Plays, playscripts, drama
Open Book Publishers Friedrich Schiller
£20.15
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Emperor
Book SynopsisMaster of transformation Kathryn Hunter brings to life an extraordinary fable of corruption, avarice and the collapse of absolute power. A world premiere based on the astonishing book by legendary journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski about the decline and fall of Haile Selassie's regime in Ethiopia, from the team that brought you Kafka’s Monkey. Hunter creates a mesmerising cast of characters, all servants to a despotic ruler on the brink of downfall. In a kingdom obsessed with title and tradition, the lowly and the loyal have incredible stories to tell.Trade ReviewStunning – a magical elegance -- John Updike * The New Yorker *
£14.61
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Waiting for Waiting for Godot
Book SynopsisTwo hapless understudies occupy their time backstage, trying to understand art, life, theatre and their precarious existence within it. Described as “delectable” by The New York Times and “gleefully absurd” by Time Out New York this hilariously witty comedy ponders Beckett, showbiz and just what on earth it’s all about. Turns out, the only people who truly understand Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, are the understudies.
£14.61
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC No One Will Tell Me How To Start a Revolution
Book SynopsisSusie, Edwina and Lucy have moved to a new school in a new town. Three very different sisters who will do anything to fit in and yet are desperate to be noticed. But how far will they go to break out of the roles in which they've been cast and will they ever be able to truly change their lives when they're swimming against the tide?
£15.60
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Cherry Orchard
Book SynopsisPembrokeshire, 1982. Things are going to change. This radical reworking of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard places the action in early 80s Wales, at the dawn of another revolution – the Thatcher regime. Bloumfield sits on the sun-kissed south Pembrokeshire coast; a rambling, ramschackle old manor house where Rainey raised her children, surrounded by golden beaches and lush green orchards. But the death of her beloved son and husband sent Rainey fleeing to London, abandoning what remained of her family. Now, with the bank threatening to repossess, Rainey's daughters drag her back to Bloumfield. Rainey will have to face her ghosts - and her furious daughters - or lose everything. This reworking of Chekhov's play was first performed at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff.
£14.61
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Nassim Soleimanpour: Two Plays
Book SynopsisNassim Soleimanour is an Iranian writer playwright who experiments with form. This collection contains Soleimanpour’s international hit White Rabbit Red Rabbit and his second play BLANK. White Rabbit Red Rabbit has been translated into over 30 languages and performed over 1000 times by some of the biggest names in theatre and film, including actors Stephen Rea, Sinead Cusack, John Hurt, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane and Ken Loach. It is a protest about censorship of his work, and discusses freedom and its limits. It is designed to be read by an actor who arrives at the theatre having never seen the script before, and toys with the relationship between actor, character and audience. BLANK is a joint effort between audience and performer, as both are required to help fill the gaps in the script. A story emerges that celebrates the human imagination and makes each performance unique. As formally inventive as it is engaging, BLANK reverses the typical theatre experience.
£19.56
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Fall
Book SynopsisThe Fall is a play collaboratively written by the original cast as a reaction to and reflection on the South African student protests in 2015 and part of 2016. The #RhodesMustFall and subsequent student-led movements in South Africa alerted the country and the world to the latent ongoing issues brought about by colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. Students were also protesting about the lack of change in the way black Africans were educated and treated at South African universities more than two decades after the end of white-minority rule. They were also angry about fee increases, which disproportionately affected black students, in a country of continued extreme income inequality. The Fall details the experiences of seven students within this movement and how they deal with their traumas, while still moving towards activism for a free decolonised education. This powerful ensemble piece goes to the heart of how race, class, gender, power and history's voices intersect. It premiered at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town, toured to other venues in South Africa and to the Edinburgh Festival and the Royal Court Theatre, London. It was awarded The Stage Cast Award and a Scotsman Fringe First award in Edinburgh, and was described in The Stage as:"a truly ensemble production which has both teeth and heart. And one which stands for student revolt around the world and down the ages."Trade ReviewPowerfully driven... A truly ensemble production which has both teeth and heart. And one which stands for student revolt around the world and down the ages. * The Stage *There is no doubt that this work is full-throated, full-throttle, militantly artistic theatre on stage and page. * The Cape Times *This is history told just as it happens. * What's On In Cape Town *There is no doubt that this work is full-throated, full-throttle, militantly artistic theatre – on stage and page. * Cape Times *
£14.61
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Maxwell: Plays Three
Book SynopsisThree beautifully crafted plays for young people by the award-winning playwright Glyn Maxwell. Contains the plays Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows, and Merlin and the Woods of Time.Trade ReviewMaxwell is the best dramatic poet now at work in English. * The Daily Telegraph *
£26.48
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Mary and Me
Book SynopsisIreland 1986. A teenage girl begins a series of conversations with a statue of the Virgin Mary in a grotto. Inspired by a true story, Mary and Me is a compellingly original imagining of a young woman’s search for understanding and meaning at a milestone in her life, and a rich and funny evocation of the Ireland of the 1980’s.Trade ReviewA moving new play with a fantastic performance by Kelleher, who also marks herself out as a writer to watch. **** * The Stage *
£15.60
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC One Life Stand
Book SynopsisWhen we can have sex whenever we want, with whomever we want, why settle for a normal relationship? With the promise of fresh excitement just a swipe away, is Kat’s long-term lover really her lifelong dream? One Life Stand is a late-night search for intimacy across a hyperconnected, hypersexual city, exposing the loneliness sometimes found in modern relationships, where the expectations of love and lust are ever-changing.
£14.61
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Smack That (a conversation)
Book SynopsisSmack That (a conversation) documents a participatory performance created with and performed by survivors of domestic abuse. Endlessly inventive choreographer Rhiannon Faith shines a light on this complex subject in an empowering performance highlighting human resilience. Beverly is having a party and you are one of her guests. There are games, drinks, shared conversation, energetic dance and heartbreaking moments as she bravely gives a raw and honest account of surviving an abusive relationship. Each member of the all-female cast, a close-knit group of non-performers and dance artists, fearlessly takes on the persona of Beverly to convey turbulent, real experiences. The unusual setting creates a safe space for them to reveal the challenges they have faced and celebrate their endurance with the audience. Faith’s work with a support group at charity Safer Places underpins this show, which seeks to raise social consciousness around domestic abuse by supporting women to openly talk about it. The book also includes descriptions of the dances included in the piece, documenting the work, but also allowing it to be re-interpreted in future.
£15.60
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC On the Exhale
Book Synopsis'Like a child, a weapon won't be satisfied until it dominates your every thought.' After a devastating school shooting, a woman develops an obsession with assault rifles that begins to take over every aspect of her existence. Martin Zimmerman's `startlingly original' (New York Times) play is a compulsive and visceral examination of American gun violence.Trade Review'[A] carefully wrought study of a mother undone by loss...startlingly original' - The New York Times -- Ben Brantley * The New York Times *
£15.60
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Four Last Things
Book SynopsisSomewhere in rural Ireland, now, Janey is dropping out. Of college, of friends, of life. Stuck on her family farm, yearning for Dublin, she wants to swap the green fields for a concrete jungle and the endless quiet for a ceaseless noise. With a father she can’t talk to, and a dog that can’t talk back to her, Janey bows out and chooses no to life. This is an emotionally charged journey through the last days of a young woman’s battle with herself.
£14.61
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Lost Boys
Book SynopsisA humorous and heartfelt look into the lives of the youth of one northern new town, where the weight of identity, place, and masculinity threaten everything they’ve ever known.
£14.61
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Until the Flood
Book SynopsisMissouri, 2014. Michael Brown, a black teenager, is shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. In this gripping and revelatory drama based on interviews from the aftermath of the shooting, Dael Orlandersmith journeys into the heart and soul of modern-day America – confronting the powerful forces of history, race and politics, and embodying the many faces of a community rallying for justice, and a country still yearning for change.
£14.61
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Story
Book SynopsisA volunteer arrives back from working in a refugee camp to discover she is now an "enemy of the people." Arrested and imprisoned for her actions, the only way to maintain her sanity in a world turned upside down is to discover the identity of the mysterious interrogator from her past. A psychological thriller set in a Kafkaesque world that interrogates the language of ‘othering’ and the stories we tell ourselves to justify violence, The Story asks, is mental torture worse than physical? And how long can we last before our loyalty – and sanity – splinters and snaps?
£14.61
Action Publishing Technology Ltd Watson The Final Problem
£10.66
Independently Published In a Minute
£10.56
The Library of Alexandria Polikushka
£14.00
Muze Publishing After The Dance
£20.38
Muze Publishing After The Dance
£14.25
Michael Terence Publishing The Shakespeare Synopsis
£9.37
Self Published The Foundation
£14.12
TC Pen Ltd And Breathe
£9.99
Independent Publishing Network U.K. Our Own Miracle
£16.14
Amz Book Publishing Services Dear Little Black Boy
£13.44
Panda Publishing Agency UK Love Lives Here
£11.10
Panda Publishing Agency UK Dark Poetry
£10.66
Panda Publishing Agency UK Dark Poetry
£12.99
Woodbridge Publishers The Mountain Village
£15.60
Book Publishing Pulse Fated
£24.52
Revive AI Ltd. Large Print The Importance of Being Earnest Grand Type Collectors Edition Matte Hardcover with Dust Jacket
£29.99
Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd Berenice
£13.26
Modern Humanities Research Association The Eyes
£20.54
Modern Humanities Research Association Hamlet
£20.54
Modern Humanities Research Association The Eyes
£35.99
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Plays Absolute Classics
Book SynopsisStephen Mulrine has written extensively for television and radio as a dramatist. He began translating Russian drama in the late 1980s, ranging from Gogol and Chekhov, to the contemporary plays of Gelman and Petrushevskaya. His adaptation of Yerofeev's cult novel Moscow Stations, staged in Edinburgh, London and New York, and a volume of plays by Ostrovsky are also published by Oberon Books.
£24.50
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Marlene
Book SynopsisThis West End and Broadway hit is set in Paris in the 1970s. Legendary screen and stage actress, Marlene Dietrich, now in her seventies, prepares for her evening performance.
£16.59
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) The Red Balloon Oberon Plays for Young People
Book SynopsisAnthony Clark's award-winning adaptation of Albert Lamorisse's Fifties French film, The Red Balloon, follows the adventures of a lonely Parisian boy and a stray balloon which befriends him. It enjoyed a successful run at the National Theatre in 1996.
£16.59
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Strindberg The Plays Volume Two the Chamber PlaysThe Great Highway 2 Oberon Modern Playwrights
Book SynopsisAugust Strindberg (1849-1912) is best-known for his misogyny and as the author of Miss Julie (1889). His first success came as a novelist and autobiographer. His plays (and he wrote over sixty) were deeply controversial in their time and still are to some extent. They range form bold naturalism (e.g. The father, 1887) to an entralling expressionism (e.g. The Ghost Sonata, 1907).
£24.50
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) The Southwark Mysteries
Book SynopsisI was born a Goose of Southwark by the Grace of Mary Overie,Whose Bishop gives me licence to sin within The Liberty.In Bankside stews and taverns you can hear me honk right daintily,As I unlock the hidden door, unveil the Secret History. The Liberty of the Clink dates back to 1107 when the Bishop of Winchester was granted a stretch of the Southwark Bankside, which lay outside the law of the City of London. Here, the Bishop controlled the brothels, or stews. The whores of The Liberty were known as Winchester Geese. The Vision Books of The Southwark Mysteries were first revealed by The Goose to John Crow, trickster-familiar of the poet and playwright John Constable, on 23rd November 1996. In these apocalyptic verses, John Crow encounters The Goose at Crossbones, the whores' graveyard unearthed during work on the Jubilee Line Extension. She initiates him into a secret history spanning 2,000 years a vision of the Spirit in the flesh, the Sacred in the profane, Eternity in time.This vision informs The Mystery Plays, a contemporary Southwark Cycle rooted in the medieval mysteries, retelling sacred stories in the earthy language and context of our own time and place. This epic drama was first performed in Shakespeare's Globe and Southwark Cathedral on Easter Sunday, 23rd April 2000. A new production was presented in Southwark Cathedral in 2010. The third part of the work is a Glossolalia of local history and esoteric lore to be read in conjunction with the poems and plays.
£23.51
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) The Colour of Justice
Book SynopsisIn 1993, black teenager Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death in a racist attack by a gang of white youths. The police investigation failed to provide sufficient evidence to convict.Based on the harrowing transcripts of the public inquiry, this is a dramatic reconstruction of the first hearings which reflected the national outcry at the police's mishandling of the case. First seen at the Tricycle Theatre, London, this remarkable production received instant acclaim and subsequently transferred to the West End.
£16.59
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Three Plays Prince Friedrich Von Homburg The Broken Pitcher Ordeal by Fire Oberon Modern Playwrights Broken PitcherOrdeal by Fire Prince Friedrich Von Hamburg ABSOLUTE CLASSICS
Book SynopsisHeinrich von Kleist (1771 - 1811), one of Germany's most gifted and versatlie writers, was a classic misfit: a wayward and tragic genuis finally driven to suicide by repeated frustrations in art and life. Nevertheless, his seven plays and eight masterly stories won him enduring posthumous fame as 'first of the moderns'. Noel Clark's translations of classic plays from Polish, French, Dutch and German have been widely staged and critically acclaimed. His translations of Stanislaw Wyspianski's The Wedding, Fredro's Revenge, The Annuity and Virgin's Vows and Vondel's Lucifer are also published by Oberon Books (Absolute Classics). He has been awarded the Commander's Cross of the Polish Order of Merit for his services to Polish Literature.
£26.48
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) The Darker Face of the Earth
£16.59
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Antigone Absolute Classics Sophocles
Book SynopsisThebes is under attack. In a bloody battle outside the city's gates, the sons of Oedipus fight to the death. King Creon issues an edict: Eteocles, who nobly defended Thebes against his brother and the invading army, is to be buried a hero; the body of his treacherous brother must be left to rot. Antigone and her uncle are locked in conflict. With no burial rites, Antigone knows that her brother Polynices' soul will be denied passage to the underworld and the gods will be offended. As the new king, Creon cannot ignore her actions - her defiance is a matter of national security.
£14.61
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC A Tempest
Book SynopsisA Tempest is Aime Cesaire's anti-colonialist refashioning of Shakespeare. Alongside The Tragedy of King Cristophe and A Season in the Congo, it completes a 'triptych' of plays that examine the effects of colonialism. This translation premiered at The Gate Theatre, London.Trade Review'A witty and fiercely anti-colonialist revision of Shakespeare's island fling... the play, in Philip Crispin's admirable translation, lends Shakespeare's myth all kinds of extra resonances' Michael Billington, Guardian 'Not simply a new reading of Shakespeare but an original play of astonishing power... Philip Crispin's admirable translation of the play provides the whole production with a secure textual basis... a remarkable theatrical event' Malcolm Bowie, TLS
£16.59
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Russian Trilogy Yelena Three Sisters Two On the Lake Oberon Modern Playwrights
Book SynopsisReza de Wet was a South African playwirght who wrote primarily in Afrikaans. A prolific writer who wrote eleven plays in fourteen years, she won more theatre and literary awards than any other South African playwright, including the prestigious Herzog Prize (1994), the highest honour in Afrikaans literature. In the 1999 annual South Africa Theatre Awards, Three Sisters Two (1997, written originally in Afrikaan as Drie Susters Twee) was named Best Production of the Year and Yelena (1998), Best Play. On the Lake opened at the Rhoddes Theatre as part of the official programme of the Grahamstown South Africa National Arts Festival in 2001. Reza de Wet also worked extensively as an actress and taught in the Drama department at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. She passed away in January 2012. She is survived by her husband Lindsay Reardon, her daughter Nina Van Schoor, and her grandchildren Max and Mairi.
£26.48
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Jimmy Murphy: Two Plays: Kings of the Kilburn High Road; Brothers of the Brush
Book SynopsisIn the mid-1970s a group of young men left their homes in the West of Ireland, took the boat out of Dublin Bay and sailed across the sea to England in the hope of making their fortunes and returning home. Twenty-five years later only one, Jackie Flavin, makes it home, but does so in a coffin. The Kings of the Kilburn High Road takes place on the day that the winners and losers of the group meet up to drink to Jackie Flavin's memory and looks at their lives, lost dreams and their place in the new Ireland. Brothers of the Brush is a 'subtle unsentimental lament for the working class' (Irish Times) in which house painters, patching over the cracks of an old house, misuse each other for their own advantage. In a world blighted by economic recession, with workers losing faith in old ideologies, this play demonstrates just how fragile allegiances are when personal interests are at stake. (Winner of the Dublin Festival Best New Play Award)
£17.58
