Theresa Rebeck – författare

A stunning novel about celebrity and the price of fame from a Pulitzer-shortlisted playwright and the creator of hit series SMASH.So you want to know how to become famous?STEP 1: Get your photo taken for the New Yorker, along with your incredibly beautiful red-haired sisters.STEP 2: Watch as your face is plastered all over Times Square and New York goes crazy over you. (Why? Don't ask me.)STEP 3: Learn to fight off the paparazzi who are camped outside your school. Older brothers, especially seemingly invisible ones, are useful here.STEP 4: Pretend to be interested in letchy old filmstars at glitzy parties and don't let them realise you would rather be doing your homework.But, take a tip from me, Amelia, so-called IT Girl, fame is NOT all it's cracked up to be.All those glamorous parties are really just full of neurotic women studiously avoiding the canapés. Being followed by hoards of men with cameras can seriously threaten your social life. And no-one listens when you tell them that you never wanted all this in the first place.One bit of advice I would give you, and it's an important one so please listen: whatever you do don't do what I did and BITE the most famous filmstar in the world. It won't look good, believe me, and it'll get you into all kinds of trouble.

When a rich man you never knew dies and his opulent apartment is left to you, you’d think it was the answer to your dreams. But perhaps it is the start of a living nightmare…a sharp, intelligent and dark tale from the creator of hit series SMASH.Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Or is it?Tina Finn was standing at the edge of her mother's newly-dug grave when she first heard about her inheritance. Until this moment she'd been scraping by, living from one pay cheque to the next. But all that was about to change…Now she's the proud owner of a huge luxury apartment overlooking Central Park. Things couldn't get much better, right? Wrong. Her half brothers, left out of the inheritance, think that she has no right to the apartment and they want her out – by any means necessary.So that's how Tina went from standing on the edge of her mother's grave to squatting in a twelve room apartment in the centre of New York. Now she has it all, is she prepared to fight to the end to keep it?

A stunning novel about celebrity and the price of fame from a Pulitzer-shortlisted playwright and the creator of hit series SMASH.It was the photograph in the New Yorker which started it all. They were three young, beautiful, red-haired girls, there granddaughters of a literary lion. They were News. But it was the row over the youngest's reaction to the attentions from one of Hollywood's biggest stars that made them Celebrities.The family – the three sisters, their brother, their mother, their normally absent father – are sucked into a whirlwind of agents, producers, managers, photo shoots, paparazzi, journalists, stylists, parties, shows, a maelstrom they have no idea how to control.The three girls – and their brother, an uneasy observer – experiment with life and change, and learn to survive, each of them differently. Each of them pays a different price in their relationship with each other, with their parents and in their beliefs in themselves and the civilisation around them.Three Girls and their Brother is a novel to devour. The story is compelling, sometimes cutting, sometimes touching. The characters leap widely off the page. The setting and portrait of the celebrity scene is completely convincing, busy and yet intimate. Theresa Rebeck's first novel is a triumph.

Now that it’s all over, everybody is saying it was the picture–that stupid picture was behind every disaster. . . .They may be the granddaughters of a famous literary critic, but what really starts it all is Daria, Polly, and Amelia Heller’s stunning red hair. Out of the blue one day, The New Yorker calls and says that they want to feature the girls in a glamorous spread shot by a world-famous photographer, and before long these three beautiful nobodies from Brooklyn have been proclaimed the new “It” girls.But with no parental guidance–Mom’s a former beauty queen living vicariously through her daughters, and Dad is nowhere to be found–the three girls find themselves easy prey for the sharks and piranhas of show business. Posing in every hot fashion magazine, tangling with snarling fashonistas and soulless agents, skipping school and hitting A-list parties, the sisters are caught up in a whirlwind rise to fame that quickly spirals out of control. When Amelia, the youngest of the three–who never really wanted to be a model in the first place–appears in an Off-Broadway play, the balance of power shifts, all the pent-up resentment and pressure comes to a head, and the girls’ quiet, neglected brother reaches a critical point of virtual breakdown. And against the odds, even as the struggle for fame threatens to tear the family apart, the Hellers begin to see that despite the jealousy, greed, and uncertainty that have come to define their relationships, in the celebrity world of viciousness and betrayal, all they really have is one another.Narrated in four parts, from the perspective of each sibling, Three Girls and Their Brother is a sharp, perceptive, and brilliantly written debut novel from an acclaimed playwright.From the Hardcover edition.

How would it feel to go overnight from living in a trailer park to a twelve-room apartment overlooking Central Park in a landmark Victorian building?  This is what happens to housecleaner Tina Finn, who, with her sisters, Alison and Lucy, suddenly comes into possession of the Livingston Mansion Apartment at the Edgewood. The Finn sisters inherit the $11 million property from their estranged alcoholic mother, but they aren’t the only siblings vying for it. Their mother’s wealthy second husband, Bill—who died just three weeks before Tina’s mother—has two sons. And they are furious at the thought of losing the apartment that’s been in their family for generations. Tina moves into the nearly vacant, palatial space to solidify her claim to it, but she soon discovers that Bill’s sons aren’t the only ones who want her out. The building’s other residents are none too pleased by her presence either. In fact, the co-op board has designs on wresting control of the apartment from both sets of children. As Tina fends off all the people who want to evict her (or worse), she starts to get involved in her neighbors’ complex lives. There’s the mercurial, eccentric botanist who may be either a friend or an enemy; the self-absorbed, randy son of the co-op board president, whose friendship without benefits Tina tries to curry; the large, chaotic family whose depressed teenage daughter becomes Tina’s ally and spy; the ghost Tina hears crying at night in her apartment’s secret room . . . In this entertaining yarn by acclaimed playwright, screenwriter, and author Theresa Rebeck, we follow Tina Finn—a woman both comical and compelling, well intentioned and a bit of a thief—as she begins to love her new home, discovers traits to admire in people she’s only just met, and realizes, finally, her place in her family and the world.From the Hardcover edition.

Comedy Character: 1 female Interior Set "And then I realize, in this sort of strange, hallucinatory moment, that the bug guy is looking kind of good, and the things he's saying about bugs are really kind of fascinating and it is then that I realized that maybe it has been too long since I've been on a date."--So confesses a single mother and self-described restaurant idiot-savant in this thoroughly charming and slyly sweet one-woman play by the author of The Butterfly Collection and Spike Heels. This idiosyncratic journey of self-discovery involving the Romanian mob, a Buddhist rainstorm, a teenage daughter, shoes, and a few very bad dates enjoyed an extended run Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons starring Julie White.

Theresa Rebeck Drama Characters: 2 male, 2 female A young social climber leads an actor into an extra-marital affair, from which he then creates a full-on downward spiral into alcoholism and bummery. His wife runs off with his best friend, his girlfriend leaves, and he's left with ...nothing. "Ms. Rebeck's dark-hued morality tale contains enough fresh insights into the cultural landscape to freshen what is essentially a classic boy-meets-bad-girl story...Ms. Rebeck is an established playwright who has also worked in television, and she clearly knows how the savage, mercurial economics of the entertainment industry can shatter the fragile ego and wreak havoc on domestic equilibrium." -New York Times "Rebeck's wickedly scathing observations about the sort of self-obsessed New Yorkers who pursue their own interests at the cost of their morality and loyalty." -New York Post "The Scene is utterly delightful in its comedic performances, and its slowly unraveling plot is thought-provoking and gut-wrenching." -Show Business Weekly "On the surface, it may appear to be just a bubbly boulevard comedy. And, on the surface, that's what Theresa Rebeck's The Scene uproariously is.But underneath lurks something much darker, almost tragic. That is how great, double-bottomed comedies are: Think The Misanthrope, think Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?...Finally, though, it is the writing that triumphs in the all- important details. There are frantic sentence fragments, stammering reiterations, dragged-out burbles, and every current noncommunicative cliche sovereignly ridiculed. And let us not overlook Rebeck's ability to put sex onstage: erotically, farcically, and with clinical dissection. Laugh your way into this one." -Bloomberg.com

3m, 2f / Comedy / Interior Stamp collecting is far more risky than you think. After their mother's death, two estranged half-sisters discover a book of rare stamps that may include the crown jewel for collectors. One sister tries to collect on the windfall, while the other resists for sentimental reasons. In this gripping tale, a seemingly simple sale becomes dangerous when three seedy, high-stakes collectors enter the sisters' world, willing to do anything to claim the rare find as their own. "Unsurprisingly for a writer with extensive experience in TV police procedurals like "NYPD Blue" and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," one of Rebeck's strengths is her skill at stitching tension into every exchange. The five characters in Mauritius pair up and face off in shifting configurations, the emotionally fraught edges of their twisty encounters made all the more intriguing by the fact that items as apparently innocuous as postage stamps fuel the friction." -Variety "One wouldn't think that the subject of rare stamps would make for gripping, entertaining theater, but Theresa Rebeck's Mauritius, being given its Broadway premiere by the Manhattan Theatre Club, proves otherwise...The sort of well-made, engrossing and unpretentious play rarely encountered on Broadway these days, Mauritius is a welcome introduction to the fall season." -The Hollywood Reporter

Nominee! 2012 Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Play In Seminar, a provocative comedy from Pulitzer Prize nominee Theresa Rebeck, four aspiring young novelists sign up for private writing classes with Leonard (JEFF GOLDBLUM), an international literary figure. Under his recklessly brilliant and unorthodox instruction, some thrive and others flounder, alliances are made and broken, sex is used as a weapon and hearts are unmoored. The wordplay is not the only thing that turns vicious as innocence collides with experience in this biting Broadway comedy.

Winner! 2011 Rella Lossy Playwright's AwardSet in a highly competitive architecture firm What We're Up Against takes an explosive look at the complicated battle of the sexes raging across Cubicle Land. A funny yet insightful view of what it means to be female in a male-dominated career and one woman's response when she tires of slamming into the glass ceiling.

Jack's unexpected return throws his family into a frenzy and his sister Lorna needs answers. Is he coming home or running away? Where is his wife everyone hates? And how did he get all that money? Theresa Rebeck's new comedy tackles the timely issues of corporate greed small town values and whether or not your family will always welcome you back... with no questions asked.

"O Beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves"... In our age of cyber-bullying and aggressive patriotism remember those lyrics - or else! Theresa Rebeck pens a theatrically inventive mash up of contemporary American life and the history that got us to this politically polarized age. It's fiercely funny story explores the lives of high school students teachers and their families as they cope in a world of real personal problems and extremist ideological rhetoric that gets so heated that Jes

Mark Twain wrote: "There are five kinds of actresses: bad actresses fair actresses good actresses great actresses and then there is Sarah Bernhardt." In 1899 the international stage celebrity set out to tackle her most ambitious role yet: Hamlet. Theresa Rebeck's new play rollicks with high comedy and human drama set against the lavish Shakespearean production that could make or break Bernhardt's career.

What happens when a brilliant lost soul comes to stay in his sister's basement and refuses to leave? And if the menacing brother-in-law doesn't approve? In a dog-eat-dog world these siblings find a haven of sorts in an unfinished basement as they attempt to make sense of the past and negotiate how to move forward into the future.

A good-hearted heiress has become prey to the attentions of an amoral party boy. After he callowly seduces her aunt making the older woman a figure of public ridicule their romance is dead in the water. But his insistence on winning back the moneyed heroine fuels the summer's gossip in the land of the one percent.

Brilliant, hot-headed chef Harry scores a mention in a food magazine with his signature scallops, and his business partner Mike finally sees profits within reach. The only problem is Harry refuses to recreate his masterpiece for the masses. Mix in a shrewd restaurant consultant and a waiter with dreams of his own, and it all goes to hell in this hilarious and insightful new play that asks us to consider where art ends and commerce begins.

Sam doesn't get out much. Actually, he doesn't get out at all, opting instead for the safety of his house in the company of his things his many, many things. But when a notice from the government arrives alerting Sam that he must clean up his property or face eviction, he's forced to reckon with what's trash, what's treasure, and whether we can ever know the difference between the two.

In a dying plant shop in a dying neighborhood, Roger receives a visitor from the past: Megan, the local screw-up, just out of rehab. He wants nothing to do with this disaster. Rebeck's signature wit, intelligence and depth cultivate this riveting play, which asks, "Can a soul beyond saving be saved?"