New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2007

The latest in Smith and Kraus' highly-acclaimed series, this comprehensive anthology is a rich and varied collection of the work of some of America's most promising new playwrights. Contains:<br><br>BFF by Anna Ziegler. An Off Broadway success about two teenaged girls. One has a tragic end, the other keeps her memory alive by becoming her.<br>DARK PLAY OR STORIES FOR BOYS by Carlos Murillo. A smash at Louisville's Humana Festival, this provocative play focuses on a teenaged computer whiz who invents an alter ego in order to lure another boy into his fantasy world.<br>INTELLECTUALS by Scott Sickles. This hilarious comedy is about a psychologist who decides to take a sabbatical from her marriage to pursue her untapped potential as a lesbian.<br>LIVING ROOM IN AFRICA by Bathsheba Doran. This intense drama is about a couple who have moved to a small village in Africa to set up a museum there with money donated from the west, only to learn that they are living in an area devasted by AIDS.<br>NO CHILD by Nilaja Sun. This acclaimed long-running Off Broadway hit subsequently toured all over the U.S. and abroad. In it, Ms. Sun played a beleaguered substitute teacher in the inner city high school from hell, hired to work with this problem school's most incorrigible students to present a play. She played all the roles, from herself to students to parents to other teachers to the principal to a veteran, much-beloved janitor in this insightful look at life in a hellish high school.<br>THE PAIN AND THE ITCH by Bruce Norris. This terrific dark comedy achieved Off Broadway acclaim and went on the London, where it was equally sensationally received. It's a hilarious social satire about liberal hypocrisy, focusing on an American family who want it all: moral superiority and a wide-screen TV.<br>VICTORIA MARTIN: MATH TEAM QUEEN by Kathryn Walat. Victoria wants to be Most Popular, but she also wants to be known for her brains. She becomes the first girl ever on her high school's math team - which scrambles the team's all-male dynamic.