The Playwrights Database
NAGLE JACKSON
(1936 - )Nationality: USA
email: n/a Website: n/a
Literary Agent: Harden-Curtis Associates
Nagle Jackson's plays including theatres, agent, synopses, cast sizes, production and published dates
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Research: Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)
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below is a list of Nagle Jackson's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
At This Evening's Performance Bernice/Butterfly: A Two-Part Invention Elevation Of Thieves, The Ghost Light Hotel On Marvin Gardens, A Moliere Plays Paris Opera Comique Quick-Change Room, The Taking Leave This Day And Age Utter Glory Of Morrissey Hall, TheAt This Evening's Performance
Synopsis:
On tour in rural Dunsk (recently annexed by the hated socialist state of Strevia) a theatrical troupe is obliged to present corny meloDramas and creaky verse plays as modern Drama has been banned by their new masters. Led by a hammy egomaniac (who has amorous designs on the company's ingenue) and his amazonian wife (who is herself in panting pursuit of the group's handsome juvenile), the actors seem more concerned with romantic assignations than politics until they discover that their new stage manager is a Strevian spy. To make matters worse, it also develops that one of the lines in the play of the evening is a secret cue for subversive activity and that the speaker (a member of the underground) will be summarily disposed of by a gunman in the audience. all this reaches its hilarious climax in a wildly funny play-within-a-play in which the wrong man is shot, the right man is spared, and the Players of Dunsk decide to head for the border - and freedom in the West.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Mccarter Theatre, Princeton N
1983
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1994
Music:
-
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageBernice/Butterfly: A Two-Part Invention
Synopsis:
In this theatrical tour de force, two seemingly unrelated plays turn out to be one story, a discovery not made until the surprise ending. BeRNICe aT BaY concerns itself with Bernice, waitress at the O-Kay Diner in a small, dying Kansas town. Bernice works the breakfast shift, calls each regular by name and carries on a hilarious running dialogue with Helen, the cook. But we only see Bernice, and little by little the heartbreaking pieces of her private Drama break through the comedic facade as we realize what we are really seeing.In the BUTTeRFLY eFFeCT, we meet Randall - in academic robes and a bad haircut. Standing at a lectern, he apparently delivers an annual lecture to the American Philosophical Society. We hear occasional bursts of applause as he rants on in an absurdist parody of contemporary philosophical jargon. His life, it appears, has been ruined by the "Butterfly effect"one false step leading to chaos&a misplaced hand, a beautiful young boy. . .With the sudden surprising reappearance of Bernice, these two "inventions" unite to form a bittersweet tragicomedy. the American Dream doesn't always happen, and in this small, dusty Kansas town it almost never does.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
-
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service Inc, NY, 2007
Music:
-
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Booksellers:
Genre:
Tragicomedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageElevation Of Thieves, The
Synopsis:
A small town puts on a Passion Play in the streets. During a rehearsal one of the villagers runs amok with a gun killing at random
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Denver Center Theatre Company, Denver, Colorado
1999
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:
-
Top of PageGhost Light
Synopsis:
1966 twelve actors and a director have been hired for the summer season rep. Only the director and three actors turn up. They have to decide what they are going to put on in the dilapidated theatre. They also have to contend with ghosts who want their story told
Notes:
Commissioned by the Creede Repertory Theatre for their 50th anniversary
1st Produced:
Creede Repertory Theatre. Creede, CO 81130
26 Jun 2015
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:
-
Top of PageHotel On Marvin Gardens, A
Synopsis:
all I want is to run everything and always be right; now is that so much to ask? Thus speaks K.C., the no-nonsense editor of Me magazine, a popular rag dedicated to the upwardly mobile. K.C. lives by herself on an island off the Connecticut coast, the island's only inhabitant. It is April Fool's Day. K.C. and her publisher-lover, Bo, are hosting their annual all-day Monopoly game. they have invited Me editor Henry, who brings along Food and Restaurant critic, erna Tinker- "a bit of a dingbat, but she's got a terrific palate." Through the course of two acts we follow the game-both the familiar board game and the corporate game. What Henry does not know: K.C. intends to fire him after ten years of service. But that is not her main concern on this day: "I always put a hotel on Marvin Gardens, and I always win." Suddenly, there is a knock at the door and a storm-bedraggled girl enters. Rose, a young schoolteacher, has been dumped on this island by a frustrated seducer. It is her presence and contrast to these terribly affluent and sophisticated New Yorkers that eventually leads to a showdown. Henry wants to "start a new life" with this young charmer; Bo and erna end up having hanky-panky "in the pump house"; and K.C.-having eventually finagled Marvin Gardens-ends up all alone on her island. "I win" she says, sitting like a little girl among her toys. the discussions of "Passing Go," "landing on Boardwalk," etc., delight audiences who know this game by heart and the double meanings of corporate gamesmanship ring wickedly true, as America's favorite board game becomes the metaphor for American greed.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Denver Center Theatre Company, Denver, Colorado
1999
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:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageMoliere Plays Paris
Synopsis:
Careers and love lives alike are on the line when Moliere's theater company bombs their debut performance in Paris. Desperate to impress King Louis XIV, the company stages a spontaneous production of Moliere's farce the Love Doctor. the show is a smash hit, but when Moliere announces his betrothal to the younger sister of his former mistress, Madeliene Bejart, turmoil ensues. the next night, onstage high jinks merge with backstage Drama when the troupe performs the Forced Marriage, and Moliere must deal with the demands of the King as he realizes that his fiancee may not be quite what she seems. (the Love Doctor and the Forced Marriage can also be performed separately.)
Notes:
Original Playwright - Moliere
1st Produced:
Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, Or
1996
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Playscripts, Inc, 2011
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:
adaptation
Parts:
Male: 10 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageOpera Comique
Synopsis:
the place is the Opera Comique, in Paris, in 1875, at the first performance of Bizet's new opera, Carmen. all the "best people" are there but, as the cynical, worldly-wise usher, Odile, points out, they have not come to hear the music. Rather it is "amour" which they have on their minds: Paul Vigneron (who is having an affair with Madame de la Corniche) hopes to pair his sex-obsessed son Hector (who figuratively undresses every woman he sees) with his mistress' daughter, Viviane; while Viviane (who is not quite the innocent she seems) is hoping to bed down with the Father rather than the son. also on hand are a nervous Georges Bizet (for whose opera Odile has predicted sure and permanent failure); the revered Charles Gounod, doyen of French opera (who is not above the temptations of the flesh, despite his age and exalted status); and the tempting coquette, La Tartine (who has come to seduce Gounod but, in the comic doings, finds herself closeted naked with the randy Hector Vigneron instead). eventually things become so hilariously tangled that straightening them out is seemingly impossible-but straightened out they are, except in the case of poor Bizet, who knows only that his cherished work has failed that evening and does not live on long enough thereafter to learn that, in time, it will become the world's most popular opera.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre
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:
Farce
Parts:
Male: 6 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageQuick-Change Room, The
Synopsis:
Set against the crumbling of the Soviet Union, as observed backstage at the Kuzlov theater in St. Petersburg, the QUICK- CHaNGe ROOM is the comedic metaphor for the too-rapid transformation of Russia from communism to free-market capitalism. Nina, the daughter of the wardrobe mistress, has been cast as Irina in a revival of Chekhov's the Three Sisters. Using her considerable talents-theatrical and otherwise-she persuades management that what Chekhov's play needs in the New Russia is "music. . .some songs. . .maybe even some dances." Chekhov's masterpiece becomes, for marketing purposes, an American style musical titled O My Sister! the venerable artistic director is kicked upstairs-after all, "Russia doesn't need great men now; it needs clever men"-and the long-reigning prima donna ends up working in wardrobe. a funny-sad commentary on current events, the metaphor of the quick-change room is not lost on the audience as the world around the acting troupe changes as drastically and as quickly as the world outside.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Denver Center Theatre Company
1995
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1997
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 Drama Comedy
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 5 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageTaking Leave
Synopsis:
In the middle of the night, eliot Pryne, professor of english Literature-specialty Shakespeare-is packing what he thinks is a suitcase and leaving what he thinks is a hotel. In the early stages of alzheimer's disease, he is "taking leave" of the real world and imagining a new one, but the transition is painful. His alter-ego, seen only by the audience, charts this final voyage speaking as eliot once did when he was the leading authority on Shakespeare's King Lear. the visitation of eliot's three daughters, alma, Liz and Cordelia, forms the central event of this oddly comic, yet fully sympathetic play. the decision-whether or not to have Father put in a "home"-provides the central conflict among the three very different sisters: the public school counselor, alma; the TV actress, Liz; and the ne'er-do-well vagabond, Cordelia, who arrives in her black leather motorcycle outfit fresh from a year in Paris and a history of drug abuse. as in Shakespeare's play, it is the young Cordelia who assumes responsibility for her Father and leaves us with the bittersweet realization that, while all will not be well, eliot's taking leave will be a gentle one. Filled with the often farcical behavior that goes along with this disease, and decorated with "good talk" from the literate professor and his daughters, this play had packed houses at the Denver Center laughing, weeping and finally standing and cheering. as the alarming number of alzheimer's victims keeps growing, this play's relevance increases daily.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Denver Center Theatre Company, Denver, Colorado
1998
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:
Comedy Drama Comedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageThis Day And Age
Synopsis:
This sophisticated comedy of modern manners deals with the "empty-nester's" greatest nightmare: the chickens coming home to roost. affluent, newly widowed and wonderfully politically incorrect, Marjorie is enjoying life sitting by her pool, having imaginary conversations with her late husband, Jack, when both her grown-up children come calling: ann with her British husband, Brian, and Tony with his Asian-American wife, Joy-an ex-ballet dancer. Neither sibling knows the other has the same plan: to come home and live with poor old Mom. When Marjorie's succinct reply is "No," they can't believe it. Who ever heard of anyone wanting to live alone?" asks ann. "anyone who's tried it" is Marjorie's reply. Not only does she not want them living there but-she has decided to sell the estate and move to New Zealand. Family chaos ensues. Sibling rivalry reaches alarming proportions; brother-in-law begins to lust after sister-in-law, and even the water in the pool turns murky. eventually Marjorie has an epiphany-including a visitation from her deceased husband, songwriter Jack, who arrives in swimsuit and flippers, urging her to "let 'em go, let 'em all go." Her decision, which has nothing to do with New Zealand, takes everyone by surprise and gives her a new freedom and a new life. the surprise "hit" of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's '95 season, this comedy addresses very real and current issues with crackling wit and sometimes controversial reflections on American society in "this day and age."
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
1995
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:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageUtter Glory Of Morrissey Hall, The
Morrissey Hall Girls School and the headmistress seems completely unaware of the mischief her girls get up to.
Notes:
Music by Clark Gesner; lyrics by Clarke Gesner; book by Nagle Jackson; book by Clark Gesner
1st Produced:
Pacific Conservatory Of The Performing Arts, Santa Maria, Ca
1979
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Samuel French, NY,
Music:
Original cast recording: Original Cast Records (OC 8738) 1979
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:
Musical
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 18 Other: -
Further Reference:
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