Kirjahaku

When you make glass for a living, your body breaks. Victor, the last in a long line of glassmakers, lies under the knife on the operating table for heart and lung surgery, while his family waits to know if he will live or die. An inside-out surrealist ride on the wishes and fears of a family as they wait in a hospital waiting room, where every thought and terror becomes manifest. It is a play about the end of the American manufacturing era, a postmodern history of glass making, and a tale about the need we have to turn the story of our breakable lives into an unbreakable story. "Sherry Kramer's THINGS THAT BREAK is a terribly difficult, painfully beautiful play in which everything is broken. The storytelling is jagged, taking surreal twists as it shifts back and forth between the worried wife of a man having heart surgery and her grown son and daughter... This is a wildly imaginative piece of work... ...listening to Miss Kramer's kaleidoscopic language...is like being under some hallucinogenic anesthetic..." Nelson Pressley, The Washington Times "You may have heard that playwright Sherry Kramer is biting off more than she can chew in THINGS THAT BREAK, her free-form comedy about sibling rivalry, heart surgery, and the American dream. Don't believe it. The lady chews like a champion. Chomps, actually, greedily bobbling up insights that would surely escape lesser writers, just as she did when introducing the metaphysics-obsessed lesbian lovers of DAVID'S REDHAIRED DEATH..." Bob Mondello, CityPaper

" Reading and digesting the lessons in this book can be of greater value to an aspiring dramatist than years in an MFA program. Whether you are writing for the stage, screen or audio, this book is an invaluable teacher and guide to have by your side throughout the development and revision process."Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig"This book does what no other playwriting book in my experience has done, it offers a new way of seeing and conceiving how theatre makes meaning and carries emotional impact in performance."Suzan Zeder, Professor Emerita and former Head Of Playwriting at University of Texas at Austin, USACombining a step-by-step analysis of the technique of writing for stage and screen with how the mystery, poetry, and emotional momentum is achieved for the audience, Sherry Kramer offers an empowering, original guide for emerging and established writers. In this structured look at the way audience members progress through a work in real time, Sherry Kramer uses plain-spoken vocabulary to help you discover how to make work that will mean more to your audiences. By using examples drawn from plays, film, and streaming series, ranging from A Streetcar Named Desire to Fleabag to Pirates of the Caribbean, this study makes its concepts accessible to a wide range of artists who work in timebound art. The book also features multiple exercises, developed with MFA writers in The Iowa Playwrights Workshop and The Michener Center for Writers, where Kramer taught for the past 25 years, which provide entrance points to help you consider and create your work.

" Reading and digesting the lessons in this book can be of greater value to an aspiring dramatist than years in an MFA program. Whether you are writing for the stage, screen or audio, this book is an invaluable teacher and guide to have by your side throughout the development and revision process."Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig"This book does what no other playwriting book in my experience has done, it offers a new way of seeing and conceiving how theatre makes meaning and carries emotional impact in performance."Suzan Zeder, Professor Emerita and former Head Of Playwriting at University of Texas at Austin, USACombining a step-by-step analysis of the technique of writing for stage and screen with how the mystery, poetry, and emotional momentum is achieved for the audience, Sherry Kramer offers an empowering, original guide for emerging and established writers. In this structured look at the way audience members progress through a work in real time, Sherry Kramer uses plain-spoken vocabulary to help you discover how to make work that will mean more to your audiences. By using examples drawn from plays, film, and streaming series, ranging from A Streetcar Named Desire to Fleabag to Pirates of the Caribbean, this study makes its concepts accessible to a wide range of artists who work in timebound art. The book also features multiple exercises, developed with MFA writers in The Iowa Playwrights Workshop and The Michener Center for Writers, where Kramer taught for the past 25 years, which provide entrance points to help you consider and create your work.