Humana Festival 2002: The Complete Plays » (New Edition)

The Actors Theatre of Louisville- one of the mainstays in the play-anthology field, having published 10 editions of its complete-play collections, plus volumes of its popular 10-minute-play series- has culled together Humana Festival 2002: The Complete Plays, edited by Tanya Palmer and Amy Wegener (Smith & Kraus, 19.95 paper). This edition stands out for its fearless attempt to codify SITI Company's Leonard Bernstein pastiche, Score, and three technology-driven pieces by John Belluso, Sarah Ruhl and Alice Tuan that rely heavily on the live presence of actors and virtual-reality doodads, rather than just dialogue and stage directions.

Library Journal

In this tenth anthology of plays produced at the Humana Festival at the Actors' Theatre in Louisville, KY, the premier venue for new American plays, a diverse, brilliant, entertaining, and disturbing circus act of talent is presented. Ann Bogart and Jocelyn Clark's Score is not a full text but notes toward a performance, the latest in Bogart's explorations of American artists, this time of Leonard Bernstein. Jerome Hairston's a.m. Sunday is the most compelling selection because it trusts its audience with the mystery and unvoiced fear in an interracial marriage, while Rembrandt's Gift represents Tina Howe's latest excursion into the world of artists, an exuberant and imaginative display of wit and sympathy. Adam Rapp's entry here is Finer Noble Gasses, a truly awful play portraying a failed American culture that lacks compelling plot, character, and language. Aside from the full-length plays (nine total) is a collection of three-minute pieces called Snapshot, written by our youngest playwrights, and three short pieces called The Technology Project. Recommended for large public and academic libraries as well as university libraries supporting theater programs.-Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., MA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.