New Publications
Branwell (and the other Brontës): an autobiography by Charlotte Brontë by Stephen Kaplan
Branwell Brontë has always been desperate to keep up with his brilliant sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. As the Brontë women’s stars begin to rise, Branwell uses the familial gift of storytelling to lead his siblings into magical worlds and cushion some of the harsh realities of their real lives, including Branwell’s jealousy over his sisters’ success. But when the magic of their stories begins to fail, Branwell and his sisters must fight to keep destruction and loss from seeping into the real world.
Deadline by Marcia Kash, Douglas E. Hughes
Just as they are about to give up on their careers, a pair of struggling playwrights find out that their mentor, the most celebrated murder mystery writer since Agatha Christie, has just died with the script to his upcoming Broadway thriller left unfinished. Tasked with completing his work in under a week, Mara and Don jump into the story—but once they begin digging into the world of the play, they quickly find themselves trapped inside it. Can they use their writing skills to solve the mystery and save the play—and themselves?
O. Henry’s Guide to the Present by Stephen Gregg
The romance, betrayal, longing, and joy of six of O. Henry’s best short stories intertwine at the Vallambrosa rooming house, where Della Leeson lands after she’s abandoned by her new husband. Della slowly builds a life for herself in New York City: finding a community, overcoming tragedy, and falling in love. O. Henry’s twists take Della in unexpected directions, pulling her into the lives of the Vallambrosa’s other quirky residents. Full of whimsy and eccentric characters, O. Henry’s Guide to the Present showcases the beloved writer’s work at its most human.
Decked! by Ginna Hoben
It’s Christmas Eve, and Celia is at a breaking point. She’s unemployed, broke, and her only daughter wants to move in with Celia’s ex-husband and his much younger bride-to-be. Celia tries to drown her pain in alcohol and pills before her eccentric sister Louise shows up and makes Celia review her past, present, and potential futures. But Louise’s own past eventually comes to light and complicates Celia’s road to recovery. Decked! is an all-female dramedy about letting go and moving on.
Shattered by Molly Horan
Janie is a high school student who knows the lay of the land; she is intelligent, quick-witted, cultured, and it seems like Adam, her classmate who she has had a crush on for forever, might actually be interested in her. But after a freak accident at school, Janie is left to reckon with her mom, her friends, how the world sees her now, and if Adam really wants to be a part of her future.
New Signature Acting Editions
Yellow Face by
The lines between truth and fiction blur with hilarious and moving results in David Henry Hwang’s unreliable memoir. Asian American playwright DHH, fresh off his Tony Award® win for M. Butterfly, leads a protest against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian pimp in the original Broadway production of Miss Saigon, condemning the practice as “yellowface.” His position soon comes back to haunt him when he mistakes a Caucasian actor, Marcus G. Dahlman, for mixed race, and casts him in the lead Asian role of his own Broadway-bound comedy, Face Value. When DHH discovers the truth of Marcus’ ethnicity, he tries to conceal his blunder to protect his reputation as an Asian American role model, by passing the actor off as a “Siberian Jew.” Meanwhile, DHH’s father, Henry Y. Hwang, an immigrant who loves the American Dream and Frank Sinatra, finds himself ensnared in the same web of late-1990’s anti-Chinese paranoia that also leads to the “Donorgate” scandal and the arrest of Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee. As he clings to his old multicultural rhetoric, this new racist witch hunt forces DHH to confront the complex and ever-changing role that “face” plays in American life today.
Junk by
It’s 1985. Robert Merkin, the resident genius of the upstart investment firm Sacker-Lowell, has just landed on the cover of Time magazine. Hailed as “America’s Alchemist,” his proclamation that “debt is an asset” has propelled him to dizzying heights. Zealously promoting his belief in the near-sacred infallibility of markets, he is trying to reshape the world. What Merkin sets in motion is nothing less than a financial civil war, pitting magnates against workers, lawyers against journalists, and ultimately, pitting everyone against themselves.
Disgraced by
Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Amir Kapoor is a successful Pakistani-American lawyer who is rapidly moving up the corporate ladder while distancing himself from his cultural roots. Emily, his wife, is white; she’s an artist, and her work is influenced by Islamic imagery. When the couple hosts a dinner party, what starts out as a friendly conversation escalates into something far more damaging.
All in the Timing, Six One-Act Plays by
Sure Thing. Two people meet in a cafe and find their way through a conversational minefield as an offstage bell interrupts their false starts, gaffes, and faux pas on the way to falling in love. (1 man, 1 woman.)
Words, Words, Words recalls the philosophical adage that three monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later produce Hamlet and asks: What would monkeys talk about at their typewriters? (2 men, 1 woman.)
The Universal Language brings together Dawn, a young woman with a stutter, and Don, the creator and teacher of Unamunda, a wild comic language. Their lesson sends them off into a dazzling display of hysterical verbal pyrotechnics—and, of course, true love. (2 men, 1 woman.)
Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread is a parodic musical vignette in trademark Glassian style, with the celebrated composer having a moment of existential crisis in a bakery. (2 men, 2 women.)
The Philadelphia presents a young man in a restaurant who has fallen into “a Philadelphia,” a Twilight Zone-like state in which he cannot get anything he asks for. (2 men, 1 woman.)
Variations on the Death of Trotsky shows us the Russian revolutionary on the day of his demise, desperately trying to cope with the mountain-climber’s axe he’s discovered in his head. (2 men, 1 woman.)
Toros by
It is the halcyon days for Juan, Toro, and Andrea, and they are back in Madrid, where they grew up, after studying in Washington, D.C., for high school and college. After adulting at their nine-to-fives, they meet up on the weekends for listless hangs in Juan’s parents’ garage, where he is crashing till he gets his own place (assuming he ever will). Together they decompress, listen to Juan’s latest DJ mix, and get stoned. But to what end? As Toro watches Juan and Andrea sink into a rut and is shocked to find himself complacent in his office job, an accident forces him to confront the end of his childhood and the possibilities of an adulthood on his own terms—if only he can figure out what he wants and who he is.
The White Chip by
Written for a small ensemble and making frequent use of metatheatricality, The White Chip follows director Steven as his career takes off, from playing bit parts in his first acting jobs to running one of the most prestigious regional theatres in the United States. Hand in hand with that success, however, is his deepening dependence on alcohol for both comfort and confidence. With an ailing father, a marriage on the rocks, and his professional life careening out of control, an unlikely guiding light emerges: the “white chip”—a pivotal token for a recovering alcoholic embodying the hope of a sober future. Told with refreshing humor, The White Chip is one man’s battle against addiction with a combination of science and love.
