Mature Plays

This prized collection features 10 plays and sketches selected from 300 in two nationwide searches. Their plots and characters present modern, positive images of maturity with primarily female roles. Can be used for readers theatre or staged for any audience.

mature plays

Editor, Bonnie L. Vorenberg, is a nationally recognized expert and pioneer in Creative Aging. She is known for her groundbreaking work as a Senior Theatre teacher, director, speaker, and author. Bonnie is the President of the Senior Theatre Resource Center, the central location for Creative Aging materials with over 400 plays, books, and materials for older adults.

ONCE again the Young Playwrights Festival has come along to enliven the New York theater scene. Fresh voices speak from the stage of Playwrights Horizons in a quartet of pieces as diverse in mood as they are theatrically stimulating. The four plays in this 10th-anniversary festival were chosen from 725 entries across the country by writers 19 and under. The winners and their ages (at the time the scripts were submitted) are Denise Maher (17), David E. Rodriguez (18), Matthew Peterson (17), and Carlota Zimmerman (17). Ms. Maher's "Secrets to Square Dancing" centers around young Karl, who confounds his elders with his slightly eccentric method of responding to one of those tests so dear to the hearts of trendy educators. Karl's behavior is considered serious enough to demand the attention of a parent-teacher group presided over by a person who employs phrases like, "All of us here are experiencing denial." Grown-ups would do well to be careful of what they say in front of youngsters - particularly young playwrights. Ka rl, who learns his own lesson, tells his mother, an affectionate single parent, "I better learn the right way to square dance so I'm less conspicuous." Mr. Rodriguez's "I'm Not Stupid," studies an unstable mother's behavior toward her retarded son, Roger. Roger wanted a hammer to build a clubhouse like the one put up by the Little Rascals. How his mother handled the situation is brought out in the course of her sessions with a psychiatrist assigned to investigate the troubled family situation. The mother defines her love for Roger as "the kind of love you have for a pet." Rodriguez probes a brand of maternalism that leads to bizarre, fatal consequences. With "Donut World," Mr. Peterson proves for the second time in the evening a gift for comedy among the young playwrights. Surrounded by his model railroad (one of Allen Moyer's more intriguing sets), Bud combines an encyclopedic knowledge of railway lore with a particular fondness for bakery doughnuts. He informs the spectator: "This railroad is my empire. It's a perfect world - at least as perfect as I can make it." Bud's ire is naturally aroused when his perky wife innocently refers to his tabletop emp ire as "toy trains." Here as elsewhere, the young playwrights comment pointedly on adult attitudes. By far the fiercest of the present prize winners is Ms. Zimmerman's ironically titled "Man at His Best." Written with a realism that deletes no expletives, the intense, highly charged drama concerns two prison inmates: Dean, a black hustler, and Skyler, his white cellmate. Within the forbidding, iron-barred cubicle of a cell the two men play games, taunt each other, and periodically break into violence. "Man at His Best" reflects an observation of criminal behavior that is not derived from watching TV cr ime dramas. In fact, the evening's finale shares the consistent denominator of maturity that marks these plays. As usual, the sponsoring Foundation of the Dramatists Guild has seen to it that the young playwrights receive first-rate professional productions. The variously directed casts respond with performances that enhance the values of the scripts. The actors include Louis Falk, Anne Lange, Curtis McClarin, Peter Francis James, S. Epatha Merkerson, Paul Bates, Olga Merediz, Seth Gilliam, and James G. Macdonald. The productions benefit visually from Elsa Ward's costumes, and Pat Dignan's lighting. The texts of two groups of previous prize winners are now available in Dell Laurel-Leaf editions: "Sparks in the Park" and other plays from the 1987 and 1988 festivals and "Hey Little Walter" and other plays from the 1989 and 1990 festivals.

We investigated the properties of tubulin present in the sedimentable fraction ("Sed-tub") of human erythrocytes, and tracked the location and organization of tubulin in various types of cells during the process of hematopoietic/erythroid differentiation. Sed-tub was sensitive to taxol/nocodazole (drugs that modify microtubule assembly/disassembly), but was organized as part of a protein network rather than in typical microtubule form. This network had a non-uniform "connected-ring" structure, with tubulin localized in the connection areas and associated with other proteins. When tubulin was eliminated from Sed-tub fraction, this connected-ring structure disappeared. Spectrin, a major protein component in Sed-tub fraction, formed a complex with tubulin. During hematopoietic differentiation, tubulin shifts from typical microtubule structure (in pro-erythroblasts) to a disorganized structure (in later stages), and is retained in reticulocytes following enucleation. Thus, tubulin is not completely lost when erythrocytes mature; it continues to play a structural role in the Sed-tub fraction.

Scientists have long demonstrated the importance of larger trees and older forests, but when a tree is considered large or a forest mature has not been clearly defined and is relative to many factors. This study develops an approach to resolve this issue by connecting forest stand age and tree size using information in existing databases. This paper also defines maturity by reference to age of peak carbon capture for forest types in different ecosystems. But the approach is readily applicable across forest types and can be used with other definitions of stand maturity.

An integrated approach to detect new areas of potential interest associated with stratigraphic traps in mature basins is presented. The study was carried out in the Middle Magdalena Valley basin, Colombia. The workflow integrates outcrop and subsurface interpretations of facies, activity of faults, and distribution of depocenters and paleocurrents and makes use of them to construct a three-dimensional exploration-scale geocellular facies model of the basin. The outcrop and well log sedimentological analysis distinguished facies associations of alluvial fan, overbank, floodplain, and channel fill, the last one constituting the reservoir rock. The seismic analysis showed that tectonic activity was coeval with the deposition of the productive units in the basin and that the activity ended earlier (before the middle Miocene) along the western margin than along the eastern margin. Paleogeographic reconstructions depict transverse and longitudinal fluvial systems, alluvial fans adjacent to the active basin margins, and floodplain facies dominating the structural highs and the southwestern depositional limit. These reconstructions provided statistical data (lateral variograms) to construct the model. The exploration-scale facies model depicts the complete structure of the basin in three dimensions and the gross distribution of the reservoir and seal rocks. The predictive capability of the model was evaluated positively, and the model was employed to detect zones of high channel fill facies probability that form bodies that are isolated or that terminate upward in pinchouts or are truncated by a fault. Our approach can prove helpful in improving general exploration workflows in similar settings.

So how can you, as a parent, protect your child against these types of video games? First, you can check the Entertainment Software Rating Board ratings to learn about the game's content. Every video game will actually have a label on the front to tell you what type of game it is. If it says M for mature, it's not for your child. Our kids have their system set up so they can't purchase a game, even if it's free, without me getting a notification. They're usually pretty good about saying, "Hey Mom, can I get this game so I can play with my friends?" And if it's not one I approve of, they know it's a hard no. We also have it set up in the living room so I know exactly how much time they're playing, what they're playing, and who they're playing with if it's on a group chat.

Play can heal emotional wounds. As adults, when you play together, you are engaging in exactly the same patterns of behavior that positively shape the brains of children. These same playful behaviors that predict emotional health in children can also lead to positive changes in adults. If an emotionally insecure individual plays with a secure partner, for example, it can help replace negative beliefs and behaviors with positive assumptions and actions.

Juliet, like Romeo, makes the transition from an innocent adolescent to responsible adult during the course of the play. In Juliet's case, however, there is a heightened sense that she has been forced to mature too quickly. The emphasis throughout the play on Juliet's youth, despite her growing maturity, establishes her as a tragic heroine. 041b061a72