Books

Solving Your Script -- New book of exercises focussing on dramatic technique including analyses of a couple dozen scenes as well as some new thoughts that have occurred to me since writing --

The Dramatist's Toolkit -- A book on dramatic craft which examines techniques useful for both stage and screenwriting.  It's in its sixth printing and a companion book is in the works.

Something Wonderful Right Away -- The story of improvisational comedy in the words of its pioneers, including extensive, exclusive interviews with Paul Sills, Mike Nichols, Barbara Harris, Alan Arkin, Severn Darden, Del Close, Alan Alda, Joan Rivers, Paul Mazursky, Roger Bowen, Gilda Radner, Tony Holland, Bill Alton, Paul Sand, Andrew Duncan, David Shepherd and many other swell people.  I'm told it's required reading for people who study at Second City, and why the hell not.  Aside from that, these people can't help but be funny.

Plays

Porch, full-length one-act about a woman coming to terms with her ailing father on a porch in the midwest; Jill Eikenberry played it off-Broadway and it's been produced more than a hundred times.

Responsible Parties, full-length play set in a motel on Ventura Boulevard in the Seventies; revived twice last season off-off-Broadway.

Routed, a one-act comedy that premiered at Ensemble Studio Theatre starring David Rasche and was later made into a short film that ran on Showtime in time slots catering to people who couldn't sleep.

Stops Along the Way, a one-act that played Lincoln Center 's Mitzi Newhouse on a bill with pieces by John Guare and Percy Granger.

Ties, a full-length that had a long run in Chicago before being made into a TV special.

The Value of Names is included in two anthologies, Fruitful and Multiplying (a swell paperback that also includes Donald Margulies's Sight Unseen, Jon Robin Baitz's The Substance of Fire, Emily Mann's Annula, Herb Gardner's Conversations With My Father and some other stuff worth having) and Twenty One-Act Plays from Twenty Years of the Humana Festival (which also has stuff by Donald Margulies, Jane Anderson, David Henry Hwang, Kevin Kling and Lanford Wilson).  If you just want the acting edition, click here.

With and Without (acting edition)

For copies of Flyovers and Bluff, phone Chicago's Act One Book Shop at 800-55-PLAYS, or e-mail at act1@mcs.net.  They have a website, too: Act One Books.  I let them have privately-printed versions of these scripts as they get requests.  I could probably be persuaded to do the same with American Enterprise and I Sent a Letter to My Love scripts.

Tapes

I Sent a Letter to My Love (audio version) starring Melissa Manchester, Stephen Bogardus, Megan Mullaly, Meagen Fay and Paul Anthony Stewart; directed by Pat Birch.

The Value of Names (audio version) starring Hector Elizondo, Garry Marshall and Sally Murphy; directed by Gordon Hunt.

With and Without (audio version) starring Lindsay Crouse, Jill Eikenberry, Tim Halligan and Michael Tucker; directed by Sandy Shinner.

Soon to come, a tape of Flyovers starring the original Chicago cast, William Petersen, Amy Morton Marc Vann and Linda Reiter; directed by Sandy Shinner.

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