"EST Marathon '98: The One-Act Plays," edited by Marisa Smith, is a fine anthology of short theater pieces. The plays in here include a one-character piece as well as two- and multi-character plays. The collection shows diversity in both form and content. There are 10 plays altogether.

My favorites from this collection are as follows: "Mary MacGregor," by Keith Alan Benjamin, a 2-character piece about love and loss; "How to Plant a Rose," by Elizabeth Diggs, a 1-person piece that combines family history and gardening; "Donut Holes in Orbit," by Prince Golmolvilas, about a conflict between a Chinese-American woman and her immigrant mother; "The Trio," by Shel Silverstein, an intriguing play about musicianship; "The Hundred Penny Box," by Barbara Sundstrom, about conflict within a multigenerational African-American family (this play has an unforgettable character in 100-year old Aunt Dew); and "Killing Hand," by David Zellnik, an unsettling play that deals with the aftermath of atrocities committed during the war in the former Yugoslavia.

This anthology shows just how potent the genre of the one-act play is. Thanks to the Ensemble Studio Theatre (that's the "EST" of the title) for promoting this genre.

It's a mixed bag (so's every collection) however some of them - most notably "Killing Hand" and "Scrapple" are really really worth your time. If you've been looking for energetic new American playwriting, you should buy this collection. "Killing Hand" especially impressed me... It's a smart scary 5 person play set at a Brooklyn dinner party and is concerned with crimes that may or may not have taken place in Bosnia. It was funny but with a real moral panic underneath keeping the Hitchcock-esque plot bubbling forward. I was lucky to see the play and I am thrilled that I can purchase it now. Also "Scrapple" broke my heart - it seemed a bit old fashioned but deeply felt ( and a great part for a young woman). Both seem ideal for college scene study and one act festivals. Other plays in the bunch are nearly as good - for instance "Plan Day" and "Dream", and as with all collections, some are less exciting to me. But that's a play collection for you.

If students or small theatre companies are looking for new one-acts that will be challenging fun to produce -- yet won't break the bank for sets or require a huge cast -- I'd highly encourage then to get this collection of plays!

They make good reading, too -- bite-sized theatre reading for the hectic 90s. I predict that some of the lesser known names in the book will be big someday. At least they will if there's any justice in this wacky post-theatrical era...

This book is a very nice collection of monologues that can be easily adapted to stage.

A great book for audition material. Every director has heard 20 thousand interpretations of Blanche Dubois or Atticus Finch. This material, while familiar, is not overdone on the stage. Additionally, with works ranging from Cervantes, Voltaire and Dostoevsky to Jack Kerouac, Nora Ephron and Kurt Vonnegut there is an enormous variety of comedy, drama and slice-of-life dramedy selections to choose from.

The really fantastic thing about this particular book is the way it indexes the monolgoes by gender, age range, and level of comedy/drama. It also gives a good summary of the context for each piece.

These new titles provide plays and routines for aspiring young actors, offering a wealth of instructions and insights into the drama world. Marisa Smith edits New Playwrights, offering the best plays of 1999 from a variety of new playwrights. The diversity of the routines, from comedy to drama and beyond, lend to student acting abilities.

The Seattle Children's Theatre is one of the leading companies in the field of theatre for youth. This collection of plays is an example of how they have reached that status. Each play is well written, quality theatre. If you are looking for more than the slapstick, silly plays often written for children look here. These plays are stories of the heart and of real life situations often seen from the child's perspective. At the same time they are not overly sentimental or sappy. I can't wait to be able to produce any one of these plays myself!

The assortment of plays inside this book are a must for any woman of the theatre. All of the plays are beautifully written and unabridged by the editor. I picked this book up out of curiousity and ended up buying the whole collection!

Sticks and Stones is a wonderful drama about a police officer arrested for shooting a colored boy in the line of duty and the lawyer that he choose to defend him. This is great because the whole play takes place in one day in one scene. (In the lawyers office, several days after the incedent)They battle out the thin line between racism and just doing your job. It is a great drama and recommend this play.

I'm the second half of a 2-person book club, and we selected this book because we wanted to read something different. After many "hits" in our readings, this one was a big miss.

This is definitely a book geared toward actors as the title says. It's not for casual reading. But, even as a source of audition monologues, this book comes across as repetitive, vague, and one-dimensional.

The selection of movies starts in the 1930 and goes through many famous and infamous movies, which is great - a wide range. But it failed to give a diversity of characters, especially female characters, many of whom were the typical down-on-her-luck lasses. And the problem with the male characters selected is the demographic...white WASPs.

The emotional range doesn't get too far beyond the depressed and the depressing, which is useless to a character who's auditioning for a comedy and wants to show the producers and director that they are made for this part.

Comedy was rare, the monologue selections redundant (except for the classics like "To Kill a Mockingbird"), and the plot descriptions were vague at best. Rarely were the authors able to give a sufficient set-up of the plot and characterization for the monologues. It helped if the reader had seen the movie and understood the character's motivation and the plot, but the author's seem frightened to give away endings, when that isn't the point of their work.

Our book club gave this a rating of 3 out of 10, but here, that translates to a 1 star.

Don't waste your money...rent a movie instead.

this book took the life out of the words and strangled it with all its might!

The books monologues were aimed at people in there 30's and 40's. I was hoping they would be aimed at my age group which is the 20's and 30's. Maybe some day I will find something that suits me.