New Releases by Thornton Wilder

"A father, mother and two of their three surviving children drive from Newark, New Jersey, to Camden to visit their married daughter, who has recently lost her baby in childbirth. Their journey is punctuated by talk, laughter, memories (some mundane, some happy, some painful), and appreciation of the Now - ham and eggs, flowers, family, sunsets and the joy of being alive. In this family drama, nothing much happens-and yet everything important happens. As Ma Kirby says, "There''s nothin'' like bein'' liked by your family." - Publisher''s website.

Millie the nursemaid brings baby Tommy to Central Park in the hopes of a rendezvous with the handsome Patrolman Avonzino. Mrs. Boker soon arrives with baby Moe, and as the two ladies trade snacks and advice on child rearing, the infants compare notes on their parents'' bad behavior and pitiful lack of understanding. Babies act like grown-ups and grown-ups act like babies in this comedy about fulfilling basic human needs.

Thornton Wilder Comedy Characters: 2 male, 3 female In this provocative, sometimes chilling comedy, Wilder renders a child''s-eye view of the grown-up world, as a father, a mother and their three children play a revealing game of make-believe in which the children pretend to be orphans. Startling truths emerge on both sides, as pretense challenges the family to discard the traditional roles of parent, spouse, child, and sibling--blurring the lines between perception and rea

Ninety years of Christmas dinners at the Bayard home.

"This play is a rewritten version of the play "The merchant of Yonkers" which was directed in 1938 ..."--P. [4].

"Each of the novels is a special achievement, different in its own fashion from any other novels written at the time, or since. The Woman of Andros is a Greek pastoral as beautifully handled as the figures on a Greek vase. It contrasts with The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which is a fable (perhaps more Buddhist than Christian in its feeling), as much as with The Cabala, which is an album of boldly depicted characters. All three novels, different as they are from one another, have something in common besides their economy of statement and their felicity of style. Perhaps it is the quality that was praised by Henry James in his little book on Hawthorne. There he said, speaking of The Scarlet Letter, ''It has about it that charm, very hard to express, which we find in an artist''s work the first time he has touched his highest mark--a sort of straightness and naturalness of execution, and unconsciousness of his public, and freshness of interest in his theme.'' These books have that quality too, and they ask to be reread."--From back cover.

This one-act comedy, set in a Pullman car on a train traveling from New York to Chicago in December, 1930, introduces techniques Wilder would use in future three-act plays. Pullman Car takes us on a metaphorical journey by train through the American landscape, a diverse band of travelers encapsulated in a Pullman car hurtle through time, space and a range of emotions.5 women, 12 men

In his Foreword to The Angel That Troubled the Waters and Other Plays, published in 1928, Wilder explained that almost all the playlets in the book are religious, "but religious in that dilute fashion that is a believer''s concession to a contemporary standard of good manners." He wanted to explore religious themes and questions without being preachy, or didactic ... In fact, it was often his intention in such playlets as this one to stand the biblical story on its head -to shake up the language, as it were. He also said--about his plays dealing with religious themes and stories--that in "these matters beyond logic, beauty is the only persuasion."--Www.throntonwilder.com.