- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
Press Quotes
“… Y York’s THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF NOW is all about words: the way they work, they way they don’t. The way they delight us and sicken us and confound us and please us. The premise is straight out of an Oliver Sacks book: a bestselling science writer named Carl suffers a brain injury that renders him amnesiac. Carl’s wife, Miranda, a poet, learns that Carl has a different relationship with words than he used to. Where once he ghostwrote biographies for astronauts and wrote scathing critiques of anthropologists, now he simply delights in the miracle of words: their sounds, their meanings, the way they look — which he envisions as a flurry of snowflakes drifting through the air. As Carl wanders around his Las Vegas home, trying to remember his past life, Miranda has to deal with the shambles of their marriage from before Carl’s accident. She’s having a complicated affair with a dentist named Anthony, but suddenly Carl doesn’t at all resemble the Carl who made her so miserable. Where before he was withholding and unhappy, now Carl is joyful and content. He’s eager to see his wife, and desperate to please her. Is it too late to turn the marriage around? Is it possible to find new meaning in the words they’ve been using our whole lives? THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF NOW is … funny and touching and endearingly sweet — a thoughtful study of the way different people interact with language, and each other.” —Paul Constant, Seattle Review of Books
“… Rich dialog and characters … this sweet … romantic comedy is a delight.” —Jay Irwin, Broadway World
“… Utilizing a highly original plot, outstandingly witty dialogue … interesting recognizable stereotypes, who go through profound character development … this romantic comedy … delivers the goods. And how!” —Marie Bonfils, Drama In The Hood
“A new play can make me giddy, especially if I can’t guess where it’s headed and its subject area is ‘about’ the human condition in a new and interesting way … Y York’s THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF NOW is an unexpected delight … delicious and magical.” —Miryam Gordon, Seattle Gay News
Author(s)
Y YorkY York's works include: LATE IN THE GAME, …AND LA IS BURNING (recipient of the 2008 Smith Prize from the National New Play Network), BLEACHERS IN THE SUN, FRAMED, THE GAME OF LIGHT, WOOF (Houston's Buzzy for best new play), IT COMES AROUND, KRISIT, THE NEW DARK CLARITY, THE SNOWFLAKE AVALANCHE, THE SECRET WIFE, GERALD'S GOOD IDEA, RAIN. SOME FISH. NO ELEPHANTS., THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF NOW, and numerous works for families. Y York's plays has been recognized with 2004 Hawai'i Award for Literature, the 1997 Berilla Kerr Award, and the New Dramatists' 1992 Joe Calloway Award. She has been supported by grants from TCG/Pew Charitable Trust, AT&T Onstage, King County Arts Commission (Washington), Seattle Arts Commission, and Artists Trust (Washington). Y York is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and an alumna member of New Dramatists.
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:
First produced by Tipping Point Theatre (Northville, Michigan) July – August 2018
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
Bob and Lily Baker get together with Sam, Bob’s best friend, and Molly, Sam’s wife, for a 15th wedding anniversary. What is intended as a celebration of enduring companionship begins to be undermined by a sense of misgiving and a strange sadness that seems to have befallen Lily. This is a tale of a difficult, challenging weekend, during which two marriages seem on the brink of collapse. But it is also the weekend when Bob and Lily Baker fall in love with each other again.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A wild black comedy, set underground in a luxury subterranean condominium, designed to withstand nuclear and economic catastrophe. New Yorkers Len and Sheila visit their old friend Bev in her honeymoon home, which happens to be under the Utah desert. Bev has married Roy, a handsome charismatic psychotic, who happens to be an isolationist who has stocked his underground condo with enough DVDs, gourmet meals, and liquor to last ’til the next millennium. They don’t need a war to destroy themselves. The two married couples clash and burn as adultery and mayhem erupt.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
An elegy for the lost souls in the dying plains of Kansas, 1936, who clung to their blighted homesteads like bees to a poisoned hive.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 60 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
In this probing dark comedy, a South Florida couple obtains the services of a somewhat enigmatic Canine Relations Specialist in order to curb the violent behavior of their dog, Carrot, but gradually learn that their dog may merely be a reflection of their household.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (1 female, 2 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
A MARRIAGE MINUET tells the witty tale of two married couples who know the temptations of monogamy all too well. For these middle-class suburbanites, flirtation leads to temptation, and temptation leads to infidelity. Five sophisticated characters provide a theatrical glimpse into the never-ending dance that we call marriage.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (3 female, 2 male)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$50.00Play Description
Rural Central Texas, 1909. A young Russian-Jewish immigrant, newly arrived in America through the port of Galveston, pulls his banana cart into the hamlet of Hamilton. Fleeing the vicious pogroms of his homeland, he has sought refuge in the land of the free. Able to speak only Yiddish, alone in the midst of a staunchly Christian community, he begs for shelter. Over the next 30 years, he makes a home and raises a family in this tiny town. THE IMMIGRANT is the story of a young Russian-Jewish couple and the local couple that take them in, as religion meets religion, culture meets culture, fear meets fear, and love meets love. This is the true story of Haskell Harelik, “the Immigrant.”
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes
Bryan Prize for Drama by the Fellowship of Southern Writers
Play Description
Neighboring families representing two very different social classes are brought together during a storm.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00Play Description
A romantic comedy with a Sci-fi twist. Troubled lovers, Roger and Susan, visit rural Vermont to work on their relationship. Possession by aliens was not on their list of problems … until they got there.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Comedy (about 120 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95Play Description
THE TALENTED ONES looks at the thwarted dreams of immigrants eager to make it in their adopted country. As converts to the American Dream, how much more challenging and lethal do the notions of success and failure become? Omar is falling down in his attempts to make a success of his life, while his wife, Cindy, a fellow immigrant, appears to be doing much better, and is becoming increasingly frustrated by Omar’s struggles. His American best friend, Patrick, may be Cindy's way out. Mixing realism with memory and dance, THE TALENTED ONES dissects with increasing ferocity this couple's marriage and aspirations.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male, doubling)Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00Play Description
Strindberg’s chilling anatomy of a marriage — in which the two partners duel with each other until one is utterly defeated. Edgar and Alice, embittered husband and wife, live on an army base on a Swedish island: Alice calls it “Little Hell,” and it’s about to get worse. Written in 1900, THE DANCE OF DEATH is full of destruction and bitterness, laced with grim humor.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (3 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 140 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Period Costumes