Anthologies Books

All in the Timing: Fourteen Plays

David Ives

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The world according to David Ives is a very add place, and his plays constitute a virtual stress test of the English language -- and of the audience's capacity for disorientation and delight. Ives's characters plunge into black holes called "Philadelphias," where the simplest desires are hilariously thwarted. Chimps named Milton, Swift, and Kafka are locked in a room and made to re-create Hamlet. And a con man peddles courses in a dubious language in which "hello" translates as "velcro" and "fraud" comes out as "freud."

At once enchanting and perplexing, incisively intelligent and side-splittingly funny, this original paperback edition of Ives's plays includes "Sure Thing," "Words, Words, Words," "The Universal Language," "Variations on the Death of Trotsky," "The Philadelphia," "Long Ago and Far Away," "Foreplay, or The Art of the Fugue," "Seven Menus," "Mere Mortals," "English Made Simple," "A Singular Kinda Guy," "Speed-the-Play," "Ancient History," and "Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread."

Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Well, *I* think they're very funny... 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

... and so do a number of my students, to whom I've recommended this book as they look for material. Sure, I have my favorites among them -- and they don't ALL work for me -- but I think Shengold and Lane have done a real service by collecting off-beat and very hip material. I look at scene anthologies all the time, and this one is among the freshest and sharpest I know. If you're an actor looking for comic material, I recommend it highly!

Editorial Review:

This one-of-a-kind anthology features thirty-six hilarious short plays by major American playwrights and emerging new voices, all guaranteed to send readers and audiences into peals of laughter.

From the surrealistic wit of Steve Martin's "The Zig-Zag Woman" to the biting political satire of Steven Dietz's "The Spot," from Christopher Durang's wonderfully loopy "Wanda's Visit" to Shel Silverstein's supremely twisted "The Best Daddy," there's something in here to make everyone laugh. There are plays for casts of all sizes, from monologues to large ensembles, with diverse and challenging roles for actors of every age and type. Even the titles are funny: Mark O'Donnell's "There Shall Be No Bottom (a bad play for worse actors)," Elaine May's "The Way of All Fish," and Alan Ball's "Your Mother's Butt." A bonanza for theatergoers, performers, and comedy fans, Laugh Lines will bring down the house.

Monologues for Young Actors

Lorraine Cohen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Um... i think i'll return this one 2 out of 5 stars.
11 of 17 people found this review helpful.

i bought this book with little experience with monolouges but after buying a few other books this one doesnt even help me. the monologues cant be acted truly because you really dont know what they mean. they're not significant and i wouldn't use any of them for an audition.

Editorial Review:

In professional and student theater alike, a good monlogue can often mean the difference between a "Thank you . . . Next!" and a call-back. But sometimes it's hard for an aspiring actor to find the absolutely right audition piece that suits his or her personal style, type or age group.

Monologues For Young Actors is a unique and invaluable collection of dramatic speeches from some of the world's greatest plays -- chosen specifically for actors in their teens and early twenties.

Whether you're looking for something comedic or tragic, contemporary or classic, unorthodox or naturalistic, this superb compilation has the monologue you need -- an indispensible tool to help you hone you craft . . . and land that role.

5 Christmas Plays for Children (Plays)

Peg Augustine

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Theatre for Young Audiences: 20 Great Plays for Children

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Presented with the right plays, children are the most honest and appreciative of audiences. This anthology, compiled by an authority on children's theatre, collects new and overlooked scripts that represent the best of modern playwriting for children. From works adapted from classic children's stories to original contemporary scripts, each play inspires the imagination as it entertains.

With complete scripts for twenty plays plus a biographical sketch of each playwright, Theatre for Young Audiences is invaluable for anyone involved in children's theatre, from community theatre groups to teachers and students of dramatic literature.

Plays included in this book:

Charlotte's Web ... Joseph Robinette
The Arkansas Bear ... Aurand Harris
Really Rosie ... Maurice Sendak
The Secret Garden ... Pam Sterling
Wiley and the Hairy Man ... Suzan Zeder
According to Coyote ... John Kauffman
The Mischief Makers ... Lowell Swortzell
The Wise Men of Chelm ... Sandra F. Asher
Crow & Weasel ... Jim Leonard
The Ice Wolf ... Joanna H. Kraus
Home on the Mornin' Train ... Kim Hines
The Falcon ... Greg Palmer
The Man-Child ... Arnold Rabin
Hush: An Interview with America ... James Still
Bocon! ... Lisa Loomer
The Crane Wife ... Barbara Carlisle
Jungalbook ... Edward Mast
A Thousand Cranes ... Kathryn S. Miller
The Yellow Boat ... David Saar
Selkie ... Laurie Brooks Gollobin

Take Ten: New 10-Minute Plays

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Take This Collection 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

If you are only going to own one collection of 10-minute plays, this is the one to own. The choices are well written, show variety, and are infinitely produceable in small spaces.

Editorial Review:

A ten-minute play is a streak of theatrical lightning. It doesn't last long, but its power can stand your hair on end. This splendid anthology contains enough wattage to light up a small city. For in its pages, thirty-two of our finest playwrights hone their skills on a form that has been called the haiku of the American stage. The plays that Nina Shengold and Eric Lane have collected in this volume range from monologues to an eight-character farce. Eminently producible, ideally suited for the classroom and audition, Take Ten is a marvelous resource for teachers and students of drama, as well as a stimulating read for lovers of the theatre. Contributors include: John Augustine, Cathy Celesia, Laura Cunningham, Joe Pintauro, Mary Sue Price, Megan Terry, Jose Rivera, Romulus Linney, David Mamet, Jane Martin, David Ives, and many others.

Contemporary Scenes for Student Actors

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

good,but nothing special 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 13 people found this review helpful.

This book was good and did help a little but only on scenes you must do without exception.I would suggest a monolog book by peg kehret or some other title.I have found that Meriwether Publishing LTD. has a very good selection of wonderful books for this catagory.Happy hunting

Liked it very much - 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book has a wide range of scenes - for 2 men, 2 woman, one man, one woman. Great scenes from old classics - The Lion in Winter, The Children's Hour, etc. If you don't want to do the same old scenes, this book is great. It's not a how-to, just the scenes. Schulman & Mekler are great anyway. They have other good compilations.

Contemporary Scenes for Student Actors 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I'm a librarian, and I wish I had at least two more copies of this book. It is checked out more by students than many of our books in the drama section. I hope to see more books like this one.

Three Plays: Desire Under The Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra

Eugene O'Neill

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Three great and rarely performed plays by Eugene O'Neill 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 18 people found this review helpful.

One of these three great plays by Eugene O'Neill is Strange Interlude which was written in 1923 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928 when it originally ran on Broadway. Its running time is over four hours and it is usually performed with a dinner break. It is a family chronicle, of sorts, following the life of Nina Leeds and her family in a small university town in New England - from her early days as a young woman mourning the loss of her ideal lover during WWI, through her middle age years. It is the story of a family's secret and their determination to keep this secret unknown by others, and sometimes even to themselves. The play's most unusual quality, though, is found in the words that each character speaks. Not only do they converse with each other using naturalistic dialogue, but they also voice their subtext, which is unheard by the other characters in the play, but is heard by the audience. This device brings to the surface the secret life that each character in the play carries with them but is not willing to reveal to others. It creates, in the audience, as if it were another character in the play, a "sharer" of these stage characters' secrets. Through it all we view the lives of these characters with a fondness, and we root for them. Perhaps we root for them because we know, very much, why they are doing the things they do to each other.

The two other plays are well worth the experience of reading and/or seeing on stage. Mourning Becomes Electra, based on the Greek Electra myth, is especially wonderful. Its set in post civil war america and like Strange Interlude its length makes it a rare theatre treat to see performed on stage.

Editorial Review:

These three plays exemplify Eugene O'Neil's ability to explore the limits of the human predicament, even as he sounds the depths of his audiences' hearts.

Four Plays by Aristophanes: The Birds; The Clouds; The Frogs; Lysistrata (Meridian classics)

Aristophanes

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Get on the right page 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 9 people found this review helpful.

The reviews attached here seem to refer to another collection by another translator--the Arrowsmith edition, apparently. Instead of "Clouds" we have two lesser plays--"Parliament of Women" and "Wealth." The translation's lively, the notes very helpful, the glossary mentioned in other reviews is absent here. All in all, a very useful introduction to Aristophanes, and endless fun.

ancient Greek comedy at its best 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Aristophanes was to theatre what Socrates was to religion and politics--the funny, irreverent "bad boy." My favorite of these 4 plays has to be "The Clouds", which is in fact a parody mocking and making fun of Socrates (spelled or mis-spelled Sokrates). Very funny dialogue.

David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"

Editorial Review:

The acknowledged master of Greek comedy, Aristophanes brilliantly combines serious political satire with bawdiness, pyrotechnical bombast with delicate lyrics. This volumes features his four most celebrated masterpieces: THE CLOUDS, THE BIRDS, LYSISTRATA, and THE FROGS. Three of the leading translators of the 20th century--William Arrowsmith, Richmond Lattimore, and Douglas Parker--have created versions of the comedies that are at once contemporary, historically accurate, and funny. Also included are introductions to each play that describe the historical and literary background of the work.

Christmas on Stage: An Anthology of Royalty-Free Christmas Plays for All Ages

Theodore O. Zapel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Very well written 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

I rec'd my shipment much sooner than expected, so that was my first good reaction. I was delighted by the contents. It is categorized by early preschool to adults/teens, there are readings for solo and for theatre and these can be adapted to suit whatever audience/actors available that you have. Clearly explained outline in the production notes with written and diagramed instructions. The scripts are clear throughout the book. Categories from a traditional view to a modern twist on an old story. Very well done and a welcome addition to our home. I will be using one for our Christmas program coming shortly and there's no worry about memorization for this one! My favorite part of this book is that this treasure trove of plays are royalty free!

Editorial Review:

A collection of 27 royalty-free plays and readings for Christmas (various cast).