Books published by Broadway Play Publishing

"Beautifully written… There is light of understanding cast on the human condition in this play. That light concerns the simple heroism of people who do not abandon their fellows in the dark hours."Marilynne S. Mason, Christian Science Monitor "Set in London as the Black Plague sweeps the city claiming more than 100,000 lives, THE LIVING is not about death. Rather this remarkable, riveting drama is a compelling confirmation of life." Sandra Dillard-Rosen, The Denver Post "Fascinating… THE LIVING is a play both clever and thoughtful…. With a fine wit and a keen irony."Richard Christiansen, Chicago Tribune "Haunting revives the plague time with often chilling vividness… The drama would be interesting even if there were no modern parallel. The play remains intellectually engrossing and, ultimately, gut-wrenchingly affecting."Aileen Jacobson, Newsday "This intelligent and cumulatively affecting drama…discovers the hope and humanity shining inside the black shroud."Steven Winn, San Francisco Chronicle "Aided by Clarvoe's enticing dialogue and grim humor…we see that beneath all the turmoil and death, there exists a simple humanity that saves souls and restores faith."Mary Houlihan-Skilton, Chicago Sun-Times "A rich, dynamic play…laced with oddly beautiful metaphors for tragedy…. Do heed this reminder to keep breathing during the full force of the action.Patricia Corrigan, St Louis Post-Dispatch "As much a drama of ideas as it is a drama of passion and compassion, it unfolds in a series of Shakespeare-like scenes that follow a handful of characters through the darkest months of the plague.… Clarvoe writes with wit and intelligence."Marion Garmel, Indianapolis Star "As a tale of human heroism and cowardice, pitilessness and compassion, medical sleuthing and political expediency, it cannot be beat…. Clarvoe's most potent idea has been to prohibit the characters from touching one another. Not even a piece of paper is handed directly from one person to another; everything is arranged to prevent human contact. So the ending is really miraculous." Judith Green, San Jose Mercury News

BREAK is about the unexpected effects of the Ground Zero recovery effort on New York City's firemen and policemen, and their families. In December of 2001, F D N Y Captain Jon Emmett and N Y P D Officer Marco Gennaro are both assigned to Ground Zero. Emmett is struggling with the loss of hundreds of friends and the disintegration of his family while Gennaro is fighting to keep his marriage together though being around his wife and child is a constant reminder of what he could so easily lose in the post-9/11 world. The two end up sitting together in the overcrowded dining room of the tent at Ground Zero. Though they can't help but enter into battle over the nature of their jobs and why things happened the way they did on 9/11, more important questions of faith-and how to survive the recovery-arise.

"BOATS ON A RIVER, a new play by Julie Marie Myatt, can be distinguished both by what it is and by what it is not. What it is, is a play by an American playwright that reaches beyond the borders of this country, to examine life in other parts of the world and to use that examination as a prism to reflect back on our own culture. In that regard, it is a singularly refreshing departure from the navel-gazing that occurs in much of American theater. What it is not, is melodramatic or pat or clichéd or shrill. And for a play that deals with the trafficking of young girls in the Cambodian sex trade, it deftly works in a quasi-journalistic fashion to tell its story palatably without diminishing or glossing over the horror of its subject matter. Myatt traveled to Cambodia to create a fictionalized story of an American who runs a center that pulls girls out of prostitution. Sidney Webb has clearly gotten too close to his job and, after 15 years at it, is on the verge of burnout. His condition isn't helped when a headstrong American blows into town, raids a brothel and drops a trio of his "rescues" -three girls ages 13, 8 and 5-into the already over-crowded center. Plus, Sidney is having difficulties with his wife, a Vietnamese woman scarred by her own past in the sex trade. The script ranges all over the place-attempting to climb into Sidney's head, examining the circumstances and attitudes of the young girls, even giving an unflattering glimpse of an American tourist awash in his own sense of entitlement and willfully ignorant about life in Cambodia and his own small-but-damning contribution to the sex trade. Myatt calls for adult actresses to play the young prostitutes, an obviously necessary concession and one that allows audiences just enough distance to absorb her thematics without recoiling in revulsion.… But Myatt also conjures a final stage image that hammers the play home with heart-stopping clarity. …If it gets to our heart a bit too much through our head, BOATS ON A RIVER still has a certain poignant grace to it as a story of those struggling mightily to do the right thing against a vast, invisible and diabolical machine."Dominic P Papatola, Twin Cities Pioneer Press

"…Myatt excels at using small details to evoke larger truths.… BIRDER explore[s] fatherhood, mortality, the post-recession economy and the illusory nature of the American dream… BIRDER revels in quirky, meta-theatrical artifice, complete with flashbacks, overt symbolism and fourth-wall puncturing monologues. Its protagonist, the accountant Roger, is a poor excuse for a dad…. Roger has always played by the rules in pursuit of an affluent lifestyle. Like so many in the disappearing middle class, Roger grapples with the pressures of living beyond his means; his atypical answer to midlife crisis, however, is to quit his job and take up bird watching…. Roger maintains a disarming boyish charisma as he chronicles how the growing appreciation of birds hiding in plain sight among us come to represent everything else that's missing from his life. …[BIRDER] offers a quiet vision of hard-won hope amid adversity…"Philip Brandes, Los Angeles Times

"WILLISTON by Adam Seidel is a fresh piece of theatre that successfully shines a light on the power of greed and money in modern day America. Three leasing reps travel to Williston, North Dakota to get mineral rights to the last big piece of undeveloped land.… I was thoroughly impressed with the play. …a story that is relevant and fresh."Brian Stanczak-Tuscany, Broadway World "Something's not quite right in the small town of Williston, North Dakota. That much is obvious just from the fact that oil company deal closers Barb and Larry are expected to share quarters in a trailer camp setting. And how is it that their parent company didn't let them know that they were sending a new numbers guy, Tom to bring in the lease on one of the largest and possibly most productive tracts of land? After all, the killer team of Barb and Larry has been working for years on "Indian Jim," the Native American holdout who is reluctant to allow drilling on his land. Playwright Adam Seidel crafts a nifty three-hander where everything and everyone is not as it seems.…"Lauren Yarger, theaterlife.com

A man and a woman meet for the first time on an internet date. Nearby another man and woman meet to end their marriage. One coffee shop. Two couples. A million chances to settle the score. In the comedy CHANGES IN THE MATING STRATEGIES OF WHITE PEOPLE, playwright Solange Castro explores urban dating, technology, love and sex in contemporary Los Angeles. "Solange Castro's delightfully nimble piffle of a play… Solange's perky satire of device-era dating is largely about the plight of the self-absorbed…"Steven Leigh Morris, L A Weekly "Inspired by the mishaps and half-hearted personalities of the L A Internet dating scene, CHANGES tells the story of two couples. Jade and John are trying to get it on after their introduction over the web, while Louise and Tyler, a recently divorced older couple, are trying to keep it going.… Castro's CHANGES lives in a universe adjacent to that of the hysterical neurotics of Woody Allen's cinematic canon and one-act plays-flawed folks who cry about their vacancies, only to realize too late that what they're looking for is right in front of them."Anthony D'Alessandro, L A Weekly

Combat photojournalist Matthew Milton is charged with flying from Afghanistan to pick up his sister, Lizzie, after a two month stint in rehab for heroin addiction. Lizzie's wealthy Connecticut lifestyle is no match for her desire to get high, and Matthew's own addiction to war is masked by his sense of duty to show the public the truth behind our endless wars. With no where else to stay, Sergeant Mac Johnson, just retired, comes home to stay with Matthew, in a building full of fellow photojournalists. The subject of one of Matthew's documentaries, Mac reveals that Matthew's search for the truth, came at the expense of Mac's sense of self, life and privacy. Both drugs and war prove inescapable addictions, in a nation that continues to both feed and hide them.

"…In returning to a familiar theme, the wandering away from and abandonment of small town America to seek fortune and enlightenment, Myatt scores by unusually and effectively staying with those who have been left behind rather than with the one who has left. The result is a beautifully written reflection on time and place, and the inconstancy of love and loss.… The play follows the investigations of a private detective hired by a couple to find their grown son. As he interviews assorted friends and a mysterious stranger, he finds that nothing is quite what it seems. And in the process, as so often happens to theatrical detectives, he experiences a significant transformation. With few exceptions, each of the roles is carefully written, and several of the characters are vividly and imaginatively conceived.…" Laurence Vittes, A P

"…Myatt excels at using small details to evoke larger truths.… JOHN IS A FATHER explore[s] fatherhood, mortality, the post-recession economy and the illusory nature of the American dream… In impeccably spare dialogue rarely longer than single-sentence exchanges, fragments of John's troubled past come to light during his encounters on a trip to reconnect with what's left of his estranged family.… It's utterly compelling naturalism rendered with economy and grace…. Myatt's new play offers a quiet vision of hard-won hope amid adversity.…" Philip Brandes, Los Angeles Times

For many urban dwellers, daily life includes walking the dog surrounded by strangers and neighbors for whom you have only a passing acquaintance, whose personal stories you can only guess, imagine, or project upon them through the various waves hello, small talk about the the weather, or random gestures of kindness. What happens when you cross through the threshold of strangers, into their apartment? What stories have they been keeping behind their doors, no one ever sees? Frank Gromke has kept his family and his Holocaust past from his neighbor Harriet, until his son Aaron is forced to come live with him after a motorcycle accident. Living with Frank's trauma, miraculous survival, and relentless will to overcome his pain, has overshadowed Aaron's ability to experience his own emotions, loss, and suffering. When Harriet accepts an invitation for a cup of afternoon tea with Frank, she and her dog, along with a food delivery man named Douglas, become the catalyst for a reckoning between a lost son, with his heroic father. Sometimes being witnessed by strangers is the only way a family can witness each other, tell the stories they long to tell, and be heard.

ONLY IN AMERICA is oracular, mythic, wicked satire, with outrageous humor and provocative subject matter. In this play, Aishah Rahman achieves a synthesis of Jazz and secular speech, as she creates a language for America's "invisible women".ONLY IN AMERICA is set in an imaginary Animal Bureau of Civil Rights in Washington DC, and was written, in part, in reaction to Anita Hill's testimony about working with Clarence Thomas.

WHEN SOMETHING WONDERFUL ENDS explores the loss of one's mother, America's dependence on foreign oil, and Barbie dolls in an ingenious, whimsical, touching, funny, infuriating manner that only playwright Sherry Kramer could achieve. While packing up her parents' home following the death of her mother, Sherry uncovers the treasure trove of Barbies from her baby-boom childhood while embarking on the homework of a lifetime: discovering the roots of Islamic hatred of America and our dependence on the oil in the Middle East. As a Jewish girl growing up in the epicenter of the Bible belt, Sherry knows a thing or two about religious fervor and the passions it engenders."While she putters around putting Barbie paraphernalia into boxes, our hostess neatly ties together the personal and the political, yoking her own history to the mess of current global politics and a loss of faith in the American ideal. Quirky and informative." -Christopher Isherwood, The New York Times"As the actress telling Kramer's story packs up the Barbie artifacts of a Baby Boomer youth, the playwright explores both childhood fantasy and grown-up loss, as well as offering a step-by-step theory of why so many in the Arab world have come to hate the United States … it is, bottom line, a moving and provocative piece." -Christine Dolan, Miami Herald"Recounting her quest for the moment our way of life began unraveling, playwright Sherry Kramer's remarkable monologue moves between 1963 and now, between Tehran and Springfield, MO, between radicalized mullahs and vintage Barbies, to unearth truths about America's pursuit of Middle Eastern oil and her personal history, before arriving at her mother's grave and the intersection of geopolitical interests and individual responsibility. As timely as it was revealing and as witty as wise." -Robert Faires, The Austin Chronicle"In her incisive one-woman, autobiographical play. Playwright Sherry Kramer recalls coming of age, the death of a beloved parent, Judaism, the Middle East crisis and a concise history of the durable Barbie doll … Making Barbie a pivotal character in her narrative, playwright Kramer writes with a fluid hand that balances grief, conflict and the innocence of youth." -Robert Daniels, Variety

"There's not a lot of fat to trim in KRISIT, a satire on Hollywood…. Skewering the greed, vanity and bloated egos of Hollywood types is an easy target that has been done more times than Krisit's crow's-feet. But York's script has plenty of clever quips…." Robert Dominguez, Daily NewsWhat is "Krisit"? … a reclusive and peevish former movie star who hasn't left her home in 25 years. When the show opens she's lolling in her tub, wearing make-up and flashy jewels and being the sharp, brooks-no-argument grand dame with her new maid Lulu. Lulu is clearly role-playing. She's entirely too knowledgeable about who's who and who's doing what to who in Hollywood. She reads the industry press a little too avidly and she's awfully eager to lure Krisit out of retirement. In no time Lulu is taking a meeting with director Peter, who has a history with Krisit, and a stalled career that makes him desperate to have a project green-lighted. York uses the set-up to have fun commenting with engaging (and occasionally brutal) honesty on many things, including the insults of aging. Krisit has a leakage issue; Peter trades in wives for younger models to convince himself he still has whatever it is he needs to tell himself he has… York's voice is distinct as she reminds us how myopically we see ourselves even as we are blind to key truths; and about our relentless pursuit of ambitions which are generally not worth relentless pursuit. York also shows off a demented imagination with things like her solution for what to do with liposuctioned fat… Jackie Demaline, Cincinnati Equirer

A wealthy woman invites two strangers to join her in a strange feast commemorating the death of her parents. Mayannah has done this every year but her dark purpose remains unclear. All that will change tonight when two damaged souls find their way to her table. Taking place in a not-so-distant future, the sounds of a war-torn Los Angeles fill the air. Tensions rise, true colors are revealed and the main course is not the only thing with claws…"… Rivera's teasingly engrossing stage reality … It's a return to the postapocalyptic landscape this most magical-realist of major American playwrights has explored in such compelling works as MARISOL and REFERENCES TO SALVADOR DALI MAKE ME HOT, among his many plays … Rivera eschews external surreal symbols this time to delve directly into the chaos of his characters' disordered minds. The result is both an engrossing descent into the traumatized inner realms of three very different, isolated women … Each flight of concentrated poetry is vividly written … Rivera has created an intriguing and evocative drama with the social and psychological terrors that have leapt from the grottoes of the women's minds." -Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle"… This real-time drama … unfolds beautifully and offers great insight into how basic human nature desires can go bizarrely astray when the world is falling apart." -Giattina, San Francisco Bay Guardian

"The words `I was there', intoned repeatedly by the characters in HIT THE WALL, give Ike Holter's play about the 1969 Stonewall riots the self-consecrated holiness of solemn testimony. But the crucial refrain is: `The reports of what happened next are not exactly clear'. Given the extent to which urban legend and documented research of the events have blurred together over the decades, any dramatic consideration of Stonewall must embrace the mythology. So Mr Holter's impassioned evocation of the sparks that ignited the gay rights movement…are strongest when stylized interpretation eclipses conventional realism… Watching the characters strut through a liberating dance that erupts into chaos and violence when police lights pierce the smoky haze gives the sense of being caught up in that momentous clash… Among the most fully realized figures are Carson, a black drag queen as fearful as he is imperious; Peg, a `stone butch' lesbian ostracized by her family; and the `Snap Queen Team' of Tano and Mika, throwing shade at passers-by from their perch on a Christopher Street stoop. Fierce and funny, the verbal and attitudinal exchanges swapped by this duo with the formidable Carson owe more to slam poetry and 1980s Harlem voguing than to authentic period behavior. The play is deeply affecting at times, notably when Carson is bitterly rebuked during a rare foray outside in daylight to pay his respects at the funeral of Judy Garland. Or when Peg's uptight sister insensitively suggests how much better off she would be if she could just `hold it in'. …[We] feel the unendurable pain of self-denial. …What's perhaps more significant is that Mr Holter is working in a vernacular that speaks sincerely and directly to today's gay youth. His freewheeling play invites them to honor the earlier generation that broke the chains of marginalization and invisibility." David Rooney, The New York Times

"With the craft and depth of a fine novelist, Mr Belber creates a mosaic of pointed incidents imparting vital information. Beautifully dramatized is the subtext of enduring the damage by a troubled family background, as evidenced by Joan's circuitous life journey with its bouts of self-sabotage, irrational decisions, selfishness and redemptive self-awareness. The form of the memory play is taken to the zenith by JOAN." Theatre Scene "With bold ambition to do just that, to tell the story of one woman's life with honesty and integrity, playwright Stephen Belber's JOAN offers a kaleidoscopic look at its fictional, titular character through a lens of sweeping longitude that slowly creates an absorbing and dramatically effective portrait. The humanity painted by Mr Belber's play is moving precisely because of its simplicity and ordinariness. Every person has a story. Joan's is worth seeing." Stage Left "In many ways, Joan has led a normal existence: daughter and mother, lover and wife, sister and friend, artist and teacher. She has had affairs and heartaches, hopes and frustrations. What's less ordinary is how the playwright Stephen Belber tells her story: in nonchronological vignettes that jump around various points in her life. …JOAN is a fractured portrait that holds together." Elisabeth Vincentelli, The New Yorker