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| Photo: Keven Mclaughlin |
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Melanie Marnich. Melanie Marnich's plays include Quake, Blur, Tallgrass Gothic, Calling All, Cradle of Man, Beautiful Again, The Sparrow Project and These Shining Lives. Her newest play, Calling All, will be produced by the Guthrie Theater in April 2006. Cradle of Man, was developed at the 2005 O'Neill Theatre Conference, Hartford Stage's Brand: NEW Festival, the Women's Project's Women's Work Festival, Atlantic Theatre, Dallas Theater Center and Florida Stage. It will be produced at Florida Stage, Victory Gardens Theatre and The Women's Project in 2006. It was also a finalist for the 2005 Susan Smith Blackburn Award and a L. Arnold Weissberger Award nominee. The Sparrow Project was produced as part of Steppenwolf Theatre's First Look Festival in August 2005.
Blur received its world premiere Off Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club and also won the Francesca Primus Prize from Denver Center Theatre. Two of her plays, Quake and Tallgrass Gothic, have premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays. Her awards include two McKnight Advancement Grants and two Jerome Fellowships from The Playwrights' Center, the Samuel Goldwyn Award, an Ohio Arts Council Grant, the Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award and the Melvoin Award from Northlight Theatre (Chicago). Her plays have also been produced or developed at New York's Public Theater, London's Royal Court Theatre, the Guthrie Theater, Arena Stage, Portland Center Stage, Geva Theatre, Hyde Park Theatre, American Theatre Company, HERE and Denver Center for the Arts. She has received commissions from the Kennedy Center, Guthrie Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Arena Stage and the Children's Theatre of Cincinnati. She is a Core Member of The Playwrights' Center and a member of New Dramatists. |
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Actor's Choice: Monologues for Women
by Liz Duffy Adams, Robert Alexander, John Augustine, Stephen Belber, et al.
Edited by Erin Detrick
Foreword by Broadway casting director Kate Schwabe |
 
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$14.95 per book
Discover a monologue book like no other. Actor's Choice: Monologues for Women gives you an extraordinary array of cutting-edge new monologues, from comedic to dramatic and everything in between. Unlike other monologue books, the source of every monologue is easily accessible -- each play is available through one website (www.playscripts.com), where you can read nearly the entire published script online for free. Explore the work of today's most celebrated theatrical voices, including Naomi Iizuka, Rinne Groff, Jane Martin, Pulitzer Prize winners Lynn Nottage and David Lindsay-Abaire, and many more!
Also in this series:
Actor's Choice: Monologues for Men
Actor's Choice: Monologues for Teens
Actor's Choice: Scenes for Teens
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Actor's Choice: Scenes for Teens
by Liz Duffy Adams, Janet Allard, Yuri Baranovsky, Courtney Baron, et al.
Edited by Jason Pizzarello
With "Tips for Student Actors" by director Jon Jory |
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$14.95 per book
Looking for the perfect scene? Actor's Choice: Scenes for Teens is just what you need. From hilarious comedy to cutting-edge drama, this collection offers 40 exciting 2-person scenes with plenty of fascinating characters for young actors. Unlike other scene books, the source of every scene is easily accessible -- each play is available through one website (www.playscripts.com), where you can read nearly the entire published script online for free. From classwork to competitions to auditions, this book has you covered!
Also in this series:
Actor's Choice: Monologues for Teens
Actor's Choice: Monologues for Women
Actor's Choice: Monologues for Men
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| "The acting bug doesn't care what age you are. Actor's Choice: Scenes for Teens is a collection of simple yet fun scenes aimed at younger teen actors who want to embrace drama as a hobby or even a potential career. Designed for two actors with themes and times easily doable for any would be teen thespian, Actor's Choice: Scenes for Teens is a resource no drama teacher should miss." |
| --The Midwest Book Review |
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Comedy/Drama
Various durations
Various cast requirements
$9.99 per book
NOTE: This book contains 11 plays. To perform any of the plays, each must be licensed separately.
Celebrating and exploring themes from America's favorite pastime, The Baseball Plays: 7th Inning Stretch is a collection of short comedies and dramas from the Mile Square Theatre's annual event. From a couple arguing over the use of steroids (Off Base by Theresa Rebeck) to a priest's fight to preserve the abandoned lot where the local children play ball (Asphalt Green by Rogelio Martinez), to a marriage dissolved over fantasy baseball (Fantasy League by Lee Blessing), this collection captures the love, frustration, and nostalgia surrounding this beloved sport.
To purchase this book of 11 plays, click "Order this play" above. To perform an individual play, click on its title below:
Asphalt Green by Rogelio Martinez
A Boy A Ball A Bat by Melanie Marnich
Chin Music by Richard Dresser
Fantasy League by Lee Blessing
A Little Chatter by Ellen Margolis
Off Base by Theresa Rebeck
Sandlot Ball by Michael John Garces
The Save by Dano Madden
September Call-Up by Steven Dietz
Some Kind of Catch by Karen Hartman
Striking Out the Babe by Charlie Peters
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Bill of (W)Rights
by Janet Allard, Rebecca Gilman, Jeffrey Hatcher, Syl Jones, et al. |
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Comedy/Drama
Full-length, 80-90 minutes
10 females, 13 males (10-24 actors possible)
$75.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
Bill of (W)Rights is a political funhouse growing from a moment in history when self-censorship abounds and the populace is increasingly governed by fear. Nine playwrights offer ten plays, each based on one of the U.S. Constitution's first ten amendments. These pieces focus less on government interference and more on the interpersonal, from a father and daughter facing a criminal trial to the silence of an unfaithful husband "pleading the fifth" to his family -- not to mention a company of actors yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. The creation of the script, encompassing a diversity of voices and opinions, was itself an act of democracy, demonstrating that theatre can be a voice of revelation and revolution.
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| "Mixed Blood's prescient, potent blend of zeitgeist and bold vision makes Bill of (W)Rights feel like the CNN of theater... The theatrical meditation on the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution is extraordinary in almost every respect." |
| --Dominic Papatola, St. Paul Pioneer Press |
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| Blur by Melanie Marnich |
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Comedy/Drama
Full-length, 80-90 minutes
3 females, 3 males (6-7 actors possible: exactly 3 females, 3-4 males)
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
Life is wonderfully safe in the eccentric world of Dot Di Prima and her mother, until the day Dot is diagnosed with a genetic disease that will cause her to gradually lose her vision. Now Dot must learn how to find and create relationships with friends and family guided by her heart rather than her sight. With the help of her boyfriend, best friend, and a wayward priest, Dot discovers the kind of vision needed not only to prevail over this disease -- but to thrive with spirit, humor, and hope.
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Comedy/Drama
Short, 8-10 minutes
4 males (4 actors possible: 0-1 females, 3-4 males)
$30.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called The Baseball Plays: 7th Inning Stretch.
When Dad and Son take Grandpa to a baseball game, Grandpa is shocked to see that the game he loved so much has been ruined by corporate involvement and the legalization of performance-enhancing drugs. From an outrageous score to a quadruple play, Grandpa realizes that his beloved pastime has become a work of science fiction and takes control of the story, inspiring his son and grandson to find what is truly great about the game of baseball.
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The Brand New Kid
adapted by Michael Friedman book and lyrics by Melanie Marnich
based on the children's book by Katie Couric |
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Comedy/Drama
Full-length, 55-65 minutes
2 females, 4 males
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
It's the last night of Pledge Week at Twin Ports Public Television, and the telemarketing crew is fighting apathy, dwindling donations, and angry former patrons. As management enforces desperate new tactics and the gang rebels, someone (or something) out there begins to call on the callers to change their ways, and possibly change the world.
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| Dive by Melanie Marnich |
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Comedic drama
Short, 10-15 minutes
2 females, 2 males
$30.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called Ten-Minute Plays from the Guthrie Theater: Volume 1.
Sammie, Sara, Dolly and Donnie are caught up in their own comically existential apathy. The only activities they enjoy are self-destruction and self-absorption. But their world explodes in an instant when Sammie sees a woman fall, then fly, from a window. Her leap jolts them into reality by opening their eyes to the potential of a single life.
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Comedy/Drama
Full-length, 70-80 minutes
3 females, 3 males (5-17 actors possible: 3-6 females, 2-11 males)
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
Lucy is on a cross-country mission, looking for the love of her life. Her journey takes her across the American landscape, through hilarious and eccentric relationships in which time and emotion pass in a warped instant. When her quest becomes intertwined with that of a quirky female serial killer (an astrophysicist gone bad), the landscape changes once again, as they cross state lines and faultlines, exploring the geography of the human heart.
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A serious comedy
Short, 20-30 minutes
3 females, 2 males
$35.00 per performance; $7.99 per book
High school students Trish, Steph, David, Scott, and Jay form a tight-knit, eccentric clique. Jay, who happens to be gay, throws the whole group off-balance when she kisses Scott. The friends have to grapple with this event as Jay pursues an attraction that transcends labels. Realistic conversations are interspersed with wild dream sequences and a cell phone chorus, as the friends all try to come to terms with change, potential, and shifting identity.
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Drama
Full-length, 75-80 minutes
2 females, 4 males
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
The longing, isolation, desire and fear of the classic Jacobean tragedy The Changeling are transported to the Great Plains of the Midwest in this haunting tale. At the center of the story is Laura, whose need to leave her small, rural home and controlling husband is ignited when she falls in love with a man who offers her escape and a future. But in this place where history and its ghosts populate the landscape, Laura's hunger for a new beginning sets off a violent chain of events that leads her not out of town, but to a profound (and terrifying) understanding of her true nature.
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| "In Tallgrass Gothic, her lyric and strangely engrossing play...Marnich has sharply drawn some characters who may give the denizens of Wisteria Lane a run for their scandals... But the play is most exciting because of Marnich's promise as a writer. She has found a poetic, natural cadence for characters, and this heightened language is part of what makes Eugene O'Neill and August Wilson enduring figures." |
| --Rohan Preston, Minneapolis Star Tribune |
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Comedy/Drama
Various durations
Various cast requirements
$9.99 per book
NOTE: This book contains 7 plays. To perform any of the plays, each must be licensed separately.
Since its founding in 1963, the Guthrie Theater of Minneapolis has pioneered the American regional theater movement, bringing to life both the traditional classical repertoire and a diverse body of new works. The ten-minute plays in this volume were commissioned by the theater for its Guthrie Experience summer acting conservatory. The Volume 1 anthology includes seven plays by seven outstanding playwrights, every one expanding the possibilities of the ten-minute form.
To purchase this book of seven plays, click "Order this play" above. To perform an individual play, click on its title below:
Dive by Melanie Marnich El Santo Americano by Edward Bok Lee The Human Voice by Carlyle Brown Now We're Really Getting Somewhere by Kristina Halvorson Small World by Tracey Scott Wilson Thief of Man by Kevin Kling Zealot by Julie Marie Myatt
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