December Fools and Other Plays by Sherman Yellen

December Fools and Other Plays by Sherman Yellen

Three new plays by two-time Emmy Award winning playwright Sherman Yellen, with a Foreword by Broadway lyricist Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof).

DECEMBER FOOLS

Gloria Temple, the widow of a renowned musical theatre composer, must induce her estranged daughter Marcie to carry on her work running an arts foundation. But when Marcie stumbles upon a hidden cache of her mother's unmailed letters, the means by which Gloria vents her anger, Marcie may be unable to resist the urge for payback for her unhappy childhood. This witty drama features five roles for women from mid-40s to 70s, plus one versatile actor. The play has some delicious comic scenes. New York Times

BUDAPEST

In this contemporary version of Camille set in New York City in 1964, two young screenwriters become involved in the life of Minna, a beautiful survivor of Nazi and Soviet cruelty, whose influence will change them all. This dark comedy offers roles for three actresses in their 40s to 50s, two young men, plus a versatile character actor.

GIN LANE

Beth Hamilton Grauer has a loving husband, two young children, and a mansion on Gin Lane in Southampton inherited from her industrialist father. But when her husband forges a loan document using her house as collateral, she must make some life-altering decisions. This contemporary drama features two women and two men in their early to mid-40s and one man around 60.

From the Foreword by Sheldon Harnick:

Having collaborated with Sherman Yellen twice (on the musicals The Rothschilds and Rex), I thought I knew what to expect when I read this tripartite play collection: interesting, larger than life characters, intelligent, sophisticated dialogue spiced with wit and marked by an enviable command of language, expert stagecraft, and a sure-handed exploitation of the dramatic situations he had created. Nor was I disappointed; all of those elements are there aplenty.

What I didn't expect was the element of surprise, adroitly employed for dramatic effect. Both The Rothschilds and Rex are historical tales of real people in real situations. We had to assume that our audiences (at least those that were acquainted with the history involved) would expect these characters to travel on foreordained paths to predetermined destinations. Anything else would be falsifying history. Not so the three plays comprising December Fools and Other Plays. The characters in these plays, springing from Sherman's free-wheeling imagination, are free to act in unpredictable ways-and they do In December Fools and Gin Lane, Sherman treats us to the gratification of unexpectedly upbeat endings, whereas, in Budapest, the major surprise (there are several) is a poignant, deliberately recognizable variation of one of the key scenes in Camille. And here I have to confess that Sherman had so thoroughly involved me in this drama, I had to assure myself that after the final curtain fell the telephone would ring, a desired conversation would ensue, and our heroine would be happy once again

A word about the characters in these plays: they are complex, three-dimensional souls, part saint, part sinner. True, they tend to live in worlds most of us don't inhabit, with incomes we can only envy. This being so, one might think that their problems would be alien to us. Instead, Sherman's innate sense of compassion and his ability to people his plays with real human beings guarantee that their problems will register as intensified versions of our own. Consequently, we grieve with their sorrows and share their triumphs.

So here is my recommendation. Open a bottle of your favorite wine, settle down in your most comfortable chair and prepare to spend several enjoyable hours in the company of colorful, well-spoken people working their way through highly dramatic situations. You'll find, as I have, that time spent with Sherman Yellen is time well spent.

Sherman Yellen, playwright, librettist, screen-writer, lyricist and now memoirist, was nominated for a Tony Award for his book for the 1970 musical The Rothschilds, with a score by Fiddler on the Roof songwriters Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, which he and Harnick have recently reimagined as Rothschild & Sons (You cannot fault the York Theater Company's rich new production of Rothschild & Sons - NY Times). Sherman wrote the libretto for the Will Holt and Gary William Freidman musical Treasure Island, winner of the Broadway World Best Regional musical Award (2012). Among his many theater works is his satirical sketch Delicious Indignities which appeared in the New York and London revue Oh! Calcutta! His straight plays include New Gods for Lovers, Strangers, and December Fools. Sherman was librettist and lyricist for Josephine Tonight, an original musical he wrote with the late composer Wally Harper about the early life of Josephine Baker, which The Chicago Sun-Times called a shining new musical and which the DC press praised for being so hot that it sizzles. In his youth he worked as a librettist with legendary composer Richard Rodgers. Together with Sheldon Harnick they recently revised their musical Rex about Henry VIII. This new version had a successful premiere in Toronto. His teleplays have won him two Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award, first for his John Adams, Lawyer in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles, and later for An Early Frost, a groundbreaking drama about AIDS in America broadcast on NBC, as well as an Emmy Nomination for his Hallmark Hall of Fame version of Beauty and the Beast starring George C. Scott. Sherman's screenplay adaptations of classic novels range from Great Expectations to Phantom of the Opera. He has received awards in Arts and Letters from Bard College, and he is a frequent contributor of essays to online publications such as The Huffington Post. Sherman recently published his autobiographical novella Cousin Bella - The Whore of Minsk, available in a volume which also includes his holiday short story A Christmas Lilly, and a collection of three plays, December Fools and Other Plays (December Fools-Budapest-Gin Lane). Sherman is married, the father of two sons, Nicholas and Christopher, and has three much loved granddaughters. He has lived in London and Los Angeles, worked in Berlin and Budapest, but home was, is, and always will be New York City.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780996016902
ISBN 10	0996016902
Title	December Fools and Other Plays
Author	Sherman Yellen
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Moreclacke Publishing
Year published	2014-06-25
Number of pages	272
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.