The Playwrights Database
JULES FEIFFER
(1929 - )
Nationality:
USA
email:
n/a
Website:
n/a
Literary Agent:
The Lantz Office
Jules Feiffer is a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, and children's book author and illustrator. Jules Feiffer has had a remarkable creative career for over fifty years turning contemporary urban anxiety into witty and revealing commentary. From his Village Voice editorial cartoons (Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips, 1956-1966) to his plays and screenplays including LITTLE MURDERS and Carnal Knowledge , Feiffer's satirical outlook has helped define us politically, sexually and socially. The first cartoonist commissioned by The New York Times to create comic strips for their Op-Ed page, Feiffer has since shifted his focus towards writing and illustrating books for children and young adults, including The Man in the Ceiling, A Room with a Zoo, and Bark, George! He won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award for his cartoons; an Obie for his plays; an Academy Award for the animation of his cartoon satire, Munro; and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Writers Guild of America and the National Cartoonist Society. Feiffer has taught at the Yale School of Drama, Northwestern University, Dartmouth, and presently at Stony Brook Southampton College. He has been honored with major retrospectives at the New York Historical Society, the Library of Congress, and The School of Visual Arts. In these challenging political times, Feiffer's presentations mix personal anecdotes, current events and satirical commentary. His memoir, Backing into Forward (Doubleday), relates how persistent failure inspired him to reinvent himself as an artist over and over.
Research: Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)
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Anthony Rose
Synopsis:
Once a renowned Broadway playwright, but now a disenchanted screenwriter, Anthony Rose has taken to travelling around the country visiting regional theatre groups who are producing his famous comedy success, the Parent Lesson. His aim is to rewrite the play on the spot to reflect his changed perspectives, and td reflect the events in his life which, he believes, have given the lie to the motives which guided him when he first wrote the play some 25 years earlier. then he was a neglected, angry son; now he is a neglected husband and Father who has left his wife and feels that his son cares only for his money. So far some nine theatres; upset by his disruptive tactics, have shown him the door but finally, in Kansas City, he finds a receptive director - and sets about working his "magic." Ignoring the objections of the actors, Rose adds new scenes, changes relationships between the characters and even transforms the very natures of the figures in the play. Consistently funny as they struggle to deal with these w
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Philadelphia
1989
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1990
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 1 Other: -
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Bad Friend, A
Synopsis:
Set in Brooklyn during the 1950s, a BaD FRIeND brings us into the household of Shelly and Naomi Wallach, a middle-aged couple who are as fervently opposed to McCarthyism, anti-Semitism and exploitation of the working class as they are passionately committed to the Rosenbergs, civil rights and Stalin. their independent-minded teenage daughter, Rose, squirms under the weight of her parents' oppressive Marxist principles. Maybe I'm only a liberal, Rose says, which provokes a stern lecture from her mother; and as the antagonism between the rigidly ideological Shelly and her questioning, rebellious daughter grows, it becomes increasingly clear that politics is personal and that developing your own beliefs comes at a price.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Off Broadway, NY
2003
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,
Music:
-
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Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 2 Other: -
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Carnal Knowledge
Synopsis:
Childhood buddies and then college roommates, Sandy and Jonathan seem more concerned with mysteries of women than with their respective studies in medicine and law. Sandy has been dating Susan, and as he reports on his "progress" to date the intrigued Jonathan decides to find out for himself just how available Susan might be. although he never tells his friend, he is the first to succeed with her; but while Susan is strongly attracted to Jonathan it is Sandy she decides to marry-a rejection that is deeply disturbing to Jonathan and which sets a pattern he follows for the rest of his life. Choosing sex over love, while failing to realize his need for both, Jonathan embarks on a long and varied series of liaisons that, to Sandy, seem to embody a sexual freedom and excitement that far outstrips what married life can provide. eventually his marriage to Susan founders, and he emulates his friend by seeking fulfillment in a series of affairs. But, like Jonathan, he also finds that fantasies are no substitute for stable commitment, and that while chasing money and women may seem enough when you are very young it can become shallow and even pitiful as you grow older. Told in a series of brief, fast-paced scenes, filled with the sharp, satiric dialogue for which the author is so justly famous, the play, in the end, moves from biting humor to poignant self-realization as Sandy and Jonathan become aware that what they really need and want they have never found-and that their long and tumultuous odyssey, for all its indulgent excesses, has left them both feeling empty and embittered.
Notes:
originally A screenplay
1st Produced:
Houston
1988
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Farrar StrAus, New York, 1971
Music:
-
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Genre:
Comedy Drama Comedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 5 Other: -
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Cohn Of Arc
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
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1st Produced:
-
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
in "Partisan Review, 40, 2", New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1973
Music:
-
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Genre:
-
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Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Crawling Arnold
Synopsis:
Barry and Grace enterprise, a couple in their seventies, have two sons; one a thriving two-year-old and the other Arnold, a young man in his thirties who crawls on all fours, insists on a lemon peel in his martini, and is forever misplacing his coloring book. the enterprises also have a lavish air raid shelter complete with a library of old "Our Gang" movies and four years' worth of "Readers Digest" back copies; plus a rather snippy black maid whose feelings have been ruffled by their offer of a separate-but-equal shelter for her. as for Arnold, the enterprises' concern about him has led to a consultation with Miss Sympathy, a pert, young psychiatric social worker who comes by to do what she can to help straighten him out-and up. She and Arnold are hitting it off rather well when the alert sounds for an air raid drill, and it's down to the shelter for everyone-except that Millie, the maid, has already locked herself in, and the "white imperialists" out. So Miss Sympathy joins Arnold on the floor (an accepted crisis position) and their increasingly intimate confessions continue to an off-stage obligato by the senior enterprises. Arnold admits that he has rediscovered the forgotten value of being naughty, and Miss Sympathy concedes that she finds him overpoweringly attractive but what if the all-clear should sound? But it won't. It's broken. That's what Arnold did that was naughty today.
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1st Produced:
Spoleto
1961
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
in "Best Short Plays of the World 1958-1967", Crown, New York, 1968
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play One act
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 3 Other: -
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Dick And Jane
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
in Oh! Calcutta!
1st Produced:
New York
1969
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Grove Press, New York, 1970
Music:
-
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-
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Dicks, The
Synopsis:
ed the hotel detective is not pleased with his new partner. He doesn't want to peep through keyholes or take candid photographs of guests in their rooms and he doesn't know the difference between dames and broads.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
-
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Contained in "Off-Off Broadway Festival Plays 9" published by Samuel French Inc, New York,
Music:
-
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: - Other: -
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Elliot Loves
Synopsis:
elliot has been dating Joanna for the last six weeks when the curtain rises on his brilliant monologue which in a nutshell captures sex and love in the '90s. elliot describes that gap between the sexes with shape and substance-the gap that people talk over, go to movies over, drink, go to parties and make love over. That gap is revealed when elliot brings Joanna to meet his friends. Joanna, not quite ready for this, bolts in front of the elevator that is to take them to this dinner party. the party, dampened, happens anyway and in the course of it, much is revealed about the relationships of these four life-long friends. In the middle of all of this, Joanna arrives and causes a sensation much to elliot's displeasure. the final scene in the play is a reconciliation in which Joanna and elliot move across the "gap" to tentatively touch each other with honesty-and with love.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Grove Press, New York, 1989
Music:
-
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Genre:
Four sketch like scenes
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 2 Other: -
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Explainers, The
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Chicago
1961
Organisations:
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1st Published:
-
Music:
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-
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Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Feiffer's People
Synopsis:
a unique conception by America's renowned humorist, cartoonist and social satirist, FeIFFeR's PeOPLe offers a characteristically inventive and flexible kind of experimental theatre. Made up of brief sketches, monologues and playlets which are wildly funny yet bitingly acerbic in the sharp observations that they provide on the state of the union and the modern world in general. No specific casting or staging requirements are designated, and producing groups are invited to give full rein to their creative imaginations in selecting, arranging and mounting the various excerpts which will be shaped into their own presentation of FeIFFeR's PeOPLe. This could be a curtain-raiser for a longer play; part of an omnibus program; half of a double-bill; or, because enough basic material is provided, even a full-length program. Staging can range from an open area with stools to a series of stylized settings, and it will be readily apparent that the imaginative use of lighting and appropriate music will add much to production values. But the intrinsic merit-and joy-of FeIFFeR's PeOPLe lies in its complete freedom of form. It provides the essential ingredients for a revue-type program of richly comic dimension, and magically suggests a variety of means for bringing this to life theatrically. It is the starting point for a creative theatre experience which will be shared by all as they participate in the excitement, and sheer fun, of using the stage as a forum for projecting a wry and perceptive world-view, encyclopedic in its awareness of human frailty but always softened by the gentle balm of laughter.
Notes:
music And lyrics by Mike Moore
1st Produced:
Edinburgh
1968
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,
Music:
-
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Genre:
Sketch Play Sketch
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 4 Other: 6 total
Further Reference:
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God Bless
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
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1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut
1968
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
in "Plays and Players", London, January, 1969
Music:
-
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Genre:
-
Parts:
Male: 9 Female: 1 Other: -
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Grown Ups
Synopsis:
an affluent New York Family, with a self-pitying protagonist, spiralling into emotional chaos
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1981
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Samuel French, NY, 1982
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 4 Other: -
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Hold Me!
Synopsis:
Blending together a series of sketches, skits and vignettes, this delightful revue peoples the stage with the engaging and all-too-human characters made famous through the author's renowned cartoons. the theme is the plight of today's city dweller, and the hang-ups, personality difficulties, identity crises and assorted mishaps which beset those trapped in what may begin as urban confusion but all too often ends as urban anguish. Staged with the utmost simplicity, and with each performer assuming a variety of roles, the play abounds in warmth and humor, and in the sad/funny truths that, in the final essence, are the very stuff of life.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Westside Theatre (Downstairs), Off Broadway, NY
1977
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1977
Music:
-
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Genre:
Sketch Play Sketch
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Knock, Knock
Synopsis:
pair of old Jewish bachelor recluses, Joan of arc and part Mephistopheles part Groucho Marx combine in farce
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Circle Theatre, Off Broadway, NY
1976
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Hill and Wang, New York, 1976
Music:
-
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Little Murders
Synopsis:
Intermarried, urban and domestic blight illustrated by a family who shoots at passerbys through their nice middle class windows.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut
1966
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Random House, New York, 1968
Music:
-
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Genre:
Black Comedy Comedy. - - Gay, theme/character full length
Parts:
Male: 6 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Munro
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
New York
1971
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
-
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Oh! Calcutta!
Oh! Calcutta! was a long-running avant-garde theatrical revue, created by British Drama critic Kenneth Tynan. the show, consisting of various sketches on sex-related topics, debuted in Off-Broadway in 1969. It proved, once again, that sex sells, running in London for over 2,400 performances, and in New York for over 1,600. the show sparked considerable controversy at the time, because it featured extended scenes of total nudity, both male and female. the title is taken from a painting by Clovis Trouille, itself a pun on "O quel cul t'as!", French for "What an ass you have!". Tynan had hoped that Harold Pinter would direct the production, in order to give it avant-garde legitimacy, but Pinter declined. (the original director was Jacques Levy, remembered by most now as the songwriting partner of Bob Dylan on his album Desire.) Most of the sketches (written, amongst others, by Nobel prize winner Samuel Beckett, John Lennon, Sam Shepard, edna O'Brien, Jules Feiffer, and Tynan himself) featured the cast naked (including Bill Macy). Peter Schickele (aka 'PDQ Bach'), Robert Dennis and Stanley Walden were the revue's composers, known as the Open Window. a pay-per-view video production played on closed-circuit TV in select cities in 1971, and in 1972 a motion picture version was also released - in both cases many cities and municipalities banned its showing. a 1976 Broadway revival at the edison theatre ran for thirteen years, briefly becoming the longest-running play in Broadway history, with a total of 5,959 performances.
- Wikipedia
Notes:
Conceived by Kenneth Tynan; Contributions by Samuel Beckett, Jules Feiffer, Dan Greenburg, John Lennon, Jacques Levy, Leonard Melfi, David Newman, Robert Benton, Sam Shepard, Clovis Trouille, Kenneth Tynan And Sherman Yellen; Music And Lyrics, the Open Window: Robert Dennis, Peter Schickele And Stanley Walden; Musical Director: Norman Bergen
1st Produced:
Eden Theatre, Off Broadway, NY
17 Jun 1969
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Applause Theatre Book Publishers 1988
Music:
-
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Genre:
Musical
Parts:
Male: 8 Female: 5 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Rope-A-Dope
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
written with others, in Urban Blight
1st Produced:
New York
1988
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
Musical Revue
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Superman
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
-
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
play One act
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Think Piece, A
Synopsis:
the trivia of daily existence shows "the nothingness that constitutes so much of our lives."
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Circle Theatre, Off Broadway, NY
1982
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Unexpurgated Memoirs Of Bernard Mergendeiler, The
Synopsis:
Once they realise that sex is dirty newly acquainted couple release their inhibitions
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Los Angeles
1967
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
in Collision Course", Random House, New York, 1968
Music:
-
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Genre:
Satire
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Urban Blight
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
Book
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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Watergate Classics
Synopsis:
Spoof on the Nixon presidency
Notes:
written with others
1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut
1973
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
in "Yale/theatre", New haven, Connecticut, 1974
Music:
-
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Genre:
Farce
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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White House Murder Case, The
Synopsis:
Hypocrisy of American government and military exposed through involvement in a war in Brazil
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Circle In The Square Downtown, Off Broadway, NY
1970
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Grove Press, New York, 1970
Music:
-
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Genre:
Satire
Parts:
Male: 9 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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World Of Jules Feiffer, The
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Hunterdon Hills, New Jersey
1962
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
-
Music:
-
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Genre:
-
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
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-
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You Should Have Caught Me At the White House
Synopsis:
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
-
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
in "Holiday", June, Indianapolis, 1963
Music:
-
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Genre:
-
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
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