Edwin Sánchez: The Short Plays
Collection Description
This collection includes 15 short and very short plays. BEA AND MAY: Bea does not want her beloved, May, to marry Jerry, but Jerry’s rich, and May has a plan. CELESTED: Lou’s ex, Celeste, shows up at his wedding. DING: Three people sit in a waiting room waiting for the bell to go ding! ERNESTO THE MAGNIFICENT: Tonight Ernesto the Failure will become Ernesto the Magnificent. ETHAN’S GOT GAME: Ethan’s going to be a millionaire by the time’s he twenty-one. GOODBYE: Hijo is leaving his family to pursue being an actor in New York. JIMMY: Danny’s rough trade, Jimmy, might be more than he bargained for. JODY’S MOTHER: Jody has made a terrible mistake, and Jody’s mother is paying for it. LILI MARLENE: Lili Marlene knows what’s wrong with this country, the lack of glamour. POPS: Tomas’s father was a busboy at Windows on the World. SILENCE 1: Robin is not speaking to Sandy, and it’s driving Robin crazy. SILENCE 2: Sandy’s not speaking to Robin, and Robin makes a meal out of it. SMILING: Ernest can’t wipe the smile off his face. SPEED DATING FOR THE LATINO ACTOR: A group of actors rediscover hope in their chosen profession. THE SUBSTITUTE: This substitute teacher has had enough, and he’s going to make sure his students think twice about ever bullying anyone again.
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
Here are a few things that reviewers have said about some of Edwin Sánchez’s other plays:
On ICARUS:
“Sánchez’s lyrical, often soaring portrait of dreamers is one of the sweetest, most affirming plays … ” —Mark de la Viña, San Jose Mercury News
On THE ROAD:
“Sánchez’s excellent, compelling drama … the heart-rending text …” —Robert Kent, Next Magazine
On UNMERCIFUL GOOD FORTUNE:
“Since graduating from the Yale School of Drama in 1994, Edwin Sánchez has won more fellowships and foundation grants than most playwrights receive in a lifetime. Go see UNMERCIFUL GOOD FORTUNE and you will understand why. The drama’s premise is intriguing, and the action often riveting, but what really sets the play apart is the dialogue.” —Virginia Gerst, Pioneer Press
Author(s)
Edwin SánchezWinner of the National Latino Playwriting Award for LA BELLA FAMILIA, recent productions include UNMERCIFUL GOOD FORTUNE and TRAFFICKING IN BROKEN HEARTS, both in Los Angeles as well as the world premiere of the romantic comedy I'LL TAKE ROMANCE at the Evolution Theatre in Ohio. Other productions include: DIOSA, produced by Hartford Stage after a successful workshop by New York Stage and Film, TRAFFICKING IN BROKEN HEARTS at the Bank Street Theater in New York, UNMERCIFUL GOOD FORTUNE at the Intar Theater in New York, for which he received the Princess Grace Playwriting Award in 1994, and BAREFOOT BOY WITH SHOES On at Primary Stages in New York. This play was selected by the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference to represent the National Playwrights Conference at the Schelykovo Playwrights Seminar in Russia; ICARUS produced by Fourth Unity, Actors Theater of Louisville as part of their Humana Festival, San Jose Rep and regionally throughout the U.S.; and TRAFFICKING IN BROKEN HEARTS, Atlantic Theater in New York, and productions in Brazil and Switzerland. He was also among the playwrights involved with Brave New World, an organization commemorating the events surrounding September 11th. www.edwinsanchez-writer.com. Edwin is on the playwriting faculty at Primary Stages in New York City.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 6/24/2016 |
| Pages | 90 |
| ISBN | 9780881456394 |
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com
Related Plays
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
A childless Latino couple kidnap a young girl in order to create a family, but the little girl has ideas of her own, and when her imaginary friend, the Grinch, comes to life to help her, the couple ends up with far more than they bargained for. A dark, gothic fairy tale for the contemporary world.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (2 female, 1 male)Full Length Drama (about 95 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
An American composer endangers himself when he includes a revolutionary’s song on his recorded collection of local music. Set in a nameless Latin American country, THIN AIR explores how an ordinary act in a nation in conflict can be tantamount to an act of war.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (4 female, 6 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
A play about a father-daughter relationship and a very beautiful culture slowly being overcome by an alien culture.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
Bathed in music, moonlight, and surf, THE GUITARRÓN is the story of Guicho, a young fisherman, who is transformed by love and music. Meanwhile, the cellist who inspired Guicho rises from the dead and starts life anew as a fisherman.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (1 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
A beautiful young girl who rises her parent’s ballroom dancing act to film stardom. Inspired by the life of Rita Hayworth.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (2 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 85 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
Recovering from a serious car crash, Gracie, an undocumented Chicana worker from Kentucky, is tracked down to her hospital bed by immigration enforcement officer Alec. Dragged from hospital, she begins the long and absurd journey towards deportation. With coruscating humor and caustic observation, LUNATIC 19S captures the human stories at the heart of the current debate about migration and refugees, and the brutal surrealism of jailer and prisoner bound together on a road trip to exile and new beginnings.
Production Info
Cast: 2 total (1 female, 1 male)Full Length Drama (about 70 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
Trapped in horrendous and cramped living conditions with his father and grandfather, Rosario Cortez battles to break his family's cycle of poverty and remove his son from the violence and squalor of the urban ghetto.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (1 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
Unemployed mailman Humbert Lavoignet has fallen into a six-month trance. When he awakes, he announces that God has ordered him to do something wonderful, and he sets about building a tower made of junk. With echoes of Don Quixote, THE WONDERFUL TOWER OF HUMBERT LAVOIGNET is a play about genius, vision, and divine obsession.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (1 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Set against the backdrop of Puerto Rico's struggle with the issue of statehood, a young woman, who speaks no Spanish, moves in with her 105-year-old great grandmother who speaks no English. Both women deal with problems of love — the younger with two new suitors and the older with the ghost of her husband's mistress.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (3 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
ESPERANZA RISING is the story of a young girl who is uprooted, transplanted, and re-grown in alien soil. The glorious, live music of Mariachis carries Esperanza (whose name means “hope”) across the dividing line that cuts through the center of this play. That line (both literal and figurative) divides two countries, two cultures, and two languages. It also separates Mexico and California, the year 1930 from 1931, and Act One from Act Two. Brought up in the lush and beautiful world of the Mexican aristocracy and then torn away and replanted in the impoverished world of a migrant labor camp in California, Esperanza ultimately fulfills the promise of her name.
Production Info
Cast: 11 total (6 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
A wealthy woman invites two strangers to join her in a strange feast commemorating the death of her parents. Mayannah has done this every year but her dark purpose remains unclear. All that will change tonight when two damaged souls find their way to her table. Taking place in a not-so-distant future, the sounds of a war-torn Los Angeles fill the air. Tensions rise, true colors are revealed and the main course is not the only thing with claws …
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (3 female)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Arrogant young Puerto Rican Fatima, who works as a counter girl at a fast-food restaurant, has been arrested for the murder of 14 people, poisoned at her workplace. Young attorney Jeremy has been assigned to defend her and asks a Latina colleague, Maritza, to be his translator. But Fatima refuses to talk to anyone but Maritza, and she's enough of a manipulator to get her way. Fatima claims she has been blessed — or cursed — with psychic powers. By merely clasping the hand of an individual, she says, she can immediately grasp everything about him/her including past, future, and innermost secrets. She tells Maritza that her murders were mercy killings: She “read” each of her victims and killed them because they wanted to die. Maritza is first incredulous, then indignant at Fatima's playing God. She firmly resists letting Fatima clasp her hand, but Fatima is persuasive, constantly shifting from pugnacious, foul-mouthed street girl to wise and wily seductress to gentle, compassionate young woman. Maritza finally offers up her hand, yielding her secrets and placing her fate in Fatima's grasp.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (3 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes