"In this exciting new anthology, Wesley Brown and Aimee K. Michel bring together six wonderfully teachable plays by some of the greatest American women dramatists of the past fifty years-- Ntozake Shange, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, Beth Henley, and Susan Yankowitz. The editors provide a helpful Introduction to the last 100 years of theatrical activity, from suffrage and anti-lynching plays, through the explosive 1960s, to recent Broadway triumphs, highlighting women's struggle-a struggle that continues--to put their vision and voices on the American stage." Elin Diamond, Rutgers University, USA This volume celebrates the iconoclastic power of six American women playwrights who pushed the boundaries of the form outside the box of conventional drama. Each play is accompanied by a short introduction providing the biographical background of the playwright as well as discussing the dramatic style of her writing, the extent to which her work is informed by major playwrights of the period, and how the specific work illustrates the overarching themes of her body of work. The plays included are: Gun by Susan Yankowitz Spell #7: geechee jibara quik magic trance manual for technologically stressed third world people by Ntozake Shange The Jacksonian by Beth Henley The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage

Drama / Cjharacters: 3m, 3f / Unit Set This extraordinary drama premiered to acclaim in a New York production directed by Joseph Chaikin and starring Joan MacIntosh. It was subsequently produced Off-Broadway in a revised version directed by Daniella Topol and featuring Jordan Baker in the central role. NIGHT SKY theatrically explores what Steven Hawking has called the two mysteries remaining to us: the brain and the cosmos. When she is hit by a car, the brilliant and articulate astronomer Anna loses her ability to speak, a condition known as aphasia. What emerges from her mouth is a hodge-podge of unconnected words alternately confusing, funny, original and wise -- and sometimes all four. In a series of brief, often comic episodes, the play follows Anna through her illness and ultimate acceptance of herself - a personal triumph, despite a continuing infirmity - and dramatizes the impact of her changed circumstances on her lover, her teen-aged daughter, and her professional life. Everyone will be touched by the themes this play considers -- language, inner and outer space, the challenges of a devastating affliction, the consolations and ordeals of family life and, most of all, the universal hunger and need for communication. The play has been extremely popular with audiences and has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, French, Hebrew and German. "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." -Variety "A moving and poetic experience. Like the sky, it is a play of seemingly infinite depth." - Los Angeles Times