Yorktown: A Play

By Robert Manns

"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 theater His choice of style is unique; his imagination boundless; and his dedication intense. And I believe he has a real gift for the theater."
-Alan Schneider

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 13, 2006
• ISBN: 9780595849277

Robert Manns

Robert Manns was born in Detroit; spent six years in New York, where he received his first productions; and later moved to Florida and eventually Atlanta. He wrote his first play when he was 19, his first poem when he was 21. He has taught dramaturgy at Emory University in Atlanta and, while director of Callanwolde Art Institure in that city, initiated the poetry readings still held today. Even before serving as field representative for the National Audubon Society, wildlife and the environment had solidly manifested themselves in his writing.

Book preview

Copyright © 2006 by Robert Manns

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN-13: 978-0-595-40562-6 (pbk)

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-84927-7 (ebk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-40562-2 (pbk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-84927-X (ebk)

Contents

Act One, Scene One

Act One, Scene Two

Act Two, Scene One

Act Two, Scene Two

My sincerest thanks to Paul Hodgson, whose role in The Swan that Slept is legend along the coast of Maine, for his Englishing of my script in its two middle scenes portraying Brek and Stinson of Cornwallis’ army. He gave the play a flavor I never could have.

The first draft of Act One of Yorktown was written in a week in Maine. Act Two was written in Naples, Florida. When an alert sister-in-law saw me struggling (away from my typewriter) to print text on yellow paper with a conventional ball-point pen, she rose to the status of angel. Irene did that. First, she supplied me with one of the new roller-ball pens. Then she volunteered to put the play on her computer. Things got easier. Angels make it happen that way.

Act One, Scene One

The scene is a room of General Knox’s headquarters, a spacious room poorly equipped with a few chairs, a table, things left behind by the owner. A door enters from the left. Another door is at the right rear.