Books published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc

This collection contains three full-length plays: CRAZY PLAYS, THE ENDLESS ADVENTURES OF M C KAT and TOMORROWLAND.

A black comedy touched with absurdity and a philosophical bent that puts the torch to middle-class complacency. "...Lock's ideas lend tangy new flavor to an old form... HOUSE OF CORRECTION is first, last and always a superior mystery-comedy-thriller... He has written a fast moving, absurdist piece of neo-realistic suspense of the sort that works best only in the theater. It is a tribute to his talent..." Sylvie Drake, Los Angeles Times "...Norman Lock's treatment of the evils of psychotic schizophrenia versus the even more ugly aspects of pretentious armchair liberalism is nothing short of hilarious in this outing. It's offbeat and loony with a sitcom flare..." Teen., Daily Variety "...it's very funny, and very scary like a nightmare that wakes you up shaking, forcing you to reassess your life... Lock's weapon is words and he uses them well...his imagery is vivid, his dramatic momentum strong..." Tom Jacobs, L A Life "This is a delightfully dark, beautifully acted suspense comedy...a script that balances outrageous farce and human tragedy... It is Lock's gift for concocting eccentric characters and devilishly comic situations that propels the play." Downtown News (Los Angeles) "This rollercoaster of a play may well turn out to be one of the most significant new plays at this year's Fringe...a gripping, individualistic piece." The Stage (Edinburgh) "We are kept on the edge of our seats as events move toward a climax beyond expectation...makes us laugh our way up a mountain of suspense." The Scotsman "HOUSE OF CORRECTION moves from sitcom to Hitchcock, mingling the two so neatly that sometimes you don't know which you're watching." Naked (Edinburgh) "The play remains ingenious in identifying those essential American tenets and dragging them screaming and skewed to their conclusion." The Guardian (Edinburgh) "...entertaining but rigorous in its approach to important moral issues... This is the first chance for British audiences to see the 'absurdist comedy-thriller' that has played across America, but the questions it raises are bound to be relevant here as they are across the Atlantic." Glasgow and Edinburgh Events Guide

Trapped by a storm in the office of the environmental organization for which they work, Antony and Janna find that their conflicting views on race and the environment have the power to send them back in time to discover how closely related they really are.

"Run GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS through a Monty Python spin cycle and you might get Brian Parks's kinetic farce ENTERPRISE, an absurdist express train of comic corporate-speak… Four ambitious businessmen in a skyscraper-the bespectacled Weaver, the fresh-faced Sanders, the somewhat dim Owens and the experienced Landry-entertain big dreams of impressing the unseen chairman of their imperiled company with a proposal that will send profit margins into the stratosphere. But over a night the men spend collaborating, then pairing off into two rival factions, their hopes rise and fall in a stream of bluster, invective and recriminations. Their exchanges arrive in a succession of 45 rapid-fire blackouts, many introduced with pings and other audio snippets that suggest, say, a text alert, or a news-radio bulletin, or an office copier. Among the many concerns preoccupying these fatuous climbers are the suspiciousness of uncentered mimeographs; the "smell" of diminishing value; the Depression-era allure of jumping out a window; and the perceived vulnerability of office toilet stalls. Conspicuously absent from the discussions are mentions of home, family or women-as spouses, relatives or colleagues. ("Astrology is astronomy for girls", says Landry dismissively.) No surprise there: These men live only to compete with and impress one another (and their boss). No one else has any place in their displays of would-be brainpower and self-consuming testosterone. …The true star is Mr Parks's dialogue: If a joke doesn't hit its mark (and some are simple non sequiturs), another one lands before you have time to notice. Mr Parks, a former theater editor at The Village Voice and an ex-chairm an of the Obie Awards, is noted for the fast pace of his work. ENTERPRISE comes off a 2017 run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Scotsman Fringe First Award. The playwright's hapless executives may not qualify for a raise, but his ENTERPRISE merits a promotion." Andy Webster, The New York Times

"The great joke of the universe-well, there are lots of great jokes of the universe. But one of them, certainly, is that human beings can't be trusted with the things they're capable of creating. We build combustion engines and choke on them, split atoms only to irradiate ourselves. Brett Neveu's new farce does a fine, crazed, funny job of telling that joke. Chris is an inventor who's come up with something astonishing. He takes it to Britt, who develops and markets astonishing inventions. Trouble is, some of Britt's previous astonishments have wreaked so much havoc that his corporate headquarters is under violent siege from all sides. Chris's sit-down with Britt turns into something out of Jurassic Park-assuming the park were run by General Jack Ripper from Dr Strangelove."Tony Adler, Chicago Reader

"Henrik Ibsen: Ahead of his time. Father of modern drama. Often considered an early male feminist for confronting the constraints on women in the 19th century. The title character of one of his plays has a bone to pick with him, though. Hedda Gabler has had enough of being strong and uncompromising yet given just one means of independence at the end of her story: by killing herself. So she's been bursting…to try to wrest control of HEDDA GABLER and chart a new course. She's winning audience after audience to her side in Jon Klein's boisterous new comedy RESOLVING HEDDA… One of the pricklier characters in the dramatic canon, Hedda-introduced to the world in 1891-has never had a problem speaking her mind, and that quality is only intensified here. She glares at the heavens, heaping scorn on the Norwegian master as she tries to think of ways to circumvent his precision-crafted plot, which piles indignities on her while blocking avenues of escape - `the perfect killing machine', as she bitterly describes it. Ibsen gives her plenty of qualities to help her along: fierce intelligence, bravery and tenacity. Other traits must be fought. `I'm bored and willful and perverse', she says ruefully, `at least according to Wikipedia'. Yes, Wikipedia. For all of her Victorian trappings, Hedda is very much a woman of 2017. She's been keeping current these last 126 years and drops offhand references to Oprah's Book Club and phone apps, as well as uttering the occasional curse word. The other characters don't know what to make of her as she restlessly paces her elegant drawing room. Her ineffectual academician of a husband, George, is flustered even more than usual; still, he and the others keep following the paths that lead toward her usual fate while she tries to steer them elsewhere, all while she battles props-pistols, a sole-copy manuscript-that keep playing into the action exactly as Ibsen wrote them. The comic tone spreads to the others, however… Klein, the author of such previous Victory hits as T BONE N WEASEL and WISHING WELL, delivers laughs at a steady pace… Pure entertainment is its own reward, though, and RESOLVING HEDDA, by its very existence, makes a larger statement. However much Hedda might abuse him, Ibsen deserves her-and our-admiration for writing so forcefully about issues that perpetually bedevil us… It's good to have him still at our side." Daryl H Miller, Los Angeles Times "Henrik and Hedda, a hilarious pair… Its author is the brilliantly clever and witty Jon Klein…Klein's hilarious script." Cynthia Citron, Santa Monica Daily Press

Christmas Eve, 1932. Three New York wise guys on the run from a hotheaded racketeer journey from a Manhattan speakeasy to a swanky Long Island mansion to a ramshackle barn in Pennsylvania, inadvertently spreading holiday cheer everywhere they go. Based on two short stories by Damon Runyon (GUYS AND DOLLS), this effervescent comedy fizzes with laughter and heart. "Funny, sweet, and thoroughly charming… The voices here are unalloyed, cartoon New York, with a 'guys and dolls' locution that earns laughs as much from sentence structure as from the jokes themselves. In Runyon's universe, unlawful activities are mitigated by a deep but grudging moral code. And his characters, like all good gangsters, occasionally break out into impeccable barbershop harmonies." The New Yorker

"Water is a vivid metaphor in Los Angeles. We live in a desert beside an ocean, an existence of simultaneous want and plenitude. Another, lesser-known water source inspires The Ballad of Bimini Baths, a trio of plays by local playwright Tom Jacobson. Bimini was a popular swimming and spa complex at the site of hot springs one block east of Vermont Avenue between 1st and 2nd streets, operated from 1903 to 1951. Jacobson makes this the nexus of a wide-ranging tale that pulls together events in L A history, some of which occurred at the baths, others not. His theme is sins in need of being washed away-racism as well as other moral failings. The intriguing result is being staged by three small theaters, all running different plays ranging from 55 minutes to 1¿ hours. The final play is an inspiring tale of people working together to try to redeem the past and re-chart the future… Bimini, like many places in the early 20th century, was racially exclusive. People of color were admitted just one day a month, the day before the pools were drained and cleaned." Daryl H Miller, Los Angeles Times "Only a playwright as daring and talented as Tom Jacobson could imagine and achieve a project as mind-blowing as his fascinating, informative Ballad Of Bimini Baths trilogy. MEXICAN DAY is the most accessibly crowd-pleasing of the bunch." StageSceneLA "Highly effective. This is a thought-provoking and powerful play…humor alternates with seriousness." LA Splash "Tom Jacobson's insightful script intimately, intricately interweaves ethnicity, class, sexuality and more in his story depicting a landmark Civil Rights struggle in late 1940s Los Angeles." Hollywood Progressive

"Water is a vivid metaphor in Los Angeles. We live in a desert beside an ocean, an existence of simultaneous want and plenitude. Another, lesser-known water source inspires The Ballad of Bimini Baths, a trio of plays by local playwright Tom Jacobson. Bimini was a popular swimming and spa complex at the site of hot springs one block east of Vermont Avenue between 1st and 2nd streets, operated from 1903 to 1951. Jacobson makes this the nexus of a wide-ranging tale that pulls together events in L A history, some of which occurred at the baths, others not. His theme is sins in need of being washed away-racism as well as other moral failings. The intriguing result is being staged by three small theaters, all running different plays ranging from 55 minutes to 1¿ hours. The final play is an inspiring tale of people working together to try to redeem the past and re-chart the future. The first two, though, take on disturbing topics that can be difficult to watch and aren't easily resolved in brief, short-story-like formats… Jacobson's fascination with mercurial/chameleonic human nature-seen in such plays as TAINTED BLOOD, OUROBOROS and THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY WAY-takes daring forms in these first two Bimini plays… The theme of racism begins to well up in the middle play, TAR… …Dread builds as events progress through a number of sharp turns… What resides under the skin of each person in the room: A pure heart? Or pure evil?" Daryl H Miller, Los Angeles Times "It's Los Angeles in 1939. Count Basie and his band are scheduled to play at the Palomar Ballroom-one of the first African-American groups to perform there. Next door, at Bimini Baths, two employees, African-American Amen and Mexican-American Zenobio have been given the onerous job of cleaning up the tar-covered body of a drunken white man who has tumbled into the La Brea Tar Pits. Playwright Tom Jacobson has laid the groundwork for a host of racial conflicts before a word is spoken. As the two men scrub the tar-covered figure down with kerosene, they discuss ways of getting in to see Basie at the Palomar, which does not admit blacks or Latinos. Slowly the man, whose name is Donald, regains consciousness. A xenophobic German-American, he immediately proves intransigent. Amen, a former Pullman Porter turned actor, enjoys baiting him, whereas Zenobio tries to play peacemaker. Eventually they learn that Donald's wife has died that very day, and their suspicions are aroused. Did he kill his wife? Was she unfaithful? And was it with a black man? When Zenobio finds a shocking piece of evidence in the pocket of Donald's tar-covered pants, these suspicions seem confirmed. And as the conflicts mount, there may be dark secrets in Amen's past as well." Neal Weaver, Stage Raw

"Water is a vivid metaphor in Los Angeles. We live in a desert beside an ocean, an existence of simultaneous want and plenitude. Another, lesser-known water source inspires The Ballad of Bimini Baths, a trio of plays by local playwright Tom Jacobson. Bimini was a popular swimming and spa complex at the site of hot springs one block east of Vermont Avenue between 1st and 2nd streets, operated from 1903 to 1951. Jacobson makes this the nexus of a wide-ranging tale that pulls together events in L A history, some of which occurred at the baths, others not. His theme is sins in need of being washed away-racism as well as other moral failings. The intriguing result is being staged by three small theaters, all running different plays ranging from 55 minutes to 1¿ hours. The final play is an inspiring tale of people working together to try to redeem the past and re-chart the future. The first two, though, take on disturbing topics that can be difficult to watch and aren't easily resolved in brief, short-story-like formats… Jacobson's fascination with mercurial/chameleonic human nature-seen in such plays as TAINTED BLOOD, OUROBOROS and THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY WAY-takes daring forms in these first two Bimini plays. The introductory piece, PLUNGE, introduces [Everett C] Maxwell [a historical figure: the first art curator at what was initially known as the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science and Art] on a night of triumph in his curatorial career in 1916. …he is brainy, inquisitive and flirtatious as he encounters a priest in a quiet corner at a garden party. Sensing a shared attraction, Maxwell suggests they retire to a private spa room at Bimini, but after he's eagerly swapped his tuxedo for bathing togs, a chill sets in as the priest hints at a dark event. Here is another historical figure, Father E V Reynolds, who disappeared after the 1908 drowning of a 15-year-old boy at the baths. Reynolds was suspected of having propositioned the youth. …his calm, ministerial demeanor turns cold and slippery. …a taut sense of mystery… Reynolds' identity eventually comes into doubt, and reality keeps shifting. As dark memories replay, the actors slip into character as the young victims. After witnessing what's perpetrated on the boys, the audience feels in need of cleansing-but that relief is withheld." Daryl H Miller, Los Angeles Times "Long-buried secrets of power, passion, and perversion propel PLUNGE, the first installment of Tom Jacobson's concurrently running Bimini Baths Trilogy, as provocative a World Premiere play as you're likely to experience any time soon." StageSceneLA "Jacobson has created an intricate puzzle of a play, a matryoshka doll where one truth lays nested within another, only to find another nested within that." Stage Raw

"I cannot take human beings seriously. They seem to me to have been created solely to amuse those who regard them in a certain way." Eugène Labiche "We love these tremendous farces of a formidable joviality and an absurd comic spirit… They constitute an original, spontaneous and profoundly French art." Théophile Gautier "The characters of Labiche, like those of classic comedy, are men of forever, as well as the permanent reflection of their era, their milieu… He doesn't lose his temper; he laughs with precision and intelligence." Jacques Crépineau "With a force, an insistence, an exactitude which shows the care Labiche took in tracing this portrait, the author of ME, ME, ME succeeds in pinning down his man… ME, ME, ME is one of the best things Labiche ever wrote, one of those in which he shows his true strength…" Philippe Soupault "A universe in which everything is computations, calculations and frantic cynicism. ME, ME, ME scratches where it itches most: happiness, immoral but ineffable, is to be selfish to one's fingertips. Fie on innocence, fine feelings are to be mocked… This is a celebration of uncompromising selfishness. Cruel. Abominable. But ever so delightful…" Didier Mereuze

"…Y York's THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF NOW is all about words: the way they work, they way they don't. The way they delight us and sicken us and confound us and please us. The premise is straight out of an Oliver Sacks book: a bestselling science writer named Carl suffers a brain injury that renders him amnesiac. Carl's wife Miranda, a poet, learns that Carl has a different relationship with words than he used to. Where once he ghostwrote biographies for astronauts and wrote scathing critiques of anthropologists, now he simply delights in the miracle of words: their sounds, their meanings, the way they look-which he envisions as a flurry of snowflakes drifting through the air. As Carl wanders around his Las Vegas home, trying to remember his past life, Miranda has to deal with the shambles of their marriage from before Carl's accident. She's having a complicated affair with a dentist named Anthony, but suddenly Carl doesn't at all resemble the Carl who made her so miserable. Where before he was withholding and unhappy, now Carl is joyful and content. He's eager to see his wife, and desperate to please her. Is it too late to turn the marriage around? Is it possible to find new meaning in the words they've been using our whole lives? THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF NOW is…funny and touching and endearingly sweet-a thoughtful study of the way different people interact with language, and each other" Paul Constant, Seattle Review of Books "…York's rich dialog and characters…this sweet…romantic comedy is a delight." Jay Irwin, Broadway World "…Utilizing a highly original plot, outstandingly witty dialogue…interesting recognizable stereotypes, who go through profound character development…this romantic…delivers the goods. And how!" Marie Bonfils, Drama In The Hood "A new play can make me giddy, especially if I can't guess where it's headed and its subject area is "about" the human condition in a new and interesting way… Y York's The Impossibility of NOW is an unexpected delight, a delicious and magical moment." Miryam Gordon, Seattle Gay News

This collection includes two full-length plays, STRAY DOG STORY and JERKER, and three interconnected one-acts, DOG PLAYS. STRAY DOG STORY: In the opening scene a "lonely faggot" named Jon wishes out loud that his faithful Buddy were human and his lover. "If people were as good-hearted as dogs," he sighs, "we wouldn't be in the mess we're in, that's for sure." No sooner has Jon left the room than presto! Buddy's Fairy Dog Mother appears, and his and Jon's wish is granted. JERKER: J.R. and Bert's anonymous telephone-sex relationship continues to evolve into something deeper until Bert's health begins to fail. DOG PLAYS: A trilogy of interconnected one-act plays, whose subject matter is the AIDS epidemic. In (WILD) PERSON, TENSE (DOG) Dog and Buck, former lovers, run into each other at a bar. Both now have AIDS. Buck's disease is in the advanced stages, and Dog refuses to recognize and acknowledge their shared past and, inevitably, their shared future. In THE DEPLORATION OF ROVER Fido is angry that Rover, in spite of being sick, continues to act on his desires. And in HOLD Dog reminisces with Lad, his lover, as he undresses him, but Lad, who has died of AIDS, exists now only in Dog's imagination. "These strange, wonderful, heartbreaking plays go beyond magic realism into something very deep and primal. No matter where he began, in fairy tale or phone sex, Robert Chesley always took his audience someplace new. He could shift from the silly to the dangerous to the tender in the blink of an eye. His plays are not period pieces, but startling glimpses of a recent past that tell us things we badly need to know about our present and future." -Christopher Bram "Without question, Robert Chesley is the most incisive gay playwright at work in America today." -Mark Thompson, The Advocate "Robert Chesley wrote gut-wrenching plays." -Linda Winer, Newsday STRAY DOG STORY "STRAY DOG STORY is both brutally shocking and a warmhearted fairytale." -Gay City News JERKER "... although Robert Chesley's JERKER does indeed center around two naked men whacking off while exchanging fantasies on the phone (well, to tell the truth only one bares all), it is finally a funny, thoughtful, tender story that emerges ... the most wonderful thing about JERKER is its sense of humor. Some performance artists have been known to do appalling things to their genitalia for no apparent artistic reason, but this playwright is not out simply to shock. And because Chesley peppers his scenes with gentle wit and good-natured joking, he eases our potential embarrassment at the play's action." -Diana Spinrad, Chicago Reader

In Nebraska in 1972, three members of the Peak family, father, mother, and teenage daughter, were murdered. Beth, an adult daughter, who was not home at the time the crimes were committed, must come to terms with the apparently senseless act and find a way to live with the horror. "'The nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.' This line from Wallace Stevens's poem The Snowman perfectly reflects both the style and the content of VANISHING POINTS. This play is and isn't a story about murder. It exists and does not exist as sensational melodrama. What we see is not necessarily what we get because Martin Jones is rare among contemporary playwrights: He uses the stage to make visible the invisible. Ghosts inhabit VANISHING POINTS, but not the Halloween kind. Jones conjures up those psychological specters populating Henry James's The Turn of the Screw-emotions that refuse to die, grieves that will not stay buried… Jones avoids conventional docudrama. His script unfolds in blatantly theatrical fragments, brief scenes, in a lyrical mix of expressionism and impressionism. Instead of facts and figures from a typical case study, here dreams, nightmares and pain assume tangible shapes… …this further solidifies his reputation. With depressing frequency the majority of new playwrights give us media realism. Too often their influences are television and film, genres where photographic imagery can reflect the material world but not the unconscious. It takes a play like VANISHING POINTS to reveal what only the theater can capture: 'The nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.'" Richard Stayton, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner

This gem of a play evokes the days of youth and innocence as young Americans were being shipped off to World War II.

A nightmarish black comedy about a man being operated on by two possibly insane doctors for the removal of his guilt complexes.

When Claudine meets Henry, a starving artist, she falls head over heels. Her mother, a financial guru, has her doubts. Is Henry everything her daughter has been looking for? Or is he after only one thing? A modern-day adaptation of Henry James's Washington Square, RICH GIRL is about women and their relationship to men, mothers, and money, in that order.

"A three-character drama that keeps you guessing…the lingering pauses which punctuates the tersely written dialogue lends an extra soupçon of suspense and even some unspoken sexual tension … [Mr Cahn] neatly resolves the play with a double cross (or perhaps even a triple cross) of a conclusion that ties up his agreeable little caper with a nifty bow." The New York Times "VILLAINOUS COMPANY offers a teasing glimpse into a brightly lit shadow-world, where three smart, strong, bad girls perform-without a cop, a man, or a righteous authority figure in sight-a slow-dance of deceit, betrayal, and glossy illusion." Asbury Park Press "Unexpected twists, surprising character revelations, and an all-woman cast is part of the fun watching VILLAINOUS COMPANY… This is a diverting and mysterious tale where everything and everyone is not quite what they seem to be, which is part of the point and definitely most of the fun… The three actresses each hold their own and have a strong grasp of the complicated characters that they are playing-always more than meets the eye. I suspect the playwright is having some fun here with our traditional ideas and expectations about class and power, sex and gender roles. The subtext of the play's often witty dialogue seems to be determining who is the more and the less powerful player in any given exchange. Characters take hold of, enjoy, and give away that power as more of the mystery, and more and more of the twists are revealed to us. Because this is an all-female cast, those power dynamics are less obvious and a lot more interesting than we might usually imagine or expect. And that provides a fresher take on a class theater trope." Tri City News "Often funny and unendingly intriguing, it feels like an Alfred Hitchcock thriller." Theatermania

What happens when news becomes entertainment and politics become a performance? Virginia Eames, an aspiring political pundit, attempts to negotiate her way through the constantly shifting landscape of cutthroat commentary and learns what it takes to be a star.

"Daniel Therriault's vision of Hawaii is not the stuff of which travel brochures are made. `People don't know Hawaii', said the slim, bespectacled playwright. `They think Hawaii is Waikiki-but to the Hawaiians, Waikiki is where the tourists are. I've spent time there because my wife is blood-Hawaiian… The truth is that we went in and colonized their island, completely converted their culture, their language, their way of life. We went in with an army and pointed guns at their queen. We castrated their society.' The darker side of that society is the setting for Therriault's latest work, THE WHITE DEATH, a Hawaii-based murder mystery." Janice Arkatov, Los Angeles Times

"Through the dialogue the playwright's skill is revealed; the dialogue is incredibly witty and full of gallows humor, yet psychological insights abound about the two as well as discussions about whether individuals bear responsibilities for the decisions of their governments." Marie Bonfils, Drama in the Hood "This is must-see theatre, for if the role of theatre is not solely to entertain but to provoke contemplation about our humanity-even if it means assaulting our senses, sensibilities, and assumptions and creating discomfort-then HOSTAGES fits the bill… It is a measure of El Guindi's's genius and craftsmanship that he pulls the audience aboard the excursion." Herbert Paine, Broadway World "HOSTAGES is about our individual humanity and the related concept of fellowship. Echoing, in different ways, works by Sartre and Beckett, El Guindi explores how we survive on our own and how we survive with each other; what makes us ourselves and what makes us-and prevents us from being-free. HOSTAGES ranks as compelling and worthy theatre." Martin Denton, nytheater indie archive "El Guindi's dialogue and humor are sharp enough to cut. These are most exciting roles of the evening…" Thom Taylor, Spectator

"Lia Romeo is a deft playwright with a wild imagination…. The promise inherent in this play is significant." Kansas City Star "Two very different sisters, mourning the recent death of their mother, are forced to take stock of themselves and attempt to find meaning through their relationships with the less-than-perfect men in their lives. Despite the provocative themes explored-pedophilia among them-ultimately this is an insightful (or inciting) and darkly humorous examination of the how the human heart's need to find a human connection can manifest itself in ways that are not always the most edifying. And yet, despite the foolhardy behavior on display, one can't help coming away with the impression that the playwright believes that the willingness to risk it all for love has its own rewards-making it all worthwhile. …It's another edgy, daring play…that's not easily forgotten. Recommended." Gregory M Alonzo, Stark Insider "When Goethe wrote, 'Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing,' he might have drunk from the same glass that Lia Romeo shared with us three hundred years later." KCMetropolis