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John Biguenet

JOHN BIGUENET

  
Nationality:    USA
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Literary Agent:    Abrams Artists Agency  

John Biguenet has published six books, including Oyster, a novel, and the Torturer's apprentice: Stories, both widely translated. Biguenet's radio play Wundmale was broadcast in Germany and austriA. Two of his stories have been featured in Selected Shorts at Symphony Space on Broadway. the Vulgar Soul won the 2004 Southern New Plays Festival and was a featured production in 2005 at Southern Rep Theatre. Rising Water, the winner of a number of awards, has had productions around the country since its premiere in 2007. the similarly honored Shotgun, the second play in his Rising Water cycle, premiered in 2009 at Southern Rep Theatre with subsequent productions in 2010 at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater and Florida Studio Theatre. His new play, Night Train, was developed on a Studio attachment at the National Theatre in London. His work has received an O. Henry award and a Harper's Magazine Writing award among other distinctions. Having served twice as president of the American Literary Translators association and as writer-in-residence at various universities, he is currently the Robert Hunter Distinguished University Professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.

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

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

         Broomstick         Mold         Night Train         Rising Water         Shotgun         Vulgar Soul, The         Wundmale

Broomstick

Synopsis:
A funny and frightening return to our childhood where we first wrestled with good and evil - where we first encountered witches. Our witch is a completely unsentimental moralist who knows everything about the human heart - having been both its victim and avenger all her life long - and who metes out inexorable justice, and is immune to our pleas for mercy, and cackles at our excuses. This is no Hansel and Gretel. In "Broomstick", whiners end up in casseroles.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
New Jersey Repertory Company
179 Broadway, Long Branch, New Jersey 07740    19 Sep 2013

Organisations:
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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

Booksellers:

Genre:
scary comedy

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Mold

Synopsis:
A year after Katrina a young husband must choose between his wife and his city

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Southern Repertory Theatre, New Orleans    2013

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Night Train

Synopsis:
Night Train begins with alex, a well-dressed, well-heeled banker, riding the midnight train alone in his first-class compartment. His starting point and his destination are unclear but we know that he will arrive by morning, anxious to rejoin his young wife. Into his compartment barges Max, a gregarious stranger who claims that he is seeking refuge from a noisy second-class compartment nearby. Like the speeding train the play takes many twists and turns and when Max introduces Alex to the sultry and mysterious Marta, we know that we have boarded a train where all our expectations will be derailed and where our final destination will remain shrouded by the drifting smoke of the locomotive until the final jarring stop.
- nytheatre.com

Notes:
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1st Produced:
New Jersey Repertory Company, Ny    30 Apr 2011

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Rising Water

Synopsis:
In Rising Water, a couple awaken in the middle of the night to find their pitch-dark house filling with water. Clambering into their attic, and then onto their rooftop, they struggle not only to survive but also to keep the guttering flame of their relationship from being extinguished. (a brief slide show about Rising Water with excerpts of dialogue can be seen at http://www.nola.com/photos/t-p/index.ssf?Waters.)

Notes:
"[Rising Water] grabbed the Audience in its first tense moments And never let go. Biguenet has created characters of such opposite dimensions that they generate innate humor, which continues deeper into the play than one would have thought possible. It is natural And needed; otherwise the situation would be unbearable." -New Orleans Times-Picayune "the well-structured two-hander . . . offers An Appealing And often compelling grasp of storytelling." -Variety "Rising Water emerges As A great American play - perhaps one of the first great plays of the 21st Century." -Orange County Register "[Rising Water] is . . . indelible An experience." -Backstage.com (Los Angeles)

1st Produced:
Southern Rep Theatre (New Orleans)    2007

Organisations:
Southern Rep Theatre

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Shotgun

Synopsis:
In Shotgun, set four months after the collapse of defective levees in New Orleans, a white man and his teenaged son, having lost their house to the flood, rent half of a shotgun duplex from an African?American woman, whose Father has lost his home in the Lower Ninth Ward and moved in with her. even living under one roof, though, they find a wall still runs between them. But like the city's levees, can it, too, be breached? (a brief video of the play can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KT4WLFTWn4&feature=player_embedded.)

Notes:
"In Shotgun . . . playwright John Biguenet exposes with power And grace the wounds that remain And examines how they might best be healed." -New Orleans Times-Picayune "Shotgun. . . deals with race but is ultimately About people. And it's fascinating." -Gambit Weekly "[Shotgun is] A serious play About serious subjects, And yet it is filled with the rich dark humor that got New Orleanians through those days After the storm."-Nola.com "Biguenet's ear for Dramatic, natural dialogue is so Adroit you cannot turn your eyes And mind from his play. So is his enchantment!" -WYeS-TV "It's the narrow focus of this new play that shakes you. . .. Human Drama doesn't have to look huge to be heartbreaking." -Orlando Sentinel "a moving exploration of A ravaged New Orleans . . . [and] An Absorbing new Drama by John Biguenet." -Sarasota Herald-Tribune

1st Produced:
Southern Rep Theatre (New Orleans)    2009

Organisations:
Southern Rep Theatre, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, and Florida Studio Theatre

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 2011   978-0-8222-2500-3

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Vulgar Soul, The

Synopsis:
In the Vulgar Soul, a young man devoid of any religious belief watches as the five wounds of the Crucifixion gradually appear on his body. the faithless stigmatic searches for a cure even as he is celebrated by the faithful. abandoned by them when the wounds fade, he is offered an unexpected opportunity to embrace what he has resisted. His psychiatrist, a young woman married to an older architect, parallels her patient's journey in yielding to her own body's demands. [8 characters / 5 actors]

Notes:
"[Biguenet's] play serves As A provocative inquiry into the nature of belief And self-deception." -American theatre "the best, most stimulating play ever seen At the Canal Place theater." -WYeS-TV "the Vulgar Soul is open to interpretation, with An enigmatic, Accumulative power that captures the Attention And imagination . . . with A questing intelligence." -New Orleans Times-Picayune "the Vulgar Soul is, in A word, superb." -Slidell Sentry-News

1st Produced:
Southern Rep Theatre (New Orleans)    2005

Organisations:
Southern Rep Theatre

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Wundmale

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
Produced in German. Also broadcast by osterreichischer Rundfunk (1996).

1st Produced:
Westdeutscher Rundfunk (Koln)    1994

Organisations:
Westdeutscher Rundfunk

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Radio Drama

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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