Mary Anneeta Mann Bücher

ON THE EDGE OF SANITY He walks the tight rope of sanity; Above, a dream, Below,a piercing scream From one in the density Of human awe Who had tried before. ...

How to move beyond global warfare and gang andstreet violence is explored through the unlikely medium of RAP in THUGUN ANDNATASHA, a drama with rap, for family audiences. The play is rooted in thereal life Los Angeles killing of ayoung black girl by a Korean storekeeper who was a woman. In THUGUN AND NATASHA, the gun ispersonified and becomes THUGUN a master rapper and manipulator of peopleshearts and minds. RAP replaces theGreek Chorus, as Thugun the time-honored gun with all his attendant hubris, raps his way through life, exploring everyangle of temptation for young men in an ethnically divided community as well asthose living in fear while trying to keep their lives and their businessesintact. Sookee the storekeeper becomesa tragic perpetrator as well as deceived victim when she unwittingly kills the promising Natasha, an A student, abrilliant, precocious teenager while Thugun, the man-made oddity gloats inhis achievement. Sookee and Thugun are finally put on trial, as is ArticleII, the second amendment of the U.S.Constitution, humanity itself and the will of human beings to transcend theirdifferences and reach the ultimate intuition of reverence for life . THUGUNAND NATASHA is a play for all ages.

MARIA AND THE COMET: A quaker girl of the 19th century, the earthling Maria Mitchell studies the universe and is beloved by the stars who seek other earthlings from the audience and dance with them across the sky. The inquisitive and studious Maria fixes a chronometer when she is 12 years old. Maria is also beloved by the Comet who is discovered by her in 1847. Later she becomes a professor of Astronomy at Vassar College encouraging young people particularly girls, to study mathematics and science, even teaching some of them on stage! THE ROUND TABLE: In a lively retelling of Arthurian legend, the hitherto unknown Merlina, sister of Merlin is very distressed by all the blood spilled on the earth in the 20th and 21st centuries. She accompanies Nyme, the Lake of the Lake on a journey from the middle earth to our world today. They surface first in 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. They flash back and forth revisiting the legends and bringing Excalibur the Sword of Right into the 21st century. They try to find someone to fill the current Seat Perilous and bring peace to the world, finally accepting their own responsibility.