Bøger udgivet af BROADWAY PLAY PUB INC (NY)

Recently deceased lawyer and all-around schlemiel Simon Ackerman suddenly finds himself desperate to get into Hell, which, God forbid, turns out to be the better place to both visit and spend eternity. Struggling against the demons before him as well as the demons within, Simon encounters other proud denizens of Hell, including William Shakespeare, Frank Sinatra, Vlad the Impaler, and a chic, fashionable Mother Theresa, among others. At the end of his journey, Simon finds himself face to face with the most timeless conundrum of all - what do you do when you are finally being held accountable for your actions on Earth, being held accountable to a completely different set of standards, and most importantly, where do you truly wish to end up when you leave it? "... simultaneously nutty and witty ... with a philosophical message that never gets in the way of the laughs ... it's impossible not to like a show whose opening number includes Hitler and Einstein joining voices in the Arlen-Koehler standard 'Let's Fall in Love.' The cast, with several members playing multiple roles, strikes a likable note of matter-of-fact absurdity." -Anita Gates, The New York Times "Panitch's screwball metaphysical comedy has an undeniable huckster charm, as well as crackling performances and a handful of wickedly funny punch lines." -Mitch Montgomery, BackStage "Think of George Bernard Shaw's DON JUAN IN HELL starring Sid Caesar ... With its heart in the kind of smart, irreverent sketch comedy Steve Allen used to do, and its head in a struggle for the soul of a good man, HELL is a bona fide entertainment with ideas ... Panitch has a graceful touch reminiscent of Marivaux." -The Los Angeles Times

Two lost souls in Reading, Pennsylvania converge: Mondo, a Greek immigrant whose eyesight suffers from a grueling divorce, and Dr. Hull, the retina specialist who treats her. "... Christina Masciotti's marvelously strange and humane two-hander ... When an eye-patch-wearing Mondo complains to Dr Hull that everything appears flat and undifferentiated, she's talking about more than depth perception. As an immigrant going through a vicious divorce from her traditional Greek husband in a foreign country, Mondo is unfixed. Not only is she unable to judge the distance between objects, she can't even locate herself in the world. Her sessions with Hull might help things come into focus - emotionally, culturally and otherwise ... Masciotti's language is beautifully wrought: a keen interplay of the boring and the weirdly poetic, evoking both silliness and pathos in Mondo's pidgin syntax and Hull's repressed small talk. And even though romance enters the picture, VISION DISTURBANCE is more than a simplistic tale of illness and recovery. In allowing the characters to remain opaque, the creators embrace obscurity." -David Cote, Time Out New York "The eyes are the window not just to the soul but to the psyche in VISION DISTURBANCE, Christina Masciotti's deceptively disarming play about two damaged people who are thrown together when one is called upon to heal the other. But which one? On the surface, VISION DISTURBANCE rides a quirky, offbeat charm, but there are mysteries and riddles under the surface ... There's nothing orthodox about these characters or the touching bond that grows between them ... Masciotti is a writer of promise, not least because she understands that there is no single way of seeing." -Don Aucoin, Boston Globe "Inspired and inventive ... shows Ms Masciotti's particular talent ... lyrical ... winning verbal originality ... a lovely, resourceful and unexpected coup de theatre that suggests that, yes, flat lives may sometimes achieve that longed-for third dimension." -The New York Times "The language transforms a distant and hidden corner of Pennsylvania into a comedic metaphor for existence ... an amazing author who builds a new language." -Gazzeta di Modena "The story flows relentlessly with sparkling dialogue ... the sense of seeing is the nerve center: visions disturbed by the vicissitudes of life ... the fragility of the retina...the truth behind appearances." -Controscene "Masciotti pays unusual attention to the particulars of language ... opening a gulf between the characters' extravagant emotions and their thrifty means of expressing them ... marvelous." -The Village Voice "The most interesting and original performance of the VIE Festival." -Rumor(s)cena "Beautiful characters ... Sublime." -Le Clou dans la Planche "Talented playwright Christina Masciotti excels at ... the meaning between words, finding eloquence even in the most mundane exchanges and language blunders." -Le Figaro

First performance by Heat & Light Co. Inc. in a workshop production in New York City, [April 1985?].

Mickey's dad and Sage's mom are really, really good friends. So every day after school, Mickey's dad drops Mickey off at Sage's house and the two kids (played by adults) are forced to play together in Sage's tightly fenced-in backyard while the parents are "hanging out." The kids spend the endless hours rationalizing adult behavior, making sense of the cosmos, spying on their disturbing neighbors and surviving each other. Both funny and tragic, MICKEY & SAGE examines the clarity, beauty and brevity of childhood by constantly asking, "What happens to people?" "This four-scene, 60-minute piece lays bare the way that the minor differences that kids note about their playmates' home lives take on greater weight and power as childhood ends." -Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice "Listening to two kids talking smack during forced backyard playdates can be pretty funny. They mangle adult language they're trying to ape, and what it all means. But there's a disturbing undercurrent to MICKEY & SAGE. Comedy leavens the underlying painful circumstances, as filtered through the minds of youngsters trying to make sense of it all - or just to survive emotionally and physically." -Bob Fischbach, Omaha World-Herald

"Marisa Wegrzyn's clever new play, KILLING WOMEN, gives a sly feminist twist, à la 9 to 5, to the hit-man comedy genre: she peppers the script with one-liners and provides a touch of pathos. ...Wegrzyn displays more confidence and smarts than many older playwrights. At its best, the play is an extreme take on the battle between those who extol the virtues of stay-at-home motherhood and those who charge that women who fail to take up a career are letting down the team... It's the mommy wars with a body count-a brilliant conceit. And there's no question Wegrzyn is an extremely funny writer. ...an engaging, funny work from a writer we're likely to hear from again." Kerry Reid, Reader (Chicago)

"...BEIRUT, Alan Bowne's stunner about love in the plague years. It's `the near future': we're in a dump of a room on the Lower East Side, where a young man named Torch has been quarantined after testing positive for a nameless disease that sounds a lot like AIDS. His girlfriend, Blue, who has not been infected, makes the dangerous journey across the quarantine line to be with him.... The marvel of Mr Bowne's work is the richly raunchy language, tuned to the gritty rhythms of the street. It's crude yet lyrical; even at its most scatological, the dialog sings.... They (Torch and Blue) are a Romeo and Juliet of the boroughs, an East Side story.... ...the poetry and power of BEIRUT..." Walter Goodman, The New York Times "...Alan Bowne makes a statement about sexually transmitted disease that is more powerful than all the soapbox orations which have been attempted theatrically to explore the subject. He deals with the human spirit as it faces the inevitable, and it is a spirit of hope and love, of logic and of empathy..." T H McCulloh, Drama-Logue

An old Tutsi story-teller, sitting on a hill, invites us to join him in the most beautiful place on earth - Rwanda. He becomes our guide through the history and people of the land he loves. In the wake of the 1994 genocide, multiple stories unfold. A Hutu government minister, engaged in encouraging the killing falls deeply in love with a Tutsi woman. The head of the U.N. peacekeepers, haunted by the hundreds of thousands of people he couldn't save, struggles with his own will to live. A young Rwandese film student, away at school in New York City when his country implodes embarks on an eye-opening journey to find out what has become of his family and craft a film that will bring his country's story to the world. The play weaves together the lives of these and other characters who experience the genocide from many different perspectives and ultimately come together to move forward into the uncertain future, reaching for hope. "In this brilliant magical play, Jay O Sanders tells the story of the Rwanda genocide by bringing us into the hearts and minds of the individual men, women and children involved, removing the distance between us and this seemingly incomprehensible event, letting us see the tragedy through their eyes, thereby reaching our emotions on the deepest level. It is a triumph." -Doris Kearns Goodwin, Presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author "One of the most heart-felt, integrity-filled, and exciting theatrical works it has been my pleasure to encounter. UNEXPLORED INTERIOR is an epic play, but with a terribly personal and emotional core. [This] play is one of the very few plays that I can confidently say matters." -Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director, New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater "The world never learned from the past, and 'never again' became 'again and again.' This play gives an historical clarity about Genocide against Tutsi, I hope the world will get a lesson from it in order to prevent more in the future." -Freddy Mutanguha, Country Director Aegis Trust/Kigali Genocide Memorial "UNEXPLORED INTERIOR takes you on a journey of Rwanda's history, I love the humor in the play - it made me able to sail through the tense dark side of the story. A true reflection of life." -Hope Azeda, Artistic Director & writer, Mashirika Performing Arts, Kigali, Rwanda

W. E. B. Du Bois and Mary White Ovington, two courageous leaders across the color line, co-founders of the NAACP, find themselves unexpectedly alone in their New York City office on a Sunday morning, June 1915. Infuriated over the decision of white board members to curtail his autonomy, Dr Du Bois is determined to resign. Miss Ovington confronts his firm resolve with forceful arguments and sophisticated seductions. They advocate, spar, flirt, clash, reveal secrets, and compete to save their vital work. A dangerous river of desire runs through their complex relationship, infused with their shared love of justice and commitment to fight for a better world. "Clare Coss's new play, DR DU BOIS AND MISS OVINGTON, takes up the relationship between W. E. B. Du Bois and Mary White Ovington, two co-founders of the NAACP, who find themselves unexpectedly alone together in their Manhattan office one Sunday morning in June 1915. With Du Bois furiously intent on resigning from the association over racial hostilities in its leadership, the drama hinges on Ovington's efforts to assuage his anger and save their organization in the hour before he must depart to catch a train. The two share a love of justice, a faith in interracial solidarity, and a simmering desire for one another ... It performs the admirable work of bringing to light her otherwise untold story as a collaborator, partner, and would-be lover to one of America's leading intellectuals ... the writing is both erudite and elegant ..." -Joseph Cermatori, The Village Voice "... this mesmerizing play written by Clare Coss ... the impact and power of this magnificent work of art ... I wish that everybody could see this play ... The mutual respect, the love, the beautiful working relationship ..." -Ebele Oseye, Black Star News

Combining the Greek myth of Penelope awaiting the return of her husband, Odysseus, with modern tales of life in Ithaca, New York, Kenny Finkle uses his renowned sense of whimsy and humanity to explore our need to be loved. "... a new play is the lifeblood of a thriving theater, and Ithaca has been especially blessed of late with new plays. Finkle has set the bar high. To capture some piece of the spirit of a place and its inhabitants, while reworking a well-worn story, pulling apart notions of heroism, bravery, sacrifice, faithfulness and love this one story has come to embody ... All this is sketched lightly, almost breezily, for it is the launching pad for Finkle's deeper purpose. What does it mean to wait, to be a woman with an M I A husband, raising their son? To become defined by a first, all encompassing love that never had time to mature? To be wound up tight against feeling, against even acknowledging loss, grief? As the older Penelope negotiates these questions, the play takes on depth, color, urgency ... When finally it all begins to unravel, the breaking flood of desire, hurt and hope she displays is breathtaking. Her partner in this dance is the man not chosen ... Their ebb and flow as a couple ... is subtle, mercurial and enchanting. [The play] glimmers with many facets of beauty and a smart elucidation of the awful requirements of love." -Ross Haarstad, Lansing Star A beautiful modern romance, PENELOPE OF ITHACA explores the complexities of time-tested love. With her soldier husband lost at war, Penelope's loyalty is put to the test as she struggles to reconcile her undying love for Odysseus with the uniquely human need to be loved in the here and now." -Stephanie Miller, Lansing Star

Goldoni's eighteenth-century masterpiece is an enduring story of love, passion, and mistaken identity. Young Venetian Clarice can't marry her lover, Silvio. She had been betrothed to Rasponi, who appears to have returned from the dead to claim her. But the Rasponi who appears is actually Beatrice, Rasponi's sister who is in disguise as her brother and has come to Venice to find her suitor, Florinda. Complications arise when a servant greedily seeks employment with both the disguised Beatrice and Florinda and spends the rest of the play trying to serve two masters while keeping the two unaware of the other's presence. The play is based on the Italian Renaissance theater style, Commedia dell arte, and reinvigorated the genre, which is so heavily based on carnival, while bringing to it an element of realism, mishaps, mix-ups, confusions, disguises and mistaken identity that come with the style. "Director Christopher Bayes' and star Steven Epp's adaptation on Carlo Goldoni's 18th-century Commedia dell'arte piece ... is pure comedy gold." --Broadway World Seattle"Sublimely directed by Christopher Bayes -- provides an equivalent bowlful of joy ... deliriously happy-making version of Carlo Goldoni's THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS. Bayes and company, egged on by adapter Constance Congdon's buoyant script ... consistently locate Goldoni's sweet spot." --The Washington Post"... revels in the transformative power of theater. The laughter would be quite enough to propel THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS onto a theater lover's must-see list. But then there's the magic. Now that's theater!" --The New York Times"... an uproarious, unapologetically lowbrow, compulsively enjoyable excursion into the outer realms of farce." --The Boston Globe"It begins in elegance. Two Italian workmen stumble upon the remnants of an abandoned theater; when they open a trunk, fireflies flutter out and turn into the stars above a Venice of yore. But from then on we're mostly in the broadly colorful land of commedia dell'arte: a world of crafty servants and passionate lovers and notably bad communication ... stock characters, one-liners, slapstick, masks, songs and snatches of anachronistic improvisation." --Time Out New York "Think the Three Stooges meets Family Guy meets a bawdy clown troupe, with a few musical numbers tossed in for good measure and a tendency to beat a dead horse of a joke until it miraculously stands back on its feet and becomes funny again ... The gonzo glee of the performances holds it all together ... while the whole thing doesn't add up to more than goofy fun, sometimes that is just what you need." --Brooklyn Paper "Laughter is the best medicine sometimes. This is one of those times." --Lore Croghan, Brooklyn Daily Eagle"[A] raucously entertaining farce ... boy, do we laugh. Every formula for comedy is either turned on its head or played to its full predictive hilarity. And when the unpredictable moments happen -- this archetype of commedia dell'arte requires a fair amount of improvisation and ad-libbing -- the risk of going off-script is richly rewarded ... For the jaded theatergoer, [THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS] provides all the things the wearied mind desires: longing, love, song, dance and the simple beauty of laughter." --OffOffOnline

Cristóbal is a wild-eyed gaucho hustler convicted of various crimes, including stealing original Charles Darwin manuscripts from rare book libraries around the world. Why? Because he's convinced he's the great-great-great-great (bastard) grandson of the father of Natural Selection. As part of his sentence he must deliver a public apology, during which he digresses, with flamboyant intensity and bawdy humor, into the story of his life, growing up as an orphan in Tierra del Fuego and inadvertently becoming an expert Darwinologist, exploiting every opportunity to prove (and cash in on) his unbelievable pedigree. The play is a tango-tinged dance of life, a fresh take on some of Darwin's ideas about the struggle for survival, sexual selection, the origin of species, and the descent of man. "DARWINII is smart, hilarious, and ... one of the most mesmerizing pieces of theater this town has seen in a decade ... A wholly original and profoundly funny journey to the center of your very own D N A." -The Plain Dealer, Cleveland "In just 70 minutes, this one-man tour de force spins you through a funny and thought-provoking story involving Charles Darwin, his still (!) controversial ideas, and the dangers of getting up in somebody's niche. An immediate contender for the title of Most Enjoyable and Engrossing 70 Minutes on Stage in 2011." -Cleveland Scene "It's great theatre, creative literary invention, and a fun experience. DARWINII is one of those fascinating pieces of theatricality that is a delight to behold." -Cool Cleveland "The plot smoothly shifts from hilarity to seriousness, revealing the underlying themes of the comedy. 'I did not appear out of nothing!' Cristobal shouts in frustration and defiance, sharing his desperate attempts at finding not only the origin of his species, but the origin of himself." -The Oberlin Review

Where do you draw the line between eugenics and the desire of every parent to give his or her child the best possible start? If the answer seems pretty simple, just ask Gwen, Allie and Tom, three parents whose children were conceived at a prestigious donor insemination program, specializing in donors with IQ's over 180. It is now five years later, and the parents of these exceptional children are discovering that the answer is anything but simple. "Playwright Bob Clyman doesn't waste time. Within the first five minutes of THE EXCEPTIONALS, he digs in to moral and ethical questions framed in a remarkably straightforward context. What makes this play 'exceptional' is Clyman's ability to create a fairly humorous setup, and then ratchet up the tension to transform a simple story into a high-stakes drama. THE EXCEPTIONALS takes place in the office of a sperm bank specializing in matching women with chart-topping IQs with 'über sperm' to create exceptional children ... How far would parents go to help their child get ahead? How do they know they're making the right choices? Clyman's THE EXCEPTIONALS creates excitement and suspense around the most basic parenting questions." -Terry Byrne, The Boston Globe "Clyman's brilliance is that he doesn't use a soapbox to pound his point home. He puts great trust in his script's subtlety, and he banks on the audience's intelligence to get the message ... Clyman employs much humor and creates a handful of very human characters ... a highly successful, intelligent and chilling play." -The Nashua Telegraph

This collection includes six short plays: FLOWERS, TAPE, A TIGER IN CENTRAL PARK, GAS, THE CROOKED CROSS, and THE WINGED MAN. The genesis of these fairy tales for adults was Mr. Rivera's daughter who asked where fairy tales came from and was told that people made them up and put them in books. ''Oh, '' she replied, ''then giants have us in their books.'' The plays that followed were written ''as if we were the subject of stories told by giants." FLOWERS: Lulu's acne must have some cosmic meaning, perhaps punishment for her vanity, but when the acne morphs into hibiscus flowers, she believes she is cursed. Her little brother, Beto, however, sees an "unearthly beauty" in the flowers. TAPE: If we suspected everything we said was being recorded, would we act differently? A TIGER IN CENTRAL PARK: A runaway tiger renders the island of Manhattan impotent. GAS: A man goes to a gas station to fill up his tank. The Gulf War has just started, and the man's brother is fighting in it. The gas comes out red. THE CROOKED CROSS: A high-school girl dons swastika earrings, given to her by her boyfriend, and finds that her life soon turns into a nightmare. THE WINGED MAN: A young girl bears the child of a fabled flying man. "José Rivera's GIANTS HAVE US IN THEIR BOOKS, is subtitled 'Six Children's Plays for Adults.' The genesis of the plays, he explains in a program note, was his four-year-old daughter's observation that, if we have giants in our fairy tales, they must have us in theirs. Rivera wrote the plays, he says, 'as if we were the subject of fairy tales told by giants.' It's an apt notion. The six short plays in GIANTS have all the beautiful simplicity of fairy tales ... Rivera's prose has become more concentrated and spare, more pregnant with metaphor and poetry. The profuse and sometimes self-consciously fantastical stew of magic realism - which, like his mentor, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rivera insists is just another form of everyday reality - has been condensed so that each image carries greater weight. The six short fables in GIANTS add up to two hours of compelling, entertaining and provocative theater." -Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Examiner

Betsy Fullbright keeps hearing someone outside, or down the hall, call out yoo hoo. The television seems stuck on a program where people are burning flags. A goat seems to have been left out on the lawn and there may be a leopard prowling nearby. Meanwhile, the retirement home staff have vanished and most everyone else is away on a picnic. A silent black man, who arrived the night before, now sits in a wheelchair and stares at her. Could this be someone she knew once upon a time in Kenya? Did this person somehow follow her here after all these years? "A haunting, deeply compassionate play. With a beguiling mixture of playfulness and brutal honesty, Russell Davis explores the truths of culpability that often lurk just beyond our conscious reach." -David Strathairn "Russell Davis imagines the peaceful, even dull, domain of a contemporary retirement home. In THE DAY OF THE PICNIC, Julius Nkumbi pays a visit to Betsy Fullbright, a visit from her past in a distant land, a visit full of foreboding and hope. Quietly, spookily, Julius conflates past and present, a mysterious and sinister physical presence that brings today's violent headlines into historical perspective and immediate reality. That he's confined to a wheel chair only enhances our sense of his powers. Julius suggests a world in which our sense of the 'real' has little meaning and less effect. The play creates that world and its geographical and metaphysical borders poetically, in dramatic action, without lecturing, or preaching, or rhetoric. As spectators we're brought into a weirdly real confrontation with a deeply alien sensibility. Julius Nkumbi, without fanfare or mumbo jumbo, rolls into Betsy Fullbright's hitherto safe and satisfied life, forcing her to rethink that life and her self. And, entering her life, he enters our own, inviting us to do our own rethinking." -Abigail Adams, Artistic Director, People's Light & Theatre Company