The Playwrights Database
LUKE YANKEE
Nationality: USA
email: n/a Website: n/a
Literary Agent: ICM Partners
the son of Jack Yankee and the film star Eileen Heckart. Luke is an actor, author, director and producer. Amongst his acting credits were appearing in "On the Town" and the "Greeks" with Gwyneth Paltrow. He has written a memoir of his mother "Just Outside the Spolight: Growing up with Eileen Heckart" published by Back Stage Books. As a film director he made the short "Help is on the Way" and on stage many plays from "Driving Miss Daisy" to "Cyrano de Bergerac" He served on the Presidential Blue Ribbon Task Force that tried to create a theatrical piece about drug and alcohol abuse to tour American High Schools.
Research: Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)
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below is a list of Luke Yankee's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
Diva Dish Jesus Hickey Last Lifeboat, The Place At Forest Lawn, ADiva Dish
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Genre:
Monolgue play
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Male: 1 Female: - Other: -
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Top of PageJesus Hickey
Synopsis:
Agnes dreams of being famous. Her hard drinking Father says that as things are so bad she will have to leave school and take a cleaning job. Unhappy about this she meets Seamus who her grandmother had warned her to keep away from. Seamus tries to cheer her up and this leads to him giving her a love bite. Her Father is very angry but her grandmother notices the bite mark looks just like the face of Jesus.
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 2 Other: -
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Top of PageLast Lifeboat, The
Synopsis:
J. Bruce Ismay was an upper-crust Englishman who always did what was expected of him. He went to the best schools, married the right society girl (even though he was in love with someone else) and vowed to his staunch, unfeeling father on his deathbed that he would take over the family shipping business and build the biggest, most opulent ship the world had ever seen: the RMS Titanic. What an accomplishment! We all know the story of how the ship sank. . .or do we? Ismay saved as many people as he could on that fateful night, and finally, with no women and children in sight, he stepped into the last lifeboat. . .and was branded a coward and a traitor forever. The world needed a scapegoat for the sinking of the Titanic and Ismay became the perfect target. He had a powerful enemy in the United Statesnewspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Hearst condemned Ismay nationwide before the rescue ship Carpathia even landed in New York. Hearst's cause was aided by William Alden Smith, a ruthless senator with presidential aspirations, who led a "witch-hunt" investigation into this high-profile disaster. Although there was no solid evidence against Ismay, Senator Smith managed to drag the hearings on for months. More than 3,000 passengers brought lawsuits against the White Star Line for loss of life and property, which only fueled Ismay's intense survivor's guilt. When he was forced to resign from the White Star Line, he spent the rest of his days as a recluse at his estate in Ireland, haunted by the ghosts of that fateful night to the point of near insanity. THE LAST LIFEBOAT is the story of the Titanic that has never been told. This epic tale explores not only the tragedy itself, but the sensationalized trials and aftermath of the night that changed the world forever.
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Dramatists Play Service, NY, 2014
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Genre:
drama
Parts:
Male: 39 Female: 19 Other: flexible casting, doublingminimum 4 men, 3 women
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Top of PagePlace At Forest Lawn, A
Synopsis:
Lifelong best friends Clara and Gertrude are spending their sunset years at the Hollywood Palms Retirement Hotel. Clara arranges to have a bill for an expensive Italian marble mausoleum sent to her estranged son, Jack. Jack, a divorced man and absentee Father to his young son, has not seen his mother for years and assumes she is dead. He travels to Los Angeles to settle her accounts and is shocked to find her very much alive and living at a run-down retirement hotel. the reunion does not go well and the past problems between mother and son immediately resurface. Gertrude, however, is thrilled to see Jack after so many years. Sonny, the retirement hotel's sage driver who prefers smoking a joint and driving "old folks" around to his days at Harvard, challenges Jack to stay and try and patch things up with his mother. Torn, Jack remembers a happy childhood moment with his mother but that soon devolves into another heated argument. Feeling cornered, Clara blurts out that she and Jack's Father never loved each other but that she was in love with her best friend Gertrude's husband and that he returned the passionate feelings. Enraged, Jack storms out and encounters Albert, another retirement hotel resident who has a story about every starlet he made love to in the Golden Age of Hollywood. the old man entices Jack to join him and Sonny as well as Father Gabriel, the eager, young priest from the retirement hotel who is always at odds with Clara, in what turns out to be a revelatory evening of drinking and poker. Meanwhile, Gertrude, needing a purpose in her life, volunteers at a local hospital and sneaks into a highly delicate baby holding program where she becomes attached to a high risk newborn. She takes Clara to see a baby she is looking after but tragedy occurs when the baby dies during the visit. Gertrude is devastated. As Clara attempts to comfort her, Gertrude reveals that she has always known about the affair between Clara and her husband but said nothing so as to remain friends with both of them. the two ladies reach a resolution and, to cement their friendship for eternity, agree to be buried together. Sonny persuades a hung-over Jack to drive his mother for her regular visit to the doctor. Hiding her pain from him, Clara does not let Jack know how sick she really is. Sonny gives Clara some marijuana to help ease the pain and Jack finds his mother stoned. He is angry with her and berates Sonny for being so irresponsible. Alone with him, Sonny admits to him that Clara just learned she only has a few months left to live. All secrets out in the open, Clara and Jack patch things up and at her insistence, he returns to his life in Seattle. Sonny gives Clara some powerful pain killers warning her to be careful and not take too many. Gertrude finds out about Clara's plan but will she want to stop her friend or help her? Her decision is the ultimate act of love between two lifelong friends.
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written by Luke Yankee And James Bontempo. Based on A one Act play Save Me A Place At Forest Lane by Lorees Yerby
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1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, Inc, New York, 2007
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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
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Genre:
Drama, full length
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 2 Other: -
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