Anna Ziegler: Plays One - (Paperback)

About the Book

"First published in Great Britain by Oberon Books 2016"--Title page verso.

Book Synopsis

The first collection of plays from a major American playwright, Plays One includes: Photograph 51, A Delicate Ship, Boy and The Last Match

Photograph 51: Does Rosalind Franklin know how precious her photograph is? In the race to unlock the secret of life it could be the one to hold the key. With rival scientists looking everywhere for the answer, who will be first to see it and more importantly, understand it? Anna Ziegler's extraordinary play looks at the woman who cracked DNA and asks what is sacrificed in the pursuit of science, love and a place in history.

A Delicate Ship: A haunting love triangle triggers an unexpected chain of events in this poetic play. A humorous and heartbreaking look at love and memory. This play received its world premiere in March 2014 at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

Boy: Inspired by a true story, Boy explores the complicated terrain of trying to find love in a new body, and the inextricable bonds between doctor and patient - creator and creation. Commissioned by the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Sloan Foundation.

The Last Match: The semifinals of the U.S. Open are underway. Sergei Sergeyev, an up-and-coming Russian phenom, and Tim Porter, a great American superstar in the twilight of his career, battle under the lights on center court. As the intense, back-and-forth action unfolds, Anna Ziegler take us inside the minds of these two extraordinary players to contemplate athleticism, masculinity and marriage. And by match point, much more has been won and lost than a game of tennis.

Review Quotes

"New York Times Critic's Pick! [A Delicate Ship is] a lovely drama by the newly (and justly) hot playwright, Anna Ziegler...[Her] dialogue bristles with smart, eloquent talk...Ms. Ziegler's quietly lyrical language has a luminous beauty, and her talent for creating characters whose complicated depths are just visible on their surfaces is still more remarkable." --Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

"A deft, luminous play. The Last Match swells with intensity and poetic undertones as it courses through 90 minutes with increasing velocity, asking big questions about the human condition." --Stage and Cinema

"Anna Ziegler's captivating new play Boy...is already a chief contender for the most insightful, gut-wrenching, and beautiful play of 2016...Expect it to be a long while before there's another play more rewarding, more moving, and more magical than Boy." --Talkin' Broadway

"Were Photograph 51 simply to assert that Franklin was robbed of the prestige that was rightly hers - Watson and Crick were credited as codiscoverers [of the double helix of DNA], and she died in 1958, four years before the pair (and Wilkins too) received the Nobel Prize - it would serve a valid but rather worthy purpose. It's much more fascinating than that, though. It deals with timely feminist issues but also the key fundamentals of how we relate to each other, who we are, our tragic flaws...A triumph." --The Telegraph

About the Author

Anna Ziegler's plays include Photograph 51, The Last Match (The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, CA and City Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA), Boy (Keen Company/Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City), A Delicate Ship (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), Another Way Home (Washington DC at Theater J; previously produced at The Magic Theatre, San Francisco, CA). She has been commissioned by The Manhattan Theatre Club, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Virginia Stage Company and New Georges.