Press Release: Finals, Touchdowns, and Barrel Kicks by Jacqueline E. Lawton Published by Vintage Books
Finals, Touchdowns, and Barrel Kicks by Jacqueline E. Lawton has been published in PLAYS FOR TWO, an anthology edited by Eric Lang and Nina Shengold, published by Vintage Books (Random House). Plays for Two is a unique anthology of twenty-eight terrific plays for two actors, by a mix of celebrated playwrights and cutting-edge new voices.
It takes two to tango—or to perform a duet, fight a duel, or play ping-pong. The two-character play is dramatic confrontation stripped to its essence. These four full-length and twenty-four short plays feature pairs of every sort—strangers, rivals, parents and children, siblings, co-workers, friends, and lovers—swooning or sparring, meeting cute or parting ways. In a dizzying range of moods and styles, these two-handers offer the kind of meaty, challenging roles actors love, while providing readers and audiences with the pleasures of watching the complex give-and-take dynamics of two keenly matched characters.
Plays by: Billy Aronson, David Auburn, Pete Barry, Naveen Bahar Choudhury, Anthony Clarvoe, Steven Dietz, Halley Feiffer, Simon Fill, Frank Higgins, David Ives, Jacob Juntunen, Ean Miles Kessler, Neil LaBute, Eric Lane, Kitt Lavoie, Jacqueline E. Lawton, Mark Harvey Levine, Elizabeth Meriwether, Michael Mitnick, Daria Polatin, Marco Ramirez, Kelly Rhodes, Jose Rivera, Paul Rudnick, Edwin Sanchez, Nina Shengold, Cori Thomas, Doug Wright.
Previous anthologies from Eric Lang and Nina Shengold include: Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays, Talk to Me: Monologue Plays, Under Thirty: Plays for a New Generation, Take Ten: New 10-Minute Plays, Take Ten II: More Ten-Minute Plays, Plays for Actresses and Leading Women: Plays for Actresses II.
Plays for Two is scheduled to be released in March of 2014. Click here to preorder your copy.
It takes two to tango—or to perform a duet, fight a duel, or play ping-pong. The two-character play is dramatic confrontation stripped to its essence. These four full-length and twenty-four short plays feature pairs of every sort—strangers, rivals, parents and children, siblings, co-workers, friends, and lovers—swooning or sparring, meeting cute or parting ways. In a dizzying range of moods and styles, these two-handers offer the kind of meaty, challenging roles actors love, while providing readers and audiences with the pleasures of watching the complex give-and-take dynamics of two keenly matched characters.
Plays by: Billy Aronson, David Auburn, Pete Barry, Naveen Bahar Choudhury, Anthony Clarvoe, Steven Dietz, Halley Feiffer, Simon Fill, Frank Higgins, David Ives, Jacob Juntunen, Ean Miles Kessler, Neil LaBute, Eric Lane, Kitt Lavoie, Jacqueline E. Lawton, Mark Harvey Levine, Elizabeth Meriwether, Michael Mitnick, Daria Polatin, Marco Ramirez, Kelly Rhodes, Jose Rivera, Paul Rudnick, Edwin Sanchez, Nina Shengold, Cori Thomas, Doug Wright.
Previous anthologies from Eric Lang and Nina Shengold include: Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays, Talk to Me: Monologue Plays, Under Thirty: Plays for a New Generation, Take Ten: New 10-Minute Plays, Take Ten II: More Ten-Minute Plays, Plays for Actresses and Leading Women: Plays for Actresses II.
Plays for Two is scheduled to be released in March of 2014. Click here to preorder your copy.
About the Editors
Eric Lane's award-winning plays have been published and performed in the U.S., Canada, Europe and China. Plays include RIDE (Dramatists Play Service), TIMES OF WAR (Dramatic Publishing), HEART OF THE CITY and DANCING ON CHECKERS' GRAVE (Playscripts). In addition, his plays are published by the Foreign Language Press (in English and Chinese) and Applause Books' Best American Short Plays.
With Nina Shengold, Eric has edited thirteen contemporary play anthologies for Viking Penguin and Vintage Books. Honors include a Writer's Guild Award, the La MaMa Playwright Award, and the Berrilla Kerr Playwriting Award. Fellowships include Yaddo, VCCA, and St. James Cavalier in Malta. Eric wrote and produced the award-winning short films "First Breath" and "Cater-Waiter," which he also directed. He is an honors graduate of Brown University. His new play FILMING O'KEEFFE, a commission for the Adirondack Theatre Festival, is scheduled to workshop in the summer 2012, and will premiere in 2013. www.ericlanewrites.com
With Nina Shengold, Eric has edited thirteen contemporary play anthologies for Viking Penguin and Vintage Books. Honors include a Writer's Guild Award, the La MaMa Playwright Award, and the Berrilla Kerr Playwriting Award. Fellowships include Yaddo, VCCA, and St. James Cavalier in Malta. Eric wrote and produced the award-winning short films "First Breath" and "Cater-Waiter," which he also directed. He is an honors graduate of Brown University. His new play FILMING O'KEEFFE, a commission for the Adirondack Theatre Festival, is scheduled to workshop in the summer 2012, and will premiere in 2013. www.ericlanewrites.com
Nina Shengold writes fiction, nonfiction, theatre, and film. Her novel CLEARCUT, a Book Sense Notable selection and Seattle Post-Intelligencer Best Books pick, also won nerve.com's Henry Miller Award for Best Literary Sex Scene; the Washington Post called it a "red-hot love triangle...GRADE: A." She collaborated with photographer Jennifer May on RIVER OF WORDS: PORTRAITS OF HUDSON VALLEY WRITERS, profiling 76 writers including John Ashbery, Shalom Auslander, Laura Shaine Cunningham, Cornelius Eady, Nick Flynn, Frank McCourt, Susan Orlean, Esmeralda Santiago, John Sayles, and Pete Seeger. www.riverofwordsbook.com
With Eric Lane, Nina has edited 13 theatre anthologies for Vintage Books and Viking Penguin. Her plays include HOMESTEADERS, FINGER FOODS Foods, ROMEO/JULIET, and WAR AT HOME: STUDENTS RESPOND TO 9/11, written with Nicole Quinn and 40 students. www.playscripts.com
She won the Writers Guild Award for her teleplay LABOR OF LOVE, starring Marcia Gay Harden. Other TV credits include BLIND SPOT, starring Joanne Woodward & Laura Linney, and SHINE Award winner UNWED FATHER. Nina lives in the Hudson Valley with her teenage daughter and a somewhat golden retriever. www.ninashengold.com
With Eric Lane, Nina has edited 13 theatre anthologies for Vintage Books and Viking Penguin. Her plays include HOMESTEADERS, FINGER FOODS Foods, ROMEO/JULIET, and WAR AT HOME: STUDENTS RESPOND TO 9/11, written with Nicole Quinn and 40 students. www.playscripts.com
She won the Writers Guild Award for her teleplay LABOR OF LOVE, starring Marcia Gay Harden. Other TV credits include BLIND SPOT, starring Joanne Woodward & Laura Linney, and SHINE Award winner UNWED FATHER. Nina lives in the Hudson Valley with her teenage daughter and a somewhat golden retriever. www.ninashengold.com
JACQUELINE E. LAWTON was named one of 30 of the nation's leading black playwrights by Arena Stage’s American Voices New Play Institute. Her plays include: Anna K; Blood-bound and Tongue-tied; Deep Belly Beautiful;The Devil’s Sweet Water; The Hampton Years; Ira Aldridge: the African Roscius; Lions of Industry, Mothers of Invention; Love Brothers Serenade (2013 semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference), Mad Breed, and Our Man Beverly Snow. Ms. Lawton’s work has been developed and presented at the following venues: Active Cultures, Classical Theater of Harlem, Folger Shakespeare Library, theHegira, Howard University, Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival, Rorschach Theater Company, Savannah Black Heritage Festival (Armstrong Atlantic State University), Shakespeare Theatre Company, Source Theatre Festival, Theater J, and Woolly Mammoth Theater Company. She is published in Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project (University of Texas Press). Ms. Lawton received her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. She participated in the Kennedy Center’s Playwrights’ Intensive (2002) and World Interplay (2003). She is a 2012 TCG Young Leaders of Color award recipient and a National New Play Network (NNPN) Playwright Alumna. She has been recognized as a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference and the Playwright's Center PlayLabs, and as a SheWrites Festival finalist. A member of Arena Stage's Playwright's Arena and the Dramatist Guild of America, Ms. Lawton currently resides in Washington, D.C.
Vintage Books was founded in 1954 by Alfred A. Knopf as a trade paperback home to its authors. Its publishing list includes a wide range, from the most influential works of world literature to cutting edge contemporary fiction and distinguished non-fiction. As the continuous publisher of important writers including William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov, Albert Camus, Ralph Ellison, Dashiell Hammett, William Styron, A.S. Byatt, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Ha Jin, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy, Alice Munro, Raymond Chandler, Orhan Pamuk, Dave Eggers, Robert Caro, Joseph Ellis, Haruki Murakami, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez it is today’s foremost trade paperback publisher.
Founded in 1953 Anchor Books is the oldest trade paperback publisher in America. The goal was to make inexpensive editions of modern classics widely available to college students and the adult public. They succeeded admirably. Today, Anchor’s list boasts award-winning history, science, women’s studies, sociology, and quality fiction. Authors published by Anchor Books include Chinua Achebe, Ian McEwan, Alexander McCall Smith, Karen Armstrong, Jon Krakauer, Chuck Palahniuk, Mary Gordon, Dan Brown, and Margaret Atwood.
Founded in 1953 Anchor Books is the oldest trade paperback publisher in America. The goal was to make inexpensive editions of modern classics widely available to college students and the adult public. They succeeded admirably. Today, Anchor’s list boasts award-winning history, science, women’s studies, sociology, and quality fiction. Authors published by Anchor Books include Chinua Achebe, Ian McEwan, Alexander McCall Smith, Karen Armstrong, Jon Krakauer, Chuck Palahniuk, Mary Gordon, Dan Brown, and Margaret Atwood.