Generations of the Dead in the Abyss of Coney Island Madness
Play Description
Described by the New York Times as “a threatening portrait of urban insanity. A drug lord is king, corruption is endemic and parents instill offspring with perverse values. In Mr Brown’s Coney Island, everything is for sale.”
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 125 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
“GENERATIONS imposes itself upon you with outrageous gestures and bold flights of language. It may be the most corrosive and unsparing drama to emerge from the pen of an African American writer since the angry days of Ed Bullins and Richard Wesley … it is this young man who provides GENERATIONS with its thematic pivot: Cody Cooper is the great black hope, the son of a former maid and a one-time hustler who stashed their hard-earned money away so that their children could have a better life. He is, in short, the American Dream, and the ineluctable path of GENERATIONS is that of the dream gone astray, as Cody’s resolve is slowly poisoned and eroded by the ghetto. The corruption of the good kid is the stuff of great American pop mythology, and Cody’s transformation from aspiring actor to gangster can be traced back to classic docu-melodramas like Caged and I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang. It is a telling measure of what we have come to that the prison locale of these old movies has changed to a Coney Island housing project; like these earlier works, GENERATIONS makes no bones about its social message, pointing a stern, warning finger at its audience for participating in a system that creates these ghetto prisons … I choose to call it daredevil playwriting, brimming with the dynamic stage language and swaggering confidence of a writer in complete control.” —Jan Stuart, Newsday
Author(s)
Michael Henry BrownBorn in the Bronx, Michael Henry Brown is a playwright and screenwriter. He graduated from Lehman College and earned an M.F.A. from Columbia University in 1987. He has also studied at the Hammerstein Center for Theatre Studies. His work includes over 20 plays and numerous film scripts. His most successful productions have been THE DAY THE BRONX DIED, an examination of homophobia and black and Jewish relations, and ASCENSION DAY, a story of the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 1831. Brown's plays have been produced at theaters across the country, including Playwrights Horizons, the Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf Theatre, and Penumbra Theatre. Brown's plays include Blood IS THICKER, IN LOVE AND ANGER, DEADLY AIM OF THE STRAIGHT AND TRUE, KING OF COONS, BORDERS OF LOYALTY, OUTLAWS, PUSH, and GENERATIONS OF THE DEAD, OR INTO THE ABYSS OF CONEY ISLAND MADNESS. In film, Brown has written three screenplays, Dead Presidents, In Too Deep, and Freedomland, and two teleplays, Under One Roof and Laurel Avenue. Brown has received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Charles Revson Foundation.
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:
Originally produced by the Long Wharf Theater, New Haven CT
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–$15.95Play Description
UNFINISHED WOMEN deals with the events in a home for unwed mothers on the last day of jazz musician Charlie Parker’s life, March 12, 1955. The play digs beyond statistics and sociological theories to find the unarticulated, half-understood longings of teenage mothers.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (7 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00Play Description
A young woman returns home to find her gauche and uneducated beautician mother has hired The Perfect Daughter, taken a handsome young cowboy lover, is learning French, and is adopting a buffalo. What is Mom up to? Has this lower-middle-class older woman who is taking on all these airs lost her mind? And where did her sudden wealth come from? These are only a few of the mysteries lawyer Vicky and her ineffectual husband have to figure out in this fast-moving comedy which explores the mother-daughter relationship and the nature of familial and many other kinds of love.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (4 female, 2 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
While cruising for sex in a back alley, Paul kills a young man. He rushes to his sister's apartment drenched in blood, and she helps him cover up his crime. Her husband, Nicholas, is not pleased to see Paul as Paul was dating his best friend, Kevin, who has died of an AIDS related illness. Lori the mother of the murdered young man goes to her priest for comfort. It turns out she is having an affair with him.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (2 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
Trapped by a storm in the office of the environmental organization for which they work, Antony and Janna find that their views on race and the environment have the power to send them back in time to discover how closely related they really are.
Production Info
Cast: 2 total (1 female, 1 male)Full Length Drama (about 75 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$0.00–$15.95Play Description
East meets West meets mayhem in this Muslim-American family comedy evoking universal themes of faith, culture, belonging, and desire. TEN ACROBATS adds a new chapter to the American immigrant narrative.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (4 female, 6 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A black comedic look at the parents in Peter Pan. It is set in the present, in an upscale townhouse. Mrs Darling is a socialite and George Darling is a white collar criminal with the U S Attorney’s Office closing in. George has decided that he must escape to Switzerland, but his wife refuses to believe that his problems are real. She goes off to receive an award for her work with “brownish” children. George then confides in Nana, his dog and drinking companion, his disappointment in the devolution of his marriage. Upon Mrs Darling’s return, they notice that their children, Wendy Peter, and Michael to are missing — it takes them awhile, though, as they only speak to their children through the intercom. The Darlings proceeded to try to retrieve their children, each in his own way. In doing so, they explore their commitment to parenthood and to each other.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
Michaela, an African American dean at a major American university, summons Alan, a renowned professor of cultural psychology, in response to student protest over his controversial paper on female initiation rites in sub-Saharan Africa. But dormant feelings from an affair years earlier turn a heated argument over science and cultural pluralism into a knock-down, drag-out fight. Rozin's provocative play shatters the ivory tower of academia, upending questions of privilege and Western morality.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (2 female, 1 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
In NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY a black bartender in New York City attempts to outwit a white mobster syndicate. The play received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Charles Gordone’s Pulitzer signified two firsts: he was the first African American playwright to receive a Pulitzer, and NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY was the first Off-Broadway play to receive the Pulitzer.
Production Info
Cast: 16 total (5 female, 11 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$0.00–$15.95Play Description
In 1950, in a small Southern town of Durham, Georgia, Louis, a prominent black businessman, is murdered in the middle of the street. The regulars inside Willy's Cut and Shine Barbershop all witness the murder and watch the murderer casually stroll to his car. The question among the men in the shop, the dead man's brother, the elders, and the young men just returning from World War II, is what is to be done. To this we add a Sheriff who abdicates responsibility, a young gambling junkie back home from Chicago, ghosts from the battlefields of France and Germany, a murderer who wants more than the dead man's blood, and the possibility of a soul's redemption or destruction. At the end of this drama, every character must decide what they are willing to do to see another sunrise.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (9 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
Three generations of a family move ever westward, restless, seeking. As they migrate from Croatia, through Wyoming, and on to Japan, the land of opportunity keeps moving, and the past keeps catching up. This unforgettable family provides an exquisitely rendered commentary on the human condition.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 135 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
Sam’s fiancée, Katie, has been raped by a former lover. Or has she? With a wedding date looming, Sam fights to save their now fragile relationship, even while undertaking a desperate search to uncover Katie’s secret past. Whispers become certainty, certainty becomes obsession, and Sam must decide: How far is too far for love?
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (2 female, 1 male)Full Length Drama (about 75 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
Two baby-faced would-be criminals decide to rob the home of two women of advanced age who live in contention with their past, their present, their future, and each other. The brats get more than they’ve bargained for, including possible great futures behind bars in Joliet.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (2 female, 4 male, 2 children)Full Length Drama (about 85 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes