The Best American Short Plays 2000-2001 »

For over 60 years, The Best American Short Plays series has set the standard for excellence in one-act plays. In this latest edition, we are pleased to present a group of fresh-voiced, cutting-edge plays for the new millenium. Among the twelve plays included are Sheri Wilner's poignant Relative Strangers, which chronicles a young woman's yearning for the mother she never knew; Gary Sunshine's lyrical Al Takes a Bride, in which two young southern women fantasize about marrying each other; Rosemary Moore's The Pain of Pink Evenings, which charts the emotional terrain of a grieving young widow; Brian Silberman's Walkin' Backwards, in which an outcast teenage boy runs away from home on the day of his mother's funeral; and Laurence Klavan's darkly humorous The Summer Sublet, which probes an unexpected affair between a young man and his landlord. From 19th century Memphis to present-day Washington DC, from sexual politics to coming of age, the plays in this volume are sure to inspire, challenge and entertain.

Library Journal

The continuing success of the one-act play in American theaters is evidenced by these two books, which include a startling array of stylesexamples of realism, fantasy, farce, tragedy, and even symposium plays are presented. Fourteen eclectic pieces, half of which are by major playwrights, comprise the latest volume in Applause's long-running annual celebration of the form. The most unusual work is a recently rediscovered text by Thornton Wilder, The Wreck of the 5:25, anthologized here for the first time. This play alone casts into clear relief the adventurous nature of contemporary playwrights (though the sparsity of major women playwrights here is notable). The Humana Festival, held at the Actors' Theatre in Louisville, has long been a venue for new plays. This fat collection contains the cream of two decades' worth of work. As fewer major playwrights are represented, these plays are more risky, more adventurous, and much more political. By and large, they test the limits of the form more rigorously than those found in the Applause collection. Both texts provide a wealth of source material for theaters, actors, and academic training programs. Both are recommended for academic and larger public libraries.Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., Mass.