In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 2005 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, "Doubt, a Parable" by John Patrick Shanley.

From Encyclopedia.com: Set at a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, Doubt concerns an older nun, Sister Aloysius, who does not approve of teachers' offering friendship and compassion over the discipline she feels students need in order to face the harsh world. When she suspects a new priest of sexually abusing a student, she is faced with the prospect of charging him with unproven allegations and possibly destroying his career as well as her own. To help build her case, she asks for help from an idealistic young nun, who finds her faith in compassion challenged, and the mother of the accused boy, who is protective of her son, the first black student ever admitted to St. Nicholas.

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Join us as we discuss the 1931 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Alison's House by Susan Glaspell.

From StageAgent.com: Susan Glaspell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Alison’s House, takes us to Iowa on the last day of the nineteenth century. The Stanhope family are preparing to say goodbye to their old homestead on the banks of the Mississippi but the house holds a lot of memories for each generation. Their sister and aunt, Alison, has been dead for eighteen years but her influence, both as a poet and a person, remains strong. Aunt Agatha is fiercely protective of her sister’s reputation and legacy, but what is she hiding? When disgraced daughter Elsa returns home, old wounds are opened and it becomes clear that her scandalous relationship with a married man is not the first in the family. Like Elsa, Alison also fell deeply in love but, unlike her niece, she let her lover go and channeled her secret passions into her poetry. Unable to bring herself to burn the pages, Agatha finally relinquishes the poetry to Elsa and reveals Alison’s secret.


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In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 1930 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, The Green Pastures by Marc Connelly.

From Encyclopedia.com: The Green Pastures follows stories of the Bible, such as Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, Moses and the exodus from Egypt, and the crucifixion of Christ, but places them in a rural black southern setting. Thus, one of the opening scenes takes place at a “fish fry” in “pre-Creation Heaven,” during which God spontaneously decides to create Earth and man. God eats boiled pudding, smokes cigars, and runs Heaven out of a shabby “private office” assisted by Gabriel. The settings are roughly contemporary to the time period in which the play was first written and performed, so that, for instance, the city of Babylon is represented as a New Orleans jazz nightclub. The costumes are also contemporary: God wears a white suit and white tie, Adam is dressed in a farmer’s clothes, Eve wears the gingham dress of a country girl, and so on. The play ends with God’s decision, while back at the fish fry in Heaven, to send Jesus Christ down to Earth.

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Join us as we discuss the 2005 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, "Doubt, a Parable" by John Patric Shanley.

From Encyclopedia.com: Set at a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, Doubt concerns an older nun, Sister Aloysius, who does not approve of teachers' offering friendship and compassion over the discipline she feels students need in order to face the harsh world. When she suspects a new priest of sexually abusing a student, she is faced with the prospect of charging him with unproven allegations and possibly destroying his career as well as her own. To help build her case, she asks for help from an idealistic young nun, who finds her faith in compassion challenged, and the mother of the accused boy, who is protective of her son, the first black student ever admitted to St. Nicholas.

DeScripted
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In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 1928 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill.

From Encyclopedia.com: The play covers a period of twenty-five years in the lives of mostly upper-middle-class East Coast characters. It centers on Nina Leeds, a passionate, tormented woman whose fiancé was killed in World War I and who spends the remainder of her life searching for an always-elusive happiness.

This is a very long play, lasting over five hours in performance. The story is not especially complex, and the length of the play derives from O'Neill's revival of two theatrical devices that had fallen out of use for nearly a century: the soliloquy, in which a character alone on the stage speaks his or her thoughts aloud, and the aside, which enables characters to reveal their thoughts to the audience but not to the other characters on stage. These devices, which O'Neill employed at length, enabled the playwright to probe deeply into his characters' motivations. The soliloquies and asides reveal the discrepancies between what the characters say and do, and what they really feel.

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Join us as we discuss the 1930 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, The Green Pastures by Marc Connelly.

From Encyclopedia.com: The Green Pastures follows stories of the Bible, such as Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, Moses and the exodus from Egypt, and the crucifixion of Christ, but places them in a rural black southern setting. Thus, one of the opening scenes takes place at a “fish fry” in “pre-Creation Heaven,” during which God spontaneously decides to create Earth and man. God eats boiled pudding, smokes cigars, and runs Heaven out of a shabby “private office” assisted by Gabriel. The settings are roughly contemporary to the time period in which the play was first written and performed, so that, for instance, the city of Babylon is represented as a New Orleans jazz nightclub. The costumes are also contemporary: God wears a white suit and white tie, Adam is dressed in a farmer’s clothes, Eve wears the gingham dress of a country girl, and so on. The play ends with God’s decision, while back at the fish fry in Heaven, to send Jesus Christ down to Earth.

DeScripted
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In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 2007 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire.

CONTENT WARNING: Death of young child, grief, suicide, drug abuse

We were thrilled to have Julie Arnold Lisnet with us as a special guest to discuss this play.

Like all of our podcast episodes, this episode contains a lot of spoilers. If you have yet to read or see this play, please be aware of this.

Corrections: During this episode, Randy mentioned the incorrect years of Ten Bucks Theatre's productions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Rabbit Hole. Those were performed in 2011 and 2012, not 2010 and 2011.

From Stageagent.com: Becca and Howie Corbett have a picture perfect family life in the suburbs of New York until a random, tragic accident takes the life of their four-year old son. Soon after, Becca’s younger, irresponsible sister, Izzy, announces that she is pregnant: there will now be a new child in the family. As Becca and Howie grow apart, Becca’s mother, Nat, badgers Becca about her grieving process, and Jason, the young driver who killed their son, continually shows up to ask forgiveness, the group is on a bumpy road to healing with no road map in sight. Rabbit Hole delves into the complexity of a family navigating deep grief, and learning what it means to live a fruitful life when things fall apart.

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Join us as we discuss the 1928 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill.

From Encyclopedia.com: The play covers a period of twenty-five years in the lives of mostly upper-middle-class East Coast characters. It centers on Nina Leeds, a passionate, tormented woman whose fiancé was killed in World War I and who spends the remainder of her life searching for an always-elusive happiness.

This is a very long play, lasting over five hours in performance. The story is not especially complex, and the length of the play derives from O'Neill's revival of two theatrical devices that had fallen out of use for nearly a century: the soliloquy, in which a character alone on the stage speaks his or her thoughts aloud, and the aside, which enables characters to reveal their thoughts to the audience but not to the other characters on stage. These devices, which O'Neill employed at length, enabled the playwright to probe deeply into his characters' motivations. The soliloquies and asides reveal the discrepancies between what the characters say and do, and what they really feel.

DeScripted
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In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 1929 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, Street Scene by Elmer Rice.

From Stageagent.com: The claustrophobic reality of living in a six-story walk-up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan is the focus of Elmer Rice’s Street Scene. With the neighbors all knowing everyone’s business, and constantly passing judgement on everyone’s behavior, it is easy to see how this melting pot can quickly become dangerous.
On two scorching hot days in June 1929, the pot finally boils over for Frank Maurrant. The rumors about his wife having an affair have become too loud and too persistent for him to ignore. How many times does he have to lay down the law in his own home before it is followed? To make matters worse, that guy keeps turning up and talking to his wife in full view of everyone.

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Join us as we discuss the 2007 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire.

From Stageagent.com: Becca and Howie Corbett have a picture perfect family life in the suburbs of New York until a random, tragic accident takes the life of their four-year old son. Soon after, Becca’s younger, irresponsible sister, Izzy, announces that she is pregnant: there will now be a new child in the family. As Becca and Howie grow apart, Becca’s mother, Nat, badgers Becca about her grieving process, and Jason, the young driver who killed their son, continually shows up to ask forgiveness, the group is on a bumpy road to healing with no road map in sight. Rabbit Hole delves into the complexity of a family navigating deep grief, and learning what it means to live a fruitful life when things fall apart.

DeScripted
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Note: This episode contains explicit language.

In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 2008 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, August: Osage County, by Tracy Letts

Synopsis from StageAgent.com: August: Osage County centers around the Weston family, brought together after their patriarch, world-class poet and alcoholic Beverly Weston, disappears. The matriarch, Violet, depressed and addicted to pain pills and “truth-telling,” is joined by her three daughters and their problematic lovers, who harbor their own deep secrets, her sister Mattie Fae and her family, well-trained in the Weston family art of cruelty, and finally, the observer of the chaos, the young Cheyenne housekeeper Johnna, who was hired by Beverly just before his disappearance. Holed up in the large family estate in Osage County, Oklahoma, tensions heat up and boil over in the ruthless August heat. Bursting with humor, vivacity, and intelligence, August: Osage County is both dense and funny, vicious and compassionate, enormous and unstoppable.

Photos of Penobscot Theatre Company's production of August: Osage County: https://www.facebook.com/penobscotthea trecompany/posts/10153305557141202
This episode uses these sounds from freesound.org: "Cartoony Clangs (hit with spade)_2.wav" by Timbre licensed under CCBYNC 3.0


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Join us as we discuss the 1929 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Street Scene by Elmer L. Rice.

From Stageagent.com: The claustrophobic reality of living in a six-story walk-up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan is the focus of Elmer Rice’s Street Scene. With the neighbors all knowing everyone’s business, and constantly passing judgement on everyone’s behavior, it is easy to see how this melting pot can quickly become dangerous.
On two scorching hot days in June 1929, the pot finally boils over for Frank Maurrant. The rumors about his wife having an affair have become too loud and too persistent for him to ignore. How many times does he have to lay down the law in his own home before it is followed? To make matters worse, that guy keeps turning up and talking to his wife in full view of everyone. It’s enough to turn anyone to drinking. When he returns home to find the curtains drawn mid-morning, he knows exactly what is going on. In a fit of fury and emotion, Frank carries out his threat and kills them both.

Street Scene is a huge piece with themes of immigration, racism, domestic violence, sexual assault, murder, social status, youth culture, and poverty, which won the Pulitzer prize for Drama in 1929.

DeScripted
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Trigger warnings: Sexual assault, prostitution, alcohol consumption, war

In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 2009 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, Ruined by Lynn Nottage.

Synopsis from StageAgent.com:  Set in a small mining town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lynn Nottage’s Ruined follows Mama Nadi, a businesswoman who is trying to stay afloat in a world torn apart by civil war. The war has ravaged her country, and especially the young girls who have literally been torn to pieces by soldiers on both sides of the conflict. Mama Nadi takes “damaged” girls into her brothel/bar and profits from them, but also protects them from the brutality of the world outside her doors.

Amongst Mama Nadi’s charges are Josephine, the daughter of a chief whose town was destroyed and who was raped by rebel soldiers; Salima, who was taken by rebel soldiers, who killed her baby and took her as a prisoner-of-war before making her pregnant; and Sophie, a young girl who has been “ruined” by sexual violence. We also meet soldiers and commanders on both sides of the conflict, all frequent customers at Mama’s bar.

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Join us as we discuss the 1928 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill.  

From Encyclopedia.com:  The play covers a period of twenty-five years in the lives of mostly upper-middle-class East Coast characters. It centers on Nina Leeds, a passionate, tormented woman whose fiancé was killed in World War I and who spends the remainder of her life searching for an always-elusive happiness.

This is a very long play, lasting over five hours in performance. The story is not especially complex, and the length of the play derives from O'Neill's revival of two theatrical devices that had fallen out of use for nearly a century: the soliloquy, in which a character alone on the stage speaks his or her thoughts aloud, and the aside, which enables characters to reveal their thoughts to the audience but not to the other characters on stage. These devices, which O'Neill employed at length, enabled the playwright to probe deeply into his characters' motivations. The soliloquies and asides reveal the discrepancies between what the characters say and do, and what they really feel.

Note: This is a "Play in nine acts".  WHAT?

Note from Brittanica.com:  Its length was an innovation, for in its original production it began in the late afternoon, paused for a dinner intermission, and resumed at the hour when most plays begin. It also employed then innovative stage techniques, such as stream-of-consciousness soliloquies and asides.

DeScripted
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In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 1927 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, In Abraham's Bosom by Paul Green.

Synopsis from Concord Theatricals:  In this story, [playwright] Paul Green, a product himself of a rural upbringing in North Carolina, tells the post Civil War story of the deeply troubled young man, son of a tyrannical white land owner and a poor black woman, who sees education as the means of raising himself and his African-American community out of the bondage of segregation. He strives heroically to fulfill his dream, but in the end is brought down by his own rage at the racist society and the hatred and jealously felt by his white half brother.

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Join us as we discuss the 2009 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Ruined by Lynn Nottage.

Synopsis from StageAgent.com:  Set in a small mining town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lynn Nottage’s Ruined follows Mama Nadi, a businesswoman who is trying to stay afloat in a world torn apart by civil war. The war has ravaged her country, and especially the young girls who have literally been torn to pieces by soldiers on both sides of the conflict. Mama Nadi takes “damaged” girls into her brothel/bar and profits from them, but also protects them from the brutality of the world outside her doors. Amongst Mama Nadi’s charges are Josephine, the daughter of a chief whose town was destroyed and who was raped by rebel soldiers; Salima, who was taken by rebel soldiers, who killed her baby and took her as a prisoner-of-war before making her pregnant; and Sophie, a young girl who has been “ruined” by sexual violence. We also meet soldiers and commanders on both sides of the conflict, all frequent customers at Mama’s bar.


DeScripted
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In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 2011 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris.

Synopsis from Stageagent.com:  Clybourne Park is a razor-sharp satire about the politics of race. In response to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, playwright Bruce Norris set up Clybourne Park as a pair of scenes that bookend Hansberry’s piece. These two scenes, fifty years apart, are both set in the same modest bungalow on Chicago’s northwest side that features at the center of A Raisin in the Sun. The first scene takes place before and the second scene takes place after the events of A Raisin in the Sun. In 1959, Russ and Bev are moving out to the suburbs after the tragic death of their son. Inadvertently, they have sold their house to the neighborhood’s first black family. Fifty years later in 2009, the roles are reversed when a young white couple buys the lot in what is now a predominantly black neighborhood, signaling a new wave of gentrification. In both instances, a community showdown takes place, pitting race against real estate with this home as the battleground.

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Join us as we discuss the 1927 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, In Abraham's Bosom by Paul Green.

Synopsis from Concord Theatricals:  In this story, [playwright] Paul Green, a product himself of a rural upbringing in North Carolina, tells the post Civil War story of the deeply troubled young man, son of a tyrannical white land owner and a poor black woman, who sees education as the means of raising himself and his African-American community out of the bondage of segregation. He strives heroically to fulfill his dream, but in the end is brought down by his own rage at the racist society and the hatred and jealously felt by his white half brother.

In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 1926 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, Craig's Wife by George Kelly.

Synopsis from Playbill.com:  A materialistic woman's marriage crumbles because of her obsession with preserving her possessions.

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Join us as we discuss Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris , winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Synopsis from Stageagent.com:  Clybourne Park is a razor-sharp satire about the politics of race. In response to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, playwright Bruce Norris set up Clybourne Park as a pair of scenes that bookend Hansberry’s piece. These two scenes, fifty years apart, are both set in the same modest bungalow on Chicago’s northwest side that features at the center of A Raisin in the Sun. The first scene takes place before and the second scene takes place after the events of A Raisin in the Sun. In 1959, Russ and Bev are moving out to the suburbs after the tragic death of their son. Inadvertently, they have sold their house to the neighborhood’s first black family. Fifty years later in 2009, the roles are reversed when a young white couple buys the lot in what is now a predominantly black neighborhood, signaling a new wave of gentrification. In both instances, a community showdown takes place, pitting race against real estate with this home as the battleground.



DeScripted
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