• My Account
  • Quick Order
  • Cart
  • Checkout
 
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Clients

 
  • Home
  • The Plays
    • The Plays
    • Not Yet Published
    • Newly Published
    • Bestsellers
    • Classics
    • Collections
    • Bundles
    • Catalog
  • Performance Rights
    • Restrictions
    • Payments
    • Performance Rights
    • Upcoming Productions
  • Authors
  • FAQs
    • FAQs
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Wholesale Customers
    • Desk Copies
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
Menu
  • Home
  • The Plays
    • The Plays
    • Not Yet Published
    • Newly Published
    • Bestsellers
    • Classics
    • Collections
    • Bundles
    • Catalog
  • Performance Rights
    • Restrictions
    • Payments
    • Performance Rights
    • Upcoming Productions
  • Authors
  • FAQs
    • FAQs
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Wholesale Customers
    • Desk Copies
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
 

  • Home
  • The Plays
    • The Plays
    • Not Yet Published
    • Newly Published
    • Bestsellers
    • Classics
    • Collections
    • Bundles
    • Catalog
  • Performance Rights
    • Restrictions
    • Payments
    • Performance Rights
    • Upcoming Productions
  • Authors
  • FAQs
    • FAQs
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Wholesale Customers
    • Desk Copies
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
 
  • Home
  • >
  • The Plays
  • >
  • The Romance of Magno Rubio
    Cover art by Noah Scalin, Another Limited Rebellion

    The Romance of Magno Rubio

    Lonnie Carter, with Loy Arcenas, based on the short story "The Romance of Magno Rubio" by Carlos Bulosan, additional dialogue in Filipino by Ralph B Peña
    Trade Edition$15.95
    ePlay$15.00 + $10.00 per additional user
    Performance Rights

    Play Description

    Set in the central valleys of California in the 1930s, the play focuses on Magno Rubio, an illiterate Filipino farm worker and his pen-pal courtship with Clarabelle, a white woman from Arkansas who advertises in the back pages of a “lonely hearts” magazine. Believing he's found the woman of his dreams, Magno fantasizes about their life together, only to soon realize that reality and dreams do not always align.

    Production Info

    Cast: 5 total (5 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 80 minutes)
    Single Set
    Contemporary Costumes
    Categories: The Plays Tags: 1930s, Asian
    • Reviews
    • About the Author(s)
    • About the Book
    • Special Notes
    • Productions

    Press Quotes

    “If the Rainbow Coalition had a playwrights’ wing, Lonnie Carter would be a leading candidate to chair it.”—Mike Boehm, Los Angeles Times

    “The high-priest of multicultural hiphop, Lonnie Carter, brought his übertheatricality to a movingly simple story of Filipino migrant workers scratching their way toward love and self-worth.” —Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune

    “There may be no bouquets of flowers or Michel Legrand love songs in THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO, but this unusual eighty minute fable … has much to say about the world’s most delicate emotion. Playwright Lonnie Carter uses an intriguing mixture of verse, music and dialogue.” —Brian Scott Lipton, The New York Post

    “The play is virtually musical. Lonnie Carter’s text throbs with rhyme and rhythm.” —Don Shirley, The Los Angeles Times

    “THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO is one of those theatrical gems that heals your heart even as it breaks it. A magnificent piece of deeply humanistic storytelling … This is the tall tale of a man who may be small in stature and worldly goods, but is gigantic in his ability to believe in himself and his dreams — or at least in his ability to keep self-delusion alive. It is classic in its outline. But it is distinctive in the way Carter’s lyrical yet powerfully rhythmic language (English laced with bursts of Tagalog, a Filipino language) melds sounds and cultures.” —Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times

    “One of the best off-Broadway plays of the season.” —New York Times

    “A beautifully conceived fable.” —Variety

    Author(s)

    • Lonnie Carter

      Lonnie Carter's play THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO received eight Obies for its production by the Ma-Yi Theatre Company in 2003. His plays have been produced by The Yale Repertory Theater, the American Place Theater, Victory Gardens Theater, the Long Wharf Theater, and at the first Asian-American Theater Festival in New York City (2007), the Los Angeles Theater Center's Latino Theater Festival (also 2007) and festivals abroad (the Philippines and Romania). His plays include CHINA CALLS, THE SOVEREIGN STATE OF BOOGEDY BOOGEDY, THE GULLIVER PLAYS (LEMUEL, GULLIVER, AND GULLIVER REDUX, published by Broadway Play Publishing), BABY GLO, WHEATLEY (the Colonial HippeHoppe story of Phillis Wheatley), CONCERTO CHICAGO, and most recently THE LOST BOYS OF SUDAN, produced by the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis (Tony Winner for Best Regional Theatre 2003). THE LOST BOYS (AND GIRL) OF SUDAN was produced by Victory Gardens in 2010. He is a charter member of the Victory Gardens Playwrights' Ensemble. (Victory Gardens was the Tony Winner for Best Regional Theatre 2001). He is an Alumnus of New Dramatists in New York and the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and Marquette University, a Guggenheim Fellow and twice a Fellow of the National Endowment of the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. He has taught at the Yale School of Drama, the Hammerstein Theater Center at Columbia University and the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. His screenplay for THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO is in pre-production.

    • Carlos Bulosan

      Carlos Bulosan was born in the Philippines in the rural farming village of Mangusmana, near the town of Binalonan (Pangasinan province, Luzon island). He was the son of a farmer and spent most of his upbringing in the countryside with his family. Like many families in the Philippines, Carlos's family struggled to survive during times of economic hardship. Many families were impoverished and many more would suffer because of the conditions in the Philippines created by US colonization. Rural farming families like Carlos's family experienced severe economic disparity due to the growing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the economic and political elite. Determined to help support his family and further his education, Carlos decided to come to America with the dream to fulfill these goals. Traveling by ship, Carlos arrived in Seattle on July 22, 1930 at the age of seventeen. With only three years of education from the Philippines, Carlos spoke little English and had barely any money left. Desperate to survive, he soon began working various low-paying jobs: servicing in hotels, harvesting in the fields, and even embarking to the Alaskan canneries. During his hardships in finding employment, Carlos experienced much economic difficulty and racial brutality that significantly damaged his health and eventually changed his perception of America. From several years of racist attacks, starvation, and sickness, Carlos underwent surgery for tuberculosis in Los Angeles. His health condition with tuberculosis forced him to undergo three operations where he lost most of the right side of his ribs and the function of one lung. Yet, he recovered and stayed in the hospital for about two years where he spent much of his time reading and writing. The discrimination and unhealthy working conditions Carlos had experienced in many of his workplaces encouraged him to participate in union organizing with other Filipinos and various workers. Carlos become a self-educated and prolific writer determined to voice the struggles he had undergone as a Filipino coming to America and the struggles he had witnessed of other people. Like many of his fellow Filipinos in his time, Carlos never had the opportunity to return to the Philippines. After years of hardship and flight, he passed away in Seattle suffering from an advanced stage of bronchopneumonia. He is buried at Queen Anne Hill in Seattle.

    • Ralph B Peña

      Ralph is a founding member and the current Artistic Director of the Obie and Drama Desk Award – winning Ma-Yi Theater Company. Recent directing credits include Michael Lew's MICROCRISIS (EST/Youngblood and Ma-Yi Theater Company), Lloyd Suh's CHILDREN OF VONDERLY (Ma-Yi) and HAPPY END OF THE WORLD (Children's Theater Company and Ma-Yi at Arena Stage), Nicky Paraiso's HOUSE/BOY (La Mama ETC, Singapore and Dublin Theater Festivals), and SAVAGE ACTS by Kia Corthron, Han Ong, Sung Rno, and Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas (Ma-Yi). He is also the author of FLIPZOIDS, DEAD MAN'S SOCKS, I__NY, PROJECT: BALANGINA (with Sung Rno), and additional text and lyrics for Lonnie Carter's THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO (Obie Award).

    Book Information

    Publisher BPPI
    Publication Date 2/1/2005
    Pages 50
    ISBN 9780881452600

    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:

    Originally produced by Ma-Yi Theater Company, New York

    In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:

    The Romance of Magno Rubio is produced
    by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
    www.broadwayplaypublishing.com

    Upcoming and Recent Productions

    Professional


    4/23/2025 – 4/26/2025
    Theater Alaska
    Juneau, AK

    Related Plays

    $15.00–$15.95
    Soul Samurai
    Qui Nguyen
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    After avenging the death of her lover, a young samurai girl named Dewdrop, along with her faithful sidekick Cert, must now battle through vampire-infested Brooklyn to make it back home.

    Production Info

    Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male, Multiethnic Cast)
    Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Contemporary Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Diosa
    Edwin Sánchez
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    A beautiful young girl who rises her parent’s ballroom dancing act to film stardom. Inspired by the life of Rita Hayworth.

    Production Info

    Cast: 6 total (2 female, 4 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 85 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Contemporary Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G
    Qui Nguyen
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    It’s been 10 years since Agent G has last been in Vietnam where his family and friends were all viciously slain. He’s now come back looking for answers and a good bit of revenge. However, mysterious forces are at hand trying to stop him as well as the playwright from finishing this brutal task.

    Production Info

    Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Contemporary Costumes
    Esperanza Rising
    Lynne Alvarez, adapted from a story by Pam Muñoz Ryan

    Play Description

    ESPERANZA RISING is the story of a young girl who is uprooted, transplanted, and re-grown in alien soil. The glorious, live music of Mariachis carries Esperanza (whose name means “hope”) across the dividing line that cuts through the center of this play. That line (both literal and figurative) divides two countries, two cultures, and two languages. It also separates Mexico and California, the year 1930 from 1931, and Act One from Act Two. Brought up in the lush and beautiful world of the Mexican aristocracy and then torn away and replanted in the impoverished world of a migrant labor camp in California, Esperanza ultimately fulfills the promise of her name.

    Production Info

    Cast: 11 total (6 female, 5 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Pulp
    Joseph Zettelmaier
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    Los Angeles, 1933. PI Frank Ellery doesn’t know it, but he’s taken on the strangest case of his life. A literary agent has been gruesomely murdered. The four suspects: his remaining clients, all writers for different pulp magazines. Frank dives into the mystery, and his world turns upside down as life begins to imitate literature. Science fiction, romance, adventure, horror … and one down-on-his-luck gumshoe who’s about to learn what really lurks between the lines.

    Production Info

    Cast: 5 total (1 female, 4 male)
    Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Contemporary Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Far East
    A R Gurney
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    Set in the 1950s, FAR EAST tells of a young naval officer looking for fun in Japan before Voice of America calls him home.

    Production Info

    Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Contemporary Costumes
    $11.95–$15.00
    A Bright Room Called Day
    Tony Kushner
    $11.95–$15.00

    Play Description

    From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of ANGELS IN AMERICA comes this powerful portrayal of individual dissolution and resolution in the face of political catastrophe.

    Production Info

    Cast: 9 total (5 female, 4 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 160 minutes)
    Multiple Sets
    Contemporary Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Two September
    Mac Wellman
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    TWO SEPTEMBER is set in post-WWII Vietnam, when Ho Chi Minh had visions of a free country and a newly formed House UnAmerican Affairs Committee blacklisted a young, female American writer who believed in truth, justice, and a humane social order.

    Production Info

    Cast: 7 total (4 female, 3 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 75 minutes)
    Multiple Sets
    Contemporary Costumes
    $0.00–$15.95
    The White Death
    Daniel Therriault
    $0.00–$15.95
    Winner of a Drama-Logue Award for Best Writing

    Play Description

    In a satire of hard-boiled film noir, a priest-operative force-baptizes sinners at gunpoint to save their souls. The operative, Rev Hunter, comes to the Volcano Bar, which perches on the rim of an active volcano in Hawaii, to investigate a murder. He becomes entangled in a series of murders and corporate intrigue as he interacts with a local prostitute who sees herself as a small business, a violent allergic Hawaiian, and the bar owner who dreams of running a first-class restaurant. Roles for Asian, Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander actors.

    Production Info

    Cast: 6 total (1 female, 5 male, flexible casting up to 8 actors)
    Full Length Comedy (about 120 minutes)
    Single Set
    Contemporary Costumes
    A Small Delegation
    Janet Neipris

    Play Description

    Three American professors come to teach in China the summer before Tiananmen Square. The Cultural Revolution is over, but when Remy, the American professor, attempts to bond with her Chinese translator, Sun, the friendship proves to be impossible for political reasons. Remy means to do good but fails to understand the cultural differences between the Western world and the Orient. When she tempts Sun with an opportunity to teach in America, offering what she thinks is the expected bribe to the passport officer, she tragically destroys the life of her Chinese friend. A gift is only a gift if you can afford to receive it.

    Production Info

    Cast: 8 total (5 female, 3 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 130 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Contemporary Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Last Days of the High Flier
    Dennis J Reardon
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    Set in 1963, LAST DAYS OF THE HIGH FLIER is the story of a young man waiting for his life to begin, the mysterious ex-pilot who enters his life, and the intricate dance of friendship, betrayal, and forgiveness that takes place between the two men. Historically based, the story revolves around political conspiracies, including the CIA’s secret war in Laos. It also addresses personal struggles that occurred almost a half-century ago but still have relevance in an age in which intelligence failures and civil liberties threats dominate the news.

    Production Info

    Cast: 10 total (4 female, 6 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 130 minutes)
    Multiple Sets
    Contemporary Costumes

    Contact Info

    BROADWAY PLAY PUBLISHING INC
    148 W 80th St, NY, NY 10024
    Open: Mon – Fri, 8am – 6pm EST
    Tel: 212-772-8334
    info@broadwayplaypublishing.com
    www.broadwayplaypublishing.com

    Company Info

    • About Us
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Contact Us

    Pages

    • Home
    • The Plays
    • Performance Rights
    • Authors
    • FAQs
    • Blog

    Newsletter Sign Up

    • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
    © Broadway Play Publishing Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

    ‹ › ×