favorite play

#1

favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 5:25pm

What is everyone's favorite straight play. I am looking for some good things to read for the summer and I figured I should read some plays. I'm sorry if this has been posted before, I searched and couldn't find anything.

Oh and what are some essentials that everyone should read. I'm looking to expand my knowledge on theatre as a whole. Thank you in advance.

#2

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 5:27pm

Streetcar Named Desire
The Miracle Worker
Noises Off
Plenty
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

#3

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 5:28pm

The Normal Heart.

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#4

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 5:29pm

All of the above
Glass Menagerie
Death of a Saleman
anything by Neil Simon
5 Women Wearing the Same Dress - hysterical

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#5

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 5:32pm

"Death of a Salesman" - Arthur Miller (considered by many as the greatest American play)
"The Glass Menagerie" - Tennessee Williams
"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
the Brighton trilogy - Neil Simon
"Brighton Beach Memoirs"
"Biloxi Blues"
"Broadway Bound"
"A Raisin in the Sun"
"Our Town"- Thornton Wilder
Just some of my favorites - Enjoy!!!

#6

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 5:32pm

Almost anything by Arthur Miller, hehe. But you've probably read his stuff, so...

M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang - it's especially good if you're familiar with the opera.

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#7

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 5:45pm

House of Blue Leaves

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#8

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 5:47pm

I don't have one, but recently:
The Normal Heart
Fuddy Meers
I also loved "Slag Heap" Anton Dudley.

#9

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 5:49pm

If you want the essentials, you must include Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, Brecht, and Beckett. These are the real giants of dramatic literature.

For more modern stuff, I would suggest:
John Guare: "The House of Blue Leaves" or "Six Degrees of Seperation"
Caryl Churchill" "Top Girls" or "Cloud 9"
Tony Kushner: both parts of "Angels in America"
Paula Vogel: "How I Learned to Drive"
David Lindsay-Abare: "Fuddy Meers"
Suzan-Lori Parks: "Topdog/Underdog"
Tom Stoppard: "Arcadia"
anything by CHARLES LUDLAM

All of these might be a bit more difficult to read than Arthur Miller or Neil Simon, but each is BRILLIANT in its own way

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"Inside every actor there is a Tiger, a Pig, an Ass, and a Nightingale. You never know which one is going to show up." -John Michael Higgins in FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

#10

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 5:49pm

The collection of Sarah Kane plays is a MUST HAVE
Three Days of Rain by Richard Greenberg
Far Away by Caryl Churchill
Shadowbox by Cristofer
The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute
Stone Cold Dead Serious by Adam Rapp

...best I could think of off the top of my head...

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#11

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 6:00pm

The Pillowman. Word.

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What's pink and green and flies all over?

#12

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 6:05pm

Err...don't mean to hijack this thread, but this sorta goes along with the topic. Could someone recommend some good comedic plays? (Or...what is your favorite comedic play then? )

#13

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 6:07pm

Angels In America by Kushner
Death of A Salesman by Miller
The Importance of Being Earnest by Wilde
Mother Courage by Brecht
House of Blue Leaves by Guare
Master Harold and the boys by Fugard
Joe Turner's Come and Gone by Wilson
A Delicate Balance by Albee
The Seagull by Chekhov
Cloud Nine by Churchill
Several by Shakespeare

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Updated On: 7/27/05 at 06:07 PM

#14

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 6:08pm

Not my favorite, but, 'Lonely Planey' by Steven Dietz is a great read.

#15

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 6:13pm

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but my favorite play to read is Cyrnao de Bergerac. It's really beautiful... but terribly boring on stage if not performed as it should be.

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"what have we learned? Don't smoke... don't do drugs and don't sing 'Defying Gravity'." -CATSNYRevival

#16

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 6:15pm

My current favourite is one I saw 2 weeks ago, am seeing tomorrow, and will see again on Tuesday: Syringa Tree by Pamela Gien. The real astonishment comes when you read the script and realize it's all performed by one amazing actress.

#17

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 6:19pm

Angels in America by Kushner
The Importance of Being Earnest by Wilde
Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman
Our Town by Wilder
Noises Off can't remember the playwright's name

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GO CARDINALS!!!

#18

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 7:00pm

Silly Cow by Ben Elton - funniest thing I've ever read and I'm not sure it's ever been produced in the US of A
Racing Demon by David Hare
Raft of the Medusa by Joe Pintaurro
Angels Fall, The HOT L Baltimore, Balm in Gilead, The Rimers of Eldrich, Redwood Forest, The Talley Family Trilogy - all by Lanford Wilson, perhaps our most under-appreciated American playwright
A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O'Neill
The Red Devil Battery Sign and Vieux Carre by Tennessee Williams
Kennedy's Children and Mutual Benefit Life by Robert Patrick
Ulysses in Traction by Albert Innaurato (sp?)
The Primary English Class and Today I Am a Fountain Pen by Israel Horowitz
Painting Churches by Tina Howe

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#19

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 7:01pm

The Importance of Being Earnest is my favorite play ever. =)

#20

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 7:03pm

The House of Yes by Wendy MacLeod

#21

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 7:03pm

Lend Me a Tenor is absolutely hilarious. One of my favorites.
So are Rumors, Fuddy Meers and Noises Off as mentioned.

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Be the change you want in the world....

#22

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 7:08pm

Angels in America. Nothing else is even in the same league to me.

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"The stage is where I live and come alive and act out all the things that go on in my life. It's not just what I do for a living, it's my shrink and my love affair. No one in my life has ever or ever will kiss me on the mouth like this lover called my relationship with my performance."

#23

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 7:08pm

I'm probably alone with this one, but I enjoyed reading "The Iceman Cometh" MUCH more than watching it on stage. (In fact, I hated watching it.)

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#24

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 7:09pm

I like Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap and Ten Little Indians. There's also Take Me Out, Proof, um...

The Miser, by Mollier
Lonestar/Laundry and Bourbon (two plays, same author)
Anything by Chris Durang.

#25

re: favorite play

Posted: 7/27/05 at 7:11pm

Shakespeare
"Oedipus Rex"
"Volpone"
"The White Devil"
"The Spanish Tragedy"
"The Importance of Being Earnest"
"Endgame" & "Waiting for Godot"
"The Chairs"& "The Bald Soprano"
"Long Day's Journey Into Night"
"A Streetcar Named Desire"
"La Vida Es Sueno"
"Look Back in Anger"
"Fool for Love"
"What the Butler Saw"

Many of the others have already been mentioned.