Table of Contents

Introduction
Acknowledgments
 
THE ANNIVERSARY by Drew Larimore
BAR MITZVAH BOY by Samara Siskin
THE BLIZZARD by David Ives
BROTHERLY LOVE by Ean Miles Kessler
CHRISTMAS PRESENT by Amy Herzog
THE CONTRACT by Theresa Rebeck
CURTAIN RAISER by Eric Lane
DOUBLE DATE by Nina Shengold
ERNESTO THE MAGNIFICENT by Edwin Sánchez
FRIENDSHIP by Peter Handy
FUNERAL PARLOR by Christopher Durang
GABRIELLE by Liz Ellison
GETTING HOME by Anton Dudley
H.R. by Eric Coble
I LOVE NEIL LABUTE by Gary Winter
LIFE WITHOUT SUBTEXT by Michael Mitnick
LONG DISTANCE by Jane Shepard
MARY JUST BROKE UP WITH THIS GUY by Garth Wingfield
MEN IN HEAT by Dana Yeaton
MERE VESSELS by Mikhail Horowitz
MURDERERS (“Match Wits with Minka Lupino”) by Jeffrey Hatcher
NINE POINT EIGHT METERS PER SECOND PER SECOND by Pete Barry
NORM-ANON by Warren Leight
NOTHING by Philip Dawkins
PARTICLE BOARD by Elizabeth Meriwether
PEOPLESPEAK by John Augustine
THE RENTAL by Mark Harvey Levine
REUNIONS by Billy Aronson
RIPPER GIRL by Elizabeth Wong
THE RUMOR by Dan Kois
THE SCARY QUESTION by Wayne Rawley
SANDCHAIR CANTATA by Nicole Quinn
SNAP by Daryl Watson
SOURPUSS by Dan Berkowitz
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR STOPPING by Halley Feiffer
36 RUMSON ROAD by Barbara Wiechmann
THREE GUYS AND A BRENDA by Adam Bock
TIRADE by Mary Louise Wilson
UNCOVERED by Caleen Sinnette Jennings
A VERY VERY SHORT PLAY by Jacqueline Reingold
THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE BLUETOOTH by Laura Shaine
THE WOODS ARE FOR SUCKERS AND CHUMPS by Megan Mostyn-Brown
YOU HAVE ARRIVED by Rob Ackerman
YOU KNOW WHO ELSE I HATE? By Mark O’Donnell

Contributors
About the Editors
Index by Cast Size

About the Author

Eric Lane and Nina Shengold have been editing contemporary theater anthologies for more than twenty years. Eric Lane's award-winning plays have been published and performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, and China. Plays include Ride, Times of War, Heart of the City, Dancing on Checkers' Grave, and Filming O'Keeffe. Floating, a PlayPenn finalist, was workshopped at Raven Theatre. Eric's short plays are published in Best American Short Plays, Poems and Plays, and the Foreign Language Press (Beijing). He wrote and produced the short films First Breath and Cater-Waiter, which he also directed; both films screened in more than forty cities worldwide. For TV's Ryan's Hope he received a Writers Guild Award. Honors include the Berrilla Kerr Playwriting Award, the La MaMa Playwright Award, and fellowships at Yaddo, VCCA, and St. James Cavalier in Malta. Eric is an honors graduate of Brown University, and artistic director of Orange Thoughts, a not-for-profit theater and film company in New York City.

Nina Shengold's plays include Finger Foods, War at Home, Homesteaders, and Romeo/Juliet, and have been produced around the world. Her one-act No Shoulder was filmed by director Suzi Yoonessi, with Melissa Leo and Samantha Sloyan. Nina won a Writers Guild Award for her teleplay Labor of Love, starring Marcia Gay Harden; other teleplays include Blind Spot, with Joanne Woodward and Laura Linney, and Unwed Father. Her books include the novel Clearcut; River of Words: Portraits of Hudson Valley Writers (with photographer Jennifer May), and a growing posse of pseudonymous books for young readers. A graduate of Wesleyan, she is currently teaching creative writing at Manhattanville College. Nina lives in New York's Hudson Valley, where she has been books editor of Chronogram magazine since 2004.