And They Dance Real Slow In Jackson

THE STORY: In Jackson, a small town in rural Indiana, Elizabeth Ann Willow lives with her father and mother. Crippled at birth with polio, Elizabeth Ann is confined to a wheelchair and must wear leg braces, which cuts her off from the other childre

" In Jackson, a small town in rural Indiana, Elizabeth Ann Willow lives with her father and mother. Crippled at birth with polio, Elizabeth Ann is confined to a wheelchair and must wear leg braces, which cuts her off from the other children and prevents her regular attendance at school. Although she tries to reach out and make friends, Elizabeth Ann is increasingly isolated from and then taunted by the others, whose small-town prejudices are reinforced by a polio scare, of which Elizabeth Ann is a chilling embodiment. Comprised of a brilliantly conceived mosaic of interlocking scenes which move back and forth in time, with four performers portraying a varied assortment of children and townspeople, the play captures not only the moving story of Elizabeth Ann's inexorable descent into madness, but also the small-mindedness and unfeeling callousness of her fellow townspeople--whose fear of the unknown or abnormal makes them the unintentional agents of her destruction. Culminating in a chilling scene in which Elizabeth Ann's leg braces are torn from her by a frenzied mob, the play becomes in the final essence a moving and poetically evocative plea for understanding and compassion in a world where prejudice and casual cruelty are too often the norm." -- Publisher's website.

"Calvin eats dirt. He never actually swallows it, just places loose clumps onto his tongue and sucks, I think....He knows better, my son, but he is still young and needs to be watched." So goes the poignant journey of discovery for Gordon Nash, a journey that began two years ago when his wife suddenly walked out on him, leaving him alone to raise their son. Calvin is now four, fragile yet stubborn, devoted to his pet, a dead Portuguese man-o-war he calls Mom. Faced daily with the struggle and joys of raising this bright little boy, Gordon learns the vast reaches of his affection and the limits of his patience. He plumbs the deep well of rage within himself, to find there disturbing echoes of his own father. And he comes to understand that nothing is as important as this complex, imperfect love--a lesson he must turn to when his wife reappears one day, threatening to turn his and Calvin's world upside down once again.

84 exciting selections for young actors ages 14-22 from the contemporary stage, the classical stage, and literature.

THE STORY: Every Tuesday night, Rob, an advertising executive in his late twenties, gets together with either Larry, a salesman in his mid-thirties, or Kurt, a psychiatrist in his early thirties, for a tennis match. Rob yearns for marriage but is i

THE STORY: In 1914 in a remote shack on the New Mexico prairie, two young brothers, Archie and Henry Tucker, await the eventual arrival of a wheat threshing crew. Instead they are visited by The Outlaw, a grizzled, aging gunfighter who has shot h

THE STORY: The setting is a comfortable middle-class living room, probably suburban, and the time is early morning. Three couples, after a pleasant party, are preparing to leave for their homes, but the host suggests that, because of the hour, they