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Love Person
by Aditi Brennan Kapil

“Kapil’s Love Person is a fascinating brew of emotion, wit and intellect that challenges its audience to reassess how the form of communication shapes understanding.”--Lisa Brock, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Startling and evocative!--Michael Opperman, Twin Cities Daily Planet

“Heart-pounding attraction, intense all-night conversations - Aditi Brennan Kapil’s Love Person captures the giddiness of new love affairs. But the play is even more eloquently realistic about the wear and tear that time wreaks on relationships.”--Nicole Estvanik, American Theatre Magazine, July 2008

Love Person is a four part love story in Sanskrit, ASL and English in which love transcends sexual orientation, physical attraction, and social structure and rests instead on the ways in which we communicate and how communication bonds or breaks us. The play is structured around four Sanskrit love poems that influence and reflect the journeys of the characters. Free, a Deaf woman in a relationship with Maggie, accidentally falls into a deceptive email correspondence with her sister Vic's love interest Ram, a Sanskrit professor. Free and Ram discover a connection, based largely on an affinity between their two languages. As a result of the deception, Vic and Ram also begin to fall in love. Meanwhile Free and Maggie's relationship struggles to survive.

Character Descriptions:
VIC – 30s, two divorces, drinks too much. Free’s sister. Some basic ASL skills, brash
FREE – 30s-40s, Deaf, Maggie’s lover, Vic’s older sister. Uses ASL exclusively, does not voice, restless
MAGGIE – 30s-40s, English Lit professor, Free’s lover. Fluent ASL, interpreting for Free is second nature. When they’re alone together they sign only, content
RAM (pronounced “Raahm”) – Sanskrit Professor from East Coast, Second generation, fully westernized. Here on a short visit, quiet and intelligent, lonely
Dramatic Comedy. 1m, 3f. Interior. Acting Edition. $9.95.

Dreamlandia
by Octavio Solis

“In Teatro Vista’s provocative staging of Solis’s latest work, Márquez meets Beckett in a surreal, tragicomic telenovela. Here the U.S.-Mexico border isn’t so much a patrolled place as a state of mind."--Time Out Chicago

Inspired by Life is a Dream, the towering achievement of Spanish drama, Dreamlandia explores the terrain between illusion and reality. Set in the borderlands between Mexico and Texas, this haunting new play vibrates with the clash of cultures, NAFTA, narcotics, and illegal immigration. In an ever changing world, family, cultural and sexual identities collide.

Character Descriptions:
BLANCA (ALFONSO) – Young woman
LAZARO – Young man
PEPÍN – Blanca’s brother
CELESTINO – The Father
SONIA – His mistress
FRANK – Border Patrol Sector Chief
DOLORES – Dead, a ghost, Blanca’s mother
SETH – Border Patrolman
CARL – Border Patrolman
BUSTAMANTE – played by DOLORES
VIVIAN – CELESTINO’s wife, played by SONIA

Dramatic Comedy. 6m, 3f. Acting Edition. $9.95.

The Quality of Life
by Jane Anderson

“Set in the Berkeley hills after a major fire, Quality of Life introduces Jeannette, an earthy, high-spirited woman. Jeannette’s husband, Neil , is dying of cancer. When her cousin Dinah from Ohio comes for a visit with her husband, Bill, the two couples - one solidly on the left, the other resolute in their conservative Christian beliefs - are made to confront their huge dissimilarities—”--Edward Guthman, The San Francisco Chronicle.

”Playwright Jane Anderson explores a myriad of ethical, religious, and moral beliefs, as well as (some would say) personal rights issues concerning life and death in her remarkable and completely engrossing new play, The Quality of Life.--Terri Roberts, Theater Mania

From award-winning writer Jane Anderson (The Baby Dance, Looking for Normal) comes this “magnetic work of theater” (The San Francisco Chronicle) filled with compassion, honesty and humor.

Dinah and Bill, a devout, church-going couple from the Midwest are struggling to keep their lives intact after the loss of their daughter. Dinah is compelled to reconnect with her left-leaning cousins in Northern California who’re going through their own trials. Jeannette and Neil have lost their home to a wildfire and Neil has cancer. However they seem to have accepted their situation with astounding good humor, living in a yurt on their burn site and celebrating life with hits of pot and glasses of good red wine. Bill and Dinah are both moved and perplexed by their cousins’ remarkable equanimity. But their sympathy turns to rage when they find out that Jeannette is planning to take her own life to avoid a life of grief without her beloved Neil.

Winner! 2007 Ted Schmitt Award for the world premiere of an Outstanding New Play — Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle
Winner! 2008 Ovation Award for Best New Play

Dramatic Comedy. 2m, 2f. Acting Edition. $9.95.

...And Then There Was Nun
by Richard T. Witter and Bruce W. Gilray

…And Then There Was Nun was the winner of the 1990 “Robby” Award for “Best Comedy Production” and for “Best Actor”--Tif Rice as Sister Katharine.

“…a gas…over the top and as thick as the North Pasture. Needless to add, the audience loved every single second of it.”--Drama-Logue

“...the nun’s story to end all nun’s stories…leagues above most comedies and the laughs come nonstop…”--Frontiers

“...a captivating mystery…Bruce Gilray and Richard Witter … created a work that’s a joy for actors.”--The Press Telegram

“...what more could a movie buff desire? A killer evening of hilarity.”--The Daily Breeze

…And Then There Was Nun is written in the style of a classic 1940’s murder mystery; and is a blend of humor and who-dun-it as the actors emulate iconic movie stars of the past.

Take one foreboding mansion on a secluded island, throw in ten whacked-out members of The Holy Order of the Sisters of San Andreas, stir in their unseen and mysterious leader, add an assortment of the sharpest tongues this side of Hollywood and Vine; then infuse with a healthy dose of some of the most famous lines in cinema (slightly warped). Roast well in a preheated treasure trove of movie facts, trivia, legends and gossip for two acts, sit back and savor. …And Then There Was Nun is a treat for movie buffs and non-movie buffs alike.

Actors who take on the personas parodied in this play will be creatively challenged to mold their performances with the mannerisms and vocal styles of famous actors of the past, having an amazingly fun experience along the way.

Comedy with Music. 11 characters (m or f). Acting Edition. $9.95.

American Hwangap
by Lloyd Suh

“A delight to watch.”--The New York Times

“Touching family drama.”--Variety

“As refreshingly original in its point of view as in its quirky humor and affecting relationships.”--San Francisco Gate

Steeped in the difficulty of reunification and reconciliation, American Hwangap tells the story of Min Suk Chun, who some 15 years earlier left his family in a West Texas suburb to return to his native Korea. On the occasion of his 60th birthday (hwangap), a milestone signifying the completion of the Eastern Zodiac and a type of rebirth, he returns to his ex-wife and now adult children as they struggle to reconcile their broken past with the mercurial, verbose and often exasperating patriarch now back at the head of the table. Through a tense birthday weekend filled with humor, heartbreak and half-filled expectations, this American Hwangap and its aftermath bears a family not quite whole but still somehow transformed, and not quite happy but still somehow beautiful.

Character Descriptions:
MIN SUK CHUN - 59, a Korean immigrant to the US, returned to Korea and now back again. Probably either tall, large, or otherwise imposing. His English is actually quite good though rusty, it comes and goes, but he speaks quickly, often and confidently even when he doesn’t have the words.
MARY CHUN - 58, his ex-wife. Reinvented. A modern Asian-American woman. Speaks proficient English, though may be tinged with only a very slight accent.
RALPH CHUN - 29, their youngest son. Brilliant, damaged. Lives in his mother’s basement.
ESTHER CHUN - 31, their daughter. Twice divorced, a perpetual student. Unsettled.
DAVID CHUN - 34, their eldest son. An investment banker. Away.

Drama. 3m, 2f. Acting Edition. $9.95.