Theatre Communications Group (TCG) announces the publication of Michael Weller's new trilogy, Loving Longing Leaving, a penetrating study of marital truth and infidelity. With keen observations of the emotional complexities of languishing hopes and ideals, the collection includes an Afterword by the author, discussing the genesis of the plays over a ten year period, and his latest play Side Effects, "an intense new drama...filled with emotional twists and turns" (Associated Press), which recently received its New York premiere at Manhattan Class Company.
"I was dealing with infidelity. To be ethically responsible, I would have to see to it that the wife was found out. The audience would expect it, and so would I if I was watching. How could I make this happen in a way that was unexpected but plausible?...The real trick was to write as if I didn't know what was coming, so that it hit the audience with a lethal slap." - Michael Weller, on Side Effects, in his Afterword
A triptych of marriage and infidelity by a noted chronicler of American life,
Michael Weller's Loving Longing Leaving takes us through the lives of three intersecting couples immersed in three distinct stages of love: a passionate affair, the repercussions of that affair and the disintegration of a marriage. In Fifty Words, a Brooklyn brownstone becomes a marital battleground for Adam and Jan; Do Not Disturb dramatizes Adam's infidelity at a hotel with former lover, Lindy; and in Side Effects, Melinda and her husband Hugh come to terms with their broken relationship. With stark truth and piercing detail, Weller explores the intricate yearnings and frustrations of married life.
"Mr. Weller is a bold dramatist...Fifty Words has a gimlet eye, providing meticulously chosen, artfully integrated details that let us understand why its characters so love and loathe each other. Like Albee's Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf, it understands how closely love and hate can be linked in marriage." - New York Times
Michael Weller has written over forty dramatic works, including the plays Moonchildren, Fishing, Loose Ends, Spoils of War and Beast, as well as the book for the musical adaptation of Doctor Zhivago. He has also written the screenplays for Hair and Ragtime.
For 50 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG's constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 13,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the US Center of the Inter
National Theatre Institute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community. TCG is North America's largest independent publisher of dramatic literature, with 11 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning AMERICAN THEATRE magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre.
www.tcg.org
Longing Loving Leaving
By
Michael WellerCover design by Mark Melnick
Paperback 240 pages
$17.95 978-1-55936-399-0
July 2011
Also by
Michael Weller, available from TCG Books:
Five Plays
$17.95 978-1-55936-143-9 paperback
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