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Den of Thieves
Den of Thieves
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Author: Stephen Adly Guirgis Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 57 Pub. Date: 2004 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0822219239 ISBN-13: 9780822219231 Cast Size: 2 female, 5 male
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About
the Play:
Den of Thieves has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Male Monologues.
Den of Thieves is a full-length comedic drama by Stephen
Adly Guirgis. It's never a good idea to rip off the mob. But
cracking a safe to steal $750,000 in drug money proves too much to
resist for a quartet of inept thieves who try to pull off the perfect
crime in this early work by Stephen Adly Guirgis. Den of
Thieves is both primer and precursor for his more philosophically
dense later plays, including Between Riverside and Crazy,
which won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Den of Thieves is a crime-caper comedy about a quartet of
disorganized would-be crooks who foolishly try to rob-from-the-mob. As the action opens, Maggie is getting an emergency pep talk
from Paul, her sponsor in a twelve-step program for recovering
thieves. Maggie is a newly single, junk-food-binging shoplifter
looking to change her life and her self-hating ways. Paul is himself
in recovery for compulsive-overeating and kleptomania (among other
things). When Maggie's hyper ex, Flaco, bursts onto the scene, he
enlists Paul and Maggie's help in a supposedly "foolproof"
scheme to rob $750,000 in unprotected drug money sitting in a safe in
a downtown nightclub guarded by an easily distracted crackhead. This
dubious and ragtag would-be criminal crew is rounded out by Flaco's
new girlfriend, the hard-bodied Boochie – who refuses to let her
troubled childhood or her third-grade reading level stand in the way
of her inevitable path to fame, fortune and fur. When things don't
quite go according to plan, this bickering quartet of hapless thieves
finds themselves at the mercy of Louie "The Little Tuna"
Pescatore, a reluctant, donut-ingesting heir to the criminal empire
run by his ruthless father – "The Big Tuna" – who has left him
in charge for the weekend. The penalty for stealing from the Big Tuna
is death – "Ba Da Bing, Ba Da Boom." But soft-hearted
Louie offers them a break: "I need one body and three thumbs,
you can choose the who, whys and wherefores among yourselves."
Tied to chairs and able to move only their mouths, they must now
fight for their lives by out-arguing each other as to who deserves to
live. Verbal gymnastics and the struggle for self-awareness,
self-acceptance and self-love produce a high-octane battle for
survival that's not resolved until the last donut falls.
Den of Thieves opened to considerable acclaim in 1996
Off-Broadway at New York's LAByrinth Theater Company. The West Coast
premiere was in 2002 at the Black Dahlia Theatre in Los Angeles. Since then the play enjoyed widespread acceptance among leading regional theatres, and is regularly performed in college theatre productions as a showcase of student talent.
Cast: 2 female, 5 male
What people say:
"Den of Thieves
... Stephen Adly Guirgis' play about criminally
minded New York City have-nots involved in an ill-considered heist
…unfolds with crackling comic propulsion and a screwball
sweetness as unexpected as it is welcome…thoroughly impressive…."
— Los Angeles Times
"…smart and packed with
genre-twisting humor…." — San Francisco Chronicle
About the Playwright:
Stephen Adly Guirgis is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American
playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. Born and raised in New
York City by an Irish-American mother and Egyptian father, he studied
theatre at the State University of New York in Albany before being
recruited by John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman to
join New York City's non-profit LAByrinth Theater Company, of which
he later became a co-artistic director. His screenwriting credits
have included TV shows such as NYPD Blue and The Sopranos, and his
play Between Riverside and Crazy won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize
for Drama. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
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