plays theater

Softcover. Los Angeles, The Augustan Reprint Society , reprint, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 88 pages. A facsimile reprint of a satirical play written in 1700. Name on front cover, otherwise clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Jonathan Cape, 1st, 1937, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Frontiepiece photograph of the author as Lord Beaconsfield. 392 pages. Autobiography dealing with the author's life up to the mid 1930s. He was the brother of A E Housman, and was well-known in his own right as a writer of plays, as well as being active in the women's suffrage campaign and in the pacifist movement. A prolific writer with around a hundred published works to his name, Housman's output eventually covered all kinds of literature from socialist and pacifist pamphlets to children's stories. He wrote an autobiography, The Unexpected Years (1937), which, despite his record of controversial writing, said little about his homosexuality, the practice of which was then illegal. Mild shelf wear. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harper and Brothers, 1st, 1905, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, small volume (4 X 6 1/4"), blue cloth designed and lettered in white. Frontispiece and 5 plates in b/w by Frank Nankivell. Comical theatrical play the scene of which is "a summer hotel in mid-August, where a group of summer-girls, longing for masculine companionship, construct a large worsted man from an old afghan, stuffing him with cotton. He comes to life, and proves to be one of the worst flirts ever created. Exceedingly funny to read, and is suitable for amateur theatricals." Includes a depreciating African-American character, Sambo Front, and use of music borrowed from Gilbert and Sullivan. Inscription on front fly leaf dated 1905, otherwise clean, bright copy. Plate at page 6 is loose.

Softcover. Baltimore, Theatre Arts, 1960, Book: Very Good, Softcover, stapled, 72 pages, b&w illustrations. Notes on "The Best Man" by Gore Vidal, From Pillow to Post by Mary Rogers, the complete play "Once Upon a Mattress", articles on directing, scenic design and lighting, Maureen Stapleton, Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Theatre Arts, 1958, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 80 pages, b&w illustration. Articles on Eugene Ionesco, Translated By Donald Watson (Complete Play Text: The Chairs and The Lesson), William Saroyan (Inoesco), George Jean Nathan (Stage as Self-Poisoner), Ward Morehouse (Broadway's Baance Sheet), John s Wilsonn (Straw-hat Season and Tents, too), Hesketh Pearson (Pinero and Barrie), World of Wiiam Inge, Patterson Greeene (Greek Theater in Los Angees), Amrica's Dramatic Critics (Harold V. Cohen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Etc. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Theatre Arts, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 94 pages, b&w illustrations. In stapled wrappers.Good used condition with cover lightly worn. *Waiting for Godot* by Samuel Beckett. "Why She Would Not": A Little Comedy by George Bernard Shaw. Florida Premiere for New Tennessee Williams Play: *Sweet Bird of Youth*. McKenna in "Saint Joan". Zolotow on The Actors Studio. "Carmen Jones". Clean copy.

Hardcover. Paris, Garnier, 1911, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 625 pages, original blue paper wrappers here bound in half leather and marbled boards, spines with raised ribs and gilt design, floral end papers. Top edge gilt, 4 color plates.

Hardcover. Ireland, Gallery Books, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 100 pages. Light shelf-wear to dust jacket, previous owner's signature on prelim page, else a clean, tight copy. This Irish edition precedes all others..

Hardcover. NY, Crown, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 644 pages, b&w illustrations. After a protracted squabble over private papers with the playwright's estate, Leverich delivers this hefty first volume of a projected two-volume life of Tennessee Williams (1911-1983). In it, Leverich, who produced several of Williams's plays and calls himself Williams's "chosen biographer", covers the years through 1945, when The Glass Menagerie opened on Broadway. Treated are Williams's youth in Mississippi and St. Louis; the college years at the universities of Missouri and Iowa; bumming around (but always writing) in New Orleans and Greenwich Village; the disaster of his first Broadway play (it closed in Boston); script writing, or avoiding it, at MGM's Hollywood mill; and, finally, the evolution of Menagerie, a wonderfully detailed and dramatic case history in itself. Leverich's overworked conceit, which he restates at intervals, is that this is the life of Tom Williams, a "repressed puritan" poet, who in time created a more flamboyant public persona called Tennessee. A few matters are set straight. Leverich maintains his subject's active homosexual life started in his late 20s, later than Williams stated in his memoirs, and that his sister's infamous lobotomy came later than his mother claimed. Although the accumulation of information is impressive, the lower Leverich keeps his own profile and editorial commentary the better his book is, which means it is at its best when it simply reproduces Williams's sporadically kept journal. If you believe that all the details of a life are but preparation for a single event, in this case, the opening of a remarkable play, this is an impressively argued biography.

Hardcover. NY, Macmillan Company, 1st, 1914, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover, maroon cloth with gilt lettering on spine. 164 pages plus 5 pages of publisher's ads. Remnants of torn dust jacket laid in at rear. From reviews on flap: "An effective presentation of modern life in New York City" ... "One of the most sparkling comedies of recent years, depicting life among the artists in Manhattan..." One of only two plays written by this poet. Clean copy.

Softcover. Los Angeles, Augustan Reprint Society, reprint, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, facsimile reprint of the 1682 edition, 80 pages. Introduction by Diane Dreher. An early historical play about Anne Boleyn, second queen of Henry VIII. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Honolulu, University of Hawaii, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 250 pages with 160 color and 20 black & white photographs of the elaborately carved and costumed puppets and portraits of the master puppeteers and carvers, list of Wayang characters, glossary, bibliography. Indonesia's wayang golek puppet theatre is among the world's oldest and richest puppetry traditions, contemporary with Japanese Noh drama and the mystery plays of Europe. In an unclipped dust jacket with some light fading to spine.

Hardcover. NY, HarperCollins, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 48 pages illustrated in color by Aliki. With her characteristically sprightly words and pictures, Aliki brings Shakespeare's life, times, and legacy to life in this highly acclaimed information-packed treasury that is truly for readers of all ages. This nonfiction picture book is an excellent choice to share during homeschooling, in particular for children ages 6 to 8. It's a fun way to learn to read and as a supplement for activity books for children From Hamlet to Romeo and Juliet to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's celebrated works have touched people around the world. Aliki combines literature, history, biography, archaeology, and architecture in this richly detailed and meticulously researched introduction to Shakespeare's world-his life in Elizabethan times, the theater world, and the Globe, for which he wrote his plays. Then she brings history full circle to the present-day reconstruction of the Globe theater.

Hardcover. San Francisco, The Bohemian Club, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 74 pages, illustrated orange paper over boards with title on front cover and spine. Illustrated with woodcuts by Vincent Perez. Issued without dust jacket. Bohemian Club Library Notes brochure laid in.