Best of
Plays

2014

The Flick


Annie Baker - 2014
    With keen insight and a ceaseless attention to detail, The Flick pays tribute to the power of movies and paints a heartbreaking portrait of three characters and their working lives. A critical hit when it premiered Off-Broadway, this comedy, by one of the country's most produced and highly regarded young playwrights, was awarded the coveted 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, an Obie Award for Playwriting and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

We Are Proud To Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884 - 1915


Jackie Sibblies Drury - 2014
    As the full force of a horrific past crashes into the good intentions of the present, what seemed a far-away place and time is suddenly all too close to home. Just whose story are they telling?Award-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury collides the political with the personal in a play that is irreverently funny and seriously brave.We Are Proud To Present . . . received its European premiere at the Bush Theatre, London, on 28 February 2014.

Peter and the Starcatcher (Acting Edition)


Rick Elice - 2014
    They know nothing of the mysterious trunk in the captain's cabin, containing a precious, otherworldly cargo. At sea the boys are discovered by a precocious young girl named Molly, a Star-catcher in training, who realizes that the trunk's precious cargo is starstuff, a celestial substance so powerful it must not fall in the wrong hands. When the ship is taken over by pirate - led by the fearsome Black Stache, a villain determined to claim the trunk and treasure for his own dubious dreams of world domination - the journey quickly becomes fraught with danger threatening the lives of Molly and the boys. This Tony-Award winning, magical and hilarious adventure at least reveals the origins of Peter Pan, The Lost Boys, Wendy, their piratical nemesis, Captain Hook - and a far-off place known as Neverland. Searching for that perfect gift for the Broadway fan in your life? Explore more from Disney Editions:How Does the Show Go On? An Introduction to the Theater - The Frozen EditionThe Lion King: Pride Rock on BroadwayThe Lion King: Twenty Years on Broadway and Around the WorldMy Pride: Mastering Life's Daily Performance from Broadway's Record-Breaking Lion KingDisney Aladdin: A Whole New World - The Road to Broadway and Beyond

The Nether


Jennifer Haley - 2014
    No one has been able to draw a conclusive correlation between virtual behaviour and behaviour in-world. The Nether is a virtual wonderland that provides total sensory immersion. Just log in, choose an identity and indulge your every desire. But when a young detective uncovers a disturbing brand of entertainment, she triggers an interrogation into the darkest corners of the imagination.Winner of the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, The Nether is both a serpentine crime drama and haunting sci-fi thriller that explores the consequences of living out our private dreams.Jennifer Haley's The Nether received its UK premiere in July 2014 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in a co-production with Headlong.

King Charles III


Mike Bartlett - 2014
    Queen Elizabeth II is dead. After a lifetime of waiting, her son ascends the throne. A future of power. But how to rule? Drawing on the style and structure of a Shakespearean history play, King Charles III opened at London’s Almeida Theatre, directed by its Artistic Director Rupert Goold, in 2014, before transferring to the West End.

Marjorie Prime (TCG Edition)


Jordan Harrison - 2014
    Through deeply drawn characters—both real and in the form of artificial intelligence companions, or “Primes”—Harrison burrows into troubling questions of the digital age: What would we remember, and what would we forget, given the power of authorship? Will we be any less human, once computers know us better than ourselves?

The James Plays


Rona Munro - 2014
    The nation he returns to is poor: the royal coffers empty and his nobles ready to tear him apart at the first sign of weakness. Determined to bring the rule of law to a land riven by warring factions, James faces terrible choices if he is to save himself, his Queen and the crown.James II: Day of the Innocents depicts a violent royal playground from the perspective of the child King and his contemporaries, in a terrifying arena of sharp teeth and long knives.James II becomes the prize in a vicious game between Scotland’s most powerful families. Crowned when only six, abandoned by his mother and separated from his sisters, the child King is little more than a puppet. There is only one friend he can trust: William, the future Earl of Douglas. As James approaches adulthood in an ever more threatening world, he must fight to keep his tenuous grip on the crown while the nightmares of his childhood rise up once more.James III: The True Mirror, like the King himself, is colourful and unpredictable, turning its attention to the women at the heart of the royal court.Charismatic, cultured, and obsessed with grandiose schemes that his nation can ill afford, James III is by turns loved and loathed. Scotland thunders dangerously close to civil war, but its future may be decided by James’ resourceful and resilient wife, Queen Margaret of Denmark. Her love and clear vision can save a fragile monarchy and rescue a struggling people.Each play stands alone as a unique vision of a country tussling with its past and future; viewed together the trilogy creates an intricate and compelling narrative on Scottish culture and nationhood, full of playful wit and boisterous theatricality.The James Plays premiered at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2014 as part of the Edinburgh International Festival, before transferring to the National Theatre, London. The trilogy was named Best New Play at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2014.

Uncle Vanya


Anton Checkhov - 2014
    Baker practices astonishing verbal magic over and over again." - Clancy Martin, Paris Review"Strikingly intimate... Free of the stilted or formal locutions that clutter up some of the more antique-sounding translations... Ms. Baker has given the play a natural but distinctly contemporary American sound." - Charles Isherwood, New York Times"Devastatingly beautiful... People are going to be talking about this one for years." - Jacob Gallagher-Ross, Village Voice"More than a modern-dress treatment of a classic work, it's a fresh rethinking of the material from the perspective of a modern mind." - Marilyn Stasio, VarietyAnnie Baker, one of the most celebrated playwrights in the United States, lends her truthful observation and elegant command of the colloquial to Anton Chekhov's despairing masterpiece Uncle Vanya. A critical hit in its sold-out Off-Broadway premiere, Baker's telling is a refreshingly intimate and modern treatment of a Chekhovian classic.Annie Baker's plays include The Flick (The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Obie Award), The Aliens (Obie Award), Circle Mirror Transformation (Obie Award) and Body Awareness. Her work has been produced at more than a hundred theaters in the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries internationally. Recent honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Steinberg Playwright Award and New York Drama Critics Circle Award. She is a resident playwright at the Signature Theatre.

Barbecue / Bootycandy


Robert O'Hara - 2014
    As raw in its language and raucous in spirit as it is smart and provocative."—The New York Times"Funny, smutty and enticingly subversive. . . . A toxically satiric portrait of American life."—Washington Post"When I told my mother that a theater was putting on my play Bootycandy, her response was, 'What?! Bootycandy? These white folks are going to let you put on a play called Bootycandy?!? Are they crazy???' And my response was, 'Yes. Yes indeed.'"—Robert O'HaraSutter is on an outrageous odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms, and even nursing homes. The journey uncovers characters who are at once fascinating, zany, controversial, and even a bit smutty, painting a portrait of life as a societal outlier. Based on the author's personal experience, Bootycandy is a kaleidoscope of sketches that interconnects to portray growing up gay and black. This subversive, uproarious satire crashes headlong into the murky terrain of pain and pleasure and . . . BOOTYCANDY!Robert O'Hara is a playwright and director. His play Antebellum received a world premiere production from Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, and earned him a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play. He reworked The Wiz for its revival at La Jolla Playhouse. He wrote and directed the world premiere of Insurrection: Holding History (Public Theater, Oppenheimer Award for Best New American Play). As a director, he has won an Obie Award and an NAACP Best Director Award and has worked at acclaimed theaters throughout the United States.

Bad Jews


Joshua Harmon - 2014
    When Daphna’s cousin Liam brings home his shiksa girlfriend Melody and declares ownership of their grandfather’s Chai necklace, a vicious and hilarious brawl over family, faith and legacy ensues.

The Whale / A Bright New Boise


Samuel D. Hunter - 2014
    Hunter's bighearted and funny plays explore the quiet desperation running through many American lives. The Whale tells the story of a six hundred-pound shut-in's last chance at redemption and of discovering beauty in the most unexpected places when he reaches out to his long-estranged—and severely unhappy—daughter. Hunter's second piece, the Obie Award-winning A Bright New Boise, is a philosophical investigation of faith and search for meaning in rural Idaho where a disgraced evangelical is forced to take a minimum-wage job at the local Hobby Lobby craft store in an effort to reunite with his estranged son.Praise for The Whale"Beautifully devastating... The Whale manages to be about so very much at once: writing, parenting, teaching, religion, body image, overeating, the price paid by gay couples born in the wrong state or just a few years too soon. But, most of all, The Whale is a remarkably eloquent exploration of the way the need for honesty overwhelms us when we sense that our time is short." -Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune"A vibrant, provocative new play... The sharp-eared skill and sensitivity with which Hunter explores his thickly layered material are matched by his fair-mindedness." -Michael Feingold, Village Voice"Extraordinary... Hunter has constructed an outsize, gothic scenario in tender miniature, against a backdrop so blandly bleak we brace ourselves for despair: the sound of cascading highway traffic braids itself with the crashing surf inside Charlie's head. Is it all too much? Never for a second." -Scott Brown, New York"A deeply affecting and piercingly amusing play about guilt and connection... Hunter has given all of these funny-sad lost souls details that emerge bit b y bit and twist and expand the story in compelling ways." -Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News"The Whale is a tragedy in a minor key, about a man torn between flesh and spirit... Humane, sharp and often funny." -David Cote, TimeOut New York"Samuel D. Hunter's compelling, psychologically complex play takes the audience to the confounding no man's land of nihilism." -John Lahr, New YorkerPraise for A Bright New Boise"A dark, droll and ultimately explosive work... Funny, compassionate and disturbing all at once, Hunter's quintessentially American scenario portrays an individual trapped in an emotional and cultural wasteland, his life configured by uncaring impersonal forces, his spirit hobbled by unnamed guilt." -Deborah Klugman, LA Weekly"A simple, superb little heartland heartbreaker... This is a rube tragedy--a respectful and honest-feeling one, for a change, with unquenchable humor and scrupulous emotional honesty--and by jingo, it sings." -Scott Brown, New York"Exhilarating... A Bright New Boise is an unsparing account of the hunger pangs in the barren American gut... Hunter has such highly sensitive antennae for the look and rhythm of mundane places that A Bright New Boise develops an authentic texture, separate from other pieces in its genre." -Peter Marks, Washington Post"Despite the crisp wind of despair that blows through Samuel D. Hunter's beautifully realized A Bright New Boise, this clear-eyed comedy about faith's meager harvest will still lift your heart. Some of it is simple delight in craft... The rest of our pleasures lie in Hunter's gentle characterizations, a plot that mingles absurdity and genuine philosophical investigation." -Helen Shaw, TimeOut New York"An anxious, funny look at the messianic and the mundane in America... Hunter delivers these characters and their crucibles with tenderness and rage. For all its mistrust of religion, the play is a kind of prayer." -Charles Isherwood, New York Times

Still


Jen Silverman - 2014
    Morgan, in her middle years, is the grieving mother of a stillborn child. Elena, the failed midwife, burdened by guilt, is considering a career change. Dolores, eighteen, is pregnant with a baby she does not want. Meanwhile, Constantinople, the child who wasn’t meant to be, wanders lost in search of his mother, trying to make sense of the world while making an unlikely appearance in each woman’s personal drama.   Poignant, lyrical, ingeniously absurd, and outrageously funny, Jen Silverman’s Still is a brave and remarkable exploration of grief and family. It is the seventh winner of the DC Horn Foundation/Yale Drama Series Prize, selected this year by Marsha Norman, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Getting Out; ’night, Mother; and other acclaimed theatrical works.

Outside Mullingar (TCG Edition)


John Patrick Shanley - 2014
    It is by turns poetic, uplifting, dark and funny as hell. Anthony is an introverted farmer and Rosemary is the woman who vows to have him at all costs. When Anthony's father threatens to disinherit his son, Rosemary steps into the middle of a land feud and family eccentricities beyond what one might imagine. On the brink of romantic catastrophe, this one-of-a-kind Irish heroine fights against time and mortality in hopes of securing her dream of love."Outside Mullingar is a charmer of a play... In [Shanley's] first work set in Ireland, he lovingly tends the roots and tills the soil of his ancestry, spinning a tale suffused with melancholy humor and a deep yearning for heart, home, land, faith and a sense of belonging.... Shanley has a poet’s ear for the lyrical music and twinkly humor of their dialogue." - Hollywood Reporter"Mullingar is Shanley’s best play since Doubt, and like that hit from a decade ago, it’s lean, dialectical and packed with wise saws and aphoristic gems." - Time Out New York"Shanley once again reveals both a touch of the poet and a fine gift of gab." - NY1"Wholly diverting... Mr. Shanley's finest work since Doubt... a softhearted comedy freckled with dark reflections on the unsatisfactory nature of life and the thorns of love." - New York TimesJohn Patrick Shanley is the author of Doubt: A Parable (Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best Play), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Four Dogs and a Bone, Dirty Story, Defiance and Storefront Church, among many others. He wrote the teleplay for Live from Baghdad (Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special), and the screenplays for Doubt (Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay), Five Corners (Special Jury Prize, Barcelona Film Festival), Alive, Joe Versus the Volcano, and Moonstruck (Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay).

Shakespeare in Love


Lee Hall - 2014
    Their forbidden love soon draws everyone, including Queen Elizabeth, into the drama, and inspires Will to write the greatest love story of all time: Romeo and Juliet. Based on the Oscar-winning screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love has been deftly adapted for the stage by Lee Hall and has been playing to rave reviews and a sold-out theatre at the Noël Coward in London. The London production is directed by Declan Donnellan and designed by Nick Ormerod, the driving force behind the world-renowned theatre company, Cheek by Jowl. A Broadway transfer is planned for Spring 2015.

Sequence


Arun Lakra - 2014
    For twenty consecutive years he has successfully bet double or nothing on the Super Bowl coin toss. And he’s getting ready to risk millions on the twenty-first when he is confronted by Cynthia, a young woman who claims to have figured out his mathematical secret. Stem-cell researcher and professor Dr. Guzman is on the verge of a groundbreaking discovery. She’s also learned that one of her students has defied probability to get all 150 multiple-choice questions wrong on his genetics exam, but it’s not until he shows up to her office in the middle of the night that she’s able to determine if it’s simply bad luck. The two narratives intertwine like a fragment of DNA to examine the interplay between logic and metaphysics, science and faith, luck and probability. Belief systems clash, ideas mutate, and order springs from chaos. With razor-sharp wit and playful language, Sequence asks, in our lives, in our universe, and even in our stories, does order matter?"Dynamic and intriguing." — CBC Radio"Sequence balances smart and heart." - Calgary Herald

The Holy Ghost People


Joshua Young - 2014
    They travel door-to-door in white sheets spouting pseudoscience about time travel, wormholes, and a new galactic gospel. Most of the town has already laughed them away. But when the Holy Ghost People start to perform "miracles," denial becomes difficult, and conversation quickly shifts to what ought to be done.

Wendy & Peter Pan


Ella Hickson - 2014
    Barrie's much-loved story puts the character of Wendy firmly centre stage, in an adaptation that is refreshingly modern but never loses the charm of the original.Winter, 1909. Snow is falling across London. Wendy Darling and her brothers sleep peacefully in their bedroom, as their parents bicker downstairs. In a sudden flurry of snow their window blows open, and into their lives tumbles a mischievous boy called Peter, followed by a fractious fairy called Tink. With the aid of a little fairy dust, Wendy agrees to fly with Peter to Neverland, seeing not only the promise of an awfully big adventure, but also the chance to rediscover the key to her parents' lost happiness. Once there, she will give the Lost Boys a run for their money, defeat Captain Hook and his pirate crew, and ultimately, learn what it means to grow up.Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Ella Hickson's Wendy & Peter Pan premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in December 2013. The play will suit any theatre company or youth group looking to stage a classic tale, full of magic, adventure and strong female roles."[A] sensitive, funny and intelligent reworking... I laughed, I gasped, I cried - it is wonderful to be transported so completely by a piece of theatre." - WhatsOnStage"Delightful... a warm, sensitive and humorous reboot." - Evening Standard"Resoundingly successful... witty, pointed, adventuresome... Hickson isn't just subverting this story, she is strengthening it." - The Times (London)"Wittily inventive... a constant joy to behold." - GuardianElla Hickson is an award-winning and critically acclaimed playwright. Her debut play Eight won a Fringe First and played in London and New York. Other work includes Precious Little Talent (Trafalgar Studios), Boys (HighTide Festival, then Soho Theatre), Hot Mess (Latitude Festival, then The Arcola) and The Authorised Kate Bane (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh).

An Intervention


Mike Bartlett - 2014
    The other stayed at home, watched TV for a bit, and thought about the future.An Intervention premiered at the Watford Palace Theatre in April 2014, in a co-production with Paines Plough."Engaged, entertaining and forthright... not only politically engaged but also fiercely uncompromising in its mission to entertain." - Exeunt Magazine"Incisive, intimate, closely focused… has Bartlett's astute wit and extraordinary ability to pinpoint the way maturity can suddenly slip away." - Financial Times"Superb… intensely dramatic." - WhatsOnStage"Nimble and elegant… [a] smart two-hander." - The StageMike Bartlett is an award-winning playwright whose plays have been seen at theatres including the National Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Bush Theatre and Sheffield Theatres in the UK, and off-Broadway in New York.

Marie Antoinette


David Adjmi - 2014
    But times change and even the most fashionable queens go out of style. In the humorous and haunting Marie Antoinette, idle gossip turns more insidious as the country revolts, demanding libert�, �galit�, fraternit�!

Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense: A New Play from the Works of P.G. Wodehouse


Robert Goodale - 2014
    Wodehouse's iconic double act. Winner of the 2014 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy.When a country house weekend takes a turn for the worse, Bertie Wooster is unwittingly called on to play matchmaker ? reconciling the affections of his host's drippy daughter Madeline Bassett with his newt-fancying acquaintance Gussie Fink-Nottle. If Bertie, ably assisted by the ever-dependable Jeeves, can't pull off the wedding of the season he'll be forced to abandon his cherished bachelor status and marry the ghastly girl himself!Based on P.G. Wodehouse's delightfully bonkers stories, especially "The Code of the Woosters," the Goodale Brothers' dramatisation premiered at the Duke of York's Theatre, West End, in November 2013, prior to a UK tour.Written for a cast of three, who play multiple roles, this adaptation will suit any theatre company or drama group looking for a comic play to perform.

This Is How We Die


Christopher Brett Bailey - 2014
    Tales of paranoia, young love and ultra-violence… Winner of the 2014 Arches Brick Award, THIS IS HOW WE DIE is a prime slice of surrealist trash, an Americana death trip and a dizzying exorcism for a world convinced it is dying.

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder: Vocal Selections


Robert L Freedman - 2014
    The 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Musical! Our vocal selections folio includes: Better with a Man * Foolish to Think * I Don't Know What I'd Do Without You * I Don't Understand the Poor * I've Decided to Marry You * Inside Out * Lady Hyacinth Abroad * Poison in My Pocket * Poor Monty * Sibella * Stop! Wait! What?! * That Horrible Woman * Why Are All the D'ysquiths Dying?

The Apple Family: Scenes from Life in the Country


Richard Nelson - 2014
    Delicately constructed and precisely observed, this quartet of plays — each of which premiered at The Public Theater on the day it was set — is a masterpiece of stage naturalism and a powerful reminder of the theater's unique capacity for civic dialogue and public communion.

Incognito


Nick Payne - 2014
    There is no me, there is no you, and there is certainly no self.Princeton, New Jersey. 1955. Thomas Stoltz Harvey performs the autopsy on Albert Einstein - and then steals his brain.Bath, England. 1953. Henry undergoes pioneering brain surgery. The surgery changes Henry's life, and the history of neuroscience.London, England. The Present. Martha is a clinical neuropsychologist. When her marriage breaks down she starts to make radically different choices.Three interwoven stories exploring the nature of identity and how we are defined by what we remember, Incognito is an exhilarating exploration of what it means to be human.Nick Payne's Incognito premiered at Live Theatre, Newcastle, in April 2014 in a co-production with nabokov and HighTide Festival Theatre.

The Body of an American (Oberon Modern Plays)


Dan O'Brien - 2014
    Paul is a Canadian photojournalist who is about to take a picture that will win him the Pulitzer Prize. Princeton, the present day, Dan is an American writer who is struggling to finish his play about ghosts. Both men live worlds apart but a chance encounter over the airwaves sparks an extraordinary friendship that sees them journey from some of the most dangerous places on earth to the depths of the human soul.Flying from Kabul to the Canadian High Arctic, The Body of an American sees two actors jump between more than thirty roles in an exhilarating new form of documentary drama. It urgently places these two men’s battles – both public and private – against a backdrop of some of the world’s most iconic images of war.

Butcher


Nicolas Billon - 2014
    A seemingly innocuous encounter gets stranger and stranger as we gradually realize no one is who they seem and the Balkan wars' traumas continue to play out. The "It Kid" of Canadian theater, award-winning playwright Nicolas Billon, returns with a devastating parable.Nicolas Billon's plays and translations have been produced at the Stratford Festival, Soulpepper Theatre, and Canadian Stage. Fault Lines won the Governor General's Award, and his first play, The Elephant Song, is being developed into a film starring Catherine Keener.

Goat Herpes and Other Problems


Crystal Smith-Connelly - 2014
    Sex addiction, alcoholism, eating disorders, goat herpes...you name it, there's a Greek god who has it. Will she be able to help these gods and goddesses work through their issues? Find out in Goat Herpes and Other Problems! (Goat Herpes and Other Problems contains the plays "Godly Acres," "Godly Acres: Bitch Session," and "Playing Doctor.")

See Jane Quit


Beth Kander - 2014
    In fact, they're a little bit too supportive. Each has an explosive announcement of their own to share, from a looming divorce to an impending sexual crisis, but nobody wants to be responsible for Jane falling off the non-smoking wagon. As they trip over themselves to keep their secrets secret, who would suspect that Jane is keeping the biggest secret of all? Will Jane quit quitting? This delightful southern comedy proves that you can quit smoking, but you can't quit your crazy family! (Cast: 3F, 2M)

Low Tech (A Two Act Comedy)


Jeff Folschinsky - 2014
    But her boss, her friends, and her cell phone have a different plan. How will it all end? Only time,and this next light cue, might tell.Low Tech had its premiere production in Los Angeles at The Eclectic Company Theatre on April 12, 2013. The production was directed by Chelsea Sutton; Set Design by Jeff G. Rack; Costumes by Ken Patton; Lighting by Rebecca Bonebrake; Sound by Drew Dalzell. The Production Stage Manager was Jennifer Salas. Original Cast was: Mark Bate, Jason Britt, Megan Crockett, Michelle Danyn, Paul Duffy, Fuz Edwards, Dan Mandel, Amanda Smith, and Tyler Tanner.

Buyer & Cellar


Jonathan Tolins - 2014
    A struggling actor in L.A, he takes a job working in the Malibu basement of a beloved megastar. One day, the Lady Herself comes downstairs to play. It feels like real bonding in the basement, but will their relationship ever make it upstairs? BUYER & CELLAR is an outrageous comedy about the price of fame, the cost of things, and the oddest of odd jobs."Jonathan Tolins has concocted an irresistible one-man play from the most peculiar of fictitious premises...This seriously funny slice of absurdist whimsy creates the illusion of a stage filled with multiple people, all of them with their own droll point of view." -THE NEW YORK TIMES"A gorgeous play: funny and beautifully observed and richly insightful." -Moises Kaufman"Tolins's writing is smart, sharp, and hilarious-and he paints a vivid picture that even a perfectionist like Barbra would have to applaud." -James Lapine"

Bloodletting in Minor Scales [A Canvas in Arms.]


Justin Limoli - 2014
    Life goes on, but as her family picks up the pieces, gratitude mixes with sadness & anger at the attempted departure. In this dream-like play in verse, blood becomes a character, hearts are fed to the stage, and Dialogue delivers a monologue as Justin tries to determine whether he can truly forgive or forget what has been done.

Enda Walsh: Plays Two


Enda Walsh - 2014
    This volume of remarkable plays charts the development of one of the most strikingly original playwrights in contemporary theatre. It collects together four full-length plays - three of which were produced by Galway's Druid Theatre Company, three of which were performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, and two of which transferred to London's National Theatre - along with two fascinating short plays and a Foreword by the author. The Walworth Farce (2006) is a madcap yet tender play about what can happen when we become stuck in the stories we tell about our lives. The New Electric Ballroom (2008) is a dark, glitter-dusted fable of the emotionally stultifying effects of small-town life. In a savage and riveting take on the classic Greek myth of Odysseus's wife, Penelope (2010) sees four ridiculous men facing their inevitable deaths, and playing for an unwinnable love. Ballyturk (2014) saw Walsh reuniting with actor Cillian Murphy after Disco Pigs and Misterman for a jaw-droppingly physical play in which the lives of two men unravel over the course of ninety minutes.Also included in this volume are two short plays, My Friend Duplicity (2010), which went on to inspire Ballyturk, and Room 303 (2011). 'One of the most fiercely individual voices in the theatre today' New York Times 'Enda Walsh makes his own distinctive stage music in the fury of his writing talent and the irresistible surge of his blatant theatricality' Independent

Pluto


Steve Yockey - 2014
    But with berserker appliances, shifting astronomy, and the talkative new family dog's interruptions, Elizabeth might not be able to really "see" the person she needs to see most.

Rantin


Kieran Hurley - 2014
    A beleaguered politician in Edinburgh dips her feet into a hot bath.An old drunk man in Peterhead has a mystical vision at the harbour. A supermarket checkout girl in Port Glasgow approaches work with a baseball bat.Part living-room gathering, part play, part gig session, Rantin draws on storytelling, live music and an unapologetically haphazard take on Scottish folk tradition, in an attempt to stitch together fragmented stories to reveal a botched patchwork of a nation."This gorgeous piece of ceilidh-theatre, where music swirls engagingly, is taut, nuanced and illuminating, and refuses to be bleak." - Herald"[Hurley is] setting out on an ambitious and tremendously worthwhile journey that seeks to link Scotland’s familiar past to its fast-changing present" - Scotsman"A kind of state-of-the-nation ceilidh… an encapsulation of a Scotland that stretches from the Stornoway ferry to a private dining room in Edinburgh, via Donald Trump's Menie Estate and a supermarket in Port Glasgow…. with a quietly radical energy of its own, Rantin echoes the sentiment of another Proclaimers song, Scotland's Story, with its all-embracing philosophy of a nation united in its diversity.” - Guardian"These stories, sometimes narrated, sometimes performed, are interspersed with music and songs which range from traditional Scottish ballads to a modern rock music which is truly global. The piece is delivered with the charming informality of a living room ceilidh and an engaging, often bleak humour.” - Telegraph

Letters From The Front: The Play


Bob Rector - 2014
    The personal themes in the letters are honestly reflected, as is the commitment of everyday Americans to preserve freedom. Popular essayist Katharine Hartgrove, whose son is fighting in Northern Italy, has been commissioned to write a play based on these letters. She enlists boyfriend Johnny Chastain, America's favorite radio wise guy, to assist her. He provides an unseen twist to the story, along with plenty of comic relief. When the laughter and tears subside, Johnny is the most unlikely of heroes and Katharine is healed from emotional scars that have haunted her for 20 years.

The Chapbook, Number 3


The Chapbook - 2014
    Titles include The Fallacy Carriers of Bombyonder by Reb Livingston, Errol, Inland by Susannah Felts, Body by Corey Mesler, Algunos Mirrors by John M. Bennett, and Six Screenplays on the Nature of Collective Experience by Steven Wingate. Artwork by Volodymyr Bilyk.

The Last Lifeboat


Luke Yankee - 2014
    Bruce Ismay was an upper-crust Englishman who always did what was expected of him. He went to the best schools, married the right society girl (even though he was in love with someone else) and vowed to his staunch, unfeeling father on his deathbed that he would take over the family shipping business and build the biggest, most opulent ship the world had ever seen: the RMS Titanic. What an accomplishment! We all know the story of how the ship sank…or do we? Ismay saved as many people as he could on that fateful night, and finally, with no women and children in sight, he stepped into the last lifeboat…and was branded a coward and a traitor forever. The world needed a scapegoat for the sinking of the Titanic and Ismay became the perfect target. He had a powerful enemy in the United States—newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Hearst condemned Ismay nationwide before the rescue ship Carpathia even landed in New York. Hearst's cause was aided by William Alden Smith, a ruthless senator with presidential aspirations, who led a "witch-hunt" investigation into this high-profile disaster. Although there was no solid evidence against Ismay, Senator Smith managed to drag the hearings on for months. More than 3,000 passengers brought lawsuits against the White Star Line for loss of life and property, which only fueled Ismay's intense survivor's guilt. When he was forced to resign from the White Star Line, he spent the rest of his days as a recluse at his estate in Ireland, haunted by the ghosts of that fateful night to the point of near insanity. THE LAST LIFEBOAT is the story of the Titanic that has never been told. This epic tale explores not only the tragedy itself, but the sensationalized trials and aftermath of the night that changed the world forever.

Decision Height


Meredith Dayna Levy - 2014
    Virginia Hascall has left her home and fiancee to become a Women Airforce Service Pilot, and do her part to help defeat the Axis powers in the Second World War. Through triumph and tragedy, she and her sisters in flight suits learn as much about themselves as they do about airplanes. As the war rages over there, the women form a

Marie Antoinette / 3C


David Adjmi - 2014
    His play Marie Antoinette is a raw, fantastical, and funny work about a moment in time when the political suddenly became very personal. Bold, biting, and hilarious, this play about the famous spoiled queen holds a mirror up to our contemporary society that might just be entertaining itself to death. Adjmi’s second piece, 3C, is inspired by 1970s sitcoms, 1950s existential comedy, Chekhov and Disco anthems. 3C is a terrifying yet amusing look at a culture that likes to amuse itself, even as it teeters on the brink of ruin.Praise for Marie Antoinette"Impeccable timeliness. . . . One cannot deny how it speaks to today's class war between the haves and have-notes. . . . Marie Antoinette is bracing, fresh theater."—New Haven Register"Adjmi's brilliance is to use trashy vernacular speech to allude to the way history trashes us."—New YorkerPraise for 3C“Pitch-perfect.” --New York Post“Bracing and provocative.” --Entertainment WeeklyDavid Adjmi's plays include 3C, Elective Affinities, Stunning, The Evildoers, Caligula, and Strange Attractors. He was awarded a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers' Award, the Kesselring Fellowship, a Steinberg Playwright Award, and the Bush Artist Fellowship, among others.

Wolves


Steve Yockey - 2014
    When ex-boyfriend Jack brings a strange man home to woodland-obsessed Ben's apartment, the Narrator can barely keep a lid on the looming violence. This "deconstruction" of the Little Red Riding Hood story is a darkly comic, predatory fairy tale for adults that explores the conflation of sex and fear in modern culture, the comfort of lava la

Small Engine Repair: A Play


Joshua Pollono - 2014
    As Frank breaks out the good scotch, he kicks into motion an evening that abruptly accelerates from macho posturing and grievance airing to reveal a shocking, darker purpose: Enter Chad, a preppy college jock whose arrival—to sell the townies some ecstasy, he thinks—sets this taut, twisty comic thriller on its breathless course.Upon its world premiere at Los Angeles’s Rogue Machine Theatre, Small Engine Repair  swept every major Los Angeles theatre award including Los Angeles Drama Critic Circle Awards for Best New Production and Best Writing, and won rave reviews upon its 2013 Off-Broadway premiere at MCC/Lucille Lortel.

Annapurna


Sharr White - 2014
    Now hearing he's in dire straits, she tracks him down in the wilds ofColorado to a filthy trailer, where he's hooked to an oxygen tank and cooking sausage in the buff. Their reunion, charged by rage and compassion, brings back the worst and best of their former bond."Annapurna" received its world premiere at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, its Los Angeles premiere at the Odyssey Theatre in 2013 and its NYC off-Broadway premiere in 2014, the latter two productions starring real-life couple Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman.

H2O


Jane Martin - 2014
    Banking on his fame (and name), he is soon selected to appear on Broadway in Hamlet. Given full casting approval, he embarks to New York City to seek out his Ophelia and encounters his muse and his match -a young evangelical Christian woman set on getting the role...and saving his life. Originally produced at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in 2013, H

Dea Loher: Three Plays


Dea Loher - 2014
    This volume brings together three of her plays, translated into English. Olga’s Room Communist. Jew. Revolutionary. Lover. Mother. Olga Benario’s story is a searing tale of survival as alongside her fellow prisoners she struggles to hold onto her disintegrating sense of self. Based on real events of the 1930s-40s, Dea Loher’s gripping first play spans Brazilian revolution and Nazi dictatorship. Innocence A city by the sea. 14 people on the edge. Illegal immigrants afraid of being arrested for a good deed. A philosopher who burns her own books. A woman seeking forgiveness for crimes she didn’t commit. A young married man who finds fulfillment laying out corpses. A blind stripper who spends her life being watched by men she cannot see. Innocence is a darkly comic panorama of urban restlessness. Land Without Words War meets art in this intimate parable. A painter seeks the perfect image, but in K., a Middle Eastern city, she experiences the effects of war, violence and poverty, impossible to depict. Now she is forced to confront her lifelong beliefs in the value of art, and how to deal with her position in the world today.Dea Loher is one of Germany’s most highly regarded contemporary playwrights. Her plays have been translated into over fifteen languages and staged all over the world. They include Tätowierung, Stranger’s House (Fremdes Haus), Adam Geist, Innocence (Unschuld), The Final Fire (Das Letzte Feuer), Thieves (Diebe) and Black Lake (Am Schwarzen See). She has won numerous awards including the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Dramatikerpreis (2005), the Bertolt-Brecht-Preis der Stadt Augsburg (2006), and the Berliner Literaturpreis (2009). Currently living in Berlin, her most recent work is a novel, Bugatti taucht auf.David Tushingham’s translations include: Mr. Kolpert, The Woman Before, Waiting Room Germany, Stranger’s House (Royal Court), The Golden Dragon, Arabian Night, Jeff Koons (ATC) and State of Emergency (Gate Theatre). He has worked as a dramaturg for numerous high-profile European institutions and is currently Artistic Advisor to the Salzburg Festival.

The Theatre of Caryl Churchill


R. Darren Gobert - 2014
    Drawing on hundreds of never-before-seen archival sources from the US and the UK, it provides an essential guide to Churchill's groundbreaking work for students and theatregoers.Each chapter illuminates connections across plays and explores major scripts alongside unpublished and unfinished projects. Each considers the rehearsal room, the stage, and the printed text. Each demonstrates how Churchill has pushed the boundaries of dramatic aesthetics while posing urgent political and theoretical questions. But since each maps Churchill's work in a different way, each deploys a different reading practice - for many approaches are necessary to characterise such a restlessly imaginative and prolific career.Through its five interlocking parts, The Theatre of Caryl Churchill tells a story about the playwright, her work, and its place in contemporary drama.

What We Want Is Free: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art


Ted Purves - 2014
    From shops, gifts, and dinner parties to contract labor and petty theft, contemporary artists have used a variety of methods that both connect participants to tangible goods and services and, at the same time, offer critiques of and alternatives to global capitalism and other forms of social interaction. Examples of these various projects include the creation of free commuter bus lines and medicinal plant gardens, the distribution of such services as free housework or computer programming, and the production of community media projects such as free commuter newspapers and democratic low-wattage radio stations.Like the first edition, the second edition includes a detailed survey of artists’ projects from around the globe, as well as critical essays and artists’ texts that explore the underlying social history and contemporary issues that further inform our reading of these works. This new edition also features a new introduction and additional chapters on the relation of exchange practices to democracy, the commons, object-oriented philosophy, and an examination of the impact of ongoing globalization on the economics of artists’ projects. It also features a significantly expanded scope for the project histories, including work from the past decade and a new section dedicated to artist-initiated organizations and innovative models for new institutions.

Three Plays: Demons, Act, and Terminal 3


Lars Norén - 2014
    Lars Noren is generally considered Sweden's greatest playwright since August Strindberg. He has written about 75 plays that combine humor, a powerful emotional impact and the search for new forms of expression, which are regularly performed throughout the Nordic and European countries. Although his work has been translated into various languages for the stage, we are exclusively publishing Noren's plays in book format in English-a project started in spring 2013 with Two Plays: And Give Us the Shadows and Autumn and Winter. This volume includes: Demons (1982), a very dark comedy that is an expressionist take on Albee's A Delicate Balance and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, set in a Stockholm apartment on the eve of a funeral; Act (2000), about a power struggle between a female terrorist on a hunger strike and the doctor who tries to make her eat again, set in a German prison; and Terminal 3 (2006), a beautiful, sparse play set in a hospital waiting room where a young couple is there to welcome the birth of their first baby and a middle-age couple is there to identify their dead son. Translator Marita Lindholm Gochman was born in Sweden and came to America in 1964, where she has had a rich theatrical career. In 1985, she translated her first Noren play into English, The Last Supper, and since then has worked with him on 25 of his plays-making her Noren's foremost English language translator. Since 1987 Ms. Gochman has served as a board member of Circle in the Square, The International Theatre Institute, and The Signature Theatre. "Lars Noren, regarded by many as the greatest Swedish playwright since Strindberg, has dealt with the love-hate relationships of modern dysfunctional families in emotionally powerful and sombre plays spiced with absurd humour." -Encyclopedia Britannica Online "He has made the present time our home and exposed the anxiety beneath the surface of the welfare state." -Per Wastberg, former chairman of International PEN and editor-in-chief of Sweden's largest daily newspaper"

The House That Will Not Stand


Marcus Gardley - 2014
    Following an era of French colonial rule and relative racial acceptance, Louisiana's 'free people of color' are prospering. Beatrice, a free woman of colour, has become one of the city's wealthiest women through her relationship with a rich white man.However, when her lover mysteriously dies, Beatrice imposes a six-month period of mourning on herself and her three daughters. But, as the summer heat intensifies, the foundations of freedom she has built for herself and their three unwed daughters begin to crumble. Society is changing, racial divides are growing and, as the members of the household turn on each other in their fight for survival, it could cost them everything.A bewitching new drama of desire, jealousy, murder and voodoo, The House That Will Not Stand received its world premiere at Berkeley Rep, US, in January 2014, and was subsequently produced at the Tricycle Theatre, London, on 9 October 2014.This edition features an introduction by Professor Ayanna Thompson, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.

Sense and Sensibility


Jessica Swale - 2014
    They are forced to leave the comforts of Norland Park and relocate to chilly Barton Cottage in Devonshire, but when John Willoughby, a handsome stranger, arrives one day with a rain-drenched Marianne in his arms, the sisters are convinced that their fortunes are changed forever. Eminently sensible Elinor pines for quiet, kind-hearted Edward Ferrars, but the impulsive Marianne loses herself in the idea of her hero on horseback, and for a girl who feasts on poetry and music, what else is there to do in Devon but dream of rescue? In Jessica Swale's delightful adaptation of Austen's dearly-loved classic, we follow the fortunes of Elinor and Marianne as they chase their dreams from Devonshire to London and back. The play was first presented at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury, in April 2014.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival Actors Telling the Story


Mary Z. Maher - 2014
    Interviews with actors at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, Oregon.

The Arsonists (Modern Plays)


Alistair Beaton - 2014
    But Biedermann has it all under control. He's a respected member of the community with a loving wife and a flourishing business, so surely nothing can get to him. The great philanthropist is happy to meet his civic duty by giving shelter to two new guests but when they start filling his attic with petrol drums, will he help them light the fuse? Max Frisch's parable about appeasement is given its first major UK revival since its Royal Court premiere in 1961, which was directed by Lindsay Anderson.The play is published as a programme text for the production that runs from 1 November - 15 December on the main stage at the Royal Court.

Bootycandy


Robert O'Hara - 2014
    Bootycandy tells the story of Sutter, who is on an outrageous odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms, and even nursing homes. O'Hara weaves together scenes, sermons, sketches, and daring meta-theatrics to create a kaleidoscope that interconnects to portray growing up gay and black. Robert O'Hara's uproarious satire crashes headlong into the murky terrain of pain and pleasure and... BOOTYCANDY.

The Food Monologues


Kerri Kochanski - 2014
    Themes include: dieting, eating disorders, disordered eating, weight loss/gain, body shame, and societal expectations and perceptions about women & beauty. The play features an actual food binge (& other eating processes), and includes audience interaction and participation.A Tragic Vaudeville.ALL FEMALE13F, 37 Roles.Acting Edition.Social Change.

Regular Singing


Richard Nelson - 2014
    REGULAR SINGING, the fourth and final installment of Richard Nelson's wonderful, sui generis Apple Family plays, this deeply intimate drama is about how we remember our living and our dead.... A rare and radiant mirror of the way we live--and fail to live--now. --Ben Brantley, New York TimesAfter a holiday weekend, it is natural to miss the family. But the family I'm missing now is named Apple and lives up the Hudson in Rhinebeck. These are the six people with whom I spent intimate, deeply moving and satisfying evenings. The Apple Family: Scenes from Life in the Country [is] an extraordinary four-play cycle...one of the major American plays of our time. --Linda Winer, NewsdaySmart and funny, moving and touching, honest and thoughtful… The fantastic fourth and final installment in Mr Nelson's Apple Family plays. --Jesse Oxfeld, New York Observer

Rumpole and the Vanishing Juror


John Mortimer - 2014
    At a murder trial, the barrister encounters a jury member with a mystifying agenda.

Birdland


Simon Stephens - 2014
    All worth can be quantified. Artistic worth. Human worth. Material worth. Everything. Some food is simply better than other food. Isn't it? Some clothes are better than other clothes. Aren't they?The last week of a massive international tour and rock star Paul is at the height of his fame. Everybody knows his name. Whatever he wants he can have. He can screw anybody he wants to. He can buy anything he desires. He can eat anything. Drink anything. Smoke anything. Go anywhere. As the inevitability of the end of the road looms closer and a return home becomes a reality, for Paul the music is starting to jar.Birdland received its world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs on 3 April 2014.

The Hatmaker's Wife


Lauren Yee - 2014
    Her strange new home seems determined to help out - and soon the walls are talking. They reveal the magical tale of an old hat-maker and his long-suffering wife, who runs away with his favorite hat. This sweet and surreal story bends time and space to redefine the idea of family, home, and true love itself.

The Downtown Anthology: 6 Hit Plays from New York's Downtown Theaters


Erin Courtney - 2014
    the genius of [Jones’s] play is how he has so cleverly humanized both characters.” – Chicago Sun TimesThe Lily’s Revenge: “…offers so many incidental pleasures that theatrical time – always a curiously malleable element – seems to contract.” – New York TimesA Map of Virtue: “With a Hitchcockian sensibility, [Courtney] makes psychodrama out of the mystery of what keeps people together even as imaginations and egos push them apart. Like a souvenir from a fleeting dream, this play will pass over you painlessly, and then it will linger.” – Backstage

Ballyturk


Enda Walsh - 2014
    Walsh’s words in this case are there to feed the adrenaline rush of the event as a whole... you don’t so much as see Ballyturk as you surrender to it.”— New York Times“Delirious and captivating…this is thrilling theatre, visceral and cerebral, hilarious and sad.” — Irish ExaminerI thought we knew everything there was to know . . .The lives of two men unravel over the course of ninety minutes. Where are they? Who are they? What room is this, and what might be beyond the walls?Gut-wrenchingly funny and achingly sad, and featuring jaw-dropping moments of physical comedy, Ballyturk is an ambitious, profound and tender work from one of Ireland’s leading playwrights.One of our most innovative and beguiling writers, Enda Walsh is the author of five Edinburgh Fringe First Award–winning plays, including The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom. His other plays include Penelope, misterman and the book for the Tony and Olivier Award–winning musical Once. He also wrote the screenplay for Hunger, which won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Lippy


Bush Moukarzel - 2014
    Kildare, an aunt and 3 sisters boarded themselves into their home and entered into a suicide pact that lasted 40 days. We weren’t there. We don’t know what they said. This is not their story.Winner of the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Production (2013), and inspired by a real-life event involving the suicide pact of four women in a small town outside Dublin, Lippy is a play about authorship and the role of the writer.

Dreams in Captivity


Gabriel Davis - 2014
    A Play in Two Acts. Seriocomedy. Cast: 2 men, 2 womenSynopsis: After being kicked out of culinary school, aspiring chef Pax returns to his hometown to regroup. There he happens upon an old friend from high school, Livi, who he learns has forgone a promising acting career to work in a retirement home. Meanwhile Livi's sister-in-law Reina enrolls in a class about space at the local community college and, much to her husband Barry's dismay, becomes fixated on the unlikely dream of becoming an astronaut. Pax supports Reina's aspirations and encourages Livi to revive hers - all while pursuing his own far-fetched dream of opening a restaurant for celebrities in LA.

Cupid and Psyche ~ A New Play in Blank Verse: The Bad Quarto Limited Edition


Emily C.A. Snyder - 2014
    She determines to kill her rival, and sets her son, Cupid, to the task...except that he, too, becomes infatuated. However, when Passion is unbound, he proves monstrous, as Psyche quickly learns when she rejects her invisible suitor’s advances. To prevent the “Beast” from terrorizing her own family, who are now afraid to show affection to one another, Psyche takes Cupid as her husband to “rid the world of Love.” But when Passion is married to the Soul, even a Beast can change… Like a DVD you can read...The Bad Quarto Limited Edition includes not only the "playwright's cut" of "Cupid and Psyche," but also behind the scenes glimpses into writing and rehearsing, a brief primer on writing in verse, deleted scenes, and the answer to the burning question: Why is finger paint important to the modern Renaissance?

The Fisherman's Wife


Steve Yockey - 2014
    She wants excitement and passion. He merely wants to provide for her the best way he knows how: fishing. While Cooper is out at sea, Vanessa receives a visit from a mysterious traveling salesman with a bag full of danger. And he's not the only one new in town: a ravenously horny giant squid and octopus have settled in under the dock, ready for whomever comes their way.

The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2014


Lawrence HarbisonEmily Schwend - 2014
    They are written in a variety of styles. Some are realistic; some comic; and some are dramatic. Playwrights include Andrew Biss, Ron Burch, Trace Crawford, Matt Henderson, Paul Lewis, Kathryn O'Sullivan, Eric Pfeffinger and Emily Schwend.

Verbatim/Portraits (NZ Play Series)


Miranda Harcourt - 2014
    William Brandt and Miranda Harcourt's Verbatim is a ground-breaking play, performed in prisons across New Zealand, about a burglary gone awry. Stuart Mckenzie and Miranda Harcourt's Portraits tells the story of a young girl raped and murdered in a small community. Both plays are based on interviews with imprisoned murderers, their families and their victims' families. The plays are a form of verbatim docu-drama, where the truth cannot be hidden because the words are not embellished". Publisher information

Black Eye and Other Short Plays


Carolyn Gage - 2014
    Comstock, The P.E. Teacher, and The Rules of the Playground.

The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington


James Ijames - 2014
    The fever dream of terrifying theatricality that follows investigates everything from Martha Washington’s family to her historical legacy.

The Gravedigger: A Frankenstein Play


Joseph Zettelmaier - 2014
    Set in the late 1700s, in one of Bavaria's forgotten cemeteries, a lone gravedigger discovers a hideously scarred man hiding in a fresh grave. What the gravedigger doesn't know is that the man is none other than the legendary monster created by a mad doctor. What the scarred man doesn't know is the gravedigger's hand in his creation. And what neither men know is that they are hunted by their shared past."Zettelmaier's play is an exploration of what makes a person human. If we are more than the collection of our parts, when does our soul develop?" - Pridesource

King Kirby: A Play by Crystal Skillman & Fred Van Lente


Fred Van Lente - 2014
    She wrote the smart Off Off Broadway shows "Cut" and the fangirl-friendly 'Geek'; he was a co-author of the graphic novel 'Cowboys & Aliens, ' later adapted for a Hollywood sci-fi western. With this supple, informative and poignant portrait, they offer penetrating insight into the tirelessly prolific Kirby (1917-94), whose brawny and dynamic yet nuanced style dominated comics for more than 40 years. Their play (Kirby was known as the king) documents a creator who attained immortality even as his life ended amid a morass of corporate exploitation." - Andy Webster, The New York Times KING KIRBY is a play by the husband-and-wife team of New York Times bestselling comics writer Fred Van Lente and NYIT award-winning playwright Crystal Skillman about the life and times of Jack Kirby, the great comic book artist who created or co-created some of your favorite heroes on the page and screen, Captain America, the Avengers, Thor, Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Iron Man, Young Romance, the New Gods, Darkseid, The Demon... the list goes on and on. From the Jewish ghetto of New York's Lower East Side to the battlefields of France to the Senate hearings of 1950s, this is a hysterical and heartbreaking story about a man who pours his quintessentially Twentieth Century life into his comics, only to make the fateful mistake that sends him into obscurity while his creations become known to every person on Earth. A real-life "Adventures of Kavalier & Klay," King Kirby asks what happens when an artist doesn't own his own legacy? Can he ever get it back?

An Almost Perfect Thing


Nicole Moeller - 2014
    Chloe is the missing girl he wrote about six years earlier who has just returned home to a world she no longer recognizes. Instead of leading police to her captor, Chloe turns to Greg to share her story. Unfortunately for him, Chloe won’t provide names or locations, and instead dictates exactly how the story should be told. But Chloe has become an international celebrity—both respected and scrutinized by the public—and they all want to know, who is her kidnapper? Why is she protecting him? When Greg begins to question whether truth and fiction have collided, he takes matters into his own hands, in spite of the drastic consequences. Even if that means coming face to face with Chloe’s abductor. An Almost Perfect Thing is a multi-perspective thriller about possession and desire, the need to own our stories, and our "right" to the truth."Moeller is a big talent: theatrically smart, surprising in her insights, and elliptical in her writing." — Edmonton Journal"A dark and haunting new work." — Vue Weekly

The Swing of the Sea


Molly Hagan - 2014
    As Eggs dreams of asking Boots to the upcoming Favorites Dance, Boots loses herself in a world of fallen leaves, consumed by her quest to remember the last words Peter said to her before he died. The Swing of the Sea is a play about growing old without aging that examines the way fantasy and memory conv

Doctor Scroggy's War


Howard Brenton - 2014
    Jack Twigg, twenty-one years old, enlists in the London Regiment and goes on a journey he never imagined - nor did the rest of the world. On his way, he meets the pioneering medic Harold Gillies, who saves his life and his sanity. And who is the mysterious Doctor Scroggy who appears at night in Gillies’ hospital dispensing champagne to the patients?Doctor Scroggy's War premiered at Shakespeare's Globe, London, in September 2014.Howard Brenton is a prolific playwright whose plays have been staged at the Royal Court Theatre, National Theatre, RSC and Shakespeare's Globe among others. Other writing work includes collaborations with David Hare and thirteen episodes of the BBC1 drama series Spooks.

Wonderland


Beth Steel - 2014
    Two young lads are about to learn what it is to be a miner, to be accepted into the close camaraderie and initiated into a unique workplace where sweat, toil, collapsing roofs and explosions are all to be met with bawdy humour.London, 1984. A conflicted Tory MP, a brash American CEO and an eccentric maverick are the face of a radical Conservative government preparing to do battle with the most powerful workforce, the miners.As the two sides clash, the miners fight for their livelihoods and families, and the government for its vision of a free Britain. Together they change the fabric of the nation forever.Wonderland by Beth Steel premiered at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in June 2014.

Spine


Clara Brennan - 2014
    Mischievous activist pensioner Glenda is hell-bent on leaving a political legacy and saving Amy from the Tory scrapheap because ‘there's nothing more terrifying than a teenager with something to say’. In this era of damaging coalition cuts and disillusionment, has politics forgotten people? Can we really take the power back? Amy is about to be forced to find out.

Rumpole and the Scales of Justice


John Mortimer - 2014
    The barrister's love for Othello and his shady contacts help him defend a policeman.

Citizen: An American Lyric


Stephen Sachs - 2014
    Snapshots, vignettes, on the acts of everyday racism. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams, online, on TV—everywhere, all the time. Those did-that-really-just-happen-did-they-really-just-say-that slurs that happen every day and enrage in the moment and later steep poisonously in the mind. And, of course, those larger incidents that become national or international firestorms. As Rankine writes, “This is how you are a citizen.”

Thurgood


George Stevens Jr. - 2014
    THURGOOD may actually feel like a sweet escape to happier times, every bit as cheering (and a whole lot more edifying) than the giddiest of Broadway musicals. As I left, I found myself misty eyed."Charles Isherwood, The New York Times "All bio dramas should be as vivid and entertaining as THURGOOD. A story rich in history, humanity and humor."Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News "A superb bravura performance! Compelling and engrossing."Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter "Riveting and inspiring! This fine production does Thurgood Marshall supreme justice."Roma Torre, NY1 "A don’t miss event! As riveting as anything ever seen on the stage."Liz Smith, syndicated columnist "The verdict on THURGOOD: Excellent!"Elysa Gardner, USA Today

Brecht Plays 8: The Antigone of Sophocles; The Days of the Commune; Turandot or the Whitewasher's Congress


Bertolt Brecht - 2014
    Brecht's ANTIGONE (1948) is a bold adaptation of Holderlin's classic German translation of Sophocles' play. A reflection on resistance and dictatorship in the aftermath of Nazism, it was a radical new experiment in epic theatre. THE DAYS OF THE COMMUNE (1949) is a semi-documentary account of the Paris Commune, and Brecht's most serious and ambitious historical play. TURANDOT is Brecht's version of the classic Chinese story is a satire on the intelligentsia of the Weimar Republic, Nazi bureaucracy, and other targets.

Chicken Shop


Anna Jordan - 2014
    Or at least he’s trying to. He’s sick of his mother and her constant preaching on the virtues of an organic lifestyle. And he’s sick of her girlfriend, a twentysomething stunner who winds him up relentlessly. But most of all he's sick of the bullies at school, who think if his mum is gay then he must be too.In a desperate attempt to prove his masculinity, Hendrix enters a very adult world - but gets more than he bargained for. He meets Luminita, a young girl enslaved in an unbearable life, and their secret friendship grows in snatched moments in a room above a chicken shop.Chicken Shop premiered at the Park Theatre, London, in September 2014.Anna Jordan's play Yen won the 2013 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting. Her other plays include Chicken Shop (Park Theatre, 2014), Freak (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, 2014), Closer To God (Best Play and Audience Award at the Offcut Festival, 2009) and Just For Fun – Totally Random (Best New Writing at the Lost One Act Festival, 2009). As a director her work has included Crystal Springs (Eureka, San Francisco, 2014) and Tomorrow I’ll Be Happy by Jonathan Harvey at the National Theatre Shed as part of the 2013 Connections Festival. She is Artistic Director of Without a Paddle Theatre, and teaches acting and playwriting.'a fine piece of challenging theatre' - WhatsOnStage'utterly convincing... crackle[s] with menace... [Anna Jordan is] a talented and deeply compassionate new writer' - Time Out'Playwright Anna Jordan is the coming thing' - Guardian

Agamemnon


Howard Colyer - 2014
    But what good is a hero without a war? What else does he know but warfare? And his city has managed without him. The gap left by his departure has closed. Yet the problems he left behind have remained. They have lain dormant. But his return revives them.

Who Am I This Time?


Aaron Posner - 2014
    A play based on three works by Kurt Vonnegut.

Pests


Vivienne Franzmann - 2014
    Rolly loves Pink. And Pink loves getting bombed off her face. Sisters from the same nest. Both trapped in a tiny rotting world. Both cuffed to a past that refuses to release them. One wants out. The other needs her in. Trouble is that when you complete each other, you’re nothing on your own. Pests was commissioned by Clean Break in a co-production with the Royal Court Theatre, London, and the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. It premiered at the Royal Exchanage in March 2014, before transferring to the Royal Court and touring the UK."Intense… a blend of lyrical realism cut with social commentary." - Time Out (London)"Raw, visceral, painfully funny and sometimes uncomfortably intimate… rings, and positively screams, with authenticity." - The Stage"Fiercely impressive… powerfully intimate and tense." - The Times (London)"Heightened language that sizzles, skitters and explodes across the stage like word grenades… makes us sit up and really listen." - Guardian"Rich, poetic… unflinching, raw and gut-wrenching." - WhatsOnStageVivienne Franzmann’s first play Mogadishu won the 2008 Bruntwood Playwriting Competition in association with the Manchester Royal Exchange, and opened there to critical acclaim in 2011. Her other plays include The Witness for the Royal Court in 2012. Pests was written during her time as Resident Playwright for Clean Break.

Operation Crucible


Kieran Knowles - 2014
    Their objective? Wiping Sheffield’s world famous steel works - the heartland of Britain’s munitions manufacturing - clean off the map. The ruthless attack left Sheffield in ruins – destroying families, shattering a way of life, and changing the city forever.At 11:44pm on the night of the raid, a single 500kg bomb reduced the Marples Hotel, which stood proudly in Fitzalan Square, from seven storeys to just fifteen feet of rubble. Only one of the ten compartments in the hotel’s cellars withstood the blast. Within it, trapped, were four men. This is their story, from beginning to end.

The Beast of Times


Adelina Anthony - 2014
    The play, in which radicalized animals put humans on trial, follows the story of two protagonists—a dog and a cat—at odds with each other. One is impassioned about her politicization and joining “the movement,” and the other is satisfied with her “creature comforts.” Beast uses pointed humor and stark drama to expose the human love of greed and greed for love, in addition to the devastating effects of environmental degradation on the planet’s non-human inhabitants.Foreword by: Stacy I. Macias

Brian Friel: Plays 3: Three Sisters; A Month in the Country; Uncle Vanya; The Yalta Game; The Bear; Afterplay; Performances; The Home Place; Hedda Gabler


Brian Friel - 2014
    There are three masterful plays based on stories by Chekhov; and Friel's exquisite versions of Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya, of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and of Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Performances 'A minor work the way Thomas Mann's Death in Venice or Beckett's Endgame is a minor work. Deceptively brisk and light in tone but taut and gravely pregnant with meaning... for Friel, life creates its own symbolism and poetry, and so it does in this play.' Sunday Times The Home Place 'A rich, allusive, densely layered play, which has echoes of Friel's masterly Translations while reminding one that he has spent much of his recent life adapting and translating Chekhov... Friel hauntingly conveys the pathos of exile and the delusion of ownership.' Guardian Hedda Gabler 'Across the gulf of the 20th century one great playwright is talking to another... neither a simple translation nor, as the official title has it, or a 'new version', but something altogether larger.' The Irish Times

Shrine


Tim Winton - 2014
    Adam has sold his winery, and his trips to the beach house have become more frequent – anything to avoid Mary's silent suffering. One day he encounters a young woman he used to employ as a cellarhand. June knows her way around a vineyard, and she also knows a lot about Jack. It's a story she needs to share with Adam, the story of his son's final hours.Set above the rocky headlands of the south coast of Western Australia, between forest and sea, Tim Winton's third play untangles a domestic heartbreak that has morphed into mythology, in a landscape inhabited by ghosts.

Jack Thorne Plays: One


Jack Thorne - 2014
    Described as a powerful voice for Britain's youth (Independent), he remains one of the most distinctive talents working in theatre today.This collection, with a revealing introduction by the author, covers a period of intense creativity beginning with When You Cure Me (Bush Theatre, 2005), a painful and painfully funny play about being very young and in love, and coping with serious illness at the same time. 'One of the year's finest pieces of new writing' Evening Standard.In the monologue play Stacy (Arcola Theatre, 2007), twenty-something Rob tells the story of a confusing couple of days in which everything in his life seems to have gone wrong. 'A pin-sharp, brilliant piece of work' Time Out.2nd May 1997 (Bush Theatre, 2009) distils all the euphoria and despair of New Labour's landslide electoral victory into three stories told with 'quiet profundity and verve' (Telegraph), while Bunny (Edinburgh Fringe, 2010) is a white-knuckle ride through the streets of contemporary Britain, written for a solo female performer. 'Terrific' Scotsman.Red Car, Blue Car is a heartbreaking short play about guilt, grief and responsibility, written for and performed at the Bush in 2011. Finally, Mydidae (Soho Theatre, 2012), a two-hander set entirely in a bathroom, is an electrifyingly intimate account of the darker side of love which hits audiences 'like a punch in the gut' (Whatsonstage.com).

Pronoun


Evan Placey - 2014
    Josh and Isabella are childhood sweethearts. They were meant to spend their gap year together, they were meant to be together forever. But Isabella has now become a boy.Pronoun was commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival and premiered by youth theatres across the UK. Especially written for young actors, the play can be performed by a cast of seven, with some doubling of roles, or a much larger cast."Honest, touching and relevant… as thought-provoking as it is engaging." - A Younger TheatreEvan Placey is a Canadian-British playwright. His work includes Girls Like That, Mother of Him and Holloway Jones, which won the Brian Way Award for Best Play for Young People.

Dark Minds


Philip Palmer - 2014
    Then one day he wakes up with a dead body lying next to him in bed. All evidence points to the fact that Harry is the killer. Harry even remembers doing it. But why? Did the violence of the games give him his gruesome blood lust? Or is something far more sinister going on?Slowly Harry uncovers a conspiracy that has its roots in the illicit underbelly of the Internet.Sex, violence and virtual reality combine in this futuristic thriller.

(A)pollonia: Twenty-First Century Polish Drama and Texts for the Stage


Krystyna Duniec - 2014
    The eleven selected pieces dive deep into complex subjects such as Poland’s  loss since the Holocaust, its difficult postwar relations with Germany, the social metamorphoses since the political upheaval of 1989, and the needs of Polish families and youth since the nation’s transition to free-market economy. Krzysztof Warlikowski’s acclaimed production, (A)pollonia, which calls upon excerpts from Greek tragedies, novels by Jonathan Littell and J. M. Coetzee, and reportage by Hanna Krall, provides the title for the anthology as it encapsulates the key subjects, conflicts, and dilemmas prominent in the Polish theater of the last decade. The texts are wonderfully accompanied by thirty-five black and white photographs of performances, along with a DVD showcasing select scenes from the original Polish productions. The introduction provides the historical and political framework for the collected texts, and the foreword explains the scope of the international collaboration that produced the exceptional translations in this volume.