Plays By Y York

This collection contains three full-length plays: GERALD’S GOOD IDEA, THE SECRET WIFE and THE SNOWFLAKE AVALANCHE.

   “If there is a common thread in York’s projects, it is that they are full of uncommon characters: children, 1960s housewives, black financial consultants, Native American activists. Very few of York’s characters seem to have anything to do with the playwright herself...and her attention to those differences gives her work a frankly political spin.”

American Theater

   “[Y York makes her points] by not taking herself too seriously, even as she offers astute observations about environmental, racial, and family matters.”

The New York Times

   “The future with all its exhilarating potential and terrifying possibilities has Y York in its grip. York does not struggle to break free, or even squirm. Calmly, with great wit and insight, she writes plays: environmental science-fiction plays that raise important questions even as they entertain.”

St Louis Post Dispatch

   “[Y York] displays a strong imagination and raucous humor...”

St Louis Sun

   “[Y York] writes with passion and delivers a powerful appeal for personal freedom and idiosyncratic behavior.”

St Louis Post Dispatch

from reviews of THE SNOWFLAKE AVALANCHE

   “An ambitious `modern fable’—concerning ecological disaster, race relations, and the human condition... A Native American fisherman’s extreme response to an atrocious oil spill brings his family together with that of the African-American 

lawyer who defends him.... The script conspires to bring massive, global issues to a human, even comic plane. Peripheral choices—such as a mother struggling with whether to not to stop contributing to her planet’s demise by using laundry bleach—are weighed against the fisherman’s violent choice in a world where rats chewing through computer chips can bring our entire justice system to a halt. In the `avalanche’ of today’s reality, this show offers us a chance to examine our own responsibility as, you guessed it, the flakes.”

The Seattle Weekly

   “York has a real flair for wry, intelligent humor.... THE SNOWFLAKE AVALANCHE forgoes preaching for a gentle hopefulness that we can set things right on the planet and learn to understand each other better.”

Seattle Times

   “At one point in a discussion on environmental responsibility, [Janet, the wife of] Thomas, a Native American being defended for shooting the president of a corporation responsible for a major oil spill, refers to Russell as `you white people.’ Action stops for a moment, and the implications hit, with strong force. To say that Y York’s THE SNOWFLAKE AVALANCHE is provocat...