Plays for Actresses

by Eric Lane (Editor), Nina Shengold (Editor)

Gather any group of actresses, from students to stars, and someone will inevitably ask, "Where are all the great roles for women?" The roles are right here, in this unprecedented and magnificently diverse collection of plays with all-female casts. The seven full-length and ten one-act selections range in tone from the unabashed theatricality of Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning Three Tall Women to the blistering black comedy of Laura Cunningham's Beautiful Bodies .
 
Their characters include uprooted Japanese war brides, outrageously liberated Shakespearean heroines, an avenging African American housewife, and nuns who double as Catholic schoolgirls.

Whether you're looking for a script to produce or a scene for an acting class, this book will provide you with a wealth of juicy, challenging female roles as it introduces you to some of the finest playwrights at work today.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre

640 pages, Paperback

First published March 25, 1997

Reviews

[Khumbo Mhone]

Lots of great selections for monologues.

[behsforensics]

Cutting is for The Role of Della
By John Wooten

Another cutting is for Lives of the Great Waitresses
By Nina Shengold

[Laura Floyd]

I read all the one-acts, but none of the full-length shows, so I won't give this a rating. I enjoyed most of the one-acts, though some of them were SO strange, and utterly unrealistic for a small community theater, so... point defeated. The Role of Della is what I was looking for when I picked this up, and it's as awesome as I remember it. Gonne do that one some day.