Plays, playscripts, drama

Book SynopsisThis anthology provides access to neglected theatrical work and broadens our understanding of the history of Irish theatre as well as the vital role of women within it. The introduction places these plays in dialogue with one another as well as within the national context of the repealing of women's rights during the Irish Free State years.These are plays by authors including Mary Manning, Dorothy Macardle, Mary Devenport O'Neill, Kate O''Brien and Margaret O'Leary, which are difficult to access, but which are increasingly visible in Irish theatre scholarship. This unique collection places the playwrights in dialogue to form a tradition of women's theatrical work that challenges the male-dominated literary canon of Irish theatre, as well as enriching the body of women's theatrical work in the Anglophone world during the interwar years.Includes the plays:Kate O'Brien Distinguished Villa (1926)Margaret O'Leary The Woman (1929)Mary Manning Youth's the Season (1931)Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction Kate O’Brien, Distinguished Villa Margaret O’Leary, The Woman Mary Manning, Youth’s The Season…? Dorothy Macardle, Witch’s Brew Mary Devenport O’Neill, Bluebeard Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn 2011 Richard became the first playwright to win the Evening Standard Award for Best Play for two plays, The Heretic and One Man, Two Guvnors. The New York production of One Man, Two Guvnors was awarded the 2012 Outer Critics' Circle Award for Outstanding New Broadway Play. His recent credits include Kiss Me (Hampstead), The Nap (Sheffield Crucible), Great Britain (National Theatre), Made in Dagenham: The Musical (Adelphi Theatre) and Pitcairn (Chichester Minerva Theatre/Shakespeare's Globe). Richard's other work includes Under the Whaleback (Royal Court. George Devine Award 2002), The Heretic (The Royal Court. Evening Standard Best New Play 2011), Honeymoon Suite (Pearson Play of the Year), Harvest (Critic's Circle Best New Play), The House of Games (from David Mamet's film), a new version of Moliere's The Hypochondriac, The Big Fellah (Out of Joint), England People Very Nice (National Theatre), The Mentalists (National Theatre), The English Game (Headlong), Up on Roof and Pub QTrade ReviewRichard Bean is a popular writer who has maintained his intellectual integrity while entertaining theatregoers. * British Theatre Guide *

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Book SynopsisWhile the past decade proved to be some of the most tumultuous times in modern US history, the Black community has been resilient, opening up dialogues and sustaining advocacy. Nowhere has this been more apparent than at the Obie Award-winning The Fire This Time Festival in New York City. Since being founded in 2009, this theater festival has become the destination for emerging and early career playwrights from the African diaspora. Inequality in education and healthcare, skewed and negative images of Black people in mainstream media, racism in policing, widespread gentrification and its effects on multi-generational Black neighbourhoods, and the growth of Black love; these conversations have been happening in the US, and The Fire This Time Festival has borne witness.25 Plays from The Fire This Time Festival: A Decade of Recognition, Resistance, Resilience, Rebirth, and Black Theater reflects this fantastic legacy, containing 25 ten-minute plays originally producedTable of Contents- About the Festival and List of all playwrights from the past 11 Season - Foreword “The Privilege of Identity and Why I Founded The Fire This Time Festival Play Sections 1.Section 1: Vanna White, Brook Shields, and Beyonce: Beauty Standards and Self Acceptance in Black America Featuring Katori Hall’s Beyonce Effect, Derek Lee McPhatter’s Citizen Jane, Antoinette Nwandu’s Vanna White Has Got To Die, and Roger Q. Mason’s Hard Palate 2. Section 2: The Cost of Education: Confronting the Effects of Racial Disparity in America’s Education System Featuring Dominique Morisseau’s Third Grade; Fransica Da Silviera’s scholarship babies; and Tracey Conyer Lee’s Poor Posturing 3. Section 3: The Shots Heard Round The World: Policing Black Bodies in White America Featuring C.A. Johnson's The Fucking World and Everything in It; William Watkins' BLACK WHITE & BLUE; Jordan E. Cooper's Ain't No Mo; and Natyna Bean's Assumed Positions 4. Section 4: Birth: Contemplating the next generation in a complicated system Featuring Dennis A. Allen II’s Untainted Wombs, and Deneen Reynolds-Knott’s Antepartum 5. Section 5: Maintaining Roots: Addressing Gentrification in Historically Black Neighborhoods Featuring Bernard Tarver's Just Another Saturday in the Park and Cyrus Aaron's Panopticon 6. Section 6: The Black Family: How We Thrive in the Face of Oppression Featuring Camille Darby’s Exodus; Marcus Gardley’s The Sporting Life of Icarus Jones; Charly Evon Simpson’s The House; Kendra Augustin’s Sisterhood in the Time of the Apocalypse; and Samantha Godfrey’s C.O.G.s. 7. Section 7: Black Love: Why We Hope Featuring Jonathan Payne’s The Weatherin’; Tyler English-Beckwith’s Maya and Rivers; Fredrica Bailey’s Love and Happiness; Angelica Cheri’s Slow Gin Fits; and Josh Wilder’s Gravity, The Fire This Time Creative Team

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Book SynopsisMorgan Lloyd Malcolm is a playwright and screenwriter. Her play Emilia (Shakespeare's Globe, 2018) transferred to the West End the following year. Her play Belongings premiered at the Hampstead Theatre and Trafalgar Studios (2011) and was shortlisted for the Charles Wintour Most Promising Playwright Award and her play The Wasp at Hampstead Theatre also transferred to Trafalgar Studios in 2015. In 2013 she was chosen as a member of the Soho Six (Soho Theatre). She has co-written several acclaimed immersive site-specific plays with Katie Lyons, produced by Look Left Look Right, including You Once Said Yes, Above and Beyond and Once Upon a Christmas. She was part of the writing team for four of the Lyric Hammersmith's pantomimes from 2009-2012 and wrote (solo) the Bolton Octagon's Christmas plays for 2013 and 2014. She has written two large community plays for the Old Vic New Voices: Platform and Epidemic.Trade ReviewTypical Girls has a joy and energy that is undeniable. * The Guardian *Energetic and empathetic * The Stage *Gloriously noisy and messy salute to female individuality * Times *

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Book SynopsisScottee's work is often about outsiderness; race, sexuality, class, age and gender, creating spaces where the perceived underdog is celebrated. In 2010 Scottee won the title of Time Out Performer of the Year and in 2015 he was included on Independent's Rainbow List as one of Britain's most influential LGBTQI+ people.

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Book SynopsisStaging Violence Against Women and Girls brings together three contemporary plays that denounce gendered violence, along with interviews with their creators and the practitioners who have staged them in different national contexts.Little Stitches (London, 2014): consisting of four short pieces by Isley Lynn, Raúl Quirós Molina, Bahar Brunton and Karis E. Halsall, this play presents Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) from the points of view of by-standers, anti-FGM/C activists, health professionals, women who perpetuatethe practice and, finally, survivors.Kubra' (Sydney, 2016): written by Dacia Maraini, this short play features a young woman who was subjected to FGM/C as a child and now, years later, brings her case to court in a search for justice. A Trial for Rape (Rome, 2018): adapted for theatre by Renato Chiocca from the international award-winning 1979 documentary of the same name, this play reveals how judicial procedures and attitudes toTable of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgements About the Cover Image Introduction: the stories behind the statistics by Luciana d’Arcangeli, Claire Kennedy and Daniela Cavallaro Little Stitches ‘Sleight of Hand’ by Isley Lynn ‘Where Do I Start?’ by Raúl Quirós Molina ‘Dancing Feet’ by Bahar Brunton ‘Mutant’ by Karis E. Halsall Interview with Melissa Dean and Alex Crampton by Daniela Cavallaro and Claire Kennedy Interview with the authors of Little Stitches by Daniela Cavallaro ‘Kubra’ by Dacia Maraini (translated by Sharon Wood) Interview with Dacia Maraini by Luciana d’Arcangeli (translated by Luciana d’Arcangeli) Interview with Nicolette Kay and further reflection by Olivia Brown by Claire Kennedy Interview with Ainsley Burdell by Claire Kennedy A Trial for Rape adapted by Renato Chiocca from the documentary Processo per stupro by Maria Grazia Belmonti, Anna Carini, Rony Daopoulo, Paola De Martiis, Annabella Miscuglio and Loredana Rotondo (translated by Claire Kennedy) Interview with Renato Chiocca by Daniela Cavallaro (translated by Claire Kennedy) List of References

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Book SynopsisAuthor BiosNatalka Blok is a dramatist and screenwriter, her plays have been staged in Ukraine at both state and independent theatre as well as abroad. Her texts have frequently been in the short lists of international and all-Ukrainian prestigious competitions It has translations into Polish, Georgian, French, English, Romanian, German and other languages. Founder of the Playwrights Theater (Kyiv). Screenwriter of a number of films and TV series. The winner of the competition from Netflix for Ukraine. In the spring of 2022, fleeing the war, she moved to Basel, where she continues to work.Andrii Bondarenko is a playwright, journalist, and culturologist with a PhD in Philosophy. He is a co-founder of Kyiv's Theatre of Playwrights and participant in the Worlwide Ukrainian Play Readings Project curated by John Freedman. Bondarenko currently works as a dramaturg at the Lviv Puppet Theatre. He is the author of numerous plays that have been shortlisted for major Ukrainian drama festivals and performed in theatres throughout Europe. Major productions include: Ultima Thule at Theatre Kolesa in Kyiv (2023), Lviv Tango at the Maria Zankovetska Theatre in Lviv (2022), Survivor Syndrome at HarMyDer Theatre in Lutsk (2022), The Light from Below: Stories from Ukrainian Basements at the Baron's Court Theatre in London (2022), and Asshole at the Golden Gate Theatre in Kyiv (2020). Bondarenko is also the director of the short film A Night with Natalia (2017) which was screened at festivals in Kyiv and Prague.Anastasiia Kosodii is a playwright, director, and one of the co-founders of Theater of Playwrights in Kyiv. Before the full-scale Russian invasion, Kosodii often worked with NGOs in Eastern Ukraine in towns on the front line of the war between Ukraine and Russia. Her international work is in connection to the Maxim Gorki Theater (Berlin) and Münchner Kammerspiele Theater (Munich) and the Royal Court Theatre (London). Maksym Kurochkin is a playwright, screenwriter, and a driving force behind the founding of Ukraine's Theatre of Playwrights. He was born in Kyiv and studied history at the Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. His plays have been translated and produced at major theatres across Europe and North America. At the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 Kurochkin joined Ukraine's territorial defense and he has since joined the military.Lena Lagushonkova was born in 1984 into a family of engineers. She studied history at the Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University and has worked in various fields. She moved to Kyiv at the start of the war in 2014 and made her debut as a playwright at the Week of Contemporary Plays' festival with her play Baza about women and prostitution. By 2022 more than ten of her plays had premiered in Ukrainian theatres including the cycle of plays about her hometown and its residents PGT, The Mother by Gorky, and My Banner was Pissed on by a Cat. In 2021 Lagushonkova was a Laureate of the Aurora Festival (Bydgoszcz, Poland) and in 2022 she was awarded the European New Talent Drama Award (Stuttgart, Germany). Since 3 March 2022 she has been living and working in Poland. She likes wine, cats, and buns. She once fell into a canal in Venice. Olha Matsiupa is a playwright, a theatre historian, and a co-founder of Theatre of Playwrights in Kyiv. Originally from Lviv, Matsiupa graduated in Serbian philology from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. From 2011 to 2016 she studied at the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, where she received a PhD in Theatre and Literary Studies. In 2014, Matsiupa was an intern at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. In 2019, she received a scholarship from the Gaude Po-lonia' programme. Her plays have frequently been longlisted and shortlisted at the Week of Contemporary Plays' festival (Kyiv) and Drama.UA (Lviv). In 2017, her play Eco Ballad was nominated in the foreign drama' category at the Heidelberger Stückemarkt' in Germany. Matsiupa's plays have been staged in Rzeszow, Sosno-vec, Khust, Lviv, Severodonetsk and Chernivtsi.Kateryna Penkova is a playwright originally from Donetsk. She is a graduate of the Kyiv State Academy of Performance and Circus Arts with a degree in acting. Her texts explore the topics of Russia's war in Ukraine, the occupation of Crimea, violence and sexual harassment, postcolonialism, gender and politics. Her plays have frequently been shortlisted for the Drama.UA festival in Lviv and the Week of Contemporary Plays festival in Kyiv. Her play Pork' was among the winners of the 2020 Transmission.UA: Drama on the Move playwrighting competition organized by the Ukrainian Institute. Kateryna is a co-founder of Ukraine's Theatre and Playwrights and is currently based in Warsaw. Natalka Vorozhbyt is a playwright, screenwriter, and director. Her early play, Galka Motalko was awarded the Eureka Prize in 2003 and her play The Grain Store, the first major play about Holodomor, was produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2009. She is the co-founder of the Theatre of the Displaced in Kiev and curator of Ukraine's Class Act: East-West' project which ran from 2016-18. Her 2017 play Bad Roads first produced by the Royal Court was later adapted into a film directed by the author and was chosen as Ukraine's official Oscar selection in 2022. Other screenwriting credits include Cyborgs: Heroes Never Die (2017) and the screen adaptation of Serhiy Zhadan's Voroshilovgrad entitled The Wild Fields (2018).Translator BiosUilleam Blacker is Associate Professor of Ukrainian and East European Studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. His research focuses on cultural memory in east central Europe and on Ukraine's diverse literary heritage. He is the author of Memory, the City and the Legacy of World War II in East Central Europe: Ghosts of Others (2019), co-author of Remembering Katyn (2012) and co-editor of Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe (2013). He has published translations of Ukrainian authors in, among others, The White Review, Words Without Borders, Modern Poetry in Translation, as well as in several anthologies. His translation of Oleg Sentsov's Life Went on Anyway was published by Deep Vellum in 2019.Jack Clover is a writer, translator and director based in London. He is currently a reporter for The Sunday Times. From 2017 to 2019, he worked with artists of the post-Euromaidan generation to create original work in government and independent theatres across Ukraine. His production The Orchard was staged at the Les Kurbas theatre in 2017. Jack also served as director in residence at the Zaporizhian New Drama independent where he staged Mars is a Wonderful Place a satirical musical about emigration that toured to Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol the following year. He subsequently founded the company Theatre in Two Weeks' in 2018 and teamed up with the Theatre of Displaced People in Kyiv in December 2018 to curate the Silence isn't Golden' festival that saw playwrights Anastasiia Kosodii, Natalia Blok and Maksym Kurochkin create three fully-formed performances with professional directors in just two weeks. In 2019, Jack directed the Ukrainian premiere of Kosodii's A Time Traveller's Guide to Donbas at the Lesia Ukrainka Theatre in Lviv and created, with Kosodii, the musical Where I Will Remain for Sumy's National Schepkin Theatre: a piece that remains in repertoire and was last performed in September 2022 despite Russia's full-scale invasion. Sasha Dugdale is a poet and translator. Her translations include Natalka Vorozhbyt's The Grainstore and Bad Roads for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal Court Theatre, and In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. Her most recent poetry collection Deformations was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Daisy Gibbons is an award-winning translator from Ukrainian and Russian into English. Her literary translations include Tamara Duda's Shevchenko Award-winning Daughter (Mosaic Press) and short stories in anthologies Love in Defiance of Pain: Ukrainian Stories (Deep Vellum) and Voices of Freedom: Contemporary Writing From Ukraine (8th & Atlas Publishing). Extracts of her work have appeared in Harpers, Vanity Fair, and Los Angeles Review of Books. Gibbons attended the University of Cambridge and lived in Ukraine and Russia for several years. She now lives between London and Wiltshire, UK.Helena Kernan is a literary translator working from Ukrainian, Russian, French and German into English. Originally from London, she has lived in several European cities including Kyiv, where she worked with the Theatre of Displaced People and the Centre for Civil Liberties. She has been involved in multiple international projects focused on theatre, documentation, witness and historical memory, and is now based in Berlin. She holds master's degrees in Slavic Studies from the University of Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley. In recent years she has dedicated herself to studying and translating contemporary Ukrainian drama.Rory Mullarkey is a playwright and translator of plays. His translations, including Remembrance Day by Aleksey Scherbak, Pagans by Anna Yablonskaya and The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, have been staged by The Royal Court Theatre, The Bristol Old Vic and The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. His original plays, includTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction by Molly Flynn Foreword by Natalka Vorozhbyt Bios Take the Rubbish Out, Sasha by Natalka Vorozhbyt A Time Traveller’s Guide to Donbasby Anastasiia Kosodii Pilates Time by Olha Matsiupa Bomb by Natalka Blok House of Ghosts. Why. We. Fled. Donbas by Andrii Bondarenko I Don’t Remember the Name by Kateryna Penkova The Mother by Gorky by Lena Lagushonkova Tolyk the Dairyman by Maksym Kurochkin

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Book SynopsisA young Shona girl escapes an arranged marriage by converting to Christianity, becoming a servant and student to an African Evangelical. As anti-European sentiments spread throughout the native population, she is forced to choose between her family's traditions and her newfound faith.

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Book SynopsisWelsh playwright Gary Owen makes his Royal Court debut with Violence and Son. He is the winner of the Meyer Whitworth, George Devine and Pearson best play awards. His other plays include Iphigenia in Splott, Love Steals Us from Loneliness, Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco, The Shadow of a Boy, The Drowned World (winner Fringe first), Ghost City, Cancer Time, SK8, Big Hopes, In the Pipeline, Blackthorn, Mary Twice, Amgen, Broken, Bulletproof, The Ugly Truth and Free Folk. His adaptations include Spring Awakening and Ring, Ring, a new version of La Ronde for the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Dicken's A Christmas Carol for Sherman Cymru. He is a Creative Associate at Watford Palace Theatre, where his plays We that Are Left, Mrs Reynolds and the Ruffian, and Perfect Match have been produced.Trade Review'Resurgent Welsh playwright Gary Owen has a knack for getting inside the heads of troubled teens...Now he excels himself...the finesse of Owen’s writing ably ranges from the local to the universal...Every teenager – and every recovering ex-teenager – should see this.' * Telegraph ???? *'Gary Owen has written a seriously good play, set in small-town south Wales, about violence, love and loss... What is especially good about the play is its downright condemnation of a bullying male ethos and its acknowledgment that domestic violence has its own complexities... a fine play.' * The Guardian *

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Book SynopsisRachel Holmes is the author of four biographies; The Secret Life of James Barry, The Hottentot Venus, Eleanor Marx: A Life and Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel, all published by Bloomsbury. She has also edited collections of political writing, published as a journalist and worked as an academic, activist and literary programmer. Between Two Fires is her second work for the stage. She co-commissioned Sixty Six Books: 21st Century Writers Speak to the King James Bible (Oberon, 2011), with Josie Rourke and Chris Haydon.

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Book SynopsisThis vital anthology includes fresh translations of four of Paco Bezerra''s plays in one edited collection for the first time in English. Winner of the National Literary Drama Award in 2009 and the Calderon de la Barca Theatre Drama Prize for New Authors in 2007, Paco Bezerra has become one of the most lauded and essential voices in the Spanish theatrical scene. His works have received both critical and audience acclaim, and his plays have been performed throughout Europe, South America and Asia. In the four plays included in this volume, Bezerra addresses critical issues such as child abuse, racism and women's rights. And, in a manner common to all of his works, Bezerra continually explores how marginalization weaves into all aspects of human existence. Together with an edited introduction to Bezerra''s work and world, this collection offers a rare insight into contemporary Spanish theatre for performance and study.Table of ContentsIntroduction Translator's Notes Grooming - Grooming follows one middle-aged man and one young woman who meet in a park at night after flirting online. The man blackmails her with sensitive material from their online chats, but the tables soon turn, and it will be the young woman who entraps the man in a game where the playwright daringly explores the limits and consequences of paraphilias. Mr. Ye Loves Dragons - Mr. Ye Loves Dragons explores the issue of racism with four neighbors in a low-income building: a Chinese mother and her daughter and two Spanish women who believe the daughter is illegally hiding people in the basement. Lulú - In Lulú, Amancio, a widower, discovers the body of an unconscious, naked woman in the middle of a forest. He takes her to the home he shares with his two grown sons where tragedy will soon unravel. Bezerra’s retelling of the Lilith or Lulu’s myth abruptly changes when the woman addresses the audience and utters her real name: Lucía. I Die for I Die Not - One of Bezerra’s most recent works, I Die for I Die Not is an experimental dramatization of a woman whose story has been silenced and heavily manipulated by the powers-that-be; a women whose agency has been stolen by the respective hegemonic narrative that plagues the world to this day.

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Book SynopsisA unique collection of five contemporary plays from 21st-century Hungary, translated into English for the first time. Written by some of Hungary's most highly prolific and commercially successful dramatic voices, these plays are being produced in their native Hungary by theatres that do not adhere to Viktor Orbán''s values and offer a counterpoint to the commercial Boulevard Theatre scene of Budapest.Translator and theatre-maker Szilvi Naray champions these unheard voices through her performable and dramatically engaging translations. The plays are aimed at micro-budget productions and offer a special opportunity for students and small theatre companies alike to engage with these witty, politically irreverent plays, finally in English.Each of the selected playwrights has been in direct conflict with the Hungarian government and has been demonised by the state-controlled press. The five plays are thematically threaded together by their common use of sTable of ContentsIntroduction: 'Difficult Women’ and Resistance Playwright’s Biographies The Plays Prah by György Spiró Prime Location by György Spiró Sunday Lunch by János Háy The Dead Man by János Háy The Bat by Krisztina Tóth

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Book SynopsisAnne Washburn's plays include Mr, Burns, The Ladies, I Have Loved Strangers, The Communist Dracula Pageant and transadaptations of of Euripides' Orestes and Iphigenia in Aulis. Her plays have been produced in the US, and internationally. She is an associated artist with Obie award winning groups 13P, The Civilians and New Georges, and is a member of New Dramatists.Trade ReviewThe energy, ambition and attainment of this terrific adaptation of stories from the eponymous classic 1960s American television series... will delight fans of the original and welcome in newcomers too, which is no mean feat. Anne Washburn sinuously interweaves stories from eight original episodes... A classy Christmas – and, I suspect, far beyond – treat. * Evening Standard *This isn’t a show just for fans, but it definitely acknowledges them. It’s a loving pastiche, fully alert to the swirl of cultural inheritances that come with the show and its era... a playfully great piece of theatre about the power of imagination: about how people use storytelling, particularly science fiction, to navigate new frontiers and question society. There’s a good reason that theme tune lingers. * The Stage *A glorious exercise in sci-fi kitsch with a few smart lessons about the present... the real knockout scene is a reworking of 1961’s ‘The Bunker... basically the current battle or the soul of America distilled into a bleakly comic 15-minute playlet. * Time Out *Unsettling, dazzling and sophisticated entertainment... accomplished with enormous flair. It is sometimes frightening, sometimes spooky and occasionally funny. The famous music may not make its appearance until right at the end, but the atmosphere and flavour of this cult TV show is precisely captured. Terrific. * WhatsOnStage *

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Book SynopsisWe need the theatre, couldn't, couldn't do without it. Could we?A successful actress visits her brother's isolated estate far from the city, throwing the frustrated residents unfulfilled ambitions into sharp relief. As her son attempts to impress with a self-penned play, putting much more than his pride at stake, others dream of fame, love and the ability to change their past.Chekhov's darkly comic masterpiece is reignited for the 21st century by one of the most exciting new voices in British Theatre, Anya Reiss, Winner of the Most Promising Playwright at both the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards.This updated and revised edition was published following the West End production directed by Jamie Lloyd in 2022.

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Book SynopsisMorgan Lloyd Malcolm is a playwright and screenwriter. Her play Emilia (Shakespeare's Globe, 2018) transferred to the West End the following year. Her play Belongings premiered at the Hampstead Theatre and Trafalgar Studios (2011) and was shortlisted for the Charles Wintour Most Promising Playwright Award and her play The Wasp at Hampstead Theatre also transferred to Trafalgar Studios in 2015. She has co-written several acclaimed immersive site-specific plays with Katie Lyons, produced by Look Left Look Right, including You Once Said Yes, Above and Beyond and Once Upon a Christmas. She wrote and performed comedy for several years as part of the comedy group Trippplicate. She was part of the writing team for four of the Lyric Hammersmith's pantomimes from 2009-2012 and wrote (solo) the Bolton Octagon's Christmas plays for 2013 and 2014. She has written two large community plays for the Old Vic New Voices: Platform and Epidemic. She formed Terrifying Women with Abi Zakarian, Sampira and Amanda Castro in 2021 with an aim to producing more horror in theatre. She is also working in Film and Television; her film adaptation of her play The Wasp is due out in 2023 and her TV adaptation of Josephine Hart's Damage is also due out on Netflix in 2023.Table of ContentsIntroduction Belongings The Wasp Mum When The Long Trick's Over The Passenger

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Book SynopsisTeenage boys Ste and Jamie are neighbours on a South London estate. Jamie is more knowledgeable about The Sound of Music than football, while classmate Ste never misses a sports day. Both are being bullied, Jamie at school and Ste at home by his violent father and brother. One night, when things get too much, Ste seeks refuge in Jamie''s flat and, sharing a bed, the boys strike up a new relationship. Together they come to terms with their sexuality and explore their feelings alongside their Mama Cass loving, rebellious friend Leah and with the much-needed emotional support of Jamie''s lioness mother, Sandra.Thirty years on from its initial publication, Jonathan Harvey''s iconic, coming-out and coming-of-age story set in the nineties still resonates with ideas on community, friendship, rites of passage and what it is to be sixteen and in love. This edition is published to coincide with the revival at London''s Stratford East theatre, in September, 2023.

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Book SynopsisTom Morton-Smith is a British playwright and screenwriter. His sell-out adaptation of Studio Ghibli's classic animation, My Neighbour Totoro, opened at the Barbican in October 2022 and returned in November 2023. Presented by executive producer Joe Hisaishi, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Improbable and Nippon TV. With puppets built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The show broke box office records, becoming the fastest selling show in the Barbican's history, and opened to critical acclaim. His 2015 play, Oppenheimer, charts the life of J Robert Oppenheimer and the development of the atomic bomb. Written for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Oppenheimer opened at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, before transferring to the Vaudeville Theatre in London's West End. Ravens, a Cold War thriller set during the 1972 World Chess Championship, opened at the Hampstead Theatre in November 2019. The Earthworks appeared at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, in

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Book SynopsisThere''s a legend about the Watch House... Scrape beneath the whitewash and you''ll find terror. You''ll find him.Tynemouth, late 1970s. Christmas is coming and Front Street''s swinging. But Anne, dumped here while her parents sort their divorce, isn''t in the mood. She escapes to the castle, the Priory, and the beaches. Best of all, the Watch House. The old coastguard''s place is packed with weird treasures and no one bothers her. Until lights start to flicker and something stirs in the dark nights...Buried deep in the past is a secret which now threatens everything. Only Anne can stop it. The Watch House is an epic new adaptation of Carnegie Medal-winner Robert Westall''s original novel, from Olivier Award-winning theatre-maker Chris Foxon. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Laurels Theatre in Whitley Bay, in December 2023.

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Book SynopsisAlexander Zeldin is a writer and director for theatre and film. Alexander made work in Russia, South Korea and the Middle East as well as at the Naples Festival, before, between 2011-2014, developing a number of his own works as a teacher at East 15 Acting School. At this time, he also worked as an assistant director to Peter Brook and Marie-Helene Estienne.His critically acclaimed play, Beyond Caring, which told the story of several temporary workers meeting on a night shift in a meat factory, had its World Premiere at the Yard Theatre in Hackney in 2014, before transferring to the Temporary Theatre at the National Theatre in 2015. In 2015 Alexander was the recipient of the Quercus Trust Award and was appointed as Associate Director at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Beyond Caring toured the UK and a new US production, re-developed for the US by Alexander and produced by Lookingglass Theater in conjunction with David Schwimmer's company Dark Harbour Stories, opened in Chicago in April 2017.

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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

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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

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Book SynopsisCarl Grose is a member of the UK's acclaimed Cornish company Kneehigh Theatre and has performed and written a number of shows.Kneehigh are celebrated as one of the UK's most exciting theatre companies. They have a unique approach to making theatre, developing scripts through a collaborative devising process. Previous work includes: Tristan & Yseult, The Bacchae, The Wooden Frock and The Red Shoes.Trade ReviewKneehigh are a company who have always taken a sideways look at classic tales, as they create they're own ramshackle myth and magic... A madcap pleasure. -- Lyn Gardner * The Guardian *Table of ContentsKneehigh Introduction Characters Act One Act Two

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Book SynopsisChin up, now. Got to have thick skin down here.In 1974 London, three musicians and their manager seal themselves inside an underground recording studio to complete an Americana album, unaware that materials in the walls are driving them to the brink of insanity. As artistic, social, and racial tensions flare, the atmosphere grows thornier, the music grows stranger, and Everglade Studio's mixture of creativity and claustrophobia demands its pound of flesh. Longlisted for the 2023 BBC Writersroom Popcorn Award for Best New Writing, In Everglade Studio is a ferocious comedic thriller from Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller, featuring original music by Nathaniel and Aveev Isaacson.This edition was published to coincide with the run at The Hope Theatre in London, in April 2024.

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Book SynopsisI know you hey. You're the one that's always in the back of the library. Like a little library gremlin. Eating up knowledge. And HariboIt's a new term at college and, for most of the Sixth Form students, all that matters are mocks, UCAS applications and whether or not Elliot Park and Georgia Smith had sex in the study room at lunchtime.After losing the election for student president, Aicha throws all her energy into the school's Extended Physics Project' or, as she calls it, Space Club. One afternoon, Aicha is surprised by the appearance of the usually introverted and distant Bo, doubling the membership of Space Club. Whilst Aicha is thrilled to have a mysterious new friend, Bo is distracted by the black hole at the heart of her home life. She's worked so hard to launch herself into bigger and better things but will Grud eclipse her efforts and pull her off course?Sarah Power''s Grud is an exploration of pain and addiction in the relationship

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Book SynopsisI'm a monster. You can't marry me.Jay and Paul are both serving life sentences for homophobic murders. Incredibly, they fall in love and seek permission to marry. Inspired by real-life events, Kiss Marry Kill is a provocative new play that reimagines the first same-sex wedding in a UK prison.The original Dante or Die production featured live music from rapper Lady Lykez, and enveloped audiences in the private spaces and conversations of a world rarely seen. Kiss Marry Kill zeroes in on the limits of our compassion, challenging our assumptions and preconceptions around sexuality, and the criminal justice system. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere Dante or Die tour starting in March 2024.

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Book SynopsisDo you still love me?Yeah. You sure?In this groundbreaking work, seven scenes drag us further down the stages of coercive-control: but who is manipulating and who is being manipulated? Only two characters appear - Sam and Charlie played by an ensemble cast. When scenes are replayed in different combinations, do we interpret them differently? Does gender, class, age, or ethnicity, alter our perception? What does that say about how we perceive the world? How do we find solid ground to judge?Breaking is Amy Kidd's exciting debut play, commissioned by Olivier award-winning Fishamble Theatre. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere and Fishamble tour starting in September 2024.

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Book SynopsisDaniel York Loh is a mixed-race British East Asian actor, writer, filmmaker and musician. His first full-length play, The Fu Manchu Complex, ran at Ovalhouse in 2013. Along with composer Craig Adams, he won the 2016 Perfect Pitch award to create an original stage musical, Sinking Water, based on events around the 2004 Morecambe Bay Chinese cockle-picker tragedy, which is currently being developed under commission by Theatre Royal Stratford East. He is one of 21 writers of colour featured in the collection of essays, The Good Immigrant, which won the 2016 Books Are My Bag Reader's Choice award. He has served on the Equity Minority Ethnic Members Committee, is a founder member of British East Asian Artists and has worked with Act For Change to promote diversity in UK media.

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Book SynopsisThese two electric pieces of work originated from Brixton House''s Housemates Festival in summer 2023, back to grace the stage for Housemates Returns in 2024.Is Dat U Yh? by dkfash: A time where laughter was free and nonsense was all we knew. Tamagotchis, Pokémon and alien babies. Tolu and the ''Back Of the Bus Queens'' relive and rediscover their love of home, in this joyous and wacky adventure down memory lane. Surreal memories, short stories and nonsense! Theatre. Dance. Lyricism and school daze nostalgia!Before I Go by Tobi King Bakare: Ajani can talk. He can host parties, talk to girls, charm any living being. However, he finds it hard to express himself to the people he cares about the most. When he dies and gets stuck in Limbo, he is given an ultimatum: ''Learn how to properly communicate or remain here forever''. Ajani takes on the quest and embarks on a poetic journey of discovery, unlearning and healing. This edition was published to c

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Book SynopsisI am attempting to colonise the last frontier. Time, Elena, time. If we could inhabit different iterations of self, we could undo all the mistakes of the past. Don't you see?Hilary Fannin's radical adaptation of Maxim Gorky's classic 1905 dark comedy reworks the original text and draws it into the here and now. Children of the Sun is the story of a small family and their quixotic collection of acquaintances, entertaining and enraging each other while, unseen beyond their fragile walls, their world is being reshaped by unstoppable forces. The play asks how we survive without the benefit of hindsight and whether science, art or love are capable of saving us from uncertainty and destruction. Co-produced by Rough Magic and the Abbey Theatre, Children of the Sun premiered on the Abbey stage as part of Rough Magic's 40th-anniversary year in April 2024. This edition was published to coincide with that production.

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Book SynopsisExistential Figure silently screams. Everything is wiped clean.The fabric of reality starts to fall apart.Grieving Figure finds themself on a hillside.Eyes staring back from the darkness.A dual edition of actor, writer and theatre practitioner Adam Scott-Rowley's most impactful works to date.Performed entirely naked, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE is a nail-biting descent into existential anxiety as humanity stares down the proverbial toilet. A surreal meditation on annihilation that rests on the knife edge between physical theatre and performance art. Ideograms and archetypal forms offer a shared purge illuminating the darkest corners of the human psyche while revealing compassion and humour in the most unlikely of places.THIS IS NOT CULTURALLY SIGNIFICANT is a brutally intense and darkly comic piece that unveils the bizarre, compulsive and eccentric nature of humanity. Thunderous and fiercely grotes

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Book SynopsisJon Fosse is the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2023. Jon Fosse's work includes novels, poetry, essays and books for children. He is one of the most produced playwrights in Europe and his plays have been translated into more than forty languages. Methuen Drama publishes Plays One (Someone Is Going to Come, The Name, The Guitar Man, The Child), Plays Three (Mother and Child, Sleep my Baby Sleep, Afternoon, Beautiful, Death Variations), Plays Four (And We'll Never Be Parted, The Son, Visits, Meanwhile the Lights Go Down and Everything Becomes Black), Plays Five (Suzannah, Living Secretly, The Dead Dogs, A Red Butterfly's Wing, Warm, Telemakos, Sleep), Nightsongs, The Girl on the Sofa and I Am The Wind. Fosse was made a Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite of France in 2007 and received The International Ibsen Award in 2010.

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Book SynopsisPhilippa Lawford is a London-based playwright and director. She has been directing plays on the fringe for the last few years and she trained as a writer with the John Burgess Playwriting Course and an MSt in Writing for Performance from Cambridge University. Philippa has worked as an assistant director (Saviour, Jermyn Street Theatre) and reader (Finborough Theatre, ETPEP award) alongside her writing and directing work. Ikaria was her first full-length play, which originally premiered at the Old Red Lion Theatre in November 2022 before returning for a UK tour in September 2023.

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Book SynopsisIrene Kelleher is an actress and writer from Ireland. Irene graduated from UCC with a First Class Honours Degree and Masters in Drama and Theatre Studies. She has also trained at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. She was awarded the Best Actress Award for her performance of Aoibhe in The Trouble with Aoibhe at the BlackBird Film Festival in NYC. Mary and Me was Irene's debut play, in which she also performed. Irene's second play, A Safe Passage, toured the US and Ireland from 2022 to 2025.

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Book SynopsisOne morning, as I was writing, I suddenly understood that as a species, through incredible stubbornness, we were able to write love into our genetic makeup, and that this is enough to redeem us all. We were given mouths to bite with, and with deep intelligence and beauty, we learned to kiss each other.Part performance lecture, part auto-fictional memoir, Divine Invention is Sergio Blanco''s attempt to say something new about love. To do so, he recalls his own experiences of love, true and invented, and explores the history of love in art, literature, music, and science. The result is a life-affirming new play. Written by acclaimed Franco-Uruguayan playwright Sergio Blanco (Thebes Land, The Rage of Narcissus, When You Pass Over My Tomb) and translated by his long-time collaborator Daniel Goldman, Divine Invention is ''collaboration to savour by two masters of the form'' (Lyn Gardner). This edition was published to coin

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Book SynopsisSo you read, and read, and read, and read, wishing you could just disappear. But some books don't make you disappear. They make you come alive. Local lad Robbie Stevenson lives in the smallest bedroom of the smallest house on the smallest street of Scotland. He prefers to hide away from the world inside the pages of his favourite book, Treasure Island. But, with a little bit of imagination, the book comes to life, and he is thrust aboard. For some children in Scotland like Robbie, opening their bedroom door each morning requires phenomenal amounts of bravery. Robbie soon finds that you can't stay hiding forever when he must learn to navigate his own course and to discover the world is full of treasure if you're brave enough to look. Ross MacKay's adaptation of the classic story Treasure Island invites you to embark on a global journey along the Forth and Clyde canal and into the vast ocean. Treasure Island is published in Methuen Drama's Plays for Young People series which offers

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Book SynopsisComplicité is a constantly evolving ensemble of performers and collaborators originally founded in 1983, now led by Artistic Director Simon McBurney. Complicite's work has ranged from entirely devised work to theatrical adaptations and revivals of classic texts. The Company has also worked in other media; a radio production of Mnemonic for BBC Radio 3, collaborations with John Berger on a radio adaptation of his novel To The Wedding for BBC Radio and The Vertical Line, a multi-disciplinary installation performed in a disused tube station, commissioned by Artangel. Always changing and moving forward to incorporate new stimuli, the principles of the work have remained close to the original impulses: seeking what is most alive, integrating text, music, image and action to create surprising, disruptive theatre.

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Book SynopsisI've always been known for my timing. It's what makes me a great batsman... Today, I've got the worst timing known to man.It's the summer of 2005, England prepares to win the Ashes, and Ismail is about to become the youngest ever player in his elite public school's First XI cricket team. He sets his sights on immortality to break the school batting record and get his name into Wisden. But things are about to heat up.Recipient of the Pleasance''s Charlie Hartill Fund 2024, from award-winning playwright maatin, Duck explores the challenges of adolescence, the pressures of sporting competition, and what it means to establish your own identity.This edition was published to coincide with the run at the Pleasance Courtyard at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2024.

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Book SynopsisI'm just worried because I think what I'm being turned on by is the fact that you're imagining a stable future with me, whereas what you're being turned on by is the potential potency of your own sperm.They're on the same page. It's just sex. It doesn't have to be complicated. Anyway, it wouldn't work. He hates kissing in the morning. She killed her guinea pigs. He doesn't speak to his dad. They're totally different people. It's just sex.A lyrical, charged, sharply observed and genuinely erotic two-hander, Siofra Dromgoole''s After Sex follows the trajectory of a couple, told almost entirely through post-coital scenes. It's about how the sex we have can change us: a love-song to connection, and to people's capacity for changing each other's lives.This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Arcola Theatre in July 2024.

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Book SynopsisYe'r a jinx! Ye hae ayeweys buin a jinx. Pat in this earth tae wrack fowk's lifes. March, 1924. In a rundown cottage near Crawfordjohn, a wedding dress hangs on the wall. Nancy's life is as cold as the Clyde in winter, but she knows she's going to be a star. Desperate to escape the poverty of her childhood, Nancy Gibbs dreams of being an actress. Her anxious, spiteful mother expects her to marry a farmer and take care of her family. Nancy lives for romance and imagination. She's plotting to get away. But her mother has secrets of her own and they're gathering like wolves. Braw Clan returns with another Scots language play after the success of Secret Wrapped in Lead, with So Long, Wee Moon by Martin Travers. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere Scottish tour starting in September 2024.

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Book SynopsisI've got goosebumps. One of us. It's horrendous. July 2011. A far-right terrorist has just massacred sixty-nine people, most of them students attending a Norwegian Labour Party Youth's summer camp on the island of Utoya. Gunnar and Malin have sent their daughter to the island, and desperately seek contact. On the farm next-door to the perpetrator's, Petter and Inga realise their suspicions about him are well-founded. At Central Command, Alf and Unni must decide on the best course of action in response to the attack. A searing reflection on the domestic effects of societal trauma, Edoardo Erba's Utoya offers a timely reminder of the threat of far-right extremism, inviting us to consider how tragedy can both bind people together and pull them further apart. This edition was published to coincide with the UK premiere at London's Arcola Theatre in August 2024.

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