The Baltimore Waltz And Other Plays

THE STORY: When Anna, an unmarried schoolteacher, is diagnosed with ATD, Acquired Toilet Disease, a fatal new malady with a high risk factor for elementary school teachers, she and her brother Carl take flight to Europe. Anna decides she wants to d

The Baltimore Waltz, Vogel's most personal play, centers around the memory of a loved one lost to AIDS; the other plays include, Desdemona, The Oldest Profession, And Baby Makes Seven, and Hot 'n' Throbbing.

The first major collection of plays by leading lesbian playwright Paula Vogel.

The first book on one of America’s most eminent contemporary playwrights

In this volume, Lee Brewer Jones examines Paula Vogel as both a playwright and renowned teacher, analyzing texts and early reviews of Vogel's major plays-including Indecent, Desdemona, How I Learned to Drive, and The Baltimore Waltz-before turning attention to her influence upon other major American playwrights, including Sarah Ruhl, Lynn Nottage, and Quiara Alegría Hudes. Chapters explore Vogel's plays in chronological order, consider her early influences and offer detailed accounts of her work in performance. Enriched by an interview with Lynn Nottage and essays from scholars Ana Fernández-Caparrós and Amy Muse, this is a vibrant exploration of Paula Vogel as a major American playwright. By the time Paula Vogel made her Broadway debut with her 2017 Rebecca Taichman collaboration Indecent, she was already an accomplished playwright, with a Pulitzer Prize for How I Learned to Drive (1998) and two Obie Awards. She had also enjoyed a brilliant career as a professor at Brown and Yale with students such as Sarah Ruhl, a MacArthur “Genius” Grant winner, Pulitzer Prize winners Nilo Cruz, Quiara Alegría Hudes, and the only woman to win two Pulitzers for Drama, Lynn Nottage. Vogel's theatre draws upon Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky and uses devices such as “defamiliarization” and “negative empathy” to challenge conventional definitions of protagonists and antagonists.

With a foreword by Harvey Fierstein and a new introduction toThe Boys in the Bandby Mart Crowley, twentieth century theatre is seen as a powerful force in bringing gay and lesbian characters and themes out of the closet and into the spotlight. These dramatic selections share themes of oppression countered by love, fear, anger, and humor–not only gay or lesbian, but universally human. Included are Harvey Fierstein'sTorch Song Trilogy, Tererrence McNally'sThe Ritz, Lanford Wilson'sFifth of July, Paula Vogel'sThe Baltimore Waltz, and many more. Ben Hodgesis an actor, director, theatre and independent film producer, and was executive director of Fat Chance Productions and the Ground Floor Theatre. He is editor ofForbidden Acts: Pioneering Gayand Lesbian Plays from the Twentieth Century, and co-editor ofTheCommercial Theater Institute Guide to Producing Plays and Musicals.