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Kia Corthron

KIA CORTHRON

  
Nationality:    African American
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    The Gersh Agency, NY  

Kia Corthron. Kia Corthron's a Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick will premiere at Playwrights Horizons spring 2010. Other plays include Moot the Messenger (Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival),Light Raise the Roof (New York Theatre Workshop), Snapshot Silhouette(Minneapolis' Children's Theatre), Slide Glide the Slippery Slope (Humana, Mark Taper Forum), the Venus de Milo Is armed (Alabama Shakespeare Festival),Breath, Boom (Royal Court Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Yale Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre and elsewhere),Force Continuum (Atlantic Theater Company), Splash Hatch on the e Going Down (New York Stage and Film, Baltimore's Center Stage, Yale Rep, Donmar Warehouse), Seeking the Genesis(Goodman Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club), Digging eleven (Hartford Stage Company), Life by asphyxiation(Playwrights Horizons), Wake Up Lou Riser(Delaware Theatre Company), Come Down Burning (American Place Theatre), Cage Rhythm (Sightlines/the Point in the Bronx). awards include the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Creative Arts Residency (Italy), McKnight National Residency, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts award for excEllence in the Arts, Barbara Barondess MacLean Foundation award, aT&T On Stage award, Daryl Roth Creative Spirit award, Mark Taper Forum's Fadiman award, Nea/TCG, Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, New Professional Theatre Playwriting award, Callaway award, Connections Contest winner, and in television a Writers Guild Outstanding Drama Series award and Edgar allan Poe award for the Wire.

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

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

         7-11         Breath, Boom         Bugs of the Pigs in the Lions         Cage Rythm         Catnap Allegiance         Come Down Burning         Cool Dip In the Barren Saharan Crick, A         Digging Eleven         Force Continuum         Life By Asphyxiation         Light Raise the Roof         Open Road Anthology, The         Point Of Revue         Posh Pill         Sam's Coming         Seeking the Genesis         Slide Glide the Slippery Slope         Snapshot Silhouette         Splash Hatch On the E Going Down         Steel Hammer         Trickle         Venus De Milo Is Armed, The         Wake Up Lou River

7-11

Synopsis:
For a year after the World Trade Centre came down an Iraqi man has been in prison and not charged with anything. He was rounded up in a sweep to find aliens

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
The Town Hall, New York     2002

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Alexander Street Press   -

Music:
-

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Breath, Boom

Synopsis:
Fourteen years in the life of Prix, a Bronx native, from her ruthless girl-gang leadership at sixteen through her coming to maturity at thirty. But children do not become violent in a vacuum: as a small child Prix was raped by her mother's longtime lover-being with the family on and off from the time Prix was two until sixteen-while her mother lived in a blind denial world. amidst all the brutality Prix is still a kid with her own dreams and delights: fireworks. In the course of the play Prix is locked in teen jail with a lonely outcast, and later in a women's facility with a white woman who thinks she's black Prix comes to face old demons: conversations with the mother's lover, long dead; a chance meeting with a woman who has spent her adult life in a wheelchair because of a confrontation with Prix in their teens; at twenty-eight, an old woman by gang standards, being on the other side of punishment by the fourteen-year-old daughter of a "sister" Prix used to kick around; and ultimately coming to terms with

Notes:
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1st Produced:

Organisations:
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1st Published:

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  9            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Bugs of the Pigs in the Lions

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Goodman Theatre, Chicago     11 Dec 2009

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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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:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Cage Rythm

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Long Warf Theatre, Usa     1993

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Moon Marked and Touched By the Sun", Hern, London,    -

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:
Drama One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Catnap Allegiance

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Otterbien College Theatre In Westerville, Ohio    

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:
-

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Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

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Come Down Burning

Synopsis:
Skoolie lives in a clean, tiny shack at the top of the big hill, across from the small grocer. She doesn't have the use of her legs and uses a cart built close to the ground to get to the store, and around the house where her appliances are cut close to the floor. Her sister, Tee, is living with her, again, with her three small children. Though Tee is welcome, it is a hardship to support everyone on Skoolie's income from plaiting hair and occasionally performing abortions. as time goes on, it grows increasingly difficult for Skoolie to handle the extra people; last time Tee came to live, two of her children died from lack of food. Tee is very simple in the way she looks at the world, sometimes too much so, which causes a familiar family antagonism between the women-a caring but at-odds view on how to better their lives. When Skoolie discovers that Tee is again pregnant, she tries to convince her to give up the baby. Tee loves her children and though at first does not want to think about it knows that she does

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Long Warf Theatre, Usa     1993

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

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:
Drama One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  3            Other:  1g 1b

Further Reference:
-

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Cool Dip In the Barren Saharan Crick, A

Cool Dip In the Barren Saharan Crick, A
a Cool Dip offers glimpses into the lives of abebe, a young ethopian man with a passion for the unlikely combination of Christianity and ecology, and the family that houses him during his college studies in Maryland. Through their interactions, the play uncompromisingly tackles the issues of drought and social injustice, combining a realistic evocation of human emotion with the fantastical to bring attention to the scarcity of something we so often take for granted: water.

Notes:
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1st Produced:

Organisations:
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1st Published:

Music:
-

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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:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Digging Eleven

Synopsis:
While examining the concept of family structure--both traditional and non-traditional--Digging eleven is a powerful and sensitive play that explores the strength of love and the importance of remembrance. at the center of one African-American, family is a young girl, Ness, and the prophetic grandmother who helps her realize a future by unearthing the past. amid the politics of workers rights, homosexuality and hate crimes, Ness is coming of age with an air of independence that leaves you hopeful for her future. "This is actually my most personal play," playwright Kia Corthron said. "My Father worked in paper mills all of his life, and, unlike any other play of mine, a character is based on somebody I know, my grandmother. This play is literally like family to me."

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Hartford Stage Company     1999

Organisations:
Second Stage Theatre

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Force Continuum

Synopsis:
Three generations of African-American New York City police officers: 1) twenty-four-year-old Dece, disillusioned and confused in a contemporary world of drug violence and brutality, whose present-day struggles go beyond the routine paradox of being both black and a cop: He and his vaguely racist white partner become indicted in the death of a black female civilian. 2) Dece's deceased parents-a practical, optimistic mother and a Father frustrated by racism within the ranks of the force. 3) and Dece's grandfather, a man whose experience has instilled within him the awareness that there is a way out of the carnage and distrust between the African-American and police communities. a jagged, precarious journey whereby all gradually grasp that understanding comes not just through seeing others but hearing.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
-     2001

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

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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:  6            Female:  2            Other:  1b

Further Reference:
-

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Life By Asphyxiation

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Playwrights Horizons, Usa     1995

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Light Raise the Roof

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     2004

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Open Road Anthology, The

Synopsis:
the call of the open road has reverberated since the founding of our nation: the wind in our hair and promise of a new life around the corner; or in the legacy of land taken, communities divided and the increasingly guarded borders behind which Americans drive. Comic and thought-provoking, these writers examine how America's yearning for unfettered freedom resonates today and where it rings hollow.

Notes:
written by Constance Congdon, Kia Corthron, Michael John Garces, Rolin Jones, A. Rey Pamatmat And Kathryn Walat, with music by GrooveLily

1st Produced:

Organisations:
2006-2007 Actors Theatre apprentice Company

1st Published:
Humana Festival 2007: the Complete Plays, 2008   -

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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Point Of Revue

Synopsis:
a composite shot of African America. . .with attitude. Through a riveting series of short plays and songs, this vaudeville defies stereotype as it explores a myriad of topics and places, from Northern Uganda to the American South, HIV to Condoleeza Rice. Swinging from the serious to the absurd, there's plenty to laugh and cry about in this powerful piece.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Mixed Blood Theatre Company (Minneapolis, Mn, United States)     2006

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc - New York   -

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:
90-115 min Dramatic/Comedic vaudeville

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  6            Other:  6 males, 6 females, 3 either (12-60 actors possible: 6-40 males, 6-20 females)

Further Reference:
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Posh Pill

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
part of 10x25. This is An All-commissioned one-act festival of ten-minute plays by 25 of the playwrights who have been produced At Atlantic theater Company since 1985. 10x25 will unite And reunite Atlantic ensemble members, playwrights, And frequent guest Actors And directors in three separate offerings of ten minute plays, which will run the gamut of theatrical styles And content. 10x25 will feature new works by David Auburn, Leslie Ayvazian, Annie Baker, Stephen Belber, Bekah Brunstetter, Moira Buffini, Jez Butterworth, Ethan Coen, Kia Corthron, Tom Donaghy, John Guare, Kevin Heelan, Tina Howe, Craig Lucas, David Mamet, Peter Parnell, David Pittu, Keith Reddin, Kate Robin, Kate Moira Ryan, edwin Sanchez, Sam Shepard, Lucy Thurber, Jeff Whitty, And Bill Wrubel.

1st Produced:
-    

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:
10 min

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Sam's Coming

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Goodman Theatre, Chicago     01 Nov 2005

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:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Seeking the Genesis

Synopsis:
Six-year-old hyper Kite "flies." But his teacher tells his mother, C ana, that his ever-excitement is a brain disease and urges medication: Ritalin. Not just to calm him down-his jumpiness, C ana is told, is cerebrally, genetically related to sixteen-year-old brother Justin's gang violence. C ana believes it's all poppycock. Her nineteen-year-old niece Cheryl, however, hanging around the family's apartment in the projects to tutor Kite and shy eight-year-old sister Kandal, supports the teacher. Cheryl lost all three of her brothers to street violence and desperately seeks a solution. Justin attempts the difficult, dangerous road out of the gangs and along the path is startled by the realization that his mother thinks his extracurricular activities were the result of some brain malformation; Kandal continues getting as while learning nothing-a reward for being "well behaved"; and Kite, medicated, gets quieter, skinnier, sleepless and, while there is no academic improvement, the lesson he learns, or comes to be

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Goodman Theatre, Chicago     1996

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

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:  3            Other:  1b 1g

Further Reference:
-

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Slide Glide the Slippery Slope

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Humana Festival 2003: the Complete Plays, edited by Tanya Palmer and amy Wegener, Smith and Kraus, 2003   -

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:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Snapshot Silhouette

Snapshot Silhouette
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     2004

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "the Face Of America" published by University of Minnesota Press 2011   978-0816673131

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:
Youth play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Splash Hatch On the E Going Down

Synopsis:
Thyme is fifteen, an a student and three months' pregnant. erry is eighteen, the opposite of book smart and lives with his wife, Thyme, in the bedroom of her parents' Harlem apartment. Shaneequa is fifteen, Thyme's best friend, mother of an infant and has picked up the habit during her current pregnancy of eating dirt. erry gets a job in construction, but his health slowly begins to deteriorate: occupational lead inhalation. Besides Thyme's obsessions with all the mechanics of the maturing fetus inside her and with the option of delivering in water, she has recently become fascinated with urban politics of the environment: why communities of color are consistently housed in the most hazardous areas. She is a data-gathering machine yet remains strangely oblivious to erry's mounting illness-her research fixation suddenly, devastatingly brought home.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Yale Rep Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut     1997

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

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:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Steel Hammer

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
by Kia Corthron, Will Power, Carl Hancock Rux and Regina Taylor

1st Produced:
Humana Festival     2015

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc. in the book Humana Festival 2014: The Complete Plays.    -

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Trickle

Trickle
-

Notes:
part of the Marathon of One-act Plays

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Great Short Plays Volume Eight" published by Playscripts Inc   -

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:
One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Venus De Milo Is Armed, The

Synopsis:
a family reunion. the son who has not been seen in years - not since he lost body parts in a landmine explosion in the Gulf War arrives. the stay at home daughter has been laying landmines in the local area

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Southern Writers Festival 2003   -

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  5            Other:  1 child

Further Reference:
-

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Wake Up Lou River

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Circle Rep Lab     1992

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:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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