Six Plays by Mickle Maher Paperback Book

Description: Six Plays by Mickle Maher, Loren Kruger Six major plays by the Chicago-based playwright Mickle Maher, representing work created from 1999 to 2019. FORMAT Paperback CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description This anthology features six plays by celebrated Chicago playwright Mickle Maher, who has been described by the Houston Chronicle as "one of the most original voices in American theater today," and by the Chicago Reader as "a master at creating complex, paradoxical works that encompass their own contradictions." Mahers plays engage classic literature as a jumping off point for seriously unusual comedic dramas, often dealing with the absurdity, difficulties, and rewards of artistic endeavor. His work has been influenced by or compared to Eugene Ionesco, Maria Irene Fornes, Kenneth Koch, and Edward Albee, among others. This edition is designed to be useful for schools and other organizations that wish to mount productions of Mahers plays, which generally feature small casts and simple scenery and stagings, and thus can be easy to produce.Production rights for any of these six plays can be requested from the publisher.The anthology includes:An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final EveningOn the night Faustus concludes his bargain with Mephistopheles, he apologizes to a group of random people for his failure to keep a diary of his fabulous life.The Hunchback VariationsLudwig von Beethoven and Quasimodo present a panel discussion on their failure to create an impossible sound called for in a stage direction in Chekhovs The Cherry Orchard.Spirits to EnforceTwelve telefundraisers with secret identities work to raise money for a superheroic production of The Tempest in a bid to save Fathomtown from Professor Cannibal and his band of evil doers.There Is a Happiness That Morning IsHaving engaged the evening before in a highly inappropriate display of public affection on the main lawn of their rural New England campus, two lecturers on the poems of William Blake must now, in class, either apologize for their behavior or effectively justify it to keep their jobs.Song About HimselfIn a dystopian future, a woman made extraordinary by her ability to speak relatively clearly tries to connect with others on a mysterious social media site created by a rogue artificial intelligence.It Is MagicDeb and Sandy are auditioning Tim for the role of the Wolf in a production of The Three Little Pigs, but theres a mysterious haze in the basement of the Mortier Civic Playhouse and that, in addition to interruptions from the director of the Scottish play thats going on upstairs, is making things difficult. Then, Liz shows up and throws the whole room into (further) chaos. It Is Magic reveals the deep, ancient evil at the heart of the community theater audition process. Author Biography Mickle Maher is a co-founder of Chicagos Theater Oobleck, with whom he has produced plays for more than thirty years. He lectures on playwriting at the University of Chicago, and lives with his wife and son in Evanston, IL.Loren Krugeris Professor of Comparative and English Literature, and Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago, and has been watching Mickle Mahers plays since 1988. She is the author of several books, most recently A Century of South African Theatre (Bloomsbury), Imagining the Edgy City (Oxford University Press), and the award-winning Post-Imperial Brecht (Cambridge University Press), and her articles on theatre in Chicago and elsewhere have appeared in many publications, including Critical Stages, The Drama Review, Theater, Theater der Zeit,Theatre Research Internationaland Theatre Journal. Table of Contents INTRODUCTION/PREFACE1.AN APOLOGY FOR THE COURSE AND OUTCOME OF CERTAIN EVENTS2.DELIVERED BY DOCTOR JOHN FAUSTUS ON THIS HIS FINAL EVENING3.THE HUNCHBACK VARIATIONS4.SPIRITS TO ENFORCE5.THERE IS A HAPPINESS THAT MORNING IS6.SONG ABOUT HIMSELF7.IT IS MAGICABOUT THE AUTHOR Review Praise for Mickle Mahers There Is a Happiness That Morning Is:"Masterful. .. this is what theater is supposed to be." —Houston Press"Savagely funny… Mahers There Is a Happiness That Morning Is is a joy, an unexpectedly raucous celebration of art and ardor—and public sex." —Cleveland Plain Dealer"Delightfully original… If you prize imagination, intelligence and genuine passion, youll be on cloud nine through all 90 minutes of this utterly unpredictable experience… With its grace, wit and profusion of clever rhymes, the language alone is reason enough to attend… There is an exhilaration that true inspiration brings—and thats exactly the high delivered by There Is a Happiness That Morning Is." —Houston Chronicle"Mahers most powerful play to date…soul shaking." —Chicago Reader"An enjoyably lunatic endeavor." —Chicago Tribune"A bizarre, brilliant play that is capable of reordering your brain a bit." —Austin Chronicle"Consistently and thrillingly entertaining." —Cleveland Scene"90 witty and entertaining minutes of poetic and comic bliss." —Cleveland Jewish News"Almost endlessly engaging and frequently hilarious." —Time Out Chicago"Riveting and wonderfully ridiculous." —News-Herald"Funny, witty, literate, and profound." —Windy City Times"Fun, stark, strange, and ridiculous." —Broadway WorldPraise for Mickle Mahers Spirits to Enforce:"Mesmerizing… the stuff that great theater is made of." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel"Entrancing…beguiling…the play is like a dance, a 90-minute linguistic ballet… a rollicking, cerebral delight." —Cleveland Plain Dealer"Hilarious, layered, well-executed—the show leaves you feeling fuller than when you walked in." —Austin Chronicle"A dazzling algebra of memory, identity, and the fluid but fixing cruelty of time." "Highly Recommended/Critics Choice" —Chicago Reader"Highly entertaining and thoroughly imaginative." —The Shakespeare Review"Enters a language-rich dream world that draws inspiration from comic-book morality tales, Shakespeare, and from the great globe itself…once the revels are ended, you feel like something earth-shattering has taken place." —Milwaukee Magazine"Delightfully unconventional… With Spirits to Enforce (Maher) mixes the most unlikely elements into an enthralling show thats absurd, funny, and touching." —Chicago Free Press"This show is amazing! Its like The Tempest fell into a vat of toxic waste and now has the power to make us laugh…really hard." —Chicago Theater BeatPraise for Mickle Mahers The Hunchback Variations:"Theater Oobleck playwright Mickle Maher is a master at creating complex, paradoxical works that encompass their own contradictions. While his comedies leave a somber aftertaste, his forays into satire with a serious edge are gut-bustingly funny…In The Hunchback Variations Maher mocks academic examinations of the creative process even as he engages in a complicated deconstruction of creativity." —Chicago Reader"Tantalizes with swirling bits about the nature of creativity, grief, the endless universe, the physical world, the theater…a thinking mans vaudeville. You wont soon forget it." —Houston Press"Terrifically funny for even non-geniuses… I havent laughed this much at a show in an awfully long time." —Applause Meter"Seriously crazed…acquires rueful resonance, even amid the resolute absurdity of it all." —Houston ChronicleNamed "One of the top five productions of the year" by the St. Louis Post-DispatchPraise for Mickle Mahers An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening:"A decade ago, the initial run of this diabolically clever monologue established the singular genius of playwright Mickle Maher, insouciantly infecting the Western canon with his dark brand of whimsy…(and) did we mention the plays hilarious?" —Time Out Chicago"Intellectually spry and surprisingly funny…a fascinating piece of avant-garde Chicago brain candy." Highly Recommended —Chicago Tribune"An Apology…quite simply put, is one of the most incomparable undertakings that has graced the stage… (a) complete masterpiece." —Chicago Stage Review"Its hard to miss Mickle Mahers brilliance in this ingenious retooling of the Faust legend." —Chicago Reader"One can see… not only Mahers passionate engagements with language at diverse levels—from the rhetorical mastery of syntax and cadence to the semantic wizardry of words, their ability to conjure habitable worlds out of bare ice and air—but also two of the issues that drive Maher throughout his various theatrical follies. There is the idea of the impossible or meaningless project as not just an intellectual limit or an aesthetic curiosity, but an ethical necessity: a life-duty. And there is the sense of inescapable loneliness heightened by the attempt to communicate, as though the fundamental ethical task is to make ones own singularity intelligible and thereby transcend it—a task which in Mahers universe seems inevitably doomed to failure." —John Beer, The Point"Superb…miss (this play) at your peril." —Milwaukee Journal SentinelPraise for Mickle Mahers Song About Himself:"Nearly perfect… a world of ridiculous, ominous inadequacy." —Chicago Reader"Wonderfully, exceedingly weird." —Chicago Tribune"Subtle, elegiac." —Houston Chronicle"A rich psychological and metaphysical landscape." —Newcity"An engaging, resonant ode." —Time Out ChicagoPraise for Mickle Mahers It Is Magic:"Hilarious tragedy." —Chicago Reader"A harrowing, hilarious journey into the eldritch heart of the theatrical experience." —Austin Arts Watch Promotional Marketing:Social media campaign by Theater OobleckDirect mail campaign to Theater Oobleck mailing list (3000+ addresses)Support from Catastrophic Theatre, HoustonSocial media advertisingDirect marketing to schools and small nonprofits focused on ease of mounting productions.Publicity:Promotion to theater and performing arts publications in print and onlinePromotion to regional (Chicago, Houston, Austin) media including radio and newspapersPromotion to performing arts critics at newspapers and online Long Description This anthology features six plays by celebrated Chicago playwright Mickle Maher, who has been described by the Houston Chronicle as "one of the most original voices in American theater today," and by the Chicago Reader as "a master at creating complex, paradoxical works that encompass their own contradictions." Mahers plays engage classic literature as a jumping off point for seriously unusual comedic dramas, often dealing with the absurdity, difficulties, and rewards of artistic endeavor. His work has been influenced by or compared to Eug Review Quote Praise for Mickle Mahers There Is a Happiness That Morning Is : "Masterful. .. this is what theater is supposed to be." -- Houston Press "Savagely funny... Mahers There Is a Happiness That Morning Is is a joy, an unexpectedly raucous celebration of art and ardor--and public sex." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer "Delightfully original... If you prize imagination, intelligence and genuine passion, youll be on cloud nine through all 90 minutes of this utterly unpredictable experience... With its grace, wit and profusion of clever rhymes, the language alone is reason enough to attend... There is an exhilaration that true inspiration brings--and thats exactly the high delivered by There Is a Happiness That Morning Is." -- Houston Chronicle "Mahers most powerful play to date...soul shaking." -- Chicago Reader "An enjoyably lunatic endeavor." -- Chicago Tribune "A bizarre, brilliant play that is capable of reordering your brain a bit." -- Austin Chronicle "Consistently and thrillingly entertaining." -- Cleveland Scene "90 witty and entertaining minutes of poetic and comic bliss." -- Cleveland Jewish News "Almost endlessly engaging and frequently hilarious." -- Time Out Chicago "Riveting and wonderfully ridiculous." -- News-Herald "Funny, witty, literate, and profound." -- Windy City Times "Fun, stark, strange, and ridiculous." -- Broadway World Praise for Mickle Mahers Spirits to Enforce : "Mesmerizing... the stuff that great theater is made of." -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Entrancing...beguiling...the play is like a dance, a 90-minute linguistic ballet... a rollicking, cerebral delight." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer "Hilarious, layered, well-executed--the show leaves you feeling fuller than when you walked in." -- Austin Chronicle "A dazzling algebra of memory, identity, and the fluid but fixing cruelty of time." "Highly Recommended/Critics Choice" -- Chicago Reader "Highly entertaining and thoroughly imaginative." -- The Shakespeare Review "Enters a language-rich dream world that draws inspiration from comic-book morality tales, Shakespeare, and from the great globe itself...once the revels are ended, you feel like something earth-shattering has taken place." -- Milwaukee Magazine "Delightfully unconventional... With Spirits to Enforce (Maher) mixes the most unlikely elements into an enthralling show thats absurd, funny, and touching." -- Chicago Free Press "This show is amazing! Its like The Tempest fell into a vat of toxic waste and now has the power to make us laugh...really hard." -- Chicago Theater Beat Praise for Mickle Mahers The Hunchback Variations : "Theater Oobleck playwright Mickle Maher is a master at creating complex, paradoxical works that encompass their own contradictions. While his comedies leave a somber aftertaste, his forays into satire with a serious edge are gut-bustingly funny...In The Hunchback Variations Maher mocks academic examinations of the creative process even as he engages in a complicated deconstruction of creativity." -- Chicago Reader "Tantalizes with swirling bits about the nature of creativity, grief, the endless universe, the physical world, the theater...a thinking mans vaudeville. You wont soon forget it." -- Houston Press "Terrifically funny for even non-geniuses... I havent laughed this much at a show in an awfully long time." -- Applause Meter "Seriously crazed...acquires rueful resonance, even amid the resolute absurdity of it all." -- Houston Chronicle Named "One of the top five productions of the year" by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Praise for Mickle Mahers An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening : "A decade ago, the initial run of this diabolically clever monologue established the singular genius of playwright Mickle Maher, insouciantly infecting the Western canon with his dark brand of whimsy...(and) did we mention the plays hilarious?" -- Time Out Chicago "Intellectually spry and surprisingly funny...a fascinating piece of avant-garde Chicago brain candy." Highly Recommended -- Chicago Tribune " An Apology ...quite simply put, is one of the most incomparable undertakings that has graced the stage... (a) complete masterpiece." -- Chicago Stage Review "Its hard to miss Mickle Mahers brilliance in this ingenious retooling of the Faust legend." -- Chicago Reader "One can see... not only Mahers passionate engagements with language at diverse levels--from the rhetorical mastery of syntax and cadence to the semantic wizardry of words, their ability to conjure habitable worlds out of bare ice and air--but also two of the issues that drive Maher throughout his various theatrical follies. There is the idea of the impossible or meaningless project as not just an intellectual limit or an aesthetic curiosity, but an ethical necessity: a life-duty. And there is the sense of inescapable loneliness heightened by the attempt to communicate, as though the fundamental ethical task is to make ones own singularity intelligible and thereby transcend it--a task which in Mahers universe seems inevitably doomed to failure." --John Beer, The Point "Superb...miss (this play) at your peril." -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Praise for Mickle Mahers Song About Himself : "Nearly perfect... a world of ridiculous, ominous inadequacy." -- Chicago Reader "Wonderfully, exceedingly weird." -- Chicago Tribune "Subtle, elegiac." -- Houston Chronicle "A rich psychological and metaphysical landscape." -- Newcity "An engaging, resonant ode." -- Time Out Chicago Praise for Mickle Mahers It Is Magic : "Hilarious tragedy." -- Chicago Reader "A harrowing, hilarious journey into the eldritch heart of the theatrical experience." -- Austin Arts Watch Excerpt from Book [Lights up. Sandy and Deb are at the table. Deb, the director, has piles of notes and such in front of her. Tim is across the room, standing, beginning his audition. Hes wearing a kilt.Theyve been in this room for two hours. Tim has been asked to repeat the following speech approximately thirty times. Everyone is extremely on edge and on their last nerve and feel like THEY are NOT being LISTENED to. Tim begins. For the thirty-first time. Deb interjects here and there, sotto voce. These interjections are barely heard and do not interrupt Tims flow at all. In fact, he makes a point of plowing over them.] TIM Hi, Im Tim Padley. And Ill be doing The Wolf from the as-of-yet untitled adaptation for adult audiences of The Three Little Pigs by Deborah Chandler. This story happened long ago, in the first of times, when things were not yet quite real. It happened only once, this story, because unlike so many other events of this world, this one was too momentous to repeat itself. DEB (good good) TIM Its the story of the first trio: the Brother Pigs, The Three Pigs. In later tellings, they were The Three Little Pigs, but they were not little. No, the Brother Pigs Three, the first pigs of the planet, were large and grim as battleships, their iron-heavy trotters split the earth as they paced, their jowls swayed like church bells, their bellies were boulders. DEB (good. now:) TIM And the first of these, the First Pig, having no idea in his huge pink head what a house was -- as there had not yet been a house -- set to making one anyway, a pure genius, requiring no previous models. Straw was his medium. The Second Pig, excited by his brothers example, but not wanting to be entirely derivative, chose sticks. The Third Pig, thick and idle, late to the game, arbitrarily picked bricks, and on hot days suffered terribly, much more than his brothers in their light, ventilated structures. DEB (yes! yes.) TIM Together, they were a neighborhood. A community. But I, The Wolf, the first wolf, with no wit for architecture, was exposed and alone on the earth. Alone. Feared, shunned, and so hungry, so hungry for love. Outside the worlds heart, I wanted only to be LET IN. DEB (yes!) TIM That first afternoon, then, I ran to the golden House of Straw. Large as a cathedral, as a coliseum, it was a second sun, come to ground. I scrambled its massive straw steps, across the straw portico, swung the knocker and begged admittance. "Please, \ PLEASE --" DEB Need to stop you, Tim. TIM Oh, no. DEB Those last lines again. TIM Sure, sure. DEB Go ahead. From scrambled its massive straw steps. TIM I scrambled its massive straw steps, across the straw portico, swung the knocker and begged admittance. \ "Please, PLEASE --" DEB Sorry. TIM Ahg. DEB Heres the difficulty: TIM AHG. DEB this monologue is actually a speech from inside The Wolfs mind. It might seem like hes telling the story out loud. But my intent was its all in his head. So, ideally, we wouldnt see your lips move. TIM You dont want my lips to move? Like a ventriloquist? DEB No. That would just be a trick. Just remember: There is no audience. Sandy and I are not here. Its in his head. So your lips move, but give us a sense of something beyond the body, beyond slobbery babble babble. TIM -- babble? -- DEB An animal addressing himself inside his head, with no regard for us. Like how my cat does. TIM Perfect. DEB Go. TIM I scrambled its massive straw steps, across the straw portico, swung the knocker and begged admittance. "Please, \ PLEASE --" DEB Good. Now keep that same flavor and release it going forward. TIM I scrambled its massive straw steps, across the straw portico, swung the knocker and begged admittance. "Please, PLEASE --" Behind the door, I heard the pig shift his bulk on his throne of a thousand bales. He muttered something, a refusal, in a sort of rhyming chant, a swinish incantation, that spoke darkly of his scant facial hair. An embarrassed silence. And then -- DEB Sorry. TIM [Sobs.] DEB Have to stop you. Just please, that last bit, again. He muttered -- TIM He muttered something, a refusal, in a sort of rhyming chant, a swinish incantation, that spoke darkly of his scant facial hair. An embarrassed silence. And then -- DEB Im so sorry, Tim. TIM Deb! DEB Again. And this time remember that this is an audition. TIM I havent forgotten that this is an audition, Deb. How could I forget that? DEB In my opinion you have forgotten that. You increasingly have a fiery abandonment about you that is more suited to a realized performance on an actual stage than an audition here in this basement room. TIM Okay. DEB Theyre separate species, auditioning and performing. So give me an audition, not a tap dance with sparklers. TIM Speaking of performance, Ken needs me upstairs at places in three. DEB Ken needs you upstairs to perform in a minor role, and I need you down here to audition for my lead. Go, please. TIM An embarrassed silence. And then...magic. DEB (perfect!) TIM Unexpected. Unrequested. The air in my lungs gathered itself to a wind, the wind to a storm, the storm to a violence unknown in nature, unknown, even, to the Gods. Up my throat, through my teeth, my ache, my loneliness came in one blast of typhonic NEED. And in a gust it was done: the House of Straw -- its towers and battlements, its great dome -- was swept away in a pale whirl, and its pig lay flat and trembling, his snout in the dirt at my paws. DEB (yes) TIM We were both of us, surprised. The first -- DEB Stop, stop. SANDY Christ in a corset! DEB Sandy, please. TIM Its fine, Sandy. DEB It is fine, yes. Because, the fact is, Sandy, a good audition is one where the actor gets interrupted quite a lot. SANDY Really. DEB You wouldnt think so. If this were a play and Tim was being interrupted in his performance every other minute, that would be a bad sign. An indication that the magic of theater had failed. But here \ when TIM Im \ just DEB -- let me do the talking -- here its the opposite: interruptions mean the magic is succeeding. I see something in what hes doing. And I want to seize that in the moment and conjure something from it. TIM So what do you want to try? DEB Try? TIM Yes. Yes. DEB Right. Yes. Well, its just not good. TIM Oh, Deb. DEB Its not good, Tim. Description for Sales People The largest collection of Mickle Mahers plays to date, which have been performed by theater companies across the country and abroad, ranging from "living-room" shows to small non-profits, schools, and mid-sized regional professional theaters. Promotion opportunities through theater companies that regularly perform Mahers work, including Theater Oobleck in Chicago, IL, and Catastrophic Theatre in Houston, TX, via their mailing lists and social media reach. Many of the included plays are for 2-3 characters, making this an ideal collection for small group adoption/productions. Details ISBN1572843101 Author Loren Kruger Format Paperback Pages 264 Year 2022 ISBN-13 9781572843103 Country of Publication United States Imprint Surrey Books,U.S. Place of Publication Chicago, IL ISBN-10 1572843101 Publication Date 2022-05-26 NZ Release Date 2022-05-26 US Release Date 2022-05-26 UK Release Date 2022-05-26 Publisher Surrey Books,U.S. DEWEY 812.6 Audience General AU Release Date 2022-07-18 Illustrations Illustrations We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:135048767;

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