?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(ENTERTAINMENT--THEATER.) Charles Gordone. Working copy of his play "No Place to be Somebody" with related ephemera. [2], 27, 11, 10, 16, 12, 15, 21, 19, 35 mimeograph pages. 11 x 8½ inches, in plain spring binder, minor wear; a cover sheet has been almost entirely removed, several dialogue edits in pencil. New York, 1967
Gordone spent seven years working on his best-known work, "No Place to Be Somebody," the story of a Black New York bartender's encounter with the Mafia. He later described it as a story of "country folk who had migrated to the big city, seeking the urban myth of success, only to find disappointment, despair, and death." This is believed to be the personal copy of his wife and producer Jean Warner Gordone, mimeographed at about the time of the play's first experimental showcase production in 1967. The play was later launched at Joseph Papp's Public Theatre in May 1969, which earned a Pulitzer Prize--the first ever awarded for an off-Broadway production, and the first to a Black playwright.
With--a printed invitation and crude 6-page mimeograph program for a Sheridan Square Playhouse showcase production of "No Place to Be Somebody," its first public performance, 13 November 1967; and a rejection letter sent to Gordone by Grove Press, 13 May 1968.
Provenance: the Gordones lived with the consignor during the composition of this play, and readings were performed there.
