"A play of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes and memory covering all the important subjects--mothers, prom dresses, mothers, buying bras, mothers, hating purses and why we only wear black."--Page 4 of cover.

THE STORY: HAVING OUR SAY opens as 103-year-old Sadie Delany and 101-year-old Bessie Delany welcome us into their Mount Vernon, New York, home. As they prepare a celebratory dinner in remembrance of their father's birthday, they take us on a remark

THE STORY: HANK WILLIAMS: LOST HIGHWAY is the spectacular musical biography of the legendary singer-songwriter frequently mentioned alongside Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, Duke Ellington, Elvis and Bob Dylan as one of the great innovators of Ame

"In Stephen Lang's theatrical adaptation of Larry Smith's book Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words, Lang presents the stories of eight veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, rendering firsthand accounts of the actions which resulted in each of them receiving the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor. Beyond glory gathers these men together in the present to look back on the defining moments of their lives and to examine the meaning of courage, duty, and, ultimately, humility"--Page 4 of cover.

The complete memoirs of Neil Simon, the greatest—and most successful—American playwright of all time, the author of such iconic works as Lost in Yonkers , The Odd Couple , Biloxi Blues , and The Goodbye Girl , now with an insightful Introduction by Nathan Lane. This omnibus edition combines Neil Simon’s two memoirs, Rewrites and The Play Goes On , into one volume that spans his extraordinary five-decade career in theater, television, and film. Rewrites takes Simon through his first love, his first play, and his first brush with failure. There is the humor of growing up in Washington Heights (the inspiration for his play Brighton Beach Memoirs ) where, despite his parents’ rocky marriage and many separations, he learned to see the funny side of family drama, as when his mother thought she saw a body on the floor in their apartment—and it turned out to be the clothes his father discarded in the hallway after a night of carousing. He describes his marriage to his beloved wife, Joan, and writes lucidly about the pain of losing her to cancer. The Play Goes On adds to his life’s story, as he wins the Pulitzer Prize and reflects with humor and insight on his tumultuous life and meteoric career. “Neil Simon’s terrific memoirs are worth revisiting” ( New York Post ). Now, with the whole story in one place, he traces the history of modern entertainment over the last fifty years as seen through the eyes of a man who started life the son of a garment salesman and became the greatest—and most successful—American playwright of all time.

A Rolls Royce Silver Cloud drove him to airports; the British film industry kowtowed to his power; the great Hollywood studios fawned at his feet.Sir Alexander Korda, one of the world's most flamboyant movie tycoons, rose from obscurity in rural Hungary to become a legendary filmmaker. With him were his brothers, Zoltan and Vincent, all living charmed lives in circles that included H. G. Wells, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Marlena Dietrich, Vivien Leigh, and Merle Oberon, who was soon to be Alex's wife. But along with Alex's flair for success was an equally powerful impulse for destruction. Now, Vincent's son, Michael Korda, in the first book of his memoirs, recalls the enchanted figures of his childhood...the glory days of the Korda brothers' great films...and then their heartbreaking, tragic end.

The definitive memoir of Arthur Miller--the famous playwright of The Crucible , All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , A View from the Bridge , and other plays-- Timebends reveals Miller's incredible trajectory as a man and a writer. Born in 1915, Miller grew up in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s, developed leftist political convictions during the Great Depression, achieved moral victory against McCarthyism in the 1950s, and became president of PEN International near the end of his life, fighting for writers' freedom of expression. Along the way, his prolific output established him as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century--he wrote twenty-two plays, various screenplays, short stories, and essays, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949 for Death of a Salesman and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1947 for All My Sons . Miller also wrote the screenplay for The Misfits, Marilyn Monroe's final film. This memoir also reveals the incredible host of notables that populated his life, including Marilyn Monroe, Elia Kazan, Clark Gable, Sir Laurence Olivier, John F. Kennedy, and Mikhail Gorbachev. Leaving behind a formidable reputation in the worlds of theater, cinema, and politics, Arthur Miller died in 2005 but his memoir continues his legacy.

In his historic play The Melting Pot, Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) introduced into our discourse a potent metaphor that for nearly a hundred years has served as a key definition of the United States. The play, enthusiastically espoused by President Theodore Roosevelt, to whom it was dedicated, offered a grand vision of America as a dynamic process of ethnic and racial amalgamation. By his own admission, The Melting Pot grew out of Zangwill's intense involvement in issues of Jewish immigration and resettlement and was grounded in his interpretation of Jewish history. Zangwill, Anglo Jewry's most renowned writer, began writing seriously for the stage in the late 1890s. At the time, the negative stereotype of the so-called Stage Jew was still deeply entrenched in the theatrical mainstream, so much so that Jewish playwrights writing for the English-language stage avoided altogether the portrayal of Jewish life. Zangwill shattered this silence in 1899 with the American premiere of Children of the Ghetto―his first full-length drama, and the first English-language play devoted in its entirety to the depiction of Jewish life in an authentic and positive fashion. The play's groundbreaking production drew tremendous attention and generated heated debates, but since the script was never published, the memory of the passions it generated dimmed, and its whereabouts eventually became unknown. After more than a century, theater historian Edna Nahshon has discovered the original manuscript of this milestone text, as well as that of another unpublished Zangwill play, The King of Schnorrers, and the original version of The Melting Pot. Nahshon brings these three works together in print for the first time in From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot. Edna Nahshon's in-depth introduction to this volume includes a biography of Israel Zangwill that especially pertains to these works and situates them within the Anglo-American theater of the time. The essays preceding each play provide rich and hitherto unknown information on the scripts, their stage productions, and their popular and critical reception. While some issues addressed in From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot are uniquely Jewish, others are universal and typical of the negotiation of self-presentation by ethnic and minority groups, particularly within the American experience.

""Impromptu Man captures the remarkable impact of a singular genius, J.L. Moreno, whose creations-the best-known being psychodrama-have shaped our culture in myriad ways, many unrecognized. The record will be set straight for all time by this can't-put-down biography, a tribute by Jonathan D. Moreno to his father's masterly legacy." -DANIEL GOLEMAN, author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ J.L. Moreno (1889-1974), the father of psychodrama, was an early critic of Sigmund Freud, wrote landmark works of Viennese expressionism, founded an experimental theater where he discovered Peter Lorre, influenced Martin Buber, and became one of the most important psychiatrists and social scientists of his time. ?? A mystic, theater impresario and inventor in his youth, Moreno immigrated to America in 1926, where he trained famous actors, introduced group therapy, and was a forerunner of humanistic psychology. As a social reformer, he reorganized schools and prisons, and designed New Deal planned communities for workers and farmers. Moreno's methods have been adopted by improvisational theater groups, military organizations, educators, business leaders, and trial lawyers. His studies of social networks laid the groundwork for social media like Twitter and Facebook. ?? Featuring interviews with Clay Shirky, Gloria Steinem, and Werner Erhard, among others, original documentary research, and the author's own perspective growing up as the son of an innovative genius, Impromptu Man is both the study of a great and largely unsung figure of the last century and an epic history, taking readers from the creative chaos of early twentieth-century Vienna to the wired world of Silicon Valley. Jonathan D. Moreno, called the "most interesting bioethicist of our time" by the American Journal of Bioethics, is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. "--

Two of the Best in the Neighbourhood is a backstage account of the creation and continued life of the smash hit play 2 Pianos 4 Hands. (This volume also includes the full script of the play.) With contributions from the principal players of this story, including many from co-creator Ted Dykstra, Greenblatt takes us from the genesis of the idea to the blockbuster cross-Canada tour and to productions in the US, England, and Japan. A highly personal and subjective tale filled with anecdotes that span almost three decades, Two of the Best in the Neighbourhood is a glimpse into a fascinating chapter of Canadian theatre history. 2 Pianos 4 Hands tells the story of Ted and Richard, who grow up as "piano nerds," dealing with pushy parents, eccentric teachers, hours of repetitive practice, stage fright, the agony of competitions and exams, and the dream of greatness. As they mature, they become more aware of the gap between the merely very good and the great, and they come to the humbling realization that although concert stardom may be out of reach, they just might be two of the best piano players in the neighbourhood--and that in itself is worth celebrating.

Adapted by Norman Corwin Dramatic Comedy Characters: 2 male, 1 female Simple Set Carl Sandburg's works, adapted by Norman Corwin, as first performed by Bette Davis and Lief Erickson, and a host of others in New York and on tour. The best of the Pulitzer Prize-winner's verse, including some previously unpublished; and prose, including the biography of Lincoln; and interspersed with optional American folk songs from his songbag. "Playful and serious, childlike and wise, com

By Various Authors Including Max Beerbohm, Aldous Huxley, H. G. Wells, Laurence Housman, And Others.

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players ..." But how do we take our place in the drama and understand our ever-changing roles? From Shakespeare's infant, "mewling and puking in the nurse's arms" through to the "second childishness and mere oblivion" of old age, Braham Murray draws on over half a century of experience in the theatre, to reflect, through the prism of the world's greatest drama and its most insightful philosophers, on what it is to be human. Curious and compassionate in equal measure, he takes a contemporary voyage through the Seven Ages of Man, isolating what gives each one its unique character, mining each for enlightenment, inspiration and hope. And in the end of this eventful history, he does find hope - if, like the great dramatists he cites - we acknowledge the choices we have, both for ourselves and for mankind; and we acknowledge, as the theatre has always done, that what binds us together is a shared humanity greater than the powers that seek to drive us apart.

The plays collected within this volume are social dramas and tragedies. They bear witness to human suffering, and to fine yet vain struggles to vanquish this suffering. Four of these plays were written in prison, others were banned. This early work by Ernst Toller was originally published in 1934, we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography.

This rare text contains a tragedy that details an injured WWI veteran s endeavours to assimilate back into normal life. Written by the German revolutionary playwright Ernst Toller during his time spent in the prison-fortress of Niederschoenenfeld, this fascinating and engaging play is a must-have for fans of his work and collectors of antiquarian literature. This scarce text was originally published in 1922 and is proudly republished here with a new prefatory biography of the author. Ernst Toller (1893 1939) was a German playwright best known for his seminal expressionist plays. This text has been elected for republication due to its immense literary value and in the hope that it will continue to be read and studied for generations to come."