Visit an agency that offers once in a lifetime placements, a family errand that turns downright embarrassing, a subway ride that changes lives forever, a dog park for extended families, a breakfast nook that turns negative to positive, an unexpected war zone where a soldier is unprepared for battle; a double date where a surprise kiss topples everything, a last attempt to regain a romantic spark, and a staircase where two estranged siblings become reunited. You'll find these and more in this sparkling collection of nine "shorts" - short plays, with roles for actors from their teens to their forties -- including the award winning Stairway to Heaven, and the award nominated Roast Beef and the Rare Kiss, as well as Eight Times Around, Family of Flechner, Hangman, The Moon Alone, The Nine-Month Fix, Not Tonight, and Robert Mapplethorpe's Flower. The Shorts are followed by Briefs: fifteen brief essays or discussions on the elements of short drama, intended for students of theater, new playwrights, and established writers who would like to further explore the short play genre. The first edition of Shorts and Briefs has been used by Alfred University, Cornell University, CUNY-Kingsborough Community College, Lock Haven University, Marshall University, Niagara University, University of Oregon, University of Central Arkansas, and many others. This revised and expanded second edition will introduce hundreds more drama students and aspiring playwrights to the delight and challenge of the Short Play.
Gregory Fletcher is a native of Dallas, Texas, a resident of New York City, a graduate of California State University at Northridge with a BA in Theater, a graduate of Boston University with a MA in Playwriting, and a graduate of Columbia University with an MFA in Directing. Off-Off Broadway playwriting credits include Edenville, My Sister the Cow, Eight Times Around, Family of Flechner, Hangman, The Moon Alone, Roast Beef and the Rare Kiss, Robert Mapplethorpe's Flowers, and Stairway to Heaven. Regionally, these plays and others have been produced in Boston, Miami, Moscow (Idaho), and Provincetown. Awards include the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting and the National Ten-Minute Play Award from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and a first runner up for the David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award from the Association of Theatre in Higher Education. Fletcher was a playwriting grantee at the Sundance Theatre Lab, a nominee for Outstanding Original Short Script for the New York IT Awards, and a national finalist for the Heideman Award and the Reva Shiner Comedy Award. Fletcher's plays have been published by Dramatic Publishing, Back Stage Books, Wilde Magazine, and Smith & Kraus, Inc. Essays have been published in the anthologies Being: What Makes a Man, (The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Gender Programs), and in Dearly Beloved, (Zoetic Press) and with the journals American Writers Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly and Longridge Review. The short story Friends of Vera appears in the anthology The Night Bazaar, published by Northampton House Press. Playwriting teaching credits include Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Niagara University, CUNY Kingsborough Community College, and at the MA/MFA Creative Writing program at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Website: www.gregoryfletcher.com
