Kate Powers speaks with several directors who have worked on the play, focusing on their collaborations with Wilder, their production experiences, and why they feel this play remains one of the most universal texts in the American theatre canon.

It’s a new year, which means it’s time for new reads!

As the year quickly comes to a close, we’ve chosen some of our favorite new plays that Samuel French has published over the past 12 months.

We’re thankful for theatre all year round, but this November we took a moment to ask our staff just why they are grateful for this art form we love so dearly.

Company One’s partnership with, and celebration of the purpose of the Library as a public good, is tied up in the ideas at the heart of Peerless: that the scarcity of access to information — to education — is like a social cancer.

Check out our staff’s current reads on National Read A Book Day!

After nearly 17 years, Tony and Emmy Award winner Mandy Patinkin will make his long-awaited return to Broadway in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 starring as ‘Pierre’.

“America is not a country, but a world,” Wilde said admiringly. It was a world that welcomed him and gave him an audience, that allowed him to develop his nascent thoughts on art, that gave him the opportunity to travel and live off his considerable wits, and that took him seriously and produced his first play.

What happens when a theatre teacher takes on the challenge of creating a Thespian Troupe at her school? Read more here.

From the start, Rosary envisioned this play as a tour de force of obsession, rooted in the real life of the famous first great American novelist, based on detailed and shocking facts from her life.

According to Murphy, the Off-Broadway version was R-rated, “If we wanted Heathers to work for high schools, we’d have to find new ways to tell the same story in a PG-13 context. So we wrote and workshopped a brand new draft with the fantastic support of Samuel French and iTheatrics, and were surprised to discover that many of the changes turned out to be improvements.”

In many plays written about young people, some by writers I admire, one can feel the adult hand shaping a moral universe for the characters to inhabit. I chose to avoid this when writing Hazelwood Jr. High. I wanted the play to feel as if it were written by a junior high school student.

When famous superhero Blackjack the Bold is kidnapped by an evil sorcerer, it’s up to his assistant Inky to step up and save the day!

Simple enough for young audience members but witty enough for their parents, this bighearted adventure will thrill the entire family. Plus, there are ninja koalas.

This past fall, Samuel French launched Playwrights Welcome, a national initiative for Dramatists Guild Members that asks theaters to offer unsold tickets to professional playwrights on the day of a performance. Learn more here!

Michael and Linda are a married couple, both writers. Michael is a successful household name, while Linda now teaches and has only had one hit book. Near the beginning of the show, Linda is diagnosed with cancer, and her dying wish is to be granted the opportunity to read Michael’s journals.

We’re thrilled to share Yale Rep’s James Bundy’s beautiful remarks from the Samuel French Awards. A must read.

We’re thrilled to share Sarah’s remarks from this past Monday night at the Steinberg Awards.. Don’t miss this read.

In this beautiful piece, director John Simpkins describes his experience of working with Kooman & Dimond – and how it was unlike any other writer/director relationship he’s had.

Three mini-musicals each take a glimpse at a behind the scenes moment of some of history’s most iconic horror films.

In a first-ever collaboration by three professional Vermont theaters, Alan Ayckbourn’s THE NORMAN CONQUESTS will be produced in rotation this spring and summer. Learn more!

We are thrilled to welcome Tuck Everlasting into the Samuel French family, and can’t wait to celebrate their album release this Thursday!

FALSETTOS will begin previews Thursday, September 29, and run for 14 weeks only at the Walter Kerr Theatre (219 West 48 Street). Opening night will be Thursday, October 27.

The Off Broadway Alliance, the organization of Off Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing professionals, has announced the nominees for the 6th Annual Off Broadway Alliance Awards.

“Ugly Lies the Bone is the perfect story to tell during a time when America is trying to heal. Communities all over the country have been slowly but surely climbing out of a deep hole created in the last ten years and Jess’s unique rehabilitation serves as a perfect parallel of this. “

This February, make time to choose a script from below, pour yourself a drink, curl up on the couch, and get ready to escape into a (sexy, hilarious, bittersweet) love story. And unlike all those bad dates, we promise you won’t be disappointed.

What’s the view like from the other side of the casting table? Especially when it’s your directorial debut, and your wife and brother are in the cast? Two River Theater Company’s Brandon J. Dirden tells all.

Emma Katz is a fifth grader searching for her calling. When her teacher assigns her a project about Viking Erik the Red, Emma is gung-ho for an adventure.

Clare Barron’s YOU GOT OLDER. Jennifer Haley’s THE NETHER. How do these contrasting plays connect? Three must-know women of the theatre sit down to discuss.

Playwright D.L. Coburn, author of The Gin Game, discusses the play’s journey, why this story continues to resonate today, and how Broadway still dazzles him.

John Jiler and Ray Leslee, co-creators of Avenue X, an a cappella musical addressing racism through the lens of Black and Italian neighbors in Brooklyn in 1963, discuss the show’s enduring relevance.

Concord Theatricals playwright and former employee of Samuel French, Julia Izumi, breaks down Samuel D. Hunter’s A Great Wilderness.