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Anton in Show Business

Anton in Show Business
Your Price: $18.95 CDN
Author: Jane Martin
Publisher: Samuel French (cover may change)
Format: Softcover
# of Pages: 86
Pub. Date: 2018
Edition: Acting
ISBN-10: ‎0573627452
ISBN-13: 9780573627453
Cast Size: 7 female

About the Play:

Anton in Show Business has become a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Female Scenes.

Anton in Show Business is a full-length comedy by Jane Martin. This madcap comedy follows the trials and tribulations of three actresses cast in an ill-fated production of Chekhov's classic, "The Three Sisters". A satiric comedy that also echoes poignant themes of this classic Chekhov play, Anton in Show Business is theatrical, but the themes of insecurity, following one's dreams, and trying to balance art and life, are universal.

Anton in Show Business follows Casey Mulgraw, a veteran actress who has more than 200 off-off Broadway productions (without ever drawing a salary), Lisabette Cartwright, a naive recent graduate of acting school, and Holly Seabé, an out-of-work Hollywood film and TV actress who is trying to restart her career with a legitimate theatre role, whom collectively are on a quest to put on an Anton Chekhov classic: "The Three Sisters." As these women pursue their dream of performing Chekhov in a regional theatre company, they're whisked through a maelstrom of "good ideas" that offer unique solutions to the Three Sisters' need to have life's deeper purpose revealed. In the tradition of great backstage comedies, Anton in Show Business is a play within a play (within a play) that conveys the joys, pains and absurdities of "putting on a show" with keen wit, acute irony and perceptive humour. In a twist on the custom of the olden days in theatre, when female characters would be played by male actors, the all-female cast plays characters of both genders.

Anton in Show Business premiered in 2000 at the famed Actors Theatre of Louisville and wowed audiences as part of the annual Festival of New American Plays, an influential showplace for playwrights. It was directed of Jon Jory whose notes are published with the play. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, college, and fringe theatre productions.

Cast: 7 female

What people say:

"A smart, acerbic crowd pleaser [...] Simultaneously a love letter and a poison pen letter to the American theatre." — Variety

"Funny, smart, wry and poignant." — Miami Herald

"Consciously an example of the problem it addresses, often with aching hilarity, that the world of theatre is growing ever more estranged from the straightforward business of telling stories." — The New York Times

About the Playwright:

Jane Martin, apparently from Kentucky, has been referred to as "America's best known, unknown playwright". The name Jane Martin is widely believed to be a pseudonym. She has been nominated for the Pulitzer prize, and won the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award twice. But she has never made any public appearances or spoken about any of her works. Nor has she ever given an interview. No biographical details are known about her. No photographs of Ms. Martin have ever been published.

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