The Playwrights Database
DAVID L METH
Nationality: USA
email: Click here to contact Website: n/a
Literary Agent: n/a
Awards, Honors & Fellowships: 2009 A HINT OF LIGHT - a novel - Trade Paperback publication: Dec. 2009; 2009 Playwriting Fellowship for TO the DEATHOF MY OWN FAMILY: Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism 2008 Peace Writing International Award for 9/12: OMNI Center for Peace and Justice. 2000 Finalist: O'Neill National Playwrights Conference for ARTY's POOLROOM (formerly titled: the Broken Down Valise) Credits: Finalist: Stageworks/Hudson's 2005 Play by Play Festival (NY), Claire Donaldson Short Play Festival (SD), Mercy Plays (the Haven, NYC); Honorable Mention: Fred Newman-Mario Frattti anti-Corruption Play Writing Award/Castillo Theatre (NYC). Work has appeared in front of audiences at Abingdon Theater (NYC), Ensemble Studio Theatre (NYC) - Summer Conference, Theatre Artists Workshop (Westport, CT), Westport Community Theatre (Westport, CT), Ohio Theater (NYC-Theatres Against War), Book Traders Cafe, (New Haven, CT), Herring Run Arts Festival (Middleboro, MA), Theatre One Productions (Lakeville, MA), Puffin Foundation (NJ) and New Jersey Dramatists, 13th Street Rep. (NYC), Augustana College (Sioux Falls, SD), Darien Players (CT), Pan Asian Rep., (NYC), Lone Star Ensemble (LA), Cabaret for Peace & Justice, Hunter College (NYC), PS 122 (NYC-THAW), Heartlande Theatre Company (MI), SLAM!@the Tank (NYC), the Culture Project's Impact Festival (NYC), Nuyorican Poets Cafe (NYC), North Park Playwrights Festival (San Diego, CA), Cornelia Street Cafe (NYC), Bowery Poetry Club (NYC), Mo Pitkin's (NYC), Abrons Arts Center at the Henry Street Settlement, Boston Theater Marathon (MA), Ball Performing Arts Center (Waco, TX), NU Ways/NU Works Festival (U. Nebraska-tbd), Co-Op Theater East (NYC), Lost Playwrights of Western North Carolina, San Francisco Theatre Festival (CA); with more to come, dates not yet confirmed. India: MetroPlus Theatre Festival, Chennai; Ranga Shankara Theater, Bangalore; Adishakti Theater, Pondicherry; and in Mumbai: National Center for Performing Arts, National Gallery of Modern Art, and Prithvi Theater. Nepal: Selected for Kathmandu International Theatre Festival: to be performed in the future, depending on the global financial crisis and acts of terrorism. Rawanda: Invited to be part of the Festival Arts Azimuts for the 15th commemoration festival of the genocide in Rwanda, at the Centre Universitaire des Arts. (Sept. 2009 Funding for international travel unavailable. Hoping to make arrangements for the future.) Memberships include: the Dramatists Guild, Theatre Artists Workshop (CT), Playwrights Center (MN), PEN, the Academy of American Poets, SCBWI, Theatre Without Borders, International Theatre Network, Peace and Justice Studies Association, and the Educational Theater Association.
Research: Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)
Buy Plays with Doollee
Each page of doollee.com has links to play/book outlets, either directly to the Publisher, through Stageplays.com and Amazon to the second hand and 1st editions of AbeBooks. These links will automatically take you to the relevant area obviating the need for further search.AbeBooks.co.uk AbeBooks.com Stageplays.com amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
whether you are a Playwright who wishes to make their entry definitive, an unlisted Playwright or a User with a tale to tell - we want to hear from you.
download WORD submission template
below is a list of David L Meth's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
5 Curries 9/12 Arty's Poolroom Beggar's Smile, A Even President Nixon For Rent: Fourth Floor Walk-Up, Womb For Two How I Won the Lottery (and Kept Myself Out of Jail for Almost a Month) Mirror, Rabbi To the Death Of My Own Family5 Curries
Synopsis:
a Dramatic comedy that takes place in India and New York City. It is about an American man who will die without a kidney transplant, but he is too old to receive one in the United States. Thus, he goes to India, a place which he is only familiar with through the news and TV, where the sale of kidneys is easy to arrange on the black market, and there is no responsibility on his part other than to pay for it. Six months later he is at home and fully recovered when there is a knock on the door. A young Indian couple stands before him and claims that one of them has donated the kidney. Of course, the American man denies knowing anything about it; but when the Indian couple provides more details, the American gives in. But how does he know if it is actually one of them who sold the kidney, despite the large scars to prove it? Kidneys are for sale readily in India. Thus, the central theme of the play arises: What difference does it make who gave him the kidney? He went to India on the verge of death and returned with a new life. the Indian couple came to America, desperate for a new life. How can he refuse?
Notes:
Two Actors portraying the Indian characters play 3 characters each.
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:
Dramatic comedy Comedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of Page9/12
Synopsis:
9/12 begins with a multi-ethnic celebration and dinner, then takes an unexpected detour during a random baggage check in the NYC subway system. Special agents cloaked in the shadow of Homeland Security confront Larry Leonard, a well-known and opinionated writer born and raised in Brooklyn, and his wife Naomi, a college history professor, about their conspicuous and sometimes questionable activities of the past and their most ordinary events of the present. But the clock has been turned back and they can't escape-and never did they dream that their mixed blood, persecuted ancestry, and unwavering sense of defiance would put their children's lives in jeopardy thirty years later.
Notes:
2 Female Asian-Americans (one middle-age, one college Age); 1 Female African-American Adult, Any Age; 1 Female Middle-Eastern, college Age. 1 Male Asian-American, college Age; 3 Male Caucasians, 2 middle Age, 1 Any Age.
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:
full-length play in two acts with a one-act version Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 4 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageArty's Poolroom
Synopsis:
A "Broken Down Valise"is a loser, a person who can't get a handle on his life. Irving Polanski, the "Valise", is a high school student indebted to some nasty locals for gambling down in Arty's Poolroom. Alternately a war zone and an escape, Arty's is a place of release, exasperation and bonding, where the future is being dreamed and events of change-both personal and social-are slowly being acknowledged in the first half of the 1960's. the conversations carried on in Arty's Poolroom by the kids often overlap those taking place in the Old Dutch Diner by their parents. But the dialogue never seems to take place directly between Father and son, or husband and wife, who read each other's mind without being able to speak to each other about the issues confronting them.
Notes:
ARTY's POOLROOM is A Dramatic comedy About three high school friends struggling through personal crises while trying to become men during the early 1960's. It is A time of upheaval As the Vietnam War begins taking sons And brothers, the Civil Rights Movement moves into their neighborhood with the first black family, And Rock And Roll pulses through the Arteries of the youth with A newfound sense of independence And defiance. For each of the characters, Arty's poolroom is A gauntlet, A rite of passage fought And spoken in the lean, sarcastic, quick-talking street language of 60's Brooklyn, where A remark doesn't go unchallenged And A challenge doesn't go unanswered-and survival is the real game because, As Arty says, "there Ain't no future in A place without natch'ral light."
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:
3-Act Dramatic Comedy Comedy
Parts:
Male: 9 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageBeggar's Smile, A
Synopsis:
Two female high school seniors (one Japanese and one Hispanic who both speak English flawlessly), about to graduate look at their future: One has the option to return to the land of her heritage; the other must return. It is a brief, but deep window into immigration and appreciation, of privilege and necessity.
Notes:
10 minute play which is being expanded into A one-act play
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:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageEven President Nixon
Synopsis:
In a case about official misconduct and sexual abuse in a public school, the prosecutor declares that there are "no free crimes in this state." Except when they are committed by the state prosecutor who misleads and lies to the jury on behalf of illegal aliens out to extort millions of dollars from an innocent and vulnerable educator who would not settle early on.
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:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageFor Rent: Fourth Floor Walk-Up, Womb For Two
Synopsis:
Two well-to-do young men who share an apartment in New York City and surprise themselves when one declares that he wants to be father, but can only do so in India.
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:
comedy Ten min
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageHow I Won the Lottery (and Kept Myself Out of Jail for Almost a Month)
Synopsis:
A trailer park couple wins the lottery when trying to buy two cigarettes because they can't afford a whole pack, and causes a great deal of anxiety at a convenience store where the ticket is forced on them by a clerk from India.
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:
comedy Ten min
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageMirror, Rabbi
Synopsis:
This is a very penetrating story about an indefensible act that separates people from their loved ones and goes deep into their shared, yet conflicted past. It resurrects a never-ending moment between an adult son, his dead father, the father's second wife, and a rabbi who makes a decision that would be unacceptable in anyone else's eyes-except for God's-according to the rabbi.
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:
Play/Drama Ten Min
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageTo the Death Of My Own Family
Synopsis:
TO the DEATH OF MY OWN FAMILY is an intensely Dramatic nonlinear play about an Afghan-American woman who returns to Afghanistan to help her Father escape, only to witness the carnage of her entire family. Upon her return to the U.S., she is detained, interrogated, and forced to justify her journey in order to reclaim her citizenship. We then learn about a deeper, darker secret that has haunted the family for many years, but which they do not want to confront until they are forced to confront each other in the face of death. It is a one-woman show with over 20 characters, but it is not a monologue; rather, time is suspended and no one in the audience knows how long they have been in the theater. In actual time, it runs about 70 minutes in 25 pages, but you would never know it.
Notes:
This play exists in A 10-12 minute version, A 30 minute version, And is being developed into A full-length version, This is A non-linear play that is very Dramatic And challenging for Actor And director. by David L. Meth And Aquaila Barnes
1st Produced:
-
2007
Organisations:
-
1st Published:
Melbourne : Longman Cheshire, 1980 582686865
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:
Full-length play; 30 minute one-act play, and 10 minute play. Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: One-Woman plays 20 characters
Further Reference:
-
Top of Page