DeScripted

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.******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******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.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - www.twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

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 abuseWe 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.******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******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.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - www.twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

Note: This episode contains explicit language.In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 2008 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, August: Osage County, by Tracy LettsSynopsis 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/10153305557141202This episode uses these sounds from freesound.org: "Cartoony Clangs (hit with spade)_2.wav" by Timbre licensed under CCBYNC 3.0******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******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.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - www.twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

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.******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******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.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - www.twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

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.******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******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.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - www.twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 1925 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard.Synopsis from Concord Theatricals: In the 1920's, Napa Valley middle-aged wine-grower Tony wants to get married and decides to propose by letter to a waitress in San Francisco named Amy who waited on him once. He sends her a picture of his good looking young farmhand Joe instead of himself, which creates unforeseen complications in the lives and loves of these three ordinary yet complex people.******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******Join us as we discuss Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes, winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.Synopsis from Dramatists.com: Somewhere in Philadelphia, Elliot has returned from Iraq and is struggling to find his place in the world. Somewhere in a chat room, recovering addicts keep each other alive, hour by hour, day by day. The boundaries of family and community are stretched across continents and cyberspace as birth families splinter and online families collide. WATER BY THE SPOONFUL is a heartfelt meditation on lives on the brink of redemption.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - www.twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

In this episode, Randy and Tyler discuss the 1924 Pulitzer Prizewinning Play, Hell-Bent Fer Heaven by Hatcher Hughes.Synopsis from Concord Theatricals: When Sid Hunt returns from WWI, he announces his plans to marry his sweetheart, Jude Lowry, much to the displeasure of his brother Rufe, who is also in love with Jude. Jude's brother Andy has an old grudge against the family, and after some illicit drinking, he decides to murder Sid. Sid hears of this plot and crosses a dam to escape from Andy, but Rufe, hoping to get Jude for himself, blows up the dam. A religious fanatic, Rufe justifies this murder by claiming that God commanded it. Meanwhile, flood waters are rising from unprecedented rainfall, and when the family gets into their boat, Rufe finds that there is no room for him. He is told that if God commanded him to murder Sid, surely God will protect Rufe from the flood.******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******Join us as we discuss Disgraced by Ayad Ahktar, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.Synopsis from Lincoln Center Theatre: DISGRACED is the story of Amir Kapoor, a successful Pakistani-American lawyer who is rapidly moving up the corporate ladder while distancing himself from his cultural roots. When Amir and his wife Emily, a white artist influenced by Islamic imagery, host a dinner party, what starts out as a friendly conversation escalates into something far more damaging.Note: This episode was recorded in 2021 amidst the COVID-19 ("Coronavirus") pandemic.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - www.twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

In this episode, Randy and Tyler dig in to a very special play, Icebound by Owen Davis. Why is it so special? The play takes place in Randy's hometown (population Synopsis from wikipedia: The Jordan family is on their farm in Veazie, Maine in October 1922. They await the reading of the will by Judge John Bradford of the family matriarch who has just died. Much to the family's dismay, the farm and all of the money has been left to a distant cousin Jane Crosby. Jane has been told that she is to take care of the legal trouble of the young son of the family, Ben. Ben had left because he accidentally burned a neighbor's farm. Ben begins a flirtatious relationship with Nettie, the adopted daughter of Emma Jordan.******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******Join us as we discuss the play The Flick by Annie Baker, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.Synopsis from stageagent.com: In a movie theater near Worcester, MA (called The Flick) -- one of the few that hasn't yet switched to digital film -- three employees work dreary jobs for just above minimum wage: selling tickets, cleaning up after patrons, and running the projector. The economy is depressed and so are they, and yet over the course of this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Sam, Rose, and Avery show themselves to be complex, feeling people with unrealized ambitions to become more than their dreary surroundings. Annie Baker's drama unfolds in unhurried naturalistic scenes (much to the frustration of some early audiences at the New York premiere), and her astonishingly well observed and subtle characterizations suggest a Chekhovian ability to forge compelling drama from the littleness of everyday life.Note: This episode was recorded in 2021 amidst the COVID-19 ("Coronavirus") pandemic.Our thanks to our special guests from True North Theatre (https://www.trunorththeatre.org) in this episode: Angela Bonacasa, Telly Coolong, Holly Costar, Aimee Gerow, Jenny Hancock, Jasmine Ireland, David Lane, and Paul Nicklas.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - www.twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

In this episode, Randy and Tyler take a look at the 1922 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill.Synopsis from playbill.com: A weary former prostitute seeks out her estranged sea-captain father hoping to find forgiveness from him while hiding her past from a stoker she loves.******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******Join us as we discuss the play Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirgis, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2015. This play can be read for free online, as it is in the Public Domain: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59777.Synopsis from stageagent.com: Walter “Pops” Washington has had enough. His landlord won’t leave him alone, his wife recently passed away, and the liquor store can’t keep up with his thirst. Pops’ last living relative, his son Junior, has recently moved back to Pops’ house with his girlfriend, Lulu, and his newly-sober buddy, Oswaldo. With his heels dug into the floor of his rent-controlled Riverside Drive apartment, Pops holds onto old wounds -- physical and emotional -- picking continually at scabs he refuses to allow to heal. Pressure reaches a boiling point when an ultimatum comes from an unlikely source, pinning Pops squarely “between Riverside and crazy.”Note: This episode was recorded in 2021 amidst the COVID-19 ("Coronavirus") pandemic.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - www.twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

In this episode, Randy and Tyler take a look at the 1921 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Miss Lulu Bett by Zona Gale -- who is also the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.Note: We apologize -- Tyler's mic had some minor buzzing issues in this episode as well as the last. He's got a brand new mic now, so the next episode will be better!Synopsis from theatremania.com: Miss Lulu Bett, a 28-year-old spinster in a small Wyoming town, lives more or less as a servant in the home of her spoiled sister, Ina, and Ina's pompous husband Dwight Deacon, a dentist who doubles as the local justice of the peace. Also living under the roof are the sisters' mother and the Deacon daughters--Diana, having a mildly rebellious (i.e. normal) adolescence, and Monona, a prepubescent given to tantrums featuring especially ear-piercing squeals. Accepting of her lowly station and adept at fulfilling its demands, Miss Lulu Bett--as she's repeatedly addressed--may long to be elsewhere, but joins in the family pact to do nothing about it.Until, that is, Dwight Deacon's adventurer brother Ninian drops in for a rare visit, spots Miss Lulu Bett's virtues, sees through her veiled longing and, in a playful moment one summer evening, proposes to her. There's a hitch, though--and "hitch" is definitely intended as a pun in this case: Because Ninian and Lulu exchanged their mock vows in front of Justice of the Peace Deacon, their union could be viewed as official. And, as it happens, the impulsive pair choose to see it that way, packing their honeymoon bags immediately.Hard to credit, no? But Lulu and, more importantly, her appearance-consumed family, do credit the marriage knot. So when Lulu returns from her trip with the news that Ninian already had a wife, the Deacons prevail on her to shut up about it. Indeed, they suggest that Ninian's revelation may not even be true; it may merely be his pretext for dumping Lulu. That's when Lulu decides she has to be open to neighbors about her predicament. Furthermore, she wants to establish the truth of Ninian's statement--she needs to know she hasn't been forsaken. When she gets reassuring news in the form of an old wedding announcement, she throws the Deacons' hypocrisy in their faces and strikes out on her own.******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******Join us as we discuss the play “Sweat” by Lynn Nottage, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2017. Here's a synopsis for "Sweat" from StageAgent.com: It’s the year 2000 in Reading, Pennsylvania and a group of friends go to work at the steel mill and then decompress at the bar like they’ve been doing for over 20 years. But, unbeknownst to them, their lives are about to be uprooted. Their steel mill, Olstead’s, is making some changes and the blood, sweat and tears, not to mention the generations of loyalty these workers have shown, don’t seem to amount to much. These middle class, unionized, steelworkers have made plans to save money, go on vacations and then retire with a nice, healthy pension, but when rumors start flying that the company is considering layoffs, and flyers are hung to recruit non-union Latino workers for less money, the war between community and capitalism begins, and tensions start destroying not only jobs, but also relationships. This poignant play takes a look at the de-industrial revolution through the lens of a history play, but also delves into the issues of today: the economy, immigration, race-relations in America, and politics. Lynn Nottage’s Sweat gives us characters filled with the good and the bad and asks us to reflect on our own views and the views of others. Nottage never tells us who’s right or who’s wrong, but always shows us who’s human.Note: This episode was recorded in 2021 in the middle of the COVID-19 ("Coronavirus") pandemic.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - www.twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

In this episode, Tyler and Randy discuss the 1920 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, “Beyond the Horizon” by Eugene O’Neill.Wikipedia’s synopsis of Beyond the Horizon: “The play takes place on a farm in the Spring, and then moves forward three years later, in the Summer, and finally five years later, in late Fall. The play focuses on the portrait of a family, and particularly only two brothers Andrew and Robert. In the first act of the play, Robert is about to go off to sea with their uncle Dick, a sea captain, while Andrew looks forward to marrying his sweetheart Ruth and working on the family farm as he starts a family.”You can read this play FREE online, as it is in the public domain. We recommend checking out Project Gutenberg where they provide many different options for reading: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58569******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******Join us as we discuss the play “Cost of Living” by Martyna Majok that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2018. Note: This episode was recorded in 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 ("Coronavirus") pandemic.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod

In this episode, Tyler and Randy discuss the very first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama: the 1918 play “Why Marry?” by Jesse Lynch Williams.The full script for “Why Marry?” can be found online and is free to read, as it is in the Public Domain. The script can be found on Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35389/35389-h/35389-h.htm). If you’d like to listen to an audio drama version, you can find it on LibriVox (free) (https://librivox.org/why-marry-by-jesse-lynch-williams/).******* IN OUR NEXT EPISODE *******Join us as we discuss the 2019 play Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2019. You can find this on Amazon by following this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1559369523/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_4yo4Fb2YSKGMF.Note: This episode was recorded in 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 ("Coronavirus") pandemic.DeScriptedFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeScriptedPodTwitter: @DeScriptedPod - twitter.com/DeScriptedPodInstagram: @DeScriptedPod - www.instagram.com/DeScriptedPod