Plays, playscripts, drama

Book SynopsisChristina Luckyj is Professor of English at Dalhousie University, Canada.Trade Review‘This book will be invaluable to anyone teaching this extraordinary play. The essays in the volume furnish detailed investigations of historical contexts and illuminating readings of the play while guiding the reader toward other relevant scholarship. I will certainly have it to hand the next time I teach The Duchess.' -- Professor Elizabeth Hanson, Department of English, Queen's University, CanadaLuckyj's extremely comprehensive and varied collection of essays will ensure that no teacher of the play need feel that they are going into a wilderness. -- The Use of EnglishThis new collection offers a dense, yet surprisingly easy-to-digest survey of literature that I would recommend to any person teaching or researching Webster. -- Erin Ashworth-King, Angelo State University * Sixteenth Century Journal *Table of ContentsSeries Introduction; Timeline and Introduction, Christina Luckyj; 1. The Critical Backstory, David Gunby; 2. Performance History, Roberta Barker; 3. The State of the Art: Critical Approaches 2000-2008, Dympna Callaghan; 4. New Directions: 'Staging Secret Interiors: The Duchess of Malfi as Inns of Court and Anticourt Drama', Curtis Perry and Melissa Water; 5. The Duchess's Marriage in Contemporary Contexts Leah S. Marcus; 6. New Directions: 'Can this be certain?': The Duchess of Malfi's Secrets, Frances E. Dolan; 7. 'Greek is Turned Turk': Catholic Nostalgia in The Duchess of Malfi, Todd Borlik; 8. A Survey of Resources, Christy Desmet; Bibliography; Notes on Contributors; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis first complete edition of Lawrence's plays contains eight full-length plays and two fragments. Until now, the plays have existed only in faulty or incomplete texts. This edition, drawn from Lawrence's manuscripts, makes it possible for the first time to read and to stage Lawrence's plays as he wrote them.Trade Review"The edition provides complete texts of the plays based on careful scrutiny of the extant manuscripts and typescripts... The Introduction offers a wealth of interesting material... The new Cambridge edition of The Plays provides a model for scholarly publishing. It provides authoritative texts and everything else that the student of Lawrence's drama could require for a study of the plays." Nora Stovel, The Book ReviewsTable of ContentsChronology; Cue-titles; Introduction; Conventions adopted for the printing of texts; A Collier's Friday Night; The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd; The Merry-go-Round; The Married Man; The Fight for Barbara; The Daughter-in-Law; Preface to Touch and Go; Touch and Go; David; Appendix 1. Edward Garnett's introduction to A Collier's Friday Night; Appendix 2. Edwin Björkman's introduction to The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd; Appendix 3. Altitude; Appendix 4. Noah's Flood; Appendix 5. The original ending to David; The music for David; The German texts of David; Explanatory notes; Glossary of dialect, regional, slang and archaic words; Textual apparatus and silent emendations; Line-end hyphenation; A note on pounds, shillings and pence.

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1906, this book provides a full text, in the original French, of the seventeenth-century drama Le Cid by Pierre Corneille. The book begins with a biography of the playwright and of the original Le Cid, as well as notes on the linguistic, literary and historical content of the play.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Text; Notes; Index.

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Book SynopsisThe Roman statesman, philosopher and playwright Lucius Annaeus Seneca dramatically influenced the progression of Western thought. His works have had an unparalleled impact on the development of ethical theory, shaping a code of behavior for dealing with tyranny in his own age that endures today. This Companion thoroughly examines the complete Senecan corpus, with special emphasis on the aspects of his writings that have challenged interpretation. The authors place Seneca in the context of the ancient world and trace his impressive legacy in literature, art, religion, and politics from Neronian Rome to the early modern period. Through critical discussion of the recent proliferation of Senecan studies, this volume compellingly illustrates how the perception of Seneca and his particular type of Stoicism has evolved over time. It provides a comprehensive overview that will benefit students and scholars in classics, comparative literature, history, philosophy and political theory, as well aTrade Review'… [a] wonderful volume … Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.' A. M. Busch, Choice'The Cambridge Companion to Seneca is a remarkable achievement, which has much to offer to advanced students and confirmed scholars looking for useful syntheses and suggestive, in-depth interpretations of the many aspects of this dazzling corpus.' François Prost, Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewTable of Contents1. Seneca: an introduction Shadi Bartsch and Alessandro Schiesaro; Part I. The Senecan Corpus: 2. Seneca multiplex: the phases (and phrases) of Seneca's life and works Susanna Braund; 3. Senecan tragedy Christopher Trinacty; 4. Absent presence in Seneca's Epistles: philosophy and friendship Catharine Edwards; 5. The dialogue in Seneca's Dialogues (and other moral essays) Matthew Roller; 6. Seneca on monarchy and the political life: De Clementia, De Tranquillitate Animi, De Otio Malcolm Schofield; 7. Seneca's scientific works Francesca Romana Berno; 8. Seneca's Apocolocyntosis: censors in the afterworld Kirk Freudenburg; Part II. Texts and Contexts: 9. Seneca and Augustan culture James Ker; 10. Seneca and Neronian Rome: in the mirror of time Victoria Rimell; 11. Style and form in Seneca's writings Gareth Williams; 12. Seneca's images and metaphors Mireille Armisen-Marchetti; 13. Theater and theatricality in Seneca's world Cedric A. J. Littlewood; 14. Seneca's emotions David Konstan; Part III. Senecan Tensions: 15. Senecan selves Shadi Bartsch; 16. Seneca's shame David Wray; 17. Theory and practice in Seneca's life and writings Carey Seal; 18. Seneca's originality Elizabeth Asmis; 19. Seneca and Epicurus: the allure of the other Alessandro Schiesaro; Part IV. The Senecan Tradition: 20. Seneca and the ancient world Aldo Setaioli; 21. Seneca and Christian tradition Chiara Torre; 22. Seneca redivivus: Seneca in the medieval and Renaissance world Roland Mayer; 23. Senecan political thought from the Middle Ages to early modernity Peter Stacey; 24. Seneca and the Moderns Francesco Citti.

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Book SynopsisJeremy Sams is a director, translator, adaptor, composer and music director. He has worked extensively on Stephen Sondheim's musicals and adapted Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the West End.

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Book SynopsisOne of the few female playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age and a major Baroque literary figure in Mexico.

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Book SynopsisOne-night stands are awkward. One-night stands with animals are more awkward. And when you're as desperate to please as Bobby, things get awkward as f*ck. He's just a guy with too much love to give, and a burning desire to give it to consensual adult mammals.Trade Review‘Hayes’ darkly funny script masks a disturbing psychological examination of mental illness and loneliness…this play is much more subtle and interesting than the brashness of its title.’ * The Stage *‘Rob Hayes’ deliciously uncomfortable script foregrounds in-depth character study.’ * The List *‘I think if you’re onboard with the title, you won’t have any problem with the content…his ballsy, original play has a depth and poignancy that endures long after you’ve stopped LOLing at the name.’ -- Andrzej Lukowski * Time Out *

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Book SynopsisTwo scripts were created in 2017 from the same source materials: preserved song lyrics from a performance created in 1943 in the Terezin Ghetto called Prince Bettliegend (the Bedridden Prince), the popular 1930s jazz melodies to which those lyrics were set, and fragments of testimony by survivors who performed in or witnessed that production. The development processes took place under the auspices of the £1.8 million AHRC-funded project Performing the Jewish Archive. PtJA co-investigator Lisa Peschel has spent the past two decades researching theatrical performance in Terezin, and the project’s planned performance festivals in Australia and South African in the summer of 2017 afforded a unique opportunity to allow Prince Bettliegend to speak to our present. Peschel synthesized the existing materials into a rough plot outline, then collaborated with local production teams at the University of Sydney (produced by Joseph Toltz, directed by Ian Maxwell) and Stellenbosch University (directed by Amelda Brand) to reconstruct/recreate/re-imagine the play. Both teams were extraordinarily sensitive to questions of trauma and pleasure in the original performance, and those questions manifested themselves in different underlying themes that emerged with each production. During the first, month-long development process at the University of Sydney (July 2017), Peschel, Maxwell and Toltz worked together to refine the plot outline, Toltz and musical director Kevin Hunt explored the 1930s music with the entire production team, then the actors, recruited from Sydney’s alternative theatre scene, developed the performance through improvisation. Due to fortuitous accidents of casting, a theme soon emerged that dovetailed with the historical reality of the ghetto: the desire of the older prisoners to protect the youth. While the Australian production was still in development, the South African team at Stellenbosch University, led by Amelda Brand, began creating their own version. Their performance was based on the same plot outline and, to some extent, the same text developed by the Sydney performers, but their production diverged radically due to their interest in addressing issues of more immediate interest to the multi-racial student case: race and power. Their musical approach also diverged: music director Leonore Bredekamp created a hybrid of 1930s jazz and klezmer music. Part I of the book is composed of a series of essays about the original material and about each production. The essays, written by Peschel and key collaborators on each development team, explore the Terezin production and both reconstructions. Part II comprises the scripts. Although the texts themselves are similar, detailed stage directions and illustrations make clear how each manifested its own themes. Part of Intellect's Playtext series.Table of Contents List of Figures Preface Prologue Joseph Toltz and Petrus du Preez Part I Introduction to A Holocaust Cabaret: Remaking Theatre from a Jewish Ghetto Lisa Peschel ‘There must be some way to protect this young man’: Remaking Prince Bettliegend Ian Maxwell Student Ethnographers in the Rehearsal Room: Witnessing Prinz Bettliegend Laura Ginters Singing Up the Past and Stompin’ with the Prinz: Jaroslav Ježek and the Music of Prinz Bettliegend Joseph Toltz and Kevin Hunt Conversation I: Prinz Bettliegend in Australia and Bearing the Gift Forward Amelda Brand, Ian Maxwell and Lisa Peschel (Edited by Lisa Peschel) Prinz Bettliegend in the Western Cape, South Africa: Permission to Play Amelda Brand Out of the Shadows: Notions of Memory and Remembrance Leonore Bredekamp Race, Power … and Clowning: The Stellenbosch Cast Reflects Amelda Brand and the Stellenbosch cast (Edited by Lisa Peschel) Conversation II: The Prinz and Pedagogy, Identity and Cultural Appropriation Amelda Brand, Ian Maxwell and Lisa Peschel (Edited by Lisa Peschel) Part II Prince Bettliegend Performance Script: Australia, August 2017 Prinz Bettliegend Performance Script: Western Cape, South Africa, March 2018 Conclusion Lisa Peschel Appendix 1: Plot outline and songs Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisThe passionate but doomed relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff - and its destructive impact on those surrounding them - is one of the most famous and enduring love stories in the English language. In Lucy Gough's adaptation for the stage, the spirit of Emily Brontë's haunting novel is brought to exhilarating life. Growing up together on the Yorkshire moors, Catherine Earnshaw and the gypsy Heathcliff are inseparable after he is adopted into her family. But when Catherine agrees to marry the refined Edgar Linton, Heathcliff setshis mind to revenge. This eminently actable, and readable, version of the well-loved story was first staged by Aberystwyth Arts Centre in 2011, before touring. It is ideal for students and amateurs, as well as professional companies, who are looking for a full-blooded and fluent adaptation of a literary classic.Trade Review'Darkly gripping' * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisFour women from different moments in the twentieth century talk across time in Linda McLean's extraordinary play about faith, lust and family. Jane, a kitchen maid, the first in her family to move to the big city for work; Lizzie, passionate but unskilled and permanently dodging poverty; Sally, an early school-leaver who escapes a dangerous relationship by working her way into a profession; and Fiona, first in her family to go to university and discover a world of bewildering choices. Linda McLean's play Sex & God was first performed at Platform, Glasgow, in October 2012 in a production by Magnetic North. Also included in this volume is a short play, What Love Is, first performed at Òran Mór, Glasgow, in 2011.Trade Review'Beautiful and delicate' * The Guardian *'The range of images she creates, and the sympathetic imagination that drives her writing, is never less than moving' * Scotsman *'Perhaps her most ambitious [work] to date... a powerful collage of embattled lives, repeatedly obstructed and frustrated by economic and social hardships' * The List *

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Book SynopsisThis has been the worst day of my life. So can you please get drunk with me? Dana, Ruth and Jess down shots to console the heart-broken, to comfort the anxious and just pass the time. Kicked out from the family home Jess’s dad, Jim, invades the party with just as much recklessness as the girls. As the night passes and vodka bottles are emptied, Friday night in becomes high drama. An unruly new comedy asking if age equals maturity, Acid Test opened at the Royal Court in May 2011.Trade Review"…Award-winning young playwright Anya Reiss has an ear for realistic, compelling, amusing dialogue. Reiss won awards for her debut play Spur Of The Moment. Her second really is The Acid Test. With Reiss among the leading group of young contemporary playwrights, the future looks rosy."—Official London Theatre Guide "It has wit and heart, and much of the dialogue is disconcertingly authentic…Adept at capturing the cadences of post-adolescent chatter, Reiss also knows how to probe the most raw emotions." 4 stars—The Evening Standard "Like Reiss’ debut, The Acid Test is full of humour, acute observation and accurate perception. The dialogue is as powerful and sharp as a vodka cocktail, and the tensions between generations are excruciatingly convincing…entertaining and occasionally moving."—The Stage "The second play, they say, is the hardest. But Anya Reiss more than fulfils the promise she showed last year, as an 18-year-old, with Spur of the Moment… Like its predecessor, Reiss's play proves she knows a thing or two about the pervasive effect of parental discord on the young."—The Guardian "Reiss displays a real gift for high quality sitcom dialogue…Reiss clearly has a future…"—whatsonstage.com"…Award-winning young playwright Anya Reiss has an ear for realistic, compelling, amusing dialogue. Reiss won awards for her debut play Spur Of The Moment. Her second really is The Acid Test. With Reiss among the leading group of young contemporary playwrights, the future looks rosy."—Official London Theatre Guide "It has wit and heart, and much of the dialogue is disconcertingly authentic…Adept at capturing the cadences of post-adolescent chatter, Reiss also knows how to probe the most raw emotions." 4 stars—The Evening Standard "Like Reiss’ debut, The Acid Test is full of humour, acute observation and accurate perception. The dialogue is as powerful and sharp as a vodka cocktail, and the tensions between generations are excruciatingly convincing…entertaining and occasionally moving."—The Stage "The second play, they say, is the hardest. But Anya Reiss more than fulfils the promise she showed last year, as an 18-year-old, with Spur of the Moment… Like its predecessor, Reiss's play proves she knows a thing or two about the pervasive effect of parental discord on the young."—The Guardian "Reiss displays a real gift for high quality sitcom dialogue…Reiss clearly has a future…"—whatsonstage.com

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Book SynopsisA true-life play about friendship, heartbreak and business enterprise... in a seaside brothel. Tessa has set up a business: a brothel where mature women specialise in offering the 'Girlfriend Experience', a surprisingly caring and sympathetic service. As the women stoically strive to make a living in a competitive market, their personal lives start to crumble. Will they ever have loving relationships outside work and enjoy being girlfriends themselves? The Girlfriend Experience continues the verbatim-theatre technique Alecky Blythe developed in Come Out Eli and Cruising. The play is created entirely from conversations recorded inside an actual brothel, edited and replicated on stage in all their uncanny verisimilitude. Alecky Blythe's play was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in September 2008. The production transferred to the Young Vic, London, in July 2009.Trade Review'Funny, touching and absolutely filthy... a hugely entertaining eye-opener of a show' * Telegraph *'Poignant, sometimes disturbing, often riotously funny' * The Times *'These women aren't patronised or made into gargoyles: their sentences are gorgeous. They simply reveal their lives. What more could you want from the theatre?' * Observer *

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Book SynopsisDrama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price Pug, a junior demon, persuades his master Satan to let him spend a day in London. Taking over the body of a recently hanged thief, Pug becomes servant to a squire from Norfolk, Fitzdottrel, who doesn't believe that Pug is a devil but is happy that he asks no wages. Ben Jonson's comedy The Devil is an Ass was first performed by the King's Men in 1616. This edition of The Devil is an Ass in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series is edited by Peter Happé, and introduced by Simon Trussler.

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Book SynopsisDrama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price The tale of an impassioned, childless woman living with her husband in rural Spain. Tortured by her incessant longing to conceive a child, Yerma is driven by madness to commit a heinous crime. Federico García Lorca's play Yerma was first performed in 1934. This English translation by Jo Clifford is published in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series. The edition also includes an introduction by Jo Clifford, a chronology and suggestions for further reading.

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Book SynopsisHave You Seen Zandile? is a wonderful South African resource, still as fresh and absorbing as when it was first written. Perfectly scripted, and with Gcina Mhlophe’s sure instinct for stagecraft, it recounts the very personal story of Zandile, who is snatched away from her grandmother’s loving care and taken to live with her matriarchal family in rural Transkei. Moving, funny and convincing, full of Zandile’s shrewd, youthful insights, the play offers an illuminating window onto the 1960s world that it depicts, with its issues of white dominance, rural hardship and black female repression.Have You Seen Zandile? is already an established favourite in performance circles, and is fast becoming a South African classic.Table of Contents Scene One Zandile and Bongi Scene Two Grandmother (Gogo) at Home Scene Three Zandile’s Life with Gogo Scene Four(a) Zandile Teaches Flowers Scene Four(b) Zandile with Gogo in the Garden Scene Five The White Car Comes for Zandile Scene Six Gogo Discovers Zandile is Gone Scene Seven Gogo Searches for Zandile and Zandile’s Letter to Gogo Scene Eight Zandile with Mother in the Field Scene Nine Zandi and Lindi Swim in the River Scene Ten Zandile Gets to Know her Mother Scene Eleven Lindiwe Goes to Johannesburg Scene Twelve Praise Poetry and Gogo’s Entrance Scene Thirteen Zandile and Lindiwe Prepare for the Farewell Party Scene Fourteen Zandile Finds Gogo’s Suitcase Songs

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Book SynopsisThe three plays in this volume are all - in different ways - about the battle of the sexes. Strindberg was working on The Father (1887) and Lady Julie (1888) when his first marriage to the actress Siri von Essen was breaking up, and he wrote Playing With Fire (1892) at a time when the couple were going through an acrimonious court battle to establish who was to be given custody of their three children.The dramatic conflict is fuelled by sexual tension in all three plays and Strindberg depicts the various relationships as a power struggle. In a way, one could say that all the main characters are ''playing with fire'' and that they get burnt in the process.

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Book SynopsisSarah Middleton is a writer/actor from Derby. Her plays include SHEWOLVES which toured the UK before transferring to Southwark Playhouse in 2023. SHEWOLVES is published by Samuel French. Musicals include Pinocchio and Little Red Riding Hood for Nottingham Playhouse; The Wishing Stone for Separate Doors/Derby Theatre/Chichester Festival Theatre and Wilf Goes Wild for MPTheatricals. In November 2024 her play Dweeb-a-Mania was shortlisted for the Polka Playwriting Award .Sarah is the recipient of a Hosking Houses residency, Peggy Ramsay grant and National Theatre Peter Shaffer commission.

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Book SynopsisMartin Travers is an award-winning playwright based in Lanark, Scotland. He is a founding member of Braw Clan, the Scots Language Theatre Company. His play Secret Wrapped in Lead, inspired by Dorothy Wordsworth's visit to Leadhills in South Lanarkshire in 1803, was Braw Clan's first professional production and toured venues throughout Clydesdale in July 2023. His award-winning play Scarfed for Life is studied in all Glasgow secondary schools and his play The Kids Are Alt Right about teenagers becoming radicalised online was launched as a national secondary schools' resource by the Scottish Government and Education Scotland in autumn 2023. Martin's punk play, written for the WAC Ensemble (Scotland's first professionally supported Care Experienced theatre group) won the Writer's Guild Award for Best Play for Young Audiences in 2022.

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Book SynopsisOwen Sutcliffe holds an Mlitt in Creative Writing .He was awarded the 2011 Sorley MacLean National Poetry Prize; was a winner of the Little Stories of Kindness micro-fiction competition 2024; has had work appear in Northwords Now magazine and as a hip-hop artist has performed across the UK and Europe.

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Book SynopsisThe origin and development of the marionette theater, emphasizing its growth in a region where it still flourishes as a popular form of entertainment.

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