Search results for ""Author Mark Ravenhill""

Mark Ravenhill's autobiographical radio play explores the way culture, high and low, impacted both his mother’s and his family’s lives. Starting an adult ballet class as the only male in the group sparks a memory of life through the eyes of Ravenhill, the playwright. As time intertwines through alternating perspectives we see his family at different stages of their life. From childhood dreams of being a dancer and performer through to the creativity that brings his parents together for the first time and into their old age, this is a deeply personal and resonate drama about the intersects of life and culture. Commissioned by Sound Stage, a new immersive audio theatre, designed by theatre-makers and leading technologists, giving audiences a unique and engrossing online theatre experience of new plays from the best in British theatre.

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"In Shopping and Fucking, Mark Ravenhill made theatre relevant to the Thatcher generation. Now he's put videos and Net-surfing in Faust. And it's no less stunning" (Guardian) Twenty-eight years before The Importance of Being Earnest, a young woman gives birth to a baby boy. Is it an accident when Nanny places him in a handbag and her unpublished novel into the pram? In 1998 a new baby is stolen and an academic discovers an unpublished novel of more than usual revolting sentimentality. From Victorian wet nurses to 90s sperm banks, Mark Ravenhill's play examines the role of parenting in an age of diverse sexualities, biological engineering and Tinky Winky's handbag."There are few stage authors writing more interestingly than Mark Ravenhill ...He is - it is now yet more evident - a searing, intelligent, disturbing sociologist with a talent for satirical dialogue and a flair for sexual sensationalism" (Financial Times)

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The 1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II is fast approaching. To mark the occasion, Benjamin Britten has just nine months to write a new opera about her predecessor Elizabeth I. Into the world of the disheartened composer enters the exuberant and passionate Imogen Holst, daughter of Gustav and an accomplished musician in her own right. Her candid and can-do attitude proves to be the perfect foil for the capricious and often maddening Britten, and what begins as an arrangement of practical support turns into a bond that not only sees Gloriana to its premiere but endures throughout the rest of their lives. This edition is published to coincide with the world premiere at the Swan Theatre, Stratford, in February 2024.

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"Ravenhill has more to say, and says it more refreshingly and wittily, than any other playwright of his generation" Time Out "There are few stage authors writing more interestingly than Mark Ravenhill ...He is - it is now yet more evident - a searing, intelligent, disturbing sociologist with a talent for satirical dialogue and a flair for sexual sensationalism." - Financial Times Shopping and Fucking: "is a darkly humorous play for today's twenty-somethings ...a real coup de theatre" - Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard Faust: "...an intelligent and witty reappropriation of the legend ...alive, pertinent and disturbing" - Michael Coveney, Observer Handbag: "...combines urban grit with sly wit, and reveals Mark Ravenhill as a writer of real daring" - Daily Telegraph Some Explicit Polaroids: "laudably ambitious, pulsates with energy ...very funny" - Financial Times

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A famous artist invites her old friends out to her luxurious new home and, for one night only, the group is back together. However, celebrations come to an abrupt end when the host suffers an horrific accident. As the victim lies in a coma, an almost unthinkable plan starts to take shape: could her suffering be their next work of art? The group is ecstatic in its new found project until things slip out of their control and, to the surprise of all, the patient awakes...pool (no water) is a visceral and shocking new play about the fragility of friendship and the jealousy and resentment inspired by success. Citizenship is a bittersweet comedy about growing up, following a boy's frank and messy search to discover his sexual identity. It was developed as part of the National Theatre Shell Connections 2005 Programme

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Arguably Brecht's greatest play, A Life of Galileo charts the seventeenth century scientist's extraordinary fight with the church over his assertion that the earth orbits the sun. The figure of Galileo, whose ‘heretical’ discoveries about the solar system brought him to the attention of the Inquisition, is one of Brecht’s more human and complex creations. Temporarily silenced by the Inquisition’s threat of torture, and forced to abjure his theories publicly, Galileo continues to work in private, eventually smuggling his work out of the country. Brecht's beautiful depiction of the explosive struggle between scientific discovery and religious fundamentalism is captured masterfully in this new translation by RSC writer-in-residence, Mark Ravenhill.

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Citizenship is a bittersweet one-act comedy about growing up, following a boy's frank and messy search to discover his sexual identity. Tom dreams of being kissed, but he's not sure whether by a man or by a woman, and he feels he should choose pretty quickly. His friends' homophobic teasing and interrogations about what he did with his friend Amy the other night leave Tom no space to make up his mind, and he's got no one to ask for advice, except maybe people on the internet. Citizenship captures adolescent confusion with a witty and sensitive charm, crackling with humorous and authentic dialogue. Originally developed as part of the National Theatre Connections Programme, it is an ideal play for young performers.

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With an introduction by Graham Whybrow, literary manager of the Royal Court Theatre, this anthology collects the defining plays of the 1980s and 1990s in one volume - Top Girls 'The best British play ever from a woman dramatist' (The Guardian) Hysteria 'One of the most brilliantly original and entertaining new plays I have seen in years' (The Sunday Times) Blasted 'Her dialogue is both sparse and stunning. They will call her mad, but then they said that about Strindberg' (Mail on Sunday) Shopping and F***ing 'A real coup de theatre' (Evening Standard) The Beauty Queen of Leenane 'The most wickedly funny, brilliantly abrasive young dramatist ...a born storyteller' (New York Times)The result is a collection of "must reads" that's excellent value for students and theatre fans alike.

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