Trepidation Nation
a phobic anthology
by Keith Josef Adkins, Stephen Belber, Hilary Bell, Glen Berger, et al. |
 
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Drama/Comedy
Full-length, 80-100 minutes
12 females, 11 males (4-23 actors possible)
$75.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: Each piece in this anthology can be licensed and performed separately.
We all have instinctive fears -- but what if a fear becomes inexplicable, illogical, and just plain weird? Then you're dealing with a phobia, one of those most extreme and fascinating of terrors. Actors Theatre of Louisville asked 16 frighteningly creative playwrights to find inspiration in real phobias, and the resulting collection of pieces might prove that not only is fear humankind's oldest emotion, but it's also one of our silliest, most serious, and stage-worthy.
To perform the entire collection, click "Order this play" above. To perform an individual piece independently, click on its title below:
The Gallows Monologue from Sidney Ryan's 'Gunpowder and Blood' by Glen Berger
The Message by Hilary Bell
Down to Sleep by Victoria Stewart
Cobra Neck by Keith Josef Adkins
Seal Skin by Erik Ehn
I Am Not Alone by Richard Dresser
The Joys of Childhood by Kirsten Greenidge
Octophobia by James Still
Hold This by Sheila Callaghan
Naked Lunch by Michael Hollinger
Normal by Cusi Cram
Euxious by Bridget Carpenter
I'm Here for You by Warren Leight
Safe by Gina Gionfriddo
Phobophobia by Julie Marie Myatt
Yes by Stephen Belber
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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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$14.95 per book
Discover a monologue book like no other. Actor's Choice: Monologues for Men 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, Mac Wellman, Tanya Barfield, Jordan Harrison, Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang, and many more!
Also in this series:
Actor's Choice: Monologues for Women
Actor's Choice: Monologues for Teens
Actor's Choice: Scenes for Teens
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$19.95 per book
NOTE: This book contains 7 plays. To perform any of the plays, each must be licensed separately.
This anthology includes seven plays produced by Clubbed Thumb, the Obie Award-winning downtown New York City theater company that burst onto the new play scene in 1996. Edgy and thought-provoking, each play is funny, strange, and provocative in surprising, widely varying ways -- including an apartment that both adores and despises its inhabitants in Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), a metropolitan housewife who senses that something is watching her in 16 Spells to Charm the Beast, and a group of traveling freak show performers who reveal a deep humanity underneath their crowd-drawing deformities in Freakshow, among other uniquely inventive stories. For over a decade, Clubbed Thumb has had its finger firmly planted on the pulse of new work, and these plays prove it.
To purchase this book of 7 plays, click "Order this play" above. To perform an individual play, click on its title below:
The Typographer's Dream by Adam Bock
Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake) by Sheila Callaghan
Demon Baby by Erin Courtney
16 Spells to Charm the Beast by Lisa D'Amour
Inky by Rinne Groff
Dearest Eugenia Haggis by Ann Marie Healy
Freakshow by Carson Kreitzer
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| "This anthology represents the jazziest, most edgy writers in contemporary American drama today. And Clubbed Thumb has more nerve, more guts, more class per square inch than any not-for-profit small theatre in New York. Reading these writers makes me want to go back to my own computer and try harder, dare more, and storm the barricades for funding for this rising generation." |
| --Paula Vogel, Pulitzer-winning author of How I Learned to Drive |
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Comedy/Drama
Full-length, 70-90 minutes
3 females, 2 males
$75.00 per performance; $19.95 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called Funny, Strange, Provocative: Seven Plays from Clubbed Thumb.
It's Christmas, and a year has passed since the untimely death of Janice's father. Struggling to cope, Janice is holding spiteful conversations with her dolls, and Mother is suffering from panic attacks, with only her baking skills to keep her busy. In their deteriorating Apartment that incessantly begs for repairs, their only comforts are visitations from their respective celebrity crushes -- Justin Timberlake and Harrison Ford. With the support of Justin's affection, Janice begins to craft a plan that will mend the chasm in their lives. Meanwhile, the Apartment is developing murderous plans of its own...
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Star-Crossed Lovers
by Sheila Callaghan and Sophocles Papavasilopoulos
conceived by Scott Pafumi |
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Comedy/Drama
Short, 30 minutes
4 females, 7 males, 20 either
(9-50 actors possible: 5-25 females, 4-25 males)
$35.00 per performance; $7.99 per book
The story of Romeo and Juliet told over centuries, across continents, and through genres. Imaginative and musical, Star-Crossed Lovers is a spectacular tour of major theatrical and intellectual movements -- spanning tribal Africa, ancient Greece, commedia dell'arte Italy, Chekhov's Russia, Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1930s America, and existentialist post-modernity.
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Convoluted fairy tale
Full-length, 120-140 minutes
5 females, 4 males, 10 either
(9-19 actors possible: 5-15 females, 4-14 males)
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
Kate's sister Anne, a ravishing beauty, wakes up one morning to discover a sheep's head between her shoulders. Thus begins the journey of the two sisters in their quest to return Anne's true head to its proper place. The journey is sidetracked, however, by Kate's obsession with a slim raver-boy who has a nasty little addiction. Based loosely and lyrically on the British fairy tale "Kate Crackernuts."
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| "Strange, dense, brilliant wordplay...part poetry slam, part rave, part dog-eared storybook theater, and all edgy, infectious, ultra-theatrical entertainment. Kate Crackernuts is an adult fairy tale that, like its tough but vulnerable heroine, follows a warped dream logic while keeping its sharp-tongued wits about it." |
| --Rob Kendt, Los Angeles Times |
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Poetic drama
Short, 25-30 minutes
4 females, 3 males, 2 either (9 actors possible: 4-6 females, 3-5 males)
$35.00 per performance; $7.99 per book
Manhattan, 1936. Struggling novelist Dawn Powell is enduring a lavish cocktail party at her agent's extravagant flat. Suddenly, a young woman no one knows falls to the floor, dead. Dawn Powell recognizes something familiar in the girl. The girl falls again...and again. The blood is on Dawn's hands. A lyrical investigation in eight iterations.
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Satirical musical comedy
Full-length, 80-95 minutes
8 females, 8 males (10-30 actors possible: 5-15 females, 5-15 males)
$75.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
The Astounding Krispinsky! The All-American Feminem! The Amazing Screaming Vegan, the Formerly Amazing Bob, and Mr. McBuffer the Renegade Puppet! With American culture and politics growing increasingly surreal, Actors Theatre of Louisville commissioned seven marquee playwrights to create a variety-show satire in the grand old vaudeville tradition -- from ventriloquists to contortionists to Lady Liberty on a trapeze. With songs!
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| "A smart, funny show that channels the neurotic anxiety of a culture crumbling onto its own ideals and converts it into humor and laughs... Uncle Sam's liberates itself from political mockery to true satirical commentary. Vaudevillian in nature, the show goes beyond random acts of entertainment and develops a cohesive idea and psychological picture of our time." |
| --Frank Kuzler, NYTheatre |
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| Tumor by Sheila Callaghan |
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Dark comedy
Short, 30-40 minutes
2 females, 2 males, 1 either (5 actors possible: 2-3 females, 2-3 males)
$35.00 per performance; $7.99 per book
Pete is pregnant. Sarah is pregnant. Kathie is pregnant. Richard is reacting badly to Kathie being pregnant. In stylized monologues and short scenes, each story is traced until the pregnancies arrive at their inevitable conclusions.
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| "Playwright Sheila Callaghan explores the territory [of pregnancy] in all sorts of inventive ways..." |
| --NYTheatre.com |
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Comedy/Drama
Short, 5-10 minutes
1 male
$30.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called Trepidation Nation.
A young man raises a clutch of fluffy yellow chicks for his mother's commercial shoot, only to see them die in the hot glare of the stage lights.
This piece is part of Trepidation Nation, an anthology of short plays. To perform this piece independently, click "Order this play" above. To perform this piece as part of the full-length collection, go to Trepidation Nation.
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Absurd comedy
Short, 30-45 minutes
2 females, 2 males
$35.00 per performance; $7.99 per book
Richard, a middle-aged Vietnam vet, falls asleep one night next to his nagging wife and wakes up in the arms of his beautiful young secretary. His grasp of reality begins to crumble as his tortured past penetrates his benign present in real-time.
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| "Sheila Callaghan's New Shoes by far tops the bill... Callaghan's play tells the potent tale of Richard, whose average life becomes infected with memories of a Vietnamese love affair... Throughout all this, a fantasy collage, merging disparate elements of his reality, unveils his secret yearnings." |
| --LA Weekly |
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