Synopsis
Playing With Canons
Published by New York Publications
18 plays by some of indie theatre's most exciting playwrights in a single volume celebrating the enduring power and spirit of classic literature and drama
These remarkable plays reshape familiar material in challenging, innovative, and unexpected fashion, pushing these timeless works into the 21st century in resoundingly resonant high style
Part I - Reflections on Shakespeare
WANT'S UNWISHT WORK - Cyberpunk poetry response to Love's Labour's Lost and other works of Shakespeare
LA TEMPESTAD - Characters and situations from The Tempest assembled in a timely new play set in Vieques, Puerto Rico
TITUS X - Titus Andronicus as a punk rock musical
Part II - From Legend, Myth & Sacred Sources
GENESIS - Contemporary re-imagination of five medieval Mystery plays telling familiar Bible stories
THE EUMENIDES - A modern adaptation of the last play of The Oresteia of Aeschylus
PRINCIPIA - A peppy musical fable based on the Principia Discordia and other post-modern legends
Part III - Chekhov and Other Russians
UNCLE JACK - Chekhov's Uncle Vanya transplanted to present-day West Virginia
STORY OF AN UNKNOWN MAN - Chekhov himself appears in this comic drama based on one of his stories
THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, PARTS I AND II - An epic, faithful dramatization of the classic Dostoyevsky novel
Part IV - American Literature on Stage
BEL CANTO - Poe's suspense story The Tell Tale Heart recast among noirish gangsters, with jazzy overtones
SALEM - A savvy morality tale, after Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER - Melville's famous novella is brought to the stage in this moving adaptation
Part V - European Literature on Stage
FRANKENSTEIN - A highly theatrical rendering of Mary Shelley's classic novel
NORTHANGER ABBEY - Jane Austen's novel fuses with the gothic adventure The Mysteries of Udolpho in this delightful and inventive comedy
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS - A live "silent film" version of Victor Hugo's touching, macabre tale
Part VI - Fresh Looks
BALD DIVA! - Absurdist satire set among the well-heeled, shallow Chelsea gay boys
FATBOY - Sensationalized update of Jarry's Ubu plays
THE PERSIANS - A raucous vaudeville based on the oldest extant work in the Western canon
In addition to the complete text of these 18 plays, the anthology also includes -
Brief introductory essays by critic Leonard Jacobs, dramaturg/producer Chad Gracia, actor Tim Cusack, and directors Stephen Speights, Eric Parness, and David Fuller Complete production information and how to obtain permission to produce each of the plays Biographical data about each of the playwrights