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Edward Albee

EDWARD ALBEE

  (1928 - 2016)
Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, LLC  

Born on March 12, 1928, in Washington, D.C., Edward Albee was adopted as an infant by Reed Albee, the son of Edward Franklin Albee, a powerful American Vaudeville producer. Brought up in an atmosphere of great affluence, he clashed early with the strong-minded Mrs. Albee who attempted to mold him into a respectable member of the Larchmont, New York social scene. But the young Albee refused to be bent to his mother's will, choosing instead to associate with artists and intellectuals whom she found, at the very least, objectionable. at the age of twenty, Albee moved to New York's Greenwich Village where he held a variety of odd jobs including office boy, record salesman, and messenger for Western Union before finally hitting it big with his 1959 play, the Zoo Story. Originally produced in Berlin where it shared the bill with Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, the Zoo Story told the story of a drifter who acts out his own murder with the unwitting aid of an upper-middle-class editor. along with other early works such as the Sandbox (1959) and the American Dream (1960), the Zoo Story effectively gave birth to American absurdist Drama. Albee was hailed as the leader of a new theatrical movement and labeled as the successor to arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O'Neill. He is, however, probably more closely related to the likes of such European playwrights as Beckett and Harold Pinter. although they may seem at first glance to be realistic, the surreal nature of Albee's plays is never far from the surface. In a Delicate Balance (1966), for example, Harry and edna carry a mysterious psychic plague into their best friends' living room, and George and Martha's child in Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) turns out to be nothing more than a figment of their combined imagination, a pawn invented for use in their twisted, psychological games. In Three Tall Women (1994), separate characters on stage in the first act turn out to be, in the second act, the same character at different stages of her life. Albee describes his work as "an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen." although he suffered through a decade of plays that refused to yield a commercial hit in the 1980's, Albee experienced a stunning success with Three Tall Women (1994) which won him his third Pulitzer Prize as well as Best Play awards from the New York Drama Critics Circle and Outer Critics Circle. He had previously won Pulitzers for a Delicate Balance (1966) and Seascape (1975). Other awards include an Obie award (1960) and a Tony award (1964).
www.imagi-nation.com

Research:    Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)

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below is a list of Edward Albee's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         All Over         American Dream, The         At Home At the Zoo         Ballad Of the Sad Cafe, The         Bartleby         Box And Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung         Box-Mao-Box         Breakfast At Tiffany's         Counting the Ways         Death Of Bessie Smith, The         Delicate Balance, A         Dressed Like An Egg         Envy, In Faustus In Hell         Everything In the Garden         Fam And Yam         Finding the Sun         Fragments: A Sit Around         Goat, The Or Who Is Sylvia?         Homelife         Knock! Knock! Who's there?         Lady From Dubuque, The         Listening         Lolita         Malcolm         Man Who Had Three Arms, The         Marriage Play         Me, Myself And I         Occupant         Peter And Jerry         Play About the Baby, The         Sandbox, The         Seascape         Three Tall Women         Tiny Alice         Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf         Zoo Story, The

All Over

Synopsis:
Family and mistress reveal their relationships to dying doctor as they gather around the deathbed

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1971

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1971   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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American Dream, The

American Dream, The
Mommy and Daddy sit in a barren living room making small talk. Mommy, the domineering wife, is grappling with the thought of putting Grandma in a nursing home. Daddy, the long-suffering husband, could not care less. Grandma appears, lugging boxes of belongings, which she stacks by the door. Mommy and Daddy can't imagine what's in those boxes, but Grandma is well aware of Mommy's possible intentions. Mrs. Barker, the chairman of the women's club, arrives, not knowing why she is there. Is she there to take Grandma away? apparently not. It all becomes evident when Grandma reveals to Mrs. Barker the story of the botched adoption of a "bumble of joy" twenty years ago by Mommy and Daddy. Mrs. Barker appears to have figured it out when Young Man enters. He's muscular, well-spoken, the answer to Mommy and Daddy's prayers: the American Dream. Grandma convinces him to assist in her master plan. She puts one over on everybody and escapes the absurdly realistic world which she finds so predictable.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
York Playhouse, New York     24 Jan 1961

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Coward-McCann, New York, 1961   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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At Home At the Zoo

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
see Homelife

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Ballad Of the Sad Cafe, The

Synopsis:
amelia, the proprietor of the Sad Cafe, throws her new husband out of their bedroom on their wedding night. Torn between anger and desire the husband finally leaves town only to return some years later to find amelia showering all her affection on a dwarf cousin who has come to live with her. at their first meeting the dwarf is hopelessly attracted to the husband. In turn, the husband moves back into the Sad Cafe, threatening to run away with the dwarf if amelia objects. the day of reckoning soon arrives and the husband and wife meet to settle their differences with their bare hands.

Notes:
from novElla by Carson McCuller

1st Produced:
New York     1963

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum-Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1963   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
adaptation. - - Gay, theme/character, full length

Parts:
Male:  14            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Bartleby

Synopsis:
a young law clerk resists all instructions and requests with the words, "I would prefer not to".

Notes:
written with James Hinton Jr And Music by William Flanagan, from story by Herman Melville

1st Produced:
New York     1961

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Opera

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Box And Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung

Synopsis:
the New Yorker, comments "the play opens with a recorded voice reciting a long and tiresome threnody on the human predicament and the degree to which art can serve as a solace as well as a spur . . . During the recital, the stage is empty except for a wooden framework of a large cube; the recital over, the cube is seen to contain a portion of a ship's deck, some deck chairs, and four people. One is Mao, who spends the rest of the evening wandering about the stage and the adjacent boxes and aisles, quoting his own deadly political cliches. another is a raddled-looking old lady, who recites in a whining Middle Western singsong Will Carleton's celebrated ballad "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse.' In one of the deck chairs sits a minister, book in hand and blanket tucked cosily about his legs; never uttering a word, he listens with sympathy to a middle-aged lady's non-stop monologue about her dead husband, her ungrateful daughter, and her narrow escape from drowning. Mao and the raddled-looking old lady have nothing

Notes:
Provocative And challenging theatre by one of our most important playwrights, in which traditional Dramatic structure is replaced by An Abstract, contrapuntal form of striking effectiveness

1st Produced:
New York     1968

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1969   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Three alternating monologues

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Box-Mao-Box

Synopsis:
a voice, offstage, comments on the human predicament and, in consequence, the effects of art.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Buffalo     1968

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1969   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Monologue Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Breakfast At Tiffany's

Breakfast At Tiffany's
Comments: Was titled "Holly Golightly" during pre-Broadway try-out. Merrick closed the show in previews "rather than subject the Drama critics and the public to an excruciatingly boring evening" (his own words).

Notes:
Book Adapted by edward Albee; Based on the novel by Truman Capote; Music by Bob Merrill; Lyrics by Bob Merrill

1st Produced:
Philadelphia     1966

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
Original cast recording: SPM (CO-4788)

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Genre:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  22            Female:  7            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Counting the Ways

Synopsis:
Man and woman weave verbal games as they explore their love for each other and explore their memories

Notes:
also Director

1st Produced:
London     1976

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1977   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Vignettes

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Death Of Bessie Smith, The

Synopsis:
Doctor and nurse relationship in hospital for whites in southern USA as the great black blues singer dies on being refused admission

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Schlosspark Theatre, Berlin     1960

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Coward-McCann, New York, 1960   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Delicate Balance, A

Synopsis:
Terror goes with suburban couple even when they move in with their best friends.

Notes:
Screenplay 1976

1st Produced:
Martin Bech Theatre, New York     1966

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1966   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Dressed Like An Egg

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
Information vague, may be incorrect

1st Produced:
New York     1977

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Envy, In Faustus In Hell

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Princetown, Nj     1985

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Everything In the Garden

Synopsis:
In George Oppenheimer's words: "as always with Mr. albee there is a theme beneath the surface, in this case the corruption of money and the rottenness of this bigoted exurbia where conformity to its illiberal standards and its hypocritical show of respectability is all that counts. the scene is the suburban home of Jenny and Richard, beautifully played by Barbara Bel Geddes and Barry Nelson. the only thing that seems to stand in the way of their happiness is a lack of money. the action starts in an entertaining comedy of manners style. then abruptly there enters a Mrs. Toothe in the menacing and fascinating person of Beatrice Straight who offers Jenny the opportunity to make more money than they have ever had, to buy a greenhouse and all the other luxuries that they require for their garden and their lives. Richard's realization that their newfound money is being earned by his wife's whoring comes almost simultaneously with the return of their fourteen-year-old son from school and a champagne cocktail party w

Notes:
Playwright - Giles Cooper

1st Produced:
Plymouth Theatre, New York     29 Nov 1967

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1968   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Satire

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Fam And Yam

Synopsis:
YaM (the young American playwright) has requested an interview with FaM (the famous American playwright). the interview begins as YaM clucks appreciatively over all the evidences of FaM's success-the paintings, the view, the luxury of his apartment. FaM endeavors to bring the conversation back to the subject at hand, the article for which YaM is gathering material. YaM responds-with a vengeance. as FaM swallows one glass of sherry after another, YaM proceeds to mount a vitriolic attack on the insidious commerciality of the Broadway theatre. FaM is enormously amused and fails to realize words are being put in his mouth. the interview ends, and YaM thanks his host for the "interview" which he intends to use as the basis for his article. FaM is struck-too late-by the realization of the trap into which his fatuousness has allowed him to be led. He turns ashen as his paintings frown, reel, tilt and crash down around him.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Westport, Connecticut     1960

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1961   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Finding the Sun

Synopsis:
Running into each other at the beach, Cordelia and abigail do all they can to hide their dislike for one another, probably because their husbands, Daniel and Benjamin, aren't doing so well at hiding the fact that they themselves were once in love before ever deciding to marry Cordelia and abigail instead. Gertrude and Henden (Daniel and Cordelia's parents by previous marriages) play witness to their step-childrens' passions which inevitably excite their own, despite their age. Gertrude acts upon her lusty curiosity by investigating what she imagines to be a sexual relationship between edmee and Fergus, a mother and son whom she meets at the beach that day. Henden, in his own time, approaches the sixteen-year-old Fergus and finds himself answering the boy's discomforting questions about the nature of Daniel and Benjamin's past relationship. all together, these chance meetings and forays into frankness offer a kaleidoscopic view of passion which spans all the ages of man and woman and all the varieties of love

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     1983

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1994   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
One act. - - Gay, theme/character, one act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Fragments: A Sit Around

Synopsis:
Several people sit together reading proverbs aloud to each other. From these proverbs are prompted stories of each one's past, or musings surrounding life-long mysteries. each tries to tell about some incident which they hope will illuminate their own being; hoping the others will understand who they are. each story flows to the next, with a musical quality to the randomness. albee explains it this way: "FRaGMeNTS lacks plot in any established sense; there is no clear dilEmma and resolution-no 'story,' no apparent sequentially. the piece proceeds as a piece of music does-accumulating, accumulating, following its own logic. Its effectiveness, its coherence reside in what we have experienced from the totality of it. FRaGMeNTS is also a very simple, straightforward piece-on its own terms, of course."

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Cincinnati, Ohio     1993

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
as edward albee's Fragments: a Sit around, Dramatists Play Service, New York, 1995   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Goat, The Or Who Is Sylvia?

Synopsis:
In true aristotelian fashion, albee presents us with a hero at the height of his powers. Martin is a world-famous, 50-year-old architect chosen to design a 27 billion-dollar dream city in the American midwest. He is even, as the play starts, about to be interviewed by his old friend, Ross, for a TV programme called People Who Matter. Tere is only one problem: Martin reveals to Ross that he is helplessly, obsessively and physically in love with a goat called Sylvia the Guardian

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Broadway    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

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Genre:
Tragedy

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Homelife

Synopsis:
Edward albee delves deeper into his 1958 play the ZOO STORY by adding a first act, HOMeLIFe, leading to Peter's fateful meeting with Jerry on a park bench in Central Park.

Notes:
aka At Home At the Zoo

1st Produced:
Hartford, Conneticut     2004

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 2009   978-0822223177

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Knock! Knock! Who's there?

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     2003

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Collected Plays of edward albee 1978 - 2003" published by Overlook Press, 2008   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Lady From Dubuque, The

Synopsis:
Three young couples are playing Twenty Questions. the drinks have been flowing, so the mood has gone from good to bad in a very short time. as it happens, the hostess, who has the most abrasive tongue of all, is dying of cancer, and the party ends when her pain becomes so intense her husband must carry her to bed. after the stage is empty, a handsome, mysterious woman, accompanied by an equally handsome man, enter the house and settle in for the night. In the morning they are still there to greet the baffled young husband and his ailing wife when they come down for breakfast. Unruffled by the young couples questions, the two must also confront the guests of the previous evening. While claims are accepted that the mysterious woman is the mother of the dying wife, intriguing inconsistencies remain: Is she, in truth, the angel of death? In the end there are no neat answers, but questions raised, and debated, will reverberate in the mind long after the play itself has ended.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1980

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1980   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Listening

Synopsis:
Constructed with the precision of a musical composition, and described by Clive Barnes as "a chamber opera and a symbolic poem about communication," the play juxtaposes three characters-"the Man," "the Woman," and "the Girl"-and sifts through the tangled relationship they have evidently shared. the Man is amiable but distant; the Woman acerbic and bitter; the Girl is perhaps mad-a catatonic who has destroyed her own child. elliptical in form and redolent with evocative overtones, the play weaves together its strands of conversation and soliloquy into a meaningful pattern of events-underscoring the inescapable fact that while we may listen we do not always hear, and our lives, for better or worse, are shaped accordingly.

Notes:
Broadcast 1976

1st Produced:
Hartford, Connecticut     1977

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1977   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Chamber Play One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Lolita

Synopsis:
Widely familiar as a successful novel and motion picture, LOLITa details the controversial obsession of Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged man of some education and refinement, to possess Dolores Haze, a pre-teen "nymphet." Comprised of a series of interrelated scenes which are commented on by an urbane narrator, the play follows the peregrinations of the increasingly desperate Humbert as he first marries Dolores's mother and then engineers her death-after which he and "Lolita" embark on a zigzag tour of America's motels, always one step ahead of another "dirty old man" with whom his hostage is in love. In the end, "Lolita" escapes Humbert's clutches only to marry a deaf man and die in childbirth-her tormentors, in turn, follow their own destinies toward either madness or murder.

Notes:
From novel by Vladimir Nabokov

1st Produced:
Boston     1981

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1984   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  8            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Malcolm

Malcolm
In the words of Stanley Kauffmann, the play, ". . .which is a fantasy of the corruption of innocence, concerns a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy, well-dressed and well-spoken, who-when we meet him-has been sitting daily on a bench in front of a hotel in a nameless American city. He is observed by an elderly astrologer named Cox, who speaks to Malcolm one day and learns that the boy is waiting for his father, who has disappeared. Cox seizes psychological dominance over him and sends him on a series of visits ostensibly to integrate him with the world but which ultimately destroy him. Malcolm visits a December-May couple (she is a young former prostitute, he is an ancient who claims to be 192), a middle-aged couple (he is ludicrously rich, she is attended by four lovers in white suits), a hip couple (an author and a painter) and a blonde pop singer, who takes the child as her latest husband and kills him with drink and sex. all these characters know one another. they are further linked within the play because t

Notes:
from novel by James Purdy

1st Produced:
Schubert Theatre, New York     1966

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1966   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
adaptation. - - Gay, theme/character, full length

Parts:
Male:  16            Female:  7            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Man Who Had Three Arms, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
also Director

1st Produced:
Miami     1982

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Marriage Play

Synopsis:
Jack comes home from a middling day at the office to quickly announce to his wife, Gillian, that he is leaving her. Suspecting for some time a midlife crisis, Gillian goads Jack about this announcement, forcing him to try it again-going outside and coming in again-twice! Jack wants his wife, whom he still loves, to really understand his fears and the reasons he must leave her. His days seem unknown to him; his secretary of fifteen years is a total stranger; his sex is by rote. Gillian understands but feels the investment of a thirty-year marriage is worth holding on to because so much is in place, and quite frankly, they've been through these changes before: affairs, neglect, sections of time forgotten. Jack accuses Gillian of not listening, an accusation she easily returns, and when Jack then does start to leave, Gillian blocks him and a small battle ensues. Retreating to their corners, both recount memorable points in their marriage and lives, and discovering that through it all, nothing is really enough. a

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Vienna     1987

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

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Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Me, Myself And I

Synopsis:
Mother can't tell her identical twins apart. But when Otto announces his brother doesn't exist, the household descends into chaos.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Mccarter Theatre, Princeton, New Jersey     18 Jan 2008

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service Inc, NY, 2011   978-0822224990

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Occupant

Occupant
Unapologetically flamboyant, New York sculptor Louise Nevelson's life was one marked by intrepid artistic triumphs as well as deep inner turmoil. In Edward albee's Occupant, both her public accomplishments and private emotional conflicts are thoroughly examined by an unnamed interviewer who questions the posthumous Nevelson with an unabashed scrutiny. From her unique vantage point beyond the grave, Nevelson answers his queries with a clarity born of the distance provided by death. the result is a touching, humorous, and honest tribute to a woman who was a pioneer for free-thinking females everywhere, but also stood strongly on her own as one of the 20th century's greatest artistic minds. Edward albee's Occupant is a testament of will, internal strength, and the cryptic force that continues to drive great artists.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Signature At Peter Norton Space, NY     05 Jun 2008

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

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Genre:
comedy Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Peter And Jerry

Synopsis:
Edward albee delves deeper into his 1958 play, the Zoo Story, by adding a first-act, Homelife, leading to Peter's fateful meeting with Jerry on a park bench in Central Park

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Second Stage Theatre

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Play About the Baby, The

Synopsis:
By turns funny, mysterious and disturbing, the PLaY aBOUT the BaBY concerns a young couple who have just had a baby, and the strange turn of events that transpire when they are visited by an older man and woman.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Sandbox, The

Synopsis:
a man in a spotlight, clad in swimming trunks, is doing his exercises silently. a couple appears to remark, dryly, "Well, here we are; this is the beach." the woman orders a clarinetist out onto the stage and commands him to play. the couple exits, then returns carrying the woman's eighty-six-year-old mother and dumps her in a sandbox. Grandma begins to weave her history between the cool, indifferent patter of the people and the equally cool, but somehow more sympathetic, sounds from the clarinet. as Grandma covers herself with sand, it begins to dawn that the mysterious, cryptic athlete is much more than local color, and his conversation with Grandma is, in fact, prelude to his purpose. He is "after all, the angel of Death."

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Jazz Gallery, New York     1960

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Coward-McCann, New York, 1960   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
satire One act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Seascape

Synopsis:
On a deserted stretch of beach a middle-aged couple, relaxing after a picnic lunch, talk idly about home, family and their life together. She sketches, he naps, and then, suddenly, they are joined by two sea creatures-lizards who have decided to leave the ocean depths and come ashore. Initial fear, and then suspicion of each other, are soon replaced by curiosity and, before long, the humans and the lizards (who speak admirable english) are engaged in a fascinating dialogue. the lizards, who are at a very advanced stage of evolution, are contemplating the terrifying, yet exciting, possibility of embarking on life out of the water; and the couple, for whom existence has grown flat and routine, holds the answers to their most urgent questions. these answers are given with warmth, humor and poetic eloquence, and with emotional and intellectual reverberations that will linger in the heart and mind long after the play has ended.

Notes:
also Director

1st Produced:
New York     1975

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1975   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Comedy

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Three Tall Women

Synopsis:
In act One, a young lawyer, "C," has been sent to the home of a client, a ninety-two-year-old woman, "a," to sort out her finances. "a," frail, perhaps a bit senile, resists and is of no help to "C." along with "B," the old woman's matronly paid companion/caretaker, "C" tries to convince "a" that she must concentrate on the matters at hand. In "a's" beautifully appointed bedroom, she prods, discusses and bickers with "B" and "C," her captives. "a's" long life is laid out for display, no holds barred. She cascades from regal and charming to vicious and wretched as she wonders about and remembers her life: her husband and their cold, passionless marriage; her son and their estrangement. How did she become this? Who is she? Finally, when recounting her most painful memory, she suffers a stroke. In act Two, "a's" comatose body lies in bed as "B" and "C" observe no changes in her condition. In a startling coup-de-theatre, "a" enters, very much alive and quite lucid. the three women are now the stages of "a's" life

the Caretaker is the Tall Woman herself. Character a is looking back on her life, with Character B having experienced what Character C is going to experience. Yes, there is her lawyer, the male. Where would a although mentioned, Where would a different Caretaker physically appear? This play in a way, reflects "Rockaby." Similar in that the woman is alone (as we all are), at death. In Rockaby, it is the woman's last 'breath', wherein, in "Three Tall Women," the woman is recollecting episodes in her life that led up to her "status in life." She didn't marry for love, but for money and the sex (while it lasted). Her estranged gay son, nor anyone else cares. Her lawyer, like herself, is there for "business" which like her younger self, is in pursuit of money. Note the naive younger self, who is told by her older self what she will/will not do. Very clever, and like us all, wishful thinking based on the hindsight of our lives. I really like the Part 2 where Character C talks about wanting sex and the description of "Hard, all Sinew and Muscle."
"Lindsey Clark"

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
English Theatre, Vienna     1991

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
American Theatre Magazine, New York - September, 1994
Dramatists Play Service, 2002   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Play/Drama. - - Gay, theme/character, full length

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Tiny Alice

Synopsis:
TINY Alice begins with a venomous exchange between a lawyer and a cardinal whose contempt for each other careens back to their school days. eventually, the lawyer offers the cardinal $100 million a year at the request of Miss alice, the world's richest woman. Julian, the cardinal's secretary, is to come to Miss alice's castle to complete the details, but while there, Julian falls prey to Miss Alice as she contrives to make him her lover. Through the related transmutations of religious ecstasy and orgasmic pleasure, Julian's true feelings are terrifyingly revealed, and the stage is set for the electrifying climax of this eloquent, compelling play

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1964

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1965   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Tragedy. - - Gay/Lesbian, of interest

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf

Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf
George, a professor at a small college, and his wife, Martha, have just returned home, drunk from a Saturday night party. Martha announces, amidst general profanity, that she has invited a young couple-an opportunistic new professor at the college and his shatteringly naive new bride-to stop by for a nightcap. When they arrive the charade begins. the drinks flow and suddenly inhibitions melt. It becomes clear that Martha is determined to seduce the young professor, and George couldn't care less. But underneath the edgy banter, which is cross-fired between both couples, lurks an undercurrent of tragedy and despair. George and Martha's inhuman bitterness toward one another is provoked by the enormous personal sadness that they have pledged to keep to themselves: a secret that has seemingly been the foundation for their relationship. In the end, the mystery in which the distressed George and Martha have taken refuge is exposed, once and for all revealing the degrading mess they have made of their lives.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Billy Rose Theatre, New York     1962

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
athenaeum, New York, 1962   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Zoo Story, The

Synopsis:
a man sits peacefully reading in the sunlight in Central Park. there enters a second man. He is a young, unkempt and undisciplined vagrant where the first is neat, ordered, well-to-do and conventional. the vagrant is a soul in torture and rebellion. He longs to communicate so fiercely that he frightens and repels his listener. He is a man drained of all hope who, in his passion for company, seeks to drain his companion. With provocative humor and unrelenting suspense, the young savage slowly, but relentlessly, brings his victim down to his own atavistic level as he relates a story about his visit to the zoo.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Schiller Theatre, Berlin     1959

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Coward-McCann, New York, 1960   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
absurd One act. - - Gay, theme/character, one act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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