Fri, Nov 4 @ 5 P.M: David Finkle reading from “People Tell Me Things,” his new collection of short stories at The Drama Book Shop

David Finkle will read from the ten-story collection focusing on Manhattan people and theater, publishing, and music, and their often complicated friendships. He’ll read the story “Banana Nose,” which deals with a successful producer and his somewhat well-known private life. Mr. Finkle will sign copies after the reading. David Finkle is the chief drama critic at TheaterMania.com. He writes often about theater, books, and music for The Huffington Post. He also interviews theater personalities for the Drama Book Shop series.

People Tell Me Things (Paperback)
by David Finkle
$15.95

Thurs, Nov 3 @ 6 P.M: Casting Insider Offers Advice on Nailing Your Audition: FREE at The Drama Book Shop

A free audition workshop with Jason Buyer, author of Inside the Audition Room: The Essential Actor's Handbook for Los Angeles.

Inside the Audition Room: The Essential Actor's Handbook for Los Angeles (Paperback)
by Jason Buyer
$12.95

POW! (Play Of The Week)

Sixty Miles to Silver Lake
by Dan LeFranc

Soccer: the quintessential sport to play as a kid. A car ride: a quintessential way to be stuck with someone you’d rather not spend much time with.

Sixty Miles to Silver Lake follows the relationship between one such soccer-playing kid and his father. The kid, Denny, lives with his mother during the week and his dad, Ky, on the weekends. Ky picks Denny up every Saturday after his morning soccer game, and on the sixty mile trip to Ky’s home, the two spend an uniquely uninterrupted period of time together. What appears, initially, to be a play chronically just one of those car rides, LeFranc ingeniously spins into a composite of all of the car rides Ky and Denny have on the way to Silver Lake over dozens of years of their lives. With utmost subtlety, LeFranc reveals the way these two men change and grow during their years of soccer playing and chauffeuring, and the ins and outs of this example of the deep but delicate bond between father and son.

This sparse, beautifully crafted play was co-produced by P73 and Soho Rep., two important organizations for emerging playwriting talent, and it won LeFranc the 2010 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award. LeFranc is certainly a writer to watch, and Sixty Miles to Silver Lake is a great way to get a look.

Cast: 2M, one spanning tweens to twenties, the other spanning the corresponding ages of his father
Scenes/Monlogues: The entire play is made up of a scene between two men, one younger, one older. Within that, the father goes off on some humorous rants that could make for unique monologues.

Review by Rachel K.

Thurs, Oct 20 @ 6 P:M: Daniel Talbott & Jessica Bauman direct moments from The Amish Project, Milk, Birthday and Nobody at The Drama Book Shop

Inspired! Samuel French Celebrates New Plays by Emily DeVoti, Jessica Dickey, and Crystal Skillman

Daniel Talbott and Jessica Bauman direct moments from The Amish Project, Milk, Birthday and Nobody at the Arthur Seelen Theater

Celebrating Samuel French’s hot-off-the press publications written by three up-and-coming women playwrights who find inspiration in each other’s work. Along with insights from the authors on each other’s pieces, moments will be shared from the plays directed by a director who has also inspired these writers: Rising Phoenix Rep Artistic Director Daniel Talbott (Director of Birthday and Nobody, and author of Slipping, also available for purchase). Book signing party upstairs with wine and refreshments to follow!

"(Dickey's) craft made me weep. The virtuosic writer-performer acts her bonnet off."--Time Out New York

“Birthday is a romantic comedy, sort of; it’s a lovely, sweet play of connection and camaraderie. Skillman picks up details of the trappings of our lives and makes them sing resonantly.” --NYTheatre.com

“There is an engagingly original streak running through her writing… [DeVoti] fills Milk with interesting details (lots of cow knowledge) and unexpected touches.” --The New York Times.

Jessica Dickey is a professional actress and emerging playwright. She is a company member of Rising Phoenix Repertory, an Affiliated Artist of New Georges and a Founding member of the Fire Dept. Her hit one-woman show, THE AMISH PROJECT, examines the aftermath of the notorious Pennsylvania schoolhouse shootings. It premiered at the New York Fringe Festival in 2008, and went on to open at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, where it was greeted with tremendous response from both audiences and critics. For more info, visit www.AmishProject.com

Emily DeVoti is a playwright and founding editor of The Brooklyn Rail. Her play MILK was produced Off-Broadway by New Georges in NYC in 2010 at HERE Arts Center in SoHo.

Crystal Skillman is a Brooklyn based playwright. NOBODY & BIRTHDAY, originally produced by Rising Phoenix Rep in NYC with director Daniel Talbott. She is honored to announce her comedy Action Philosophers! will be returning for a full run at the Brick this fall - Oct. 6th-16th following its sold out debut in the Comic Book Theatre festival this summer. In Spring 2012 he will be the resident playwright at Overturn Theatre Ensemble.

AMISH PROJECT: The Amish Project is a fictional exploration of the Nickel Mines schoolhouse shooting in an Amish community, and the path of forgiveness and compassion forged in its wake.

BIRTHDAY & NOBODY: In Birthday, an anxious young woman slips away from a unwelcoming birthday party in a bar only to discover a stranger sitting in the other room – they find they may have a chance to forgive themselves and each other. In Nobody six people come together, each for their own reasons, at a restaurant on the Lower East Sid and grasp at trying to come to terms with their disjointed lives and their singular, unsettling dream.

MILK: An elegant parable of change set on the cusp of a shifting American landscape. First produced by New Georges and New Feet Productions in New York City.

The Amish Project (Paperback)
By Jessica Dickey
$9.95

Birthday & Nobody: Two Plays (Acting Edition) (Paperback)
By Crystal Skillman
$9.95

Milk (Paperback)
By Emily Devoti
$9.95

Slipping (Paperback)
By Daniel Talbott
$9.50

Thurs, Oct 13 @ 6.00 P:M: Ken Bloom (Broadway Musicals: 101 Greatest Musicals) interviews Peter Filichia about his new book at The Drama Book Shop

Broadway Musical MVPs, 1960-2010: The Most Valuable Players of the Past 50 Seasons

Ken Bloom (Broadway Musicals: 101 Greatest Musicals) interviews Peter Filichia about his new book.

About the Author:
Peter Filichia is a theater critic for the Star-Ledger in Newark. Three times a week, he also writes Peter Filichia's Diary for theatermania, and every Tuesday writes a column for masterworksbroadway.com. He is the author of Let's Put on a Musical, now in its third printing, and Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit & The Biggest Flop of the Season: 1959-2009. He is the chairperson and host of the annual Theatre World Awards.

Broadway Musical Mvps: 1960-2010: The Most Valuable Players of the Past 50 Seasons
By Peter Filichia
Paper. $19.99

Thurs, Oct 6 @ 6.00 P.M: Peter Neufeld: For The Good of The Show. at The Drama Book Shop

Peter Neufeld: For The Good of The Show with Victor Garber, Steve Bogardus, Karen Ziemba, Peter Filichia (Moderator) and Seth Weinstein (Piano)

Brooklyn born and raised, Peter Neufeld fell in love at age seven when his mother took him to his first Broadway musical and the curtain rose on the original company of—Oklahoma!. His story takes us through his “maturing years” at the College of William and Mary, where his passion for the theater was reinforced. Here he established enduring friendships and “learned that it was kind of okay for the theater to be important to me.”

When Neufeld returned to New York, he eventually formed a business partnership with R. Tyler Gatchell, Jr. Their firm handled many of the most important shows of the 1970s and ’80s, including No, No, Nanette; Jesus Christ Superstar; Annie; Sweeney Todd; Evita; and Cats, to name a few. As the years unfolded Peter worked with theatrical royalty: from Claudette Colbert and Ruby Keeler to Cherry Jones and Patti LuPone; Mike Nichols and Ed Harris to Janet Leigh and Jack Cassidy; Ethel Merman, Linda Lavin and Alfred Drake to Noël Coward, Lynn Fontanne, and Madeline Kahn, Judith Ivey, Martin Charnin, and many, many more—always with a wry smile and a twinkle in his eye.

Peter’s memoir is also the touching story of a man wrestling with his sexuality while working in the Broadway theater. After Tyler’s death he found his interest in the business side waning. A new path led him closer to “the heart of the Broadway community,” a perfect footnote to the career of a man initially drawn to the stage by its spirit of mutual support. That gift for personal connection—along with integrity, warmth, humor, and an insistence on doing his job right— made him one of the most beloved and respected members of his profession. It also makes his memoir a saga of glamorous stars, laughter, soaring successes and humbling failures, keen insights into the world of theater, even a special Tony award. Peter’s story is the inspirational tale of a man in pursuit of a lifelong passion.

Hard Cover: $28.50
Paper: $19.50

POW! (Play Of The Week)

READY FOR THE RIVER
by Neal Bell

Doris and her teenage daughter, Lorna, are on the run. They witnessed Doris’s ex (Lorna’s father) kill the banker who’d come to foreclose on their farm, and they know they are next in line. The road trip they take to avoid being found is full of places to hide but the trip also brings them hallucinations and the dead banker’s son. They depend on each other as much as they don’t understand each other and with each mishap they continue on. Finally stopping at a small motel, for one night’s sleep behind a real door, and knowing they can’t pay the bill, they confront their would-be killer. Only now he’s dead. So what do they do? And do they do it together?

Wonderfully written tale of two people finding out what it takes to confront who they are. Tragic turns keep us guessing yet reveal two souls who love each other but are at odds with one another. The real people and the illusions add depth and humor. A real gem.

"Bell's story of the women's ghostly escape from realistic pursuit is…staged…with a grave simplicity that was haunting."--American Theatre.

"Part scathing satire and part gut-wrenching melodrama, Bell's script is as mean as yesterday's headlines and driven over the edge with language that beats on the brain with a message of despair and horror at what has happened to the American dream."--Express News.

Cast: 4M, 2W

Great scenes for mother and teenage daughter
Good monologue for a teenage girl and teenage boy