Blue, a gifted trumpeter, contemplates selling his once-vibrant jazz club in Detroit's Blackbottom neighborhood to shake free the demons of his past and better his life. But where does that leave his devoted Pumpkin, who has dreams of her own? And what does it mean for the club's resident bebop band? When a mysterious woman with a walk that drives men mad comes to town with her own plans, everyone's world is turned upside down. This dynamic and musically-infused drama shines light on the challenges of building a better future on the foundation of what our predecessors have left us.

The United States has been attacked. Men are being castrated, women enumerated. Ellen has been in hiding for fifty-two days, subsisting on very little, hoping against hope for her husband to return. As the world around her falls further into senseless chaos, she takes an unlikely action, one that just might signal a new beginning.

Dr. Bertram and Sandra Cabot invite longtime friends Dirk and Celeste Von Stofenberg to their beautiful Connecticut Gold Coast home in honor of James, the Von Stofenbergs' only son, who has recently been released from an esteemed private psychiatric hospital. The feast promises to be delicious, but when Sandra enlists Dirk to help her change the course of her life, the sky turns a strange color, Canadian geese start crashing into the bay window, and the fate of the evening tilts toward an inevitable conclusion that promises to change the lives of all who come to the table.

This collection includes: B-Storm by Ava Geyer - Sex sells. Even when you're selling chocolate syrup to little kids, unfortunately. New York ad execs are forced to confront past wounds and current crises when their new campaign hits a little stickily close to home. Open Venas by Exal Iraheta - In this comedic clash of cultures and generations, only-child Amelia must combat her meddling mother and grandmother when they invade her honeymoon to guarantee that she fulfills her "responsibility" to carry on the bloodline. My Yellow is Yours, Your Red is Mine by Keyanna Khatiblou - Two Iranian-American sisters attempt to celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year, for the first time since their family immigrated to the U.S. Suckers by SP O'Brien - Vacation has ended. All the children are back to school. These three elementary school teachers need a cigarette. Kill Me. Will Be Live by Micah Ariel Watson - Imani, Clara, and Mia bask fully in their womanhood after a party. But in an instant, joyful reminiscence becomes a plea for the value of Black lives. Not Only is Everyone as Wonderful by Celeste Yim - In a near-future department store where any purchase is a voice-automated command away, a young adult going through a breakup is opened to the opportunity of finding love again by the possibility of a shiny new crush.

Mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved... 18-year-old Samantha Brown sits in a hand-me-down car with the keys clutched in her hand. Caught between a yearning for the unknown and feeling bound by expectation, she telescopes back to a time before her world had fallen apart. As she relives her senior year, we meet Sam's well-intentioned helicopter mother Bev and her high school sweetheart of a boyfriend Adam, but it's her painfully alive best friend Kelly that haunts her. Kelly was everything Sam is not - impetuous and daring. She pushed Sam to break rules and do the unexpected. When Kelly's killed in a car wreck, Sam loses not only her best friend but also the part of herself that was learning to be brave. Now, Sam has to make a decision. Will she follow her mother's dreams for her, or will she summon the courage to drive away from her friends and family into a future she can't imagine?

A madcap odyssey through a wilderness of corporate bureaucracy and crippling human dependencies. Blessed with the can-do American spirit, a troop of dedicated shoe store employees embark on a journey of personal expansion. But when "work is your life" and systems breakdown, all that remains is you, a casino, and the truth.

One of Manhattan's most established play festivals, the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival fosters the work of emerging writers, giving them the exposure of publication and representation. The 44th collection includes: A Small Breach in Protocol at Big Rick's Rockin' Skydive Academy - When a routine skydive jump seems to go awry, Rae and Alicia must face big existential questions about meaning, power, and mortality as they plummet 200 miles per hour to Earth. Tidwell, or the Plantation Play - A storm looms over the Tidwell Plantation just as the slaves of Quarter 5 prepare to clock out. Stay for Dinner - Joe is stuck. Literally. His job as a severed head in a haunted house has its ups and downs. On one hand, he spends time confined under a table. On the other, he gets to spend time chatting with his crush. But how does a guy make his move when he can't...move? Bunkmates - Shelley and Gary have a lot in common. They both love their pets, they both have a strong online presence, and they're both convinced Y2K is going to be our imminent downfall. Cluck Deluxe - Isa is finally bringing her girlfriend home for a Mississippi Thanksgiving, and she did not expect her biggest problem to be fast-food chicken. I Love You St. Petersburg! - Career day can be daunting, especially for musical theatre lovers...and moms.

In this modern morality tale, a vicious killer is on the loose, and the kindhearted Douglass finds himself the target of detectives who need a win at any cost. Desperate to seek justice and clear his name, Douglass escapes prison and sets out on a harrowing, fantastical quest to find the true perpetrator. In this riveting dark comedy, the lines between good and evil blur in a search for redemption.

Miracles abound in Fishtown, PA, on the edge of the Delaware River, home of four-flushers and robbers. A baseball-playing Old Man and his two sons brawl, fight, and love in this dark comedy of the realistic and outrageous. A one-armed grifter and his sister enter this hermetically-sealed world, and passions and violence erupt in life-changing ways. House on Fire is a moving and funny parable of redemption and love.

In this modern revenge play, Brenda Hendricks has her hands full dealing with her son Noah after he is expelled from a prestigious college and unexpectedly returns to their isolated Northern California home. When a mysterious woman arrives on their doorstep, Brenda and Noah find their world turned upside down in ways both intimate and epic.

It's monsoon season in Phoenix, Arizona, and recently-separated couple Danny and Julia are spiraling into chaos. A strip club's flashing neon sign is keeping Danny awake at night, and Julia's Adderall addiction has only gotten worse since her dealer moved in. Danny is suffering from micro-blackouts, and Julia keeps seeing a giant bird in her backyard. Is anyone watching their kid? This romantic comedy for a toxic world comes alive with biting humor and blinding insight.

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for three films in 1927-28, Seventh Heaven, Sunrise, and Street Angel, Janet Gaynor may be better known for her roles as the endearing orphan, Judy Abbott, in Daddy Long Legs (1931) and the small town girl-turned actress, Esther Blodgett, in A Star Is Born (1937). Her entire acting career is presented here, from bit parts in 1924 to a final appearance on ABC-TV's Love Boat in 1981. The opening biography assesses her lifework, which is then documented in separate chapters on her work in film, radio, stage, and television. The biography further details her recognition as a talented painter, her many philanthropic activities, and her interests in travel, food, and fashion. An extensive bibliography includes critical studies and reviews and reveals her immense popularity in fan magazines, particularly of the 1920s and 1930s. Interesting photographs--some rare--illustrate her versatile career.

Oberon Play House's director and leading men are off at war with the Axis. Determined to press on, the director's wife sets out to produce an all-female version of Shakespeare's Henriad, assembling an increasingly unexpected team united in desire, if not actual theatre experience. Together they deliver a delightful celebration of collaboration and persistence when the show must go on!

This is the first volume in English to examine in detail one of the most remarkable collaborations between a writer and filmmaker in European cinema. Focusing on the four films Wim Wenders and Peter Handke made between 1969 and 1987 ("3 American LPs," "The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty," "Wrong Move," and "Wings of Desire"), it explores the productive tension between adaptation and collaboration and demonstrates the different ways in which text- and image-makers can recompose film's constituent media (literature, still and moving images, music, drama). The study reveals that this partnership had significant aesthetic and conceptual repercussions for both artists, resulting in a series of single-authored works which manifest the same kinds of intertextuality and disjunctive intermediality that are the hallmark of the collaborations themselves. These include Wenders's "Alice in the Cities," Handke's films "The Chronicle of On-Going Events "and "The Left-Handed Woman ," and his novels "Short Letter, Long Farewell "and "A Moment of True Feeling." While the Wenders-Handke partnership is unique, it contributes to a broader understanding of cinematic adaptation and different models of intermedial collaboration. This volume will be of interest to those working in the fields of Adaptation, Film, and German Studies.

The Baroque is back in contemporary culture. The ten essays authored by international scholars, and three interventions by artists, examine the return of the baroque as Neo-Baroque through interdisciplinary perspectives. Understanding the Neo-Baroque as transcultural (between different cultures) and transhistorical (between historical moments) the contributors to this volume offer diverse perspectives that suggest the slipperiness of the Neo-Baroque may best be served by the term 'Neo-Baroques'. Case studies analysed reflect this plurality and include: the productions of Belgian theatre company Abattoir Ferme; Claire Denis' French New Extremist film Trouble Every Day; the novel Lujuria tropical by exiled El Salvadorian Quijada Urias; the science fiction blockbuster spectacles The Matrix and eXistenZ; and the spectacular grandeur of early Hollywood movie palaces and the contemporary Las Vegas Strip. Contributors: Jens Baumgarten, Marjan Colletti, Bolivar Echeverria, Rita Eder, Hugh Hazelton, Monika Kaup, Peter Krieger, Patrick Mahon, Walter Moser, Angela Ndalianis, Richard Reddaway, Karel Vanhaesebrouck, Saige Walton.

An espionage pastiche. Fast paced, violent and sexually explicit, this thriller pits Finn McHugh against Didier Porchaire, the most violent and sadistic villain and smuggler. Using Carom board cases to hide drugs and smuggle stolen art, he leaves a trail of bodies. He has to be stopped. Carom is a thriller introducing Finn McHugh and his glamorous and sexy team as they try to track down an art smuggler and drug dealer who has fatally dispatched others who have stood in his way. Through Helsinki, London, Paris, Prague and St Petersburg, the team chase Didier, racing to reach him before three gorgeous Cubans who are intent on revenge. Finn's group wants information from Didier, the Cubans just want him dead.

The Handbook Research Video is an introduction to a new type of software and publication based on annotated videos. Practitioners and researchers who work with motion data, for example in the fields of performative art, film, behavioral research or sports science, are supported in their work process and have the opportunity to publish content via video that a printed book cannot convey. The handbook not only presents the findings of the Research Video project at Zurich University of the Arts, but also offers a manual for using the software tool. Low-threshold "hands-on" access and the absence of a theoretical superstructure allow users to quickly become familiar with and use the software tool.

In Torch Song - the two-act revival of Harvey Fierstein's award-winning Torch Song Trilogy - the life of Arnold Beckoff, a torch song-singing, Jewish drag queen living in New York City, is dramatized over the span of the late 1970s and 1980s. Told with a likable, human voice, Torch Song follows Arnold's odyssey to find happiness in New York. All he wants is a husband, a child, and a pair of bunny slippers that fit, but a visit from his overbearing mother reminds him that he needs one thing more: respect.

What do Batman, Doctor Who, quantum physics, Oscar Wilde, liberalism, the second law of thermodynamics, Harry Potter fanfic, postmodernism, and Superman have in common? If your answer to that was "Nothing" then...well, you're probably right. But in this book Andrew Hickey will try to convince you otherwise. In doing so he'll take you through: How to escape from a black hole and when you might not want to The scientist who thinks he's proved the existence of heaven and what that has to do with Batman What to do if you discover you're a comic-book character Whether killing your own grandfather is really a bad idea And how to escape from The Life Trap! An examination of the comics of Grant Morrison, Alan Moore and Jack Kirby, Doctor Who spin-off media, and how we tell stories to each other, Sci-Ence! Justice Leak! tells you to look around you and say: "This is an imaginary universe...Aren't they all?"

The play opens in a modern-day art museum, where three individuals yearn to experience firsthand the wonder and glory of Rembrandt's work. When a museum guard decides to touch a famous Rembrandt painting, a remarkable journey across the ages ensues. Spanning centuries of human experience, The Rembrandt movingly explores the power of creative expression and the sacrifices we make in the pursuit of love and beauty.