The Playwrights Database
V GLASGOW KOSTE
(1924 - 2010)Nationality: USA
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Virginia Glasgow Koste was born to actors James Glasgow and Vivian Marlowe 06 Oct 1924, Akron, Ohio; died 17 Jul 2010. Koste has worked in the theatre all her life, acting, directing, writing and teaching. Honors and awards for playwriting include: A.A.T.E.'s Distinguished Play Award (The Chicago Gypsies); Indiana Arts Commission/National Endowment for the Arts Master Artist Fellowship for artistic excellence and achievement; Michigan Council for the Arts Individual Artist grant; selection for national showcases (A.A.T.E.) in New York, Toronto, Boston and Chicago; listings in Theatre Communications Group's Play Source; winner of TADA's national contest; and the Chorpenning Cup (A.A.T.E.) for a body of outstanding plays. Koste has written many articles and a classic book on the creative process, Dramatic Play in Childhood: Rehearsal for Life. She has lectured and worked as a guest artist in the United States, Canada and Europe, most recently performing her one-act play, I Remain&J. Austen, in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Santa Fe, Seattle and St. Louis. Her plays, 12 of which are published, have been produced throughout the United States, in Canada and in Moscow. Koste received a bachelor's degree from Vassar College and a master's degree from Wayne State University, with further graduate study at Cornell, Northwestern and Indiana University. She studied acting with Stella Adler in New York and was a lifetime member of The Dramatists Guild.
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below is a list of V Glasgow Koste's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
Chicago Gypsies, The I Remain. . .J. Austen Medicine Show Or How To Succeed In Medicine Without Really Trying, The On the Road! To Oz Scraps! The Ragtime Girl of Oz Stranger Tolstoy Story Play, The Trial Of Tom Sawyer, The White as Snow, Red as Blood: The Story of Snow White Wonderful Wizard of Oz, TheChicago Gypsies, The
This is a play for family audiences about the migratory life of a "show business" child during the Great Depression. Carolina Lee, called "Charley," is the youngest actress in the company that suddenly finds itself stranded, and she becomes a "drop-in" at the local school, where "recess is more like a Roman coliseum." Here is a play that connects rich, fully realized characters from three generations. Audiences warm to Charley's temperamental actress-mother; her loving, song-and-dance-man of a father; and Charley's "illegitimate adopted grandmothers." While set in the Depression, the "Chicago gypsies" stubbornly see their way through these "worst of times" to the "best of times" in a regenerative reunion that makes these odd yet ordinary people shine with the miracle of loving, quiet survival.
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Full-Length
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Male: 1 Female: 6 Other: -
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Top of PageI Remain. . .J. Austen
Synopsis:
Now, through the power of theatre, Austen is alive and well and living in any place where she chooses to "body forth" at the flamboyant age of 218-going-on-forever. Quirky, jubilant, curious, this Jane's ironic comic edge cuts her losses to reveal a fiercely independent woman, liberated by her work's immortality to speak her mind and open her heart. A tour de force part for an actor of any age, this Jane wears whatever current clothes she fancies and "speaks American." This is Jane of infinite variety?not staled by custom or stereotype, facing death and the loss of love, laughing at herself, reveling in the sound and sense of language, burning with work, demanding, raging, discovering, still growing.
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Genre:
One-Act
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: -
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Top of PageMedicine Show Or How To Succeed In Medicine Without Really Trying, The
Synopsis:
The Medicine Show is a short and swift play all about a fabulous (and hilarious) fake attuned to the chances of chance. This play is a new, contemporary comedy and a zany favorite wherever it is produced. It is ideal for easy touring and freely derived from Moliere, although a truly American version for young and family audiences. The world's most famous, infamous, paramedical clown is involved in a scheming and plotting. He psyches out everybody in sight, falling back on his intuitive wits, and landing happily on his feet of clay. This version has a winning prescription that laughter is the best medicine
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Anchorage Press, New Orleans, 1983
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Genre:
One-Act 25 min
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageOn the Road! To Oz
Synopsis:
Virginia Koste's new Oz play borrows from the characters and incidents from a dozen Oz books Shaggy Man, Queen Jinjur, Professor Wogglebug, Johnny Dooit, et al. It's a jokey, jubilant journey through the American dream of Oz. It recreates the cheerful, vaudeville-and-magic brand of fantasy with which Frank Baum charmed America's Great Plains from the Mississippi River to the Rockies. On the Road! takes place in the mind of a playwright. Dorothy and the other actors inhabit his/her mind. The characters they play come from Oz. The conflict is the playwright's struggle to let the story happen to control or release the creative passion. It's the "child on a magical journey" a reminder that life is a journey, not a destination.
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Genre:
Full-Length
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 3 Other: -
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Top of PageScraps! The Ragtime Girl of Oz
Synopsis:
Scraps springs to life in mid-girlhood, created from a patchwork quilt and born of Dr. Pipt's magic powder of life. The strange doctor contrived her as his slave, but she promptly rejects that role, choosing instead to go on an adventure with Ojo. Warned that she is headstrong, Scraps replies, "What's wrong with having a strong head?" Ojo and Scraps' mission: to collect ingredients that will form a potion to revive Ojo's laconic uncle temporarily turned to stone in a laboratory accident. Naturally, they succeed. Scraps calms the threatening Woozy, brainstorms with the wise Scarecrow, mediates an end to a war, and enlists Princess Ozma to restore Ojo's uncle. It's all in a day's adventure for Scaps!
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Genre:
Full-Length
Parts:
Male: 7 Female: 4 Other: extras
Further Reference:
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Top of PageStranger
Synopsis:
Chicago. The Loop. A troubled woman, edgy about a vital meeting she must face, feels an irrational need to find the small theatrical hotel that she remembers from her childhood. Without knowing the why or how of her pilgrimage, she chooses, then hails a taxi. A seasoned cabby picks her up. "I've been waiting for you," she says, And he says, "I've been waiting for you." So begins a journey brief, funny, haunting, as he takes her "home" to the now derelict, almost abandoned place where a notorious multiple murderer of nurses was once arrested. But she remembers truly the "home hotel" of her recurrent dream. Her driver takes her through a remarkable analysis, guides her through a series of clues that steady her, for the change crucial to this transitional moment. Whether we believe in him as a seer in an advanced life, a benevolent con-artist, or an empathetic eccentric who loves his work, what happens is the natural marvel of one human being even in a brief encounter catalyzing change in another, calling up that transforming faith in the meaning of life which restores hope. Finding your own sources with the help of angels, like one true friend (the voice on the phone) and one true stranger (a cabby named Jung) is "an indissoluble bonding between the myth and the ordinary world." (Mike Newell, director) The knowing, trusted voice of Ruth is the affirmation of Charley's renewed belief in herself, found through going back, to go ahead. (Much of this play actually happened in the summer of 1980.)
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Genre:
One-Act
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageTolstoy Story Play, The
Synopsis:
Inspired by Tolstoy's tellings of Russian folktales a century ago, this award-winning story theatre play is a celebration of the glory of story in a style at once primitive and sophisticated, entertaining, accessible and surprising. It is an ideal ensemble piece with a fresh blend of vaudeville, commedia, realism, farce and poetry. The play, composed of stories, clearly illustrates the essence of story itself as a human survival tool and art. Its theme is that each person's real life is in itself a complex story, made of overlapping, interwoven stories, lived and to some degree authored, acted, and directed by its protagonist.
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Genre:
One act 40 min
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: flexible
Further Reference:
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Top of PageTrial Of Tom Sawyer, The
Synopsis:
Here is a fresh dramatization of Mark Twain's beloved tale of Tom Sawyer. As the title suggests, the play dramatically focuses on the inner conflict of Tom during one long summer ago. In a warm season of ripening, the boy proves his manhood and the man (played by a narrator of Mark Twain) relives his boyhood. Tom moves through the whitewash enterprise of work and play, the school whipping, establishing his bravery in the young world, the graveyard murder and the climactic trial which tests his courage in the old world of life and death itself. Along the way is the escape into the play world of Jackson Island and the happiest funeral in all literature as the "drowned" listen to their own eulogies.
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Anchorage Press, New Orleans, 1978
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Genre:
Comedy 55 min
Parts:
Male: 18 Female: 8 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageWhite as Snow, Red as Blood: The Story of Snow White
Synopsis:
"Once upon a time in the middle of winter, a long time ago, long before anyone here was here, a high castle stood at the edge of a far forest." Thus begins this extraordinary dramatization of a fairy tale that reaches deep into every child's experience of growing up. This ever-popular tale is flooded with the magic that delights children and a joyful outpouring of language that holds them spellbound. Enjoy this magical environment and an experience of exceptional depth for both children and adults
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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:
Full-Length 80 min
Parts:
Male: 9 Female: 5 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageWonderful Wizard of Oz, The
Synopsis:
Like the stage manager in Our Town, Frank Baum "stage manages" his story to keep the action brisk from scene to scene. Baum is a welcome and theatrical addition. In real life he was an actor, traveling salesman, vaudeville manager and newspaperman an authentic American gypsy. Swept to Oz on a cyclone, Dorothy joins with the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion as she searches for home and family. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz celebrates the importance of mind and heart; courage in facing what is feared; the need to dream, to dare, to ride out storms; the joys of loving, laughing, crying, being lost and found. Faithful to the original book, Virginia Koste's play creates a fresh framework for Oz
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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:
Full-Length
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 5 Other: -
Further Reference:
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