Other books that might interest you

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  Five Characters in Search of a...

  Mike Alfreds

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  Five insomniacs try to make it through the night. From dusk to dawn, they struggle with a crisis in their lives which they must resolve by morning. Increasingly conscious of their shortening futures and lengthening pasts, they fill their nights with distracting activities, desperate sleep techniques, evaluations of their lives, delusions, fears, panics and utter foolishness as they prepare to face the day.
  Five Characters in Search of a Good Night's Sleep was first performed by ViSiBLE Theatre Ensemble at Southwark Playhouse, London, in 2022, in a production directed by Mike Alfreds. It was devised and written by Mike Alfreds with Sonja Linden and members of the company.
  ViSiBLE is a theatre company dedicated to creating performance work that throws fresh perspectives on later life and living longer. A key aspect of its identity is creating work collaboratively, drawing on the creativity and talent of Britain's huge wealth of experienced older actors.
  'A masterclass in monologue… an interesting piece of theatre that encourages you to consider the torment of insomnia' - Upper Circle
  'The writing is beautifully candid… it's refreshing to see older characters portrayed in a multi-faceted way that explores existentialism and humanity rather than stereotyping and defining them by their age' - North West End UK
  'A great example of storytelling, with five sound monologues' - London Theatre Reviews

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  Transformations - Poems

  Anne Sexton

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  Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Anne Sexton morphs classic fairy tales into dark critiques of the cultural myths underpinning modern society Anne Sexton breathes new life into sixteen age-old Brothers Grimm fairy tales, reimagining them as poems infused with contemporary references, feminist ideals, and morbid humor. Grounded by nods to the ordinary—a witch’s blood “began to boil up/like Coca-Cola” and Snow White’s bodice is “as tight as an Ace bandage”—Sexton brings the stories out of the realm of the fantastical and into the everyday world. Stripping away their magical sheen, she exposes the flawed notions of family, gender, and morality within the stories that continue to pervade our collective psyche.   Sexton is especially critical of what follows these tales’ happily-ever-after endings, noting that Cinderella never has to face the mundane struggles of marriage and growing old, such as “diapers and dust,” “telling the same story twice,” or “getting a middle-aged spread,” and that after being awakened Sleeping Beauty would likely be plagued by insomnia, taking “knock-out drops” behind the prince’s back. Deconstructed into vivid, visceral, and often highly amusing poems, these fairy tales reflect themes that have long fascinated Sexton—the claustrophobic anxiety of domestic life, the limited role of women in society, and a psychological strife more dangerous than any wicked witch or poisoned apple.  

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  Today (NHB Modern Plays)

  Robert Holman

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  'I came here for the future. If you can't see a future, what can yer see? Nothing.'
  From the lawns of King's College, Cambridge, where two shy young men from opposing backgrounds confront the reality of their attraction to each other, to the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War, where courage, idealism and solidarity are tested in the furnace of conflict, Robert Holman's play Today is a panoramic study of life, desire and the search for a fundamental self in the midst of a shifting, uncertain world.
  Written for an ensemble of Royal Shakespeare Company actors, Today was first performed at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, in October 1984.
  Also included is the music used in the original production.

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  Damon Runyon Theater - That...

  Damon Runyon

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  The Damon Runyon Theatre Hour.  Damon Runyon is acknowledged as one of the great writers to come out of twentieth century America.  Runyon's short stories are almost always told in the first person by a narrator who is never named, and whose role is unclear; he knows many gangsters and has no job that can be gleaned from his musings, nor does he admit to any criminal involvement; He’s a bystander, an observer, an average street-corner Joe.  Runyon described himself as "being known to one and all as a guy who is just around".  That line seems to say a lot about Runyon and his life.  It was like you were with him on some street corner hustle or some shady dive and he was filling you in on all the angles, all the gossip, all of life. He was who so many people wanted to be with……or so many people wanted to be.  Of course, the cliché about newspapermen and writers is that they are heavy drinkers, chain-smokers, gamblers and obsessively chase women with a sideline in the gathering of stories and facts and actually getting something written just before the deadline hits. That seems like Damon Runyon and his life summed up in one sentence.  His stories became legendary ways of looking that bit differently at America, of soaking up the atmosphere of a glamorous and rip-roaring age and distilling it into the black and white type or, in our case, The Damon Runyon Theatre Hour.

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  Depth Perception - Poems and a...

  Robin Morgan

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  This fourth book of poems from award-winning author Robin Morgan has an almost-novelistic shape, with plot twists that are realizations of self, other, and the nature of change In this book of transitions, Robin Morgan’s poetry crosses the boundaries of age, race, culture, and gender. The lifelong love-hate passion between mother and daughter is here, as is a vivid, rhetoric-free depiction of the suffering and rage of women cross-culturally. Morgan also traces the slow dissolution of a marriage, parsed in poems of alternating hope and despair, humor and fury—and also in a tragicomic, two-character, one-act verse play, “The Duel: A Masque.” The play, which inverts the Orpheus-Eurydice myth, was performed at the Public Theater in New York City.   Praised by the literary world for her technique, but dedicated to keeping her craft accessible and impassioned, Morgan takes us through inevitable deaths and resurrections of the self in pitch-perfect language shot through with dazzling imagery and irony.

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  Peter Pan (version 3 Dramatic...

  J.M. Barrie

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  All children, except one, grow up,” begins J. M. Barrie's most famous novel. Barrie then proceeds to tell the story of that one extraordinary exception, Peter Pan, who lives in the Neverland with pirates and fairies and is always having adventures. One night he appears in the nursery of the Darling children and the most marvelous adventure of all begins. Light-hearted though it seems in premise, Peter Pan is a sweet but melancholy tribute to the fleeting innocence of childhood that has endured as a beloved favorite of children and adults alike ever since its first publication. (Summary by Eden Rea-Hedrick) Narrator/ Peter Pan: Eden Rea-HedrickMrs. Darling: KHandMr. Darling: Ernst PattynamaWendy: Amanda FridayNana/ The Never Bird: Anastasiia SolokhaMichael/ Tinker Bell: ElleyKatJohn/ The Twins: Frances BrownThe Smallest Star/ Liza: Rebecca Braunert-PlunkettCaptain Hook: Larry WilsonTootles: gloriousjobSlightly: Katalina WattNibs: Cheryl MicheleStarkey: Kristin GjerløwSmee: nomorejeffsCurly: Charlotte BrownTiger Lily: Woolly BeeThe Voice of Hook's School: Shakira SearleBill Jukes: Levi ThrockmortonCecco/ Mullins: Kingof192Noodler: Todd JenkenCookson: LaMar HawkinsJane: Kimberly Krause 
  Audio edited by:Eden Rea-Hedrick, Kimberley Krause, and TimoleonWashThis project was proof listened by: Eden Rea-Hedrick, Kimberly Krause, and Matt Bohnhoff

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