DA CAPO:Selected Writings 1967-2004

About the Book

Da Capo is a collection of stories, plays, poems and journals in which Tom Bissinger takes on his world, whether reading Shakespeare to a blind bag lady, observing three playwrights comically vying to destroy each other’s career amidst the bustle of a Korean deli, or meditating on his father in a Sao Paulo swimming pool. Part autobiography, part story telling, part poetic explorations of dream world, and part social satire, Bissinger conveys the theatricality of so called ‘ordinary existence’ by pulling his life towards him, hungering for the nuggets of mirth and meaning, ultimately owning it in original, daring prose. He takes on the challenge of staying awake in a troubled, violent world, while addressing his yearning for reverie and revelation.

About the Author

Tom Bissinger grew up in San Francisco, attended Phillips Academy and Stanford University, and after military service, moved to New York, where in the 1960s, he directed plays Off- and Off-Off-Broadway as well as in theaters throughout the United States and Europe. He began writing plays and short fiction in the 1970s when he moved to the Pennsylvania countryside. His plays include the tragic comedy The Big Kephresh, Descartes’ Blues (a play about the life and loves of Rene Descartes), and his latest (coauthored with Dance Wareham) The Bus, which was performed on a forty-foot bus. He has held a variety of jobs in teaching, publishing, and performing. His book Da Capo: Selected Writings 1967–2004, edited by Philip Beitchman, PhD, was published in 2008. Since 1987, Bissinger has studied with Joseph Rael, an American Indian visionary. Bissinger is married with two children and many grandchildren.