New Releases by Adam Rapp

In this freakishly funny and vividly imagined absurdist nightmare for our time, the inert occupants of an East Village apartment - members of a band once called "Lester''s Surprise," now remembered simply as "Less" - are going numb. Pill-popping Chase and Staples, who look like they''ve been living on their sofa since the previous spring, sit mesmerized in front of the television until its untimely demise. Desperately in need of technological stimulus, they decide to call up their weird neighbor, luring him upstairs and under Chase''s narrative spell so that Staples can steal his Magnavox via the fire escape. The strange arrivals and events that follow move from the hilarious to the disturbingly existential, as Rapp''s electronic-age creatures long to feel something, to be part of something, or to be of use. "A television blares in the background. A bloody child is carried into the room. And at least three kinds of bodily fluids are spilled. This can mean only one thing: Adam Rapp is back in town. Mr Rapp has always written with the energy and tastefulness of a punk rock band, so it should come as no surprise that his latest, FINER NOBLE GASES, follows the drugged-out members of an East Village rock group who waste away their days in front of the television, their eyes half-open, looking almost comatose. In 2000 Mr Rapp burst on the scene with NOCTURNE, a highly praised monologue about a piano prodigy living in the shadow of the death of his sister. Since then he has written a handful of grimly poetic plays including FASTER, TRUEBLINKA and STONE COLD DEAD SERIOUS - none of which you would probably want to take your grandmother to. The hallmarks of a play by Mr Rapp are slangy, potent dialogue; a dark, often baroque worldview; and a deep wallowing in the gratuitous ... Mr Rapp is aiming for something much more grand and metaphysical than just another mundane tale of arrested development." -Jason Zinoman, The New York Times "Rapp has concocted a smelly brew here, but like all poisons it can be intoxicatingly fun to watch other people imbibe the stuff ..." -Robert Hofler, Variety

It''s Christmas Eve: a Desert Storm veteran with a herniated disk and a 19-year-old runaway heroin addict share the holiday in a filthy, rundown squat on New York''s Canal Street. This unusual love story is grimly compelling, mixing gritty honesty with remarkable generosity and compassion, striking a delicate balance between the sweet and difficult moments in human interaction. "... a terrifically impressive British debut for new U S playwright Adam Rapp. Froggy and Baylis are two wrecked drifters in a New York squat ... BLACKBIRD could, in the hands of a lesser dramatist, be a crude mix of in-your-face grunge and sentimentality ... actually, the squalor here is both appalling and cryingly funny and Rapp has a brilliant ear for talk." -The Independent "There is a strange tenderness in Rapp''s writing that marks him out as one to watch. Rapp has genuine Gorky-esque talent and loves his characters as all-consumingly as they do each other." -The Guardian

A devastating, elegant, and gripping dissection of the American dream, Adam Rapp''s Nocturne signals a brave new voice in American theater. "Fifteen years ago I killed my sister." So begins Adam Rapp''s highly acclaimed play Nocturne, in which a 32-year-old former piano prodigy recounts the tragic events that tore his family apart. With a keen eye for human relationships and a deft ear for language, Rapp explores the aftershock of this unimaginable event. The father is so incapable of forgiveness he puts a gun in his son''s mouth; the mother so shattered, she deserts the family and eventually takes leave of her sanity altogether; the son--only 17 years old at the time--sets out for New York City. There, he seeks an uneasy refuge in books and reinvents himself as a writer. Across the decade and a half that follows he tries to cope with the ramifications of his own anguish and estrangement while making a desperate search for redemption.

While serving a six-month sentence at a juvenile detention center, thirteen-year-old Sura struggles to survive the experience with his spirit intact.

When Mike''s mother and sister go on tour with "Les Miserables, " Mike''s father and his new wife enroll Mike in St. Matthew''s Military Academy where, facing brutality and ignorance, he learns to survive.