Download or read book Baby with the Bathwater And Laughing Wild written by Christopher Durang and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 'Laughing Wild, ' two comic monologues evolve into a man's and an woman's shared nightmare of modern life and the isolation it creates.
Download or read book Laughing Wild and Baby with the Bathwater written by Christopher Durang and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pair of plays from the comic genius who gave us the Tony Award-winning Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Baby and the Bathwater follows its main character from infancy to adulthood, in a confusing search for identity after an unusual upbringing. In Laughing Wild, two comic monologues evolve into a man and a woman’s shared nightmare of modern life and the isolation it creates. From her turf battles at the supermarket to the desperate clichés of self-affirmation he learns at his “personality workshop,” they run the gamut of everyday life’s small brutalizations until they meet, with disastrous inevitability, at the Harmonic Convergence in Central Park. The fiercely ironic dark comedy of Christopher Durang can be perfectly described by the quotation—by Thomas Gray via Samuel Beckett—that inspired one of these play’s titles: “Laughing wild amid severest woe.” “One of the funniest dramatists alive, and one of the most sharply satiric.”—The New Yorker
Download or read book Laughing Wild written by Christopher Durang and published by Dramatists Play Service Inc. This book was released on 1996 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE STORY: In the first section of the play, a Woman enters and embarks on an increasingly frenetic (and funny) recital of the perils and frustrations of daily life in urban America--waiting in line, rude taxi drivers, inane talk shows and the selfi
Download or read book Baby with the Bathwater written by Christopher Durang and published by Dramatists Play Service Inc. This book was released on 1984 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE STORY: As the play begins Helen and John gaze proudly at their new offspring, a bit disappointed that it doesn't speak English and too polite to check its sex. So they decide that the child is a girl and name it Daisy--which leads to all manner
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States 2 volumes written by Emmanuel S. Nelson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-07-14 with total page 827 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this two-volume work, hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries survey contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer American literature and its social contexts. Comprehensive in scope and accessible to students and general readers, Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States explores contemporary American LGBTQ literature and its social, political, cultural, and historical contexts. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries written by expert contributors. Students of literature and popular culture will appreciate the encyclopedia's insightful survey and discussion of LGBTQ authors and their works, while students of history and social issues will value the encyclopedia's use of literature to explore LGBTQ American society. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and lists additional sources of information. To further enhance study and understanding, the encyclopedia closes with a selected general bibliography of print and electronic resources for student research.
Download or read book Out on Stage written by Alan Sinfield and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This intriguing, authoritative book tracks stage representations of lesbians and gay men from Oscar Wilde to the present day and examines scores of British and American plays and playwrights, including works by Wilde, Maugham, Coward, Hellman, O'Neill, Le Roi Jones, and Joe Orton.
Download or read book Miss Witherspoon and Mrs Bob Cratchit s Wild Christmas Binge written by Christopher Durang and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of theater’s most outrageous comic talents, two plays—one a Pulitzer Prize in Drama finalist, the other a twisted take on Christmas classics. In this book, Christopher Durang, the criminally funny author of Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, presents two plays about death, religion, and a creamy Christmas pudding. In Miss Witherspoon—named one of the Ten Best Plays of 2005 by both Time and Newsday—Veronica, a recent suicide whose cantankerous attitude has not improved in the afterlife, discovers that the one thing worse than the world she left behind is having to go back for seconds. Ordered to cleanse her “brown tweedy aura,” Veronica resists being reincarnated (as a trailer-trash teen or an overexcited Golden Retriever), only to find that she may be mankind’s last, best hope for survival. In Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge, a sassy ghost once again attempts to shake Scrooge from his holiday humbug, but the whole family-friendly affair is deliciously derailed by Mrs. Cratchit’s drunken insistence on stepping out of her miserable, treacly role. Morals are subverted, starving yet plucky children sing carols, and somebody’s goose is cooked as Durang lovingly skewers A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life, and many more to create a brand-new, cracked Christmas classic.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Contemporary American Theater written by James Fisher and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 1233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historical Dictionary of Contemporary American Theater. Second Edition covers theatrical practice and practitioners as well as the dramatic literature of the United States of America from 1930 to the present. The 90 years covered by this volume features the triumph of Broadway as the center of American drama from 1930 to the early 1960s through a Golden Age exemplified by the plays of Eugene O’Neill, Elmer Rice, Thornton Wilder, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, William Inge, Lorraine Hansberry, and Edward Albee, among others. The impact of the previous modernist era contributed greatly to this period of prodigious creativity on American stages. This volume will continue through an exploration of the decline of Broadway as the center of U.S. theater in the 1960s and the evolution of regional theaters, as well as fringe and university theaters that spawned a second Golden Age at the millennium that produced another – and significantly more diverse – generation of significant dramatists including such figures as Sam Shepard, David Mamet, Maria Irené Fornes, Beth Henley, Terrence McNally, Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Sarah Ruhl, and numerous others. The impact of the Great Depression and World War II profoundly influenced the development of the American stage, as did the conformist 1950s and the revolutionary 1960s on in to the complex times in which we currently live. Historical Dictionary of the Contemporary American Theater, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1.000 cross-referenced entries on plays, playwrights, directors, designers, actors, critics, producers, theaters, and terminology. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about American theater.
Download or read book The Theatre Guide written by Trevor R. Griffiths and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-07-04 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With over 500 entries on the most important plays and playwrights performed today, The Theatre Guide provides an authoritative A - Z of the contemporary theatre scene. From Aristophanes to Mark Ravenhill, The Alchemist to The Talking Cure, the Guide is both biographically detailed and critically current, while an extensive cross-referencing system allows for wider perspectives and new discoveries. Stimulating, observant and informative, The Theatre Guide is an essential companion and reference tool for anyone with an active interest in drama.
Download or read book The Marriage of Bette and Boo written by Christopher Durang and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A painfully funny, Obie Award-winning play about the tragedy and comedy of family life. Never have marriage and the family been more scathingly or hilariously savaged than in this brilliant black comedy. The Marriage of Bette and Boo brings together two of the maddest families in creation in a portrait album of life’s uncertainties and confusion. Bereaved by miscarriages, undermined by their families, separated by alcoholism, assaulted by disease, and mystified by their priest, Bette and Boo, in their bewildered attempts to provide a semblance of hearth and home, are portrayed with a poignant compassion that enriches and enlarges the play, and makes clear why Christopher Durang has become one of the great names in American theater. “One of the most explosively funny American dramatists.”—Newsweek
Download or read book The Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook Updated and Expanded Edition written by Ed Hooks and published by Back Stage Books. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All actors and acting teachers need The Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook, the invaluable guide to finding just the right piece for every audition. This remarkable book describes the characters, action, and mood for more than 1,000 scenes in over 300 plays. This unique format is ideal for acting teachers who want their students to understand each monologue in context. Using these guidelines, the actor can quickly pinpoint the perfect monologue, then find the text in the Samuel French or Dramatist Play Service edition of the play. Newly revised and expanded, the book also includes the author’s own assessment of each monologue.
Download or read book Why Torture Is Wrong and the People Who Love Them written by Christopher Durang and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2012-09-11 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] hilarious and disturbing new comedy about all-American violence” and other whip-smart political satires by the Tony Award-winning playwright (Ben Branley, The New York Times). Christopher Durang, who The New York Observer called “Jonathan Swift’s nicer, younger brother,” became one of America’s most beloved and acclaimed playwrights by marrying gonzo farce with incisive social critique. Now collected in Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them and Other Political Plays are Durang’s most revealing satirical plays. Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them is the story of a young woman in crisis: Is her new husband, whom she married when drunk, a terrorist? Or just crazy? Or both? Is her father’s hobby of butterfly collecting really a cover for his involvement in a shadow government? Does her mother frequent the theater for mental escape, or is she just insane? Add in a minister who directs porno, and a ladylike operative whose underwear just won’t stay up, and this black comedy will make us laugh all the way to the waterboarding room. Also included in this volume are: Excerpts from Sex and Longing Cardinal O’Connor The Book of Leviticus Show Entertaining Mr. Helms The Doctor Will See You Now Under Duress: Words on Fire An Alter Boy Talks to God The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of Where Babies Come From
Download or read book Beyond Therapy written by Christopher Durang and published by Samuel French , Incorporated. This book was released on 1983 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prudence is a conservative and slightly mixed-up young woman who thinks Bruce is crazy. Bruce is a bi-sexual who lives with his male lover and is crazy about Prudence.
Download or read book Betty s Summer Vacation written by Christopher Durang and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pitch-black humor and brutal social commentary from the Tony Award-winning playwright: “Relentlessly fierce, relentlessly funny.”—Ben Brantley, The New York Times Looking for a little rest and time by herself, Betty rents a summer share at the beach. But Betty's luck turns when this sensible Everywoman gets drawn into the chaotic world of some very unsavory housemates: her friend Trudy, who talks too much; the lewd, semi-naked Buck, who tries to have sex with everyone; and Keith, a serial killer who hides in his room with a mysterious hatbox. With sand between her toes, walking a thin line between sanity and survival, poor Betty will leave her summer vacation more terrorized than tan—in this Obie Award-winning play from Christopher Durang, who “proves to be every bit as sharp and caustic as England’s Joe Orton” (David Kaufman, New York Daily News). “Not only wickedly funny but a commentary on the state of American culture.”—Curtis Ellis, MSNBC “A comedian whose fury takes the form of farce.”—John Lahr, The New Yorker
Download or read book The Sense of an Ending written by Julian Barnes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-10-05 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
Download or read book Christopher Durang Explains It All for You written by Christopher Durang and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of dark comedies about terrible therapists, dysfunctional parents, and more, from a winner of a Tony Award for Best Play and three Obies. Known for his dark, absurd humor and social commentary, Christopher Durang explores the pain and confusion of everyday life—and makes audiences laugh uproariously at the results. Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, the center of a storm of controversy for its satire of misplaced trust in religious authority, remains as powerful today as when it was originally produced. The excruciatingly funny The Nature and Purpose of the Universe asks whether Eleanor Mann’s Job-like suffering is really her fault, while Titanic takes us into the heart of children’s anger with their parents and parents’ manipulation of their children. In Beyond Therapy, two horrifyingly human therapists pursue their own needs at the expense of the most mismatched couple ever to meet through a personal ad. Also including ’Dentity Crisis and The Actor’s Nightmare, this collection demonstrates that laughter is the best surgery, slicing through prejudice and hypocrisy, cutting out dead beliefs and inflamed opinions. These black comedies, lit by lightning bolts of truth and humor, come from “one of the most explosively funny American dramatists” (Newsweek). Includes: The Nature and Purpose of the Universe ’Dentity Crisis Titanic The Actor’s Nightmare Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You Beyond Therapy
Download or read book Howard Katz written by Patrick Marber and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Howard Katz" is a new play by Marber, who has been called "the greatest British playwright to have emerged in the 1990s." ("The Financial Times") Following on the success of "Closer, " this haunting play is centered on its title character, a hard-as-nails talent agent now down on his luck.
