Search results for ""NICK HERN BOOKS""

The classic tale of Sleeping Beauty's curse – as seen through the eyes of the fairy who curses her. Written by acclaimed director Rufus Norris for the Young Vic Theatre, London. Once upon a time there was a beautiful Princess who was loved by everyone. Well... almost everyone. Cursed by a wicked fairy, she pricks her finger and falls into a deep sleep. One hundred years later, a Prince wakes her with a kiss. But the Prince isn't as brave as he should be – and his mother's a bit of an ogress... Based on Perrault's 17th-century classic, Rufus Norris's Sleeping Beauty goes beyond the kiss into a perilous world of beastly shadows, nasty smells and a forest full of enchanted trouble. It was first performed at the Young Vic Theatre, London, in December 2002.

Read more less

A powerful and poetic play, with echoes of Jean-Paul Sartre's Huis Clos and Euripides' Medea. From the author of Death and the Maiden. A Man and a Woman in purgatory – a soul-less white room. Each is interrogated in turn by the other. Each is groping for forgiveness and contrition. But one of them has done something unforgiveable... Ariel Dorfman's play Purgatorio was first performed at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle, USA, in November 2005. (An earlier version was first performed in a rehearsed reading at the Criterion Theatre, London, in November 2001). The play was first staged in the UK at the Arcola Theatre, London, in January 2008.

Read more less

The third in David Edgar's post-Cold War trilogy, which also includes Pentecost and The Shape of the Table. An urgently topical account of a bloody conflict on Europe's Eastern borders. Beginning in early 1989 and spanning some twelve years, the play follows a team of peace negotiators attempting to resolve an ethnic conflict occurring within a fictional former Soviet republic. The Prisoner's Dilemma was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, in July 2001, transferring to the Pit Theatre, Barbican, London, in January 2002.

Read more less

A Complete Voice Training Manual For Actors A simple, step-by-step manual, written by an RSC voice coach, which offers everything that an actor needs to work on their voice. Suitable for actors at all levels, from students and young professionals to established and experienced actors. Drama teachers in schools and committed amateur actors who want to increase their vocal skills and understanding will also find it invaluable. Includes sections on: * Preparation * Body Work * Breathing and Support * Breathing Into Sound: Supporting the Voice * Releasing the Sound * Filling out the Sound: Resonance * Extending the Sound: Range * Shaping the Sound: Articulation * Trouble-Shooting. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction, then clearly and succinctly sets out a sequence of relevant exercises - accompanied by simple diagrams - ending with a summary of what we have learned. 'Brilliantly guides the actor using exercises and tools that can revolutionise the voice. It's a boon!' Joseph Fiennes 'Barbara's work is simple and practical, encouraging each actor to be free and fluid with their own voice... Very inspiring' Emily Watson 'Barbara has a great understanding of the way that actors' anxieties can affect their voice. Her tone is calm, reassuring and good humoured' Niamh Cusack

Read more less

A play about love, death, identity and evolution, from the bestselling and highly acclaimed novelist. Elizabeth, forty-something, childless, recently separated, just wants to be alone. She's moved into a converted Victorian mansion, alive with history, character, woodworm and rot. But worse than that she's besieged by invaders of the human kind. Her best friend, her sister, their mother, the builder and a photographer are all determined to make their mark. And a former inhabitant of the house, disturbed from her resting place by Elizabeth's arrival, revisits her own long-forgotten past. Kate Atkinson's play Abandonment was first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in 2000.

Read more less

A funny, vibrant and moving version of Chekhov's Three Sisters, set amongst the Jewish community in wartime Liverpool. From the award-winning writer Diane Samuels (Kindertransport) and well-known actress and writer Tracy-Ann Oberman. Liverpool, 1946. A year after the sudden death of their father, sisters Gertie, May and Rita Lasky share their once grand home on Hope Street with their asthmatic brother Arnold, Auntie Biel (who still keeps her packed suitcase under the spare bed) and old family friend Dr Nate Weinberg (who claims, hand on heart, to be on the wagon). As the sisters regularly welcome GIs and pilots from the nearby American base, each continues her own search for meaning amidst the shattered remains of their city, in a rapidly changing world. Three Sisters on Hope Street was first staged at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, in 2008, transferring to Hampstead Theatre, London.

Read more less

A bold, witty and fresh adaptation of Jane Austen's novel which, while thoroughly modern, retains the spirit and much of the language of the original. It is night-time and an exhausted Jane Austen sleeps over the recently completed manuscript of her novel Emma. Her four nieces steal in and decide to act out the text and, after her initial anger on being wakened, Jane herself takes the role of Mr Knightley. The excitable teenage girls often try to take the story into their own realms of fantasy but are always brought back to the real text by Jane. This adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, by Doon MacKichan and Martin Millar, was first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 1999, transferring to the Tricycle Theatre, London, in September.

Read more less

A tried-and-tested stage adaptation of Barry Hines' novel A Kestrel for a Knave, about a troubled young boy who finds and trains a kestrel. Billy, a disaffected young boy, has problems at school and at home: he's neglected by his mother, beaten by his brother and bullied on all sides. He adopts a fledgling kestrel and treats it with all the tenderness he has never known. Slowly, he begins to see for the first time what he could achieve – if only he tried. Lawrence Till's adaptation of Barry Hines' 1968 novel retains its gritty charm and popular staying power. Kes was first performed at West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1999.

Read more less

Two plays by award-winning playwright Marie Jones: the smash hit Stones in His Pockets, which ran for four years in London's West End; and an earlier monologue, A Night in November, exploring the subjects of football and sectarianism, set during the 1994 World Cup. Stones in His Pockets is a comedy with a poignant undercurrent, about a small rural town in Ireland where a Hollywood epic is being filmed. The story centres on Charlie Conlon and Jake Quinn, who, like much of the town, are employed as extras for the filming. After a tragic incident concerning a local teenager, Charlie and Jake assume responsibility for giving an account of events, taking on all the roles themselves. A two-hander that delights in exploring the limits of comedy and theatricality, and the collision of romanticised notions of 'Irishness' and the harsher reality, Stones in His Pockets has delighted audiences around the world. Marie Jones's play was first staged at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast in June 1999 before opening at the Tricycle Theatre, London, in August 1999. It transferred to the New Ambassadors Theatre, London, in May 2000. Stones in His Pockets won the 2001 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. A Night in November is a one-man show following Kenneth McCallister, family man and Ulsterman, on the fateful night in November in Belfast when the Republic of Ireland qualifies against Northern Ireland for the World Cup, and Kenneth finds himself watching the sectarian hatred of the crowd rather than the football. A Night in November was first performed at The West Belfast Festival, Whiterock, Belfast, in August 1994, then toured extensively throughout Ireland, and was also seen in New York. It was staged in London at the Tricycle Theatre in March 1995.

Read more less

A practical guide to the skills, characters and history of Commedia Dell'Arte through graded games and illustrated exercises - a useful tool in any actor's training and a discipline for all forms of physical theatre. Chapters include: * Warm-Up Games * Mime and Movement Games * Word Games * Using Face Masks * The Legacy of Commedia dell'Arte, a chapter looking at the individual Masks or characters in the traditional Commedia dell'Arte.

Read more less

A simple and delightfully inventive re-telling of the stories from the Arabian Nights. It is wedding night in the palace of King Shahrayar. By morning the new Queen Shahrazad is to be put to death, like a thousand young brides before her. But she has one gift that could save her – the gift of storytelling. Can the young Queen transport the vengeful King to the mystical land of her stories? On her side she has a rich array of characters including Ali Baba, Es-Sinbad the Sailor and Princess Parizade – adventurers in strange and magical worlds populated by giant beasts, talking birds and crafty thieves. Will her silver-tongued storytelling save her life? This edition was published alongside the Young Vic's production in 1998.

Read more less

Two linked one-act plays set in a run-down residential hotel in Bournemouth. In the first of the plays, Table by the Window, a lonely divorcee tracks down her former husband in order to resume a kind of half-life with him. In the other, Table Number Seven, a repressed young spinster offers brave moral support to a fake major accused of importuning women in a local cinema. Terence Rattigan's play Separate Tables was first produced at the St. James's Theatre, London, in September 1954. In an alternative version, only recently discovered among Rattigan's papers, the major's offence was revealed to be homosexual; these 'alternative' scenes are published here for the first time. This edition, edited and introduced by Dan Rebellato, includes a biographical sketch and chronology. 'Few dramatists of this century have written with more understanding of the human heart than Terence Rattigan' Michael Billington

Read more less

Two plays from playwright Gary Mitchell, known for his powerful explorations of the conflicts troubling Northern Ireland. Tearing the Loom is a searing portrait of a community divided against itself, set in a weaver's cottage in County Armagh at the time of the 1798 Rebellion. It was first performed at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, in 1998. In a Little World of Our Own is a powerful illustration of how the conflict in Northern Ireland affects whole families, and of how the violence of the streets is brought into the heart of the home. It was first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1997.

Read more less

The play that gave birth to the smash-hit film - a wonderful comedy about growing up in multiracial Salford. The six Khan children, entangled in arranged marriages and bell-bottoms, are trying to find their way growing up in 1970s Salford. They are all caught between their Pakistani father's insistence on Asian traditions, their English mother's laissez-faire attitude, and their own wish to become citizens of the modern world. Ayub Khan Din's play East is East was first performed at Birmingham Repertory Studio Theatre in October 1996 in a co-production by Tamasha Theatre Company, the Royal Court Theatre Company and Birmingham Repertory Company, before transferring to the Royal Court, London. It was later adapted into a feature film, with a screenplay by the author, that became one of the most successful British films ever made. East is East won the John Whiting Award in 1996 and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 1998.

Read more less

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price A classically bawdy Restoration Comedy, widely regarded as one of the filthiest and funniest plays ever written. The City of London in the seventeenth century. Harry Horner wants to seduce as many women as possible, but he needs to convince their husbands that he’s physically incapable of any such thing. Cannily, his faux impotence also allows him to sniff out and unmask those respectably virtuous ladies who secretly ache for him. William Wycherley's The Country Wife was first performed in January 1675, by the King's Company, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Read more less

A masterpiece of light comedy from Terence Rattigan, about a group of bright young things attempting to learn French on the Riviera amid myriad distractions. French Without Tears is the play that first made Rattigan's name, and ran for over a thousand performances in the 1930s. This edition includes an authoritative introduction, biographical sketch and chronology.

Read more less

Based on the true story of Alma Rattenbury, who, in 1935, went on trial with her eighteen-year-old lover for the murder of her husband. In the play, Terence Rattigan pits Alma against a formidable lady juror, whose own life offers a plangent counterpoint to the central tale of love, betrayal, guilt and obsession. Published in this edition alongside a major revival of the play at The Old Vic, London, Cause Célèbre was Rattigan's last play and was still running in the West End at the time of his death in 1977. It comes, like the other volumes in NHB's uniform edition of Rattigan's plays, with an authoritative introduction by Rattigan scholar Dan Rebellato. ‘Few dramatists of this century have written with more understanding of the human heart than Terence Rattigan’ - Michael Billington

Read more less

Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra is a trilogy of full-length plays, reworking themes from Greek tragedy, particularly The Oresteia of Aeschylus, relocated to New England in 1865, just after the end of the American Civil War. Lavinia Mannon (Electra) dotes on her father Ezra (Agamemnon), who has just returned victorious from the war, and despises her mother Christine (Clytemnestra) – especially since Catherine has been making a cuckold of Ezra with Lavinia's ex-suitor, Adam. Lavinia's brother Orin (Orestes), on the other hand, war-wounded and weak, idolises his mother and resents his overbearing father. When Christine and her lover poison Ezra, Lavinia convinces her brother that they must avenge their father's death. But they have spent years soaking in family conflicts and curses of generations past, and fate will be sated... Mourning Becomes Electra was premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre in October 1931. This edition of the play includes a full introduction, biographical sketch and chronology.

Read more less

The classic - and most practical - guide to Shakespeare’s major plays, available in separate, pocket-format volumes for use in study or rehearsal room. With a foreword by Richard Eyre. 'I regard Granville Barker not only as the first modern English director but as the most influential' Richard Eyre 'A deep and penetrating intelligence illuminates his observations, and they remain permanently relevant' Peter Brook

Read more less

Ten short plays by Caryl Churchill, written for stage, radio and TV, selected and introduced by the author. This collection of short plays by one of our leading playwrights opens up a little-known aspect of her writing, and demonstrates her remarkable versatility and breadth of concern. Abortive (Radio 3, 1971) The After-Dinner Joke (BBC TV, 1978) The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution Hot Fudge (Royal Court Theatre, 1989) The Judge's Wife (BBC TV, 1972) Lovesick (Radio 3, 1967) Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen (Radio 3, 1971) Schreber's Nervous Illness (Radio 3, 1972) Seagulls Three More Sleepless Nights (Soho Poly Theatre, 1980) The volume also includes an introduction by the author.

Read more less

From the liberation of the electric wheelchair to the ignominy of discrimination and incarceration, there have been both great advances and terrible setbacks for disabled people in Britain over the last fifty years. Hard-hitting and hilarious, personal and poignant, CripTales comprises six fictional monologues portraying some very real experiences. From negotiating friendships and personal assistants, navigating the benefits system, and experiencing sexual fulfilment, they challenge the view that having a disability is a problem or ‘not normal’. Normal doesn’t exist! CripTales was commissioned by the BBC and broadcast on BBC Four and BBC America in 2020 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act, which criminalised discrimination against disabled people in many areas of life. The production had disabled people at its core – as writers, directors and actors of all six monologues. Mat Fraser, the series’ Creative Director, said, ‘Disabled voices have been shut out of mainstream TV drama for too long and this is a chance to showcase some of the wonderful, inventive, funny, dramatic, sexy and sobering potential available… We called the series CripTales, as the word ‘crip’ has been taken by the disabled community as a self-empowering title since the late ’80s, and these are authentic stories and tales from people who identify as Deaf and Disabled people and who are embedded in disabled community.’

Read more less

‘For however long we must keep our distance, we will continue to create, to reinvent, to strive and to feed our creativity. At a time where performers are needed more than ever, training the next generation of performers must go on!’ Glyn Trefor-Jones, from his Introduction Drama Menu is the revolutionary, hugely popular concept that has transformed the planning and delivery of drama classes for teachers and workshop leaders around the world. Choose an Appetiser or two, a Starter, a Main Course and a Dessert – and voilà! – you’ll have a delicious, dramatic banquet for your students. This new collection, Drama Menu at a Distance – created specifically to help anyone teaching drama during the COVID-19 pandemic – brings you 80 games and exercises, all of which are safe and secure to play in this new era of socially distanced teaching and online learning. It offers dynamic, brand-new exercises to energise, excite and inspire your group, alongside some firm favourites, redesigned to be played within the necessary constraints. Also included is an introduction by the author, with advice and suggestions to support you in delivering your session. Drama Menu at a Distance is the essential recipe book you need to eliminate the challenges of planning lessons and workshops in the ‘new normal’, and leave you with more time for playing. Stay safe – and bon appétit! Praise for Drama Menu: ‘An essential resource for anyone teaching drama to children of all ages… with catchy titles, clear numbering and individual exercise summaries, Drama Menu is an easily accessible, flexible and creative resource useful for any dramatic platform. A must-have for all teachers wanting to give their students the very best!’ Word Matters ‘Easy to navigate… definitely something for everyone… a really useful collection’ Teaching Drama ‘Ideal… [the author’s] knowledge and experience are apparent in his writing and this book will provide a great deal of varied and inspiring material for sessions with secondary-aged or older students, although many activities could be used with or adapted for younger age-groups’ Drama Resource ‘Unbelievably useful… every reader will find something new and of absolute hands-on usefulness… Drama Menu will become your companion’ ReviewsGate.com ‘Well organised and easy to use… a useful and relevant tool for anyone involved with facilitating drama sessions’ Drama Magazine

Read more less

Fourteen-year-old Jim Hawkins is serving ale in The Admiral Benbow Inn – when suddenly the door slams open and in strides Billy Bones, the infamous pirate, to change Jim’s life forever… Soon, Jim finds himself on board The Jolly Todger and setting sail on the high seas. Alongside him, the crew includes Captain Birdseye, Black Dog, Blue Peter, the one-legged Long John Silver, and a parrot called Alexa – and their destination: a mysterious tropical paradise in the Caribbean named Treasure Island. Or Skeleton Island. Depends who you ask. This riotously chaotic adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s beloved Treasure Island is a collaboration between John Nicholson (The Hound of the Baskervilles) and the physical-comedy theatre company Le Navet Bete, with their four actors playing dozens of characters. Following the company’s hilarious, hit adaptations of Dracula: The Bloody Truth and The Three Musketeers, it premiered at the Plymouth Athenaeum in 2019, and in a Black Spot-defying production at the Exeter Northcott Theatre in 2020, before touring nationally. If you’re looking for a rip-roaring, swashbuckling, family-friendly retelling of a classic story to perform with your theatre company or drama group, then X marks this spot.

Read more less

'Welcome. Welcome to Bristol in 1963. Welcome to Waterloo Bridge in 2016. Welcome to a house in May 2017. Welcome to three couples and what might be, what once was and what could have been in 2017. Welcome to a West Indian household in 2018. Welcome to London in 2018. Welcome to the past, present and – crucially – the future.' This anthology brings together six plays, all written or performed since 2017, by six brilliant Black British writers – Travis Alabanza, Firdos Ali, Natasha Gordon, Arinzé Kene, Chinonyerem Odimba and debbie tucker green. The plays demonstrate a rich range of settings, forms, styles, locations, scales, contents and concerns – and explore themes including politics and protest, grief and colonisation, relationships and gender. They have been seen on stages including the National Theatre, the Royal Court, the Bush and Bristol Old Vic, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in the West End, and on tour of the UK. Selected and introduced by leading theatre director Natalie Ibu, Contemporary Plays by Black British Writers celebrates a multiplicity of stories authored by Black playwrights in the UK over the last decade.

Read more less

This step-by-step guide to learning and practising an American accent is for anyone who wants to use a General American accent with confidence in auditions and performance. Inside, you'll find an easy-to-follow breakdown of the fundamentals required for the accent – including the shape and position of the mouth; vowels and consonants; rhythm; stressing; pitch; pace and more – as well as structured drills and exercises to build on and consolidate what you've learned, using extracts from contemporary American plays. The book is supplemented by dozens of online audio clips of General American voices, recorded by native speakers, so you can listen to the target sounds and repeat for practice. Also included are tips on fully integrating the accent into your performance, as well as a series of vocal warm-ups. Rebecca Gausnell is a voice and dialect coach, who has worked internationally in theatre, film and television. Born and raised in the United States, she studied acting in Chicago, before completing an MFA in Voice Studies in London. The Compact Guides are pocket-sized introductions for actors and theatremakers, each tackling a key topic in a clear and comprehensive way. Written by industry professionals with extensive hands-on experience of their subject, they provide you with maximum information in minimum time.

Read more less

Can you remember your first time? In this hilarious and heartbreaking true story, theatre-maker and activist Nathaniel Hall can't seem to forget his. To be fair, he's had it playing on repeat for the last fifteen years… but now he's ready to lift the lid on his life-changing secret. First presented by Dibby Theatre and Waterside Arts, First Time went on to critical and audience acclaim on tour of the UK and at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It smashes through the stigma and shame of HIV, to present an uplifting and inspirational guide to staying positive in a negative world. This edition features the full script of First Time, alongside extensive material about HIV/AIDS and the themes and issues explored in the play, including several workshop plans which can be used with students and community groups. 'A truly remarkable story of triumph. I was in awe' Russell T Davies

Read more less

In the town of Slurry, New York, post-war recession has bitten. Claire Zachanassian, improbably beautiful and impenetrably terrifying, returns to her hometown as the world's richest woman. The locals hope her arrival signals a change in their fortunes, but they soon realise that prosperity will only come at a terrible price… Friedrich Dürrenmatt's visionary revenge play, one of the great achievements of modern German-language theatre, has been transported to mid-twentieth-century America by the acclaimed playwright Tony Kushner. This revelatory new adaptation of The Visit opened in the Olivier auditorium of the National Theatre, London, in February 2020, directed by Jeremy Herrin, and starring Lesley Manville and Hugo Weaving.

Read more less

'In the death zone, your body starts eating itself. Time and space disappear. It's impossible to remember what happens up there.' When Yasmin and her guide, Tshering, return from a perilous expedition to Everest without a member of their party, they have a lot of questions to answer. Where is Yasmin's husband Charlie? What happened on the mountain? Why do Yasmin and Tshering's accounts differ so drastically? As private investigator Connie tries to distinguish hallucination from reality, and fact from delusion, it's clear that someone, somewhere, is not telling the truth. Set at an altitude where life hangs by a thread, Carmen Nasr's play The Climbers is a thrilling exploration of the lure of the mountains, the drive to conquer and the price of staying alive. It was first performed in June 2022 at Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, directed by Guy Jones.

Read more less

'A vinaigrette of despair poured over a salad of joy.' Lola is sixteen years old, sharp-witted and has her whole life ahead of her – until she's diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. Now her brilliant mind is rapidly turning into useless mush. So she's promised herself two things before she dies: 1. She's going to get All The Sex and 2. She'll definitively discover the Meaning of Life. Stuart Slade's play Glee & Me is an unexpectedly optimistic portrayal of love and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. It won the Judges Award in the 2019 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, and was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, in September 2021.

Read more less

'The short play – very traditional to Irish theatre – is a little jewel of a structure, a lightning flash on a different world, the illumination made all the more acute by brevity' Deirdre Kinahan Deirdre Kinahan is an award-winning playwright and member of Aosdána, Ireland's elected organisation of outstanding artists. This volume brings together five of her short plays, taken from the full span of her writing career, each of them shining a light into a forgotten corner of our humanity, giving voice to irrepressible characters that the world has done its best to overlook. In Bé Carna (Tall Tales, 1999), five women reflect on their lives as prostitutes on the streets of Dublin, a dark tale inspired by true-life stories, reverberating with humanity, warmth and comic humour. In Hue & Cry (Tall Tales/Bewley's Café Theatre, 2007), two Dublin cousins, Damian and Kevin, are reunited for a family funeral in a highly charged encounter full of disillusion, denial and dark laughter. In Bogboy (Tall Tales/Solstice Arts Centre, 2010), originally written as a radio play for RTÉ, two lost souls – a young heroin addict and a reclusive middle-aged farmer – discover a budding friendship in the bogs of Meath, until a terrible secret comes to light. Wild Notes (Solas Nua, Washington D.C., 2018) explores the impact of colonialism through a meeting between Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave and abolitionist who visited Ireland in the 1840s, and a young Irishwoman hoping to emigrate to the country he's running from. An Old Song, Half Forgotten (Abbey Theatre, 2023) opens a window into the life and soul of an older actor who is living in care with Alzheimer's disease, rebuilding a man just as he begins to crack and fade.

Read more less

Alex and Rupert aren't a conventional match, but a caffeinated meeting on the Underground ignites a spark. Skip forward to them fighting over baby names, nursery colours and ways to save money. All the signs of a normal family in waiting. Then Alex goes into labour, their baby is born still – and their world implodes. What follows is a window into how a couple find the strength to move forward, the will to stay together, and the determination to keep alive the memory of their child. Anything is Possible if You Think About It Hard Enough takes us to the depths of grief to find hope, and to the edge of insanity to find reason. There is humour, too, in the most unexpected places. Cordelia O'Neill's play was first presented by Small Things Theatre at Southwark Playhouse, London, in September 2021, and won the Best New Play award at the 2022 Offies (Off West End Awards).

Read more less

Zara has spent her adult life being two different people. The good Muslim daughter, all set to marry the man her family approves of – and a free-spirited British millennial, who parties as hard as she works. Over one dramatic weekend, the lies she's been telling to keep these two worlds apart begin to unravel and she is forced to confront her real identity. Danusia Samal's play Out of Sorts was the winner of Theatre503's International Playwriting Award 2018. It premiered at Theatre503, London, in October 2019.

Read more less

‘Everyone knows, all of them… that when all’s said and done, she is no more than a fig leaf hiding the thing everyone else would be much happier never having to look at.’ An Israeli violinist. Living in her trendy canal-side Amsterdam apartment. Nine months pregnant. One day a mysterious unpaid gas bill from 1944 arrives. It awakens unsettling feelings of collective identity, foreignness and alienation. Stories of a devastating past are compellingly reconstructed to try and make sense of the present. First seen at the Haifa Theater, Israel, in 2018, Amsterdam is a strikingly original, audacious thriller by Maya Arad Yasur. It received its UK premiere, in this English translation by Eran Edry, at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in 2019, directed by Matthew Xia, in a co-production between the Orange Tree, Actors Touring Company and Theatre Royal Plymouth.

Read more less

A beautiful, ferocious play about the bonds that tie us, and how we sometimes need to break them. One sister stayed at home to care for Dad. The other set out to 'make a difference'. Reunited under their childhood roof, Pauline and Rachel unearth more than the ten years between them. It's a huge gap. Almost insurmountable. And each is determined to let the other know exactly who has done things right. Charley Miles's Daughterhood was first produced in 2019 by Paines Plough and Theatr Clwyd on a nationwide tour, including a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in Paines Plough's pop-up theatre, Roundabout.

Read more less

'I can see her just. Most people can't see her at all.' A girl made of glass. Gods and murders. A serial killer's friends. And a secret in a bottle. Four stories by Caryl Churchill. Glass, Kill, Bluebeard, and Imp premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in September 2019.

Read more less

‘Do you ever wonder what would happen if we could live our lives all over again but be fully conscious of it the second time? I bet we’d try to do everything differently, or at least would know to create a different world for ourselves.’ In a room in a house in a provincial town, three sisters wait for their lives to begin. Olga, the eldest. Masha, the middle child. Irina, the youngest. The clock strikes. A candle is lit. The clock stops. Something catches fire. The clock strikes. They wake up. Cordelia Lynn's version of Chekhov's Three Sisters, from a literal translation by Helen Rappaport, was first performed at the Almeida Theatre, London, in April 2019, in a production directed by Rebecca Frecknall.

Read more less

Robert Holman wrote plays of startling beauty, combining close observation of the way people behave with a thrilling and often fiercely uncompromising mastery of dramatic form. He is the playwright most admired by other playwrights. To Simon Stephens, he was, until Holman's death in 2021, 'My favourite living writer'. Here, in this selection from Holman's first decade of playwriting, a monkey is taken for a French spy by an eighteenth-century fishing community; the inhabitants of a Greek island reside under the shadow of the atom bomb; and a group of lonely people converge on the North Yorkshire moors. With an introduction written for this volume by Holman himself, Robert Holman Plays: One contains The Natural Cause (Cockpit Theatre, London, 1974), Mud (Royal Court Theatre, London, 1974), Other Worlds (Royal Court, 1983), Today (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1984) and The Overgrown Path (Royal Court, 1985). 'Holman's instinct for truth, and an unaffected ability to spot what's poignant in it, is what one remembers: that, and a paradoxical impression of spare richness, astringent abundance' The Times

Read more less

It's 1972. An era of possibility and polyester and pubic hair. While Ziggy Stardust is on Top of the Pops, Penny is writing an essay on Lady Chatterley's Lover, Christine is watching Deep Throat and Brian is confused. Devised by The Wardrobe Ensemble, 1972: The Future of Sex incorporates the company's trademark theatricality, irreverent humour and ensemble ingenuity to tell the story of three couples having sex for the first time – and a country on the brink of a sexual awakening. Commissioned by Shoreditch Town Hall, the play was first seen there in 2014, before a UK tour in 2015, including performances at Bristol Old Vic and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It was revived at the Bristol Old Vic in 2019.

Read more less

John, a wealthy, brilliant, and successful PhD student with cerebral palsy, hires Jess, a recent graduate who has fallen on hard times, as his new carer. Across town, truck driver Eddie attempts to support and re-engage with his estranged wife, Ani, following a terrible accident that has left her quadriplegic. As four very different lives collide and entwine, roles are unapologetically flipped, reversed and exposed - who is actually caring for whom? Martyna Majok's exquisitely original, honest and deftly funny new play Cost of Living explores our need to connect and be loved regardless of the gulfs that disability, race, class, and wealth place between us. Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Cost of Living was first seen at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2016, and had its UK premiere at Hampstead Theatre, London, in January 2019.

Read more less

Professor of Parapsychology, Philip Goodman, is an arch-sceptic with a mission to debunk the paranormal, wherever it occurs. But when he embarks on an investigation of three apparent hauntings – as recounted by a night-watchman, a teenage boy, and a businessman awaiting his first child – Goodman finds himself at the outer limits of rationality, and fast running out of explanations. Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman's play Ghost Stories first started terrifying audiences at Liverpool Playhouse and the Lyric Hammersmith, London, in 2010, directed by its authors along with Sean Holmes – and has since become a worldwide cult phenomenon, with two West End transfers, productions in China, Australia, Canada and Europe, and an award-winning film adaptation. It was revived at the Lyric in 2019. This official tie-in edition features the complete script for the show, and an exclusive introduction by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman, about the origins and development of the play.

Read more less

'It is a stress, yes, to deal, undeniably, to deal with people, yes, but That That That is what I enjoy. That is what I’m good at, okay?' Clair works in real estate. Mike and Liz are selling. James wants to buy. He’ll only deal with Clair. Martin Crimp's play Dealing with Clair premiered in 1988 at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond. This edition was published alongside a new production of the play at the Orange Tree, in October 2018, in a co-production with English Touring Theatre.

Read more less

A young actress meets a powerful film producer in his hotel suite. A revolutionary leads an attack on a colonial club in India. A bereaved mother defends herself against charges of infanticide. Snatches: Moments from 100 Years of Women's Lives documents, remembers and bears witness to a century of struggle for progress and equality for women in the United Kingdom. Moving, funny, tragic and empowering, these eight monologues address the constant efforts of women to carve out their rights both in domestic and public spheres – from the criminalisation of marital rape to the first Reclaim the Night march – proclaiming a history of perseverance and resilience shown by women’s rights activists in this country. Curated by Royal Court Artistic Director, Vicky Featherstone, the monologues for Snatches were commissioned to mark the centenary of women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. They were broadcast on BBC Four in 2018, directed by Vanessa Caswill, Vicky Featherstone and Rachna Suri, and starring Jodie Comer, Siobhan Finneran, Romola Garai, Shirley Henderson, Liv Hill, Corinne Skinner-Carter, Kiran Sonia Sawar and Antonia Thomas.

Read more less

‘um yes we’ve been a community since since stonewall certainly harvey milk probably ancient greece maybe’ Equality is here – now what? In a supposedly ‘post-gay’ America on the brink of passing marriage equality, a first date at a New York bar starts two men on a fearless, funny and fragmented journey leading up to a historic moment of change. Jordan Seavey's play Homos, or Everyone in America is a raw and provocative portrait of a love story, exploding attitudes, emotions and prejudices that sit at the heart of relationships across the world. This dazzling kaleidoscope of a play asks us all the question – are personal and political choices really all that different? Homos, or Everyone in America won numerous awards on its premiere Off-Broadway in 2016, and received its European premiere at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 2018.

Read more less

The story of Tom and Viv, their love and the life they’ve shared together – from first spark to dying light. But not necessarily in that order. Tristan Bernays’ Old Fools is a surprising and touching play about a couple, their experience of Alzheimer’s, and their enduring efforts to hold their relationship together through the years. It premiered at Southwark Playhouse, London, in 2018. Tristan Bernays’ previous plays include Boudica at Shakespeare’s Globe, Testament at VAULT Festival, his one-man show The Bread & The Beer and Teddy (winner of the Off West End Award for Best New Musical 2016). ‘Holds the stage with confidence… Bernays drives the story forward with great skill’ Guardian on Boudica ‘Energy and invention abound. Remarkable’ Evening Standard on Teddy

Read more less

A darkly comic, claustrophobic tale of voyeurism and sexual politics. In an apartment somewhere, May and Caitlin are on a mission to take back the looking. Up here, away from the prying, away from the eyes, they watch over the girls. They could take over the world if they wanted to… but they probably won’t. Peep premiered at Bewley’s Café Theatre, Dublin, in February 2018.

Read more less

An anthology of the three winning plays in the inaugural Heretic Voices competition, seeking out the best new writing in monologue form. First performed at the Arcola theatre, London. This volume contains: Woman Caught Unaware by Annie Fox – a searing and bleakly funny debut play which examines of the culture of body shaming Dean McBride by Sonya Hale – a vivid and poetic story of loss and redemption set on a Croydon council estate A Hundred Words for Snow by Tatty Hennessy – a thrilling and brave exploration of mortality, adolescence and the Arctic

Read more less

An inspiring, hands-on guide to narrative improvisation, by the co-creator and director of the Olivier Award-winning improv show Showstopper! The Improvised Musical. Improvisation is a craft that anyone can learn. When freed from endless rules and rigid approaches and allowed to relax, react instinctively and work seamlessly as a group, improvisers can spontaneously create performances that thrill audiences with their liveness. Drawing on the author's extensive experience teaching and performing around the world, Improv Beyond Rules is a fresh and exciting re-examination of the whole field of improvisation. Starting with the fundamental principles that work for all forms of improvised performance – and the common traps improvisers fall into – it goes on to explore the elements of narrative improvisation, where performers create a story without any predetermined structure: The Moment: How to be authentically 'in the moment' by listening and responding to your fellow performers, accepting their suggestions (not necessarily by always saying 'yes') and committing to whatever happens next. The Scene: How to connect moments together to build a compelling scene and keep it moving forward; why there's no such thing as a mistake; understanding and working with audiences. The Story: How to link scenes to build story and plot; what kids can teach us about storytelling; utilising dramatic structure; developing and playing different types of characters; key principles of staging. Packed with dozens of games and exercises, Improv Beyond Rules will give you the tools to build your confidence, empower your performance, and unlock your creativity. Written for improvisers with any level of experience, this book is also the perfect starting point for directors, teachers, actors or anyone eager to learn how improvisation can benefit both rehearsal and performance. 'Adam transforms the seemingly impossible into something exceptionally practical with his trademark patience, charm and clarity' Mischief Theatre, from their Foreword

Read more less

Americans Zack and Abby are bright, young and recently married. He’s a doctor combatting infant disease. She’s an actress, who also teaches yoga. It’s just before Christmas and they’re living the expat high life in bohemian Belleville, Paris. It’s all a little too perfect. Belleville was first produced at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2011, and transferred to New York Theatre Workshop in 2013. The play received its UK premiere at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in 2017, in a production directed by Michael Longhurst. Amy Herzog’s other plays include Mary Jane, Pulitzer Prize finalist 4000 Miles, After the Revolution and The Great God Pan.

Read more less