Cover art by Randi B Robin

Bang

Laura Shaine Cunningham
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Description

A wild black comedy, set underground in a luxury subterranean condominium, designed to withstand nuclear and economic catastrophe. New Yorkers Len and Sheila visit their old friend Bev in her honeymoon home, which happens to be under the Utah desert. Bev has married Roy, a handsome charismatic psychotic, who happens to be an isolationist who has stocked his underground condo with enough DVDs, gourmet meals, and liquor to last ’til the next millennium. They don’t need a war to destroy themselves. The two married couples clash and burn as adultery and mayhem erupt.

Production Info

Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)
Full Length Dark Comedy (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Reviews

Press Quotes

“Cunningham came up with the idea for this play while researching a story for the New York Times on survivalists, those people who are training and preparing so they can survive the end of the world. BANG is far from a documentary, however. Cunningham uses survivalists as the raw material for a preposterous black comedy that highlights one manifestation of our modern madness.” —Tom Valeo, Chicago Herald

“Laura Cunningham’s script tells how a couple of east-coast, neurasthenic, miserable, impotent, boom-generation failures named Len and Sheila Calendar visit their old friend Bev and her new husband Roy in Roy’s underground, nuke-resistant condo in Utah … Naturally Len and Sheila and Roy and Bev get stuck down there together … Cunningham gives us all the predictable reversals, but BANG remains a hilarious analysis of who’s going to join the cockroaches at the end of the world and why. Hilarity: it’s in the lines, of which I wrote down a great many that I’m not going to read back to you here. Suffice to say that Cunningham maintains a laugh-per-line radio about equal to Neil Simon’s while remaining true to her situation and her considerable intelligence.” —Anthony Alder, Reader

“BANG is more than a farce, however … Cunningham has created a fantastic reality in her play, but within the nonsense are disturbing ideas that won’t be received by an audience unless delivered through laughter.” —Chicago Magazine

About the Author

Author

  • Laura Shaine Cunningham

    Laura Shaine Cunningham is the author of six full-length plays and several dozen short plays. She debuted at Steppenwolf Theater with a main stage production of her play BANG, a dark comedy set in an underground condominium. BANG received a Jefferson Award nomination. BEAUTIFUL BODIES premiered at Olympia Dukakis’s Whole Theater in New Jersey. BEAUTIFUL BODIES has gone on to worldwide major productions. BEAUTIFUL BODIES is one of the most popular plays in Russia (Current: State Theatre Ryazan in Ryazan, Russia, and Volgograd Theatre, Russia) and Ukraine, Finland, Bulgaria, Lithuania. Her short plays are published in numerous Random House anthologies, including Vintage’s Take Ten, Take Ten II, Plays for Actresses, Leading Women, Laugh Lines, and in Shorter, Faster, Funnier and in many of the Applause Books “Best Plays” series. SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS premiered at Theater J, in Washington D.C. and WEB CAM WOMAN premiered at 13th Street Repertory Theater, and in London, at the Roundhouse. Her New York Times columns, and novels and articles often inspire or were derived from her plays. She regards herself as “trans-genre” — playwright-author-journalist and enjoys working in all three forms. She has published nine books. Laura Shaine Cunningham gives frequent lectures, and has taught playwriting at such prestigious universities as Harvard, Princeton, N.Y.U and Bennington. She is the Artistic Director of The Memoir Institute. She is a member playwright at Herbert Berghof Playwright Foundation in New York, and alumna of New Dramatists in New York, and has often worked as a member playwright in the PD (Playwright/Director Unit) at The Actors Studio in New York.

About the Book

Book Information

Publisher BPPI
Publication Date 12/1/2005
Pages 80
ISBN 9780881453003

Special Notes

Special Notes

Licensees are required to include the original stage producers credits in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
The following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
Bang is produced
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com