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Yankee Dawg You Die

Play. Philip Kan Gotanda.
2 men. Unit Set

Bradley Yamashita is one of the new breed of Asian-American actors. Highly political and outspoken, he will only take on acting roles that are dignified and non-stereotypical. He has recently starred in a small independent film that is the darling of the art crowd and he arrives in Hollywood full of himself and his politics. Vincent Chang is a survivor, He cut his teeth on the old "Chop Suey' circuit as a hoofer and went on to star in feature films, even gaining an Oscar nomination in the 1950s. Now, though still regal and debonair, Vincent is forced into taking often stereotypical and undignified roles. Through a series of quick moving scenes, we follow the two men as they meet, form a tenuous friendship and together do battle amidst the often humorous and at times ruthless backdrop of the Hollywood film world. While maintaining the portrayal of integrity as all important, Bradley must face the reality of the same lack of work for Asian actors as Vincent faced in the early days of film. Vincent also teaches Bradley the dignity of survival as he learns to take on more of the cultural responsibility Bradley wishes him to accept.
ISBN: 0-8222-1283-8

A Yard of Sun

Play. Christopher Fry:
M9 (young to middle-age) F3 (young, middle-age). A courtyard.

A 'summer comedy' set in Sienna just after World War II. In the courtyard of the Palazzo del Traguardo ("traguardo" means goal or winning-post) in Siena, Italy, during the summer of 1946, the year of the ' first Palio race after the devastation of the War, Angelino Bruno, the caretaker, prepares to reopen the Palazzo and welcome the new owners. He tells his sons Roberto and Luigi (a third son, Edmondo, had left home intent on becoming rich by whatever means) the great news that the great jockey Cambriccio will be riding for them in the Palio: a horse race where the horses represent different wards (contzade) of Siena. A rival jockey, Alfio, comes searching for his lost father, Cesare Scapare. Giosetta Scapare, Angelino's neighbour, Cesares wife and mother of Grazia (who had found Alfio looking for the Palazzo), tells Alfio that his father had been arrested three years ago and has not returned, and that Grazia is his half sister. Though admiring Alfio's courage to show up in rival territory, the Bruno brothers advise him to leave before he gets attacked. The new Palazzo owners arrive, and turn out to be the now wealthy Edmondo and his wife, Ana-Clara. The reunion turns chaotic as Roberto's resentment of his brother becomes heated, news comes of Cesare's returning, and Cambriccio is injured in a trial run of the race. Luigi becomes the unlikely winner of the Palio, and each member of the family heads towards their individual. goals.
ISBN: 0-8222-1641-8

The Year After The Fair

Play. Donald Madgwick
M4 (20-50) F4 (18, 20, 30s). A drawing-room.

Thomas Hardy's story On The Western Circuit, dramatised so successfully by Frank Harvey under the title The Day After The Fair, is the starting point for this delightful play. Charles and Anna's wedding goes ahead although Charles is still unaware that the writer of the letters with whom he is so in love is Edith and not Anna, her former servant. On the eve of Edith's departure to Europe she spends the night with Charles in an attempt to escape her desolate world. The events unfold in the high summer of the British Empire, 1893, under the watchful eye of Thomas Hardy himself.
ISBN 0 573 01683 6

Year of the Duck

Play. Israel Horovitz.
3 men, 3 women. Interior.

As the play begins, the members of a smalltown community theatre are assembling to begin rehearsals of Ibsen's The Wild Duck. Harry Budd, a local photographer, is to play Hjalmar Ekdahl (also a photographer); his real life daughter, Sophie, is playing Ekdahl's daughter, Hedvig; and his on-again, off-again mistress, Rosie Norris, will portray his wife in the play - while his real wife, Margaret, who is sitting this one out, limits her participation to caustic remarks from the sidelines. Margaret has strong suspicions about Harry's relationship with Rosie, and is not above letting these be known. Also on hand are Harry's father, Nathan, who knows more about what's going on than he is willing to admit (and who wishes that the others would go away so he can watch TV); and, finally, the pompously manipulative director of the play, John Sharp, who, as it happens, once had an affair with Margaret, and would like to revive their now dormant passion. As the rehearsals progress so do the complications, revelations and recriminations, until little lies have ballooned into big lies, and things are about to burst. Fortunately wise old grandfather Nathan is on hand to straighten things out, which, as the play reaches its warmly funny conclusion, he does by reminding the others that while illusion may play a part in all their lives, it is reality which, in the final essence, they must cope with.
ISBN: 0-8222-1284-6

The Years

Play. Cindy Lou Johnson : 
3 men, 3 women; unit set.

Andrea, a young woman, is attacked by a man, Bartholomew, on her wedding day. On returning home, she tells Eloise, her older sister, and Isabelle and Andrew, her cousins, that her black eye and cut lip are a result of falling, thus protecting her attacker. While the family comforts Andrea, Eloise is quietly dealing with her own pain: her husband, Jeffrey, has just told her that he is leaving her. The family has been plagued with loss and pain, as Andrea and Eloise's father recently died and shortly after, their mother committed suicide. Andrew has a chance meeting later on the wedding day with Bartholomew and tells him the story of his cousin's mishap. Bartholomew had only mugged Andrea out of a desperation to escape to a better life and is now disturbed by this information, but decides he must move on. Thirteen years pass, and the cousins are gathered for another wedding. This time Eloise is to be remarried, but she has been sent the wrong dress and food has also gone to the wrong party. That night Bartholomew, now a very successful business man, happens to save Andrea from a drunken attacker, and is shocked to discover that his mugging of her thirteen years earlier continues to colour her life. His own life then takes a downward spiral as we discover in the final scene three years later. At that time, Andrea's family suffers another loss when Andrew, by now a renowned photographer, dies just before the opening of a major exhibit of his work. At the opening, Isabelle, is expected to speak, and as she sums up the relationships in her family, the remaining cousins reach a new level of understanding and forgiveness.

Years Ago

Comedy Ruth Gordon.
4 men, 5 women. Interior

"Me,"who is Ruth Gordon Jones (later famous as Ruth Gordon), is a young girl living with her retired sea-captain father and her mother near Boston. "Me" is determined to go on the stage, but Mama and Papa are aghast. Papa wants "Me" to be a physical culture instructor, and "Me" loathes the idea Papa brings the forbidding Miss Glavin to the house and that lady's enthusiasm for physical culture creates in "Me" a violent antipathy. Idolising the popular actresses of the day, and determined not to lead a domestic life or become a teacher, "Me" gets a chance to interview a theatrical manager and although this leads to nothing directly, "Me" has become determined to go to New York and be an actress. With the tacit consent of Mama, "Me" at last faces Papa expecting a battle royal. Papa, however, who is a man of determination, admires "Me's" spunk and, realising that "Me" is determined to follow her own career, pawns his most beloved possession, his spy-glass. At the end, Papa and Mama see "Me" off to New York.
ISBN: 0-8222-1285-4

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