Asian American Drama: 9 Plays from the Multiethnic Landscape (Applause Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)This anthology is a well-selected one.It has a wide range of plays of different styles, from romantic comedy to absurdist family drama to post-modern weirdness.In response to the reviewer (and many other critics) who say that this is not a distinctly Asian collection of plays, I say, that's mostly the point: what really separates an Asian-American playwright and a white playwright?Or the Asian-American experience against the Caucasian experience?Just what you see.

This anthology is proof positive that the Asian-American can and does do as much and as well as any other race.We are, in the end, all people experiencing the world through our own respective eyes.Maybe it just happens that a lot of people experience similar things.

The big problem, at least with the edition I read, is that there are numerous typographical errors.Sometimes a line is attributed to a character who shouldn't be in the scene.Some are misspelled (among the most egregiously, the name of Dwight Omata in the table of contents) and can be distracting to reading and, therefore, understanding the play.It is the only gripe that makes this product less than a perfect 5-star.

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Includes: Day Standing on its Head (Philp Kan Gotanda) * Tokyo Bound (Amy Hill) * Hiro (Denise Uyehara) * S.A.M. I Am (Dwight Omata) * and more.

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The Servant of Two Masters & Other Italian Classics (Paperback) (Eric Bentley's Dramatic Repertoire) Review

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(More customer reviews)We had to read this for a graduate class but it seems to be a good books for a range of students from upper highschool to PhD depending on how deeply you study the texts.

As my title suggests, this book is a good starting point to the study of Italian classics.

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An anthology of four classic Italian plays edited by Eric Bentley. Also includes directorial and technical notes.

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13 by Shanley: Thirteen Plays (Applause American Masters Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)I found the plays in "13 by Shanley" to be as outrageous, quirky, beautiful, and redeeming as his screenwork.Shanley has the uncanny ability to make you read him twice, because one reading doesn'tquite settle with you.I found myself reading a play in this collection,all the while thinking, "that's odd.I'm not too sure I care for thatone.Oh, well."Then, I'd wake up the next morning, with lines fromthe play nagging at me.I'd go back to it and, sure enough... "it'sbrilliant.How did I miss that before?"
Shanley isn't everyone'scup of tea.However, if you have any kind of appreciative bone in yourbody for passionately quirky romances like "Moonstruck" ormoodily misunderstood fairlytales like "Joe Versus The Volcano"(my personal all-time favorite)... then I STRONGLY urge you to pick up"13 by Shanley" for 13 cultured tales of love, beauty, andself-discovery.
Shanley's a genius.He's in a class by himself.

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Thirteen plays by the Oscar-winning author of Moonstruck. Includes: "The Big Funk," "Savage in Limbo," "Danny and The Deep Blue Sea," "Welcome to the Moon," "The Red Coat," "Down and Out," "Let Us Go Out Into the Starry Night," "Out West," "A Lonely Impulse of Delight," "Women of Manhattan," "The Dreamer Examines His Pillow," "Italian-American Reconciliation," and "Beggars in the House of Plenty." Also includes an introduction by the author.

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The Unseen Hand and Other Plays by Sam Shepard (Applause Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)WOW! This book is absolutely electrifying.I was first turned on to Sam Shepard from reading "True West", one of his later amazing plays.As I read more and more I thought I had a good understanding of hiswriting:until I read this book.This book contains many of Shepard'searlier plays from the time he first landed in New York and, as hisroommate Charles Mingus Jr. has said "Would go into a room with a reamof paper and come out two hours later with a finished play".If youhave really enjoyed some of Shepard's later stuff, I definetly recommendthis book to give you a fresh perspective on someone who literally turns"conventional theatre" upside down.If you are new to Shepard,you might want to tryhis later works first, only because they are easier tofollow.These earlier works are very much like the "Beatgeneration"- throwing out speeches and sentences without punctuation,with tons of craziness happening on every inch of the stage.Sometimes theplays may be hard to follow, or confusing, but if you really"get" what Shepard is doing, you will love this book.Just bewarned that all the plays are far from conventional theatre.If you are an"Our Town" type of person this isn't for you.If you enjoy Albeeand Beckett, if you enjoy equal parts peace and chaos on stage, then checkthis book out.

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Product Description:
The complete scripts to six Sam Shepard plays: The Unseen Hand ¥ Forensic and the Navigators ¥ The Holy Ghostly ¥ Back Bog Beast Bait ¥ Shaved Splits ¥ 4-H Club.

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On the Open Road: New York Shakespeare Edition (Applause Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is quite simply the finest play in American drama.It goes next to "Waiting For Godet" as the quintessential play of the modern era. It is insightful, provocative, and hilarious. The protagonists, Al andAngel, are the heroes of a new time.Tesich was a genius and his death wasa great loss to the theatre community. Once in a lifetime a play willchange your life; this play is the one that changed mine.

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Set in a landscape stripped bare by civil war, two "independents" forge an alliance of convenience in order to buy their way into the land of the free, the one safe haven in an otherwise lawless landscape. Hiding from marauding armies, they travel the country, gathering great art treasures from crumbling museums. But with the border to freedom in sight, they're captured by forces from the new coalition government. They can still buy their freedom - if they agree to do one little job for the new government.

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The National Black Drama Anthology: Eleven Plays from America's Leading African-American Theaters (Applause Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is a beautiful represention of today's Black theater.We so often "forget" that there are talented Black playwrights, who are rarely given notice.The book shows the broad spectrum of life and viewsin one culture.Today I notice and give accolades to those with the Godgiven talent of dramatic creativity.

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"Though New York remains the de facto capital of American theater, much of the most daring and interesting work today is done by regional theaters. This is doubly true of plays by African American authors, who, despite a few notable exceptions (August Wilson, George C. Wolfe), suffer under a commercial apartheid that keeps black plays off Broadway. Of necessity, African American theater artists have to create their own venues from the ground up. This wide-ranging anthology edited by the founder of the New Federal Theater celebrates the work of that companyÕs black-owned, black-run peers by presenting work by 11 dramatists. Among the most interesting are Jeff StetsonÕs moving The Meeting, which imagines a meeting between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and Shauneille PerryÕs fascinating updating of In Dahomey, the 1903 musical hit that was the first Õall-Black showÕ on Broadway." - Jack Helbig, Booklist

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