Modern and contemporary plays / drama
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Nineteen Gardens
Book SynopsisWe were bound by the same dreamTo be there and to own itor to destroy itNearly two years after the end of their affair, John and Aga meet once more. Each has filled the void left by the other: he has withdrawn into his world of wealth and privilege; she has found herself working as a chambermaid to support her family. Both recognise that the spark between them is still there. Will they rekindle what they had, or is an altogether darker game about to be played out?Magdalena Miecznicka's Nineteen Gardens is a lyrical human comedy, by turns seductive, enigmatic and explosive. The author of several novels and plays in Polish, this is Miecznicka''s first play in English.This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London''s Hampstead Theatre, in November 2023.
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 1 Thursdays
Book SynopsisNewcastle, London, America. You can go anywhere, it's still the same old shit. People just getting by, in any way they know how. But I tell you what they don't have, they don't have a 1 Thursday!17-year-old Jen and Stacey are best friends. Since forever.Stacey always dreamed of being a dancer. And she's actually got the talent for it. Only her school career advisor hasn't even been to London, let alone heard of Urdang. Jen is smart. Like Oxbridge smart. But all smart' gives her is the ability to see that there's no use trying to change the story prewritten for her, growing up in an underfunded and forgotten Bradford in the 2010s.They only have one place they can escape to Club Ocean on a Thursday night. Freedom for Jen and Stacey. A beautiful and hilarious coming-of-age story, Kat Rose-Martin''s 1 Thursdays captures and celebrates the trials and tribulations of what it means to be young, Northern and working class, when for one Vodka-blurred second, you're allowed to forg
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Nae Expectations
Book SynopsisCharles Dickens (1812-70) was an English writer, generally considered to be the greatest novelist of the Victorian period and responsible for some of English literature's most iconic novels and characters. He continues to be one of the best-known and most read of English authors, with multiple adaptations of his work frequently being produced.Gary McNair is a multi-award-winning writer and performer from Glasgow who aims to challenge and entertain in equal measure. Previous shows include: Square Go, Donald Robertson is Not a Stand Up Comedian, A Gambler's Guide To Dying, Letters To Morrissey, and Locker Room Talk. He has three times won the Scotsman Fringe First Award and has toured the world with his plays. His work has been translated into multiple languages including Italian, Arabic and Japanese.
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC FLIP
Book SynopsisCall my narcissism whatever you want. And while you''re at it; like, comment, subscribe, worship - fucking bow down.Meet Carleen and Crystal. The influencers with cultural commentary that will have you in stitches. Love them or hate them, there's no stopping their fast-growing online following. Offline, Carleen has her reservations about their cyber personas, but she idolises Crystal and would follow her anywhere even to FLIP!, the new social media giant that has everyone hooked and Carleen and Crystal are no exception; especially when it seems that their videos could make them famous.Superstardom, followers, fame, influence, money: it''s all just one click away. FLIP! is the answer to everything they''ve ever dreamed of. But is it too good to be true?FLIP! is a powerful new satire from critically-acclaimed writer Racheal Ofori that probes what it means to live freely under the shadow of social media, encroaching on every aspect of our lives. How can we be our authentic
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Ghosts
Book SynopsisThere are ghosts everywhere. There are ghosts here right now.Plagued by the ugly truth of her late husband's legacy, Helene vows to erase the past and start again.Ignorant to the reality of his father's character, Osvald, her son, returns home to face an uncertain future. But when the ember of an illicit romance stands to ruin Helene's plans to play happy family, she is forced to make a decision that threatens to engulf what's left of her and her son's life completely.Experience the work of Henrik Ibsen, one of the most influential dramatists of all time, in a scandalous and searing exploration of family secrets and forbidden desire. Nearly 150 years after causing a furore when it premiered with its depiction of incest, infection and euthanasia, adaptor and director Joe Hill-Gibbins (The Marriage of Figaro, ENO; The Tragedy of King Richard The Second, Almeida), in his Globe debut, brings a new version of Ghosts, the fi
£10.44
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Manic Street Creature
Book SynopsisMaimuna Memon is a Lancashire born writer, composer, musician and actor. She is Co-Founder and Resident Composer of Wildcard Theatre Company. Maimuna's one woman concept album musical Manic Street Creature was a smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, winning the 2022 Mental Health Fringe Award. Maimuna has written music and lyrics for Electrolyte (a gig theatre piece which had a sell out run at the Edinburgh Fringe 2018/19 and won the Scotsman Mental Health Award), Nine Lessons and Carols at the Almeida Theatre and Welcome To Iran for the National Theatre and Stratford East (cancelled due to the pandemic but then adapted for BBC Radio 3). Maimuna is commissioned by The Bush and Bolton Octagon Theatre for her new musical Sparrow Girl, an autobiographical four woman show about choice and heritage. She was nominated for a 2023 Olivier Award as Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her role in the National Theatre's Standing at the Sky's
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Same Team A Street Soccer Story
Book SynopsisNo.1 Players always come firstNo.2 We look to the futureNo.3 We never leave anyone behindNo.4 We place others before ourselvesNo.5 We keep our promisesFive women have come together with one goal, one dream. Coming from very different backgrounds in life they have to work together as a team if they want to do what no one from Scotland has ever done before. To win the Homeless World Cup, and bring the trophy home.A joyful story of community and teamwork, building connections between each other, and homelessness. Written with the Dundee Women's Street Soccer Team, Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse''s Same Team A Street Soccer Story is an uplifting whirlwind through the highs and lows of homeless football.This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, in December 2023.
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The House of Bernarda Alba
Book SynopsisYou bring such scandal to my house.In the domain of Bernarda Alba, a daughter who disobeys is no longer a daughter. Forced to live under their mother's tight grip as they mourn their father's death, can five sisters survive when young Adela dares for passion and freedom?Olivier Award-winner Harriet Walter (Succession) plays the formidable matriarch, guarding her reputation against the rising tide of her family's desires in this pitch-black drama exploring the consequences of oppressing women, in Alice Birch''s radical new version of Federico García Lorca's modern masterpiece.This edition published to coincide with the world premiere at the National Theatre, London, in November 2023.
£12.34
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The EU Killed My Dad
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2023 Woven Voices PrizeWho do you blame? The woman, the gun, or politics?Berker travels from Britain to Turkey to meet his estranged father, but it's too late: his sister Elif informs him that their Baba has already died. A family reunion becomes an exhilarating whodunnit investigation as Berker discovers the truth about his roots, grieves for a man he will never truly know, and accidentally unravels a conspiracy that goes to the heart of global politics.Featuring British spies, Turkish soldiers, and London's kebab shops, Aaron Kilercioglu's The EU Killed My Dad is the winner of the Woven Voices Prize 2023 and an inventive, fast-paced exploration of identity, belonging, and history spanning five decades. Aaron''s previous award-winning work includes the sell-out hit For a Palestinian, which has been seen at Bristol Old Vic, the Camden People's Theatre, and Underbelly.This edition was published to coincide with
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Jekyll and Hyde
Book SynopsisAre those little voices in our heads our friends, or our enemies? What if they're neither, what if they're both?In this captivating and comic one-person play written by Gary McNair, the classic story of Jekyll and Hyde is turned on its head to reveal the depths of one man's psyche and the lengths we will go to hide our deepest secrets. What will happen to a curious mind as it's left to its own devices?Originally presented at Reading Rep, this edition was published to coincide with the opening of Jekyll and Hyde at The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in January 2024.
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Wish You Werent Here
Book SynopsisYou didn't come for a weekend in Scarborough to watch Homes Under The Hammer.After all those extra shifts, all Lorna wants is a night out on the town and time to reconnect with her daughter. All 16-year-old Mila wants is for the world to stop burning. And for someone to take down that Beach Body Ready' poster. Please. As mum and daughter check into their premium' room where they can almost see the sea, they quickly discover that their favourite seaside town, which was once their annual sunny escape, could really use some attention just like their relationship. Katie Redford''s Wish You Weren''t Here is a hilarious and heart-warming exploration of family relationships, the agony of growing up, and how to find your way in the world when you can't help thinking you're just not good enough. This edition was published to coincide with Theatre Centre''s UK tour in January 2024.
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Cracking
Book SynopsisWinner of the Tinniswood Award at the 2024 BBC Audio AwardsAs I walk past the funeral parlour, I see a poster next to their two-for-one offer. It''s a wanted poster with my name on it.A completely made-up true story. When the world goes mad, do we inevitably go mad too?When Shôn playfully cracks an egg on his mother's head, he has no idea real-life internet trolls will appear on his doorstep. Cracking takes on the battle between love and hate, asking what's funny and where we draw the line. Part stand-up, part theatre, Cracking is a funny, touching and thought-provoking solo performance that sews together fact and fiction into one seamless whole making us wonder what's real, what's not and what's gone wrong. This story about love and hatred celebrates how searching for connection beats disconnecting. This edition was published to coincide with the UK tour starting in February 2024.
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC When You Pass Over My Tomb
Book SynopsisI remember thinking, what difference is there between donating my body to science and donating it to someone who might find pleasure in it when I'm dead.Sergio Blanco and Daniel Goldman collaborate again, after the success of their critically acclaimed Offie award-winning productions of Thebes Land and The Rage of Narcissus, to tell a mesmerising story of love and lust beyond the grave.Desire, friendship and eroticism intertwine in When You Pass Over My Tomb, a dazzling play by Latin America's leading living playwright that asks, how far would you go for love? And will the world allow it?This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London''s Arcola Theatre in February 2024.
£10.99
Pan Macmillan Paradise
Book Synopsis‘Tempest has a gift for shattering and transcending convention.’ New York TimesPhiloctetes lives in a cave on a desolate island: the wartime hero is now a wounded outcast. Stranded for ten years, he sees a chance of escape when a young soldier appears with tales of Philoctetes’ past glories. But with hope comes suspicion – and, as an old enemy emerges, he is faced with an even greater temptation: revenge.Kae Tempest is now widely acknowledged as a revolutionary force in contemporary British poetry, music and drama; they continue to expand the range of their work with a new version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes in a bold new translation. Like Brand New Ancients before it, Paradise shows Tempest’s gift for lending the old tales an immediate contemporary relevance – and will find this timeless story a wide new audience.Trade ReviewTempest . . . doesn't just leap off the page, but leaps into your throat and demands to be shouted all the way out. -- Marlon JamesOne of the brightest British talents around. [Tempest's] spoken-word performances have the metre and craft of traditional poetry, the kinetic agitation of hip-hop and the intimacy of a whispered heart-to-heart . . . drawing on ancient mythology and sermonic cadence to tell stories of the everyday * Guardian *Tempest stitches together words with such animate grace that language acquires an almost tactile quality . . . [An] hypnotically persuasive vision * New York Times *Breathe[s] new life into old classic forms . . . I loved its vision, powerful and merciful. -- Ali Smith, on Brand New Ancients
£9.89
Nick Hern Books Orlando
Book Synopsis'Nothing is any longer one thing.' From a teenage encounter with Elizabeth I, through infatuations, voyages and even a change of gender, Orlando lives out five centuries of life and love before they finally find the courage to truly be themselves. Neil Bartlett's sparkling adaptation of Virginia Woolf's famous fantasy finds powerful contemporary relevance in her vision of equal rights to love for bodies of every kind – and brings it to life on the stage with a kaleidoscope of theatrical styles, overseen by the haunting figure of Woolf herself. It premiered at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End in November 2022, in a production directed by Michael Grandage and starring Emma Corrin in the title role. Written for a diverse ensemble of nine or more actors, this adaptation will appeal to any theatre or company looking to entertain their audiences with a bold new take on this iconic tale of love and transformation.Trade Review'Radiates gleeful intelligence, rampaging heart and tremendous fun. It couldn't feel more timely, and it's glorious' * Guardian *'Theatre to make the heart leap... this vivid, glittering drama achieves not just the improbable, but the almost impossible: it captures the brilliance of Woolf's mind, the daring of her transgressive vision and the lush gorgeousness of her prose, and refracts it on the stage in an exquisite rainbow of prismatic colour... a play that is at once a delectable queer fantasia and a freewheeling intellectual joyride through the intertwined complexities of life, literature, identity and the creative process... a blazing beacon to progress, to possibility, to freedom and the power of imagination' * The Stage *'Neil Bartlett's fleet-footed, wildly imaginative but wonderfully disciplined adaption shines literal and metaphorical light on contemporary ideas of identity... an outstandingly original theatrical pleasure' * Variety *'Joyful and groundbreaking... a triumph' * Independent *'Neil Bartlett's adaptation captures all [the novel's] sexiness and spirit... it's splendid in every sense: passionate, camp as Christmas and as warmly celebratory, too' * iNews *'An adaptation full of joy and hope and sense of possibility for the future' * WhatsOnStage *'Neil Bartlett's funny but moving adaptation... a frisky romp, wittily engaging with today's debate about gender fluidity... a joyous ode to freedom' * Daily Mail *
£10.44
Nick Hern Books The Suspicions of Mr Whicher
Book SynopsisSummer 1860, an elegant country house, a young boy is found dead in an outside privy. All clues point towards the murderer being a member of the grieving household. Called to the scene is the most celebrated detective of his day, Jonathan Whicher from Scotland Yard. But this case challenges him in ways he's never been challenged before. Over twenty years later, still haunted by the case, Whicher visits the murderer. As they replay the past, they start to question the nature of truth, the desire for certainty and the possibility of redemption. This compelling stage adaptation of Kate Summerscale's gripping bestseller opened at The Watermill Theatre, Newbury, in May 2023. This ensemble piece provides rich opportunities for companies looking to intrigue their audiences with a fresh take on a dark Victorian mystery. Trade Review'A true crime classic turned into a tense drama... ingeniously plotted... Kate Summerscale's Victorian potboiler is deftly condensed in a production that brings out the misogyny and class snobbery of the era' * Guardian *'Taut and magnetic... Alexandra Wood's bold adaptation turns the book's structure on its head... electric' * The Times *'An utterly transporting piece of storytelling that will keep you gripped as it carefully carries you towards its conclusion' * Broadway World *'Powerful... a wonderfully concise retelling and reexamination of the facts... The story unfolds with pleasing clarity' * WhatsOnStage *'Alexandra Wood's dramatisation for the stage intuitively captures the atmosphere of Summerscale's book... keeps the audience on its toes, piecing together fragments of the case and steering toward a remarkable conclusion... exposes the deep-seated, class-ridden misogyny of the Victorian era' * The Stage *
£9.89
Nick Hern Books The Crown Jewels
Book SynopsisIt's 1671, and the charismatic and unpredictable Colonel Blood is planning the greatest heist of all time: stealing – in plain sight – the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. With an audacious plan and a gang of misfits by his side, can he possibly pull it off? And is King Charles II in any mood to have his crown jewels handled? Based on the scarcely believable true story, Simon Nye's play The Crown Jewels is a riotous and uproarious royal affair. It opened at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End in 2023 before touring, and was directed by Sean Foley with a star-studded cast including Al Murray, Mel Giedroyc, Carrie Hope Fletcher, Aidan McArdle, Neil Morrissey, Joe Thomas and Tanvi Virmani. It will appeal to any amateur theatre company – monarchists and republicans alike – who want to get their hands on a royally funny caper to perform.Trade Review'Genius... had the audience howling with laughter... hilarious' * Daily Express *'An astonishing story... a royally great subject' * London Theatre *'An amazing true story... full of great moments and set pieces' * British Theatre Guide *'A fun and raucous ride' * Manchester Evening News *'Bawdy and exuberant… one not to be missed' * Buzz Magazine *'A regal riot… good old-fashioned fun and frolics at its very best' * Entertainment South Wales *'The witty script interwoven with current themes and topics made for a laugh-a-minute-show that had the entire theatre in stitches' * Kent Live *
£9.89
Nick Hern Books Octopolis
Book Synopsis'There were three people in my marriage… Three people and twelve legs.' Professor George Grey is world-renowned for her pioneering research into octopus intelligence. Recently bereaved, her closest relationship these days is with her research subject: Frances, who resides in a large, purpose-built tank in George's campus accommodation. But when ambitious anthropologist Harry enters her life, his breathtaking new theory threatens to tear her world apart in more ways than one… A play for two actors – and one octopus – Octopolis by Marek Horn is a fascinating and funny exploration of love, grief and what makes us human. It premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, in September 2023, directed by Ed Madden.Trade Review'A grownup campus romcom, with profound and complex ideas about consciousness and intelligence' * Guardian *'A tangled, tentacled tale... unabashedly cerebral' * The Times *'Funny, touching, and surprising... an intimate two-hander that reveals itself to be about vastly expansive ideas... Marek Horn's writing is probing and incisive... manages to express very complex ideas, both academic and interpersonal, with a surprising lucidity, and with moments of unexpected comedy... an intricately intellectual piece of theatre, diving headfirst into questions of sentience, religion, grief, and community from a uniquely smart writer... you could watch or read Octopolis several times over and continue to notice something new... if you go to the theatre to think, to learn something, to do some introspection, its unmissable' * Broadway World *'Fascinating... a game of who's-watching-who as a rapid-fire sparring of wits and intellect dive and propel through the murky waters of grief, spirituality and admiring love' * WhatsOnStage *'Engagingly offbeat... challenging ideas balanced with plenty of humour' * The Stage *'Strikingly original and highly entertaining... smart, slightly surreal and quietly touching. This is a romcom that has legs' * Reviews Hub *'Profound... Horn's writing is not only philosophical; it is also bursting with comic one-liners' * Arts Desk *'A witty two-hander with a playful spark in its fiery humour and a thrilling emotional journey... a theatrical delight' * West End Best Friend *
£10.44
Nick Hern Books Remote
Book SynopsisAntler steps out of her front door and throws her phone to the ground. She stamps on it. Then she climbs the tallest tree in the park. She doesn't want to be found, not by anyone. Over the course of one autumnal evening, seven teenagers' lives intertwine as they make their way through the park. And everything that seemed normal becomes extraordinary. A play about protest, power and protecting yourself, Stef Smith's Remote was commissioned as part of the 2015 National Theatre Connections Festival and proved enormously popular with youth theatres and college companies across the UK, returning for the 2023 Connections Festival.
£9.89
Nick Hern Books The Writer
Book Synopsis‘I want the world to change shape.’ ‘I'm not sure theatre can do that.’ ‘Well then where am I meant to take that impulse because I'm very serious about the endeavour?’ A young writer challenges the status quo but discovers that creative gain comes at a personal cost. The Writer premiered in 2018 at the Almeida Theatre, London, in a production directed by Blanche McIntyre. The Writer was a finalist for the 2019 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. 'A playwright who grabs the zeitgeist' IndependentTrade Review'Wow. Here's a drama that channels all the righteous anger of the moment, the pent-up fury that women have found themselves at last allowed to express... [Ella Hickson] hits the jackpot once more with this coruscating examination of power structures both artistic and personal and how received ideas shaped by an inescapably patriarchal society infuse the two realms' * Evening Standard *'An eloquent, intellectually agile, vividly written and frequently furious play... a compelling theatrical experience' * The Stage *'Electrifying... very punk rock, a thrillingly uninhibited rally against the establishment' * Time Out *'Hickson strikes a nerve with her story of toxic masculinity and egocentrism... this momentous new play is a voice that needs to be heard' * Broadway World *'Funny, raw, unflaggingly inventive... a sophisticated play for the MeToo generation' * Telegraph *'It's sharp, savage stuff... it never for a second is anything less than engrossing and serious, raising issues that need to be raised... Hickson's writing can take the breath away' * WhatsOnStage *'A bold and vivid explosion of anger' * Radio Times *'This poetically messy, brilliantly clever piece of work has an epic beauty… fractures, stumbles over and twists literary and societal structures like a modern-day Orlando… Hickson's a genius' * Exeunt Magazine *'Riveting... Playful and impassioned... Above all, the play is asking a big question: do we need new theatrical forms to reflect a society in the midst of a sexual revolution? Hickson's approach is witty, clever and keeps the ground shifting under one's feet' * Guardian *
£9.89
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Pussy Sludge
Book Synopsis
£14.51
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Dry Swallow
Book SynopsisLucas Baisch [ he / him ] is a Guatemalan-Mexican-American playwright and artist from San Francisco, whose work circulates within themes of systems, waste, and excess. His plays have been read and developed at The Goodman Theatre, The NNPN/Kennedy Center MFA Playwrights' Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, Chicago Dramatists, Links Hall, SF Playground, etc. Full-length plays include: REFRIGERATOR (First Floor Theatre), On the Y-Axis (The Bushwick Starr Reading Series), Dry Swallow (Brown University), import speech_memory (Cutting Ball's Variety Pack Festival), The Scavengers (DePaul University), A Measure of Normalcy (Gloucester Stage Company), and co-writing on The Arrow Cleans House (The Neo-Futurists).Lucas is a recipient of a 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award, the Kennedy Center's 2020 KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award, and the 2021 Chesley/Bumbalo Playwriting Award. He was most recently awarded a 2021-22 Jerome FellowsTrade ReviewPerhaps the most striking element of the production is Baisch’s prose itself. His characters, in their frequent monologues, do not so much speak as spew, hurling effervescent bits of language to the audience at a giddying rate. This effusion, when directed toward the audience, has the effect of making us feel implicated in the whole mess playing out on stage — which, of course, we are. * Brown Daily Herald *Joking, begging, sneering, and mourning all at once—Baisch uses raw language in order to flesh out how we relate to one another within (around, against) oppressive structures. * BOMB Magazine *Baisch’s voracious appetite produces work that is greater than the sum of its individual parts, more multiplication than addition. * New City Stage *
£14.20
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Athena
Book SynopsisWhy Athena?I guess just like the goddess of strategic warfare and all that.In a New York City fencing club two warriors are ready to battle.Athena and Mary Wallace are training for the Junior Olympics. They practice together. They compete against each other. They spend their lives together. They wish they were friends.From award-winning playwright Gracie Gardner, following an acclaimed extended run in New York, comes a fierce coming-of-age comedy where two teenagers parry class, competition and power as they practice fencing and life. But only one will win - en garde.This edition was published to coincide with the UK premiere at The Yard in London in October 2022.Trade ReviewCritic’s Pick! A deadly serious comedy about ambition, success, and owning your superiority. In its delicate ferocity, it shows a playwright who is full-throttle funny and wise beyond her years. * New York Times *Wily and entertaining. * Village Voice *Smart, galvanising coming-of-age drama * Guardian *Athena’s strength is in its relatability. As is often the way with teenagers, the unlikely duo’s worlds are both small and all-encompassing. But as they advance and retreat from each other, in practice and beyond, you yearn for their bond to become long-lasting – even though, with such competition ahead of them, this seems an unlikely prospect. * The Stage *
£13.64
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Wanderers
Book SynopsisAnna Ziegler has written the plays Actually (produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Geffen Playhouse, Trafalgar Studios and others; L.A. Ovation Award winner for Playwriting for an Original Play), the widely produced Photograph 51 (directed on the West End by Michael Grandage and starring Nicole Kidman; WhatsOnStage Award for Best New Play; named the number one play of 2019 by the Chicago Tribune and in other years selected as a Best of the Year play by The Washington Post and The Telegraph), Boy (Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award nominee), The Wanderers (The Old Globe; upcoming at The Roundabout Theatre Company; Craig Noel Award winner for Outstanding New Play), The Last Match (Roundabout Theatre Company; The Old Globe; upcoming: Writers' Theatre, Chicago), and A Delicate Ship (New York Times Critic's Pick; The Playwrights Realm; Cincinnati Playhouse). Recent notable: Photograph 51 at Melbourne Theatre Company (Australia); The Great Moment at Seattle Rep (world premiere) and Antigones at the Ojai Playwrights Conference and the O'Neill Playwrights Conference. She is developing television and movie projects at HBO Max and Scott Free Productions. More at annabziegler.net.Trade ReviewThe Wanderers is that rare play worth seeing twice, with a plot to ruminate on for a lifetime. * Washington Post on 'The Wanderers' *The thoughtful, excellent The Wanderers, Anna Ziegler’s accomplished, tightly knit Chinese puzzle box of a play, is a treat for the eyes and the heart. * The Jerusalem Post *Cunningly devised, The Wanderers provides plenty to relish, then ponder. [Ziegler is] a fearless storyteller. * DC Metro Theatre Arts *
£13.64
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Narcissist
Book SynopsisYou can't live your life thinking everything you text will become public knowledge.Censoring yourself is no way to live.Everyone needs Jim.His mother.His best friend.His brother.A hopeful future President.But can Jim really help anyone, when he isn't sure who he is any more, or what he actually believes? An expert in electoral strategy, he's forged a successful career by advising politicians how to communicate with voters. But following seismic shifts in the political landscape, he's disillusioned. And his marriage is in crisis. As he juggles the demands on his life through his smartphone, will the lure of success and fame prove irresistible?The Narcissist is a gripping, inventive and witty take on personal and political communication in the internet age by celebrated US playwright Christopher Shinn. This edition was published to coincide with the premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre in August 2022.
£13.76
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Falkland Sound
Book SynopsisI stand at my open window. I feel like I''m on the edge of reality.April 1982. The Falkland Islands are invaded by Argentine forces. The shockwaves reverberate around the world. For some, it's overdue: seen in the gradual sweep to decolonise the world it is thought of as an inevitable next step. For others, the act strikes at the very heart of British identity.Falkland Sound tells the incredible story of a small community plunged into the middle of an international crisis. About half the size of Wales, populated by fewer than two thousand people, with conditions so hostile that trees struggle to grow, everyday life on these strange and beguiling islands is changed forever as two powerful nations fight for the right to claim sovereignty.Brad Birch's lyrical new play turns modern history into a theatrical epic, depicting a community and way of life turned upside down. Falkland Sound is a play about empire, community, and what it means to live in someone else's metaph
£10.99
Theatre Communications Group Inc.,U.S. If I Forget and Other Plays
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£23.19
Theatre Communications Group Inc.,U.S. Kimberly Akimbo
Book Synopsis
£19.54
Haymarket Books Caged
Book SynopsisThis poignant play, written by current and formerly incarcerated authors, uses gripping truths and soulful dialogue to reveal the human cost of America’s for-profit justice system. The story follows Omar, pulled back into the prison system after trying to lift his family out of poverty, who struggles to maintain a sense of humanity while fighting to keep his loved ones close. According to NJ.com, “From institutionalized racism to addiction to the prison-industrial complex, this is a play about a great many large, pressing social challenges, but at its core it is a play about one family and its struggles to remain united as their world steadily crumbles. Impactful, warm, and unrelenting, this play that began as an experiment turns out to be an excellent examination of the human cost of a harsh and inhospitable world.” All profits from the book will go to a prison re-entry fund run by The Second Presbyterian Church of Elizabeth, New Jersey to help the playwrights secure housing and continue their schooling upon release.
£14.24
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Boy with Two Hearts
Book SynopsisYou know, I honestly believe he has two hearts? A heart that fails him, of course. But another that keeps him going a heart that won't be beaten!A story of hope, from Afghanistan to Wales.Herat, Afghanistan, 2000. A young mother makes a speech demanding freedom for Afghan women, angering local Taliban leaders who issue a warrant for her execution. With no choice but to run, the Amiri family embark on a long and terrifying journey out of Afghanistan and across Europe with the UK as their ultimate goal.Thrown into an unfamiliar world of fake passports and untrustworthy handlers, the Amiris must learn how to live with nothing and avoid capture at all costs. But with their eldest son Hussein's life-threatening heart condition growing steadily worse, the journey soon becomes a race against time.Will they beat the odds and reach the UK in time for Hussein to receive the surgery he so badly needs?The Boy with Two Hearts is the story of a family in danger anTrade ReviewA powerful chronicle of escape from Afghanistan. * Daily Telegraph *Deserves as wide an audience as possible, from schoolchildren to politicians. * Guardian *
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) The Glow
Book SynopsisAlistair McDowall grew up in the North East of England. Plays include: The Glow (Royal Court Theatre 2022); all of it (Royal Court Theatre 2020); Zero for the Young Dudes! (National Theatre Connections 2017); X (Royal Court Theatre 2016); Pomona (RWCMD/Gate 2014; Orange Tree Theatre/Royal Exchange/National Theatre 2014/5); Talk Show (Royal Court Theatre 2013); Brilliant Adventures (Royal Court Young Writers' Festival 2012; Royal Exchange, Manchester and Live Theatre, Newcastle 2013) and Captain Amazing (Live Theatre, Newcastle and Edinburgh Fringe 2013; UK tour 2014). He is a MacDowell fellow, and a recipient of the Harold Pinter Commission. His work has been translated and produced internationally.Trade ReviewMyth and history collide in a sci-fi spine-tingler ... Sci-fi is too rarely done on stage but here McDowall has chosen the perfect medium. How better to tell a story about the perils of immortality and the fear of carrying on alone than through an art form built for impermanence, with stories that can live longer than we do? * Guardian *
£10.99
Cambridge University Press Playwriting Dramaturgy and Space
Book SynopsisThis Element presents the work of Caryl Churchill, Naomi Iizuka, and Sarah Ruhl as exemplary of the way text-based theatre, both its scripts and productions, now creates and expects a spatialized imaginary and demonstrates the potentials of text-based theatre in an increasingly visual and spatial field of cultural production.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Setting the Scene: Plays and Playwrights; 1. Playwriting and Space; 2. Caryl Churchill: Shapeshifting and Superimposition; 3. Naomi Iizuka: Simultaneity and Permeability; 4. Sarah Ruhl: Layering and Flight; 5. Form and Tradition; References.
£20.58
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Sacred Life of Modernist Literature
Book SynopsisProbing the relationship between modernist literary experimentation and several key strands of occult practice which emerged in Europe from roughly 1894 to 1944, this book sets the work of leading modernist writers alongside lesser known female writers and writers in languages other than English to more fully portray the aesthetic and philosophical connections between modernism and the occult. Although the early decades of the twentieth centurythe era of cocktails, motorcars, bobbed hair, and warare often described as a period of newness and innovation, many writers of the time found inspiration and visionary brilliance by turning to the mysterious occult past. This book's principle intervention is to reimagine the contours and boundaries of literary modernism by welcoming into the conversation a number of significant female writers and writers in languages other than English who are often still relegated to the fringes of modernist studies. Well-remembered poets and novelists such asTrade ReviewAllan Kilner-Johnson demonstrates with emphatic assurance how myriad spiritual seekers, too often overlooked in existing surveys of aesthetic modernism – for example, Rudolf Steiner, Dion Fortune, Mary Butts and Florence Farr – were crafting new writing modes by excavating imaginatively the ancient recondite past. * Andrew Radford, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature, University of Glasgow, UK *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: Divine Reading 2: The Return to Ritual 3: The Modernist Shadow 4: The Making of an Overman 5: The Other East Bibliography
£85.50
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Surfacing and The Silence and the Noise
Book SynopsisTwo plays by the 2021 Papatango Prize-winning playwright Tom Powell.Surfacing NHS therapist Luc is fine. Honest. She's definitely not overwhelmed by meeting Owen, a new client, definitely not freaked out by what she's started seeing, definitely doesn't think her reality has been punctured and something else is leaking in. Luc goes for a swim and feels a hand dragging her down to the bottom of the lake When she surfaces, her reality is different. She's haunted by tormented mice, shape-shifting people, and secrets she thought she'd buried.This breathtaking new two-hander creates a contemporary Through The Looking Glass world. It premiered in February 2023.The Silence and the Noise Winner of Best Online Production at the Offies Awards 2024Ben and Daize are teenagers either side of a county line. Drug runner and daughter of an addict. As the adult world around them becomes deadly dangerous, do these natural enemies have it in them to save each other? The Silence andTrade ReviewA modest masterpiece. (on The Silence and the Noise) * The Stage *
£11.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Village Idiot
Book SynopsisIf I were an animal there would be legislation to protect my home, but because I'm just a bloody human they can do whatever the f**k they like.Welcome to the village of Syresham; it''s not quite the Cotswolds. Townies have decided they want a lie-in, so they''re building a new high-speed railway. Issue is, it''s going right through Barbara Honeybone''s house, and she ''ent having none of it. Barbara''s grandson Peter works for the townies and it''s his job to convince the village that having a two-tonne bullet hurtling through their cabbage patches will actually be for the best. Then there''s Harry, Barbara''s younger grandson, he ''ent that bothered about trains, he''s only got eyes for Debbie Mahoney. But the only thing Barbara hates more than townies is the Mahoneys.Originally commissioned by Nottingham Playhouse, Village Idiot by Samson Hawkins is an audacious comedy, where family feuds kick off around a country fair that all you townies are invited to.This edition wa
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Beneathas Place
Book SynopsisSome things we do for those we are responsible for, some things for ourselves, and some things we do for the ancestors.Today, it's all three!1959. The first wave of independence is sweeping across Africa and Beneatha has left the prejudice of 1950s America for a brighter future with her Nigerian husband in Lagos. But on the day they move into their new house in the white suburbs, it doesn't take long for cracks to appear, changing the course of the rest of their lives.Present day. Now a renowned Dean whose colleagues are questioning the role of African American studies for future generations, Beneatha returns to the same house in search of answers. Inspired by Lorraine Hansberry''s ground-breaking modern classic, A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha's Place challenges today's culture wars about colonial history and reckoning with the past. A razor-sharp satire from Young Vic Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah, about the power of knowing your hi
£13.75
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Wood of Words
Book SynopsisFriendship makes us fresh.And doth beget new courage in our breasts.A new play for young people and schools, created from Shakespeare's works.In this wood of words, a band of newcomers arrive to witness banishments, storms, unhappy endings, reunions, and murder most foul... and try to make sense of it all. This unique and thoughtful adaptation for young performers of several of Shakespeare's works is co-written by director Chris White and award-winning playwright Hannah Khalil, in honour of the 400th anniversary of the First Folio this year.The Wood of Words was created as part of the Associate Schools Programme (the RSC's long term partnership programme with schools and theatre partners). This edition was published to coincide with the Playmaking Festival at the RSC, in July 2023.
£10.99
Graphic Arts Books Proserpine and Midas
Book SynopsisProserpine and Midas (1820) is a collection of plays by Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Combining Mary’s blank verse and Percy’s lyric poems, the Shelleys offer two groundbreaking retellings of classical myth. Together, the plays illuminate the working relationship of a husband and wife who helped define Romanticism, highlighting their individual talents in the process. While Proserpine was published in 1832 in The Winter’s Wreath, a London periodical, Mary Shelley was unable to find a publisher for Midas, which remained unprinted until the twentieth century. Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, leaves her daughter Proserpine in the care of two trusted nymphs. While the women are out picking flowers, Proserpine is kidnapped by Pluto, the dreaded lord of the underworld. Distraught, Ceres laments the loss of her beloved girl and appeals to Jove for assistance. Proserpine is a retelling of an ancient myth which remains mostly faithful to its source while emphasizing the feminist qualities of its tragic content. In Midas, the wild god Pan is defeated in a musical competition by Apollo, god of the sun. Determined to claim victory, he arranges a new contest with King Midas as judge. Although his power on earth is unmatched by any human, Midas soon learns that to play at divinity one risks reaping the greatest of sorrows. Proserpine and Midas is a masterful take on two of ancient Greece’s central myths. Using their talents for narrative and song, the Shelleys adapt these well-known stories for the nineteenth century and beyond, showcasing their sociopolitical significance in a world defined by the democratic ideals of the Greeks. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Proserpine and Midas is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.
£6.77
Haymarket Books The Billboard
Book SynopsisThe Billboard is about a fictional Black women’s clinic in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood on the South Side and its fight with a local gadfly running for City Council who puts up a provocative billboard: “Abortion is genocide. The most dangerous place for a Black child is his mother’s womb,” spurring on the clinic to fight back with their own provocative sign: “Black women take care of their families by taking care of themselves. Abortion is self-care. #Trust Black Women.” The book also has a foreword and afterword and Q&A with a founder of reproductive justice. As a play and book, The Billboard is a cultural force that treats abortion as more than pro-life or pro-choice.
£12.34
Bloomsbury Academic Stephenson Plays 1 1 A Memory of Water Five Kinds
Book SynopsisThis collection of Shelagh Stephenson plays offers her Olivier award-winning work - "A Memory of Water", "Five Kinds of Silence", "Experiment with an Air Pump", and "Ancient Lights".Table of ContentsA Memory of Water; Five Kinds of Silence; An Experiment with an Air Pump; Ancient Lights
£20.89
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Freedom Project
Book SynopsisThis is a story that is true for us, you, thousands of others across the world moving across the globe and thousands of others waiting to receive them. It is a story. It's not necessarily ours. It is not necessarily yours. But it is true.Melding lived experience with creative theatre-making, refugees Mo and Hossein share stories both personal and global that explore the very different journeys taken by unaccompanied minors as they leave their home countries in search of sanctuary. Honest, reflective, challenging and funny, the young performers both long-standing participants in Leeds Playhouse's Theatre of Sanctuary programme combine moments of dream-like wonder with unflinching fact sharing, drawing the audience into a direct dialogue and asking them to consider what life is really like for children fleeing danger and seeking a new home in the UK. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Leeds Playhouse in September 2021.
£11.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Middle
Book SynopsisWhy do people ever see things through?Why do they ever stay?It's so hard.Every relationship reaches a crossroad some time.As dawn breaks, Maggie is heating some milk and Gary wonders what she's doing out of bed. Maybe it's time for an honest conversation but how much honesty can this marriage take?Following his five-star play Beginning, which played sold-out runs at the National Theatre and in the West End, writer David Eldridge brings his raw, touching and funny style to a portrait of a 21st century marriage, the second of three plays to explore love and relationships.Trade ReviewQuite simply, magnificent. * Evening Standard (on Beginning) *Wry, funny and touching. * The Independent (on Beginning) *
£10.99
Peter Lang Publishing Inc Representation and Reception
Book SynopsisRepresentation and Reception: Brechtian Pedagogics of Theatre' and Critical Thinking deploys German playwright Bertolt Brecht's theory of drama and performance, what he calls the pedagogics of theatre, to create modes of critical thinking in the classroom. Extrapolating on Brecht's estranged forms of representationnarrative, story, montage, Verfremdüngseffeckt or alienation, tableaux, ostension (showing), gestus, masks and musicBurney constructs an original 3-R Pedagogy or spiral of semiosisRethinking/Replaying/Re-cognitionthat is designed to create critical thinking and complex seeing. Her dramatic production of Brecht's Lehrstück, or learning-play, The Exception and the Rule, for a non-literate, working-class audience in Hyderabad, India, critically analyses how audiences make meaning through image, word and ideology, gesture, memory, collective experience and personal (hi)stories.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments – Introduction: The Poetics and Politics of Representation and Reception – Bertolt Brecht’s “Pedagogics of Theatre”: Image, Ideology, and Meaning – A Theatre with Footnotes: Diacritics and Referentiality/Witnessing and Learning – “The Pregnant Moment”: Ideality, Gestus, and Tableau as Learning – Theatre as Metaphor of the Street: Brecht in the Basthi Across the Seas – Rethinking/Replaying/Re-cognition: My 3-R Pedagogy for Critical Thinking – Afterword: The Possibility of Critical Thinking: Bringing the World to the Classroom – About the Author – Index.
£31.95
Peter Lang Publishing Inc Representation and Reception
Book SynopsisRepresentation and Reception: Brechtian Pedagogics of Theatre' and Critical Thinking deploys German playwright Bertolt Brecht's theory of drama and performance, what he calls the pedagogics of theatre, to create modes of critical thinking in the classroom. Extrapolating on Brecht's estranged forms of representationnarrative, story, montage, Verfremdüngseffeckt or alienation, tableaux, ostension (showing), gestus, masks and musicBurney constructs an original 3-R Pedagogy or spiral of semiosisRethinking/Replaying/Re-cognitionthat is designed to create critical thinking and complex seeing. Her dramatic production of Brecht's Lehrstück, or learning-play, The Exception and the Rule, for a non-literate, working-class audience in Hyderabad, India, critically analyses how audiences make meaning through image, word and ideology, gesture, memory, collective experience and personal (hi)stories.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments – Introduction: The Poetics and Politics of Representation and Reception – Bertolt Brecht’s “Pedagogics of Theatre”: Image, Ideology, and Meaning – A Theatre with Footnotes: Diacritics and Referentiality/Witnessing and Learning – “The Pregnant Moment”: Ideality, Gestus, and Tableau as Learning – Theatre as Metaphor of the Street: Brecht in the Basthi Across the Seas – Rethinking/Replaying/Re-cognition: My 3-R Pedagogy for Critical Thinking – Afterword: The Possibility of Critical Thinking: Bringing the World to the Classroom – About the Author – Index.
£66.02
Graphic Arts Books Mine Eyes Have Seen
Book SynopsisMine Eyes Have Seen (1918) is a one-act play by Alice Dunbar Nelson. Published in The Crisis, the influential journal of the NAACP, Mine Eyes Have Seen is a brutal portrait of race and identity in twentieth century America. Exploring themes of violence, faith, patriotism, and economic struggle, Dunbar Nelson crafts a poignant and unforgettable work of fiction. When their father, a successful black man, is lynched by vengeful white neighbors, Dan, Chris, and Lucy flee north with their mother. They reach the city safely, but their mother soon dies from heartbreak and exhaustion, leaving her children to fend for themselves. Dan, the eldest, manages to support his siblings until an accident at the factory leaves him crippled. This forces Chris, a bitter young man, to take financial responsibility for the family. When the United States enters the First World War, authorizing the Selective Service Act of 1917, Chris is drafted into the military. Despite his hesitation and distrust of a government that allowed his father to be murdered with impunity, he soon comes under the influence of patriotic white neighbors who encourage him to sacrifice his life for the nation. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Alice Dunbar Nelson’s Mine Eyes Have Seen is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.
£5.72
Manchester University Press After '89: Polish Theatre and the Political
Book SynopsisAfter '89 takes as its subject the dynamic new range of performance practices that have been developed since the demise of communism in the flourishing theatrical landscape of Poland. After 1989, the theatre has retained its historical role as the crucial space for debating and interrogating cultural and political identities. Providing access to scholarship and criticism not readily accessible to an English-speaking readership, this study surveys the rebirth of the theatre as a site of public intervention and social criticism since the establishment of democracy and the proliferation of theatre makers that have flaunted cultural commonplaces and begged new questions of Polish culture. Lease argues that the most significant change in performance practice after 1989 has been from opposition to the state to a more pluralistic practice that engages with marginalised identities purposefully left out of the rhetoric of freedom and independence.Trade Review‘Lease shows with great effectiveness how diverse and inventive Polish theater is today. Theater scholars in general should find much to like about Lease’s work, and for them it will be an excellent introduction to contemporary Polish theater. For scholars in Polish studies who are unfamiliar with the theater, it will also provide a helpful narrative foundation. For those already familiar with contemporary Polish theater, the book will still offer creative interpretations of some of the more radical works.’Daniel W. Pratt, Ohio State University, The Polish Review, Vol. 63, No. 3 (2018) -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: really existing democracy 1. The move to neoliberalism2. No more heroes3. Beyond a teatr kobiecy4. Gay emancipation and queer counterpublics5. Rethinking Polish/Jewish relations6. Equivalencies of exclusionConclusionBibliographyIndex
£21.00
Currency Press Pty Ltd Melbourne Talam
Book Synopsis
£13.49
University of Calgary Press Flight Risk
Book SynopsisWorld War II veteran Hank Dunfield is about to turn one hundred years old. The staff at Ponderosa Pine Lodge have recruited Sarah, a young nursing student, to keep Hank safe, comfortable, and in the building while they plan a grand centenarian celebration. There’s one problem: Hank doesn’t want to live that long.Seemingly opposites, Hank and Sarah kindle a deep friendship. Sarah fears the future with multiple sclerosis will be even more isolated, difficult, and painful than the isolated, difficult, and painful present. Hank, a tail gunner during the Second World War, opens his heart to share the deep knowledge of fear, luck, and flying into battle he learned over his. combat missions. Sarah and Hank find strength in each other as they face their deepest fears.Based on interviews with veterans in Alberta seniors’ homes and the skilled nurses who care for them, Flight Risk is the story of finding exactly who you need when you least expect it. An empathetic exploration of grief, friendship, and hope, this play asks what we lose when we ignore the knowledge of our elderly, challenges the way that we think about aging and death, and inspires a brighter, more compassionate future.
£32.25
