Plays, playscripts, drama

Book SynopsisThis anthology contains scholarly and annotated editions of six major Elizabethan and Jacobean plays: The Spanish Tragedy Doctor Faustus Sejanus Women Beware Women The White Devil 'Tis Pity She's a Whore

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Book SynopsisPublished to coincide with its European premiere at the Almeida Theatre, London, in March 2008, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is Stephen Adly Guirgis' hilarious and extraordinary courtroom drama about the greatest human betrayal.Trade Review'It's hard to know where to begin with this astonishing play that knocked me for six at the Almeida last night' Daily Telegraph - Charles Spencer 'A gloriously intoxicating brew' Guardian - Michael Billington 'This extraordinary, comic and gripping theological courtroom drama... is surely going to be on the shortlist for Best New Play of the Year' Independent on Sunday - Kate Bassett 'It is a must-see play of the moment, bursting with big ideas and a healthy scepticism' Sunday Express - Mark Shenton 'Gould relishes Guirgis' theatrical energy and ability to pull a surprise' Time Out London - Jane Edwardes

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Book SynopsisA programme play text of Simon Stephens' play that captures the euphoria and promise at London being awarded the 2012 Olympics and the chaos and tragedy of the London bombings of 7/7. The play is published for the English language premiere at the International Edinburgh Festival 2008.Trade Review'To call Simon Stephen's Pornography specifically a play about the July 7 bombings in London would be to do it a disservice. Though it deals with events leading up to the atrocities oft hat fateful day, this is unmistakeably a state of the nation play in the fullest sense. One which looks at what it means to be British today and the culture of displacement we live in with soulful mourning.' Alan Chadwick, Metro (London), 5.8.08 'Stephens, who has already written the best play of the year (Harper Regan, at the National) has come up with another cracker - one that searches for new forms to say new things. He observes his characters with an almost forensic detachment and yet he makes us love them, too... This is a play of grace and terror.' Lyn Gardner, Guardian, 5.8.08 'In Simon Stephens' new play the build up of everyday detritus of contemporary mass culture, from coffee brands to the disposable, detached sexuality of pornography, is insidious.' Steve Cramer, List, 7.8.08

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Book SynopsisThis second volume of Ridley''s stage plays confirms him as one of themost imaginative, daring and unique voices currently working intheatre. All four plays collected here resonant with Ridley''s trademarkthemes - East London, storytelling, moments of shocking violence,memories of the past, fantastical monologues, and that strange mix ofthe barbaric and the beautiful he has made all his own.Vincent River: ''... a grieving mother and a traumatized teenagermeet as adversaries, rough each other up and eventually bond over abarbaric act of cruelty...Ridley asksquestions, lots of them, about how people respond to the loss ofinnocence in their lives, how they hold onto their sanity in the faceof savagery and how they fight to keep the bonds of humanity intact ina mad, mad world.'' VarietyMercury Fur: ''...depicts a scary, post-apocalyptic London where, intheir struggTable of ContentsVincent River; Mercury Fur; Leaves of Glass; Piranha Heights

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Book SynopsisGodber Plays: 4 brings together four recent plays by one of Britain's most prolific, popular playwrights. The author is the artistic director of Hull Truck Theatre and the publication is timed to coincide with the opening of Hull Truck's new theatre building in the heart of Hull.In Our House May, a widow, mother and grandmother, is packing up her home of 45 years and heads for a life in the sun. However, trading neighbourhood hell for the Costa del Calm is no easy task as memories are harder to let go than possessions. First produced in 2007, the play was revived and toured the UK in 2008.In Crown Prince (2007) Godber finds comedy in a bowls club, and against the backdrop of the advancing years of its members, issues of redundancy, bereavement and guilt emerge.Sold is the author's most politically charged play to date, exposing the misery of people-trafficking and women sold into the sex-trade in Britain.Christmas Crackers Table of ContentsOur House; Crown Prince; Sold; Christmas Crackers

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Book SynopsisA programme text of two short plays that examine the darker side of Scottish families and which were presented as a double-bill at the Traverse Theatre in November 2009.Trade Review'By the end, it's hard not to feel drained by these powerful but distressing cries from some very dark places.' Herald (11 November 2008)

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Book Synopsis A programme text edition published in conjunction with the Finborough Theatre to coincide with the centenary of the birth of William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life runs from 26 November - 20 December. ''In the time of our life, live - so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it'' The Time of Your Life, a rich tapestry of human life, peopled by a profusion of wistful dreamers, pining lonely hearts, and beer-hall-philosophers, is a twentieth century American masterpiece. The Time of Your Life was first presented at The Shubert Theatre, New Haven, USA, on 7 October 1939. It was the first play to win both the New York Drama Critics'' Circle award and the Pulitzer Prize. . It has been revived three times oTrade Review'William Saroyan's sprawling, elegant, elegiac, of-all-life-in-a-Frisco-honky-tonk 1939 Pulitzer Prize winner The Time of Your Life.' Evening Standard, (1 December 2008) 'A refreshing hymn to human goodness.' Guardian, (2 December 2008) 'Saroyan celebrates life in all its variegated oddity without creating anything so ordered as a plot... [His] play has a genuine love of hobo eccentricity and convinces you that it really is a wonderful world.' Guardian, (2 December 2008) '[Saroyan] anticipates one of the great themes of postwar 20th-century drama, which finds its consummation in Beckett: life as an endless process of waiting.' Guardian, (2 December 2008) 'Behind the play's whimsy lurks a genuine detestation of power, money and materialism.' Guardian, (2 December 2008)

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Book Synopsis'Oh, you do look...really good, though. You know. In the face. Oh and, uh, I love you.'Prisoners of their fear of falling things - keraunothetophobiacs - Jacqui and Robin are restricted to living indoors. When they meet online a relationship begins which forces them to confront their fear and discover what's real in their lives and what really matters.A History of Falling Things, a new play by the acclaimed young playwright James Graham, is a gentle love story that is fearful, funny and moving. The play premiered at Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Wales, in April 2009 before transferring to the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff.Trade Review'James Graham's new play is a sheer delight. As a romantic comedy it is touchingly romantic and very funny without ever allowing you to forget the debilitating effect of living with what to others seem absurd fears... An enormously entertaining, heart-warming and funny play.' Victor Hallett, The Stage, 30.4.09 'Graham's writing has a freshness and lightness to it' Elisabeth Mahoney, Guardian 16.5.09 'This is a gentle, heart-gladdening love story that's warmly told.' Elisabeth Mahoney, Guardian 16.5.09

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Book SynopsisMark Ravenhill burst on to the theatre scene in 1996 with the huge hit Shopping and F***ing. He has continued to garner critical acclaim for plays that include Some Explicit Polaroids, Mother Clap's Molly House, Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat and A Life in Three Acts.Table of ContentsCitizenship; Scenes from Family Life; Totally Over You

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Book SynopsisMichael Frayn is one of the great playwrights of our time, enjoying international acclaim and prestige. This anthology contains three of his strongest titles of serious drama: Copenhagen, Democracy and Afterlife. The volume features the definitive version of each play together with an introduction by the author and a chronology of his work. Copenhagen: ''The most invigorating and ingenious play of ideas in many a year and a work of art that humanizes physics in a way no other has done'' New York Times ''Michael Frayn''s tremendous new play is a piece of history, an intellectual thriller, a psychological investigation and a moral tribunal in full session.'' Sunday Times ''A profound and haunting meditation on the mysteries of human motivation.'' IndependentDemocracy: ''Michael Frayn''s complex and richly rewarding new play...is wonderfully alert to the piquant paradoxesTable of ContentsCopenhagen; Democracy; Afterlife

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Book Synopsis"I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation... It's a profound thought... How every person is a new door, opening up into other worlds." Six Degrees of Separation is a modern American classic play: an explosive comedy that exposes white middle-class hypocrisy and prejudice.The play is a sharp, wittybut seriousexploration of the individual in society and the values or beliefs which motivate them.A young African-American man gains access to the homes of upper-class New Yorkers by pretending to be the son of actor Sidney Poitier. Treatedwith suspicion and then affection, he soonwreaks havoc in their comfortable lives.The playfirst opened off-Broadway in 1990 and, after playing to sold-out houses andovating audiences, it was producedinternationallyand made into a blockbuster film starring Donald Sutherland, Stockard Channing and Will Smith in 1994. It won numerous awards, includin

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Book SynopsisAn inventive take on the classic myth, Eurydice is by the highly-acclaimed US playwright Sarah Ruhl and includes magical, dreamlike surrealism, lyrical beauty and heart-rending pathos.Trade Review'Sarah Ruhl's delightful and touching meditation on memory and loss, the way in whichwe keep love alive or let it slip from our mids, and the language of love itself.' Lyn Gardner, Guardian, 06.03.10 'Ruhls's updating of the Orpheus myth is boldly original.' Benedict Nightingale. The Times. 10.05.10 'Its a lovely play about what we carry and what we leave behind.' David Jays, Sunday Times, 16.05.10

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Book SynopsisMoonfleece is an intense and thrilling exploration of memory and identity, and is the most directly political play to date by leading playwright Philip Ridley. Set in an abandoned council flat, Moonfleece centres on a young, right-wing activist forced to reassess his personal and political beliefs.

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Book SynopsisAward-winning writer Joe Penhall was described by the Financial Times as 'one of the finest playwrights of his generation.' His debut at the Royal Court, Some Voices, won the John Whiting Award for best new play. His National Theatre play Blue/Orange won an Olivier Award, an Evening Standard Award and the Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Joe wrote and produced the BAFTA winning BBC serial Moses Jones and his feature film of Some Voices starred Daniel Craig and premiered in competition at the Cannes Film festival . This was followed by Enduring Love, also starring Daniel Craig, based on Ian McEwan's novel; and his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road, starring Charlize Theron and Viggo Mortensen, which premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival in 2009.Trade Review'Besides interrogating the very idea of madness, Blue/Orange explores the connection between ethnicity and perceptions of mental health....With a real deftness of touch, the play probes notions of authority. It illuminates the way psychiatry can be strategic - and anatomises the politics of medical care.' * Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard (London), 5.11.10 *'In the way of great comedy, Blue/Orange touches on great themes: self-advancement at the expense of others, perceptions of sanity' * Claudia Pritchard, Independent on Sunday, 7.11.10 *

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Book SynopsisSix American playwrights whose work has gained critical recognition and acclaim in recent years and who have been produced at some of the key theatres for new plays in the U.S. Editor Sarah Benson is the artistic director of Soho Rep theatre in New York.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Sarah Benson Stunning by David Adjmi The Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry by Marcus Gardley Pullman, WA by Young Jean Lee Hurt Village by Katori Hall Dying City by Christopher Shinn The Big Meal by Dan LeFranc

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Book SynopsisThe peak of my virtuosity was in the one- act plays. Some of which are like firecrackers on a rope. Tennessee WilliamsTennessee Williams''s lesser-known one-act plays reveal a tantalising and fascinating perspective to one of the world''s most important playwrights.Written between 1934 and 1980, the plays of the very young writer, then of the successful Tennessee Williams, and finally of the troubled man of the 1970s, this volume offers a panoramic yet detailed view of the themes, demons, and wit of this iconic playwright.The volume depicts American life during the Great Depression and after, populated by a hopelessly hopeful chorus girl, a munitions manufacturer ensnared in a love triangle, a rural family that deals justice on its children, an overconfident mob dandy, a poor couple who quarrel to vanquish despair, a young spinster enthralled by the impulse of rebellion, and, in The Magic Tower, a passionate artist and his wife whose youth and optimism are not enough to protect

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Book SynopsisAdapted for the stage from the best-selling memoir, The Speckled People tells a profoundly moving story of a young boy trapped in a language war. Set in 1950s Ireland, this is a gripping, poignant, and at times very funny family drama of homesickness, control and identity. As a young boy, Hugo Hamilton struggles with what it means to be speckled, half and half... Irish on top and German below.An idealistic Irish father enforces his cultural crusade by forbidding his son to speak English while his German mother tries to rescue him with her warm-hearted humour and uplifting industry. The boy must free himself from his father and from bullies on the street who persecute him with taunts of Nazism. Above all he must free himself from history and from the terrible secrets of his mother and father before he can find a place where he belongs.Surrounded by fear, guilt, and frequently comic cultural entanglements, Hugo tries to understand the differences between Irish history and German h

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Book SynopsisThe boy who comes back from a war far away in a wooden box is glorified and called a hero. As the funeral plans are made in a small Kent town, his siblings squabble over who he was. Maybe the fanfare isn''t needed for this heroic martyr.Vera Vera Vera is a blackly comic play about what we are willing to fight for. Her first work for the theatre, Hayley Squires is a bracing new voice, clear eyed and loud, looking at violence, neglect and apathy. Depicting a gritty slice of social realism, Vera Vera Vera portrays the disjunction between the lives of the surviving family against the memories and patriotic commemoration for the dead. Looking at drug addiction, crime, verbal and domestic abuse, engrained racism, the characters'' downtrodden and trapped lives are exposed with honesty and verve.This brave and uncompromising play questions both the validity of the myth of the martyred soldier and the true worth of survival for those left behind.

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Book Synopsis''I missed first time. I could feel his skull caving in. It was like a shell.'' Morning - a play for young people - is the latest offering from acclaimed playwright Simon Stephens, written after a workshop involving actors from the Young Company at the Lyric, Hammersmith and the Theater, Basel, Switzerland.It''s the end of summer in a small, claustrophobic town and two friends are about to go their separate ways: one to university; the other will be staying local. But no matter what separates them, they will always share one moment: a moment that changed them forever. This dark coming-of-age play, to be performed by the Lyric Young Company, is a disturbing look at the cruel acts we are capable of committing; our society''s numbness to physical pain; and the consequences of our actions.This programme text will coincide with the Lyric''s production of the play at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh as part of the Festival (2 - 22nd September) followed by a brief run at the LyrTrade ReviewA brilliant writer of immense imagination with an acute observation of people's foibles * Independent *[A] dark, beautiful, intricately layered work * Lyn Gardner on Country Music, The Guardian *Simon Stephens's marvellous and moving new play lasts for little more than an hour but feels like an epic. * Charles Spencer on 'Country Music', The Daily Telegraph *A shocking and savage play … all this is no joy to watch … but … utterly compelling … Morning shows us the world as it is, not how we fondly imagine it to be. -- Lyn Gardner * Guardian *Its power comes from its absolute authenticity … atmospheric and grimly compelling -- Alice Jones * Independent *Theatrically daring and uncompromising -- Sarah Hemming * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisSteven Berkoff has been variously described as controversial, thrilling, electric and dynamic. A Renaissance man of the theatre, he is known equally for his writing, directing and acting. Collecting together nineteen one-act plays, this volume presents never-before-published material. Abusive, shocking and endlessly surprising, these sharply written pieces showcase Berkoff''s trademark controversy, black humour and dramatic dialectics.Themes that haunt much of his work are present: his luxurious verbosity; his counterpoint of crude street-patter and elegiac proclamation; sex wars; class wars; dislocation and abandonment of love in a thankless and unyielding world. The selection of plays allows the performer and reader to experience Berkoff''s fluid anarchic poetry at its most profane within the complete and pithy structure of the one-act play. Established plays such as The Biblical Tales (which enjoyed success in their 2010 run at the New End Theatre, Hampstead) stand alongside Trade ReviewSteven Berkoff is one of the major minor contemporary dramatists in Britain and - due to his self fashioning as a bad boy of British theatre and the ensuing attention of the media - a phenomenon in his own right' * Modern Drama *at its best his language has a demotic saltiness - as when Saul deploys Cockney rhyming slang to warn David he's suspected of being an "iron hoof" -- Michael Billington * The Guardian *A master doing what he does best . . . I loved it. I had a wonderful experience and I left the theatre happy and truly affected. * What’s On The Fringe.com *Table of ContentsIntroduction 19 One Act Plays: I Wanna AgentActor's LamentPurgatoryMediocrityHowlThis is an Emergency6 Actors in Search of a DirectorAdam and EveDavid and GoliathSamson's HairMosesHow to Train an Anti-SemiteRoastPound of FleshGasGuilt'EreExit

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