About the Book:

In Best Women's Stage Monologues and Scenes 2009, veteran editor Lawrence Harbison, a man who has spent his career championing new and established playwrights by bringing their work into print, has selected a rich and varied selection of monologues and scenes from plays which were produced and/or published in the 2008-2009 theatrical season.

Most are for younger performers (teens through thirties), but there are also some excellent pieces for women in their forties and fifties, and even a few for older performers. Some are comic (laughs), some are dramatic (generally, no laughs). Some are rather short, some are rather long. All represent the best in contemporary playwriting. Several of the monologues are by playwrights whose work may be familiar to you, such as Don Nigro, Sam Bobrick, Adam Rapp, Bill Cain, Jose Rivera, Stephen Belber, Keith Reddin, Naomi Iizuka, Michael Weller, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Richard Vetere, and Nicky Silver; others are by exciting up-and-comers like Steven Leigh Morris, Saviana Stanescu, Liz Flahive, Stephanie Allison Walker, Cheri Magid, Jennifer Maisel, Andrew Grosso, David Caudle, Nina Raine, John Kolvenbach, Sylvia Reed, and Lucy Thurber.

The scenes are by master playwrights, such as Jose Rivera, Gina Gionfriddo, Jeffrey Hatcher, A. R. Gurney, and Aguirre-Sacasa, and by exciting new playwrights, such as Vincent Delaney, Stanescu, Lydia Stryk, Grosso, and Larry Kunofsky.

This is a must-have resource in the arsenal of every aspiring actor hoping to knock 'em dead with her contemporary piece after bowling over teachers and casting directors alike with a classical excerpt.

About the Editor:

Lawrence Harbison was in charge of new play acquisitions for Samuel French for over thirty years, where his work on behalf of playwrights resulted in the first publication of such subsequent luminaries as Jane Martin, Don Nigro,Tina Howe, Theresa Rebeck, José Rivera, William Mastrosimone, and Ken Ludwig, among many others. He has served as literary manager or literary consultant for several New York theatres, and has also served many times over the years as a judge and commentator for various national play contests and lectures regularly at colleges and universities.