Plays

by Adam Rapp

This collection contains three full-length plays:
NOCTURNE
ANIMALS AND PLANTS
BLACKBIRD

NOCTURNE:

"'There's a finality in fact,' says the narrator of Adam Rapp's grief-laden monologue NOCTURNE, a stunning confrontation with truth that spares neither the character or the audience.
The fact, simply stated, is this: `Fifteen years ago I killed my sister.' So says a young man identified only as the Son, who accidentally decapitates his sibling in an auto accident and then attempts to come to terms with what he has done.
This reconciliation forms the heart and soul of NOCTURNE, a startling, unnerving work of art that fiercely pushes the boundaries of theater. The play...is dense, almost novelistic, in its approach to a personal horror story.
NOCTURNE... is also intensely lyrical, musical in its sounds and in its silences.
Make no mistake. Rapp is an original—a distinctive voice unafraid to be too descriptive..."
Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press

"Rapp uses subtle, sensuous, bold and funny language...
So detailed and poetic is the writing...that we buy and are powerfully moved by the whole thing."
Donald Lyons, New York Post

1 M


ANIMALS AND PLANTS:

"Rough-spoken, raunchy, and sometimes guffawingly funny, award-winning playwright and novelist Adam Rapp's ANIMALS AND PLANTS is very different from his NOCTURNE...
The sheer liveliness of Rapp's dialogue and his multifaceted characters keep his play afloat...
...a lurid comic phantasmagoria of life on the underside of Middle America."
Markland Taylor, Variety

3 M, 2 F


BLACKBIRD:

"...a terrifically impressive British debut for new U S playwright Adam Rapp. Froggy and Baylis are two wrecked drifters in a New York squat...
BLACKBIRD could, in the hands of a lesser dramatist, be a crude mix of in-your-face grunge and sentimentality...
...actually, the squalor here is both appalling and cryingly funny and Rapp has a brilliant ear for talk."
The Independent

"There is a strange tenderness in Rapp's writing that marks him out as one to watch.
Rapp has genuine Gorky-esque talent and loves his characters as all-consumingly as they do each other."
The Guardian

1 M, 1 F

Paperback

Published January 1, 2002

About the author

Adam Rapp says that when he was working on his chilling, compulsively readable young adult novel 33 SNOWFISH, he was haunted by several questions. Among them: "When we have nowhere to go, who do we turn to? Why are we sometimes drawn to those who are deeply troubled? How far do we have to run before we find new possibilities?"

At once harrowing and hypnotic, 33 SNOWFISH--which was nominated as a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association--follows three troubled young people on the run in a stolen car with a kidnapped baby in tow. With the language of the street and lyrical prose, Adam Rapp hurtles the reader into the world of lost children, a world that is not for the faint of heart. His narration captures the voices of two damaged souls (a third speaks only through drawings) to tell a story of alienation, deprivation, and ultimately, the saving power of compassion. "For those readers who are ready to be challenged by a serious work of shockingly realistic fiction," notes SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, "it invites both an emotional and intellectual response, and begs to be discussed."

Adam Rapp’s first novel, MISSING THE PIANO, was named a Best Book for Young Adults as well as a Best Book for Reluctant Readers by the American Library Association. His subsequent titles include THE BUFFALO TREE, THE COPPER ELEPHANT, and LITTLE CHICAGO, which was chosen as a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. The author’s raw, stream-of-consciousness writing style has earned him critical acclaim. "Rapp’s prose is powerful, graphic and haunting," says SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL. [He] writes in an earthy but adept language," says KIRKUS REVIEWS. "Takes a mesmerizing hold on the reader," adds HORN BOOK MAGAZINE.

In addition to being a novelist, Adam Rapp is also an accomplished and award-winning playwright. His plays--including NOCTURNE, ANIMALS AND PLANTS, BLACKBIRD, and STONE COLD DEAD SERIOUS--have been produced by the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the New York Theatre Workshop, and the Bush Theatre in London, among other venues.

Born and raised in Chicago, the novelist and playwright now lives in New York City.