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    Up By Wednesday
    Up By Wednesday
    Up By Wednesday
    Ebook61 pages31 minutes

    Up By Wednesday

    By Robert Patrick

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Four one-act plays from early Off-Off-Broadway's golden age by the era's most prolific playwright, each at the request of such iconic producers as Ellen Stewart, founder of La Mama, Norman "Speedy" Hartman of The Old Reliable and Tony Bastiano of The Playwright's Workshop.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael McGrinder
    Release dateJan 12, 2017
    ISBN9781370207039
    Up By Wednesday
    Author

    Robert Patrick

    Robert Patrick was early Off-Off-Broadway’s most prolific and most produced playwright. His work found welcome at the Caffe Cino, La Mama, The Old Reliable, Playwrights Workshop Club, The Open Space, Stonewall Repertory Company and many many other venues. He is best-known commercially for Kennedy’s Children which played Broadway in 1975. He has also been a major influence in gay theatre, and was awarded the Robert Chesley Foundation Award for Lifetime Achievement in Gay Playwrighting . Other awards include the Show Business Award for the 1968-69 season and Glasgow Citizens Theatre Best World Playwrighting Award, 1973. He lives now in Los Angeles and is enjoying new productions of his work, old and new.Treat yourself to a look at his Wikipedia pageRobert Patrick (playwright) for a bounty of links to show-photos, scripts, poems and songs, along with any number of riches.

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      Book preview

      Up By Wednesday - Robert Patrick

      PREFACE

      Long ago, one might stroll past La Mama Experimental Theatre Company where its founder Ellen Stewart might wave from the doorway and say, Mister Patrick (Meester Patrique’'), A show canceled. Can you get something up by Wednesday?" and one would scribble Tarquin Truthbeauty because Ellen had costumes that looked like lab-smocks.

      Or Norman Hartman at The Old Reliable Theatre Tavern would ask if one intended to write about Kent State and one would scrawl Ooooops!

      Or Tony Bastiano at the Playwright’s Workshop said he had no money for a set, so one improvised Simultaneous Transmissions.

      Or a manager whose name I can’t recall at The Arts-Elast Art Theatre Gallery said, Do a play, please, and Neil Flanagan, Ken Hill, and Joe Pichette were found sitting together at a table at Phebe’s Bar, so one gleefully wrote roles to test their comic geniuses to the max, Un Bel Di.

      Those days are gone, and theatres now are scheduled years ahead, but a few of the dozens of plays made under those casual circumstances survive. I praise Michael McGrinder and The Old Reliable Press for making them available so the future may have a glimpse of the fun Off-Off Broadway could be.

      Robert Patrick

      Up

      By

      Wednesday

      UN BEL DI

      for Charles Stanley

      CHARACTERS

      Man ONE

      Man TWO

      Man THREE

      UN BEL DI was first performed at Gallery Theater, East 2nd Street, New York City, NY, January26, 1968. Featured actors were Ken Hill, Neil Flanagan, and Joe Pichette.

      (In the dark three male voices sing: Un, Bel! and Di, a la the NBC sound trademark.

      Scene: the prow of a luxury liner. Cheers, horns, sailing noises. Three Men stand at the railing, waving farewell. They’re holding champagne glasses. Man ONE drinks his champagne, smiles. Man TWO spills his down his front. Man THREE throws his out at the audience. Blackout.

      In the darkness, sounds of a shipwreck: fog-horns, crunching, sirens, bells, and a slow gurgling down the drain. Then we hear a soprano singing the opening notes of Un Bel Di, from Madame Butterfly.

      The lights come up on a raft, with three sides of railing completed, somewhere in the middle of the ocean. The three Men disport themselves variously. ONE, in nifty vest and little blue cotton boxer shorts, and still sporting his derby, is putting the finishing touches on a complex, burbling water purifier in one corner. THREE, in sloppy, oversized T-shirt and voluminous white shorts with red kiss marks all over them, is languidly, as ’twere his habit, haranguing TWO, who wears a one-piece, button-up-the-front B.V.D. special. ONE occasionally picks

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