Good plays to read...
Good plays to read...
BwayTheatre11
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/25/03
#0Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/16/05 at 11:40pmI am interested in starting to read plays for enjoyment. What are some really interesting ones? For my SUNY Purchase audition (which is next year, lol), I have to read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I have always been interesting in reading the show.
CCM '10!
Updated On: 1/16/05 at 11:40 PM
#1re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/16/05 at 11:44pm
Take Me Out
I Am My Own wife
"Chicago is it's own incredible theater town right there smack down in the middle of the heartland. What a great city! I can see why Oprah likes to live there!" - Dee Hoty :-D
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#2re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/16/05 at 11:44pmSome that I love are "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "Death of a Salesman," "A Doll's House," "The Cherry Orchard," "The Glass Menagerie," "Waiting For Godot"...I know I'll think of more later.
#3re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/16/05 at 11:45pmWhat about A Normal Heart?
And the other thing about the Phantom Lady was, Bert, she realized, in the city that never sleeps...
What did she realize, Kitten?
That all the songs she'd listened to, all the love songs, that they were only songs.
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, if you don't believe in them. But she did, you see. She believed in enchanted evenings, and she believed that a small cloud passed overhead and cried down on a flower bed, and she even believed there was breakfast to be had...
Where?
On Pluto. The mysterious, icy wastes of Pluto.
FabalaCohen
Broadway Star Joined: 10/30/04
#4re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/16/05 at 11:46pmI second A Doll's House and Hedda Gabbler is excellent. I'd also recommend Anton Chekov's "The Brute" (one of his shorter farces), Shakespeare, and "Wit"
"During this performance, please feel free to let your cell phones and pagers ring willy-nilly. However, do remember that there are heavily-armed knights on stage and you might well be dragged up and impaled."
(Pre-curtain announcement at the new Broadway musical Monty Python's Spamalot)
#5re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/16/05 at 11:51pm
i just took a class where pretty much all we did was read and anylize plays... her are some that i thuroughly enjoyed.
All My Sons -Arthur Miller
Doll house -Henrik Isben (the new translation)
Endgame - Samuel Beckett (so weird)
‘night mother - Marsha Norman (on broadway right now)
Raisin In the Sun - Lorraine Hansburry
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams
Arcadia - Tom Stoppard
and of course shakespeare... OHHHH and "How i learned to Drive" by paula vogel. brilliant.
Updated On: 1/16/05 at 11:51 PM
Razz77
Broadway Star Joined: 11/22/04
#6re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/16/05 at 11:54pm
Recent plays I've read (and enjoyed)
"The Homecoming" - Harold Pinter
"The Book of Liz" - David & Amy Sedaris
"The Altruists" - Nicky Silver
"Found a Peanut" - Donald Marguiles
"A Different Moon" - Ara Watson
I know these are all quite random...but I really enjoyed them. Especially check out The Book of Liz if you want a laugh -- and The Homecoming or A Different Moon for something more thought provoking (alhtough quite humorous, in the first instance)
Racetrack
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/21/04
#8re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/16/05 at 11:58pm
Stone Cold Dead Serious by Adam Rapp(really good play)
Shakespeare plays
If you want to read Tennessee Williams Streetcar Named Desire
Christopher Durang writes good comedies Desire Desire Desire, For Whom the Southern Bell Tolls
Sure Thing by David Ives
The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman can be an interesting read.
"The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most; we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long"-Edgar in King Lear
#9re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/16/05 at 11:58pm
we read Medea. that was pretty cool :)
I didn't like The Sea Gull though (by chekhov) 
I'm a Thespian, wanna watch?
#10re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/16/05 at 11:58pm
The Normal Heart
The Destiny of Me
Angels in America
Reckless
I am My Own Wife
A Raisin in the Sun
The Crucible
Death of a Salesman
#12re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 12:00amIf you're going to read "The Normal Heart" I recommend that you also read "The Destiny of Me", which is a sort-of sequal to "The Normal Heart" in that it has the same main character and takes place a few years afterwards. "The Destiny of Me" is, in my opinion, superior to "The Normal Heart". Just my two cents!
broadwaystar2b
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/28/04
#13re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 12:02am
#1Elphie, just one account
I don't understand, do I have a doppleganger?
Razz77
Broadway Star Joined: 11/22/04
#14re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 12:03am
Oh yeah --
NIGHT MOTHER by Marsha Norman(it might be better to read than to see, honestly)
Sight Unseen by Donald Marguiles
The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel (one of my favs)
Proof by David Auburn
A play called "Melissa Arctic", based on "A Winter's Tale" (dont remember the author...)
BwayTheatre11
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/25/03
#15re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 12:08amGeez, lol. I just ordered The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me. I plan on reading Cat on a Hot Tin Roof after that...I am also interested in Reckless and Fat Pig.
CCM '10!
i*heart*fame
Broadway Star Joined: 9/15/04
#16re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 12:14amI second proof
"Don't thank your parents, if you were raised in a nurturing environment you wouldnt be in show business"--Conan O'Brien at the 2006 Emmy Awards
#17re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 12:17am
neil simon plays are fun reads 
RIP glebby <3
#18re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 10:37ami know i'm late but the normal heart, wit, take me out, the glass menagerie, A day in the life or joe egg and Alice in bead by susan sontag.
"At the opening night party, they had clowns on stilts, jugglers, a chocolate fountain, popcorn, hot dogs. [My son] looked at me like I had been holding back. Like, 'This is what you do?' I had to tell him, 'No, no, darling. Opening nights don't usually look like this.' It's usually a dark bar with a bottle of vodka." ?Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Jan Maxwell
plus i proudly share the title of the shortest member over the age of 10 with wickedrentq!
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#19re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 10:45am
I third Proof...
And I second MEMBER OF THE WEDDING and GLASS MENAGERIE... Those two are my favorite plays that I have read... And it'd be great to read Glass Menagerie because it's coming to Broadway and it's a great show (well, I've never seen it before, but I've read it, it's great).
And SUNY Purchase is great too. My brother goes there and he LOVES IT! They have some nice theaters too.
sciguy
Stand-by Joined: 12/2/04
Stand-by Joined: 12/31/69
#21re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 3:12pm
Angels in America is the best play I have seen in years.
But any Craig Lucas play is also worth checking out.
CurtainUp
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/9/04
#22re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 3:15pm
Glass Menagerie and then buy a collection of Durang plays that has Southern Belle in it
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is freaking amazing.
Rosencrantz: "Be happy - if you're not even HAPPY what's so good about surviving? We'll be all right. I suppose we just go on."
- from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
#23re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 3:20pmDo yourself a HUGE favor and read "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife" by Charles Busch...it is, by far, one of the funniest plays I have read/seen. The Broadway productio was HILARIOUS!
"I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about." - Oscar Wilde
CJR
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/14/03
#24re: Good plays to read...
Posted: 1/17/05 at 3:34pmThe Dinner Party
"You're every gay man's wet dream!" ~ MA
If in Heaven you don't excel, you can always party down in hell...
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