Samuel French, Inc. – serie

Dramatic Readings Eighteen well-known tales are given a new look by having the main character from each tell a story. Poe, Hawthorne, Wilde, Twain, O. Henry are some of the authors represented.

For audition, performance and classroom use these highly diverting pieces are a perfect fit. From the foreward by Greer Garson, "A kindly sense of humor and acute observation illumine his gallery of recognizable contemporary portraits."

Comedy Peter Williams Characters: 6 male, 6 female Interior Set Mild mannered Mr. Beldinker is running for congress on the Good Government ticket. His wife, Aspasia, is writing an opera and their children aren't ordinary teenagers---one's on a health kick, another paints incomprehensible modern pictures and the third is world brat #1. The plot centers around an encyclopedia salesman who hooks them on buying the set on so called easy payments. Mad fun for all!

Beth is preparing food for her father's wake - real sandwiches, which the audience are invited to partake of as they become the mourners visiting following the service. After nursing her father for years, Beth plans to sell the house and go back-packing, despite the disapproval of others.

This collection of Wilder's most famous one act plays includes, The Long Christmas Dinner, The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, Pullman Car Hiawatha, Queens of France, Such Things Only Happen in Books, and Love and How to Cure It. In these mini-masterpieces, Wilder experiments with techniques and dramatic forms he would later develop in his celebrated full-length works, Our Town, The Matchmaker, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The Alcestiad. Among these plays we encounter a first glimpse of Wilder's Stage Manager; his use of pantomime, minimal scenery, and farce; as well as his signature connection between the commonplace and the cosmic dimensions of the human experience.

Full Length, Tragedy / 8m, 4f Produced in modern dress in New York with Katherine Cornell and Sir Cedric Hardwicke, the Galantiere version of the Greek legend comes from a Paris that suffered under the heel of tyranny. The play's parallels to modern times are exciting and provocative. "Its dimensions are noble, its intentions uncompromising."-Southwestern University, Texas

Dramatic Comedy Characters: 8 male, 3 female (with doubling) Hailed by the New Yorker's John Lahr as "extraordinary", "bold", and "inventive", Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play takes us behind the scenes of three communities attempting to stage the death and resurrection of Christ. From Queen Elizabeth's England to Hitler's Germany to Reagan's America, Ruhl's exploration of devotion takes us on a humorous yet unsettling journey filled with lust, whimsy, and a lot of fish. This intimate epic occurs at the timely intersection of politics and religion. Ruhl dramatizes a community of players rehearsing their annual staging of the Easter Passion in three different eras: 1575 northern England, just before Queen Elizabeth outlaws the ritual; 1934 Oberammergua, Bavaria, as Hitler is rising to power; and Spearfish, South Dakota, from the time of Vietnam through Reagan's presidency. In each period, the players grapple in different ways with the transformative nature of art, and politics are never far in the background, as Queen Elizabeth, Hitler, and Reagan each appear, played by a single commanding actor.Named one of the "Ten Best Plays of 2008" by The New Yorker "Her [Ruhl's] unmistakable voice - poetic and quirky, underpinned with serious feeling and even more serious intelligence - trumpets forth in brash, impressive form in this ambitious and frisky if sometimes unruly play." -New York Times. "Ruhl's voice seems to retreat beyond the sphere of the play, performing that special vanishment that good writers-and good gods-know best how to do...Critic's Pick!" -Time Out NY "Let's just get the superlatives out of the way. Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play is the most exciting, stimulating, and thrilling piece of theater to hit New York since Angels in America." -Backstage