Sonnets for an Old Century
Play Description
SONNETS FOR AN OLD CENTURY examines what it means to be alive at this particular time and place and what traces each of us will leave behind. In a series of exquisitely written monologues, using dance and live music, SONNETS captures the subtle, often overlooked treasures of everyday life.
Production Info
Cast: 2 total (1 female, 1 male, up to 12 actors, flexible casting)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
- Productions
Press Quotes
“Now we have a SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY to call our own, a work whose scope and insights begin to suggest an OUR TOWN for our generation. The only question left involves what we do with the information. It is a fearsome enough thing. Its name is SONNETS FOR AN OLD CENTURY. Much as Edgar Masters did nearly ninety years before — with a much larger sample from a much smaller town — playwright Jose Rivera gives eighteen characters from present-day Los Angeles and environs one final chance in this collection of dramatic monologues to speak their peace about their lives, apparently from just the other side of the grave.” —Byron Woods, The Independent
“Could you tell your life story In the space of a moment, the length of a sonnet? Playwright Jose Rivera attempts to answer that question for sixteen different individuals in a moving yet amazingly unencumbered play he has titled SONNETS FOR AN OLD CENTURY. In a moment somewhere between life and afterlife, these individuals are assembled. One man, who has been waiting for them, tells them that they have one final chance to tell their stories, and that their words will go out to the universe. This is a deceptively simple work. Yet it builds in its intensity as each storyteller brings his or her own story to life. These are people that we would meet on the street; they are ordinary souls. But their stories are not. They focus power center-stage with their individual stories and what they learned from them. There is not a plot here; there are sixteen individual plots. And each story, small as it might be in and of itself, fills the space, and our ears and our minds, with feeling; joy, fear, rage, love, sorrow; and makes each one expand to fill this void. We as listeners are forced to face these ravaging emotions, even as we contemplate the death of the storyteller. This work is simple, and simply potent in its impact. And while it seems to do without the trappings of stagework, set, plot, scenes, etc, it is powerfully theatrical.” —Alan R Hall, Front Row Center
Book Information
Publisher | BPPI |
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Publication Date | 9/1/2005 |
Pages | 80 |
ISBN | 9780881452525 |
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them 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:
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com