n/a

Dixon Hall; Tulane University, New Orleans

1955

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in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other One Act Plays, New Directions, NY

1946

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One Act

2

1

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: In order to boost his own cotton ginning business, Jake Meighan sets the local Syndicate Plantation ablaze. The superintendent of the Syndicate Plantation sends over 27 wagons full of cotton for ginning, and turns aside his suspicions that Jake is the arsonist in exchange for apparent sexual favors from Jake's wife, Flora.

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in Mister Paradise and Other One Act Plays, Samuel French, London

2006

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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play

One Act

1

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Here, Tennessee Williams gives a comic portrait of D.H. Lawrence as someone who functions as an analyst for repressed women. As he sits embroidering on the porch of his villa, Lawrence is visited by Miss Ariadne Peabody. Adopting a Sherlock-Holmesian intuition, Lawrence divines that spinsterish Miss Peabody met a man aboard a ferry, he propositioned her, but in her passionate excitement she forgot his name and where they were to meet. Happily, Lawrence helps Miss Peabody recover her memory.

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-

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Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

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short plays collection

One Act

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-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: MOONY'S KID DON'T CRY. A short play about a worker, his wife and child. (1 man, 1 woman.) THE DARK ROOM. A tragic sketch about an Italian woman and a welfare worker. (1 man, 2 women.) THE CASE OF THE CRUSHED PETUNIAS. A delightful, humorous playlet. (2 men, 2 women.) TEN BLOCKS ON THE CAMINO REAL. A lyrical fantasy. (13 men, 3 women, 10 dancers, flexible casting) THE LONG STAY CUT SHORT, OR, THE UNSATISFACTORY SUPPER. A moving sketch about an old servant. (1 man, 2 women.)

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in Mister Paradise and Other One Act Plays, Samuel French, London

2006

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play

One Act

4

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Candy Delaney is a successful New Orleans interior decorator and landlord who is also a drag queen approaching "her" ~ birthday. On the rebound from a seventeen-year relationship, Candy has picked up a rough, vicious sailor, Karl, on whom she lavishes money. On the day of the dreaded birthday, Karl walks out and it's left to the two queens who live upstairs, Alvin and Jerry, to comfort Candy.

New York

1968

-

in American Scenes, ed William Kozlenko, Day, NY

1941

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One Act

-

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Drama about a trapped, frustrated Mississippi actress dying of consumption

New York

1947

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in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other One Act Plays, New Directions, NY

1946

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

One Act

1

3

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: A young postal worker struggles with his sexual repression. His frustration ends in an attack on a female boarder in the cottage and the eventual burning of the cottage, his mother, and the female boarder.

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-

-

-

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I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

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Play/Drama

-

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis:

Wilbur Theater. Boston, Mass

1940

-

Pharos-New Directions, Murray, Utah

1945

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Play/Drama

11

11

-

Notes: revised as Orpheus Descending (produced 1957)

Synopsis: As in its later, and substantially rewritten version (entitled Orpheus Descending) the play deals with the arrival of a virile young drifter, Val Xavier, in a sleepy, small town in rural Mississippi. Taking a job in a store his smouldering animal magnetism draws out the latent sexual passion in the love starved store keeper, whilst her husband lies dying upstairs. A sense of inevitable tragedy grows and there is a denouement of overwhelming and chilling intensity.

The University of Missouri at Columbia

1930

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-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Play

One Act

2

3

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: The play concerns the life of a South Pacific missionary, his wife, their servant and the wife's niece and her husband.

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-

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in Mister Paradise and Other One Act Plays, Samuel French, London

2006

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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play

One Act

6

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Tony, a vigorous young footballer, is about to be discharged from the men's ward. In contrast, the other two occupants are a terminally ill youth, Dave, and Walton, a middle-aged patient about to undergo surgery for a brain tumour. When Tony leaves, Walton introduces Dave to the concept of eternity by looking at the stars. Walton dies during the operation and the play ends with Dave, alone, contemplating the stars.

Rose Arbor Playhouse; Memphis, Tennessee

1935

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-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Play

One Act

2

2

-

Notes: The manuscript is not published, and the short descriptions allude the possibility of two female prostitutes, but it is not clear if the sailors ever meet them.

Synopsis: The first of William's plays to be academically produced. Two sailors look for two prostitutes while on shore leave.

New York

1953

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New Directions, New York

1953

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Fantasy

26

10

extras, doubling possible

Notes: revised version of Ten Blocks on the Camino Real

Synopsis: Hawkins, writing in the NY World-Telegram, describes the play as having "no limits of time or space. The set is a walled community, from which the characters ceaselessly try to escape, without success. Only Don Quixote, who calls himself 'an unashamed victim of romantic folly,' has access to the outside, and finally Kilroy goes with him. Kilroy is a central figure, an ex-boxer, always the patsy, the fall guy, who asks so little and always gets short-changed, but he never quits hoping&The other principal story is a romance between the aging, hunting Camille, and the fading Casanova, who yearns now only for tenderness and faithfulness&The play has subdued sequences of tenderness and pathos. It also has scenes of cataclysmic violence. The near escape of Kilroy, the battle to ride the escape plane are hair-raising, as is the wild fiesta to crown the 'tired old peacock,' Casanova."

Wednesday Club Auditorium. St. Louis, MO

1937

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

10 scenes

Play/Drama

11

6

-

Notes: Williams has a nervous breakdown after working at the International Shoe Company in St. Louis. He recovers in Clarksedale, Mississippi at his maternal grandparents' home and writes Candles, which he submits to the Dramatists Guild Contest in New York. He attends the University of Washington where he befriends a group of student and poets and finds himself highly influenced by the poetry of Hart Crane.

Synopsis: Based on newspaper accounts; the story of a coal mining strike and its momentary impact upon the lives of mining families

Cleveland

1957

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in American Blues: Five Short Plays, Dramatists Play Service, NY

1948

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-

One Act

2

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Delightful, humorous comedy-fantasy

The Morosco Theatre. New York City

1955

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New Directions, New York

1955

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

Play/Drama

8

5

4c

Notes: -

Synopsis: In a plantation house, a family celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of Big Daddy, as they sentimentally dub him. The mood is somber, despite the festivities, because a number of evils poison the gaiety: greed, sins of the past and desperate, clawing hopes for the future spar with one another as the knowledge that Big Daddy is dying slowly makes the rounds. Maggie, Big Daddys daughter-in-law, wants to give him the news that shes finally become pregnant by Big Daddys favorite son, Brick, but Brick wont cooperate in Maggies plans and prefers to stay in a mild alcoholic haze the entire length of his visit. Maggie has her own interests at heart in wanting to become pregnant, of course, but she also wants to make amends to Brick for an error in judgment that nearly cost her her marriage. Swarming around Maggie and Brick are their intrusive, conniving relatives, all eager to see Maggie put in her place and Brick tumbled from his position of most-beloved son. By evenings end, Maggies ingenuity, fortitude and passion will set things right, and Bricks love for his father, never before expressed, will retrieve him from his path of destruction and return him, helplessly, to Maggies loving arms

-

-

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in Plays in One Act, harper collins

-

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Play

One Act

2

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Sc-fi post nuclear war and will your boyfriend sell you out to the authorities - if the price is right? Yes.

Cafe La MaMa, NY, USA >>>

1964

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

-

-

-

-

Notes: written by Gerald Schoenwolf and Tenessee Williams

Synopsis: -

Washington, D. C.

1980

-

Samuel French, London

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Ghost Play

-

13

14

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: The play begins outside the North Carolina asylum where Zelda Fitzgerald is receiving treatment for her mental disorder. She is visited by her husband, Scott, now reduced to hack writing in Hollywood and trying desperately to control his drinking. Their meeting is deeply disturbing for them both, and as Scott realizes that Zelda will never recover, the action shifts to a series of flashbacks which illuminate the causes of their sad plight. We see them in younger, happier, but inescapably destructive daysshe in a tempestuous affair with a young French aviator; he matching wits with an acerbic Ernest Hemingway. And, throughout, the drinking, the wild extravagance, and the steady erosion of talent and potential. In the end we are back at the hospital, sure of what must come, but moved by the memory of what once was

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-

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

-

-

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: -

Spoleto Festival, Charleston, South Carolina

1978

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

2 scenes

One Act

-

4

-

Notes: Creve Coeur is the title of work as presented at Spoleto Festival. Title changed to A Lovely Sunday for a Creve Coeur for NY production

Synopsis: Four very different women cross paths on a Sunday morning. Dorothea is thinking of moving out of the apt that she shares with Bodey so she can better entertain her lover the principal at the school she teaches at. When she discovers he is engaged to another woman, she decides to stay with Bodey.

London

1966

-

in American Blues: Five Short Plays, Dramatists Play Service, NY

1948

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One Act

1

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Tragic sketch about an Italian woman and a welfare worker

Carnaby Street Theatre, London

1976

-

in "The Theatre of Tennessee Williams VI", New Directions, New York

1981

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Play

One Act

2

4

-

Notes: The play was produced along with The Lady of Larkspur Lotion

Synopsis: Two families attempt to cope with life in a post-revolutionary America

Nyack, NY

1964

-

New Directions, New York

1965

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Play/Drama

5

5

-

Notes: revised version of Summer and Smoke

Synopsis: The action takes place in Glorious Hill, Mississippi, shortly before the First World War. Alma Winemiller, a sensitive and lonely young woman, has become increasingly restive and disturbed by the fear that she will remain a spinster. Hemmed in by her stern minister father, and her deranged mother, she makes a final, and almost desperate attempt to win the man of her choicea young doctor whose social-climbing mother frowns on his attachment to Alma. The play centers on the complex relationship between these two; her touching attempts to sway his emotions; and his uncertainty as to where his heart should lead him. In the end there is to be only one truly beautiful moment between themfor neither can break the ties of family and position which draw them apart and which, inevitably, defeat Alma's hopes for a new and fuller life.

-

-

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in Theatre, NY

1959

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

-

-

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: -

-

-

-

in Mister Paradise and Other One Act Plays, Samuel French, London

2006

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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play

One Act

3

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Three prisoners in a bunk-house play cards and listen while their ceilmate makes a run to the railtracks with guards and dogs in hot pursuit. Finally, they hear gunshots but when they see the guards return with a body they believe Billy's free at last.

-

-

-

in Mister Paradise and Other One Act Plays, Samuel French, London

2006

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

play

One Act

2

1

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: It's New Year's morning 1938. Vera and her husband Joe, an influential theatre producer, are returning from a party, at which a young playwright, Dennis Merriwether, has paid great court to Vera. Rather than compromise his art, Dennis has decided to quit New York for Acapulco and wants Vera to accompany him. But Vera sends him away; she is, after all, the fat man's wife.

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-

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Samuel French, London

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

One Act

4

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: The setting is the street facade of a low-priced Miami hotel of the sort which caters to aged pensioners. It is morning and the old men at the Ponce de Leon Hotel gather to watch the daily line-up of oldsters at the cut-rate restaurant across the street, chuckling at the thought of the consternation that will result when the doors open and the waiting customers discover that prices have been raised. But then a sad note is struckone of their fellow guests has passed on, leaving a blind and helpless husband. But it is a loss that none will face squarely, for the nearness of death is what all of them must live with and joke about. For are they not all living in frosted glass coffins, through which light, and life, can just barely be perceived?

St Louis

1937

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

-

-

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: -

New York

1958

-

New Directions, New York

1958

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-

Play/Drama

-

-

-

Notes: includes Something Unspoken, Suddenly Last Summer

Synopsis:

Civic Theatre. Chicago, IL

1944

-

Random House, NY

1945

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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-

Play/Drama

2

2

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Amanda Wingfield is a faded, tragic remnant of Southern gentility who lives in poverty in a dingy St. Louis apartment with her son, Tom, and her daughter, Laura. Amanda strives to give meaning and direction to her life and the lives of her children, though her methods are ineffective and irritating. Tom is driven nearly to distraction by his mother's nagging and seeks escape in alcohol and the unrealistic world of the movies. Laura also lives in her own illusions. She is crippled, and this defect, intensified by her mother's anxiety to see her married, has driven her more and more into herself. The crux of the action comes when Tom invites a young man of his acquaintance to take dinner with the family. Jim, the caller, is a nice ordinary fellow who is at once pounced upon by Amanda as a possible husband for Laura. In spite of her crude and obvious efforts to entrap the young man, he and Laura manage to get along very nicely, and momentarily Laura is lifted out of herself into a new world. But this crashes when, toward the end, Jim explains that he is already engaged. The world of illusion that Amanda and Laura have striven to create in order to make life bearable collapses about them. Tom, too, at the end of his tether, at last leaves home.

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-

-

Dramatists Play Service, NY

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Tragi Comedy

One Act

3

3

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: As outlined in Variety: "THE GNADIGES FRAULEIN (translatable as 'The Gracious Lady') is the justification of the word 'Slapstick' in the overall title. It's a far-out tragic-comedy in the genre of the Theatre of the Absurd, with a touch of the Theatre of Cruelty. It's quite funny at times, though basically and finally sad. The scene is a rickety bunkhouse, for 'permanent transients' in a place called Cocaloony Key, obviously off the southern tip of Florida. The characters include a kooky society gossip columnist, the frowsy crone who runs the place, a demented former Viennese vaudevillian, a Cocaloony bird (evidently a local name for a pelican) and a tomahawk-brandishing, war-whooping, blond-wigged Indian." The interplay of these characters, antic in both appearance and behavior, forms the heart and meaning of the play. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, it becomes both fascinating and deeply affecting as the underlying humanity of each "grotesque" is made real through what they are, and do, and what happens to them.

Wednesday Club Auditorium by The Mummers (an amateur theatre group in St. Louis, Mo.)

1936

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

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Sketch

-

-

-

Notes: -

Synopsis: Plea for pacificism, prepared as a curtain raiser for Irwin Shaw's "Bury the Dead." Four short black-out bits. One involves an Armitise Day speech by a local senator, a send-up of a legendary politician and two short skits about local school and social life.

Bromley, Kent, UK

1961