A collection of one-act plays from American playwrights, which cover such themes as love, fantasy, politics, grief, marriage, crime, and deceit.

A collection of one-act plays from American playwrights, which cover such themes as love, fantasy, politics, grief, marriage, crime, and deceit.

A collection of one-act plays from American playwrights, which cover such themes as love, fantasy, politics, grief, marriage, crime, and deceit.

This second volume of the best monologues from the Best American Short Plays series features a diverse selection drawn from the outstanding works from many of today's best American playwrights. In these monologues, the playwrights capture much of the flavors, feelings, and thoughts of American culture over the past several decades. The result is a collection of taught, engaging monologues offering fascinating perspectives. They are written with an eye toward the stage that makes them excellent source material for actors young and old alike. And they offer a freshness and directness that make them excellent companions for readers attracted to good, often quirky, and always engaging contemporary literature.

(Best American Short Plays). Best Monologues from Best American Short Plays, Volume One is a must for actors of all ages beginners as well as seasoned veterans and belongs in the libraries of all theater teachers looking for new and exciting material for their students. The monologues in this volume are excerpted from the outstanding series Best American Short Plays, an archive of works from many of the best playwrights active today, presenting taut, engaging single-character pieces that range from zany comedy to poignant tales of love and loss. Each monologue includes a short introduction and a reference identifying where to locate the entire play, should anyone choose to pursue production beyond the monologue. Long or short, serious or not, this collection is must-have material for anyone interested in acting. The monologues also succeed as excellent companions for the casual reader.

(Best American Short Plays). "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Really? Words can break spirits, destroy confidence. They can also build hope and incite great acts of heroism. Playwrights know this, and so do theater audiences. Otherwise, why go? Words matter and carry clout every bit as dangerous as a hammer or crowbar. This, too, playwrights know. The monologues in this volume are full of such blows, striking at our imaginations and our memories, generating responses such as joyful laughter or chilling surprise. Others squeeze us into worlds we've never experienced, or perhaps experienced at the furthest edges of memory and recollection. Still others may help us alter the way we see certain things, people, or beliefs. Best Monologues from The Best American Short Plays, Volume Three is a collection of monologues drawn from the popular Best American Short Plays series, an archive of works from many of the best playwrights active today. Long or short, serious or not, excerpts or entireties, this collection abounds in speech acts that may trigger physical reactions and almost certainly will transform an attitude or two, drawing out lost memories, creating new ones, and definitely entertaining, engaging, amusing us all along the way.

(Best American Short Plays). Applause is proud to continue the series that for over 60 years has been the standard of excellence for one-act plays in America. Our editor Barbara Parisi has selected the following 16 plays: DEBOOM: WHO GIVES THIS WOMAN? , by Mark Medoff; And Then , by Amelia Arenas; The Cleaning , by Zilvinas Jonusas; Breakfast and Bed , by Amy Fox; The News from St. Petersburg , by Rich Orloff; Double Murder , by Scott Klavan; Running in Circles Screaming , by Jeni Mahoney; Witness , by Peter Maloney; Asteroid Belt , by Lauren Feldman; Glass Knives , by Liliana Almendarez; Hearts and Minds , by Adam Kraar; In Conclusive Woman , by Julie (Pratt) Mollenkamp; Mixed MeSSages , by Mike Pasternack; Amoureque and Arabesque , by Victor Gluck; and The Birth of Theater , by Jules Tasca.

(Applause Books). For over 70 years, The Best American Short Plays has been the standard of excellence for one-act plays in America. From its inception, it has identified cutting-edge playwrights who have gone on to establish award-winning careers, including Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and more. In this volume, the plays capture the struggle between "hot tempers and cold decrees." Humans love to think of themselves as rational beings well in control of their lives and surroundings from sunup to sundown, sundown to sunrise. We learn to follow rules of proper behavior and more than happily issue out advice to our friends who just can't get a handle on themselves. Restraint and order, after all, are the cornerstones of human society and civilization. The problem is that human nature bucks and bridles at every attempt to socialize and civilize. Shakespeare got it right when he penned the observation, "The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree." In those few words he has managed to capture precisely why it is so difficult to be human; if it were okay simply to let our hot tempers prevail, life would be so much easier. But cold decrees are what prevent us from self-destruction, and so we endure the struggle.

Applause is proud to continue the series that for over 70 years has been the standard of excellence for one-act plays in America. As previous series editor Ramon Delgado wrote in his introduction to The Best American Short Plays of 1989, the choice of entries for each edition has been based on the same goal: “to include a balance among three categories of playwrights: 1) established playwrights who continue to practice the art and craft of the short play, 2) emerging playwrights whose record of productions indicate both initial achievement and continuing artistic productivity, and 3) talented new playwrights whose work may not have had much exposure but evidences promise for the future.” From its inception, The Best American Short Plays has identified new, cutting-edge playwrights who have gone on to establish award-winning careers, including Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Wendy Wasserstein, David Mamet, and Horton Foote. This volume, Bill Demastes' first edition as series editor, illustrates how well the short story play can grapple with the many dimensions of love. The selected plays present unique perspectives on the wide range of love's impact on our lives, each giving a thoroughly modern twist to the idea that life would be so much easier (but also much less interesting) if we could only avoid love's mercurial influence.

A collection of one-act plays from American playwrights, which cover such themes as love, fantasy, politics, grief, marriage, crime, and deceit.