Abstract Expression
After a scathing review 15 years ago, a once-celebrated painter faded into impoverished obscurity. Can one chance encounter resurrect this volatile artist from obscurity and re-launch him to overnight success? Theresa Rebeck skillfully compares the gritty urban realities of lives lived on the edge with the capricious intrigues of the uptown gallery scene where fame might just be a matter of who you know and reputations can be bought and sold.
Original Production: Abstract Expression was originally produced at Long Wharf Theatre November 13, 1998, and was directed by Greg Leaming.
The cast included: David Wolos-Fonteno; Beth Dixon; Kristine Nielsen; Bray Poor; Larry Gilliard, Jr.; Glenn Fleshler; Angie Phillips; Jack Willis; Mark Nelson
Bad Dates
Haley has been single-handedly raising a kid and running a restaurant for five years; it's time to go out on a date. A hilarious one-woman show that answers the age-old question "Do men and women really need each other?" with a resounding yes.
Original Production Information: Bad Dates was originally produced at Playwrights Horizons on June 3, 2003, and was directed by John Benjamin Hickey
The cast included: Julie White
Loose Knit
Once a week in the heart of New York City five women gather to knit. As the sweaters pile up, their lives fall apart. Liz is having an affair with her sister's husband, Gina's lost her job, Paula is having an identity crisis, and Margie just wants a date. Into their lives steps Miles, a cool businessman who made his first million before he was thirty and is now looking for a wife. On a series of hilarious blind dates in a sushi restaurant, Miles and the women go head to head in an attempt to define what it is men and women want these days.
Original production information: Loose Knit was originally presented in workshop by New York Stage and Film Company in association with the Powerhouse Theater at Vassar. Loose Knit premiered in New York City at during the season of Second Stage Theatre in the 1992-93 season, and was directed by Beth Schachter.
The cast included: Mary B. Ward; Patricia Kalember; Tamara Tunie; Kristine Nielson; Constance Shulman; Reed Birney; Daniel Gerroll
Spike Heels
Pygmalion goes awry in this contemporary comedy of manners which explores sexual harassment, misplaced amour, and the possibility of a four sided love triangle. The combatants are a sexy, volatile young woman and three Back Bay types a writer, a lawyer and a fiancee in sensible shoes. The setting is Boston, the ending is happy and laughter abounds.
Spike Heels was originally produced in New York by the Second Stage Theatre on June 4, 1992, and was directed by Michael Greif.
The cast included: Tony Goldwyn; Saundra Santiago; Kevin Bacon; Julie White
Spike Heels was produced in workshop by New York Stage and Film Company in association with the Powerhouse Theatre at Vassar, July, 1990.
Sunday on the Rocks
On a beautiful Sunday morning in mid October, three house mates decide to have scotch for breakfast in this play by the author of Spike Heels, The Family of Mann and Loose Knit. Elly is pregnant and considering an abortion, Jen is being harassed by a co worker who is obsessed with her, and Gayle just feels a bit lost. Their problems are compounded by a fourth roommate, Jessica, a religious young woman who has little compassion for their confused attempts to make sense of life in the nineties. As they drink, joke and argue, it becomes clear how difficult it is to make a moral decision in an increasingly complex world.
Sunday on the Rocks was originally produced at Long Wharf Theatre, May 3, 1994, and was directed by Susann Brinkley.
The cast included: Kristin Flanders; Jennifer Van Dyck; Mia Korf; Patricia Cornell
The Bells
Theresa Rebeck's expressionistic melodrama set in the waning years of the Alaskan Gold Rush tracks the intertwined fates of a gregarious innkeeper, his rebellious daughter, and the misfits of a boomtown gone bust. Hard luck and hunger brought them together, but when a stranger begins asking questions about the disappearance of a Chinese prospector, it's every man for himself in this vast white wilderness, where nothing is quite what it seems, and ghost stories are never taken lightly.
The Bells was originally produced at The McCarter Theatre Center March 22, 2005, and was directed by Emily Mann.
The cast included: Pun Bandhu; Michael McCarty; Paul Butler; Fiona Gallagher; Ted Marcoux; Marin Ireland; Christopher Innvar
The Butterfly Collection
A family of artists are both cruelly destructive and fiercely protective of each other. Paul, a Nobel winning novelist suffering from writer's block, his elegant but feisty wife, two sons an actor and an antique dealer and the actor's girlfriend are together for the first time in ages. Enter Paul's new assistant, a talented and passionate writing student. Bitter, funny chaos ensues..
The Butterfly Collection was originally produced at Playwrights Horizons during the 2000-2001 season, and was directed by Bartlett Sher.
The cat included: Maggie Lacey; Reed Birney; Marian Seldes; Betsy Aidem; James Colby; Brian Murray
The Butterfly Collection was seen in readings at the South Coast Repertory’s Pacific Playwrights Festival and at New York Stage and Film Company in association with the Powerhouse Theatre at Vassar, Summer 2000
The Family of Mann
A young writer learns that comedy can be a grim business when she gets a job working on a television sitcom. Her colleagues insist that the show is both decent and real while their world descends into a ferocious madness. The Family of Mann hilariously questions who and what are invited into homes when the television is turned on.
The Family of Mann premiered on June 28, 1994 at Second Stage Theatre, and was directed by Pamela Berlin.
The cast included: David Garrison; Richard Cox; Julie White; Lisa Gay Hamilton; Robert Duncan McNeill; Anne Lange; Reed Birney
The Scene
An actor's frustrations with his busted career spin out of control when he meets a modern-day siren who butchers the language and destroys his world. A comic tragedy that examines the collapse of American culture.
The Scene was first produced in New York at the Second Stage Theatre on January 11, 2007 and was directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman.
The cast included: Tony Shalhoub; Christopher Even Welch; Anna Camp and Patricia Heaton
The Scene was originally produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville, 30th Anniversary Humana Festival of New American Plays on March 11, 2006, and was directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman.
View of the Dome
This humor filled tale of political corruption, ingratitude and revenge concerns an idealistic young Washington attorney who persuades her former law professor, a man of lofty rhetoric, to run for Congress. Ideals shrivel in the Washington air as the professor is swept into an insider's circle that includes a leering, power drunk senator and a slinky Southern power broker. When the heroine is snubbed by the politically powerful at a fancy restaurant, her hurt feelings precipitate an all out war. She promotes a sex scandal that unexpectedly makes her the darling of the religious right.
View of the Dome was originally produced in New York by The New York Theatre Workshop on September 13, 1996, and was directed by Michael Mayer.
The cast included: Jim Abele; Patrick Breen; Candy Buckley; Tom Riis Farrell; Julia Gibson; Dion Graham; Richard Poe
The Water’s Edge
With imagery and heightened emotions, this profound one act leaves the impact of a grand Greek Tragedy. A father comes home after a 17 year absence with his new girlfriend in tow. His wife, displeased and scorned, decides to take matters into her own hands. But what happens when people believe that the only way to heal is to hurt?
The Water’s Edge was originally produced at Second Stage Theatre June 15, 2006, and was directed by Will Frears.
The cast included: Tony Goldwyn; Kate Burton; Katherine Powell; Mamie Gummer; Austin Lysy
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