We Hate To See You Go

By Michael McGrinder

One-Act/Dark Comedy 3m 2f

We hate to see you go
We hate to see you go
We hope to hell you never come back
We hate to see you go

An Irish wake.
A reluctant corpse. A few drinks. A few laughs. A few tears. Some bickering. Some fighting.
An Irish wake.

Seasoned playwright Michael McGrinder is at it again, this time calling on (some would say calling out) his Irish heritage and its peculiar relationship with death and all the contrariness that attends it.

McGrinder's exquisite craftsmanship is at play here as he balances the outrageous with the subtle, the laughter with the tears, the hypocrisy with... well, with itself. As always, he offers us delightful entertainment. It’s no wonder We Hate To See You Go continues to be one of his most popular plays.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael McGrinder
• Release date: Sep 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463126035

Michael McGrinder

Michael McGrinder grew up in the South Bronx, New York City. He spent his early twenties in England where he was part of a vital poetry scene and acquired a taste for and an interest in theatre.Returning to New York, he lived on the Lower East Side and quickly became involved in the developing Off-Off-Broadway scene, so new at the time it was generally referred to as café theatre.His first production, a double-bill of one-act plays, was given life at The Playwrights Workshop. He then began showing his work at the legendary Old Reliable Theatre Tavern, located in the funky back room of a Polish bar in a dangerous section of the East Village. “It’s easy to find. Just turn left at the burning automobile,” and “No wonder we get such good crowds. Everyone’s afraid to come here alone.” His plays were also produced at such leading theaters as La Mama, Bastiano’s Cellar, The Playbox Studio and at The Library Theatre of Lincoln Center.He published Proscenium, a newsletter which The Village Voice described as “Off-Off talking to itself.” He also hosted a weekly cable TV show of the same name presenting excerpts from Off-Off shows and interviews with the production’s writer, director and actors. The show was later rechristened Michael McGrinder Presents to allow for an expanded format.Along with artists Judy Pendleton and Helen Lau, he was a founding member of Artists Rights Association, an organization devoted to securing reproduction rights and royalties for artists as well as encouraging artists to use copyright symbols on their work.Michael McGrinder’s plays have been published by The Smith, Breakthrough Press and Dramatics Magazine and by And/Or Books.His concern for the preservation of vital plays from the early years of Off-Off-Broadway led to his founding The Old Reliable Press, online as oldreliableprss.com.He has several projects in the works and has a growing list of books available through Amazon Barnes & Noble, Smashwords.com and many other online booksellers.

Book preview

We Hate

To See

You Go

Michael McGrinder

Published by

The Old Reliable Press

oldreliablepress.com

Copyright © 1968, 1974, 2000, 2018 Michael McGrinder

Copyright © 2018 as a book The Old Reliable Press

All rights reserved.

We Hate To See You Go was first published in The Scene/2: Plays from Off-Off-Broadway, edited by Stanley Nelson and published by The Smith, Brooklyn, New York 1974.

Cover image by Judy Pendleton (adapted)

© 2018 The Old Reliable Press

The Old Reliable Press takes its name from and honors the venue where so many of the most exciting Off-Off talents worked in the late 1960s and 70s. The Old Reliable Theatre was located in the back room of a bar on East 3rd Street between Avenues B and C in New York’s Alphabet City. A dangerous neighborhood then, it was best characterized by a popular actor-director Neil Flanagan: It’s easy to find. Turn left at the burning automobile.

Off-Off-Broadway gave us the black box and decentralized theatre. Thousands of plays were given life during that remarkable time. Very few are available today. The goal of The Old Reliable Press is not just to publish and preserve some of the works, but to