Plays by Anthony Clarvoe

Press Quotes

LET’S PLAY TWO

“… LET’S PLAY TWO, Anthony Clarvoe’s suprisingly affecting romantic comedy. Mr Clarvoe’s low-key two-hander … The play, about a young woman made pregnant by an even younger man whose constancy she doubts has something to say about the notion of maturity. As demonstrated by the example of sweet-tempered Phil, that quality is perhaps measured best not by the hardness of one’s calluses but by one’s willingness to acquire new ones. This may not be the most revolutionary concept ever considered on the American stage. Still, it’s no shame to have basic human decency reiterated as a value now and again, especially when it is elucidated as compassionately as in LET’S PLAY TWO.” —Peter Marks, The New York Times

“Once in a while a play comes along that is so fresh, so different, so delightful, so damn charming it defies definition. You can’t put your finger on what it is; but you sit there in the dark with a smile on your face from beginning to end, and talk about it all the way home. LET’S PLAY TWO is just such a play … It’s a simple story, really, about two totally opposite characters falling in love. That’s it. That’s all. But there are more spins on the development of their romance than there are on a champion pitcher’s baseball. And it’s their passionate love of ‘the country’s national pastime’ that brought them together in the first place.” —Shirle Gottlieb, Drama-Logue

THE LIVING

“Set in 1665 London as the Black Plague sweeps the city claiming more than 100,000 lives, THE LIVING is not about death. Rather this remarkable, riveting drama is a compelling confirmation of life. And although it’s set more than three centuries ago, Anthony Clarvoe’s two-act parable (in which the reactions of the people and the government parallel those surrounding today’s A I D S epidemic), maintains … stunning immediacy … Often bitterly funny, often ineffably sad, this is the story of a few brave sometimes reluctantly so people who stood fast, doing what need to be done … Propelled by Clarvoe’s masterful handling of language …” —Sandra Dillard-Rosen, The Denver Post

“The play THE LIVING is alive with lessons for tomorrow. Set in London in the bubonic plague year of 1665, the play is a scary morality tale, a ghoulish slice of history and an evening shining with hope … Inevitably, the world wakes up from nightmares and learns to dance and grumble again. Clarvoe’s play reveals much in its simple retelling of a real horror. The Londoners of 1665 knew nothing about the causes of the plague. In the end, it passed, as all things do. The lesson in THE LIVING is about being tested and not being found wanting.” —Jackie Campbell, Rocky Mountain News

“… Clarvoe’s thought-provoking script, which not only celebrates the strength of courage and compassion in a climate of overshelming fear, but has a clear parallel in this country’s muddled response to the dire beginning of the AIDS crisis …” —Terri Roberts, Backstage West

SHOW AND TELL

“All school kids — and their parents — know about ‘Show and Tell.’ Bringing objects from home is not only a lesson in history, but also an experience in contact, of one person reaching for another and the other reaching back. Playwright Anthony Clarvoe understands it too, and his drama is a powerful tale of contact, and of discovery, and of what it takes to survive. Corey teaches fourth grade, and her classroom literally explodes one morning during show-and-tell. The entire class of twenty-four children dies, but she had left the room for a moment, and survives. A team of government forensics experts arrives to re-assemble the bodies for identification and to seek the cause of the explosion … They are tough and experienced, with the sardonic wit that they, and others who work constantly with death, need to survive. SHOW AND TELL is a strong, well-written drama that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.” —Joe Pollack, Saint Louis Post Dispatch

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