What's your favorite non-musical?
MaryLyon
I've spent the last month working backstage for an outstanding local production
of ART. (BTW, I haven't teched a show in 15 years and did this only as a favor
for a friend, but I'm SO glad I did it - every actor needs to tech now and then
- helps remind us that we aren't the center of the theatrical universe!).
Anyway, it has been a thrill to see this beautiful production come to fruition,
and it certainly whets my appetite for an upcoming production of WIT in which
I'll be performing (Susie). God knows I love musicals, but I've been thinking a
lot about how much I also love straight plays. I find it interesting that there
are so many people who love musicals but hate straight plays, and vice versa,
but I love it all. So, with that in mind, I was wondering what you guys would
name as your favorite non-musicals? Not necessarily the BEST plays in the
world, but your favorites - those that moved you and that you would see (or
perform in) again. Hard to choose, I know, but I suppose my top ten would be
(in no particular order):
1. Uncommon Women and Others
2. Macbeth
3. A Midsummer Night's Dream
4. Cloud Nine
5. School for Scandal
6. As Is
7. Art
8. Our Town
9. Picnic
10. A Doll's House.
Eager to hear what others would choose...have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Best, Amy :)
Karen Horn
Not in any order:
1) Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?
2) Odd Couple
3) 12th Night
4) Henry V
5) Hamlet
6) Long Day's Journey Into Night
7) Noises Off
8) Lettice and Lovage
9) And then there were None
10) Richard III
Honorable mention to: All in the Timing, Fully Committed
Karen
Karen Horn
: Greetings:
:
: I've spent the last month working backstage for an outstanding local production
: of ART. (BTW, I haven't teched a show in 15 years and did this only as a favor
: for a friend, but I'm SO glad I did it - every actor needs to tech now and then
: - helps remind us that we aren't the center of the theatrical universe!).
Plus you can do fun headset chatter about the actors:
"Honey, FIND your light, no, not there, 6 inches on stage...can't
you feel the difference between that R02 and the R382?"
"What do you MEAN he can't find the letter, you just GAVE it to him."
"**** him, places was called 5 minutes ago, if he misses his entrance,
that's too damn bad."
"didn't the director tell her 5 times in tech alone NOT to put her
skirt over the footlights?"
Karen
Richard C. Wall
Wait Until Dark
The Women
The Lion in Winter
Our Town
The Bald Soprano
Medea
Barefoot in the Park
Breaking the Code
Jon A Conrad
1. Angels in America (both parts)
2. Arcadia
3. The Invention of Love
4. Noises Off
5. The Foreigner
6. The Norman Conquests
7. The Common Pursuit
8. Black Comedy
9. Sleuth
10. Love! Valour! Compassion!
Unbalanced in all kinds of ways, but those are the ones I like at the
moment.
Jon Alan Conrad
Department of Music
University of Delaware
con...@udel.edu
wplnyc
1. Proof
2. Death of a Salesman
3. Last Night in Ballyhoo
4. Gin Game
5. Thousand Clows
MaryLyon
>- every actor needs to tech now and then
>: - helps remind us that we aren't the center of the theatrical universe!).
>
>Plus you can do fun headset chatter about the actors:
I was standing backstage watching one of the actors go through his typically
bizarre warm-ups - pacing back and forth, talking to himself etc. Without
thinking, I said, "Actors are so weird!" My friend looked at me and said,
"Spoken like a true techie!" And I thought - "Oh, God - how many techies have
said that about me???" :)
Best, Amy :)
Steve & Rhonda Newport
WENCESLAS SQUARE, TWILIGHT OF THE GOLDS, THE OLD BOY, INCIDENT AT VICHY,
NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, ANGELS IN AMERICA part 2, KENTUCKY CYCLE pt. 1,
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, LES LIASONS DANGEREUSE, GOOD, SKYLIGHT,
QUARTERMAINE'S TERMS, SIGHT UNSEEN, SOME AMERICANS ABROAD, LOST IN
YONKERS, WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION, ANOTHER TIME, more later.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Cranberry Day Alternative
http://www.farmsanctuary.org/campaign/editorial_99.htm
Stephen Farrow
> So, with that in mind, I was wondering what you guys would
> name as your favorite non-musicals?
In no special order:
The School For Scandal
The Marriage of Bette and Boo
Educating Rita
A Delicate Balance
Death of a Salesman
Little Murders
Dead Funny
Fit to be Tied
Six Degrees of Separation
The Miser
Hamlet
Not all necessarily 'best', but these are plays I keep going back to - I
have copies of all of them lying around my apartment.
Stephen
--
"First of all, you're going to need a live chicken and a working
knowledge of Latin..."
Matthew Winn
> So, with that in mind, I was wondering what you guys would
> name as your favorite non-musicals? Not necessarily the BEST plays in the
> world, but your favorites - those that moved you and that you would see (or
> perform in) again.
In no meaningful order:
The Memory of Water (Shelagh Stephenson)
Perfect Days (Liz Lochhead)
Noises Off (Michael Freyn)
Hobson's Choice (Harold Brighouse)
Candida (George Bernard Shaw)
Sabina! (I don't know)
Matthew
Matthew Winn
> MaryLyon <mary...@aol.com> wrote:
> : Greetings:
> :
> : I've spent the last month working backstage for an outstanding local production
> : of ART. (BTW, I haven't teched a show in 15 years and did this only as a favor
> : for a friend, but I'm SO glad I did it - every actor needs to tech now and then
> : - helps remind us that we aren't the center of the theatrical universe!).
At my local theatre on amateur shows we sometimes get actors who
didn't make the cast working as crew instead. It's usually on the
first or second night they say "_Now_ I understand why you often get
angry when the cast hang around in the wings". (We have almost no
wing space and no flying facilities, and the bane of our lives is the
actor who rushes on stage in a panic during a blackout to get into
position, yet never realises he's holding up the show because we can't
set the bloody scene with him in the way.)
> Plus you can do fun headset chatter about the actors:
Not at my theatre you can't because we don't have headsets. We use
runners and hand signals across the stage. We do the same chatter,
but it takes more time.
> "Honey, FIND your light, no, not there, 6 inches on stage...can't
> you feel the difference between that R02 and the R382?"
"He couldn't hit a note if you strapped it to a chair and armed him
with a shovel."
Matthew
Bill
Twelfth Night
The Mound Builders
Gemini
Travesties
The Subject Was Roses
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Long Day's Journey Into Night
A Streetcar Named Desire
Loire21
A Distant Bell
Forty Carats
Mary, Mary
Summer and Smoke
Under the Yum-Yum Tree
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild
First Love
The Affairs of Anatol
lastan...@webtv.net
Re: Favorite non-musicals
lastan...@webtv.net
Sorry for the mistake -- not paying attention
Re: Favorite non-musicals
A HATFUL OF RAIN
THE BAD SEED
PICNIC
LIGHT UP THE SKY
STREEETCAR NAMED DESIRE
BOYS IN THE BAND
MEMBER OF THE WEDDING
BUS STOP
THE CRUCIBLE
TIGER,TIGER, BURNING BRIGHT
.........................................and so many nore.
Lam
Rhonda & Stephen Newport
Thanks. I've been looking forward to the time when we were "allowed" to
like that play again. It really is quite powerful.
********************************************** "May your teeth fall out
the day before Thanksgiving"
Maureen Stapleton in CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU?
Biff McKeldin
well...
very roughly in order of preference (and sticking to 20th century American plays
for the moment):
Long Day's Journey Into Night
The Iceman Cometh
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
A Streetcar Named Desire
A Delicate Balance
Angels in America
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Little Foxes
Children's Hour
Mourning Becomes Electra
Biff
(who obviously likes long, pretentious plays)
David Fick
> I was wondering what you guys would name
> as your favorite non-musicals? Not necessarily
> the BEST plays in the world, but your favorites -
> those that moved you and that you would see (or
> perform in) again.
Wow! What a broad question I'd really have to sit down and think about
this - but here are my favourite plays of the ones with which I made some
form of contact this year:
PAX by Deborah Levy
SPRING AWAKENING by Frank Wedekind
ANGELS IN AMERICA (1+2) by Tony Kushner
ROAD MOVIE by Godfrey Hamilton
THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE by (can't remember?)
Later days
David
MaryLyon
>My list of favorites unfortunately reads like an undergraduate syllabus.
very roughly in order of preference (and sticking to 20th century American
>plays
>for the moment)
God knows there are worse sources from which to choose your favorites - if
everyone read your choices in college, the world would be a better place (and
would improve even more with some non-20th century additions!)
Best, Amy :)
Precious Little
Afraid of Virginia Woolf, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Importance of
Being Earnest, Pygmalion, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, Uncle Vanya,
Butley, A Delicate Balance, The Odd Couple, Equus, The Boys in the Band,
The Marriage of Bette and Boo, Angels in America, Hedda Gabler,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, Private Lives, Death of
A Salesman, and a whole bunch more too! It's hard to pick favorites.
Thanks for making me think of some of the plays I like a lot. Writing
this made me smile. Always a good thing.
Best Wishes, Precious Little
WS BAB
Grown Ups-Feiffer
Measure For Measure-some dead english guy
P J
The Rose Tattoo
The Glass Menagerie
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Master Class
Piaf
The Physicist
Hamlet
Macbeth
Henry V
Miss Julie
A Doll's House
'Night Mother
The Elephant Man
Oedipus Rex (trilogy)
Hecuba
Medea
Come Back, Little Sheba
Member of the Wedding
The Miracle Worker
The Little Foxes
Children of a Lesser God
The Diary of Anne Frank
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Amadeus
The Glass Menagerie
Torch Song Trilogy
The Great White Hope
Crimes of the Heart
Art
Member of the Wedding
Picasso At the Lapine Agile
The Lion in Winter
The Bad Seed
The Crucible
Equus
Same Time Next Year
and so many more......
Unknown
> would name as your favorite non-musicals? Not necessarily the BEST plays
> in the world, but your favorites - those that moved you and that you would
> see (or perform in) again.
****
"Fifth Of July" by Lanford Wilson
"The Time Of The Cuckoo" by Arthur Laurents
"Othello" by Shakespeare
"Love! Valour! Compassion!" by T. McNally
"The Glass Menagerie" by Tenn Williams
"The Rainmaker" by N. Richard Nash
****
RmadlloLvr
-Karan
Rmadl...@aol.com(KARAN)
"Dreams are portable. I carry mine with me." - Nick Knight
Stephen R. Newport
RKras77064
I literally could not move from my seat after the first time I saw it, and I
discovred something new on each subsequent viewing.
Ronni
www.AhrensandFlaherty.com
The Ahrens & Flaherty website
baloo
Class!
"P J" <winged...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:8453-3BF...@storefull-112.iap.bryant.webtv.net...
P J
<<I love this list! And you're the first to mention my all-time fave,
Master Class!>>
---------------------------------------------
you obviously have very good taste :-)
yeah, MASTER CLASS is, indeed quite a piece of work. apparently,
Terrence McNally and Maria Callas was a marriage made in heaven (or
hell, who knows?). no, no, it's heaven on earth....
i also can't believe that I forgot HEDDA GABLER! I was surprised to
read how few european classics were mentioned. i guess they're not
EVERYone's favs, which is fair...
thanks for the comment!
------------------------------------------------
<<p j"s list:
P J
<<Six Degrees of Separation>>
this could go on forever, but i had to echo this one. incredible play,
based on bizarre circumstances. one of the greats in american theatre.
DelanySis1
Nicholas Nickleby (Will always be my fave theater experience!! Sure wish
somebody would revive it...)
Amadeus
Twelve Angry Men
Much Ado About Nothing
Will probably think of more later...
Sue
Euclid Peltier
Ed -Boston
KT
Lion in Winter
Odd Couple (the Female version)
God's Favorite
Wit
Katie ~