Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Four Thousand Weeks, whose title is based on the typical number of weeks in a lifetime, is a book about embracing your limitations, and finally getting round to what counts. Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management.

Available for $37.95 here!

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The Art of War meets The Artist’s Way in this no-nonsense, profoundly inspiring guide to overcoming creative blocks of every kind. Exactly what the title says. Think of The War of Art as tough love … for yourself. It tells you how to define, understand, and defeat your own resistance to being a creative professional.

Available for $18.95 here!

F*ck Your Comfort Zone: Take a Risk & Become the Lead in Your Own Life by Margie Haber

Celebrated acting and audition coach Margie Haber has spent over 40 years teaching celebrities and top actors from around the world. She will gently and compassionately guide you out of your comfort zone and into a life of bravery, risk-taking, and being the best version of yourself. With Margie’s help, you will learn how to transform your fear into personal power and approach life with empathy, humour, and curiosity. It will change everything.

Available for $31.95 here!

The Artist’s Compass: The Complete Guide to Building a Life and a Living in the Performing Arts by Rachel S. Moore

While performing artists have many educational opportunities to perfect their craft, they are often on their own when it comes to learning the business skills necessary to launch their careers. At the end of the day, show business is, well, a business. In The Artist’s Compass, Rachel Moore (who rose from a dancer in the American Ballet Theater’s corps de ballet to become the CEO of that organization – and is today the head of The Music Center in LA) shares how to make life as a performer more successful, secure, and sustainable by approaching a career in the arts like an entrepreneur.

Available for $22.00 here!

The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together by Twyla Tharp with Jesse Kornbluth

In this practical sequel to her national bestseller The Creative Habit, choreographer Twyla Tharp explains why collaboration is important to her – and can be for you. She shows how to recognize good candidates for partnership and how to build one successfully, and analyzes dysfunctional collaborations. And although this isn’t a book that promises to help you deepen your romantic life, she suggest that the lessons you learn by working together professionally can help you in your personal relationships.

Available for $19.95 here!

Comment below with your pick!

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Inspecting Carol by Daniel Sullivan

Get your holiday cheer on with this hilarious, madcap comedy! It’s a farcical behind-the-scenes look when all goes wrong in a small theatre company’s attempt to mount its annual production of A Christmas Carol. Complicating the effort are prima donna performers, cast love affairs and a surprise visit by an inspector from the funding arts foundation.

Available for $17.95 here!

The Patron Saint of Stanley Park by Hiro Kanagawa

On Christmas Eve, the one-year-anniversary of their father’s disappearance, Josh and Jennifer go to Stanley Park to honour his memory instead of catching a bus to their uncle’s place. When a mysterious homeless man leads them to a fantastical bunker beneath the park, they experience wondrous visions that help them understand the truth about their father.

Available for $17.95 here!

Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon

In this winning and witty sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the bookish middle child of the Bennet family finally has her day. Constantly overshadowed by her four sisters, Mary Bennet finds hope for a new life beyond her family from an unexpected holiday romance.

Available for $17.95 here!

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, adapted by Anne Coulter Martens

The Gift of the Magi is a one-act drama by Anne Coulter Martens, based on the classic O. Henry short story of the same name. Della and Jim, the main characters, are a young married couple who are very much in love, but have very little money, certainly not enough to give each other the “perfect gift” for their first Christmas together. Nevertheless, they find a way to surprise each other with a gift that expresses how truly deep their love is.

Available for $14.95 here!

The Long Christmas Ride Home by Paula Vogel

Two parents take their three young children on a road trip to visit their grandparents for the Christmas holiday. A breathtaking work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of How I Learned to Drive and Indecent, in which a single, sudden act of violence shatters the lives of three siblings – and also unites them.

Available for $17.95 here!

Comment below with your pick!

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Vanity Fair: An (Im-)Morality Play

Based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray. Ambitious Becky Sharp, poor, plain, and devilishly clever, may not have been born with wealth or status, but she’s determined to attain both-at any cost. Armed with fierce wit and calculating charm, Becky forges her own path through London’s high society, dealing herself into a game she was never invited to play.

Available for $17.95 here!

Little Women

Based on the beloved novel by Louisa May Alcott. Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy – they are America’s favourite sisters, beloved from the moment they appeared on the pages of Louisa May Alcott‘s novel Little Women. In this fresh take on a classic coming of age story, the beloved March sisters grow up against the backdrop of the Civil War.

Available for $17.95 here!

Pride and Prejudice

Based on the beloved novel by Jane Austen. This playful adaptation gives the story we know and love an unconventional updating. In Regency England, love is a serious game, and the Bennet sisters are playing for keeps. But when marriage is a must for women, how will they be able to tell if they’ve won? This clever comedy offers a decidedly progressive take on the trials of Lizzy, Mr. Darcy, and the whole Bennet clan, with a few dance breaks thrown in for good measure.

Available for $17.95 here!

Sense and Sensibility

Based on the beloved novel by Jane Austen. This refreshing, light-hearted romp through the English countryside tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, as they cope with changing social circumstances and wistful longings for love. Told with quick, tight structuring and a chorus of gossips, Sense and Sensibility is inventive and full of comic vitality.

Available for $17.95 here!

Comment below with your pick!

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Outspoken: A Canadian Collection of Lesbian Scenes and Monologues by Susan G. Cole

Touching on gender, sexuality, family, pop culture, and history, these pieces range from the hilarious to the poignant, the sexy to the sincere, the truthful to the tongue-in-cheek. Collected by writer and journalist Susan G. Cole from poetry, prose, theatre, and even a graphic novel, the scenes and monologues found in this collection reflect personal, political, and cultural complexities in the Canadian lesbian community.

Available for $19.95 here!

The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer

The Normal Heart has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues and Male/Male Scenes.

The Normal Heart is a full-length drama by Larry Kramer. Produced to acclaim in New York, London, and Los Angeles, this largely autobiographical play chronicles one man’s journey to bring attention to the slow response to the AIDS epidemic as he struggles to create support for himself – and his illness. The Normal Heart is a central work to the history of the LGBTQ movement and its theater.

Available for $17.95 here!

True Love Lies by Brad Fraser

True Love Lies is a full-length black comedy by Brad Fraser. A middle-aged couple have a loving relationship, successful careers and a happy, normal life with their two teenage children. Life couldn’t be more perfect… until an old flame comes back to town. Hidden relationships are revealed and the safe veneer of home begins to splinter. True Love Lies is a ruthless comedy that will leave you laughing… and wondering about your own family secrets.

Available for $17.95 here!

The Kilroys List, Vol. 1: 97 Monologues and Scenes by Female and Trans Playwrights by The Kilroys

The Kilroys List, Volume One contains 97 monologues for both male and female actors, all from a list of plays based on The Kilroys‘ national survey of hundreds of professional artistic directors, literary managers, professors, producers, directors, and dramaturgs. Members of The Kilroys act as facilitators throughout the process but do not recommend plays for “The List”, which serves as a resource for producers and theatres committed to gender parity.

Available for $25.95 here!

LGBTQ Comedic Monologues That Are Actually Funny by Alisha Gaddis

This incredibly hysterical, cutting-edge collection of monologues will give actors auditioning for LGBTQ roles the extra bang they need to land the perfect comedic role. LGBTQ Comedic Monologues That Are Actually Funny features works by LGBTQ writers and comics (and their allies) who have written and/or performed for Comedy Central, Backstage magazine, NBC, the Huffington Post, the Onion, Second City, E!, and many more. This collection is the go-to source for the comedic monologue needs of actors seeking LGBTQ material, as well as a paean to LGBTQ characters and artists.

Available for $18.95 here!

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The Intent to Live: Achieving Your True Potential as an Actor by Larry Moss

Far more than a handbook, The Intent to Live is the personal credo of a master teacher. His respect for actors and love of the actor’s craft enliven every page, together with examples from a wealth of plays and films, both current and classic, and vivid appreciations of great performances. Whether you act for a living or simply want a deeper understanding of acting greatness, The Intent to Live will move, instruct, and inspire you.

Available for $22.95 here!

Actions: The Actors’ Thesaurus by Marina Caldarone & Maggie Lloyd-Williams

Actions: The Actors’ Thesaurus is a no-nonsense book that every actor and director must also have in rehearsals. Long a secret of the acting community are those random lists of action words (in very dog-eared photocopy format) that circulate through rehearsal rooms. Actioning is a widely used rehearsal and performance technique: this thesaurus of active verbs pulls these vital action-words together and makes them available in an organized and comprehensive format, with which the actor can refine the action-word until s/he hits exactly the right one to help make the action come alive.

Available for $26.95 here!

F*ck Your Comfort Zone: Take a Risk & Become the Lead in Your Own Life by Margie Haber

Celebrated acting and audition coach Margie Haber has spent over 40 years teaching celebrities and top actors from around the world. She will gently and compassionately guide you out of your comfort zone and into a life of bravery, risk-taking, and being the best version of yourself. With Margie’s help, you will learn how to transform your fear into personal power and approach life with empathy, humour, and curiosity. It will change everything.

Available for $31.95 here!

Want more books for Acting? Check out our entire selection!

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Through the Bamboo by Andrea Mapili & Byron Abalos

Through the Bamboo is a full-length play for young audiences by Andrea Mapili and Byron Abalos. When Philly’s Lola (grandma) dies, she finds herself in the fantastical land of Uwi. Will Philly be able to end the reign of the evil Three Sisters, find her Lola, and bring her back home? Through the Bamboo is an action-packed tale suitable for the whole family, told in the style of The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Alice in Wonderland while rooted in Philippine mythology.

Available for $18.95 here!

Lady Sunrise by Marjorie Chan

Finalist for the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize)

Lady Sunrise is a full-length drama by Marjorie Chan. From the glittering high-rise condos to the desperate streets of Vancouver, Lady Sunrise is a tale told by women of social climbing and the fraying social fabric among the wealthy and hangers-on in the city’s Asian-Canadian community, where the pursuit of money is the only serious occupation.

Available for $18.95 here!

The Patron Saint of Stanley Park by Hiro Kanagawa

The Patron Saint of Stanley Park is a full-length drama by Hiro Kanagawa. On Christmas Eve, the one-year-anniversary of their father’s disappearance, Josh and Jennifer go to Stanley Park to honour his memory instead of catching a bus to their uncle’s place. When a mysterious homeless man leads them to a fantastical bunker beneath the park, they experience wondrous visions that help them understand the truth about their father.

Available for $17.95 here!

A Perfect Bowl of Pho by Nam Nguyen

A Perfect Bowl of Pho is a full-length musical with book and lyrics by Nam Nguyen, music by Wilfred Moeschter. Journey across the noodle of time and space as Nam Nguyen writes a genre-bending musical history of the Vietnamese diaspora, told through its foods – particularly the world-famous noodle soup pho. Expect rapping ancient kings, communist spies, and dancing sharks.

Available for $18.95 here!

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Radio Golf

Radio Golf is a bittersweet drama of assimilation and alienation set in 1997 in a storefront redevelopment office in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. It traces the forces of change on a neighbourhood and its people caught between history and the twenty-first century. Boasting chain stores and luxury, Harmond Wilks’ revitalization project will make him Pittsburgh’s first black mayor. And his radio host partner advocates golf as deliverance in the era of Tiger Woods. But a hold-out on their real estate deal forces them to question their pathways to success.

Available for $16.95 here!

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

Set in 1911 in a black boardinghouse in Pittsburgh, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone chronicles the experience of a man who has escaped from a chain-gang to search for the wife he lost many years earlier. August Wilson gives haunting voice to the souls of this dispossessed group of Americans at the beginning of the century. It is his epic vision, power and poetic sense that lift their stories to strange and compelling heights.

Available for $17.95 here!

Gem of the Ocean

Aunt Esther, the drama’s 287-year-old fiery matriarch, welcomes into her Hill District home Solly Two Kings, who was born into slavery and scouted for the Union Army, and Citizen Barlow, a young man from Alabama searching for a new life. Gem of the Ocean is the ninth work in August Wilson‘s ten-play cycle that has recorded the American Black experience and helped to define generations.

Available for $17.95 here!

Want more August Wilson plays? Check out our entire selection!

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27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays

The thirteen one-act plays collected in this volume include some of Tennessee Williams‘s finest and most powerful work. They are full of the perception of life as it is, and the passion for life as it ought to be, which have made The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire classics of the American theatre.

Available for $20.95 here!

The Eccentricities of a Nightingale

When Alma Winemiller, a sensitive and lonely young woman, becomes increasingly restive and disturbed by the fear she will remain a spinster, she makes an almost desperate attempt to win the man of her choice — the young doctor John Buchanan.

She finds herself hemmed in by her stern father, her deranged mother and the young man’s social-climbing mother who frowns on his attachment to Alma.

Available for $17.95 here!

Period of Adjustment

Two couples, one married for five years and the other recent newlyweds, experience ups and downs in their relationships, in a comedy of human foibles and frustrations.

Available for $17.95 here!

Suddenly Last Summer

In an opulent Garden District mansion, Violet Venable sets out to exact revenge on Catharine Holly. Truth, deceit and horror intermingle inside the garden walls where Catharine struggles for her life. What horrible secrets are locked in Catharine’s head, and why is Violet so determined to silence them…and could it be that Violet is the victim, and that Catharine is the hunter?

Available for $17.95 here!

Summer and Smoke

A Biz Staff Pick!

A repressed minister’s daughter nurses a longtime unrequited love for the boy next door, who grows up into a playboy whose nature is completely at odds with hers. A perennial favourite of summer theatres and schools, the play one of the author’s most highly regarded works.

Summer and Smoke has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues, female/female scenes, and female/male scenes.

Available for $17.95 here!

I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix

A fictionalized version of D. H. Lawrence’s last hours, supported by an abrasive wife, Frieda, and a doting friend, Lady Brett. As the poet clambers the tortured steps to death, refusing to go gently into that good night, we do get glimpses of Lawrence’s phoenix spirit and poetic pain; Lawrence was one of Williams’ chief literary influences.

Available for $17.95 here!

The Rose Tattoo

Set among a colony of Sicilian fisherfolk on the American Gulf Coast, The Rose Tattoo is the story of a woman for whom love was stronger than death. One of the author’s most beautiful and powerful plays.

Available for $17.95 here!

Not About Nightingales

Portrays a shocking prison scandal in which a prison warden locked some convicts leading a hunger strike in a section of jail made unbearably hot by radiators. An early Tennessee Williams play is based on a true incident and indelibly presages the great plays he was later to write.

Available for $17.95 here!

A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur

Focusing on one morning and one encounter of four women. The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner once again skillfully explores, with comic irony and great tenderness, the meaning of loneliness, the need for human connection, as well as the inevitable compromises one must make to get through ‘the long run of life.’

Available for $18.95 here!

Orpheus Descending

A Sicilian immigrant’s daughter, unhappily running a dry-goods store in the South and tending to her dying husband, is reawakened by a mysterious drifter who appears in town. A vague reworking of the Orpheus and Eurydice legend in modern America, with a Southern township presumably representing Hell.

Available for $17.95 here!

Clothes for a Summer Hotel

F. Scott Fitzgerald visits his wife, Zelda, in a mental hospital in Asheville, N.C. They look back over their lives and relationship in Tennessee Williams‘ final play to play Broadway in his lifetime.

Available for $17.95 here!

Camino Real

This hauntingly poetic allegory takes us to the mysterious Camino Real, a surreal netherworld populated by a colourful collection of lost souls anxious to escape but terrified of the unknown wasteland lurking beyond the city’s walls. When Kilroy, an American traveller and former boxer, inadvertently lands in Camino Real, he sets off on a phantasmagoric venture through illusion and temptation in an attempt to flee its confines – and defy his grim destiny.

Available for $17.95 here!

American Blues: Five Short Plays

Contains 5 one-act plays by Tennessee Williams published under the collective title American Blues. Included in this collection are: The Case of the Crushed Petunias, Moony’s Kid Don’t Cry, The Dark Room, Ten Blocks on the Camino Real, and The Long Stay Cut Short, or, The Unsatisfactory Supper.

Available for $17.95 here!

Sweet Bird of Youth

A local boy gone bad returns to his home town with an aging movie actress to reclaim his childhood sweetheart, but must face the brutal truth – lost innocence is impossible to resurrect but shame and regret live on forever.

Available for $17.95 here!

The Night of the Iguana

A Biz Staff Pick!

A defrocked priest accused of having sexual relations with a teenage girl seeks shelter at a Mexican inn run by his blowsy, widowed old friend, who finds herself competing for his attentions with a kindly spinster who is caring for her grandfather, an aging poet.

The Night of the Iguana has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues, male monologues, female/female scenes, and female/male scenes.

Available for $17.95 here!

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

A Biz Staff Pick!

In this Pulitzer Prize winner, a wealthy Southern patriarch faces impending death and manipulates his family, as his children squabble and mislead in desperate attempts to secure the family inheritance. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a modern tale of a world filled with people determined to keep secrets and lie while keeping up a certain appearance that feels particularly relevant in the age of social media and influencers. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues, female/male scenes, and male/male scenes.

Available for $17.95 here!

A Streetcar Named Desire

A Biz Staff Pick!

Fragile Southern belle Blanche DuBois moves to New Orleans to live with her sister, Stella, and her brutish brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski, in a dingy apartment. Temperaments clash, fireworks fly and secrets are revealed in Tennessee Williams‘ Pulitzer Prize-winning drama A Streetcar Named Desire. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

A Streetcar Named Desire has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues, female/female scenes, and female/male scenes.

Available for $17.95 here!

The Glass Menagerie

A Biz Staff Pick!

The author achieved his first major success with this autobiographical “memory play,” which looks at the Wingfield family – frustrated writer Tom, his nagging mother, Amanda, who is often lost in memories of her Southern-belle past, and his painfully shy sister, Laura – and the effect a visit from a “gentleman caller” for Laura has on all their lives. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

The Glass Menagerie has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues, male monologues, female/female scenes, and female/male scenes.

Available for $17.95 here!

Enjoy and comment below with your picks!

The post 18 Unforgettable Plays by Tennessee Williams appeared first on Biz Books.

Under Wraps by Robert Chafe

Under Wraps is a full-length drama by Robert Chafe. Mark is a nervous gay with a crush on a good-looking stranger. David is probably heterosexual but friendly enough toward Mark to keep him both interested and in a perpetual state of confusion. Under Wraps is a lyrical and laugh-out-load story of hopeless love and hard-won acceptance.

Shakespeare’s R & J by Joe Calarco

Shakespeare’s R&J is a full-length drama by Joe Calarco. When a repressive all-male Catholic boarding school bans Romeo and Juliet in favour of Latin conjugations and the Ten Commandments, four students unearth a secret copy of the script and steal into the night to recite the prohibited tale of adolescent passion. What begins as a lark gradually yields surprising discoveries about greed, love, and adulthood. A refreshing contemporary adaptation of Shakespare’s Romeo and Juliet. Four actors with no set, no costume changes and no props bring the essence of this classic tragedy vividly alive with the sheer theatricality of this timeless story.

The Way We Get By by Neil LaBute

The Way We Get By is a full-length drama by Neil LaBute. This two-hander follows the aftermath of a one night stand between two guests who wake up together following a drunken wedding reception and share a very awkward morning-after conversation about sex, society, and how much they really care about what other people think.

Gertrude and Alice by Evalyn Parry and Anna Chatterton

Finalist for the 2018 Governor General’s Literary Award (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize)

Gertrude and Alice is a full-length drama by Evalyn Parry and Anna Chatterton, in collaboration with Karin Randoja. The two-hander chronicles the romantic, sexual, social and work life of 20th-century literary icon Gertrude Stein and her devoted partner of nearly 40 years, Alice B. Toklas. Gertrude and Alice is the highly acclaimed story of their remarkable life together.

The Gentleman Caller by Philip Dawkins

The Gentleman Caller is a full-length drama by Philip Dawkins. Before becoming icons of American theatre, Tennessee Williams and William Inge were just two aspiring playwrights sharing a night together, shut away from the world’s judgment. As the liquor flows and confessions begin to spill out, these men reveal sides of themselves the public never saw, in all their vulnerabilities, flaws, and triumphs.

Enjoy and comment below with your picks!

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This Month’s Theme: Holiday Plays!

Bronwen’s Pick: Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol by Tom Mula

Cat’s Pick: Fruitcakes by Julian Wiles

Laine’s Pick: Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon

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