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William Pleasant

WILLIAM PLEASANT  (1958 - )

 Nationality:    USA
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    Lai Szengar  

William Pleasant was born in the sea island region of Georgia (usa). He comes from an old abolitionist family, and is a descendant of San Francisco's famed Mary Ellen Pleasant-lauded as California's mother of civil rights. While an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, Pleasant began to write short stories and playlets. In 1985, he moved to New York City and began a career as a political journalist. As an editor/essayist, he is best known for STONO (1991-1992), a popular quarterly journal of radical Arts and politics that he founded and edited, and the LAST TEN DAYS, a video documentary selection of the 1989 Berlin Film Festival. He also co-directed the 1989 USA primiere of Heiner Mueller's the TASK. Pleasant's first full commercial production, FROM GOLD TO PLATINUM, was staged at Manhattan's 2000-seat Symphony Space Theatre in June 1986. Since that time, he has had 13 stagings of his plays in the US, Europe and Africa-including the featured experimental production of the 1991 Vienna Festival (SKINSHOW). Pleasant currently lives and writes in New York City.

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

         Broadway Melody 1492         Demonstration!         Demonstration: Common Women the Uncommon Lives of Ordinary Women, A         Fleet         From Gold to Platinum         Ginny         Muellerschmerz/Mueller's Pain         SKINSHOW         Whispers now, The revolution

Broadway Melody 1492

Synopsis:
Pleasant's radical adaptation of the 1930s Viennese underground theatre musical by death camp victim Jura Soyfer drew widespread condemnation from Soyfer scholars. It was a take-off on Christopher Columbus' "discovery" of America in 1492, originally performed in the kellertheaters during Austria's clerical-fascist regime.

Notes:
the musical score of the original version of BROADWAY MELODY 1492 was entirely lost. It was reconstructed from interviews with Soyfer's survivors conducted by the Swiss composer Walter Riedweg. Directed And designed by Eva Brenner, the piece toured Europe And won praise. But Pleasant's re-write of the text provoked great controversy Among Jura Soyfer scholars in the US And Europe.

1st Produced:
Ohio theatre- New York City    1992

Organisations:
Projekt Theater, Vienna

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Political Musical Comedy

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  7            Other:  Orchestra

Further Reference:
-

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Demonstration!

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Castillo Theatre, New York    1988

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

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-

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Demonstration: Common Women the Uncommon Lives of Ordinary Women, A

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Castillo Theatre, New York    1986

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

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Fleet

Synopsis:
Driving Miss Daisy' in hardcore version. Fleet, the perfect Black man named for a limousine, makes love to Flannery O'Connor in a morgue after their dual suicide. O'Connor's brother, the ARCHBISHOP, officiates at the wake/sex show.

Notes:
This was A highly controversial performance of Pleasant's equally disturbing text recited by A fully-costumed Roman Catholic prelate.

1st Produced:
ILA 1440 Union Hall theatre- Savannah, Ga.    2004

Organisations:
Labor & Action Research Project

1st Published:
-   -

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:
Experimental/Political

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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From Gold to Platinum

Synopsis:
Sci-fi fantasy revolution in the USA. A group of rebels is separated from their platoon and inadvertently prevent World War III.

Notes:
Written by William Pleasant, Fred Newman And Dan Friedman. Symphony Space, A classical theatre space, was overrun with costumed goblins who molested the Audience, As the story was played out on A 100ft. Stage. the ultra-violent nature of Pleasant's text supplanted the need for prop weapons in A play ostensibly About A war. In fact, many Audience members complained About the many guns in the production. there were Absolutely none present.

1st Produced:
Symphony Space- New York City    1986

Organisations:
Thunderwerks Multimedia Communications

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

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Genre:
Multimedia Political Spectacle

Parts:
Male:  30            Female:  20            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Ginny

Synopsis:
Sophocles' Antigone turned inside out and set in the mythical Central African nation of Partager (re-named Gomez by the Mobutu Sese Seko-like dictator Creon). Rather than burying the body of Polinices (Pablo), Antigone (Ginny) digs her brother up after a state funeral and displays the corpse in the plaza.

Notes:
Directed And designed by William Pleasant, GINNY was staged in A black box space with scattered seating. the players wandered through the space, transforming room from A city plaza to A bedroom to A grave yard to A nightclub to the backseat of A Cadillac limousine And more. the play is best known for the performance of Herman Fergueson, A companion of Malcolm X And one-time political fugitive, in the role of the dictator Creon.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Tribecca Lab/Thunderwerks Multimedia Communications

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

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Genre:
Experimental/Political

Parts:
Male:  12            Female:  12            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Muellerschmerz/Mueller's Pain

Synopsis:
An anti-post modern manifesto as told to the late East German playwright Heiner Mueller.

Notes:
the "Bar in Benin" is the central text of the piece. It is the complete history of the African Liberation Movement told by two drunken soldiers.

1st Produced:
Castillo theatre- New York City    1986

Organisations:
Thunderwerks Multimedia Communications

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

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Genre:
Epic Political Poem

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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SKINSHOW

Synopsis:
An Austrian/US cast searches for a homeland in the ashes of communism, and emerges at the door to hell.

Notes:
Designed And directed by Eva Brenner, with German And English text by Pleasant, the centerpiece of space was A transparent wall that turned through the Action Area. In short, the Actors were chased by the wall As they played out their quest for meaning in A political desert.

1st Produced:
Kunstler Haus- Vienna    1991

Organisations:
Austrian Cultural Ministry/Projekt Theater- Vienna

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

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Genre:
Experimental/Political

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  8            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Whispers now, The revolution

Synopsis:
A multimedia, poetic investigation of the life of the activist/psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, as he lay dying in a Washington DC hotel under CIA custody. Fanon refuses to inform on his comrades in the Algerian revolutionary movement, but instead relates what he has learned from his experience of repression, war and resistance.

Notes:
WHISPERS NOW, the REVOLUTION was directed And designed by William Pleasant. It was staged in A seatless, black space. the central focus of the space was A two-story video projection screen that flashed Associative images over the text And Actions of the players.

1st Produced:
Collective:Unconscious
NY, USA    2001

Organisations:
Collective Unconsciousness/Thunderwerks Multimedia Communications

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:
Experimental/Political

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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