Stage Kiss

An enchanting new comedy by Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl.

Kevin and Jill meet during auditions for a community theatre play. Kevin immediately expresses his dismay about the director's decision to have the actors read a kiss scene, with real kissing required. What starts as a debate between two strangers about the wisdom of the director's demands evolves into a funny and fragile connection as two lonely individuals confront their insecurities about romance, sex, and, of course, kissing.

In this slow-burn yet highly combustible enemies-to-lovers romance, perfect for fans of Rachel Lynn Solomon and Abby Jimenez, two stage actors find themselves falling for each other with each onstage kiss...against their better judgment. Actress Eden Blake’s biggest claim to fame is a mortifying pharmaceutical commercial for male enhancement pills. That is, until the female lead on the nationwide tour of Broadway’s hit Pride & Prejudice musical abruptly quits, and Eden is called up to fill the role. The cast of Liz and Darcy: The Musical has just settled into a three-week run in Washington, DC, and Broadway royalty Brennon Thorne is set to play Darcy. Despite Brennon’s reputation as being “a dream to work with,” Eden’s first impression of him is more like a nightmare. Now, she’ll have to kiss the pompous jerk eight shows per week. Brennon can’t disguise his disdain for understudies like Eden. But New York is filled with reminders of his most recent failed relationship, and this American tour is a much-needed distraction from his loneliness. As Eden and Brennon take the stage playing Jane Austen’s most memorable characters, their reality begins to mirror Elizabeth and Darcy’s—explosive chemistry and all. Together, they power through press performances and curtain calls, even as rumors of Brennon’s checkered romantic past resurface and prove to Eden that he can’t be trusted. But with each choreographed stage kiss, Eden and Brennon’s passion for the stage—and each other—ignites. Maybe, just maybe, not all rumors are to be believed—and not all showmances are doomed to fail.

Contemporary Farce on the Global Stage provides audiences and practitioners a detailed survey of how the genre of farce has evolved in the 21st century. Often dismissed as frivolous, farce speaks a universal language, with the power to incisively interrogate our world through laughter. Unlike farces of the past, where a successful resolution was a given and we could laugh uproariously at adulterous behaviour, farce no longer guarantees an audience a happy ending where everything works out. Contemporary farce is no longer ‘diverting us’ with laughter. It is reflecting the fractured world around us. With a foreword by award-winning playwright Ken Ludwig, the book introduces readers to the Mechanics of Farce, and the ‘Four Ps,’ which are key elements for understanding, appreciating, and exploring the form. The Five Doors to Contemporary Farce identify five major categories into which farces fall. Behind each door are a wide selection of plays, modern and contemporary examples from all over the world, written by a diverse group of playwrights who traverse gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Supplementing each section are comments, observations, and reflections from award-winning playwrights, directors, actors, designers, dramaturgs, and scholars. Designed specifically to give theatre-makers a rounded understanding that will underpin their own productions, this book will also be of use to theatre and performance studies students.

This book covers the history of theater as well as the literature of America from 1880-1930. The years covered by this volume features the rise of the popular stage in America from the years following the end of the Civil War to the Golden Age of Broadway, with an emphasis on its practitioners, including such diverse figures as William Gillette, Mrs. Fiske, George M. Cohan, Maude Adams, David Belasco, George Abbott, Clyde Fitch, Eugene O’Neill, Texas Guinan, Robert Edmond Jones, Jeanne Eagels, Susan Glaspell, The Adlers and the Barrymores, Tallulah Bankhead, Philip Barry, Maxwell Anderson, Mae West, Elmer Rice, Laurette Taylor, Eva Le Gallienne, and a score of others. Entries abound on plays of all kinds, from melodrama to the newly-embraced realistic style, ethnic works (Irish, Yiddish, etc.), and such diverse forms as vaudeville, circus, minstrel shows, temperance plays, etc. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of American Theater: Modernism covers the history of modernist American Theatre through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 2,000 cross-referenced entries on actors and actresses, directors, playwrights, producers, genres, notable plays and theatres. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the American Theater in its greatest era.

“Lahr creates a book worthy of its title: It is a living celebration of theater itself.”—Caryn James, New York Times Book Review Joy Ride throws open the stage door and introduces readers to such makers of contemporary drama as Arthur Miller, Tony Kushner, Wallace Shawn, Harold Pinter, David Rabe, David Mamet, Mike Nichols, and August Wilson. Lahr takes us to the cabin in the woods that Arthur Miller built in order to write Death of a Salesman; we walk with August Wilson through the Pittsburgh ghetto where we encounter the inspiration for his great cycle; we sit with Ingmar Bergman at the Kunglinga Theatre in Stockholm, where he attended his first play; we visit with Harold Pinter at his London home and learn the source of the feisty David Mamet’s legendary ear for dialogue. In its juxtaposition of biographical detail and critical analysis, Joy Ride explores with insight and panache not only the lives of the theatricals but the liveliness of the stage worlds they have created.

"The period of 1880 to 1929 is the richest theater era in American history, certainly in the number of plays produced and significant artists, as well as in the centrality of theater in the lives of Americans. As the impact of European modernism gradually seeped into American theater during the 1880s and 1890s, more traditional forms of theater gave way to futurism, symbolism, surrealism, and expressionism. Such playwrights as Eugene O'Neill, George Kelly, Elmer Rice, Philip Barry, and George S. Kaufman ushered in the golden age of American drama." "The A to Z of American Theater: Modernism focuses on legitimate drama, both as influenced by modernism in Europe and by the popular entertainment that also enlivened the era. This is accomplished through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced entries on plays, music, playwrights, performers, producers, critics, architects, designers, and costumes." --Book Jacket.

No further information has been provided for this title.