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One Act Play
A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as distinct from plays that occur over several acts. One-act plays may consist of one or more scenes. The 20-40 minute play has emerged as a popular subgenre of the one-act play, especially in writing competitions. One act plays make up the overwhelming majority of Fringe Festival shows including at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The origin of the one-act play may be traced to the very beginning of recorded Western drama: in ancient Greece, ''Cyclops'', a satyr play by Euripides, is an early example. The satyr play was a farcical short work that came after a trilogy of multi-act serious drama plays. A few notable examples of one act plays emerged before the 19th century including various versions of the Everyman play and works by Moliere and Calderon.Francis M. Dunn. ''Tragedy's End: Closure and Innovation in Euripidean Drama''. Oxford University Press (1996). One act plays became more common in the 19th century and are now a standa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Play (theatre)
A play is a work of drama, usually consisting mostly of dialogue between characters and intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. The writer of a play is called a playwright. Plays are performed at a variety of levels, from London's West End and Broadway in New York City – which are the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world – to regional theatre, to community theatre, as well as university or school productions. A stage play is a play performed and written to be performed on stage rather than broadcast or made into a movie. Stage plays are those performed on any stage before an audience. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference as to whether their plays were performed or read. The term "play" can refer to both the written texts of playwrights and to their complete theatrical performance. Comedy Comedies are plays which are designed to be humorous. Comedies are often filled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Marriage Proposal
''A Marriage Proposal'' (sometimes translated as simply ''The Proposal'', russian: Предложение, translit=Predlozheniye, italic=yes) is a One-act play, one-act farce by Anton Chekhov, written in 1888–1889 and first performed in 1890. It is a fast-paced play of dialogue-based action and situational humour. A young man Lomov comes to propose his neighbour Natalya but they both keep on fighting on various topics. Through this play, Chekhov exposes the fakeness of the world and tries to show how superficial people are of these days. Rather than emotional bonding in relationships, people simply connect with wealth and money. In this story, Chobukov and Lomov know each other closely. Plot synopsis ''Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov'', a long-time neighbour of ''Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov'', has come to propose marriage to Chubukov's 25-year-old daughter, ''Natalya Stepanovna''. After he has asked and received joyful permission to marry Natalya, she is invited into the room, and he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr., July 20, 1933) is an American writer who has written twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays and three short stories, spanning the Western and post-apocalyptic genres. He is known for his graphic depictions of violence and his unique writing style, recognizable by a sparse use of punctuation and attribution. McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary American writers. McCarthy was born in Providence, Rhode Island, although he was raised primarily in Tennessee. In 1951, he enrolled in the University of Tennessee, but dropped out to join the US Air Force. His debut novel, ''The Orchard Keeper'', was published in 1965. Awarded literary grants, McCarthy was able to travel to southern Europe, where he wrote his second novel, ''Outer Dark'' (1968). '' Suttree'' (1979), like his other early novels, received generally positive reviews, but was not a commercial success. A MacArthur Fellowship enabled him to travel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Long Christmas Dinner
''The Long Christmas Dinner'' is a play in one act written by American novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder in 1931. In its first published form, it was included in the volume ''The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act''. Characters The characters, as they are listed in the script: *Lucia *Mother Bayard *Roderick *Cousin Brandon *Charles, son of Roderick and Lucia *Genevieve, daughter of Roderick and Lucia *The Nurse *Leonora, wife of Charles *Ermengarde *Sam, son of Charles and Leonora *Lucia II, daughter of Charles and Leonora *Roderick II, son of Charles and Leonora Plot Setting: 90 years in the dining room of the Bayard House. Length: ~35 minutes Summary: A one-act drama about several generations of one family: A play whose action traverses ninety years and represents in accelerated motion ninety Christmas dinners in the Bayard home. The development of the countryside, the changes in customs and manners during this period of time as well as the growth of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth'' — and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel '' The Eighth Day''. Early years and family Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Amos Parker Wilder, a newspaper editor and later a U.S. diplomat, and Isabella Thornton Niven. Wilder had four siblings as well as a twin who was stillborn. All of the surviving Wilder children spent part of their childhood in China when their father was stationed in Hong Kong and Shanghai as U.S. Consul General. Thornton's older brother, Amos Niven Wilder, became Hollis Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School. He was a noted poet and was instrumental in developing the field of theopoetics. Their sister Isabel Wilder was an accomplished writer. They had two more sisters, Charlotte Wilder, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pariah (play)
''Pariah'' ( sv, Paria) is a one-act play written by August Strindberg. Origins Strindberg wrote ''Pariah'' along with his play ''Creditors'' in the town of Holte, Denmark during the winter of 1888–1889. He was in Denmark to create a theatre of his own, following the example he admired of the Théâtre Libre in Paris, which had been founded two years earlier. Strindberg’s theatre would present naturalistic plays, and the artistic director would be his wife, Siri von Essen. It was to be called “The Scandinavian Experimental Theatre”, and then was renamed “Strindberg’s Experimental Theatre”. Beset with disasters, not the least of which was the censorship of his play, ''Miss Julie'', the theatre had a tumultuous and extremely brief history. The theatre premiered in Holte on March 9, 1889 with a triple bill: ''Pariah'', ''Creditors'', and ''The Stronger''. The evening was a success, with applause and curtain calls. Even harsh critics were won over, with the except ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty plays and more than thirty works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics during his career, which spanned four decades. A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, and history plays, to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition. He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his '' The Red Room'' (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. In Sweden, Strindberg is known as an essayist, painter, poet, and especially as a novelist an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Memory Of Two Mondays
''A Memory of Two Mondays'' is a one-act play by Arthur Miller. He began writing the play in 1952, while working on ''The Crucible'', and completed it in 1955. Based on Miller's own experiences, the play focuses on a group of desperate workers earning their livings in a Brooklyn automobile parts warehouse during the Great Depression in the 1930s, a time of 25 percent unemployment in the United States. Concentrating more on character than plot, it explores the dreams of a young man yearning for a college education in the midst of people stumbling through the workday in a haze of hopelessness and despondency. Three of the characters in the story have severe problems with alcoholism. Paired with the original one-act version of '' A View from the Bridge'', the first Broadway production, directed by Martin Ritt, opened on September 29, 1955, at the Coronet Theatre, where it ran for 149 performances. The cast included Van Heflin, J. Carrol Naish, Jack Warden, Eileen Heckart, and Ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), ''Death of a Salesman'' (1949), ''The Crucible'' (1953), and '' A View from the Bridge'' (1955). He wrote several screenplays and was most noted for his work on '' The Misfits'' (1961). The drama ''Death of a Salesman'' is considered one of the best American plays of the 20th century. Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, '50s and early '60s. During this time, he received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and married Marilyn Monroe. In 1980, he received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. He received the Praemium Imperiale prize in 2001, the Prince of Asturias Award in 2002, and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003, and the Dorothy and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bald Soprano
''La Cantatrice chauve '' – translated from French as ''The Bald Soprano'' or ''The Bald Prima Donna'' – is the first play written by Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco. Nicolas Bataille directed the premiere on 11 May 1950 at the Théâtre des Noctambules, Paris. Since 1957 it has been in permanent showing at the Théâtre de la Huchette, which received a ''Molière d'honneur'' for its performances. It holds the world record for the play that has been staged continuously in the same theatre for the longest time. Although it went unnoticed at first, the play was eventually championed by a few established writers and critics and, in the end, won critical acclaim. By the 1960s, ''The Bald Soprano'' had already been recognized as a modern classic and an important seminal work in the Theatre of the Absurd. With a record number of interpretations, it has become one of the most performed plays in France. Origin The idea for the play came to Ionesco while he was trying to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco (; born Eugen Ionescu, ; 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre in the 20th century. Ionesco instigated a revolution in ideas and techniques of drama, beginning with his "anti play", ''The Bald Soprano'' which contributed to the beginnings of what is known as the Theatre of the Absurd, which includes a number of plays that, following the ideas of the philosopher Albert Camus, explore concepts of absurdism. He was made a member of the Académie française in 1970, and was awarded the 1970 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and the 1973 Jerusalem Prize. Biography Ionesco was born in Slatina, Romania, to a Romanian father belonging to the Orthodox Christian church and a mother of French and Romanian heritage, whose faith was Protestant (the faith into which her father was born and to which her originally Greek Orthodox Christ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Line (play)
''Line'' is a 1967 one-act play by Israel Horovitz, his first play produced. It is an absurdist drama about 5 people waiting in line for an event (what event it is, is never made clear—several of the characters' stated expectations contradict the others). Each of the characters uses their wiles in an attempt to be first in line, getting more and more vicious as the play continues. A revival of ''Line'' is the longest-running Off-Off-Broadway show on the boards, having played continuously at the 13th Street Repertory Theatre from 1974 to 2018. After 43 years of the revival (the original production opened at LaMama in 1967), the show closed January 1, 2018 at the 13th Rep in a production directed by Jay Michaels and produced by Mary Elizabeth Micari. Characters * Fleming - A baseball fan, he has been waiting all night at the front of the line (apparently for tickets to a baseball game). He is rather slow-witted and easily manipulated out of first place. * Stephen - A young handso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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