Charles Fuller is the author of A
Soldier’s Play and the 1982 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Best
American Play, New York Critics Circle Award, Edgar Allen Poe Award for
Mystery Writing and the 1985 Academy Award Nominee for Best Screenplay for
the motion picture ‘A Soldier’s Story.’ After a long history in Theatre and
Film, Snatch: The Adventures of David and Me in Old New York, is Mr.
Fuller’s first venture into the world of young adult literature.
Snatch
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Hardcover: 171 pages
Publisher: David and Me Publishing (June 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-9844039-0-5
After 40-years of work in film and theater acclaimed screenwriter and playwright Charles Fuller launches his first novel, SNATCH: The Adventures of David and Me in Old New York. Well-known for A Soldier’s Play which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1982) and his Academy Award nominated film, A Soldier’s Story, (1985) which garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and a nomination for Best Screenplay for Mr. Fuller. This new exciting young readers novel debuts on June 2, 2010.
SNATCH fulfills a promise Mr. Fuller made to his now middle-aged sons
Charles III and David Ira Fuller nearly a half century ago, that he would
create a story in which the two of them would be the heroes in a historical
adventure during the turbulent times in New York before slavery was
abolished.
Set in “Five Points” a notorious neighborhood in New York City in 1838,
Snatch is a tale about two brothers, David and Charles, “free” black kids,
who while fishing in the Hudson River on a day in September meet and help a
fugitive slave, Freddie Johnson elude a gang of slave catchers led by a
mysterious man called “Snatch.” Over thirty-six hours, the two brothers
engineer a wild chase and escape through the streets and tunnels of Old New
York helped by the “Brewery Witches,” a trio of girls from the neighborhood.
Mr. Fuller’s rich, multi-layered young adult adventure novel provides a
glimpse into the little known history of life for free blacks in antebellum
New York during the 1830s. Both historically authentic and entertaining,
“Snatch” is a must read for book lovers of all ages.
A
Soldier's Play
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Paperback: 100 pages
Publisher: Hill and Wang (September 1, 1982)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0374521484
ISBN-13: 978-0374521486
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.2 inches
Review
Drama in two acts by Charles Fuller, produced and published in 1981 and
awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1982. Set on an army base in
Louisiana during World War II, the play deals with the open and covert
conflicts between whites and blacks that limit the possibility of personal
growth and social progress. The work concerns an investigation into the
murder of a black sergeant of an all-black company. By interviewing
witnesses, the investigator discovers that the sergeant had been a
tyrannical, sadistic man who had hated everyone, black and white. He
eventually discovers that the murder was not committed by white soldiers,
town bigots, or members of the Ku Klux Klan, but by a young black soldier
whom the sergeant had goaded unmercifully. -- The Merriam-Webster
Encyclopedia of Literature
About the Book
A black sergeant cries out in the night, "They still hate you," then is shot
twice and falls dead. Set in 1944 at Fort Neal, a segregated army camp in
Louisiana, Charles Fuller's forceful drama--which won the Pulitzer Prize in
1982 and has been regularly seen in both its original stage and its later
screen version--tracks the investigation of this murder. A Soldier's Play is
more than a detective story: it is a tough, incisive exploration of racial
tensions and ambiguities among blacks and between blacks and whites that
gives no easy answers and assigns no simple blame.
A
Soldier's Story (1985) DVD
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Actors: Howard E. Rollins Jr., Adolph Caesar, Art
Evans, David Alan Grier, David Harris
Directors: Norman Jewison
Writers: Charles Fuller
Producers: Norman Jewison, Charles Milhaupt, Chiz Schultz, Patrick J.
Palmer, Ronald L. Schwary
Format: Anamorphic, Full Screen, NTSC
Language: English (Dolby Digital 4.0)
Region: Region 2 (Read more about DVD formats.)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Run Time: 101 minutes
Director Norman Jewison's (In the Heat of the Night) 1984 adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play explores the ramifications of racism and loyalty through the prism of blacks in the military, revealed through a murder mystery set in the 1940s deep South. Howard E. Rollins (Ragtime) plays a military investigator assigned to the murder of a drill instructor (Adolph Caesar) in charge of a black platoon. Under pressure from his superiors to wrap his investigation up quickly, Rollins instead delves deeply into the relationships between the despised drill instructor and his men, uncovering lies and animosity, and confronting the question of what it means to be black in a white man's world. Rollins is a riveting, stoic, and emotional lead, and Denzel Washington makes an early appearance as a soldier with a deep grudge against the drill instructor and a deep mistrust of Rollins' investigator. A powerfully written story that makes the most of its large and impressive ensemble cast, A Soldier's Story is a deeply affecting and worthwhile film. --Robert Lane
Zooman
and the Sign
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Paperback: 71 pages
Publisher: Samuel French Inc Plays (June 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0573618453
ISBN-13: 978-0573618451
Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.2 inches
Fuller won an Obie Award for Zooman and the Sign in 1980, about a black
Philadelphia teen who kills a young girl on her own front porch, and whose
neighbours eventually rise up against him after being goaded out of their
apathy by the girl's father with a sign. Zooman presents himself as a
helpless product of his society, but his victim's father convinces their
neighbours that they need to stand together and achieve justice.
Related Links
Snatch Website
http://www.davidandmeinnyc.com/
