An interrogation tale inspired loosely by the detention of Colombia's Patricia Lara in the mid-1980s. Two INS agents detain and try to break a Latin American journalist and a Brooklyn rabbi - both suspects believed to be involved with terrorist groups. The interrogations go very badly and the tables are turned against one of the INS agents. ..". To say that HOSPITALITY by Allan Havis betokens an auspicious beginning is an understatement of fairly large dimensions. Nearly everything about this production is first-rate. The script, an interrogation drama which brilliantly defeats the normally...

Richly deserving of wider exposure in the theater and the classroom, these sly, remarkable scripts touch on the forceful and salient issues of the 1990s, including the Gulf War, racial and sexual relations, crises unique to big cities, immigration and multiculturalism, art and censorship, revisionist history, academic freedom, and the transformation of the American presidency. The American Play by Suzan-Lori Parks features an Abraham Lincoln impersonator trapped in an outrageous, Beckett-like world, while Naomi Wallace's In the Heart of America centers on a Palestinian American from Atlanta...

A fabulist comedy-drama of a future city-state made up of Tijuana and San Diego after a great California earthquake. The world greets the first Mexican Pope who leads the region back into recovery. "The year is 2028. A massive earthquake has reconfigured Southern California, wiping out Los Angeles and Orange County. The whole region has to be reconceived. In a controversial move, a new city-state has been proposed, combining San Diego and Tijuana into one cross-cultural community known as Nuevo California. This imaginary world is at the center of a new play premiering at the San Diego...

Cult Films: Taboo and Transgression looks at nine decades of cult films history within American culture. By highlighting three films per decade including a brief summary of the decade's identity and sensibility, the book investigates the quality, ironies, and spirit of cult film evolution. The twenty-seven films selected for this study are analyzed for story content and in their respective transgressions regarding social, aesthetic, and political codes. Characteristic of this book is the notion that many exciting genres make up cult films-including horror, sci-fi, fantasy, film noir, and...

"American Political Plays after 9/11 "is a diverse collection of bold, urgent, and provocative plays that respond to the highly charged, post 9/11 political landscape. Sparked by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and subsequently fueled by a series of controversial events the Iraq war, the passing and enforcement of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, and the revelation of torture and other scandals at the Abu Ghraib prison American political theater is currently experiencing a surge in activity. The plays in this collection include "The Guys" by Anne Nelson, "At the Vanishing Point" by Naomi...

An intriguing thriller in Haiti, showcasing an American doctor who experiments with a new infant feeding formula and along the way is coerced by CIA operatives to treat the commanding Haitian General who has only a few months to live. ..". Havis's web of ironies - the lure of the rational Gold to the spiritual, decadent Le Croix; a mission of life turned to one of death; assassination as apolitical tool - is fascinating." -L A Weekly "Havis has done a beautiful job in sketching multi-faceted characters who never reveal themselves totally to the audience. The playwright has a cinematic writing...

A fantasy drama on clairvoyance and supernatural events surrounding the life of an African American PhD candidate who is researching folklore and ghost communication within immigrant communities in California. She is bothered by the contact with her father and with the arrest of a serial killer of young children. "An amazing, intriguing ghost tale that reinvests energy and wit throughout the contemporary San Diego/Tijuana landscape you'll never think of pre-school institutions and federal prisons in the same way again. This original, lyrical retelling of children's campfire boogeyman should...