All in the Timing
All in the Timing is a collection of one-act plays by the American playwright David Ives, all of which were written between 1987 and 1993. It was first published by Dramatists Play Service in 1994, with a collection of six plays; the current collection contains fourteen. They are short, comedic, and frequently employ word play. High-school and college students frequently perform the plays, largely due to their brevity and undemanding staging requirements.
The original six plays
- Sure Thing: A man and a woman meet for the first time in a cafe, where they have an awkward meeting continually reset each time they say the wrong thing, until, finally, they connect.
- Words, Words, Words: Three chimpanzees attempt to write Hamlet.
- The Universal Language: A man and a woman fall in love while communicating in the invented language Unamunda.
- Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread: A musical parody of minimalist composer Philip Glass.
- The Philadelphia: A man in a strange state where he must ask for the opposite of what he wants in a restaurant.
- Variations on the Death of Trotsky: Leon Trotsky dies several times from a mountain-climber's ax wound received 36 hours prior.
Other plays
- Long Ago and Far Away: a married yuppie couple argues about the nature of reality and becomes caught up in a bizarre scenario involving time travel and suicide. This is one of the few dramatic pieces in All in the Timing.
- Foreplay, or The Art of the Fugue: Three miniature golf games taking place simultaneously, showing one man on three separate first dates.
- Seven Menus: Seven dinners at the same restaurant, showing the evolution of one circle of friends.
- Mere Mortals: Three blue-collar construction workers discuss how they are really the Lindbergh baby, the son of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, and the reincarnation of Marie Antoinette.
- English Made Simple: A young man and woman meet at a party, and their immediate romantic attraction is translated into comically unromantic grammar lessons as they struggle to free themselves from the banal constrictions of party talk.
- A Singular Kinda Guy: A monologue about a man who believes he is actually a typewriter.
- Speed-the-Play: A parody of the works of American playwright David Mamet. His major works are each lampooned.
- Ancient History: One of the few dramatic works in All in the Timing, History is about a couple discussing tradition and relationships before and after they hold a party.