Phantasie
Play Description
An adoptee searches for her natural mother, seeking to discover who she is from the person from whom she came.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (4 female, 2 male, multiethnic cast)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
“PHANTASIE, by Sybille Pearson, is about something — something that, even if it does not affect you directly, you can care about … PHANTASIE (which is German for ‘daydream,’ and complexly relevant here) works as much in stage images as in words, and always exhibits a fresh turn of mind … a play that is intelligent, sometimes moving, and always imaginative … a generally thoughtful and compelling evening.” —John Simon, New York Magazine
“An adoptee searches for her natural mother in Sybille Pearson’s PHANTASIE, but that search is less for a new parent than it is for clues to the character’s buried self. Without knowledge of the circumstances of her birth or of her parentage, the woman has had to fantasize possibilities. In her imaginative musings, she is everything from the child of a mother who was raped to the unacknowledged daughter of a Rothschild … this perceptive new play … is inward and elliptical, at times enigmatic. The central character’s quest will continue long after the play has ended. There are no sudden emotional outbursts or last-minute revelations. The drama remains interior … that intensifies the interest … touching … truthfulness within a natural reserve … quietly affecting … [an] Intimate journey of discovery.” —Mel Gussow, The New York Times
Author(s)
Sybille PearsonSybille Pearson wrote the book for the musical BABY for which she received a Tony nomination. A revised version of BABY was presented at The Papermill Playhouse in 2004. She has written the book for the musical adaptation of Edna Ferber's novel Giant, music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa. Ms. Pearson and Mr. LaChiusa have recently been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera to write an original opera. She is the author of the plays: SALLY AND MARSHA , PHANTASIE, WATCHING THE DOG, UNFINISHED STORIES, which was selected for publication in American Theatre Magazine, TRUE HISTORY AND REAL ADVENTURE a play with music (composer Mel Marvin), BE BOLD, a play commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles on the life of Salka Viertel and PROMISE ME, a play on the life of the pianist Mona Golabek produced by the Mark Taper Forum. She has won the Berrilla Kerr Award for Playwriting, the Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, has been a recipient of a Rockefeller Playwrights Fellowship, a Ucross Fellowship, a participant at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the Sundance Playwrights Conference and the Sundance Theater Lab. She is a founding member of The Playwrights Circle at The New York Theatre Workshop and an Artistic Resident at the Vineyard Theater in New York City. She is a Panelist for the O'Neill Musical Theater Conference, and a member of the Dramatists Guild.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 6/1/1989 |
| Pages | 74 |
| ISBN | 9780881450798 |
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 Vineyard Theater, New York
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
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