For close to two decades, the Humana Festival has been celebrating the genius of American playwrights by presenting an exciting new crop of home-grown plays each year to theatergoers from around the world. A double bill of one-act plays by new playwright Regina Taylor, who won an Emmy nomination for her role as Lilly Harper in the TV drama "I'll Fly Away," is featured in Humana Festival '93: The Complete Plays, a volume of the new works - five full-length plays, a pair of one-acts, and three ten-minute plays - that premiered at the 17th annual festival from nine distinguished playwrights. Eight of the Humana Festival '93 plays were chosen from over 2,500 entries submitted to the ATL over the past year: Shooting Simone by Lynn Kaufman, The Ice Fishing Play by Kevin Kling, What We Do With It by Bruce MacDonald, Keely and Du by Jane Martin, Poof! by Lynn Nottage, Tape by Jose Rivera, and the two one-acts by Regina Taylor. Poof! was a co-winner of ATL's 1992 National Ten-Minute Play Contest. Here is a collection of nine thought-provoking contemporary dramas by American playwrights, first performed at the 17th Annual Humana Festival by the Actors Theatre of Louisville this past spring. Included are five full-length plays, a one-act play, and three ten-minute dramas. Subject matter covers such issues as abortion, suicide, and child abuse. Watermelon Rinds by Regina Taylor, the Emmy Award-winning performer in TV's I'll Fly Away , is an absurdist's view of African American family politics. Joan Ackermann's Stanton's Garage takes place in rural Missouri and examines the structure of human relationships in juxtaposition to auto mechanics. A worthwhile addition to modern drama collections. - Howard E. Miller, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Missouri Lib., St. Louis Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. Smith has collected a sometimes uneven but often interesting group of shorter plays from the seventeenth annual Humana Festival of New American Plays. The best of these usually deal with some politically charged issue or social concern (e.g., abortion, child abuse, and battered wives), transforming it from an evening news story into a real concern of the human heart. "What We Do with It" explores the lingering effects of sexual abuse on a father, the abuser, and his daughter, the victim; "Keely and Du" personalizes the abortion debate in a meaningful way. "Poof!" portrays an abusive husband who bursts spontaneously into flames, much to the confusion and relief of his wife--though the reader (or playgoer) will be left with the distinct feeling that the abuse may go to a different level now that the husband is gone. Though several of these plays seem to share the mannerisms of bad TV writing, on the whole, this is an engaging glimpse of today's playwrights and the contemporary human landscape. Brian McCombie Marisa Smith is the Owner and Publisher of Smith and Kraus, a leading publisher of theater books since 1990. She has edited many books for Smith and Kraus and is the author/playwright of "Book Group" and "The Devine Comedy", recently presented at Eclipse Grange theater by Signal and Noise Productions. Used Book in Good Condition