The Actor’s Book of Scenes from New Plays

Description

Today’s most exciting work for the stage is emerging far from Broadway’s “mainstream,” at Off and Off-off Broadway theaters, at regional companies around the country, and from abroad.  Here is an up-to-the-minute collection of scenes—ideally suited for both classroom and audition use—from the best dramatists now being produced.Scenes From New PlaysIntroduction

Scenes For One Man And One Woman
Am I Blue—Beth Henley
The Art of Dining—Tina Howe
Asian Shade—Larry Ketron
Betrayal—Harold Pinter
Beyond Therapy—Christopher Durang
Danny and the Deep Blue Sea—John Patrick Shanley
A Different Moon—Ara Watson
Domino Courts—William Hauptman
the dreamer examines his pillow—John Patrick Shanley
Edmond—David Mamet
Entertaining Mr. Sloane—Joe Orton
FOB—David Henry Hwang
Getting Out—Marsha Norman
Hello and Goodbye—Athol Fugard
Huryburly—David Rabe
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone—August Wilson
A Kind of Alaska—Harold Pinter
Landscape of the Body—John Guare
Life and the Limb—Keith Reddin
Mojo—Alice Childress
Open Admissions—Shirley Lauro
Out of Gas on Lovers Leap—Mark St. Germain
Progress—Doug Lucie
Quartermaine’s Terms—Simon Gray
Reckless—Craig Lucas
The Red Coat—John Patrick Shanley
Stops Along the Way—Jeffrey Sweet
Strange Snow—Steve Metcalfe
A Taste of Honey—Shelagh Delaney
Vanishing Act—Richard Greenberg
A Weekend Near Madison—Kathleen Tolan
What the Butler Saw—Joe Orton
The Wrong Man—Laura Harrington

Scenes For Two Women
Between Daylight and Boonville—Matt Williams
Blue Christmas—Eric Lane
Elm Circle—Mick Casale
Final Placement—Ara Watson
Footfalls—Samuel Beckett
Graceland—Ellen Byron
Homesteaders—Nina Shengold
Hothouse—Megan Terry
In the Boom Boom Room—David Rabe
Laundry and Bourbon—James McLure
Lydie Breeze—John Guare
The Mound Builders—Landford Wilson
Sarita—Marie Irene Fornes
Savage in Limbo—John Patrick Shanley
A Taste of Honey—Shelagh Delaney
Top Girls—Caryl Churchill
Waiting for the Parade—John Murrell

Scenes For Two Men
The Blood Knot—Athol Fugard
The Colored Museum—George C. Wolfe
The Dance and the Railroad—David Henry Hwang
Father Dreams—Mary Gallagher
Fences—August Wilson
Highest Standard of Living—Keith Reddin
The House of Ramon Iglesia—Jose Rivera
How I Got That Story—Amlin Gray
A Lie of the Mind—Sam Shepard
The Mound Builders—Lanford Wilson
The Nerd—Larry Shue
The Normal Heart—Larry Kramer
Not About Heroes—Stephen MacDonald
A Prayer for My Daughter—Thomas Babe
Principia Scriptoriae—Richard Nelson
Ties—Jeffrey Sweet
Victoria Station—Harold Pinter
Vivien—Percy Granger
What’s Wrong with This Picture?—Donald Margulies

Eric Lane has edited 12 contemporary play anthologies for Viking Penguin and Vintage Books with his longtime collaborator, Nina Shengold, earning them a Lambda Literary Award nomination. Eric’s plays have been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel, and China, and include Ride, Floating, Heart of the City, Times of War, and Dancing on Checkers’ Grave. Eric wrote and produced the short films First Breath and Cater-Waiter, which he also directed. For TV’s Ryan’s Hope, he received a Writers Guild Award. His honors include the La MaMa Playwright Award, the Berilla Kerr Award, plus fellowships at Yaddo and St. James Cavalier in Malta. Eric is an honors graduate of Brown University, and is the artistic director of Orange Thoughts Productions, a not-for-profit theater and film company in New York City.

Nina Shengold‘s plays include Finger Foods, War at Home, Homesteaders, and Romeo/Juliet, and have been produced around the world. Her one-act No Shoulder was filmed by director Suzi Yoonessi, with Melissa Leo and Samantha Sloyan. Nina won a Writers Guild Award for her teleplay Labor of Love, starring Marcia Gay Harden; other teleplays include Blind Spot, with Joanne Woodward and Laura Linney, and Unwed Father. Her books include the novels Clearcut, River of Words: Portraits of Hudson Valley Writers (with photographer Jennifer May), and a growing posse of pseudonymous books for young readers. A graduate of Wesleyan, she is currently teaching creative writing at Manhattanville College. Nina lives in New York’s Hudson Valley, where she has been books editor of Chronogram magazine since 2004.US

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