Product Description

This one-of-a-kind anthology features thirty-six hilarious short plays by major American playwrights and emerging new voices, all guaranteed to send readers and audiences into peals of laughter.

From the surrealistic wit of Steve Martin's "The Zig-Zag Woman" to the biting political satire of Steven Dietz's "The Spot," from Christopher Durang's wonderfully loopy "Wanda's Visit" to Shel Silverstein's supremely twisted "The Best Daddy," there's something in here to make everyone laugh. There are plays for casts of all sizes, from monologues to large ensembles, with diverse and challenging roles for actors of every age and type. Even the titles are funny: Mark O'Donnell's "There Shall Be No Bottom (a bad play for worse actors)," Elaine May's "The Way of All Fish," and Alan Ball's "Your Mother's Butt." A bonanza for theatergoers, performers, and comedy fans, Laugh Lines will bring down the house.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52539 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-10
• Released on: 2007-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780307277138
• BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

From Booklist
This set of 34 comic dramas, many of which would run 15 minutes at most in performance, by contemporary or nearly contemporary Americans, some famous, many not, ranges from the sublime to the tedious. The best pieces in the collection, such as Christopher Durang's divinely insane Wanda's Visit, are comic gems in miniature. Others, such as Pulitzer Prize winner David Auburn's comedy-sketch-sized Miss You, show the antic side of writers known mostly for more serious work. Other well-known names to be found in the wide-ranging anthology include Alan Ball, David Cale, David Lindsay-Abaire, Steve Martin, and Elaine May, all represented by rarely collected one acts. Still, the real strength of the book arises from editors Lane and Shengold's spirit of inclusiveness, which allows obscure but hilarious writers to appear cheek by jowl with_better-known funny women and men. Jack Helbig
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Eric Lane and Nina Shengold are editors of twelve contemporary play collections. Their other titles for Vintage Books include Plays for Actresses, Leading Women: Plays for Actresses II, Take Ten: New Ten-Minute Plays, Take Ten II: More Ten-Minute Plays, Under Thirty: Plays for a New Generation, and Talk to Me: Monologue Plays. For Viking Penguin, they edited The Actor’s Book of Contemporary Stage Monologues, The Actor’s Book of Scenes from New Plays, Moving Parts: Monologues from Contemporary Plays, The Actor’s Book of Gay and Lesbian Plays (Lambda Literary Award nominee), and Telling Tales: New One-Act Plays.

Nina Shengold received the ABC Playwright Award and the L.A. Weekly Award for Homesteaders, published by Samuel French. Her Romeo/Juliet, a five-actor adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, is published by Broadway Play Publishing. Her ten-minute plays have been performed at the Actors Theatre of Louisville and dozens of other theaters. Ms. Shengold won the Writers Guild Award and a GLAAD Award nomination for her teleplay Labor of Love, starring Marcia Gay Harden; other screenplays include Blind Spot, with Joanne Woodward and Laura Linney, Unwed Father, Double Platinum, and a flm adaptation of Jane Smiley’s Good Will. She is artistic director of the upstate New York theater company Actor’s & Writers. Her first novel, Clearcut, was published by Anchor Books.

Eric Lane is an award-winning playwright and filmmaker. Plays include Heart of the City, Times of War, Shellac, Cater-Waiter, and Dancing on Checkers’ Grave, which starred Jennifer Aniston. Mr. Lane has written and produced two short filims: First Breath and Cater-Waiter. For his work on TV’s Ryan’s Hope, he received a Writers Guild Award. Honors include the Berrilla Kerr Playwrighting Award, La Mama Playwright Development Award, numerous Yaddo fellowships, and a St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity fellowship in Malta. Mr. Lane is an honors graduate of Brown University, and is artistic director of Orange Thoughts Productions, a not-for-profit theater and film company in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
An Excerpt from
Miss You
by David Auburn
(First published in Fifth Planet and Other Plays, copyright © 2002 by David Auburn)

Miss You was first produced at the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, on January 5, 1997. It was directed by James Eckhouse. The cast was as follows:

WOMAN 1, 2 Lisa Edelstein
MAN 1, 2 Jerry Levine

CHARACTERS

MAN
WOMAN
MAN 2
WOMAN 2



MAN and WOMAN on the phone.

WOMAN: Hello?

MAN: I miss you!

WOMAN: Oh, hi.

MAN: Miss me?

WOMAN: Uh-huh.

MAN: Really?

WOMAN: Yes. Yes I do: I miss you.

MAN: A lot?

WOMAN: Yes.

MAN: How much?

WOMAN: I told you, a lot.

MAN: God, I miss you.

WOMAN: Mm.

MAN: I wish you were here.

WOMAN: Yes.

MAN: I wish you were here right now.

WOMAN: Mm.

MAN: I wish I was there.

WOMAN: Uh-huh.

MAN: I wish I could be there with you: I mean, I really miss you. I have a—

WOMAN: I know.

MAN: I have a—

WOMAN: Can you hold on?

MAN: I have a little sur—

WOMAN: Can you hold on a sec? I've got another call.

MAN: S (ure)—(Beat. She clicks over.)

WOMAN: Hello?

MAN 2: Hey.

WOMAN: Oh, God. Oh, God, hi! Oh, hi! God, hi!

MAN 2: Hey.

WOMAN: Hi, God, you called! I was hoping you'd-where have you been? Hi! Thank you for calling! How are you?

MAN 2: I'm fine.

WOMAN: Great.

MAN 2: How are—

WOMAN: Great. Wonderful. Now! Hi. When can I see you? Are you free? Are you busy? I can get time. Do you want to get something to eat tonight? Or we can cook. I can shop and we can— We can stay in. We can cook here, I've got wine. Come over. Come over now if you want. I miss you.

MAN 2: Listen-

WOMAN: I miss you. Yesterday afternoon was-the museum was wonderful (I can't believe I live right here in the city and I never go), and the walk, and the river. And the ice cream! Unh! Nothing has ever tasted so good to me in my life, I swear to God, it was—and drinks by the—and dinner, and God, you looked so—and last night was—

MAN 2: Listen, there's some things I should do, but we ought to try to get together.

WOMAN: Try? Try to get together? Yes, I think we should "try"! I mean, yes. Yes. That would be great. Tonight? Do you want to set something up for tonight? (Beat.)

MAN 2: Tonight?

WOMAN: Yes. We could—

MAN 2: Look, can I call you back?

WOMAN: What?

MAN 2: I gotta call you back.

WOMAN: Okay, but call me right—

MAN 2: Yeah. I'll call you. I'll talk to you. Okay?

WOMAN: Soon. I'll talk to you, okay—

MAN 2: Bye. (Beat.)

WOMAN: Bye— (She almost hangs up.) Shit— (Clicks over.) Hello?

MAN: Hello?

WOMAN: It's me.

MAN: I missed you!

WOMAN: I'm sorry. I couldn't get—

MAN: I'm coming home.

WOMAN: What?

MAN: I'm calling because I'm coming home. It's my surprise. I'm cutting things short. I'm at the airport!

WOMAN: Why?

MAN: I'm about to get on an airplane.

WOMAN: No, why-you're cutting things short? Can you do that?

MAN: Yes. I worked straight through. I haven't slept for two days so I'd get done early because I missed you and I'm—

WOMAN: Wait. Hold—

MAN: We take off in ten minutes. They're preboarding now. I'm carrying my—I want to give you my arrival time so you can come get me. I've only got carry-on, so don't come to the gate, don't park, just pull up at arriving flights and I'll be—

WOMAN: 'Nother call, sorry, I—

MAN: Honey, wait, I'm about to board, I don't want to miss my—

WOMAN: (Clicks over.) Hello?

MAN: No, it's still me. Don't go. I don't want to miss my—

WOMAN: Sorry, hold on. (Clicks.) Hello? Hello?

MAN 2: Hey, me.

WOMAN: Oh, hi!

MAN 2: Hey. Listen. I—

WOMAN: That was fast! You're—

MAN 2: Listen, I just realized, I've got a lot of things to take care of.

WOMAN: Uh-huh.

MAN 2: So I think we better—

WOMAN: What?

MAN 2: I think we better take a rain check on tonight.

WOMAN: A rain check.

MAN 2: We'll do it some other time.

WOMAN: You have a lot of things to take care of?

MAN 2: Yeah.

WOMAN: What things?

MAN 2: I should get some sleep. I have to get up early.

WOMAN: We spend the day together yesterday. You didn't have things to take care of. Yesterday turned into last night and it was a long sleepless night and that seemed fine with you then; it seemed wonderful to me—

MAN 2: We'll have to do it another time.

WOMAN: I don't have another time. This is the time. Do you see? Let's do this now. I'm sorry. I just mean, while we can. We shouldn't miss this. Yesterday came out of nowhere. We were together. It was great. I loved it. I loved being with you. I loved you. (Beat.) Did you hear me? I love you. Can you hear me? Are you there?

MAN 2: Can you hold on a minute?

WOMAN: What?

MAN 2: I've got another call coming in.

WOMAN: Don't take it!

MAN 2: I have to—

WOMAN: They'll call back.

MAN 2: I'll just be—

WOMAN: Don't— (He clicks over.)

MAN 2: Hello?

Customer Reviews

great for audition pieces
I got this book for my son, who is an acting student in a conservatory program. His summer assignment was to find a comic and dramatic monologue and this book has been invaluable. He has recommended it to several of his classmates, because the quality of the pieces is so strong. Shengold and Lane did an amazing job finding comic works. Bravo!

Well, *I* think they're very funny...
... and so do a number of my students, to whom I've recommended this book as they look for material. Sure, I have my favorites among them -- and they don't ALL work for me -- but I think Shengold and Lane have done a real service by collecting off-beat and very hip material. I look at scene anthologies all the time, and this one is among the freshest and sharpest I know. If you're an actor looking for comic material, I recommend it highly!

love it
From the surreal to the silly, this collection is sublime. Shengold and Lane have delivered yet another delightful anthology. Highly recommended!
S. Harden