The Shorter Plays

Samuel Beckett, the great minimalist master and winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature, has produced some of his most widely praised work for the stage in the form of the shorter play. This complete and definitive collection of twenty-five plays and "playlets" includes Beckett's celebrated Krapp's Last Tape, Embers, Cascando, Play, Eh Joe, Not I, and Footfalls, as well as his mimes, all his radio and television plays, his screenplay for Film, his adaptation of Robert Pignet's The Old Tune, and more recent Catastrophe, What Where, Quad, and Night and Dreams. Includes: All That Fall Act Without Words I Act Without Words II Krapp's Last Tape Rough for Theatre I Rough for Theatre II Embers Rough for Radio I Rough for Radio II Words and Music Cascando Play Film The Old Tune Come and Go Eh Joe Breath Not I That Time Footfalls Ghost Trio …but the clouds… A Piece of Monologue Rockaby Ohio Impromptu Quad Catastrophe Nacht und Träume What Where

Collects over twenty short plays published by the Nobel Prize winning playwright Samuel Beckett. Includes his mimes, radio and television plays, screenplay, and adaptations of other's works.

In the fall of 2011, The Long Story Shorts One Act Festival was launched, featuring performances of short plays written by undergraduate students in the Writing for the Screen and Stage minor, an interdisciplinary, dramatic writing program housed in the Department of Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Marking the first five years of the festival, this anthology showcases works written to be performed in ten minutes with a small production budget. The festival gives students a unique opportunity to participate in a collaborative, developmental environment led by experienced faculty and professional actors and directors, and the plays included here rise to the occasion. Whether they are humorous, poignant, powerful, or provocative, they demonstrate why the short play form has become so popular; why this event has become one of the highlights of the university's cultural scene; and why the Writing for the Screen and Stage program has thrived.

O'Neill's themes and concerns find expression in his one-act plays which are the dramatic equivalent of short stories. Here are nine one-act plays that span the playwright's career.

THE STORIES: TO BOBOLINK FOR HER SPIRIT. Short play about the dedicated autograph hunters who lie in wait for celebrities outside of one of New York's famous restaurants. (1 man, 2 women, 2 boys, 2 girls.) PEOPLE IN THE WIND. Midnight, a bus statio

Zany, thought-provoking, and always original, this anthology brings together all the one-acts from the Off-Broadway hit Mere Mortals and from the all-new Lives of the Saints, as well as several new and uncollected plays, including Bolero, Arabian Nights (which premiered at the celebrated Humana Festival in Louisville), The Green Hill, and Captive Audience.

Short Plays with Great Roles for Women is an antidote to the traditional underrepresentation of women on stage, by offering twenty-two short plays that put women right at the centre of the action. The push for more women’s roles has gathered force over the last few years, and this collection is part of that movement, with rich, intelligent roles for women of all ages and backgrounds. This anthology offers a vital slice of life, addressing relevant and diverse topics such as: a young, Islamic woman coming out to her religious mother; black women’s navigation of the natural hair movement; bullying in a small-town American school; social media addiction; and the trials and tribulations of family life. Plays from award-winning playwrights are supported by original production details and playwrights’ afterwords, forming a broad and comprehensive collection of complete texts that offer full character journeys. Appealing to aspiring performers, playwrights, directors and students, Short Plays with Great Roles for Women is an essential resource for actor training, assessments, showcases, show-reels, short films and theatre performances.

THE STORIES: CAMBERWELL HOUSE by Amelia Roper. Elderly neighbors Annie and Olive have been friends since they were children. At twenty, they agreed to "knock each other off" if they were still alive at seventy-five. Now they are seventy-five and one of them has changed her mind. A tale of old age, murder, and ginger nut biscuits. (1 woman.) THE CLOSET by Aoise Stratford. Kevin's dad has thrown his favorite toy, Bart Sponge, into the back of a closet. There, Bart meets a toy dinosaur and another toy he can't even begin to identify. Does a supposedly gay toy have a chance of making it out of the closet? (2 men, 1 woman or man.) CLOSING COSTS by Arlene Hutton. After viewing four hundred apartments, has Harris finally found the right co-op, or simply the right real estate agent—Alice? Harris must decide if it's time to trade in his artificial fish—and finally grow up. (1 man, 1 woman.) FREEFALLING by Aurin Squire. Two passengers and a stewardess on a falling plane give their moment-by-moment account of what happens when tomorrow is no longer certain. (2 men, 1 woman.) POISON by John Patrick Shanley. Kenny has seen the depths of Kelly's self-hatred, and he'll never date her again—unless he drinks a fortune-teller's mysterious potion, which will kill his soul as dead as Kelly's. Can Kelly convince him to drink the potion? Can she convince herself? (1 man, 2 women.) SELF-TORTURE AND STRENUOUS EXERCISE by Harry Kondoleon. Carl tells Alvin that he's in love with another woman. "Good for you," says Alvin, who refuses to accept that Carl's, Adel, wife only attempted suicide—she's still alive. The woman Carl loves is Alvin's wife, Beth. But right now, Beth is so drunk she can't get up off the floor, much less run off with Carl, and Adel comes in with bandaged wrists saying Carl has been trying to kill her. These four have some issues to work out. (2 men, 2 women.) A SINGULAR KINDA GUY by David Ives. Mitch is a young guy talking to a girl in a bar. She's nice, but he's got this sort of confession, see. There's something she ought to know—on the inside, he isn't really a guy at all. He's an Olivetti electric self-correcting typewriter. (1 man.) SOMETHING FROM NOTHING by David Riedy. A stranger's intimate gesture on a New York subway causes a couple to reexamine their relationship, and it causes one person to get punched in the face. Told from all three characters' wildly different perspectives. (2 men, 1 woman.) THERE'S NO HERE HERE by Craig Pospisil. Lance moves to Paris to follow his dream of becoming a writer, but his work goes badly. As does his relationship with Juliette, a beautiful Parisian. But a strangely familiar woman at their local bistro forces Lance to dig deeper into himself. (2 men, 2 women.) YOU HAVE ARRIVED by Rob Ackerman. Dan and Kristin are navigating their first date, and fortunately, the other woman with them knows the way through the confusion into Brooklyn. That would be Cyndi, the GPS system in Dan's car. (1 man, 2 women.)