Overview

Also featuring plays by Emma S. Rund, Dylan Kinnett, Barbara Bryan, Cameron Sheppard, Matt Brown, and Andre Thespies. With introduction by Shaun Vain (editor) In the first anthology of this series, Chicago and Baltimore playwrights share short plays written for the stage. Performance-ready new ideas, contained within insightful dialogue and monologues span, the pages of this anthology. Since America earned its title as ""the melting pot"" by most historians, Future Publishing House combines with playwrights and theatre artistry to create this unequivocally dynamic collection of work. As artists living with the freedom to create meaningful new work, the plays in this first volume inform the beginning of a millennia of performance art. Plays comment on universal themes: Emma Rund's characters in To Fix a Dinosaur deal with conditional forgiveness. The struggle of political power to overcome scientific knowledge comes through in John Joseph Enright's Starry Night. Women's liberation ideas are featured in Easy as Pie by Melania Coffey. Gentrification is discussed in poetic verse in Alexander Scally's Chalked. Jealousy, envy, and the future of humanity are addressed in Dylan Kinnett's Party Planet. A scene from a play by Cameron Sheppard is dramatic and biographic Some pieces in this anthology fall into symbolism, surrealism, and absurdism, such as Barbara Bryan's Leaving the Universe. Other plays are written as melodramas, such as Love, Lust, Lyrics & Stamps by Matt Brown and Andre Thespies. Cover design by Kiirstn Pagan.

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9781953818348

Table of Contents

Reviews

Dereck Stafford Mangus, Baltimore-based artist and writer (Artblog, frieze magazine, Full Bleed), viewed American Theatre in the Twenty-First Century before making the following remarks: Considering the ongoing war on reason and following the many confounding events of 2020, absurdist theater is newly ascendant. Its trajectory is amply affirmed in this compelling new anthology, which offers numerous examples of absurdist themes updated for the twenty-first century. Albert Camus advised us to embrace the absurd condition of human existence. To better cope with our increasingly peculiar world, I advise you to read (and perform!) these plays. Kimberly Exum, who plays the role of Nabulungi in The Book of Mormon on Broadway, offered her thoughtful reaction to one of the plays in this anthology. She has this to say about Starry Night: What a fun play-The curiosity, combined with political commentary, and sci fi elements reminded me of a quirky lost Twilight Zone episode. Exum, who writes in-depth reports for an industry news source called Broadway Black, also added, [Starry Night] forced me to look at our world from the outside in. A perfect capsule for a post Trump America. Mangus' review of To You & Me & the Ocean (as it appears within this anthology): Through a sparse and tight use of dialogue, [Coffey] evokes a poignant if fleeting scene of female camaraderie. Despite its ambiguous setting, the vignette aptly conveys a sense of dread and even doom. What's happening? Is the world ending? Yet, it's the friends' love for each other that is the main point of the play. Mangus' review of Chalked (as it appears within this anthology): This short play is a 'slice of life' on the surface, but simmers with a darkness seething quite literally underfoot. What appears to be a simple vignette about urban life in Baltimore, surreptitiously expands to encompass socio-economic commentary about white flight and gentrification, culminating with a poetic observation by the main character, Leonard, a mainstay of the neighborhood.

Dereck Stafford Mangus, Baltimore-based artist and writer (Artblog, frieze magazine, Full Bleed), viewed American Theatre in the Twenty-First Century before making the following remarks: Considering the ongoing war on reason and following the many confounding events of 2020, absurdist theater is newly ascendant. Its trajectory is amply affirmed in this compelling new anthology, which offers numerous examples of absurdist themes updated for the twenty-first century. Albert Camus advised us to embrace the absurd condition of human existence. To better cope with our increasingly peculiar world, I advise you to read (and perform!) these plays. Kimberly Exum, who plays the role of Nabulungi in The Book of Mormon on Broadway, offered her thoughtful reaction to one of the plays in this anthology. She has this to say about Starry Night What a fun play-The curiosity, combined with political commentary, and sci fi elements reminded me of a quirky lost Twilight Zone episode. Exum, who writes in-depth reports for an industry news source called Broadway Black, also added, [Starry Night] forced me to look at our world from the outside in. A perfect capsule for a post Trump America. Mangus' review of To You & Me & the Ocean (as it appears within this anthology): Through a sparse and tight use of dialogue, [Coffey] evokes a poignant if fleeting scene of female camaraderie. Despite its ambiguous setting, the vignette aptly conveys a sense of dread and even doom. What's happening? Is the world ending? Yet, it's the friends' love for each other that is the main point of the play. Mangus' review of Chalked (as it appears within this anthology): This short play is a 'slice of life' on the surface, but simmers with a darkness seething quite literally underfoot. What appears to be a simple vignette about urban life in Baltimore, surreptitiously expands to encompass socio-economic commentary about white flight and gentrification, culminating with a poetic observation by the main character, Leonard, a mainstay of the neighborhood.

"Dereck Stafford Mangus, Baltimore-based artist and writer (Artblog, frieze magazine, Full Bleed), viewed American Theatre in the Twenty-First Century before making the following remarks: Considering the ongoing war on reason and following the many confounding events of 2020, absurdist theater is newly ascendant. Its trajectory is amply affirmed in this compelling new anthology, which offers numerous examples of absurdist themes updated for the twenty-first century. Albert Camus advised us to embrace the absurd condition of human existence. To better cope with our increasingly peculiar world, I advise you to read (and perform!) these plays. Kimberly Exum, who plays the role of Nabulungi in The Book of Mormon on Broadway, offered her thoughtful reaction to one of the plays in this anthology. She has this to say about Starry Night: ""What a fun play-The curiosity, combined with political commentary, and sci fi elements reminded me of a quirky lost Twilight Zone episode."" Exum, who writes in-depth reports for an industry news source called Broadway Black, also added, ""[Starry Night] forced me to look at our world from the outside in. A perfect capsule for a post Trump America."" Mangus' review of To You & Me & the Ocean (as it appears within this anthology): Through a sparse and tight use of dialogue, [Coffey] evokes a poignant if fleeting scene of female camaraderie. Despite its ambiguous setting, the vignette aptly conveys a sense of dread and even doom. What's happening? Is the world ending? Yet, it's the friends' love for each other that is the main point of the play. Mangus' review of Chalked (as it appears within this anthology): This short play is a 'slice of life' on the surface, but simmers with a darkness seething quite literally underfoot. What appears to be a simple vignette about urban life in Baltimore, surreptitiously expands to encompass socio-economic commentary about white flight and gentrification, culminating with a poetic observation by the main character, Leonard, a mainstay of the neighborhood."

Author Information

Alexander Scally works with Submersive Collective. His one-man show, Building Your Emotional Home, was featured in Charm City Fringe Festival. He produces shows with his wife, Caitlin Bouxsein, as BOUXSCAL Productions. Melanie Coffey's work in exploring female characters in theater, television, and film has been performed, read, and/or screened in NYC, Chicago, San Diego, LA, Connecticut, and London. She is a member of the Chicago Dramatists Guild and the Playwright's Center and her work in theater, television and film has been performed, read and/or screened in NYC, Chicago, San Diego, LA, Mystic, Connecticut, Edinburgh, Scotland and London, England. John Joseph Enright is a playwright and poet from the South Side of Chicago, best known for his full-length romantic comedies and short science-fiction plays. His plays are usually first produced in Chicago, which has an energetic theater scene, but he is always happy when something he wrote receives a production elsewhere. On the poetry side of things, John is the author of Starbound And Other Poems, and he is known on the internet for his ""rhyme of the day"" posts, which are mostly humorous observations based on current events and doings. He is currently working with composer Anne Tan on Charmin: The Musical, a short comedy about the great bathroom tissue shortage of 2020. He also enjoys acting and feels that the experience of performing on stage helps him to write pieces that allow actors to reach out to an audience.

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