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Phillip Hayes Dean

PHILLIP HAYES DEAN

  (1931 - 2014)
Nationality:    African American
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    Dramatists Play Service  

Dean was born and raised in Chicago and later Pontiac, Mich. He got his first theater job at the Will-O-Way Playhouse in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., where he helped to pull the curtain and later started acting. After moving to New York, Dean acted and wrote for the stage. He also directed stage productions, including a staging of "The Maids" at the Equity Library Theatre. In the '90s, he moved to California, where he taught drama classes and continued to direct. Dean is survived by his wife, Patricia; his daughters, Wendy and Karen; four grandchildren; and his brother, Howard Dean.

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

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below is a list of Phillip Hayes Dean's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         American Night Cry         Dink's Blues         Every Night When the Sun Goes Down         Freeman         If You Can't Sing, They'll Make You Dance         Last American Dixieland Band, The         Minstrel Boy, The         Moloch Blues         Owl Killer, The         Paul Robeson         Sty Of the Blind Pig         This Bird Of Dawning Singeth All Night Long         Thunder In the Index

American Night Cry

Synopsis:
THUNDeR IN the INDeX. the action takes place in the psychiatric ward of a large city hospital, where Joshua Noon, a hip young black, lies bound in a strait jacket. His pleas to be unshackled lead to a sharp, funny and exacerbating verbal duel with the attending physician, Dr. Goldberg, in which the disparate, and perhaps irreconcilable, worlds of the two men are brought vividly into focus. But, ironically, the self-assured Dr. Goldberg is ultimately revealed to be an escaped patient himself, which leaves, in the end, the tantalizing question: Who is really mad, the kept or the keeper? (2M, 1W, plus two brief bits for men). the MINSTReL BOY. Returning home late from a disastrous out of town appearance, Rainbow Rivers wakens his wife, Cayella, from her nightmare ridden sleep. their conversation soon moves toward memories of the powerful show business figure who has so dominated them both, in body and spirit, that they will never be truly free until they exorcise, once and for all, the lingering uncertainties and fears which still bind them to him even now, when the years of success have gone by. This they struggle to do, with a result which is tragic but, in the end, both moving and elevating as well. (1M, 1W).

Notes:
comprises Thunder in the Index, the Minstrel Boy

1st Produced:
New York    1974

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:
Two Short Plays

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Dink's Blues

Synopsis:
When Dink comes to visit his friend Fish House Fats, he is already drunk, and it is very late. there at Fish's home "establishment" Dink makes himself too much at home, and soon Fish realizes that Dink is talking to someone not in the room. Dink sinks slowly into a crushing remorse and reveals the belief that he killed the woman he loved in a car crash, twenty years ago. She's been coming to him lately, talking with him, calling him, and he knows it's only a matter of time before he joins her. Fish, discovering a brotherly sensation he didn't know he had, tries to keep Dink sane and at the house, feeling he'd do harm to himself if he left. after awhile, however, they both know Dink must face his demons alone, and willing to do so, Dink departs, leaving Fish to hope for the best for his friend and with the lesson to pay more attention to the love he finds at home. In volume entitled MOLOCH BLUeS.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

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:
Drama One act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Every Night When the Sun Goes Down

Synopsis:
Set in a seedy hotel of a black neighborhood in a Midwestern city, the play introduces a series of finely drawn representative characters: a pimp who sends his girl out on the street to earn money for his drugs; the light-skinned dancer whose husband, now in jail, once owned the hotel and ran the rackets which prey on them all; the cynical go-getter who has taken over the hotel; a black cop who has learned to see only what he wants to see; a shuffling cleanup man who drowns his disappointments in booze; and an imperious older woman who demands she be treated like a lady despite her frayed finery. It is the interaction of their lives, in the hotel and on the "Square" outside, that forms the moving and revealing core of the play-a core which is suddenly beset with tension and unnamed fear when Blood, the former racket boss, returns unexpectedly. Humor and poignancy are blended as the action quickens and the various characters reveal the truth about themselves, coming, in the powerful ending, to the greater truth they all must now comprehend: the need to stop destroying themselves and to destroy, instead, the terrible environment which, through their acceptance, has kept them all in thrall.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

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:  5            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Freeman

Synopsis:
Freeman aquila is a young black man, son of an industrious foundry worker and a practical nurse, who is trapped not so much by the color of his skin as by the complexities of his nature. Spurning the conventional routes to possible "success" in a white-dominated world, Freeman pursues an independent, free-wheeling course through attempts at politics and real estate schemes-only to be frustrated at every turn. the irony is that Freeman's disturbing ambitions are curbed not only by the local establishment, but also by his own family and friends; his weary, middle-class parents, who are fearful of jeopardizing all that their years of resigned acceptance have brought them; his boyhood friend, Rex, now a successful doctor, who has gained power and wealth through "practical" compromise; and his pregnant wife, Osa Lee, who yearns only for security and a home of her own. Inevitably Freeman's dogged persistence brings on a crisis which gives tragic dimension to his plight. He is clearly in the right, yet he must also lose-as, by powerful implication, does society as a whole.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1973

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1973   -

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:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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If You Can't Sing, They'll Make You Dance

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1978

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Last American Dixieland Band, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

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

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Minstrel Boy, The

Synopsis:
Returning home late from a disastrous out of town appearance, Rainbow Rivers wakens his wife, Cayella, from her nightmare ridden sleep. their conversation soon moves toward memories of the powerful show business figure who has so dominated them both, in body and spirit, that they will never be truly free until they exorcise, once and for all, the lingering uncertainties and fears which still bind them to him even now, when the years of success have gone by. This they struggle to do, with a result which is tragic but, in the end, both moving and elevating as well.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1974

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1972   -

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:
Tragedy One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Moloch Blues

Synopsis:
the OWL KILLeR. Conditioned by a lifetime of resigned acceptance, Noah Hamilton can only turn against his renegade son, Lamar, who has killed and mutilated a man and is now in hiding. a petty tyrant, who compensates for his own frustrations, Noah rules his family by fear, turning a deaf ear to the pleas of his wife, Emma, and of his daughter, StElla Mae, whom he banished from his home because of her adulterous behavior. Determined to destroy all vestiges of his son's presence, Noah destroys the stuffed owls that Lamar has collected-a symbolic act which also seeks to obliterate the deep-seated guilt he feels over his long-held feeling of dislike for his wife and children. Yet penance, as the shattering climax of the play makes powerfully clear, is inevitable, with the ultimate sacrifice demanded to redeem a soul scarred by so many years of compromise and battered pride. (1 man, 2 women). DINK's BLUeS. When Dink comes to visit his friend Fish House Fats, he is already drunk, and it is very late. there at Fish's home "establishment" Dink makes himself too much at home, and soon Fish realizes that Dink is talking to someone not in the room. Dink sinks slowly into a crushing remorse and reveals the belief that he killed the woman he loved in a car crash, twenty years ago. She's been coming to him lately, talking with him, calling him, and he knows it's only a matter of time before he joins her. Fish, discovering a brotherly sensation he didn't know he had, tries to keep Dink sane and at the house, feeling he'd do harm to himself if he left. after a while, however, they both know Dink must face his demons alone, and willing to do so, Dink departs, leaving Fish to hope for the best for his friend and with the lesson to pay more attention to the love he finds at home. (2 men, 1 woman).

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

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:
Two Short Plays

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Owl Killer, The

Synopsis:
Conditioned by a lifetime of resigned acceptance, Noah Hamilton can only turn against his renegade son, Lamar, who has killed and mutilated a man and is now in hiding. a petty tyrant, who compensates for his own frustrations, Noah rules his family by fear, turning a deaf ear to the pleas of his wife, Emma, and of his daughter, StElla Mae, whom he banished from his home because of her adulterous behavior. Determined to destroy all vestiges of his son's presence, Noah destroys the stuffed owls that Lamar has collected-a symbolic act which also seeks to obliterate the deep-seated guilt he feels over his long-held feeling of dislike for his wife and children. Yet penance, as the shattering climax of the play makes powerfully clear, is inevitable, with the ultimate sacrifice demanded to redeem a soul scarred by so many years of compromise and battered pride

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1973   -

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:
Short Play One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Paul Robeson

Synopsis:
a powerful chronicle of the life of Paul Robeson, taking us from his childhood in New Jersey to his adult life around the world. an all-American athlete and a lawyer with Columbia Law School credentials, Robeson faces the racism prevalent in society in early part of the twentieth century. He strives to rise above, and it is his triumph in that struggle that turns Robeson into a modern day hero. Realizing the racist system would not allow him to practice as a lawyer, Robeson turns to singing, something he had learned well in the church choir. His singing leads to acting and his acting, with all the accolades due a master, leads him around the world. But every place he visits he sees the strains of racism in its many forms. the more he sees, the more he speaks out, using the his influence and stature to try and enlighten those around him. after some time in europe, he returns to the United States to perform and speak out about the injustices in the country he loves. Confronting racism again, he sticks to his values, adhering to no party line, but is accused of being a Communist, an agitator and much more. He is blacklisted and his passport is revoked, but he goes on speaking out whenever he can. For eight years he fights to clear his name. Finally, the social climate begins to change and towards the end of his life, Robeson's passport is reinstated along with some of the glory and respect he earned along the way. there is still far to go, but Paul Robeson remains a beacon to those struggling to make this world a better place. This play is a powerful look at the many facets of Robeson the man, as well as Robeson the star. It is a tour-de-force for any actor.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1978

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Doubleday, New York, 1978   -

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:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Sty Of the Blind Pig

Synopsis:
the arrival of a blind street busker changes the life of young black woman in the Chicago of the 50's.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1971

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1972   -

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:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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This Bird Of Dawning Singeth All Night Long

Synopsis:
asleep in her apartment in the wee hours of the morning, anne, a white woman, is jarred awake by a ringing telephone, and then again and again, until she rips the cord from the wall in frustration. But then the ringing phone is replaced by a knock at the door, her insistent caller being a black woman-who claims that she is anne's twin sister, Nancy. Rattled and fearful, anne tries to decoy her unwelcome visitor from the apartment, but Nancy stays. Gradually their encounter develops into a revealing, provocative and, ultimately, fatal confrontation, which yields a disturbing yet perceptive study of racial distrust, and the essential brotherhood which this subverts and denies

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1971   -

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 1 act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Thunder In the Index

Synopsis:
the action takes place in the psychiatric ward of a large city hospital, where Joshua Noon, a hip young black, lies bound in a strait jacket. His pleas to be unshackled lead to a sharp, funny and exacerbating verbal duel with the attending physician, Dr. Goldberg, in which the disparate, and perhaps irreconcilable, worlds of the two men are brought vividly into focus. But, ironically, the self-assured Dr. Goldberg is ultimately revealed to be an escaped patient himself, which leaves, in the end, the tantalizing question: Who is really mad, the kept or the keeper?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1974

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1972   -

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:
Tragedy One act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  plus two brief bits for men

Further Reference:
-

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