John Patrick Shanley

In a drama set in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, a nun is faced with uncertainty as she has grave concerns for a male colleague.

A Parable

Doubt

When a troubled but gifted boy from the South Bronx arrives at a private school in New Hampshire, two faculty members wrestle with how to help him adjust to his new environment. The boy is violent, brilliant, alienated, and on fire with a ferocious loneliness. As with his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Doubt, John Patrick Shanley has drawn on his personal experiences to create an explosive portrait of a young man on the verge of either salvation or destruction.

Prodigal Son

THE STORY: The setting is a rundown bar in the Bronx, where two of society's rejects, Danny and Roberta, strike up a halting conversation over their beer. He is a brooding, self-loathing young man who resorts more to violence than reason; she is a

An Apache Dance

Danny and the Deep Blue Sea

THE STORY: The first scene of the play is a conversation between two lovers, Tommy and Donna, who broke up some time earlier but who are obviously still attracted to each other. Donna is enraged because Tommy, a would-be artist, is now having an af

The Dreamer Examines His Pillow

THE STORIES: FOUR DOGS AND A BONE. Brenda, a seemingly guileless young actress, takes a meeting with Bradley, a troubled, middle-aged producer, to discuss the film on which they are working. Brenda wants to be a star, she even chants for it! But Co

And, The Wild Goose

Four Dogs and a Bone

""In the work of John Patrick Shanley, the truth is as charming as it is painful, reality as touched with magic as it is factual, and existence as absolute as it is illusory."--BOMB magazineFor Anthony and Rosemary, introverted misfits straddling forty, love seems unlikely. In this very Irish story with a surprising depth of poetic passion, these yearning, eccentric souls fight their way towards solid ground and happiness. Their journey is heartbreaking, funny as hell, and ultimately, deeply moving. Set in the Irish countryside, Outside Mullingar has been dubbed the "Irish Moonstruck" and will premiere on Broadway in 2014, starring Debra Messing and Brian F. O'Byrne and helmed by Doug Hughes, the Tony Award-winning director of Doubt.John Patrick Shanley is from the Bronx. His plays include Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, and Dirty Story. His trilogy Church and State began with Doubt, followed by Defiance and Storefront Church. For his play Doubt, the playwright received both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He has nine films to his credit, including the five-time Oscar-nominated Doubt with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. Other films include Five Corners, Alive, Joe Versus The Volcano, and Live From Baghdad for HBO (Emmy nomination). For Moonstruck, he received both the Writers Guild Award and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The Writers Guild of America awarded Shanley the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing"--

Outside Mullingar

THE STORY: Arthur, an obscure young painter struggling in the art world of Manhattan, announces to his self-satisfied friend, Howard, that he is engaged to be married. To whom? Asks Howard. The answer is to Lucille, a powerful, attractive, no-nonse

Psychopathia Sexualis

THE STORY: The setting is a slightly seedy neighborhood bar in the Bronx, where a group of regulars (who all happen to be the same age--thirty-two) seek relief from the disappointments and tedium of the outside world. The first to arrive is Denise S

A Concert Play

Savage in Limbo

THE STORY: Rhonda, Judy and Billie are having dinner, over which they lament the fact that, while their careers are flourishing, their emotional lives are a wreck. Rhonda has just broken up with her boyfriend (but is unable to jettison the oversize

An Upper West Side Story

Women of Manhattan

“In the appallingly entertaining Dirty Story . . . Mr. Shanley has expanded his focus from the intimate to the international to create one of the liveliest, boldest and—against the odds—funniest studies ever of a subject that even hard-core satirists tend to approach on tiptoe.”—Ben Brantley, The New York Times Three new works by Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Patrick Shanley, one of our country’s most politically current and theatrically elastic playwrights. In Dirty Story a couple of sadomasochistic writers fight over rights to their New York City loft, in this sexy satire of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is “astonishing,” says Tony Kushner, “The analysis of the Middle East in this play is dead on, exactly perfectly pitched.” In his dark comedy Where’s My Money? Shanley takes on marriage, infidelity and divorce lawyers in a play that is “so harsh, it’s funny—terrifying, but funny,” (The New York Times). And in his Sailor’s Song, love becomes an act of courage, in this seaside romance about the certainty of death, the brevity of youth, and the importance of now. John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play, and was chosen as best play of the year by over 10 newspapers and magazines. His other plays include Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Four Dogs and a Bone, Psychopathia Sexualis and Savage Limbo. He has written extensively for TV and film, including Moonstruck, for which he won an Academy Award for best screenplay.

Dirty Story and Other Plays

Henry Krieger

THE STORY: From the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Doubt and the two-time Tony Award-nominated composer of Dreamgirls comes this crackpot musical romance. Connie of Woodmere has just married Fred of Newark, but her ex

Romantic Poetry

A 17-year-old boy from the Bronx suddenly finds himself in a private school in New Hampshire. He’s violent, gifted, alienated, and on fire with a ferocious loneliness. Two faculty members wrestle with the dilemma: Is the kid a star or a disaster? A passionate, explosive portrait of a young man on the verge of salvation or destruction.

Dramatists Play Service is proud to present six new short plays by John Patrick Shanley: In FRENCH WAITRESS, Ricky and his girlfriend Pamela sit down to an unsettling meal, served to them by a beautiful but unnerving French waitress. AN OLD STORY is a tale of the subtle distinctions between pain and pleasure, fear and exhilaration, necessity and desire. JEALOUS pits one couple’s love against otherworldy forces. In POLAND, a beautiful woman and a rich man are each looking for something or someone to rescue them from their lives. Can they find a safer ground together? LAST NIGHT IN THE GARDEN I SAW YOU follows one man’s journey over the fence into the house of a woman he abandoned. Now that he’s returned, will she leave the life she’s built since his absence? And if she won’t, will he truly let her live her life without him in peace? In Mt. Juliet, TENNESSEE, a lonely woman with the power of foresight is approached by a young man wanting to know his future. Knowing one’s future, however, comes with the responsibility of accepting it or changing it.

French Waitress and Other Plays

THE STORY: When aspiring novelist Wanda seeks the advice of successful writer Brutus, she gets more than she bargained for. Of the manuscript she sent him, he tells her, It was wretched, it was ignominious. It takes seventeen trees to make one ton

Dirty Story

Three new works by Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Patrick Shanley, one of our country's most politically current and theatrically elastic playwrights. In Dirty Story, a couple of sadomasochistic writers fight over rights to their New York City loft. In this sexy satire of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is ''astonishing,'' says Tony Kushner, ''the analysis of the Middle East in this play is dead on, exactly perfectly pitched. ''In his dark comedy Where's My Money?, Shanley takes on marriage, infidelity, and divorce lawyers in a play that is ''so harsh, it's funny - terrifying, but funny'' (The New York Times).And in his Sailor's Song, love becomes an act of courage, in a seaside romance about the certainty of death, the brevity of youth, and the importance of now.

Dirty Story and Other Plays (Large Print 16pt)

“Defiance is a necessary step in the life of an individual and in the life of a nation.”—John Patrick Shanley “As thoughtful and probing as its predecessor, Defiance [is] filled with the provocative questions and bristling dialogue for which Mr. Shanley is known . . . as it wonders about its big, knotty subjects.”—Ben Brantley, The New York Times Defiance is the “very rich and satisfying” (The Village Voice) second work in John Patrick Shanley’s trilogy that began with Doubt. The play is set in 1971 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where Lt. Col. Morgan Littlefield and his reluctant protégé Capt. Lee King—a young African American officer—clash over issues of race and authority within the Marine Corps, even as the civil rights movement and Vietnam War divide the world outside. In this high-stakes struggle at the top of the ranks, witnessed by the base’s inquisitive Chaplain White and Littlefield’s irreproachable wife Margaret, Shanley has crafted another timely play exploring issues of power and morality within a hallowed institution. John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play, and was chosen as best play of the year by over ten news-papers and magazines. His other plays include Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Four Dogs and a Bone, Psychopathia Sexualis, and Savage Limbo. He has written extensively for TV and film, including Moonstruck, for which he won an Academy Award for best screenplay.

Defiance

THE STORY: Johnny is the youngest and most sensitive of three siblings stranded in a surreal Irish Catholic household lorded over by their father, a butcher from the Bronx, and their mother, a chipper, hope-mongering wreck of a woman who can only g

Beggars in the House of Plenty

THE STORIES: In THE RED COAT, a teenage boy in the Bronx lays in wait outside a party for a girl he hardly knows. His mission, which he accomplishes with touching if halting effectiveness, is to tell her that he loves her. (1 man, 1 woman.) In DOWN

Welcome to the Moon and Other Plays

THE STORY: A series of self-revelations opens the book of life on the characters, drawing their view of life. From here we watch them interact: Omar throws knives for a living and muses about the state of the world. His understanding wife, Fifi, su

A Casual Play

The Big Funk

(Applause Books). Thirteen plays by the Oscar-winning author of Moonstruck . Includes: "The Big Funk," "Savage in Limbo," "Danny & The Deep Blue Sea," "Welcome to the Moon," "The Red Coat," "Down & Out," "Let Us Go Out Into the Starry Night," "Out West," "A Lonely Impulse of Delight," "Women of Manhattan," "The Dreamer Examines His Pillow," "Italian-American Reconciliation," and "Beggars in the House of Plenty." Also includes an introduction by the author.

John Patrick Shanley

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