PLAYS
The Crazy but True Tragical-Farcical Trial of Madame P
wherein a Pig and various 4-Legged and Winged Creatures are Prosecuted for Theft, Murder, Bestiality and Diverse Crimes against Humankind – is a Multi-Media, Low-and-High-Tech, Bizarrely Theatrical Bestiary based on Trials of the Middle Ages. It is hot off the brain and available through susanyankowitz@gmail.com.
A KNIFE IN THE HEART/GUN
A KNIFE IN THE HEART/GUN opens with a mother's nightmare about the future of her newborn son. In a series of biting, fragmented scenes that move backwards and forwards in time, her nightmare comes true. The play was inspired by the escalating acts of violence in our country -- mass school shootings, assassinations, serial killings - carried out usually by young white men from middle-class families. Again and again, we ask why? Where does responsibility lie? What leads a loved child like Donald to commit a horrific, senseless murder? Like the killer’s shocked mother and father, GUN careens from one perspective to another in a search for understanding.
Pat Launer, NPR: “Every piece of theater should be like this 'Knife in the Heart' -- a brilliant collaborative effort that forces us to examine who and what we are."
NIGHT SKY
NIGHT SKY explores what Steven Hawking has called the two mysteries remaining to us: the brain and the cosmos.
Internationally produced and acclaimed, this drama premiered in a New York production directed by Joseph Chaikin and starring Joan MacIntosh as an astronomer afflicted with aphasia following an automobile accident. The play dramatizes Anna's attempts to recover from this devastating inability to speak, and portrays the effect her condition has on family relationships. The situation also provides a metaphorical spring board to some intriguing speculation on the relationship between the black holes in the cosmos and the black holes in the mind; the poetry
of unconventional language; and the ways in which all of us struggle to communicate the thoughts and feelings locked within our most private selves.
The play requires a cast of 3 men and 3 women, and a unit set. (Excerpts from many critics responding to productions in the US and abroad can be viewed on the REVIEWS page.)
Toby Zinman, Variety: “Susan Yankowitz's "Night Sky" is a rare thing: a play with a mind. It is also ABOUT the mind as universe, where language is internal astronomy. It shows us that more than hearts can be broken.”
Read a review of the Suffield Players’ production here.
Read Free Sample - www.samuelfrench.com/Download/GetFile?downloadId=101378.
Contact for rights: (212) 206-8990 or info@samuelfrench.com
PHAEDRA IN DELIRIUM
Adapted from various versions of the myth, Phaedra falls in love with her stepson, who embodies (literally) her philandering husband in his far more tender youth. The expression of her illicit passion, even more than the passion itself, leads to tragedy for all three. The play was first produced at Women’s Project/CSC in NY and at Sledgehammer Theatre in San Diego. (See excerpts from text in REVIEWS .)
It is published in “Divine Fire,” an anthology devoted to radical reinventions of ancient Greek dramatic texts, edited by Caridad Svich and can be purchased through www.wgpub.com, and www.amazon.com .
1969TERMINAL1996
This ground-breaking collaboration with Joseph Chaikin and the Open Theatre -- an investigation into mortality -- was first produced in 1969 and then revised in 1996. Ms. Yankowitz won the Drama Desk Award for this unusual work. The original script can be found in “The New Radical Theatre Notebook” and ordered through Applause Books, 212 595-4735 or in ”Types of Drama, Plays and Contexts” at www.ablongman.com/barnettod.
The updated version of the play is available in Performing Arts Journal 57, Johns Hopkins Press, www.press.jhu.edu. (See press on REVIEWS page.)