Limbo Tales
Play Description
In the first play in LIMBO TALES, HIGHWAY, a man suddenly decides to drive to his girlfriend’s house, which is 200 miles away. He becomes obsessed with the thought that each car that passes may be his girlfriend coming to visit him — and as he begins to lose touch with time and place he becomes convinced that he has moved back to another century, another civilization. In the short INTERMEZZO, a Master of Ceremonies announces, in hilarious detail, all the exotic acts that will not be on the bill that evening. In the final play, HOTEL, a down-on-his-luck encyclopedia salesman sits in a flea-bag hotel room, eating Chinese food which is delivered by a disembodied arm, while listening to the squabbling of his neighbors and contemplating the aridity of his limbo-like existence.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (3 male)Full Length Drama (about 85 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
“Len Jenkin not only has a vivid imagination, but he also has an artist’s command of his craft.” —New York Times
“Len Jenkin has an unusual talent for reaching into shadowy places in the human psyche and coming up with evocative images.” —Journal American (Seattle)
“Jenkin’s plays have plenty of plot and delicious language, but the transience of experience is the main theme that runs through Jenkin’s work. He manipulates theatrical illusions with a playful manner that recalls Jorge Luis Borges, to disguise meditations on mortality.” —Village Voice (New York)
“Jenkin explores many of the raw nerve ends in our society; the deep need to believe an absolute, while at the same time reveling in the gratification of the present; the difference between titillation and satisfaction; the bizarre nature of reality; and the real nature of the bizarre.” —Times (Seattle)
Author(s)
Len JenkinLen Jenkin is a novelist, playwright, director, and screenwriter. His novels include N Judah, New Jerusalem, and The Secret Life of Billy's Uncle Myron (with Emily Jenkins). Plays include DARK RIDE, PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT, CARELESS LOVE, MY UNCLE SAM, LIMBO TALES, THE DREAM EXPRESS, and LIKE I SAY. His works for the stage have been produced throughout the United States, as well as in England, Germany, France, Denmark, and Japan. His films include Blame It on the Night, Welcome to Oblivion, and American Notes. He has received many honors and awards, including three Obie awards for directing and playwriting, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Award, a nomination for an Emmy Award, and four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Mr. Jenkin holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from Columbia University. He's a Professor in the Dramatic Writing Department, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and lives in New York City.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 2/28/2014 |
| Pages | 32 |
| ISBN | 9780881455540 |
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
In the Pacific Northwest live Norma, a professional cuddler and reluctant dog-rescuer, and Norm, an amateur ribbon-dancer and attentive barista. Together they navigate loneliness, vulnerability, a collection of eccentric characters, and the healing power of human connection.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (3 female, 6 male)Full Length Comedy (about 90 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
M and G’s new apartment is nothing special — it really could be any generic New York City apartment — but they’re hoping it’s a place of healing, a new beginning after a traumatic encounter with a former friend. Unfortunately, the previous tenant of this apartment isn’t a man who likes to let go … and he wasn’t ready to move out. First, it’s little things: their mail disappears, it feels like someone’s watching them, he stops by occasionally just to say hi and see what they’ve done with the place. But soon, when G is called out of town for business, M is left alone, and before they know it, they wake up to find themselves immobilized and watching as the previous tenant begins to make the apartment his own again.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (2 female, 1 male, 2 actors may be male or female or nonbinary)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
They seemed like the perfect couple. Attractive. Well-educated. Affluent. Why did the husband brutally murder his wife and take his own life? Aaron and Henry, two young wannabe screenwriters at a writer's retreat struggle with crippling blocks as they seek to solve the mystery. Shawn, an academic teetering on the edge of insanity grapples with her own possible involvement in the killing, while writing a book about America’s obsession with violence. Meanwhile, the murder victim's sister attempts to reconstruct the truth from the ashes of her late sister's diary, becoming a celebrity in the process. What really happened that violent night, and will any of them come close to uncovering the truth?
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (3 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
When the Ring family of Rhode Island assembles to take the family portrait, they somehow get it dreadfully wrong and must do the century all over.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (3 female, 2 male, doubling, bit parts)Full Length Comedy (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
A brilliantly conceived and highly theatrical experience in absurdist drama, in which the audience is taken on a wild and funny metaphysical journey into the fertile imaginations of the diverse characters whose bizarre stories are deftly interwoven into the fabric of the play. DARK RIDE is comprised of a series of vignettes involving characters who, at first, appear to bear no relation to each other. A mysterious figure gives a scholar an ancient manuscript to translate; a thief steals an enormous jewel; a woman assures us that life is all coincidence; a dream-like waitress serves her customers all manner of thoughts and suggestions but no food. The images are bizarrely funny and provocative and, in time, coalesce into a pattern of driving concerns and obsessions that come into focus when the various characters finally meet at an oculists convention in Mexico City. Phantasmagoric, the play takes us on a journey that, in the final essence, transcends the physical world to explore the inner recesses of the mind.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (4 female, 6 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
In this gripping ghost story an eccentric librarian discovers a weather-beaten book in a return bin — 113 years overdue. Sparked by a message left in its margins, she embarks on a magical quest that takes her around the world and 2,000 years into the past. With astonishing twists and turns, UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL draws us into an unforgettable odyssey.
Production Info
Cast: 1 total (1 female)Full Length Drama (about 65 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$0.00–$15.95
Play Description
In WOLF IN THE RIVER, Adam Rapp explores love and neglect, the challenges of poverty, the dangerous cost of shiftlessness, the simple notion of leaving a place behind, and the value of a girl.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male, ensemble chorus)Full Length Drama (about 105 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Set in the fantastical, miserable village of Brood, Glen Berger's ingenious play conjures up a marvelously imaginative world peopled by a large cast of dreamers, schemers and would-be lovers. Tormented by the memory of a beautiful young girl he adored and lost, and saddled with the child she left behind as a painful reminder of their doomed romance, a village tinker turned poet tries to ease his pain by conjuring up a hilarious and extremely moving tale, a story made up for the young boy as they sit in front of the dying embers of their hearth. When the last spark is extinguished, we have gone along with them on a magical journey filled with music, shadow, and light, meeting along the way a town full of comically misguided characters and an enchanting young saleswoman of casket bell devices for the prematurely buried. A rich and delightful fairy tale for everyone who remembers what a great story sounds like.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (3 female, 6 male)Full Length Drama (about 140 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
The play takes place in Priscilla’s bedroom, in a forest, and in the big blue sky outside. A friend named Peter comes to visit Priscilla. There is a wolf who lives in a fabulous land next door. It is a play about Priscilla who sets out in her mind to slay this beast that lurks outside her window.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (4 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
A play for children. When a statue of the legendary Hawaiian surfer Duke Kahanamoku comes to life, he relates his story to the Hawaiian children.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (3 female, 6 male)Full Length Comedy (about 80 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Subtitled “A History of Science (A Chronicle of Folly, Wisdom, and Madness),” PORT TWILIGHT has been described as “an end-times extraterrestrial vaudeville.”
Production Info
Cast: 12 total (6 female, 6 male)Full Length Drama (about 85 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Erica, shy and more than a little socially awkward, is in love with Dee. The problem is that her politician sister, her only and equally awkward new friend, and the nosy residents of their small town in Massachusetts don’t understand at all, because Dee … well, Dee is a Dairy Queen sign. INANIMATE is a play that explores objectum sexuality, feeling like an outsider, listening to your heart and finally, finding your tribe.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male)Full Length Comedy (about 90 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes