the Bascovs' life may be about to crumble. An incisive portrait of a family grasping for stability at the dawn of a new millennium, The Assembled Parties premiered on Broadway in 2013 to rave reviews and a Tony Award nomination for Best Play.

(Applause Books). Comical, offbeat, poignant, and fresh, The Best Plays of 2014 presents six of the most original plays of the year in a single volume selected by renowned editor Lawrence Harbison.
* The Country House , a comedy about a deeply dramatic family, by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies.
* Dinner with the Boys , an offbeat, dark comedy by Dan Lauria about some old-time wise guys who want to have a good Italian meal and a few laughs and tie up some loose ends before dessert.
* Mala Hierba by Tanya Saracho, inspired by Latin American culture, which pits human yearnings against the power of culturally predetermined obligations.
* Based on real events, Our Lady of Kibeho by Katori Hall was hailed as the "most important new play of the year!" by Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal .
* When January Feels Like Summer by Cori Thomas presents five lives colliding as a feeling of change hums in the air during one strangely warm winter in Central Harlem.
* Year of the Rooster ( New York Times Critics' Pick) by Eric Dufault a fiercely comic play about cockfighting, connections, and clawing your way to the top.

In a rundown movie theater in central Massachusetts, three underpaid employees sweep up popcorn in the empty aisles and tend to one of the last thirty-five-millimeter projectors in the state. With keen insight and a ceaseless attention to detail, The Flick pays tribute to the power of movies and paints a heartbreaking portrait of three characters and their working lives. A critical hit when it premiered Off-Broadway, this comedy, by one of the country’s most produced and highly regarded young playwrights, was awarded the coveted 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, an Obie Award for Playwriting and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. ANNIE BAKER’S works include The Aliens (Obie Award), Body Awareness, Circle Mirror Transformation (Obie Award), Nocturama, and an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Her work has been produced at more than a hundred theaters in the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries. Recent honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Steinberg Playwright Award and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award. She is a resident playwright at Signature Theatre.

As a poisoned city disintegrates around them, three men, almost strangers, meet in a Louisville hotel room to plan an ugly crime against Rubbertown's most powerful industry. "The most politically engaged playwright of her generation." -Variety

One of Manhattan's most established play festivals, the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival fosters the work of emerging writers, giving them the exposure of publication and representation. From the initial pool of over 860 submissions, the Final Thirty plays were chosen to be performed over a period of one week. A panel of judges comprised of celebrity playwrights, theatrical agents and artistic directors nominated one or more of each evening's plays as finalists. The final round was then held on the last day of the festival. Out of these plays, six winners listed below were chosen by Samuel French, Inc. to receive publication and licensing contracts. This Collection Includes: "Reality Play" by Mark Swaner "Tattoo You" by Lisa Kenner "Frisky & The Panda Man" by Ross Howard "Old Flame" by Mira Gibson "Dancing Turtle" by Thomas M. Atkinson "Tornado" by Arlitia Jones

Legendary theatre artist Athol Fugard returns to the stage for the first time in fifteen years in this, his latest work. The Shadow of the Hummingbird tells the story of an ailing man in his eighties and the afternoon spent with his ten year-old grandson. In a charming meditation on the beauty and transience of the world around us, Fugard continues to mine the depths of the human spirit with profound empathy and heart. The text of the play includes an introductory Prelude by Paula Fourie with extracts from Fugard’s unpublished notebooks.

Things We Said Today features the scripts for Neil LaBute's groundbreaking Directv project 10x10--a series of short films written and directed by LaBute based on ten compelling original monologues, five each for men and women.  Also included are five short plays displaying the power and scope of Neil LaBute's creative vision. In Pick One, three white guys come up with a way to solve America's problems; in The Possible one young woman seduces another's boyfriend for an unexpected reason. Call Back features an actress and actor who spar about a past encounter that she, unnervingly, remembers much better than he does. Good Luck (In Farsi), "a pleasingly astringent study in competitiveness and vanity" (The New York Times) has two actresses pulling out all the stops in a preaudition psych out; and in Squeeze Play a father and his son's baseball coach strike a mutually beneficial deal. Rounding out the collection are two monologues commissioned as part of Centerstage's "My America" project.

Winner 2013 Lucille Lortel Award, Best Play Winner 2013 Drama Desk Special Award for Significant Contribution to Theatre Winner 2013 GLAAD Media Award, Outstanding New York Theatre Nominee 2013 Drama League Award, Outstanding Production of a Play Nominee 2013 Outer Critics Circle Awards, Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play Nominee 2013 John Gassner Award, Oustanding New American Play On the outskirts of Mormon Country, Idaho, a six hundred pound recluse hides away in his apartment eating himself to death. Desperate to reconnect with his long-estranged daughter, he reaches out to her, only to find a viciously sharp-tongued and wildly unhappy teen. Big-hearted and fiercely funny, The Whale tells the story of a man's last chance at redemption, and of finding beauty in the most unexpected places.

Abby and Zack, young American newlyweds, have abandoned a comfortable postgraduate life in the states for Belleville, a bustling, bohemian, multicultural Parisian neighborhood. But as secrets both minor and monumental are revealed, their fraught relationship begins to unravel. Belleville examines the limits of trust and dependency in a world where love can turn pathological and our most intimate relationships may not be what they seem. AMY HERZOG's plays include 4,000 Miles (Pulitzer Prize finalist), After the Revolution and The Great God Pan. Ms. Herzog is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Whiting Writers' Award, an Obie Award and the Helen Merrill Award for Aspiring Playwrights.

"Sparkling and combustible" (Bloomberg Businessweek), "DISGRACED rubs all kinds of unexpected raw spots with intelligence and humor" (Newsday). "In dialogue that bristles with wit and intelligence, Akhtar puts contemporary attitudes toward religion under a microscope, revealing how tenuous self-image can be for people born into one way of being who have embraced another.... Everyone has been told that politics and religion are two subjects that should be off-limits at social gatherings. But watching these characters rip into these forbidden topics, there's no arguing that they make for ear-tickling good theater" (New York Times). "Add a liberal flow of alcohol and a couple of major secrets suddenly revealed, and you've got yourself one dangerous dinner party" (Associated Press).

In Nzarayapera's village, famine and hunger strike as rain could not fall. The sky remains blue with scorching heat that leaves no creature desiring to move on with life. Chief Nzarayapera and his councillors believe this scourge is a curse from the ancestors. They think of holding a ceremony to mollify the ancestors and petition rain. The ceremony is held, but nothing happens except that hunger and famine strike even harder. This sets a fertile ground for conflict between traditionalists, Christians and scientists who lay blame on one another and take turns to intercede for the people. What comes out of this conflict only requires you to read Rain Petitioning for yourself. Equally there to awaken your curiosity is Step Child, the second play in this collection.

Two imprisoned young women, one African American and the other white, form a perilous bond. As they serve time they forge a plan for survival. They practice hard. If they don't get it right they'll lose everything: the outside world is even more dangerous to their friendship than the jail itself. Exploring the fierce dreams of youth and the brutal reality of adulthood in 1950's segregated America.

Known for delicately detailed character studies that subtly balance humor and insight, Amy Herzog is swiftly emerging as a striking new voice in the American theater. After the Revolution, an astute and ironic drama about how society appropriates history for its own psychological needs, was heralded by The New York Times as one of the Ten Best New Plays of 2010. Herzog's other critical hit, 4000 Miles, is a quiet rumination on mortality in which twenty-one-year-old Leo seeks solace from his feisty ninety-one-year-old grandmother Vera in her New York apartment. Amy Herzog received the 2011 Whiting Writers' Award and the 2008 Helen Merrill Award for Aspiring Playwrights. Her plays have been produced or developed at the Yale School of Drama, Ensemble Studio Theater, Arena Stage, Lincoln Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, New York Stage and Film, Provincetown Playhouse, and ACT in San Francisco. Her newest play, Belleville, premiered at Yale Rep in fall 2011.

A deeply humorous, unflinching portrait of grief and loss, Sons of the Prophet depicts a Lebanese-American family in rural Pennsylvania beset by an absurd string of tragedies. At the play’s center is Joseph Douaihy, a once-promising world-class runner now sidelined by injury. As Joseph confronts his deteriorating health, he is also forced to face the death of his father, an ailing Uncle, and a desperate boss beset by her own tragedies. Deftly keeping its various storylines in careful balance, Karam’s play confronts, with abundant intelligence and great sympathy for human frailty, the inevitability of loss and the equally inevitable comedy resulting from our attempts to cope with is consequences.

THE STORY: RUSSIAN TRANSPORT is a suspenseful family drama set in the Russian Jewish community of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Diana and Misha, an immigrant couple, run a struggling car service while trying to carve out the American Dream for their te

Characters: 2 male, 5 female Winner of a 2011 Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award Winner of The San Diego Critics Circle 2011 Craig Noel Award for Outstanding New Play It is Annie Desmond's sixteenth birthday and her friends have decided to help her celebrate in style, complete with a brand new tattoo. Before her special night is over, however, Annie and her friends enter into a life altering pact. When Annie tries to make good on her promise to her friends, she is forced to take a good look at the world that surrounds her. She befriends Malik, who promises a bright future, and Keera, whose evangelical leanings inspire Annie in a way her young parents have not been able to do. In the end Annie's choices propel her onto an irreversible path in this story that combines wit, poetry, and hope.

Clybourne Park spans two generations fifty years apart. In 1959, Russ and Bev are selling their desirable two-bedroom at a bargain price, unknowingly bringing the first black family into the neighborhood (borrowing a plot line from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun) and creating ripples of discontent among the cozy white residents of Clybourne Park. In 2009, the same property is being bought by a young white couple, whose plan to raze the house and start again is met with equal disapproval by the black residents of the soon-to-be-gentrified area. Are the issues festering beneath the floorboards actually the same, fifty years on? Bruce Norris's excruciatingly funny and squirm-inducing satire explores the fault line between race and property.

Good People is set in South Boston, the blue-collar neighborhood where Lindsay-Abaire himself grew up: Margie Walsh, let go from yet another job and facing eviction, decides to appeal to an old flame who has made good and left his Southie past behind. Lindsay-Abaire offers us both his "quiet three-dimensional depth" (Los Angeles Times) and his carefully observed humor in this exploration of life in America when you're on your last dollar. David Lindsay-Abaire is the author ofFuddy Meers,Kimberly Akimbo,A Devil Inside,Wonder of the World, andRabbit Hole, in addition to the book for the musicalsHigh Fidelity andShrek. His plays have been produced throughout the United States and around the world.

In OTHER DESERT CITIES, Brooke Wyeth returns home to Palm Springs to visit her parents after a six-year absence. A once-promising novelist, she announces to her family the imminent publication of a memoir dredging up a pivotal and tragic event in the family's history - a wound that her parents don't want reopened. Brooke has come home to draw a line in the sand and is daring her family to cross it. Her brother won't play her game; her aunt knows way too much, and her parents fall into all their old routines as they plead with her to keep their story quiet. In this family, secrets are currency and everyone is rich. In simplest terms, the play is about a girl who comes home to the desert with a story about where she is from, who her people really are, what she thinks they really are. Her parents represent an Establishment that she feels has betrayed this country. She goes to war with them, and blood is spilled.

Sarah Ruhl made her Broadway debut this fall with her latest effervescent comedy: a play about sex, intimacy, and equality, set in the 1880s, when enthusiasm for the electric light bulb gave rise to a handy new instrument to treat female hysteria. The story revolves around the medical office and home of Dr. Givings, who regularly induces "paroxysm" in his once high-strung patient Sabrina, allowing her to happily return to playing piano. Soon, Sabrina falls in love with the doctor's assistant Annie, and also befriends his wife Catherine, who is dealing with her own neurotic misgivings about not being able to breast-feed her baby. With this new work, Ruhl once again uses playful symbolism and lyrical language as she makes seemingly effortless thematic leaps--crafting a play with tremendous critical and audience appeal, in her singular theatrical voice. Sarah Ruhl's plays include Dead Man's Cell Phone, The Clean House (a Pulitzer Prize finalist), Passion Play, and Eurydice, all of which have been widely produced throughout the United States and internationally. She is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship.

Experimental Korean American theatre artist Young Jean Lee has been called "one of the best experimental playwrights in America" (Time Out New York). This volume contains two of her recent works: In The Shipment, Lee provides a provocative look at African-American identity in our not-yet post-racial society. The New York Times calls this take on cultural images of black America "a subversive, seriously funny new theater piece... Ms. Lee wields sharp, offbeat humor to point up the clich#65533;s, distortions and absurdities" (Charles Isherwood, New York Times). LEAR is Lee's own version of Shakespeare's tragedy, focusing on the king's three daughters. A production in which Lear himself never appears, LEAR is a "wacky blend of 'To be or not to be,' Beckett, and Pirandello...full of exhilarating, illuminating moments" (Village Voice). Young Jean Lee has written and directed shows in New York with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company and toured her work to over twenty cities around the world. Her plays include Straight White Men, We're Gonna Die, Untitled Feminist Show, The Shipment, Lear and Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven. Awards include two Obies, the Festival Prize of the Zuercher Theater Spektakel, a Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Doris Duke Artist Award.

In his "absorbing intelligent" (Los Angeles Times) and timely new play, Donald Margulies uncovers the layers of a relationship between a photojournalist and foreign correspondent--once addicted to the adrenaline of documenting the atrocities of war, and now grounded in the couple's Brooklyn loft. Photographer Sarah was seriously injured while covering the war in Iraq; her reporter partner James had left weeks earlier, when the stress and horrors became too much for him. Now James writes online movie reviews while Sarah recovers, mourning for her Iraqi driver (and former lover) killed in the explosion, and itching to get back behind the camera. With this play--coming to Broadway this winter--Margulies revisits themes of being an artist, as characters ask: What does it mean to capture suffering on film, rather than stopping to intervene?