Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Dürrenmatt once wrote of himself: “I can best be understood if one grasps grotesqueness,” and The Visit is a consummate, alarming Dürrenmatt blend of hilarity, horror, and vertigo. The play takes place “somewhere in Central Europe” and tells of an elderly millionairess who, merely on the promise of her millions, swiftly turns a depressed area into a boom town. But the condition attached to her largesse, which the... (more)

Fences

by August Wilson

A Pulitzer Prize winner. Garbage collector Troy Maxson clashes with his son over an athletic scholarship.

The Piano Lesson

by August Wilson

Set in 1936, The Piano Lesson is a powerful new play from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. A sister and brother fight over a piano that has been in the family for three generations, creating a remarkable drama that embodies the painful past and expectant future of black Americans.

The Physicists

by Friedrich Durrenmatt

The world’s greatest physicist, Johann Wilhelm Möbius, is in a madhouse, haunted by recurring visions of King Solomon. He is kept company by two other equally deluded scientists: one who thinks he is Einstein, another who believes he is Newton. It soon becomes evident, however, that these three are not as harmlessly lunatic as they appear. Are they, in fact, really mad? Or are they playing some murderous game,... (more)

Seven Guitars

by August Wilson

Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson's Seven Guitars is the sixth chapter in the continuing theatrical saga that explores the hope, heartbreak, and heritage of the African American experience in the twentieth century. Winner of the New York drama Critics Circle award for Best New Play, it is "a play whose epic proportions and abundant spirit remind us of what the American theater once was."--Vincent Canby, The New... (more)

Le Misanthrope

by Martin Crimp, Moliere, David Coward

One of the best of Molière’s plays—and one of the greatest of all comedies—spotlighting the absurdities of social and literary pretension, focusing on a man who is quick to criticize the faults of others, yet remains blind to his own. First performed in 1666, when the King of France himself had assumed patronage of Molière’s company, and the actor/playwright was at the height of his career. Publisher’s Note.

Cyrano de Bergerac

by Edmond Rostand, Lowell Bair, Anthony Burgess

Rostand's masterpiece-and the ultimate triumph of the great French romantic tradition-is the magnificent hero-for-all-seasons, Cyrano de Bergerac.

Three Comedies

by George S. Kaufman, Edna Ferber

Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman inebriated America during the Prohibition Twenties, then made everyone forget the Depression in the Thiries via gales of sophisticated laughter. The dynamic playwriting duo created three smash hits together: The Royal Family (1927) * Dinner at Eight (1932) * and Stage Door (1936. All three plays were promptly made by Hollywood into equally famous films - Dinner at Eight with Jean... (more)

Kaufman and Co.: Broadway Comedies (Library of America)

Kaufman and Co.: Broadway Comedies (Library of America)

by George S. Kaufman

Like many uncommonly funny people, George S. Kaufman could be difficult, headstrong, irascible, arrogant and overbearing, yet he was the ultimate team player. If Ronald Reagan was the Great Communicator, Kaufman was the Great Collaborator. Over a show-business career that spanned more than four decades, he teamed up with various gifted writers to produce hugely popular Broadway plays and musicals, many of which... (more)

On the Razzle (Faber Paperbacks)Tom Stoppard, Johann Nestroy

On the Razzle (Faber Paperbacks)

by Tom Stoppard

Four Great Plays

by Henrik Ibsen

Here, in a single volume, are four major plays by the first modern playwright, Henrick Ibsen. Ghosts -the startling portrayal of a family destroyed by disease and infidelity. The Wild Duck -- A poignant drama of lost illusions. An Enemy Of The People -- Ibsen's vigorous attack on public opinion. And A Doll's House -- the play that scandalized the Victorian world with its unsparing views of love and... (more)

Richard III

by Ian McKellen

BeckettJean Anouilh

Beckett

by Jean Anouilh

Humble Boy: A Play

by Charlotte Jones

An award-winning new play that has been called “a brilliant latter-day variant on Elsinore in an English country garden blitzed by bees” (Sheridan Morley, The Spectator ) All is not well in the Humble hive. Thirty-five-year-old Felix Humble is a Cambridge astrophysicist in search of a unified field theory, but after the sudden death of his father, James, a teacher and amateur beekeeper, he is forced to return... (more)

She Stoops to Conquer (Collector's Edition)Oliver Goldsmith

She Stoops to Conquer (Collector's Edition)

by Oliver Goldsmith

Collector's Edition Bound in Genuine Leather.

The Crucible: A play in Four Acts

by Arthur Miller

Our Town

by Thornton Wilder

This beautiful new edition features an eye-opening Afterword written by Tappan Wilder that includes Thornton Wilder's unpublished notes and other illuminating photographs and documentary material. Our Town was first produced and published in 1938 to wide acclaim. This Pulitzer Prize–winning drama of life in the small village of Grover's Corners, an allegorical representation of all life, has become a classic.... (more)

Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in 2 Acts

Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in 2 Acts

by Samuel Beckett

A classic of modern theatre and perennial favorite of colleges and high schools. "One of the most noble and moving plays of our generation . . . suffused with tenderness for the whole human perplexity . . . like a sharp stab of beauty and pain."--The London Times.

The Plays of Oscar Wilde (Vintage Classics)

The Plays of Oscar Wilde (Vintage Classics)

by Oscar Wilde, Alyssa Harad

Oscar Wilde was at once a family man and a homosexual outsider, a socialite, socialist, and Irish nationalist. His contradictions inspired him to ponder the roles and masks donned in conventional society, and his acute and wry insights are wonderfully displayed in this collection of his essential plays. Known not only for his brilliant, epigrammatic language, but also for his sense of theatrical design, color, and... (more)

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

by Moises Kaufman

The year 2000 will mark the 100th anniversary of playwright and social philosopher Oscar Wilde's death. He is recognized for his wit and wisdom as well as for the tragedy of his life. Wilde is perhaps the most famous person to be punished by the state for committing the crime of gay sexual activity. After three trials Wilde was sentenced to several years of hard labor for making love with another man. Playwright... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: stage plays

by Friedrich Durrenmatt

by August Wilson

by August Wilson

by Friedrich Durrenmatt

by August Wilson

by Martin Crimp, Moliere, David Coward

by Edmond Rostand, Lowell Bair, Anthony Burgess

by George S. Kaufman, Edna Ferber

by George S. Kaufman

by Tom Stoppard

by Henrik Ibsen

by Ian McKellen

by Jean Anouilh

by Charlotte Jones

by Oliver Goldsmith

by Arthur Miller

by Thornton Wilder

by Samuel Beckett

by Oscar Wilde, Alyssa Harad

by Moises Kaufman