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Mere Mortals: Six One-Act Comedies

Mere Mortals: Six One-Act Comedies
Your Price: $18.95 CDN
Author: David Ives
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change)
Format: Softcover
# of Pages: 110
Pub. Date: 1998
Edition: Acting
ISBN-10: 0822216329
ISBN-13: 9780822216322
Cast Size: 3 female, 3 male

bout the Play:

Mere Mortals contains six comedic one-act plays by David Ives. The six plays in Mere Mortals involve a wide variety of subjects and settings: Foreplay follows simultaneous dates on a golf course; Mere Mortals shows construction workers discussing their previous lives over lunch; Speed The Play sends up four David Mamet plays in seven minutes; Dr. Fritz shows an American tourist visiting a South American faith healer; and Degas offers a contemporary New York man convincing himself that for one day only, he is the painter Degas. The plays may be presented separately or as an evening of entertainment under the collective title Mere Mortals And Others.

This critically acclaimed evening of comedies Mere Mortals And Others combines satire, wit, hilarity and intellect – a winning combination.

Act One: In Foreplay Or: The Art Of The Fugue, we find Chuck, a self-styled Don Juan, and his girlfriend on a date at the miniature golf course. When they move to the second hole, a slightly older Chuck II appears with another date. Finally, Chuck III, now in his late thirties, arrives with a young date. His latest date doesn't get his jokes, and worse, she's beating him at golf. (Cast: 3 female, 3 male)

Mere Mortals eavesdrops on a lunch hour on a girder 50 stories over the street, as three construction workers share increasingly amazing secrets of their past. (Cast: 3 male)

In Time Flies, two lonely but sweet young mayflies meet at a pond and really hit it off. Unfortunately, Horace and May watch a nature program on this first night out and discover they have a lifespan of only one day – and their lives are half over. (Cast: 1 female, 2 male)

Act Two: Speed-The-Play is a crash-course send-up of David Mamet, presenting the complete works of the master of scatological dialogue in just under eight, male-bonding minutes. (Cast: 3 female, 3 male)

In Dr. Fritz, Vaudeville reigns as an American tourist in pain seeks medical help from a wacky souvenir seller named Maria who channels an even wackier German surgeon named Dr. Ringsvwandl. The comedy steps up when the doctor recommends an operation. (Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

Degas C'est Moi: A man wakes up one morning and decides to be the French Impressionist Painter Degas. The best place to do that is in New York City where he encounters all that makes great art. (Cast: 3 female, 3 male)

The six plays comprising Mere Mortals And Others premiered in 1997 at Primary Stages to good reviews and sold-out crowds and moved to the larger Off-Broadway John Houseman Theatre. The plays are regularly performed in regional and community theatre productions, and Mere Mortals and Time Flies are ideal choices for high school drama contests and one-act festivals.

Cast: The entire evening of plays can be performed with 3 female and 3 male performers.

What people say:

"A brave, wise and deeply moving play delineating the confrontation between culture, and power, between art and politics, between irresponsible freedom and responsible compromise. A gripping moral challenge in a cock sure and self-seeking age." — New York Times

About the Playwright:

David Ives is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist who was born in Chicago and educated at Northwestern University and Yale School of Drama. He is perhaps best known for his evenings of comic one-act comedies, a reputation which resulted in the The New York Times referring to him as the "maestro of the short form". A former Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting, he has also written dramatic plays, narrative stories, and screenplays. He lives in New York City.

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