The One-Act Play Companion
The One-Act Play Companion

Author: Colin Dolley

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-01-30

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1408103168

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The one-act play stands apart as a distinct art form with some well known writers providing specialist material, among them Bernard Shaw, Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, Caryl Churchill. Alan Ayckbourn, Edward Albee and Tennesee Williams. There are also lesser-known writers with plenty of material to offer, yet sourcing one-act plays to perform is notoriously hard. This companion is the first book to survey the work of over 250 playwrights in an illuminating A-Z guide. Multiple styles, nationalities and periods are covered, offering a treasure trove of compelling moments of theatre waiting to be discovered. Guidance on performing and staging one-act plays is also covered as well as essential contact information and where to apply for performance rights. A chapter introducing the history of the one-act play rounds off the title as a definitive guide.

Somewhere in America – Six One-Act Plays
Somewhere in America – Six One-Act Plays

Author: William Inge

Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Published: 2016-05-16

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 0822232782

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THE STORIES: BAD BREATH. What starts as a seemingly light spoof of 1960s Mad Men-era advertising and the All-American Family turns darker, exposing lies and betrayals behind the glossy sheen. (6 men, 9 women, doubling.) CINDERELLA. This sharp and sly retelling is set in a pretentious middle-class home, somewhere in America. But this young woman seems to have everything in hand to save herself. (4 women.) THE DISPOSAL. Jess was convicted for killing his pregnant wife, and now he sits on death row, awaiting execution today. He alternates between calm acceptance and violent hysteria, raging at his fellow inmates and the prison’s chaplain. Jess is desperate for forgiveness from his father, but his father refuses to accept that Jess is guilty, robbing his son of the possibility of some kind of understanding. (8 men, 1 woman.) A HERO OF OUR TIME. Bonnie and Vic are teenage neighbors who have the eye for one another, but their families keep them apart. Bonnie’s father worries that his daughter hangs out with bad company. Vic’s religious and conservative mother wants her son to steer clear of impure thoughts and deeds. And so the parents condemn their children to lives of dissolution and repression. (4 men, 4 women.) A MURDER. A private man with a box of memories seeks lodging at a strange boarding house—a place where the weather and time itself can change in an instant. When the man discovers the dead body of a young boy in the wardrobe, we wonder if we really have crossed over into another dimension. (2 men, 1 woman.) VENUS IN THERAPY. The owner of a small beauty parlor in a country village, Venus loves to be in love. She seems to be ageless, and it’s possible that she really is an embodiment of the goddess of love. But this Venus feels that her lifelong desire has become a curse, and that in the face of sexual obsession, people don’t think of love as something real. (6 men, 7 women, doubling.)