Plays, playscripts, drama
Samuel French Ltd Among the Dead
Book SynopsisAna is a Korean American who travels to Seoul in 1975 to retrieve her recently deceased father''s ashes. Luke is a young American soldier fighting in the jungles of Myanmar in 1944. Number Four is the name of a Korean comfort woman camping out on a bridge in Seoul in 1950, waiting for the return of the young American soldier who fathered her daughter. Three separate time periods collide in a small hotel room in Korea, mediated by a shape-shifting Jesus who first shows up as a bellboy. Among the D
£10.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Tragedy of Mariam
Book SynopsisKaren Britland is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
£9.99
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) People Places and Things
Book SynopsisMacmillan doesn't shy away from difficult questions about addiction and recovery and, rightly, doesn't answer them ... this is a bold, timely and searching play - Financial TimesEmma was having the time of her life. Now she's in rehab. Her first step is to admit that she has a problem. But the problem isn't with Emma, it's with everything else. She needs to tell the truth. But she's smart enough to know that there's no such thing. When intoxication feels like the only way to survive the modern world, how can she ever sober up?People, Places & Things premiered at the National Theatre in 2015 before transferring to London's West End and St. Ann's Warehouse in New York. This edition is published to coincide with the return to the West End in June, 2024
£10.99
Graffeg Limited John Macfarlane Theatre Design
Book SynopsisAs one of the leading influencers in theatric art, John Macfarlane is widely regarded as one of Wales''s finest theatre designers and painters. This is the first book about John Macfarlane and his works, both within and outside of the theatre world.
£28.50
HarperCollins Publishers A Christmas Carol
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.''I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,'' said the Spirit. ''Look upon me!''A celebration of Christmas, a tale of redemption and a critique on Victorian society, Dickens'' atmospheric novella follows the miserly, penny-pinching Ebenezer Scrooge who views Christmas as ''humbug''. It is only through a series of eerie, life-changing visits from the ghost of his deceased business partner Marley and the spirits of Christmas past, present and future that he begins to see the error of his ways. With heart-rending characters, rich imagery and evocative language, the message of A Christmas Carol remains as significant today as when it was first published.
£5.02
Nick Hern Books Pig Heart Boy
Book Synopsis
£9.89
Nick Hern Books Lavender Hyacinth Violet Yew
Book SynopsisA funny, affecting and beautifully queer stage play about a family's efforts to assuage the past and plant the seeds of a better future. Premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2025.
£10.44
Oxford University Press The Plays and Fragments Oxford Worlds Classics
Book SynopsisMenander was the founding father of European comedy. From Ralph Roister Doister to What the Butler Saw, from Henry Fielding to P. G. Wodehouse, the stock motifs and characters can be traced back to him.The greatest writer of Greek New Comedy, Menander (c.341-290 BC) wrote over one hundred plays but until the twentieth century he was known to us only by short quotations in ancient authors. Since 1907 papyri found in the sand of Egypt have brought to light more and more fragments, many substantial, and in 1958 the papyrus text of a complete play was published, The Bad-Tempered Man (Dyskolos) . His romantic comedies deal with the lives of ordinary Athenian families, and they are the direct ancestors not only of Roman comedy but also of English comedy from the Renaissance to the present day.This new verse translation is accurate and highly readable, providing a consecutive text with supplements based on the dramatic situation and surviving words in the damaged papyri. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade ReviewPeter Brown provides a sharp and wide-ranging, yet coherent introduction ... Balme's translation is the most meticulous yet to appear in English. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *Table of ContentsThe Bad-Tempered Man (Dyskolos) ; The Girl from Samos (Samia) ; The Arbitration (Epitrepontes) ; The Shield (Aspis) ; The Girl with the Shaven Head (Perikeiromene) ; The Man she Hated (Misoumenos) ; The Man from Sikyon (Sikyonios) ; Twice a Swindler (Dis Exapaton) ; The Hero (Heros) ; The Lyre-Player (Kitharistes) ; The Farmer (Georgos) ; The Apparition (Phasma) ; The Flatterer (Kolax) ; The Girl Possessed (Theophoroumene) ; The Girl from Leukas (Leukadia) ; The Girl from Perinthos (Perinthia) ; The Man from Carthage (Karchedonios) ; The Women drinking Hemlock (Koneiazomenai) ; Title Unknown ; A Selection of Fragments Quoted by Other Authors ; Fragments of Doubtful Authorship
£9.49
Nick Hern Books REVENGE After the Levoyah
Book SynopsisA Jewish heist comedy that combines madcap action and biting political satire, winner of an Edinburgh Fringe First Award and a Summerhall Lustrum Award.
£9.89
Oxford University Press Don Juan and Other Plays
Book SynopsisContains: Don Juan, Precious Provincials, The Reluctant Doctor, George Dandin, The Miser, The Would-be Gentleman, Scapin the SchemerSince the second half of the seventeenth century, when Moli`re composed and performed his comedies, scarcely a decade has passed in which they have not been revived, imitated, or adapted; their appeal to twenty-first century audiences remains as great as to their initial public. This selection of seven of Moli`re''s prose plays shows his versatility and indicates the reason for his enduring popularity. Whether he writes in a strictly defined historical context (as in Precious Provincials or The Would-be Gentleman) or whether he sets his plays in an almost mythical world (as in Don Juan); whether his plays are exuberant celebrations of light heartedness, ingenuity, and wit (The Reluctant Doctor and Scapin the Schemer) or whether they come closer in spirit to black humour (The Miser and George Dandin), they remain as fresh and vivid as ever. ABOUT THE SERTable of ContentsDon Juan ; Precious Provincials ; The Reluctant Doctor ; George Dandin ; The Miser ; The Would-be Gentleman ; Scapin the Schemer
£11.39
Dover Publications Inc. The Duchess of Malfi
Book SynopsisThe evils of greed and ambition overwhelm love, innocence, and the bonds of kinship in this dark tragedy concerning the secret marriage of a noblewoman and a commoner. John Webster''s great Jacobean drama detailing the fiendish schemes of two brothers who desire their wealthy sister''s title and estates ends with a bloody and horrifying climax.
£5.59
Penguin Putnam Inc Doctor Faustus Signet Classics Paperback
Book Synopsis
£8.14
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Woza Albert
Book SynopsisA social satire looks at what would happen if the Second Coming of Christ occurred in South AfricaTrade Review'A satire played with devastating energy in a brilliantly witty staging.' The Guardian 'The most politically potent show ever staged in South Africa.' The Observer
£10.44
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Beauty Queen Of Leenane
Book SynopsisThe Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag her manipulative ageing mother whose interference in Maureen's first and potentially last loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that is as gothically funny as it is horrific.Trade Review'He (McDonagh) offers all the familiar delights of farce and melodrama, while at the same time offering a powerful critique of contemporary Ireland.' Michael Billington, Guardian, 22.07.10 'Martin McDonagh's play...is not the callous thing that we often hail as;black comedy', but a richly human illustration of that tragicomic paradox. If it wasn't so funny it would be squalid' Libby Purves, The Times, 22.07.10 'The dramatic tension McDonagh creates is brilliantly sustained, while the sudden twists and turns of the plot elicit genuine gasps of surprise from the audience.' Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 23.07.10 'His (McDonagh's) ear for the Irish rhythms and the absurdities of everyday speech is matchless.' Georgina Brown, Mail on Sunday, 01.08.10 'Martin McDonagh is one of the top playwrights to have emerged in the 1990's' Patrick Marmion, Daily Mail, 06.08.10
£10.44
Faber & Faber Faith Healer
Book SynopsisA profound, harrowing excavation of the past that stands amongst Brian Friel''s masterpieces.Faith healer faith healing. A craft without an apprenticeship, a ministry without responsibility, a vocation without a ministry.Frank Hardy, a travelling healer, offers the promise of redemption to the sick. But his is an unreliable gift, a dangerous calling, bringing him into conflict with his wife, Grace, and his manager, Teddy.Faith Healer premiered at the Longacre Theatre, New York, 1979.The night of Faith Healer is one that still blazes in recollection for me, as religious experiences of art do. And it became a sort of touchstone for me . . . for defining the elusiveness of great art and the pain of the artist who creates it.' BEN BRANTLEY, NEW YORK TIMESThe writing is beautiful, supple, rhythmical, charged with the slow, sure throb of despair and enchantment . . . Brian Friel is the most pr
£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Complete Plays of Sophocles
Book SynopsisSophocles was the dominant Athenian playwright of the fifth century BCE. This translation includes his best-known work, such as the "Oedipus cycle" ("Oedipus the King", "Oedipus at Kolonos", and "Antigone"), "Elektra and the Women of Trakhis" "Philoktetes" and "Aias".Trade Review"Bagg and Scully's renderings strike me as the most performable versions of Sophocles I've ever encountered...if you're looking for the translation that best reflects the emotional force and expressive range of the original plays, you would be hard pressed to do better." -- Philadelphia Inquirer
£13.49
Nick Hern Books The Hound of the Baskervilles
Book SynopsisA revised, definitive version of this riotously funny take on the celebrated Sherlock Holmes story, a firm favourite with theatre companies, both professional and amateur.
£9.89
Oxford University Press Six Tragedies
Book SynopsisPhaedra * Oedipus * Medea * Trojan Women * Hercules Furens * ThyestesSeneca''s plays are the product of a sensational, frightening, and oppressive period of history. Tutor to the emperor Nero, Seneca lived through uncertain and violent times, and his dramas depict the extremes of human behaviour. Rape, suicide, child-killing, incestuous love, madness and mutilation afflict the characters, who are obsessed and destroyed by their feelings. Passion is constantly set against reason, and passion wins out. Seneca forces us to think about the difference between compromise and hypocrisy, about what happens when emotions overwhelm judgement, and about how, if at all, a person can be good, calm, or happy in a corrupt society and under constant threat of death.Seneca was one of the most prolific, versatile, and influential of all classical Latin writers, and the only tragic playwright from ancient Rome whose work survives. This new edition of his six best plays captures Seneca''s style in a verseTrade ReviewI am awstruck by how good this is * Times Literary Supplement, A. N. Wilson's Book of The Year, 3/12/2010 *Wilson catches the beauty of their descriptive passages with simple felicity. * TLS, *A fine new translation. * William Fitzgerald, Times Literary Supplement *This edition of Seneca's tragedies is fresh, affordable, and teachable. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *Table of ContentsPhaedra ; Oedipus ; Medea ; Trojan Women ; Hercules Furens ; Thyestes
£10.44
Oxford University Press Collected Plays Volume 1
Book SynopsisThe Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka has been hailed as `one of the finest poetic playwrights who have ever written in English'' (Martin Esslin) and `a writer of genius'' (Irish Times).The five plays in this collection are linked by their concern with the spiritual and the social, with belief and ritual as integrating forces for social cohesion. A Dance of the Forests (1960), a confrontation between the living and the dead, between history and reality; The Swamp Dwellers (1961), a tale of perilous dependence on the favour of the gods; The Strong Breed (1963), a play of expiation, all take place in Africa. So also does The Road (1965), `a rich and beautiful tragedy'' (Times Literary Supplement) The most recent work, an adaptation of The Bacchae of Euripides (1973), remains set in and around the Thebes of ancient Greece, but draws deeply on Africa and the themes of the earlier plays in this book. In all these plays - whether concerned with the corruption of urban life or the power of superst
£27.01
Nick Hern Books Life Raft
Book SynopsisA thrilling large-cast play for young actors exploring the psychology of survival and an urgent allegory for our times. Plus a series of interactive games specially created by award-winning games designer Tassos Stevens, to facilitate a deeper exploration of the play's themes.
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
Book SynopsisA car wreck on the slopes of Mount Morgan puts insurance tycoon Lyman Felt in the hospital. While Lyman recovers, two women meet in the hospital waiting room only to discover that they are both married to him. With his secrets exposed, Lyman tries to justify himself to the two women - the prim, cultured Theo and the restless, ambitious Leah - at the same time hoping to convince himself that he is blameless. Moving between broad farce and delicate tragedy, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan explores the struggle between honesty with others and honesty with oneself.
£10.44
Harvard University Press Menander Volume III
Book SynopsisMenander, the dominant figure in New Comedy, wrote over 100 plays, of which one complete play, substantial portions of six others, and smaller but interesting fragments have been recovered. The complete play, Dyskolos (The Peevish Fellow), won first prize in Athens in 317 BC.Trade ReviewAn excellent guide to Menander… Arnott has given us fine texts, clear translations, brief and useful introductions, and the help that is needed to make sense [of the] fragments. -- David Konstan * Scholia Reviews *
£23.70
Samuel French Ltd Princess Caraboo
Book SynopsisPrincess Caraboo tells the extraordinary true story of a beautiful young woman who tricked her way from vagrancy to wealth and power in Regency England by pretending to be a shipwrecked Princess. Maintaining the deception becomes imperative as the stakes get higher and higher, and what begins as a desperate ploy by a petty criminal to evade the law escalates into a national scandal threatening to ruin anyone whose compassion, lust or ambition has blinded them to the truth. As Princess Caraboo becomes the superstar of her day she discovers the price to be paid for living a lie and the cost of drawing the man she loves into her deceit. All of us, at one time or another, has told a lie; to make life run smoother, to land the perfect job, to win and keep the ones we love. This entertaining, glamorous and empowering story invites us all to consider the impact of life''s embellishments in defining who we really are and who we would like to be.
£10.99
Samuel French Ltd Gutenberg the Musical
Book SynopsisFull Length, Musical Comedy Characters: 2 male In this two-man musical spoof, a pair of aspiring playwrights perform a backers'' audition for their new project - a big, splashy musical about printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg. With an unending supply of enthusiasm, Bud and Doug sing all the songs and play all the parts in their crass historical epic, with the hope that one of the producers in attendance will give them a Broadway contract - fulfilling their ill-advised dr
£10.99
Samuel French Ltd Belfast Girls
Book SynopsisEscaping the Irish famine in 1850 five young women seek passage on a ship to Australia. For many of the ''orphan girls'' on board, the voyage offers a fresh start. But some girls find they cannot escape the memory of the lives they''ve left behind - and that the closer they get to Australia the more powerful the past becomes.
£10.99
Samuel French Ltd Man and Boy
Book SynopsisGregor Antonescu arrives at the Greenwich Village apartment of his illegitimate son, Basil, for a business meeting. After achieving apparent success, he finds everything collapsing around him and learns from Basil that a warrant is out for his arrest. Basil offers help, but Gregor acquires a conscience and determines his own way out.Trade Review"... compelling drama..." Independent "... the financial scenes are appallingly funny and chilling." Independent on Sunday "... the play does two things that were always Rattigan's special forte: it enthrals its audience for two and a half hours and it penetrates the sad mysteries of the human heart to expose the terrible damage that love can do." Daily Telegraph"
£10.99
Samuel French Ltd Papa Panovs Magic Christmas
Book SynopsisAs the children walk in with their lighted candles, and the Storyteller takes us back to a small Russian village, the scene is set for this magical Christmas story. Papa Panov, the old shoemaker, now almost too blind to thread a needle, has a dream that Jesus will visit him on Christmas Day. All day he waits for him, but the only visitors he has are a tramp, a roadsweeper and a woman with a baby. Selflessly he gives them his coat, his money and his soup. As he falls asleep in the evening, tired, ridiculed and disappointed, he has another dream in which it appears that his special visitor did come after all... This adaptation of a story by Leo Tolstoy, narrated by a Storyteller and involving an unlimited cast of children, is a perfect play for Christmas.
£11.63
Faber & Faber Philadelphia Here I Come
Book SynopsisFed up with the dreary round of life in Ballybeg, with his uncommunicative father and the humiliating job in his father''s grocery shop, with his frustrated love for Kathy Doogan who married a richer, more successful young man and with the total absence of prospect and opportunity in his life at home, Gareth O''Donnell has accepted his aunt''s invitation to come to Philadelphia. Now, on the eve of his departure, he is not happy to be leaving Ballybeg.With this play Brian Friel made his reputation and it is now an acknowledged classic of modern drama.
£10.44
Faber & Faber The Mother and The Father Faber Drama
Book SynopsisThe MotherAnne loved the time in her life when she prepared breakfast each morning for her two young children. Years later, spending hours alone, Anne convinces herself that her husband is having an affair. If only her son were to break-up with his girlfriend. He would return home and come down for breakfast. She would put on her new red dress and they would go out. The Mother, in this English translation by Christopher Hampton, was commissioned by the Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, Bath, and premiered in May 2015. Florian Zeller''s The Mother was awarded the Moliere Award for Best Play 2011.The Father''A wonderfully peculiar, quietly stunning depiction of dementia... A controlled, unforgettable portrait of losing your memory.'' Times''A vivid, lucent translation by Christopher Hampton.'' Observer''One of the most acute, absorbing and distressing portraits of dementia I''ve ever seen.'' Daily Teleg
£11.69
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Mamet Plays 1
Book SynopsisThe first in a series of volumes presenting Mamet's plays from the 1970s and 1980s, this book includes Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Squirrels, American Buffalo, The Water Engine and Mr Happiness.Table of ContentsDuck Variations; Sexual Perversity in Chicago; Squirrels; American Buffalo; The Water Engine; etc
£20.89
Dover Publications Inc. Nathan the Wise Dover Thrift Editions
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£5.05
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Antigone
Book SynopsisAntigone was originally produced in Paris in 1942, when France was an occupied nation and part of Hitler's Europe. The play depicts an authoritarian regime and the play's central character, the young Antigone, mirrored the predicament of the French people in the grips of tyranny. One of the masterpieces of the modern French stage.Trade Review"Anouilh is a poet, but not of words: he is a poet of words-acted, of scenes-set, of players-performing." Director, Peter Brook
£10.44
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Plays 3 Glengarry Glen Ross Prairie Du Chien The
Book SynopsisThe third in a series of World Classics presenting David Mamet's stage plays. Those in this volume date from the 1980s.Table of ContentsGlengarry Glen Ross; Prairie du Chien; The Shawl; Speed-the-Plow
£20.89
Pearson Education Limited A Streetcar Named Desire
Book SynopsisThe "Heinemann Plays" series offers contemporary drama and classic plays in classroom editions. Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. This play depicts the conflict between a fading Southern belle and the brash lower-class society of her sister's family.
£18.14
Oxford University Press Antigone Oedipus the King Electra Oxford Worlds
Book Synopsis
£7.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Uncle Vanya
Book SynopsisA masterpiece of Russian drama, now in a student editionTrade ReviewIt is the element of might-have-been in Chekhov's characters that makes their sense of waste so tragic ... I know of no more moving climax in world drama. * Guardian *Michael Frayn has left his signature upon our contemporary enjoyment of Chekhov...this Uncle Vanya possesses all the scrupulous, subtly idiomatic life we have come to expect from his hand, allied with - and this is the true mark of Frayn - a fine sense of Chekhovian complexity. * Spectator *
£7.49
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC McDonagh Plays 1 The Beauty Queen of Leenane A
Book SynopsisOne of the most exciting young dramatists to emerge in Britain during the 1990s. His three most important plays in one volumeTable of ContentsThe Beauty Queen of Leenane; A Skull of Connemara; The Lonesome West
£20.89
WW Norton & Co The Spanish Tragedy
Book SynopsisThomas Kyd’s highly influential and popular revenge play is now available in a richly documented and critically engaging Norton Critical Edition.
£12.99
Random House USA Inc The Complete Plays of John M Synge
Book SynopsisThis volume includes the complete texts of all the plays by J.M. Synge. Produced at the Abbey Theater which Synge founded. Represents one of the major dramatic achievements of the 20th century.
£11.66
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 4.48 Psychosis
Book SynopsisThis work is the last play by Sarah Kane, the controversial contemporary British playwright, who died aged 28 in February 1999. A single voice, dragged through therapy and endless medication, reveals the true experience of clinical depression.Trade Review'Is it possible, asks the text, for a person to be born in the wrong body, at the wrong time? Yes, is the answer. But sometimes, from that agony, a great soul can wrestle something as beautiful and true as this remarkable play.' Scotsman (4 November 2008) '4.48 Psychosis still feels immediate, intimate and raw - if anything, the onward march of our confessional culture has made it feel even more contemporary.' Aleks Sierz, Tribune, 7.8.09 'Sarah Kane's last play, written before she killed herself 10 years ago, has been described as a theatrical suicide note. That sells it short. It is so much more: a manifesto for living by one about to die.' Lyn Gardner, Guardian, 25.7.09 'an extraordinary exploration of the human condition, and of psychological disintegration in particular. It exposes the terrifying clarity of the acute depressive's unblinking certainty that their existence is intolerable and can never be otherwise; the play's title refers to Kane's early morning moments of such cruel lucidity.' Sam Marlowe, The Times, 28.7.09 'Kane's fractured poetry, lacerating in its anguish and devil-driven dark humour' Sam Marlowe, The Times, 28.7.09
£11.39
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Churchill Plays 1
Book SynopsisFormerly part of the World Dramatists series of play collections by classic and modern playwrights, including foreign works in workable and accurate translations, this title and seven others are reissued in a new format under the heading, World Classics.Trade ReviewCloud Nine ... ought now to be established as one of the great psycho-sexual comedies of the 20th century. Evening Standard Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine is the cleverist, drollest, most sexily experimental exercise in "compare and contrast" that British theatre has probably ever seen. Daily Telegraph This is the play that established Caryl Churchill as the most imaginatively daring of our major dramatists; and, nearly 30 years after its premiere, it still seems not only remarkably inventive but as sharp about the contradictions of gender as anything that has been written since. The TimesTable of ContentsOwners; Traps; Vinegar Tom; Light Shining in Buckinghamshire; Cloud Nine
£20.89
Nick Hern Books The Estate
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£10.44
Nick Hern Books Inter Alia
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£10.44
Dover Publications Inc. An Ideal Husband
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£5.29
Nick Hern Books Here We Are
Book SynopsisStephen Sondheim's 'cool, and impossibly chic' (New York Times Critic's Pick) final work, written with Tony Award-nominee David Ives. UK premiere at the National Theatre, London, in 2025.
£11.69
Penguin Putnam Inc Three Plays
Book SynopsisPublished together for the first time are three of Ayn Rand''s most compelling stage plays. The courtroom drama Night of January 16th, famous for its open-ended verdict, is presented here in its definitive text. Also included are two of Rand''s unproduced plays, Think Twice, a clever philosophical murder mystery, and Ideal, a bitter indictment of people''s willingness to betray their highest values-symbolized by a Hollywood goddess suspected of a crime.
£8.54
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Adapting Chekhov in the 21st Century
Book SynopsisFrances Babbage is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Sheffield, UK. She has published widely on performance, adaptation and rewriting, with monographs including Adaptation in Contemporary Theatre (Methuen Drama, 2017) and Re-Visioning Myth: Modern and Contemporary Drama by Women (2011).
£23.74
Nick Hern Books the Woman
Book Synopsis
£9.89
