The Road
Play Description
Ralphy, a young gay man, is dying of AIDS and vents his rage on his parents. He leaves and hitch-hikes across America sending his parents a constant stream of abusive and angry letters. All the while he is getting sicker. At home his mother and father have to face hard truths about their son and their now sexless marriage. Decent people trying to do the right thing, they do not understand their son’s attitude toward them. When they discover where he is, they are faced with the decision of whether to leave him there as he wishes or to bring him home to die.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (1 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 65 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
- Productions
Press Quotes
“… the bitter, unsettling tale takes hold and makes you squirm. This is the story of Ralphy, a young gay man dying of AIDS. What makes the play so discomfiting is not his impending death, but his cruel rage against his parents and the way he acts it out. … his parents will do anything for their dying son — except speak the truth. Ralphy can’t bear it. He hits the road, peppering his helpless Mom and Dad with angry letters — and final farewells …” —Francine Russo, Village Voice
“… Edwin Sánchez’s poignant dysfunctional-family drama, THE ROAD … Sánchez’s excellent, compelling drama … the heart-rending text … Sánchez’s well-written script offers appropriate comic relief with heartfelt expressions of pain, desire and frustration. THE ROAD is … exhilarating …” —Robert Kent, Next Magazine
Author(s)
Edwin SánchezWinner of the National Latino Playwriting Award for LA BELLA FAMILIA, recent productions include UNMERCIFUL GOOD FORTUNE and TRAFFICKING IN BROKEN HEARTS, both in Los Angeles as well as the world premiere of the romantic comedy I'LL TAKE ROMANCE at the Evolution Theatre in Ohio. Other productions include: DIOSA, produced by Hartford Stage after a successful workshop by New York Stage and Film, TRAFFICKING IN BROKEN HEARTS at the Bank Street Theater in New York, UNMERCIFUL GOOD FORTUNE at the Intar Theater in New York, for which he received the Princess Grace Playwriting Award in 1994, and BAREFOOT BOY WITH SHOES On at Primary Stages in New York. This play was selected by the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference to represent the National Playwrights Conference at the Schelykovo Playwrights Seminar in Russia; ICARUS produced by Fourth Unity, Actors Theater of Louisville as part of their Humana Festival, San Jose Rep and regionally throughout the U.S.; and TRAFFICKING IN BROKEN HEARTS, Atlantic Theater in New York, and productions in Brazil and Switzerland. He was also among the playwrights involved with Brave New World, an organization commemorating the events surrounding September 11th. www.edwinsanchez-writer.com. Edwin is on the playwriting faculty at Primary Stages in New York City.
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 The Fourth Unity, 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
Related Plays
$15.00–$15.95 Play Description
This stark, disquieting drama depicts the eleventh-hour effort of a hired tutor to transform the life of a very bright, self-destructive teenager before a Columbine tragedy occurs in San Diego.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (1 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95 Play Description
Inspired by the 1973 killing of a ten-year-old boy by New York City police, THE MOJO AND THE SAYSO is both a comic and dramatic study of the ways that people cope with the aftermath of terrible tragedy.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (1 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$19.95 Play Description
Set in Buffalo, New York in the 1940s, ANCESTRAL VOICES is a bittersweet story, perceived through the eyes of young Eddie, whose family is turned inside out when his grandmother unexpectedly divorces his grandfather in order to marry his grandfather’s best friend. Simultaneously, the outside world is undergoing temporal changes, and we follow the family through the ensuing decades of war and social upheaval. Written to be performed informally, with actors reading from scripts.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95 Play Description
Recovering alcoholic John Owens was estranged from his family for decades before his son, a Marine, was killed in Afghanistan. Now, six years later, he receives an invitation to meet his widowed daughter-in-law and his grandson for the first time. From the streets of Los Angeles to a cramped apartment in Phoenix, he prepares to face the ghosts of his past. But nothing can prepare him for the people he'll really meet along the way — and their capacity for forgiveness.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (1 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00 
Play Description
Unemployed mailman Humbert Lavoignet has fallen into a six-month trance. When he awakes, he announces that God has ordered him to do something wonderful, and he sets about building a tower made of junk. With echoes of Don Quixote, THE WONDERFUL TOWER OF HUMBERT LAVOIGNET is a play about genius, vision, and divine obsession.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (1 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00 Play Description
Rural Central Texas, 1962. Dave, still lives in the old family home that his father built. The family is still the only Jewish family in this isolated country town. As his son Nathan faces the (to him) bizarre prospect of becoming Bar Mitzvah, his wife Rachel faces an even greater crisis of faith. As Dave encounters the remoteness of his community, and the even further distance from the faith of his father, his entire family faces the legacy left behind by their immigrant forebears: What do the Jews believe? This is a fictionalized account of the next generation of the family introduced in THE IMMIGRANT, and the second play in Mark Harelik’s Texas saga of one Jewish-American family.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
A comedy with tragic overtones, THESE FLOWERS ARE FOR MY MOTHER concerns husband, Adam, and wife, Eden, who are locked in a custody battle for their gifted son, Alan, whom Eden believes is in need of her nurturing to realize his potential. While the boy is the master of ceremonies for much of the play, the action revolves around which parent will get him and whether he will be able to achieve a compromise solution involving boarding school and summer camp. Another driving element is the pursuit of Eden by child psychologist, Dr Wright, who is fascinated by her while being available to either parent as a hired “expert witness.”
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (1 female, 3 male)Full Length Comedy (about 110 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
Set in a cornfield in the Midwest, HIDDEN PARTS depicts the troubled reunion of a young concert pianist, his estranged farmer parents, and their teenage gypsy niece.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00 Play Description
High atop a railroad trestle that spans a bone dry creek, two teenagers plan to race across the bridge against an oncoming locomotive. At first their scheme adds excitement to life in a small factory town during the Great Depression, then sensual experience awakens dangerous passions in an era of stifled ambitions. With theatrical flourish and lyrical finesse, Naomi Wallace delves into a world where people struggle to change lives that bear down upon them.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 110 minutes)
Single Set
Period Costumes
$15.00–$15.95 Play Description
Darwin and Jo Smith, and their seventeen-year-old son, Ronnie, seem to be the typical Middle American conservative family. Darwin works as a systems analyst. Jo teaches community college. Ronnie is a high school baseball standout with big league aspirations. One night before dinner, they are paid a surprise visit from Commander Abraham Lincoln of Central Security, who claims to have information concerning their daughter, Lucy, an American soldier. Lincoln claims that Lucy was captured by the enemy in a foreign war and decapitated. But, thanks to the top-secret Operation Hydra, military doctors have been able to save her life by surgically reattaching her head. A combination of intense drama and surreal dark comedy, HOME FRONT explores the personal and social consequences of war.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95 Play Description
A boy’s best friend has died after an accident whilst cleaning his gun. It is Christmas Eve, and he talks to his friend’s father after a church service. Next day he goes to his friend’s house to give cookies to the father and the brother of the dead boy. He is soon caught up in a whirlwind of events. First they all go and see the grandmother, then they go to bail out the mother from jail, and all the time he is being used as a sounding board for a family who have not yet come to terms with the death
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes