DPS Publishes

Dramatists Play Service is pleased to announce the publication of:
9 PARTS OF DESIRE by Heather Raffo1 woman (or 3 to 9 women)Winner of a 2005 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation and Lucille Lortel Award for Best Solo Show. “…a triumph…thrilling…an example of how art can remake the world…In this remarkable one-woman show, [Heather Raffo’s] writing…is marked with wit and by a scrupulous attention to the details of character.” —The New Yorker. “It brings us closer to the inner life of Iraq than a thousand slick-surfaced TV reports. Yet [Raffo’s] beautifully shaped one-woman play is a play, not a stodgily earnest piece of documentary theater, and therein lies its singular force and compulsion: It is persuasive precisely because it is beautiful.” —Wall Street Journal. “…powerful, impassioned, vivid, memorable…The voices are a study in contrasts: vivid and subdued, sophisticated and naïve, seductive and standoffish. But they cohere to form a powerful collective portrait of suffering and endurance.” —NY Times. “The female half of Iraq has come to America.” —Gloria Steinem.
AND BABY MAKES SEVEN by Paula Vogel1 man, 2 women (doubling)“AND BABY MAKES SEVEN is a profound and clever comedy.” —Drama-Logue. “What’s remarkable about BABY—a really lovely play—is the sense of innocence and optimism that rises from potentially dark subject matter.” —Philadelphia City Paper. “AND BABY MAKES SEVEN is a hilariously inventive play. Playwright Vogel’s writing is witty and precise.” —Daily Californian. “Don’t you sometimes want to howl like a dog, giggle till you drop, pout, pitch a fit…eat like a pig, get-your-own-way-no-matter-what, fly off with the balloons? You can go to Esalen and take a Transactional Analysis weekend to learn about your Child Within, or you can see AND BABY MAKES SEVEN. The second way comes with brownies at intermission.” —Providence Phoenix. "Filled with outrageous touches, AND BABY MAKES SEVEN offers one of those rare theatergoing opportunities where everything comes together in a string of magical moments. Be prepared to be enchanted seven times over.” —Austin American Statesman. “What makes AND BABY MAKES SEVEN fascinating is its brilliant unsettling of our notions, not of sexual boundaries, but of the real. It is theatre that cleverly theatricalises the everyday in a way that is both startling and funny.” —Age (Australia). “[BABY is] most original and important for its redefinition of family. What is one to make of a family in which the boundaries between illusion and reality, power and subjection, friendship and love, female and male, are so porous…and in which family members freely materialize and dematerialize. It is a celebration of narrative, of the power of the theatre to make fantasy real. It commemorates the childhood one never had, the friends wished for but never gained, the desires never acknowledged.” —David Savran, Introduction to The Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays .
THE IMAGINARY INVALID by Molière, translated and adapted by James Magruder6 men, 5 women“Translator Magruder is [known] for his brash injections of present-day lingo into seldom-seen French comedies that had been deemed ‘stuffy’ before he got his ink-stained hand on ’em. Anything goes, anything for a laugh, any port in a storm, even if (especially if) that port happens to be an outhouse. It’s a rude, bright, wild show.” —New Haven Advocate. “Magruder has emphasized the play’s origin as a ‘comédie-ballet’ in three acts, ‘with two musical interludes and a grand finale.’ The last introduces Hillary Clinton in a health-care mode, one of the many liberties he has taken in his unstinting efforts to make this INVALID fabulous and contemporary.” —Hartford Courant.
THE LAST WORD ... by Oren Safdie2 men“…a sad and gentle comedy that revolves around a clash of opposing ideas and explores the colliding forces of classicism and modernism…A thoughtful and balanced portrayal that captures the mortal dread under Henry’s obnoxious certainty. Len’s progression from passivity to indignation is also neatly accomplished…Highly recommended.” —LA Times. “With his clever and refreshingly literate dialogue, Safdie has created something remarkable, keeping the stakes high and urgent throughout the exchange between his intricately complex characters…This haunting take of rejection and the fear of failure crosses generational lines, leaving in its wake a poignant bittersweetness that celebrates the ephemeral, often discouraging world of the artist in contemporary society.” —BackStage West. “The interview quickly becomes an emotionally charged and comedic debate between two unlikely companions, which successfully pulls at the heartstrings while keeping the audience entertained.” —Palisadian Post. “Safdie’s rapid-fire banter turns a play about a job interview into a touching, often hilarious journey of two very different generations coming together and teaching each other…The audience experiences a barrage of emotions throughout.” —Malibu Times.
LOVE AND HAPPINESS by Julian Sheppard4 men, 2 womenA fast-paced comedy with something for the whole family and with a little extra for fans of Arthur Murray, Leibniz and the NRA.
THE WINNING STREAK by Lee Blessing2 men“Blessing has forged a conflict peppered with flinty dialogue…written with economy and precision.” —Variety. To read about these titles and purchase acting editions, click on the links above.
To view all our recently published plays, click on Now Published.
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