Three new plays by two-time Emmy Award winning playwright Sherman Yellen, with a Foreword by Broadway lyricist Sheldon Harnick (“Fiddler on the Roof”). DECEMBER FOOLS Gloria Temple, the widow of a renowned musical theatre composer, must induce her estranged daughter Marcie to carry on her work running an arts foundation. But when Marcie stumbles upon a hidden cache of her mother’s unmailed letters, the means by which Gloria vents her anger, Marcie may be unable to resist the urge for payback for her unhappy childhood. This witty drama features five roles for women from mid-40s to 70s, plus one versatile actor. “The play has some delicious comic scenes.” New York Times BUDAPEST In this contemporary version of Camille set in New York City in 1964, two young screenwriters become involved in the life of Minna, a beautiful survivor of Nazi and Soviet cruelty, whose influence will change them all. This dark comedy offers roles for three actresses in their 40s to 50s, two young men, plus a versatile character actor. GIN LANE Beth Hamilton Grauer has a loving husband, two young children, and a mansion on Gin Lane in Southampton inherited from her industrialist father. But when her husband forges a loan document using her house as collateral, she must make some life-altering decisions. This contemporary drama features two women and two men in their early to mid-40s and one man around 60. From the Foreword by Sheldon Harnick: Having collaborated with Sherman Yellen twice (on the musicals "The Rothschilds" and "Rex"), I thought I knew what to expect when I read this tripartite play collection: interesting, larger than life characters, intelligent, sophisticated dialogue spiced with wit and marked by an enviable command of language, expert stagecraft, and a sure-handed exploitation of the dramatic situations he had created. Nor was I disappointed; all of those elements are there aplenty. What I didn't expect was the element of surprise, adroitly employed for dramatic effect. Both "The Rothschilds" and "Rex" are historical tales of real people in real situations. We had to assume that our audiences (at least those that were acquainted with the history involved) would expect these characters to travel on foreordained paths to predetermined destinations. Anything else would be falsifying history. Not so the three plays comprising "December Fools and Other Plays." The characters in these plays, springing from Sherman’s free-wheeling imagination, are free to act in unpredictable ways—and they do! In "December Fools" and "Gin Lane," Sherman treats us to the gratification of unexpectedly upbeat endings, whereas, in "Budapest," the major surprise (there are several) is a poignant, deliberately recognizable variation of one of the key scenes in "Camille." And here I have to confess that Sherman had so thoroughly involved me in this drama, I had to assure myself that after the final curtain fell the telephone would ring, a desired conversation would ensue, and our heroine would be happy once again! A word about the characters in these plays: they are complex, three-dimensional souls, part saint, part sinner. True, they tend to live in worlds most of us don’t inhabit, with incomes we can only envy. This being so, one might think that their problems would be alien to us. Instead, Sherman’s innate sense of compassion and his ability to people his plays with real human beings guarantee that their problems will register as intensified versions of our own. Consequently, we grieve with their sorrows and share their triumphs. So here is my recommendation. Open a bottle of your favorite wine, settle down in your most comfortable chair and prepare to spend several enjoyable hours in the company of colorful, well-spoken people working their way through highly dramatic situations. You’ll find, as I have, that time spent with Sherman Yellen is time well spent.

December Fools and Other Plays: (December Fools - Budapest - Gin Lane)

Literature & Fiction

Yellen, Sherman

Dramas & Plays

Moreclacke Publishing

Playwright, librettist, Tony nominee, and two-time Emmy Award-winning writer Sherman Yellen lovingly recreates the world of his impoverished forebears before World War I; his troubled, prosperous, mendacious father; his beautiful, willful fashion-model mother, and especially his own New York childhood in the 1930s and 40s in this remarkable family saga. Yellen's childhood witnessed both great events and the everyday life of a city boy in an embattled family, all viewed through the eyes of an observant little boy waiting impatiently for his body to catch up to his all-seeing consciousness. Yellen summons up this lost world of a New York Jewish-American family during the Great Depression and World War II with candor and love and brings it back to vivid new life.

Spotless: Memories of a New York Childhood

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Vanya loves Natasha, Natasha loves Alyosha, Alyosha loves Katya, Prince Valkovsky loves money, and little orphan Nellie just wants to be loved by someone. In Nineteenth Century Russia, a young novelist looks back on a dramatic year of his life in THE USED AND ABUSED, a fresh retelling of an early Fyodor Dostoyevsky novel previously translated and published under such titles as THE INSULTED AND INJURED, INJURY AND INSULT, THE INSULTED AND HUMILIATED, and HUMILIATED AND INSULTED. Written while he was serving time in a Russian prison, Dostoyevsky was heavily influenced by the novels of Charles Dickens. A frustrated love affair, an orphan girl in jeopardy, a scheming aristocrat, and an angry father who casts his daughter out of his life are just a few of the ingredients that make this witty and poignant novel a delight to read. THE USED AND ABUSED is also available as an unabridged audiobook narrated by stage and television actor Philip Hoffman.

The Used and Abused: Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Insulted and Injured Retold

Armin, Robert

Literary

Lord Knows, At Least I Was There: Working with Stephen Sondheim

When the Atlanta-born Paul Ford first fell in love with the American musical theatre at the age of five, after seeing the movie version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, he never imagined that his future skills as a "piano thumper" would lead him to a career on Broadway playing rehearsals or in the "pit" for such classic Stephen Sondheim musicals as Sunday in the Park with George, Follies in Concert, Into the Woods, Assassins (both off-Broadway and the Broadway revival), Passion, the 2005 production of Pacific Overtures, Wiseguys, Stephen Sondheim at Carnegie Hall, and numerous concerts, birthday tributes, and television spectaculars. In two of his Tony award acceptance speeches, Sondheim publicly declared Paul Ford the "indefatigable master of the musical theatre" and "the world's most tireless rehearsal pianist and a walking memory bank of every song that has ever been written for any musical on any continent."\nFor more than 25 years, Paul Ford was also Mandy Patinkin's exclusive accompanist and musical collaborator on a series of recordings and live concerts that took the duo from Broadway to London to Australia and beyond. Patinkin offers a heartfelt tribute to his former associate in the book's Foreword.\nNow retired, the candid (and admittedly opinionated) author looks back on the performances and personalities that defined the American musical theatre in the waning years of the Twentieth Century. Patti LuPone, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Donna Murphy, Elaine Stritch, Victor Garber, Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon, Stockard Channing, Donna McKechnie, Lauren Bacall, Chita Rivera, Liza Minnelli, Martin Charnin, Liv Ullman, Teresa Stratas, Charles Strouse, Harve Presnell, Nancy Walker, James Lapine, Madonna, Mario Cantone, Warren Beatty, Julie Harris, Michael Cerveris, Debra Monk, Leonard Bernstein and, of course, Stephen Sondheim, are just a few of the legendary Broadway and Hollywood performers and creators who are lovingly (and sometimes not so lovingly) recalled in Paul Ford's honest and vivid account of his life and work both on and off-Broadway. He also provides a portrait of his conflicted childhood in Atlanta, Georgia as a "sissy piano player," followed by a self-destructive period of alcoholism. Miraculously, a haunting encounter in a Hell's Kitchen saloon in May of 1995 with the leading lady of one of his favorite childhood movies, gave Ford the incentive to clean up his life.

Ford, Paul

Humor & Entertainment

Paul Ford recalls his decades long professional relationship with Broadway’s masterful songwriter Stephen Sondheim, who has publicly declared Ford the “indefatigable master of the musical theatre” and “the world’s most tireless rehearsal pianist and a walking memory bank of every song that has ever been written for any musical on any continent.” Ford worked on the original productions of Sunday in the Park with George, Follies in Concert, Into the Woods, Assassins (both off-Broadway and the Broadway revival), Passion, Wiseguys, Stephen Sondheim at Carnegie Hall, and numerous concerts, birthday tributes, and television spectaculars. For more than a quarter of a century, Paul Ford was also Mandy Patinkin’s exclusive accompanist and musical collaborator on a series of recordings and live concerts that took the duo from Broadway to London to Australia and beyond. Ford also provides a vivid portrait of a conflicted childhood in Atlanta, Georgia as a “sissy piano player,” followed by a self-destructive period of alcoholism. Miraculously, a haunting encounter in a Hell’s Kitchen saloon in May of 1995 with the leading lady of one of his favorite childhood movies, gave Ford the incentive to clean up his life.

Arts & Literature

MARY & ETHEL and Mikey Who?

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Cole, Stephen

Fantasy

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