Robert Manns: 15 books

Two verse plays that begin with the inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln and end with his assassination. LINCOLN is backgrounded by the entire length of the Civil War; portraits of Stanton, Lee, Meade, Grant, and other principals; and numbers of common soldiery. Epic in size, the plays are also...

"You found a trenchant, driving rhythm for the verse, something that is all your own. It wasn't imposed on the characters: it spoke for them." -Christopher Fry "I consider Robert Manns one of the most talented playwrights in the generation not yet recognized by the commercial...

"I have little doubt that Robert Manns is America's most accomplished living playwright." -J. Brian Smith

Twelve one-act plays ranging in emotion from wartime fears and desires to social and political commentary. And a new theater. "You found a trenchant, driving rhythm for the verse, something that is all your own. It wasn't imposed on the characters: it spoke for them." Christopher...

Robert Manns' Selected Poems is comprised of two large poems and a number of smaller verses of various forms that recount is happy, sometimes frustrated, years of bachelor-hood. By a Turning Root is his invasion of several classical forms and a very sound illustration of the poet as visionary. Pygmalion...

Night of the Frogs With the realistic dross of our time, here comes a verse play on the Salem Witch Hunts of 1692 that brings pleasure to the ear, action to the eye and the introduction of a character, as yet untreated, who becomes a heroan American businessman. Sautee and Nacoochee Adapted...

A powerful play on Lincoln's tenure in the White House from inauguration to assination, the period of his surpurb greatness. Backgrounded by the devastating civil war, it presents Mary, Grant, Seward, Lee, Meade, Stanton, common soldiery and others of the time by a playwright whose skills should make him of major interest.

The Smithson Matter, together with its one-act Introduction, recounts the personal and political maneuvers behind the creation of the great Smithsonian Institute. The Introduction presents James Smithson, n Macie, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Northumberland and the fashionable Elizabeth Macie....

After the American Revolution, Scottish immigrant James Swan entered the businesses of real estate and shipping. Becoming friends with many of the luminaries of the times, his businesses expanded to France, where he was accused of a two million franc debt owed to the government of Napoleon, perhaps...

The Rats is the story of Dr. Rago and Fujikawa. Rago uses a profession of nobility and admiration to questionable ends. The other, Fujikawa, a wino and derelict, supplies the ethic and humanity. The Cockroach is a fusion of cultures in America, north and south. A light little comedy of high intent invaded by lowly interferences.

In an age of miniaturization, the one-act play should find itself at home. People do attend concertized etudes, most often for the piano, and that is precisely what a one-act play is-an etude. Sometimes it's a character study, others a piece of action, still others a complete little story, and several strung together selectively can make a program.

With the loosening of constraints on what may be discussed and portrayed in plays dealing with homosexuality, similar relaxation should be expected for heterosexual works. Within the bounds of good taste, of course. And taste, like time, alters. Hopefully, the time is now. *** In an...

Tragedy is the heartiest of theater. It wakens us by calling to our senses more completely than any other medium. And it is successful only when the write can make his audiences savor every minute of it. The author.

Cry the Loon is a domestic tragedy laid in the author's own hometown. The Avian Connection is a comical fantasy dealing with an ornithologist's belief that man and bird evolved from the same source, the warm-blooded archaeopteryx.