ENG-Plays

Mostly American, Mostly Twentieth Century, Mostly Annotated
 * The Play's the Thing **

**// Acting/Playwriting //** Pirandello __Six Characters in Search of an Author__ // Characters reject the playwright and attempt to stage their own play // Levin __Deathtrap__ // Playwright/teacher says he'd "kill" for the play written by a student // Mamet __Speed-the-Plow__ (contains offensive language) //Satire on movie making establishment//

**// African Americans //** Baldwin __Blues for Mister Charlie__ // Trial of a poor white man accused of killing a black recovered drug addict // Davis __Purlie Victorious__ // Satire on relationships between slaves and plantation owners // Duberman __In White America__ // Based on history, traces black history from slavery to Little Rock // Hansberry __Raisin in the Sun__ // What happens to a dream deferred? Struggle of black family in 1950s Chicago // Hughes and Hurston __Mule Bone__ Comedy //set in small Southern black community. Baptists v. Methodists// Hughes __Scottsboro, Limited__//,// __Harvest__ //Angelo Herdon Jones// __De Organizer__ Jackson, ed. __Black Comedy: 9 Plays__ Jones (Baraka) __Four Black Revolutionary Plays__ //Short one-act plays written in poetic form about Jones's view of the black// // experience // Orlandersmith __Yellowman__ // Alma struggles to free herself from her mother’s poverty and racism, while Eugene must contend // // With the legacy of being “yellow”- lighter skinned than his brutal, unforgiving father // Sackler __Great White Hope__ // Based on the life of Jack Johnson, first black heavyweight boxing champ of the world // Shange __For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide...__ // Long poem performed by seven women exploring the joys and sorrows of being black // Smith __Twilight, Los Angles, 1992__ // Based on interviews with people involved in civil disturbances in L.A.; poetic monologues. // Uhry __Driving Miss Daisy__ // Explores relationship between elderly Jewish woman and her black chauffeur in Atlanta //// between 1948 and 1973 // Wilson __Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey, Piano Lesson, Fences, Jitney__ // Various plays all deal with the black experience in America during different time periods //

Soyinka __Death and the King’s Horseman__ // Nobel prize winning author based his play on events that took place in Oyo, an ancient Yoruba city of //// Nigeria ////, in 1946. //
 * // African //**

Brandon, trans. __Kabuki: Five Classic Plays__ (Japanese) Hare __The Asian Plays: Fanshen,__ __ Saigon ____, A Map of the World __ //__ Fanshen __//// deals with the Revolution in China, __Saigon__ with the American withdrawal from //// Vietnam // Hwang __M. Butterfly__ // Prisoner Gallimard discovers his ideal woman was a man and a Chinese spy // Keene, trans. __Major Plays of Chikamatsu__ // Translation of plays by 1'/ century Kabuki playwright (Japanese) // Keene, ed. __20 Plays of the NO Theatre__ Ling, et.al. __Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon__ (screenplay) // Disabilities, A Love S //// tory // Gershe __Butterflies are Free__ //Mother interferes in romance between blind man and his neighbor, an actress (It's funny!)// Gibson __The Miracle Worker__ // Based on the story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan // Medoff __Children of a Lesser God__ // Teacher at school for the deaf falls in love with student //
 * // Asian //**

Albee __Three Tall Women__ //An old woman's joys and bitterness, include a hard marriage and the estrangement of her gay foster son.// Crowley __Boys in the Band__ // True personalities come out at a gay party when a heterosexual arrives // Fierstein __Torch Song Trilogy__ Kramer __Normal Heart__ //Mother comes to terms with her son’s aids// Kushner __Angels in America, Parts One and Two__ // “The broadest, deepest, most searching American play of our time”-J.K., Newsweek //
 * // Gay Themes //**

** Monologues ** Gray __Swimming to Cambodia, Gray's Anatomy__ Luce __Belle of Amherst__ // One woman play about Emily Dickinson // Wagner __The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe__

** Mozart Gone Mad ** Shaffer __Amadeus__ (with __Equus,__ by the same author) // Dramatized life of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart //

** Mystery ** Auburn __Proof__ // 21st century play about the daughter of a deceased, brilliant mathematician. Whose proof is it, anyway? // Barlow __ 39 Steps __ // Dramatic adaptation of Buchan’s play, originally a Hitchock film thriller! // Shaffer __Sleuth__ Christie __Mousetrap__ Fuller. __A Soldier's Play__ (war, race relations) See Soldiers/War Knott __Wait Until Dark__ // With her husband away on business, blind woman lets the wrong men into he apartment // Levin __Deathtrap__

** Prison ** Behan __Borstal Boy__ (Ireland) Bevan __Stalag 17__ // Keeping your sense of humor in a Nazi prison camp //

** Psychiatric Hospital ** Shaffer __Equus__ // After blinding horses, young man ends up in psych hospital // Lavery __Frozen__ //Look into the hearts of three totally different characters, 1) a pedophile serial killer, 2) a psychologist who researches serial killers, and 3) the mother of a victim// Penhall __Blue/Orange__ //Within a framework of mental illness – this play is about power,ego,and racial prejudice. As the two psychiatrists, one young and scrupulous, the other older, set on his own agenda and entirely ruthless, square off, the patient becomes the battleground//

** Revenge ** Dorfman __Death and the Maiden__ (Latin America, Politics) // Woman wishes to exact private justice on man she believes raped and tortured her // // fifteen year earlier // McDonagh __The Lieutenant of Inishmore__ //Someone killed 'Mad Padraic's' cat on a lonely road on the island of Inishmore and was it an accident? He'll want to know when he gets back from a stint of torture and chip-shop bombing in Northern Ireland: Someone will pay.//

** Right to Die/Dying ** Christopher __The Shadow Box__ Clark __Whose Life is it Anyway?__ // Paralyzed man wishes to end his own life // Edson __W;t__ // English professor diagnosed with terminal cancer reassesses her life. //

** Rumors/Girls' School ** Hellman __The Children's Hour__ // Girl at boarding school starts rumor that two female teachers are having a relationship // Alien __The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie__ // Girl at boarding school gets teacher in trouble with phony love letter //

** Salesmen ** Inge __The Dark at the Top of the Stairs__ // Serious drama about a salesman, his wife and their two children // Mamet __Glengarry Glen Ross__ (offensive language) (with __Death of a Salesman)__ // Comedy about sharp dealings of small-time cutthroat real estate salesmen // ** Sisters ** Allen __ Hannah and Her Sisters __ (see Family) Chekhov __The Three Sisters__ Friel __Dancing at Lughnasa__ Henley __Crimes of the Heart__ Mamet __The Three Sisters__ // Take-off on Chekhov //

**Social Mores, Families** Albee __The Goat or Who is Sylvia?__ //Social taboos including infidelity, homosexuality, incest and bestiality// Albee __Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?__ //Malicious games,// //dramatic bloodsport fought with words rather than weapons—"verbal fencing" between a couple.// Marber __Closer__ D//issection of modern relationships, honesty, and choices (usually the wrong ones)// Wedekind/Franzen __Spring Awakening: A Children's Tragedy__ Society's varied and opposing attitudes toward sex are at the heart of this play; scandalous content, which include rape, suicide, and abortion--all in the lives of fourteen year olds. ** Soldiers/War ** Fuller __A Soldier's Play__ // Investigation of murder of black sergeant at a segregated army camp in 1944 //

Rabe __Streamers__ Simon __Biloxi Blues__ (comedy) Sorkin __A Few Good Men__ ** South Africa ** Fugard __Boesman and__ __ Lena ____, Blood Knot, A Lesson from Aloes, Master Harold... __ ** Sports/Boxing ** Odets __Golden Boy__ // Would be musician boxes for the money // Sackler __Great White Hope__ // Life of Jack Johnson, first black heavyweight champ //

** Trials ** Araujo, Luis Vanzetti Berrigan __Trial of the Catonsville Nine__ // Edited transcript of Vietnam protest trial // Christie __Witness for the Prosecution__ Lawrence __ Inherit the Wind __ Rose __Twelve Angry Men__

** Violence and Absurdity in America ** Feiffer __Little Murders__ (black comedy) Guare __House of Blue Leaves__ Marasco __Child's Play__ Shepard __Buried Child__ ** Vietnam ** Rabe __Streamers__ (pre-Vietnam and Vietnam), __Hurlyburly__ (post-Vietnam)

** Women's Issues ** Graczyk __Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean__ // Ladies in a luncheonette reminiscence about their young adult years and their Jimmy Dean // // fan club; lots of twists // Harling __Steel Magnolias__ // Set in a beauty parlor in Texas // Luce __The Women__ Norman __Night Mother__ Wasserstein __The Heidi Chronicles__

** New and possibly noteworthy: ** The very new play, __In the Continuum__, deals with two women, an African American and a South African, both dealing with HIV/AIDS. A new play, __Resort 76__ is set in a Nazi “rehabilitation zone in central Poland during WWII.

** REFERENCE: ** Good resources in section REF809.2 ** Online: ** Here’s a great site for screenplays! []

Shakespeare’s plays on the web: [|http://www.shakespeare-literature.com]

Screenplays for you: [|http://sfy.ru] Scripts of plays and films:

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Drew's Script-o-rama [|http://www.script-o-rama.com]

Asian American Theatre []

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