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Warren Leight Set in 1953 and travelling to 1985, this lovely and poignant memory
play unfolds through the eyes of Clifford, the only son of Gene,
a jazz trumpet player, and Terry, an alcoholic mother. Alternating
between their New York City apartment and a smoke-filled music club,
Clifford narrates the story of his broken family and the decline
of jazz as popular entertainment. Clifford recalls the key moments
in his life, such as the day when he, fresh out of college, picked
up his first unemployment cheque and was congratulated by Gene and
his band mates. Gene's music career on the big band circuit ultimately
crumbles with the advent of Elvis and rock 'n' roll. Terry begs him
to get a 9-to-5 job to support the family, but Gene refuses to enter
the "straight world" of regular pay cheques, mortgages and security.
For Gene, who knows jazz better than his own son, music is not just
a job, it's his life. Their marriage slowly dissolves and young Clifford
is witness to it all. As things worsen, Clifford assumes the role
of parent and throws the hopeless Gene out of his mother's apartment.
When an adult Clifford visits Gene in a rundown jazz club after years
of separation, he requests that the old man play his mother's favourite
song, the old standard "Why Was I Born?"
Clifford then asks, "Dad, why was I born?" It becomes Clifford's
last, heart-breaking plea for his father's love. Play. Donald Margulies. Jonathan Waxman is the artist as superstar, plunged into the exorbitant
hype of the American art world where a publicist is as necessary
as a brush and canvas. Just before his works are celebrated at an
exhibition in London, Jonathan journeys to the village where his
former lover Patricia lives with her British husband, Nick. Archaeologists
working on a dig, their spare existence is spent sifting through
a Roman rubbish heap to discover the past. In their cold, remote
house, Jonathan discovers an early painting of Patricia he'd done
when they were young lovers. The subsequent struggle for the painting
embodies the unreconciled passions of the past. Patricia has never
forgiven Jonathan for leaving her, Nick despises Jonathan and the
kind of art he produces, and Jonathan has never been able to recapture
the inspiration and purity he felt when he painted Patricia. In taut
scenes that dart from past to present and back, the characters are
forced to deal with the unanswerable question of anti-Semitism, the
legacy of the Holocaust and assimilation, the sadness of lost love,
the role of the artist, and the location of the human soul at the
end of a ragged century. Play. Adapted by Geoffrey Beevers from the novel by George Eliot The story of Silas Marner, reclusive miser transformed by the arrival
of a young girl, is one of the most memorable and moving in Victorian
literature. This adaptation captures the novel's thirty year sweep
in a series of telling scenes, each displaying Eliot's gifts for
humour, insight, narrative and simple beauty. The twenty named parts
can be played by a cast of seven with a minimum of costume changes
and props. Period: c.1830-1860 Play. Simon Brett In Act I of this ingeniously structured thriller, Detective Inspector
Bruton questions actress Celia Wallis about the murder of her husband
Martin. Celia is quite obviously in the clear, but Neville Smallwood,
the drunken journalist sleeping in her bed, argued with Martin shortly
before the murder, and the solution to the initial puzzle seems simple.
Act II takes place before the murder, and all our expectations,
of the characters as well as of the plot, are turned on their heads. Play. Ben Elton Doris Wallis, tough tabloid columnist, has just won a libel case
brought by an actress she insulted. Just as she starts celebrating,
things begin to go wrong. Her TV treatment is missing, her pal Sidney
is out to get her for her double-crossing him, her accountant is
about to grass on her ... To her shock and horror, Doris discovers
that the actors she had defamed in her column can indeed act. NB.
This play contains explicit language. Comedy: Robert E. McEnroe. Wilfred Tasbinder, a romantically-minded tramp, finds a birth certificate
for Oliver Erwenter, indicating that its owner is 77 years old. Wilfred
decides to impersonate Erwenter and enter a home for the aged. Being
a fellow of rich imagination, he takes it upon himself to help the
inmates by putting on a bazaar and showing each of them that one
is only as old as he feels. Case in point, the attractive Miss Tripp,
in charge of the home and more or less in love with the stuffy Reverend
Watson, enters a romance with Erwenter and discovers the true meaning
of passion. All goes well until Erwenter is exposed by his tramp
companion, Emmett. He and Emmett, having appropriated the necessary
equipment for the bazaar from neighbouring institutions, are in danger
of arrest, but Erwenter persuades his victims that the bazaar is
a worthwhile cause and ends up the object of universal praise. Erwenter
again feels the call of the road and leaves the home, having finally
taught the Reverend to show Miss Tripp how deeply he loves her. Sam Shepard : Drama Vinnie and Carter meet out West in a seedy hotel, where Vinnie has
been living on the edge of the California desert. Having flown in
from back East, Carter is surprised to discover Vinnie living in
such surroundings, but has agreed to come help Vinnie, who has run
into trouble with a woman and the law. It soon becomes clear that
Carter and Vinnie are former partners who years before were involved
in a racing scam involving the swapping of two horses. In the intervening
years, Carter has gone on to big success in bloodstock, having stolen
Vinnie's girl and his Buick in the process, but Vinnie has always
held onto some incriminating evidence which threatens to destroy
him. The threat of police involvement with Vinnie troubles Carter
and Vinnie threatens to come clean unless Carter helps with his current
difficulties. He visits Vinnie's girl, Cecelia, only to discover
that there was no arrest, and soon discovers Vinnie and the evidence
gone. Convinced that Vinnie is selling his evidence to the highest
bidder - in this case Simms, the commissioner who they hoodwinked
years earlier - he returns back East with Cecelia, where a series
of crosses and double-crosses takes shape as Carter's world unravels
with increasing speed until he and Vinnie have effectively changed
places, with Vinnie cleared of a great weight while Carter heads
for an inevitable disaster. Play. Wendy MacLeod. Set in San Francisco on the eve of the earthquake of 1989, Sin is
a contemporary morality play featuring
"Avery Bly on High," a helicopter traffic reporter who is trying
to keep herself above life's messiness. Avery says,
"From the sky, the world is perfect," but on the ground she is surrounded
by people who are less than perfect. Her soon-to-be-ex-husband is
a charming alcoholic, her room-mate is a glutton, she's trapped daily
in a helicopter with an envious co-worker, and her blind dates are
disasters. It takes her dying brother to make her see that pride
is the deadliest of sins, and it takes an Act of God to bring her
back down to Earth. Play John McLiam. A warm family play about Pat Muldoon, head of a devout Catholic
family. Pat lost his religion years ago when his baby son died. Ever
since that time his wife has done her best to bring him back to the
Church. A recent heart attack Pat suffered has made her redouble
her efforts. The heart attack was brought about by a binge Pat went
on when he sold the family's one piece of property. Now he realises
that his dying will leave his family poverty-stricken. Pat's younger
daughter is in love with his assistant, a young Mexican boy, but
the mother will have none of this. The older daughter virtually supports
the family; when she learns that her father sold the little piece
of land that was their last security, she confronts him in a highly
emotional and dramatic scene. Throughout the play the family's deep
love for one another is the underlying note, giving warmth and meaning
to the surface bickerings. Drama. Robert Ardrey. Some Illinois college friends of 1938 have a reunion at Christmas.
As students most of them had what were known in 1938 as progressive
political ideas. One of them, a brilliant mathematician, placed his
faith in Soviet Russia then. The Stalin-Hitler pact shook all that
faith out of him in 1939. By the mid 1950s he is one of the dispossessed.
Because of his college political associations, no one will employ
him, no one will rent him an apartment, no one will associate with
him, no one will clear him, no one will adjudicate his case. The
play doesn't solve the problem. But the last act is a clear and perceptive
statement of this nameless, formless situation and an estimation
of what it is doing to America. The play's underlying message describes
something that is vague and elusive but ominous. It has got far enough
away from political recriminations to state it in terms of character
and the life of the spirit. Comedy musical. Rick Abbot Here is the long-awaited sequel to Rick Abbot's hilarious Play
On! in which the same disaster prone theatre group finds itself
in dire straits and need to do yet another show by the redoubtable
Phyllis (with songs by her hobbyist songwriter nephew Monte) to
win a theatre-saving $10,000 endowment. The musical numbers have
been designed so that your cast need not be able to sing,
just carry a tune. The music for this show is available separately. Double bill (An Englishman Abroad and A Question of Attribution). Alan Bennett An Englishman Abroad. An Englishman Abroad (originally a television play), is based
on a true incident in the life of the actress Coral Browne and tells
the witty and touching story of her meeting with Guy Burgess in Moscow
in 1958. In A Question of Attribution, 'an inquiry in which
the circumstances are imaginary but the pictures are real', Anthony
Blunt, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, tries to solve the riddle
of an enigmatic painting and is himself the subject of a more official
investigation. |