The plays below represent a selection of recent drama available at Watzek Library. If you know of a play that you believe should be in the collection, please let Erica know!
A Strange Loop by
Usher is a Black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical: a piece about a Black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical. Michael R. Jackson's blistering musical follows a young artist at war with a host of demons - not least of which are the punishing thoughts in his own head - in an attempt to understand his own strange loop. A Strange Loop received its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in New York in the summer of 2019. It went on to win the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Call Number: ML50.J147 S7 2020Publication Date: 2020
The Thanksgiving Play / What Would Crazy Horse Do? by
In The Thanksgiving Play, a group of well-intentioned white teaching artists scramble to create an ambitious "woke" Thanksgiving pageant that also celebrates Native American Heritage Month. Amidst their eagerness to put on the most culturally sensitive show possible, things quickly begin to devolve into the absurd, showing how even those with good intentions can be undone by their own blind spots. Inspired by historical interest in the KKK's collaborations with Indigenous groups, What Would Crazy Horse Do? examines the lives of Calvin and Journey--twins who are the last two members of Marahotah clan. Floundering after their grandfather's passing, they form a suicide pact in case their lives on the reservation become too hopeless. However, when two white strangers arrive claiming their families have a shared history, the twins' world is torn wide open.
Call Number: PS3606.A784 T47 2021Publication Date: 2021
Stew by
The Tucker women are up early to prepare a very important meal, or at least that's what Mama says. As the day wears on, the little dramas that always take place in the kitchen boil over, making a mess of everything. STEW explores the substance of that special stuff passed between kinswomen and how the secrets we keep from our mothers eventually become the secrets we keep from ourselves.
Call Number: PS3608.O9428 S74 2021Publication Date: 2021
The Kilroys List, Volume Two by
The Kilroys are back with a new collection of 67 monologues and scenes by female and trans playwrights. The second volume includes a monologue or scene from each play from the 2016 version of The List (featuring plays that were unproduced at the time of nomination) and the 2017 version of The List (featuring plays by playwrights of color). This collection represents an abundance of excellent new work by female and trans playwrights and reflects a wide ethnic, geographic, and aesthetic diversity. The volume also includes a foreword by Lynn Nottage.
Call Number: PS628.W6 K55 2020Publication Date: 2020
What to Send up When It Goes Down by
"As lines between characters and actors--as well as observers and observed--blur, a dizzying series of vignettes builds to a climactic moment in which performance and reality collide, highlighting the absurdity of anti-Blackness in our society. Through facilitation and dialogue we must decide how to cope, resist, and move forward"--Page [4] of cover.
Call Number: PS3608.A78198 W43 2019Publication Date: 2019
Straight White Men / Untitled Feminist Show by
Provocative playwright Young Jean Lee lends her shrewd perspective to this atypical take on the family drama. A father and his three sons unite and unravel, both aware of and undone by privilege and its pressure. When inherent social expectation conflicts with a desire to remain stagnant, the resulting identity confusion is new territory for the tightknit family. Strikingly observant and curiously drawn, Lee departs from her experimental style to create a naturalistic observation of the most socially unobstructed of our species, the straight white male.
Call Number: PS3612.E228 A6 2020Publication Date: 2020
Evening Plays by
Evening Plays, three new dramas by award-winning playwright Richard Maxwell are a response to Dante's Divine Comedy. The Evening centers around three archetypal barflies who together form an elegy of universal loss. The loss of a loved one seeps poignantly into his illustration of the stark reality and emotional tumult of coping with death. Samara is a mythic tale of redemption that follows a messenger through a bleak frontier in his quest to collect a debt, though the human cost of the journey may be more than he bargained for. And Paradiso, which takes place in the not-too distant future, describes three great loves: family, country and God.
Call Number: PS3613.A93 A6 2020Publication Date: 2020
The Prisoner by
Cast: 2f, 7m or 6f, 3m. 36 pages.
Call Number: PR6052.R5797 P75 2018Publication Date: 2018
Pipeline by
Cast: 3m, 3f, roles for black actors, roles for teens. Themes: class, race, parenting, education. 90 pages.
Call Number: PR6113.O7487 P57 2018Publication Date: 2018
Norma Jeane Baker of Troy by
Cast: 1m, 1f. "A stylized play on the destabilizing and destructive power of beauty." 46 pages.
Call Number: PS3553.A7667 N67 2019Publication Date: 2019
Wakey, Wakey (TCG Edition) by
Cast: 1m, 1f, roles for older actors. Themes: time, humanity. 43 pages.
Call Number: PS3555.N652 W35 2019Publication Date: 2019
Pass Over by
Cast: 4m, roles for black actors. Themes: existentialism, hopelessness, humor. 95 pages.
Call Number: PS3614.W36 P37 2019Publication Date: 2019
He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box and Other Plays by
In He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, her first new work in over a decade, Adrienne Kennedy traces the story of an interracial love affair in the 1940s, doomed by the devastating effects of segregation. The story unfolds through fragmented pieces - letters, recollections from family members, songs from the time - to present a multifaceted view of our cultural history that resists simple interpretation. The play was premiered at Theatre for a New Audience in New York in the winter of 2018. This volume also includes the plays Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side and Mom, How Did You Meet the Beatles? (co-written with Adam P. Kennedy).
Call Number: PS3561.E4252 A6 2020Publication Date: 2020
Inheritance by
You have to wonder why there isn't a word in the English language for the fireworks that go off in your brain when you finally kiss someone you've wanted for years. Or for the intimacy and tenderness you feel as you hold the hand of a suffering friend.A generation after the height of the AIDS crisis, what is it like to be a young gay man in New York? How many words are there now for the different kinds of pain, the different kinds of love?Matthew Lopez's The Inheritancepremiered in two parts at the Young Vic Theatre, London, in March 2018. The play transferred to the Noël Coward Theatre, London, in September 2018.
Call Number: PS3612.O645 I54 2018Publication Date: 2019
Dance Nation by
'Maybe this is the year, this is the moment, this is the dance where your lives will start!'Somewhere in America, a revolution is coming.An army of competitive dancers is ready to take over the world, one routine at a time.With a pre-teen battle for power and perfection raging on and off stage, Dance Nation is a ferocious exploration of youth, ambition and self-discovery.Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and The Relentless Award, Dance Nation is Clare Barron's explosive new play.
Call Number: PS3602.A837246 D36 2018Publication Date: 2018
Fairview by
An astounding new play about race and power in America, explored through the lens of a family drama.Grandma's birthday approaches. Beverly is organizing the perfect dinner, but everything seems doomed to go awry-the silverware is all wrong, the radio is on the fritz, and the rest of the family can't be bothered to lift a hand to help. And yet, what appears at first to be a standard family dramedy takes a sharp, sly turn into a startling examination of deep-seated paradigms about race in America.
Call Number: PS3604.R873 F35 2019Publication Date: 2019
