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Murphy Guyer

MURPHY GUYER

  (1952 - )
Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    TalentWorks  

Born and raised in rural eastern Maryland, Murphy Guyer moved to New York City at the age of nineteen to attend the AADA on a acting scholarship. He soon discovered a talent for writing jokes and comic sketches and began writing for various stand-up comics and improv groups. In the early 80's his first play, EDEN COURT, premiered at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville. It was subsequently produced on Broadway and made into a film. Since then he has written numerous works for stage, screen, and radio. His plays have been produced Off-Broadway and at regional theaters throughout the country, as well as in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Europe, and Russia (Soviet Union). From 1996 to 2003 he was Associate Artistic Director for Playwrighting at the Cleveland PlayHouse. Murphy lives and works in New York City.

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

         American Century, The         Eden Court         Enchanted Maze, The         Infinite Regress Of Human Vanity, The         Interrogation         Loyalties         Metaphor, The         Rendezvous With Reality         Russian Romance         World Of Mirth

American Century, The

American Century, The
World War II has ended and Tom, just discharged from the army, returns to his young wife, Margaret, full of hope and enthusiasm, and dreams of a bounteous future. But as they plan their life together they are joined by a brash young stranger who, to their amazement, proceeds to make himself very much at home. He is, he explains, one of the children they will have, and he fills them in so completely about their past and present lives-and the future which awaits them-that Tom and Margaret soon find themselves moving from incredulity to panic. In the most casual, blithely humorous manner he tells of a world gone mad with space races, Watergate and the threat of atomic annihilation; of his siblings who have come to a variety of bad ends; and of Tom and Margaret's own descent into bankruptcy, booze, and pill-popping. Increasingly aghast as one horror is casually (and hilariously) piled on another, Tom rushes for the door, determined to escape before any of this can occur only to be pursued by his unloving but pragmatic son who suddenly realizes that without a father, his own existence, chancy as it may be, will never happen.

Notes:
part of American Shorts

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
20 One-act Plays From 20 Years Of the Humana Festival, edited by Michele Volansky and Michael Bigelow Dixon, Smith & Kraus,    978-1880399989

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:
Joke In 1 act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Eden Court

Synopsis:
In a low-rent trailer park, Shroeder Duncan faces his 30th birthday frustrated by an elusive mouse, tormented by neighbourhood dogs, and embroiled in marital conflict with his Elvis-worshipping wife

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
TCG in Plays in Process.,    -

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 acts Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Enchanted Maze, The

Synopsis:
What could be more terrifying than a labyrinth without a center? C.K. Chesterton once asked. To which this playful absurdist comedy answers; "a labyrinth without a center populated with people who refuse to admit it."

Notes:
The original version of this play was workshopped at the O'Neill Conference in 1990. A later version was premiered at the Cleveland PlayHouse in 1998 and at Philadelphia's Annenberg Center a year later. The play has been translated into Russian and produced at theaters in Moscow, Tbilisi, and Riga, Estonia. This new and final version has received a staged reading but still awaits its first production.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
http://www.indietheaternow.com/Play/the-enchanted-maze   -

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:
absurdist comedy 120 min

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  3            Other:  1

Further Reference:
-

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Infinite Regress Of Human Vanity, The

Synopsis:
This comedy within a comedy within a comedy satirizes the contemporary theater and simultaneously illustrates the larger point that avoiding or transcending self-interest is logically and psychologically impossible.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Cleveland Play House, Ohio    08 Feb 2002

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
http://www.indietheaternow.com/Play/the-infinite-regress-of-human-vanity   -

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:
comedy 90 min

Parts:
Male:  9            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Interrogation

Synopsis:
It asks the question: "When a separated couple meets in their favorite bar nine months after breaking up, how do they ask the question that is on both of their minds. . .how many people have you slept with since we broke up?"
- nytheatre.com

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Victor Jory Theater, Louisville, Ky    1982

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Ten Minute Plays From the Actors Theatre Of Louisville volume Two" published by Samuel French 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

Booksellers:

Genre:
Ten Min

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Loyalties

Synopsis:
a soldier and his wife argue with her sister and her boyfriend over loyalty and going to war. It is Germany 1939

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in 25 Ten-Minute Plays from Actors Theatre of Louisville, 1989   -

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:
Ten Min

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Metaphor, The

Synopsis:
When a strange interrogation is derailed by a prisoner's defiance, the interrogator pulls out all the stops - outrageous, absurd and theatrical. But the prisoner's resistance ultimately disrupts everything, even the performance

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:
One act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Rendezvous With Reality

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Philidelphia, Pa    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

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Russian Romance

Synopsis:
Nothing is what it seems to be in this two-act comedy about what happens when the Russia of poetic imagination collides with the more prosaic Russia of reality.

Notes:
subsequently translated into Russian and produced at theaters in Moscow, Tbilisi, and Riga.

1st Produced:
Cleveland PlayHouse    1999

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
http://www.indietheaternow.com/Play/russian-romance   -

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:
comedy 120 min

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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World Of Mirth

Synopsis:
When the self-described "family" of the World of Mirth carnival hits a streak of bad weather and bad luck, their response is fearfully un-family-like. the play begins three days after Kaspar Kelly, the carnival owner, has forcibly retired Oscar the Frog Boy, a twenty-year veteran of the freak tent. at the time, Sweeney, the dunk-cage clown and Oscar's best friend, begged his fellow carnies to kick in a few dollars to help keep Oscar on the midway; but pleading poverty, they refused. That night Oscar committed suicide, a fact Sweeney will not let them forget. empowered by his own indifference, an indifference born of booze, grief and a nagging doubt, Sweeney has turned the taunts and insults he normally reserves for "marks" against the carnies themselves. But what begins as gleeful ridicule turns to wanton vindictiveness when one of his more reckless antics leaves him bloodied and betrayed. With savage spite he sets out to punish and destroy the entire carnival by exposing its every lie and self-delusion. at one point his embittered cynicism prompts him to deny even the existence of love itself. But ultimately it is love-blind, passionate, desperate love, that destroys him.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Theatre Four, Off Broadway, NY    2001

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 2002   -

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:
Black Comedy Comedy

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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