The Playwrights Database
LAURENCE KLAVAN
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Laurence Klavan'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 Laurence Klavan's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
Bed And Sofa Embarrassments Freud's House Gorgo's Mother If Walls Could Talk Magic Act, The New Rules No Time Seeing Someone Show Must Go On, The Sleeping Beauty Smoke Uncle Lumpy Comes To VisitBed And Sofa
Synopsis:
In Moscow, in 1926, a housing crisis rages. In a cramped apartment, Ludmilla, a put-upon housewife, lives in dreamy complacency with her cheerful despot of a husband, Kolya. When one day, Kolya's handsome comrade, Volodya, arrives from the country, but can find no lodgings, Kolya offers him their sofa. When Kolya returns early from a business trip, he is shocked to discover that Ludmilla and Volodya have become lovers. Kolya moves out, but there is still nowhere to live, so he reluctantly returns, taking the sofa, leaving Ludmilla and Volodya the bed. Kolya stalls the new couple's lovemaking with endless games of checkers, so that slowly, to Ludmilla's frustration, Volodya becomes more interested in the manly sport of checkers than in sex. Finally, Volodya reveals himself to be just as much a domestic despot as Kolya. So Ludmilla banishes Volodya to the sofa and takes the bed for herself. Ludmilla's "marriage" to the two men has already had its consequence as she is pregnant. the two men bicker over who is the Father and finally decree: Ludmilla must have an abortion. acquiescing, Ludmilla waits her turn in a frighteningly efficient clinic. But seeing a living, breathing baby out the window convinces her to leave, without the procedure. She packs up and abandons her two "husbands," declaring them unworthy to be fathers, and Kolya and Volodya find themselves alone in the close Moscow flat. they have no choice: as Ludmilla rides alone into the exciting unknown, Kolya takes the bed and Volodya the sofa.
Notes:
Music by Polly Pen, Lyrics by Laurence Klavan, Based on the Film by Abram Room
1st Produced:
Vineyard Theater, New York
1996
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, -
Music:
New York cast recording: Varese (57292) 1996
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Genre:
Musical
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
Theatre Record Volume XXXI (2011) Issue 07 Page 366
Top of PageEmbarrassments
Synopsis:
the date: January 5, 1895. the place: the St. James theater in London's West end. Tonight, brilliant novelist Henry James hopes to change his life with the opening of his new venture: a play, into which he has poured his vulnerable heart. In tragic-comic scenes that evoke his love and terror of the theatre, he stalls and hallucinates before attending the ill-fated premiere of his famously disastrous play Guy Domville. Meanwhile, deep in his imagination, a parallel short story, Nona Vincent, unfolds. In it, a young, hopeful and impoverished playwright, Wayworth, is about to have his first, very commercial, play produced. He is drawn into a triangle with his elegant patron, Mrs. alsager, and his young leading lady, Violet Grey. With increasing speed, these two stories, one real and one imaginary, drive toward their very different confrontations with destiny.
Notes:
Book by Laurence Klavan, Music by Polly Pen, Lyrics by Laurence Klavan And Polly Pen, Additional Text by Polly Pen
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
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Genre:
Musical
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 4 Other: doubling
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageFreud's House
Synopsis:
Eric and Sharon went to high school together; now, twenty years later, they meet again during a service at a Manhattan synagogue. He is a struggling model and substance abuser in a shallow relationship with a California blond; she is an intensely bright and accomplished doctor whose current relationship is an uneasy flirtation with a gentile doctor. He is there to join the current trend of "rediscovering" his religion; she has always been fiercely devoted to hers. Over a year's worth of religious holidays, their relationship changes from hostility to attraction to a full-fledged affair - until they betray each other, ostensibly in the name of faith. a provocative romantic comedy, FReUD's HOUSe entertainingly examines how we use religion for our own ends, and treats both of its characters with compassion but without sentimentality: each is sincere; each is right; each is at fault
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon Of One-Act Plays, In New York City
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1997 -
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:
Comedy Drama One act
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageGorgo's Mother
Synopsis:
Joanne is a privileged young publishing employee, who disdains her background. She yearns to be defamed by Kenny, a middle-class drug dealer. Kenny considers himself an "entrepreneur" and is panicked by the slow sales of his-strictly marijuana-drug business. He yearns for Terry, a chipper, evasive "professional escort" who wants to quit the business. She yearns for Brian, a snide but secretly emotional preppie who wants to go into the movies. He yearns for Joanne, his colleague in the-poorly compensated-publishing business. Joanne convinces lovesick Brian to steal a truckload of books from their company and sell them. She secretly gives the money to Kenny, to ease his financial woes and gain his love. Kenny, in turn, gives the money to Terry, to grease her exit from escorting and gain her love. Terry gives the money to Brian to go into the movies and gain his love. Instead of being strengthened, all the relationships explode, and Brian, for his part, is arrested. GORGO's MOtheR is a La Ronde for the Nineties, in which money is a main concern, and no one secures the object of their desire.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Manhattan Punch Line Theatre One-Act Festival
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: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageIf Walls Could Talk
Synopsis:
In IF WaLLS COULD TaLK, a husband and wife, Gilbert and arlene, pay a reluctant visit to the bedside of the dying grandfather, a thoroughly pompous, tyrannical sort who has always managed to make his grandson feel inadequate while boring him with endless stories about his deprived youth in the old country and his subsequent great success in the new. But as Gilbert ruminates about what "Grandgaggy" might really be like, a series of deceased family members and former friends miraculously materialize, one by one, and neatly demolish any myths which the dying man might have hoped to perpetuate. In fact, he was, in turns out, a thoroughly unsavory character-and the others are hardly elated by the thought that the time has come for him to join them again-this time forever!
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 One act
Parts:
Male: 7 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageMagic Act, The
Synopsis:
as the play begins Mona Kale, an exuberant and good-natured sort, is in the dock, accused of murdering her lifelong friends Alan and annabelle, two old high school sweethearts who were so deeply enamored of each other that, in their youth, they nearly pined away when they were parted by separate summer camps. the prosecution claims that Mona did away with her friends because they were too happy, and in revenge for her own crushing loneliness, but Mona's defense is that it was love, not she, that killed them-a love so perfect and overpowering that it carried the seeds of its own destruction. Needless to say the media have a field day with the case, with the evening TV news offering its viewers a number to telephone (fifty cents a call) to vote on Mona's guilt or innocence, with a verdict provided at the end of the newscast, and with Mona herself becoming a national symbol for the lonely (and the insane). But as the play alternates between events and people of the present and those of the past, the truth of what Alan and annabelle's real relationship had become is gradually (and often hilariously) revealed. In the end it is the audience that becomes the jury and is left to wrestle with the position and pertinence of love, sex, ideals and other such components of life in our so often disjointed modern world.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Ensemble Studio Theatre, NY
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, full length Comedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageNew Rules
-
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Town Hall, New York
2002
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Contained in: "Director As Collaborator" published by Focal Press 2005 978-0205397099
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 PageNo Time
Synopsis:
Randolph Hackmeat, fresh out of law school, is already a partner in his father's law firm. He is also about to be married to the sexy Susan; he is buying a twelve-bedroom house; and one by one his partners begin to die off-moving him up a step each time. But, as we learn in a series of brief and very funny vignettes, there are problems, too. His wife leaves him (and then comes back); his house burns down (he buys another); and his brother (the jealous one) overdoses on pool table cleaner. as the pace of the play quickens, Randy is besieged by all manner of intruders, from a psychiatrist to a crooked investment counselor, not to mention a curvaceous employee who seduces and then blackmails him. But the mad whirl suddenly stops when his doctor advises Randy (as he is looking over his retirement options) that he has terminal cancer-leaving his widow to weep-and then smile-at the vagaries of this odd thing called life.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Philadelphia Festival For New Plays
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: 12 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageSeeing Someone
Synopsis:
a young man finds it difficult to shake off obsessive thoughts of his former girlfriend and build a new relationship with her successor because, every time he starts to embrace his current lady, he is immediately besieged with a clear vision (across the stage) of what his old flame is up to and with whom-the latter being a stupid, clumsy lout who breaks her china and pops the buttons off her clothes!
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 One act
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageShow Must Go On, The
Synopsis:
cleverly mixes up sitcoms and real life by presenting us with an ostensibly authentic suburban family in which all the members read their lines from a stilted and hilariously dismal script. Trouble develops when someone shows up who is not in the script. Furthermore, she (the part was supposed to call for a burly telephone repairman) is both fetching and given to improvisation, which throws the others completely. and when the Father of the family is lured into trying his hand at "winging it" he ends up being fired and facing divorce from his jealous wife-while the substitute Father who is rushed in to replace him arrives with the wrong script!
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 One act
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageSleeping Beauty
Synopsis:
Takes place in Malcolm Harrington's brand new condominium on Staten Island, which he shares with his delightfully kooky girlfriend, Louise. Louise, who wants to decorate the apartment with "balloon men" and pencil drawings, is beginning to feel inhibited by the stodgy demands of her ever practical boyfriend and dreams of the "other men" in her life (some of whom she has never even met). Strangely enough, one by one these men (not to mention one woman) do begin to show up at Louise's door and beg her to run off with them. although tempted by their hilarious entreaties, Louise, in the end, decides that she truly loves Malcolm and that her life should be with him, rather than the crazy collection of characters who have so disconcertingly sprung from her erotic reveries into palpable life.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Manhattan Punch Line Theatre, NY
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 One act
Parts:
Male: 11 Female: 3 Other: many are bit parts
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageSmoke
Synopsis:
al Kamen is a man who seems to have life going his way. In a series of fast-paced, comic scenes we see that al's wife, friends, and employer all think very highly of him, and that he, in turn, has strong, secure relationships with those around him. However, one day al decides to quit smoking, and that's when everything starts to fall apart for our hero. all of a sudden honesty becomes the name of the game; and in a series of encounters with his wife and friends, we see what al, and those who surround him, actually think of each other. Pretty soon all of the harsh truths become too much for al to bear, and he begins smoking again, yearning for the life that he used to lead. as the play ends the stage in engulfed in smoke, with both al and the audience strangely unsure of what his future will hold for him.
Notes:
written As A companion piece for Sleeping Beauty
1st Produced:
Philadelphia Festival For New Plays
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: 6 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageUncle Lumpy Comes To Visit
Synopsis:
Philip (known in the family as "Uncle Lumpy") is not a happy man: His wife has divorced him; he has no job; and he needs to talk to someone-so he goes to the suburban home of his older brother, Lou. Lou is off on a business trip but his wife, Marion, is at home, and invites Philip to stay for brunch, then dinner, then the night. as the two discuss the absent Lou it is soon evident that they are both unhappy and unfulfilled and that Lou (who is apparently a thoroughly nasty, selfish man) is responsible for much of their misery. In a series of blackouts we see Philip growing ever closer to Marion and his niece Jennifer (who is spoken to but never seen) until, eventually, he has replaced his brother in the household-and the bedroom. But then Marion announces that Lou is coming home and Philip must go, which reluctantly he agrees to do, with a promise to return on Jennifer's birthday. However, when he comes back, he finds a changed Marion who is (a) unwilling to resume their relationship and (b) pregnant. Philip is shattered by this news, but Marion, secure in the knowledge that this will be her child, and not Lou's, is buoyant. In the final essence she too has used "Uncle Lumpy" for her own purposes, and as he trudges sadly off, we are aware that, for him, this unhappy pattern will probably never change.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Manhattan Punch Line Theatre, NY
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 One act
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of Page