Synopsis
This year's collection of Best Short Plays supports editor Delgado's belief that 'some of the most imaginative, humorous, touching and powerful characters, situations, and ideas are skillfully compacted into today's one-act plays.' Murray Schisgal's delightful character comedy, A NEED FOR BRUSSELS SPROUTS, opened on Broadway in the 1982-83 season, starring Anne Jackson as the tough lady cop and Eli Wallach (her offstage husband) as the lonely down-at-the-heels actor cited for disturbing the peace. The highly acclaimed Irish novelist Jennifer Johnston returns to this series with the disturbing play ANDANTE UN POCO MOSSO which shatters the tranquility of a chamber music rehearsal with the turbulence of Belfast. Martin Jones' OLD SOLDIERS - a tragicomedy focusing on the illusions of a World War I veteran - has won a number of awards in regional and national competitions. Tom Huey makes his publishing debut here with IT AIN'T THE HEAT, IT'S THE HUMILITY. A native of Alabama, Mr. Huey has a keen ear for individual and social differences in Southern speech patterns. These nuances are powerfully evident in the play through the characters - a retired Southern judge and his Black gardener. CONFLUENCE by John Bishop was first produced in 1982. The three characters - a former Pittsburgh Steeler, his actress girlfriend, and a Hall-of-Fame 3rd baseman now confined to a wheelchair - develop an understanding that makes their present limitations and future expectations more bearable. AM I BLUE is a tender and riotous tale of a naive college freshman expected to prove his manhood at a New Orleans bordello. Instead, a far more engaging evening unfolds with a daffy Southern belle. Time magazine reviewer Richard Corliss describes playwright Beth Henley's characters as 'the most engaging bunch of eccentrics since the days of the young William Saroyan.' Prolific writer and award-winner Norman Holland is back in his 45th year of play publication with MORE LIVES THAN ONE - a clever, witty recounting of Oscar Wilde's last days in prison. Saul Zachary's award-winning play THE COLOR OF HEAT depicts a middle-aged husband and his wife attempting to revive their forgotten romance with a titillating voyeuristic report on the activities of a younger couple. IN LOSS OF MEMORY, playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and director Arthur Laurents offers a bittersweet portrait of a lonely American in a chance encounter with an Israeli officer. In his fanciful tragicomedy of a woebegone vaudevillian and his trained chicken, CHARLIE THE CHICKEN, playwright Jonathan Levy provides a meaningful glimpse into the master-slave relationship. Versatile actor, director, and playwright Ken Jenkins demonstrates his mastery of the monologue form in RUPERT'S BIRTHDAY. The play is a vivid miniature of an eccentric farm woman whose teenage experience of assisting in the delivery of a calf provided her with a transcendental revelation.
About the Author
An experienced literary advisor, Ramon Delgado has served as chairman for new plays at the Dallas Theater Center and has been a literary advisor to The Whole Theatre Company in Montclair, New Jersey. He has also been script judge for the Playwrights' Program of the American Theatre Association, the International Biennial Play Competition sponsored by Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and is an adjudicator for the American College Theatre Festival. Delgado has received recognition as a playwright with honors in five regional and twelve national playwriting competitions. His plays have been presented in workshops, on television, and Off-Off Broadway. He also authored a full-length play, A LITTLE HOLY WATER. Cited twice by Outstanding Educators of America, Delgado has taught acting, directing, playwriting, and dramatic literature at colleges and universities around the country.
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