Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid’. She finds it hard to be happy.So you start to make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything that’s worth living for.1. Ice Cream. 2. Kung Fu Movies. 3. Burning Things. 4. Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose 5. Construction cranes. 6. MeYou leave it on her pillow. You know she’s read it because she’s corrected your spelling. Soon, the list will take on a life of its own.A new play about depression and the lengths we will go to for those we love.

    Her first step is to admit that she has a problem. But the problem isn't with Emma, it's with everything else. She needs to tell the truth, but she's smart enough to know that there's no such thing. When intoxication feels like the only way to survive the modern world, how can she ever sober up?

    Moving between past and present, Alison relives her unique childhood playing at the family's Bechdel Funeral Home, her growing understanding of her own sexuality, and the looming, unanswerable questions about her father's hidden desires. Fun Home is a refreshingly honest, wholly original musical about seeing your parents through grown-up eyes.

    Instead, she joins a group of women “computers,” charting the stars for a renowned astronomer who calculates projects in “girl hours” and has no time for the women’s probing theories. As Henrietta, in her free time, attempts to measure the light and distance of stars, she must also take measure of her life on Earth, trying to balance her dedication to science with family obligations and the possibility of love. The true story of 20th-century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt explores a woman’s place in society during a time of immense scientific discoveries, when women’s ideas were dismissed until men claimed credit for them. Social progress, like scientific progress, can be hard to see when one is trapped among earthly complications; Henrietta Leavitt and her female peers believe in both, and their dedication changed the way we understand both the heavens and Earth.

    As his decision brings him face to face with a nation at war with itself, the ones Hero left behind debate whether to escape or wait for his return, only to discover that for Hero, freedom may have come at a great spiritual cost. A devastatingly beautiful dramatic work, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3) is the opening trilogy of a projected nine-play cycle that will ultimately take us into the present.Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Topdog/Underdog in 2002. Her other plays include The Book of Grace, In the Blood, Venus, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Fucking A, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom and The America Play. In 2007 her 365 Days/365 Plays was produced at more than seven hundred theaters worldwide. Parks is a MacArthur Fellow and the Master Writer Chair at the Public Theater.

    Peyton’s handsome nephew George arrives as heir apparent and quickly falls in love with Zoe, a beautiful octoroon. But the evil overseer M’Closky has other plans—for both Terrebonne and Zoe. In 1859, a famous Irishman wrote this play about slavery in America. Now an American tries to write his own.

    Now he presides over a congregation of thousands, with classrooms for Sunday School, a coffee shop in the lobby, and a baptismal font as big as a swimming pool. Today should be a day of celebration. But Paul is about to preach a sermon that will shake the foundations of his church’s belief. A big-little play about faith in America—and the trouble with changing your mind.- See more at: http://actorstheatre.org/shows/the-ch...

    Years later, spending hours alone, Anne convinces herself that her husband is having an affair. If only her son were to break-up with his girlfriend. He would return home and come down for breakfast. She would put on her new red dress and they would go out. The Mother, in this English translation by Christopher Hampton, was commissioned by the Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, Bath, and premiered in May 2015. Florian Zeller's The Mother was awarded the Moliere Award for Best Play 2011.The Father, in this English translation by Christopher Hampton, was commissioned by the Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, Bath and premiered in October 2014. The production transferred to the Tricycle Theatre, London, in May 2015. Florian Zeller's The Father was awarded the Moliere Award for Best Play 2014.

    drunk, Effie is the kind of girl you'd avoid eye contact with, silently passing judgement. We think we know her, but we don't know the half of it. Playwright Gary Owen uses the Greek myth of Iphigenia to tell a modern story: exploring social deprivation, poverty and class in contemporary Wales.

    But what's the second-best hangman in England to do on the day they've abolished hanging? Amongst the cub reporters and sycophantic pub regulars, dying to hear Harry's reaction to the news, a peculiar stranger lurks, with a very different motive for his visit. Don't worry. I may have my quirks but I'm not an animal. Or am I? One for the courts to discuss. Martin McDonagh's Hangmen premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in September 2015.

    When they are ordered to perform an unthinkable task, the aftermath forces them to question the concepts of friendship, beauty, and duty, and changes them forever.

    A family drama spanning several decades, a huge, moving, bloody saga, Aeschylus’ greatest and final play asks whether justice can ever be done – and continues to resonate more than two millennia after it was written.This new adaptation of Oresteia was first performed at the Almeida in Summer 2015, marking the first major London production of Oresteia in over a decade.

    This collection also includes the acclaimed play An Octoroon, a bombastic theatrical investigation of theater and identity, wherin an old play gives way to a startlingly contemporary piece. The third play, Neighbors, uses old minstrelsy tropes to challenge what makes contemporary society comfortable, and asserts pointedly that it shouldn't be.Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's plays include An Octoroon, Neighbors, Appropriate, Gloria, and War. He is a playwright-in-residence at Signature Theatre. Recent honors include a 2014 Obie Award for Best New American Play (An Octoroon and Appropriate).

    Their lives have taken very different paths: Carla lives a hand-to-mouth existence, while Heather has a high-flying career and a beautiful home. Then, over tea, Heather presents Carla with a bag of cash and a proposition. This electric new thriller asks how far beyond the playground we carry our childhood experiences.

    Sally Cookson’s bold and dynamic production uncovers one woman’s fight for freedom and fulfilment on her own terms. From her beginnings as a destitute orphan, Jane Eyre’s spirited heroine faces life’s obstacles headon, surviving poverty, injustice and the discovery of bitter betrayal before taking the ultimate decision to follow her heart.This acclaimed re-imagining of Brontë’s masterpiece was first staged by Bristol Old Vic in 2014 and remounted as a coproduction with the National Theatre in 2015.

    Amy is curled up on the locker room floor. DRY LAND is a play about abortion, female friendship, and resiliency, and what happens in one high school locker room after everybody’s left.

    But her obligatory marriage to Henry is rife with the threat of violence and the lure of deceit; her secret liaisons with Thom, her husband’s former brother-in-law, could send her to an early grave; and her devotion to the education and equal rights of Henry’s daughters is putting an even bigger strain on her marriage. Does Kate risk her life to gain authority in both her relationship and her political career? Which love will she be led to if she follows her heart? And what kind of future is there for her children if she makes a crucial mistake?“Here is a playwright who is taking on the big themes of feminism with a restless, probing intelligence and political savvy. Her characters are living, breathing, messy human beings who reach for the stars and who stumble in the dirt. These are not mouthpieces for politically correct punditry, but people whose emotions cause chaos and whose ideas drive their passion. In short, this is the best kind of playwriting: thoughtful, full-bodied, and redolent of the stuff of life.” —Bob White, Director of New Plays, Stratford Festival

    They live alone with their dog Taliban, playing Playstation, watching porn; surviving. Occasionally their chaotic mum Maggie visits, sometimes she passes out on the front lawn. But when Jenny knocks on the door, the boys discover a world far beyond what they know, a world full of love, possibility and danger.

    But it’s 1905, and in the racially segregated world of boxing, his chances are as good as knocked out. When a crooked boxing promoter hatches a plan for ‘the fight of the century’, The Sport just might land a place in the ring with the reigning champion.

    Is she filling the holes in their relationship, or widening cracks that will shatter their family?High school is hard, especially for Neyssa, who is not from a privileged family like her best friend Bijou. When the two get into a physical fight at school, they must confront what's really bothering Neyssa. In This World looks at what friendship means to two teenage girls from vastly different social backgrounds, while dealing with racism, class, and reputation.

     In remote Pakistan, Nick Bright awaits his fate. A successful financial trader, Nick is kidnapped by an Islamic militant group, but with no one negotiating his release, he agrees to an unusual plan. He will earn his own ransom by helping his captors manipulate and master the world commodities and currency markets. "[A] tense, provocative thriller about the unholy nexus of international terrorism and big bucks...."-Seattle Times "Ahktar again turns hypersensitive subjects into thought-provoking and thoughtful drama"-Newsday "The prime theme is pulsing and alive: when human lives become just one more commodity to be traded, blood eventually flows in the streets"-Financial Times "Whip-smart and twisty"-Time Out New York "The Invisible Hand offers genuine insight into the future of the West" (Village Voice).

    Each play is specifically commissioned by the National Theatre's literary department and reflects the past year's programming at the venue in the plays' ideas, themes and styles. The plays are performed by approximately 200 schools and youth theatre companies across the UK and Ireland, in partnership with multiple professional regional theatres where the works are showcased.This anthology of 100 monologues is the ideal resource for teenagers and young people attending auditions either in the amateur or professional theatre world; students leaving secondary school to audition for drama school; as well as teachers of English and Drama looking for suitable dramatic for their students to engage with and perform. It provides suitable scene-study books that are suitable and relevant to the student in terms of tone, style and content. Young actors who have searched for audition material written in the voice of teenage characters will welcome this resource.

    I'm happily married with two beautiful daughters and I still fit in the same size-ten dress suit I did fifteen years ago. What could possibly threaten me? Linda Wilde has dedicated her life to changing the world. She's won awards for her efforts, at the same time as working hard to become an inspiring mother, and an independent, loving wife.Now, at 55, she seems to have it all. She's a woman in her prime. She's embarking on her most ambitious plan to date. Beneath the surface, though, the cracks are starting to show.Linda by Penelope Skinner premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in November 2015.

    Two brothers in Malaysia trying to save their house from sinking; a Canadian radio-show host angered by disaster-relief efforts; a Japanese man who has been falling down a hole for years after learning of his daughter’s death; a lonely woman in Utah baking a pie when an FBI agent knocks on her front door.

    The three works, Platanov, Ivanov and The Seagull, in contemporary adaptations by David Hare, will be staged at the Chichester Festival Theatre in the summer of 2015.

    SLUT: The Play offers communities and individuals the real-life insight into rape and bullying culture necessary to inspire change in the attitudes and practices surrounding girls and sexuality. SLUT: The Play creates much-needed space to discuss—openly and honestly—experiences with shaming, sex, and violence, thus providing a crucial antidote to slut culture.

    And they know better than to lay a fucking finger on you. See? You are safer here with me, than you have ever been.’Liam’s 17 years old, loves Doctor Who and has lost is mum. He has had to move from up North to Wales, to the Valleys, to the middle of nowhere, to live with a dad he doesn’t know. Whose nickname isn’t Violence for nothing.Gary Owen’s intimate new play is about what parents pass on and trying to do the right thing.

    A love story between two Vietnam War refugees who meet in an Arkansas relocation camp, the show features a dramatization of the fall of Saigon.Play: 2 acts; 6 scenes; Epilogue

    A beautiful country estate. The mid-nineteenth century.A handsome new tutor brings reckless, romantic desire to an eccentric household. Over three days one summer the young and the old will learn lessons in love: first love and forbidden love, maternal love and platonic love, ridiculous love and last love. The love left unsaid and the love which must out.Ivan Turgenev's passionate, moving comedy, A Month in the Country, has been a source of inspiration for films, a ballet and the plays of Chekhov.Patrick Marber's Three Days in the Country premiered at the National Theatre, London, in July 2015 in association with Sonia Friedman Productions.

    . . thing inside me. Just here. Next to my heart. It's small. The size of sparrow. I don't know what it looks like. But I know it's got claws because it scratches. And I imagine it to be dark blue - mauve almost - like the veins on my mum's hands. I hear it talking. Its voice is high pitched and screeching. It's talking about all the things we've done.A wickedly comic satire about a young couple offered a way out of the housing crisis, and just how far they're prepared to go for it.Ollie and Jill want to tell you about their dream home. Some of the things they did to get it, you might find shocking. But they want you to know they did it all for their baby . . .A hilarious and outrageous black comedy from internationally acclaimed 'master of modern myth' (Guardian) Philip Ridley. Playful, provocative and viciously sharp, Radiant Vermin is a meditation on how far we will go to satisfy our materialistic greed.The play received its world premiere on 10 March 2015 at Soho Theatre, London.

    The following month she was unexpectedly admitted to hospital with a very painful foot. Four months later she left hospital with one less leg and loads more maturity. Along the way she also fell in love, found her Dad and made friends with an old woman who looked like a threadbare tennis ball (with eyes). This is the book of the script of the show, a poetic comedy with daftness, depth and special effects. / “A unique and utterly compelling performer. With wit and charm, she manages to make us laugh in the face of adversity.” Matt Fenton, Artistic Director, Contact Theatre / “Jackie Hagan boldly goes where no one even knows it's possible to go. Then gets the bus back home eating chips on the top deck.” Jo Warburton, poet

    As the siege intensifies outside, fear for their safety becomes as crippling as the conflict itself.Dalia Taha s play offers a new way of seeing how war fractures childhood. Fireworks (Al ab Nariya) is part of International Playwrights: A Genesis Foundation Project and received its world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 12 February 2015.

    With hints of Samuel Beckett, Sam Shepard, Neil LaBute, and Tracy Letts, Scott Caan grapples with the emotional interiors of people in a fractured world. Whether writing about actors, lovers, or co-workers, Caan takes on the complicated tension between what we say and what we feel, how we grapple with the world publicly and privately, and what that difference says about us as people.Caan's training as an actor imbues his words with a sense of play and the characters he leaves other actors to create within these plays are deep and open to interpretation. The Performance of Heartbreak and Other Plays is the introduction of an exciting new voice in American theater.

    These white-collar professionals would discreetly escape their families to spend their weekends safely inhabiting their chosen female alter-egos. But given the opportunity to share their secret lives with the world, the members of this sorority had to decide whether the freedom gained by openness was worth the risk of personal ruin. Based on real events and infused with Fierstein's trademark wit, this moving, insightful, and delightfully entertaining work offers a glimpse into the lives of a group of "self-made women" as they search for acceptance and happiness in their very own Garden of Eden.

    But what happens when an extended family gathers for Christmas and they each follow those rules, rigidly? In Sam Holcroft's theatrically playful, dark comedy, long-held mechanisms for survival are laid bare and everyone, even Mum, becomes embroiled. Rules for Living premiered at the National Theatre in March 2015.

    Two U.S. State Department employees, Bob and Norma, have been tasked with identifying sexual deviants within their ranks. There’s just one problem: Both Bob and Norma are gay, and have married each other’s partners as a carefully constructed cover. Inspired by the true story of the earliest stirrings of the American gay rights movement, madcap classic sitcom-style laughs give way to provocative drama as two “All-American” couples are forced to stare down the closet door.

    Unfolding over a single scene, this "delirious tragicomedy" (Chicago Sun-Times) by acclaimed young playwright Stephen Karam "infuses the traditional kitchen-sink family drama with qualities of horror in his portentous and penetrating work of psychological unease" (Variety), creating an indelible family portrait.

    She may very well fly off the face of the earth if she doesn’t hang on to the kitchen counter. At least that’s how she feels after her mother, Bernice, a lively, recently widowed 55-year-old breaks the news that she has early onset Alzheimer’s. A new play about family dynamics and mental illness.

    Tonight is the night she’ll fall in love… with the thrill of the stage and with Kitty Butler, a girl who wears trousers.Giddy with desire and hungry for experience, Nancy follows Kitty to London where unimaginable adventures await.

    

    In Georgian London no one is more famous than Samuel Foote. Satirist, impressionist, and dangerous comedian, he is a bona fide celebrity in an age obsessed with fame. He even has the ear of the King. But does fame make you mad?

    The Empress had lied most grievously, and the Countess had called for her head on a stick. Quite frankly, she deserved it. She deserved a reckoning of truly Shakespearean proportions...Penelope is a Shakespearean style play, blending tragedy and comedy, in a clever homage to the Bard.

    But her friends—the impish Maenads—refuse to just let her escape. The Shapes We Make With Our Bodies is a feminist, queer, maximalist piece—spanning caves, hills, courtrooms, and kitchens—about a woman torn by her desires, unwilling to bend to the needs of men, yet hesitant in the face of her wildness.

    How to fill the rest of your days. Sick buckets, bucket rattling, bucket lists, buckets of love.Wry, emotive, funny and heartfelt, buckets is a play with a unique perspective on a universal dilemma: how do you deal with the fact that time always runs out?Across thirty-three interconnected scenes – some just a few lines, others mini-plays in their own right – buckets swings through a kaleidoscopic world of sadness and happiness, illness and health, youth and experience, kissing and crying, singing and dying.Adam Barnard's open-ended text can be performed by any number and composition of actors.buckets premiered at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, in May 2015.

    A dozen vocal selections presented for the hit musical which opened on Broadway in March 2015, presented in vocal line arrangements with piano accompaniment. Includes: Welcome to the Renaissance * God, I Hate Shakespeare * Right Hand Man * A Musical * The Black Death * I Love the Way * Will Power * Bottom's Gonna Be on Top * Hard to Be the Bard * We See the Light * Make an Omelette * To Thine Own Self (Reprise).

    Mughal India. Dara, the crown prince, has the love of the people, but brother Aurangzeb holds a different vision for India’s future. Islam inspires poetry in Dara, puritanical rigour in Aurangzeb. Can Jahanara, their sister, assuage Aurangzeb’s resolve to purge the empire? Dara was originally produced in Pakistan; this adaptation premiered at the National Theatre in 2015.

    . . Galvanizing but not importunate. You could cry (I did), but you are always free simply to laugh instead."—New York on Between Riverside and Crazy"His empathetic, poetic tales of ex-cons, addicts, and other men whom society would label losers return us, again and again, to a world that Guirgis, by virtue of his particular religion—the church of the streets—illuminates with the bright and crooked light of his faith."—New YorkerWith a keen insight into the lives of downtrodden city dwellers, Stephen Adly Guirgis delves into the challenges of pride and self-transformation, and the intricacies of love in a working-class world. The Motherfucker with the Hat—Guirgis' Broadway debut—not only blends comedy with drama, but also love with addiction and betrayal with loss, in a story about a recovering junkie and the misguided characters trying to help him. Between the Riverside and Crazy , winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, centers around Pops, a retired cop and the would-be patriarch of his misfit lodgers, as he struggles to maintain control in an unraveling world.Stephen Adly Guirgis's other plays include Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, Our Lady of 121st Street, In Arabia We'd All Be Kings, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, The Little Flower of East Orange, Den of Thieves, Race Religion Politics, and Dominica: The Fat Ugly Ho. He is a former co-artistic director of LABryinth Theater Company. Awards include the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Yale Wyndham-Campbell Prize, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, a Whiting Award and a 2014 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award.

    The play had its world premiere at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in July 2014, directed by Bill Rauch and starring Jack Willis, and ran at the Seattle Repertory Theatre before a planned Broadway transfer in 2016.In the years from 1965 to 1968, LBJ struggles to fight a “war on poverty” even as his war in Vietnam spins out of control. Besieged by political opponents, Johnson marshals all his political wiles to try to pass some of the most important social programs in U.S. history, while the country descends into chaos over the war and backlash against civil rights. In the tradition of the great multi-part Shakespearian historical plays, The Great Society is an unflinching examination of the morality of power.

    This was Caesar's highway. Hannibal's road to glory. These were the trading routes of the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians, the Ottomans and the Byzantines . . . We all come from the sea and back to the sea we will go. The Mediterranean gave birth to the world.Step into the shoes of those whose job it is to enforce our harsh new rules: an Italian coastguard and a payday lender from Leeds. How do they do it? And what happens to them? Lampedusa is a powerful play about immigration and welfare.This edition was published to coincide with the premiere at the Soho Theatre, London, on 8 April 2015, as part of the Soho Theatre's season of Politics.

    His thirty-three plays, nine musicals, three operas, and seven scripts for film and television, are a testament to his astonishing commitment to writing. In Selected Plays, for the very first time, McNally collects a set of eight plays that he considers the most important of his oeuvre, including the Tony-nominated Mothers and Sons and the critically acclaimed And Away We Go, neither of which have been previously published. Introducing each play with a personal essay that recounts an anecdote or discusses an aspect of the play that proceeds it, McNally himself frames his own life in the theater. Selected Plays is a landmark publication, a memoir in plays from one of America’s most highly regarded and best-loved playwrights.

    Moving fluidly between past and present, this bold new play tells the story of Tray, a spirited African-American 18-year-old and his family, who must hold on to hope when Tray's life is cut short. Kimber Lee's lyrical social drama about the shocking death of a young African-American teenager is a poignant story for our time, and demands the attention of audiences far and wide.

    Struggling to cast off his radical past and thrust into a position of power, the ambitious and charismatic J Robert Oppenheimer spearheads human history's largest scientific undertaking.

    His ability to craft dialogue in all its complex nuances, lilts and milieux has established him as an important voice of his generation and one of its most exciting playwrights.The seven plays featured in “Joel Tan: Plays Volume 1″ capture the intricacies of the modern world with stillness and intelligence, marrying innovative narrative structures with an emotionally authentic core. This collection is edited by Lucas Ho and features an interview with the playwright by Huzir Sulaiman.

    An extraordinary Kneehigh cast of actor-musicians shoot, hoot and shimmy their way through this twisted morality tale of our times...by turns SHOCKING, HILARIOUS, HEARTFELT and ABSURD!Mayor Goodman has been assassinated. Contract killer Macheath has just married Pretty Polly Peachum and they plan to escape to a better world – but they aren't going anywhere. Not if pickled pilchard, hair gel and concrete tycoon Les Peachum and his wife have anything to do with it. See, they aren't happy with their daughter marrying Macheath. Not one bit. Before the day is out Macheath will face the hangman's noose and much more besides. All the while, the dogs are howling, the pier is creaking, the babes are crying, the concrete is cracking and the truth won't stay hidden for much longer.

    And Juliet - young, smart, and sassy - has got herself a fresh start in a new flat. But there's a problem: amidst the boxes, a strange guy is also moving in - and he won't leave. He says the agency has messed up and her flat is actually his flat. As if that's not enough, the real problem is that, well, he's rather gorgeous... This chic comedy is a modern metropolitan guide to falling in (and out of) love.

    Leading us through her world of mouth-watering dishes and heart-breaking memories, Chef questions our attitudes to food, prisoners, violence, love and hope. Inspired by an interview Mahfouz conducted with celebrity chef Ollie Dabbous, Chef studies food as the ultimate art form taking stimulus from Dabbous's obsession with simplicity and making something the best it can be.Featuring Sabrina Mahfouz's distinct, lyrical style in abundance, Chef received its premiere at the Underbelly, Cowgate, during the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, winning a Fringe First, and was produced at the Soho Theatre, London, in June 2015.

    But he can’t serve enough Soup, Salad & Breadstick Specials to make his hometown feel like home...

    Here there are neon lights. Here there are queens. Here there are rainbow flags draw high.One man and a suitcase filled with the past, uncertainty, high heels, brokenness, African dancing shells and hope.Ishmael has been outed, along with his lover, David. He has sought sanctuary in the UK, but is this evidence enough? As Ishmael waits to hear his fate, he encounters new friends – and enemies, all the while looking for a place to call home again. Zodwa Nyoni threads together humour and humanity to tell the real personal story behind asylum headlines.Nine Lives was developed as part of the West Yorkshire Playhouse's A Play, A Pie and A Pint programme in 2014 and received a UK national tour in 2015.COME TO WHERE I'M FROMTongue-tied child got lost in migration. Tongue-tied child got lost in separation. Tongue-tied child got lost in assimilation.Theatre company Paines Plough's Come To Where I'm From programme offers a theatrical tapestry of the UK, woven by writers asking if home really is where the heart is. Since 2010, 88 playwrights from across the UK have returned to their home towns to write plays about the places that shaped them. This publication features Zodwa Nyoni's 2013 monologue for the series - a meditation on place, belonging and the author's Zimbabwean roots.

    Across seven centuries, small groups of children seek sanctuary in the same solid old wardrobe. It’s the safest place they know – but is it safe enough?The Wardrobe was commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival and premiered by youth theatres across the UK. With a variety of roles for young actors, the play can be performed by a large cast of up to twenty-eight, or a smaller cast with doubling.Sam Holcroft’s plays include Edgar & Annabel, part of the Double Feature season at the Paintframe, at the National Theatre, London; Dancing Bears, part of the Charged season for Clean Break at Soho Theatre and Latitude Festival; While You Lie at the Traverse, Edinburgh; Pink, part of the Women, Power and Politics season at the Tricycle; Vanya, adapted from Chekhov, at The Gate; Cockroach, co-produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and Traverse (nominated for Best New Play 2008, by the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland and shortlisted for the John Whiting Award, 2009) and Ned and Sharon at the HighTide Festival. Sam received the Tom Erhardt Award in 2009, was the Pearson Writer-in-Residence at the Traverse Theatre, 2009–10, and was appointed Writer-in-Residence at the National Theatre Studio in 2013.'wonderful... a powerful stimulus for creative drama work' - Drama magazine

    Many of these plays have gone on to receive highly successful productions around the world, garnering glowing reviews along the way.The plays included in the anthology are:The Craft1M/1F Approx. 10 minutesIt's Act 2, Scene 3 in another night's performance of a less-than-riveting romantic drama. As the two young leads navigate their turgid love scene, employing all their dramatic skills in an attempt to breathe life into their two-dimensional characters, another, far more gripping story is unfolding just beneath the surface. Despite a mutual loathing of each other, a devotion to the craft ensures that the show will go on; but the inner dialogues that play out inside each of them reveal a far different narrative than the one being played out on the stage.A Flawed Character2 Any Age/Race/Gender Combination Approx. 10 minutesThe playwright creates the first character of his new play, but soon after the entire process grinds to a halt. As time marches on and the play continues to stagnate, the character's patience begins to wear thin. As frustration turns into animosity and antagonism, the playwright begins to realize that perhaps this is one relationship that was never meant to be. But what's a writer to do?The Skewed PictureM/1F Approx. 10 minutesBob and Betty have settled in for a quiet night at home. That is, until Bob makes a startling discovery that has the potential to reshape their entire existence...or at least their living room. The realization that a parallel universe could be staring them in the face forces them to question just who exactly these people might be, and more importantly, why they're there?Filler1M/1F Approx. 10 minutesTwo characters come to realize that the extended scene written for them in the middle of the play has no intrinsic value, does nothing to propel the story forward, and to all intents and purposes is completely extraneous. Their raison d'être pulled from under them, can they still maintain their credibility and sanity through several pages of what's little more than filler?The Curious Art of Critique2M/1F Approx. 15 minutesWhen reaction to his work on a new drama appears tepid at best, the director decides he must tackle the problem head-on and root out whatever it is that's leaving the audience unmoved. One way or another, the evening seems destined to end in tears.What's the Meta?2 Any Age/Race/Gender Combination Approx. 10 minutesTwo written parts await to be brought to life on a stage. One of them, however, is found to be mired in a crisis of self-worth due to the size and quality of their role. The larger, more developed part must then attempt to convince its smaller counterpart of just how necessary they both are to the production that is soon to begin, and of the true and indisputable collaborative nature of theatre.A Rebel Among the Wretched1M/2F Approx. 10 minutesA celebrated, multi-award winning dysfunctional family drama continues to enthrall audiences night after night.

    Expertly juggling delicate entrees, fussy customers and beer-swilling line cooks, the young men face off with management and each other. As tensions reach a boiling point, how far will each of them go to see his own mañana come?

    In a symbiotic battle of wills, they delve into the dark woods of the past, unearthing a tragedy that shatters their notions of language, loneliness and essential self.

    While Cathy, a comedian, falls into a creative slump, Peter, a doctor, starts to fall for a troubled young patient. The two are unrecognizable to each other and themselves, and as they navigate middle age they push each other further apart. Can they negotiate their changing relationship?

    Matt Hartley’s new play throws a lively and topical spotlight on ‘Generation Rent’ and the lengths they will go to in order to get that first step on the property ladder.

    I'll walk out of my room. I'll know exactly where I'm going to go. The voice in my head tells me exactly where to go. In the opulent grandeur of a European city, a renowned singer abandons the opera house for the truth of the streets. A gorgeous prostitute. A tough-talking taxi driver. A global trader. A teenage dreamer. Everyone's looking for something.Simon Stephens's strange and beautiful play re-imagines Bizet's opera Carmen and the possibility of love in a fractured urban world. Carmen Disruption received its world premiere at the Deutsche Schauspielhaus, Hamburg, in March 2014 and its UK premiere at the Almeida Theatre on 10 April 2015.

    Both have suffered intimate loss — the sacrifice of a daughter, the murder of a son.In Marina Carr’s bold response to Euripides (‘the most intensely tragic of all poets’ — Aristotle) there’s a demand for further bloodshed. In a brilliant display of ventriloquism the drama weaves threads of inconsolable rage and grief with fate, revenge and inevitable carnage. It explores the shreds of duty and honour as well as the terrible deeds hatred breeds as it touches bravely on Hecuba’s heroic nature and ‘the endless tears of women’.

    Moss’s quirkily re-imagined version of the American South in the fifties, the Yoo-Hoo Girl is a shy, eccentric romantic, fond of her fantasies and of instant foods (Rice-a-Roni, Jell-O, Salisbury steak TV dinners…), movie star magazines, Elvis, and of course Hank Williams. Her neighbors? They’re pretty dreamy and eccentric too—the Paperboy; big, loud Amy; and the old lady Madeleine aka Batty, who’s prepared to wait out a nuclear strike in her basement with old Sears catalogs and lemonade to sustain her. Life here is crazy but simple, but then gets more crazy, more complicated, and more real, when the seductive Salesman turns up at the Yoo-Hoo Girl’s house.

    For decades the sensation surrounding her death has eclipsed the sensation of her life. But no one knows what events led up to that fateful night in August 1962 when Marilyn was only 36 years old. Until now. The Unremarkable Death of Marilyn Monroe, recognises a Marilyn never before seen: alone in only her dressing gown; no glitz, no glamour, no masks. Overdosed on pills, the woman behind the icon drifts back through her life and the memories of those she loved the most. Revealing a frustrated intelligence, she exposes the truth behind her legend, leading us, in real time, to the centre of her psyche, the truth of her being, and the moment of her demise.

    This inspirational guide leads readers through an active, physical approach to text that can challenge assumptions about even the most familiar of plays, and that will revitalize work in the rehearsal room, workshop, or classroom.

    'An inconsolable mood of dread, abandon, violence and suspicion lurks beneath the show's skin of arty insouciance, and at times the script attains a lyrical pitch of accusation against the West that quite overrides the flippancy. There's something of value here.' Daily Telegraph;The Trial of Ubu premiered at the Schauspielhaus Essen in a co-production with the Toneelgroep Amsterdam. 'The play certainly gets at the banality of evil, and evokes the slow, sometimes dull, often uncertain slog of justice.' Sunday Times.Subtitled 'A Play For Young People', Morning was developed in partnership between the Lyric Hammersmith, London, and the Junges Theater, Göttingen. The Financial Times described it as 'theatrically daring and uncompromising';Carmen Disruption, a reimagining of Bizet's opera, premiered at the Deutsche Spielhaus in spring, 2014, before its UK premiere at the Almeida, London, in April 2015. 'You can't help but be moved by the circumstances facing the five main characters. There's an understanding and a compassion amid the bleakness. And a fierce sense that something needs to change.' Guardian;

    Patrick’s Day in New York City, Donna comes home to find a highly intoxicated man named Theo dressed like a leprechaun in her apartment. Mistaking Theo for her roommate Jamie's sublet, Donna puts him into the empty room only to learn that Jamie is still home. With no explanation of how he got in, Donna and her roommates try to figure out where Theo came from and how to get him out of the apartment. Theo's undeniable charm and seemingly magical habits, however, don't make it easy. After everything from a police chase and zombie apocolypse, we find out who we are, who we could be, and who is Theo?

    Meanwhile down on the boardwalk, a woman who might have been Avery is living something that might have been Avery's unmarried life against the backdrop of rickety carnival rides and fortune tellers. When they collide, both women see their lives flash before their eyes in this magical romantic comedy about the choices we make in love and the things we have to leave behind. This colorful collection also includes an additional selection of heightened short plays that explore what happens when everyday life rubs up against the messy and fantastic mysteries of the universe.Plays included in this collection are:SkullsGiant Robot Love StoryAquarium SerendipityJoshua Consumed an Unfortunate PearMrs. Evelyn Foxy & Her Low Orbit AnxietyNiagara Falls

    Confronted with his mortality, he searches for sex and connection in hotel bars -- with his wife Brit's conflicted blessing. "Little Death, " the lyrical new drama from CBC Fiction Prize-winner and Dora Award-nominated playwright Daniel Karasik, is a gripping study of sexuality under extreme pressure. Tender and fierce by turns, in precise, musical language that straddles the boundary between poetic verse and dramatic prose, this play for six actors (5 F, 1 M) asks fundamental questions about marriage, fidelity, and the intimate needs of men and women. Prior to its premiere production at Toronto's Theatre Centre in April 2015, "Little Death" was developed at the Royal Court Theatre in London, UK, the Tarragon Theatre and Stratford Festival in Canada, the Yale School of Drama, and off-Broadway's The New Group. Influenced by contemporary European dramatic forms, the play's style is hybrid--it exists for the reader as a poem, yet it has an innate theatricality that calls out for full elaboration on stage. Spare and enigmatic, "Little Death" allows the reader, director, actors, and audience to fill out its shadows with their own intuitions and truths. In the vein of Anne Carson's "The Beauty of the Husband" and Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage," the play will delight theatre fans, poetry lovers, and anyone interested in thought-provoking art about life and love, sex and death. It is a deeply felt work from one of Canada's most exciting young talents.

    Having studied with the world's greatest acting coaches, Barry has created the no nonsense and straight to the point guide for what a actor needs to work on to prepare for their character and role

    The Hummingbird Hotel is the figurative or literal home for a group of strippers, French Quarter service workers, hustlers, and poets who are bound together by their bad luck, bad decisions, and complete lack of pretense. Presiding over them is Miss Ruby, a beloved former burlesque performer who has requested a funeral before she dies. As the people whose lives she has touched gather to celebrate her, they must face themselves, each other, and the consequences of the choices they have made. Airline Highway shows us the tenuous hold that community, authenticity, and real-time ritual have on a rapidly gentrifying New Orleans.

    There, they are joined by another woman, an old friend of Cathy’s they’d never met. Over the course of eighteen holes, secrets and confessions unravel as the women discuss love, sex, children, and everything in between. A funny, fast-paced, heartwarming story of friendship inspired by The Foursome.

    Includes: Fish Eyes, Boys With Cars, and Let Me Borrow That Top.

    This was a secret Tim had kept for a very long time.Fake It ’Til You Make It is Edinburgh Fringe First-winner Bryony Kimmings’ new work about clinical depression and men, made in collaboration with her partner Tim, who works in advertising. A wickedly warming, brutally honest and powerfully heart breaking show about the wonders of the human brain, being in love and what it takes to be a ‘real man’.Includes forewords by James Leadbitter (the vacuum cleaner), Andy Field (Forest Fringe) and Georgie Harman (beyondblue).Winner Best Theatre Award 2015 Perth Fringe World Winner Best Theatre Award 2015 Adelaide Fringe Festival

    Thomas Jefferson (yes that one), Charles Dickens (the very same) and Count Leo Tolstoy (who else?) are brought together in a blistering battle of wits. From Scott Carter (executive producer of Real Time with Bill Maher), this whip-smart comedy examines what happens when great men of history are forced to repeat it.(From dramatists.com)

    Actor's Script for the MTI (Music Theatre International) Broadway Junior Collection's The Lion King, Jr.

    With a motley band of sailors, they plan a desperate and daring run to freedom. As the mysteries of their identities come to light, painful truths about the past and present collide and flow into the next generation. Acclaimed playwright Naomi Wallace’s newest work brings to life a group of people whose stories have been erased from history. Told with lyricism and power, The Liquid Plain was awarded the 2012 Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play. This sweeping historical saga has enjoyed acclaimed runs at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Signature Theatre in New York.Naomi Wallace is a playwright from Kentucky. Her plays, which have been produced in the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, include In the Heart of America, Slaughter City, One Flea Spare, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Things of Dry Hours, The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East, And I and Silence, The Hard Weather Boating Party , and The Liquid Plain. Awards include the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (twice), Joseph Kesselring Prize, Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, Obie Award, Horton Foote Award for Most Promising New American Play, MacArthur Fellowship, and the inaugural Windham Campbell Prize for Drama.

    Nothing less. My country needs cheering up. I'm the man to do it.'Nobody can doubt John Christie's passion nor his formidable will: his wooing of his opera singer wife has been marked by a determination befitting a man who won the Military Cross at the Battle of Loos. Now, in 1934, this Etonian science teacher's admiration for the works of Wagner has led him to embark on an ambitious project: the construction of an Opera House on his estate in Sussex.But such is the scale of the enterprise that passion alone may not be enough. It's only when a famous violinist is delayed by fog overnight in Eastbourne that Christie hears word of a group of refugees for whom life in Germany is becoming impossible. Perhaps they can deliver Christie's vision of the sublime - assuming they're willing to cast his wife in the lead.David Hare's new play is the story of an intense love affair between some unlikely bedfellows, and of the unrelenting search for artistic excellence in the face of searing scrutiny, sacrifice and war.The Moderate Soprano premieres at Hampstead Theatre, London, in October 2015.

    So at home, they just might stay for good. At the edge of civilization, the lifestyles of the rich collide with the lifestyles of the aimless in the bubbling waters of a hot tub...but beware what lurks beneath.

    <p>A double bill by Terence Rattigan, featuring two plays of striking contrast that display his astonishing range as a writer.</p> <p>A rarely seen comic gem, <em>Harlequinade</em> follows a classical theatre company whose intrigues and dalliances are revealed with increasingly calamitous consequences in an affectionate celebration of the lunatic art of putting on a play.</p> <p>A powerfully atmospheric one-woman play, <em>All On Her Own</em> tells the story of Rosemary who, alone at midnight in London, has a secret burden to share that is both heartbreaking and sinister.</p> <p><em>Harlequinade & All On Her Own</em> was performed as part of the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company’s Plays at the Garrick Season in 2015, starring Zoë Wanamaker and Kenneth Branagh, and co-directed by Branagh and Rob Ashford.</p> <p>This official tie-in edition features both plays, plus exclusive additional content.</p>

    Working with Thomas himself, and young people in his hometown of Bridgend, playwright Robin Soans has spun a powerful story about sport, politics, secrets, and learning to be yourself.

    Christmas Eve. Richard and Sally wait for their guests to join in the festivities. But behind a shiny façade nothing is quite right, and as cracks start appearing, attempts to paper over them make for an explosive evening of revelations and dark secrets exposed. Elephants explores the paths we take in life and their repercussions on those we love.

    Forced to abandon the life he has built, he embarks on a last, frantic search to recruit a friend, anyone, to speak in his defence. But Death is close behind, and time is running out.One of the great primal, spiritual myths, Everyman asks whether it is only in death that we can understand our lives. A cornerstone of English drama since the 15th century, this new adaptation by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy was presented at the National Theatre, London, in April 2015.

    You run that way and I'll run this way. Whoever gets back to the front door first without getting shot, wins.In a Palestinian town eleven-year-old Lubna and twelve-year-old Khalil are playing on the empty stairwell in their apartment block. As the siege intensifies outside, fear for their safety becomes as crippling as the conflict itself.Dalia Taha's play offers a new way of seeing how war fractures childhood. Fireworks (Al'ab Nariya) is part of International Playwrights: A Genesis Foundation Project and received its world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 12 February 2015.

    Against all odds, young graduate Sofia has got a job as PA to one of the wealthiest bankers in the country. But her mother has her doubts – did Sofia give more than a good interview to get it? A subtle game of cat and mouse, split loyalties and questionable morals ensues.

    

    DEATH OF A SALESMAN, THE CRUCIBLE, ALL MY SONS and A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE are the masterpieces which secured Arthur Miller's place as the leading figure of the American stage. Now these four essential plays are published together in this stunning hardback edition, alongside photographs of the stage productions taken by Miller's wife, Inge Morath, and other photographers.

    It gives voice to the fallen and dispossessed, to those who exist at the edge of safety, at the point of being undone. It speaks of madness, denial, ignorance and free-falling poverty. Utterly devastating, yet written with Daniel Keene's characteristic lyricism, Mother is wrought with tenderness, violence and loneliness in equal measure. 'Daniel Keene is indisputably one of Australia's most poetic, thoughtful and probing playwrights.'BRYCE HALLETT, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 'Fashioning language is Daniel Keene's trade...You can almost imagine him pulling a red-hot word from a furnace, hammering it into shape and laying it down on the page to cool.'BEN CUBBY, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD First produced by If Theatre at Gasworks Arts Park, Melbourne, on 5 June 2015. CHRISTIE Noni HazlehurstDirector: Matt Scholten; Set, Costume and Props Designer: Kat Chan; Lighting Designer: Tom Willis; Sound Designer: Darius Kedros; Stage and Tour Manager: Ainsley Kerr.

    Braithwaite's account of racial tensions in the East End in To Sir, With Love, he depicts the struggles of individuals to come to terms with their conflicting cultural legacies ­– and he does so with unerring warmth and compassion. East is East (1996) is an irresistible comedy set in multiracial Salford in 1970, where the Khan children are buffeted this way and that by their Pakistani father’s insistence on tradition, their English mother’s laissez-faire and their own wish to be citizens of the modern world. The film adaptation that followed, with a screenplay by the author, became one of the most successful British films ever made. The version included here is the revised text first performed at the Trafalgar Studios in 2014.The short, elegiac play, Notes on Falling Leaves (2004), is an emotionally tender depiction of a young man as he loses his mother to dementia, 'overwhelming in its emotional impact' (Telegraph).In All the Way Home (2011), a quarrelsome group of siblings gathers at the family home under the shadow of impending loss. Amidst the cut and thrust of spiky Salford banter, long-harboured resentments rise to the surface and family bonds unravel and unwind. To Sir, With Love (2013), based on E.R. Braithwaite's autobiographical novel, is the uplifting story of a talented, idealistic young teacher discovering the reality of life as a black man in Britain after the Second World War as he struggles to find a way to connect with his students at a tough but progressive East End school.

    Neither a history nor a chronicle, Medicine Shows examines how theater has been used to make medicine: reconnecting individuals and communities, giving voice to the silenced and disappeared, staging ceremony and honoring ancestors.

    This is the world’s very first industrial suburb and the young mill workers form the very first urban gangs, fighting over their territory with belts, fists and knives. Invisible in history, their lives, deaths, loves, lusts and defiant energy tell stories that will repeat for decades.

    Right? Did you say that? Remember that. Said you could speak to the stars. Just had to know how to do it.It's raining in the Midlands. Again. It won't stop. Someone's standing in it. They're shivering. They're cold. They're waiting for someone they haven't seen in a very long time. They've got a rucksack full of alcohol. And a fish.A touching play about abandoned responsibilities, what we choose to remember and what we thought we'd forgotten.This programme text edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Old Red Lion theatre, London on 10 November 2015.

    As she stands on the cusp of adulthood, she must learn to untangle the real world outside from the thorns of her imagination.It's a bitter winter night when 16-year-old Bernadette, an aspiring short story writer, boards a train to New York City carrying her notebook and important news for her boyfriend. What follows is a searing and poetic coming-of-age story as Bernadette intimately shares her encounters along the way and the devastating result of her visit, a journey punctuated by both a need to be heard and an aching desire to disappear.

    In Stag and Doe, Bonnie and Brad are throwing a party to pay for their upcoming wedding. Their Maid of Honour, Dee, is still getting over being left at the altar seven years ago. Mandy and Rob are getting married today, even though their big white tent blew away in last night's storm. And Jay just found out his entire catering staff is in jail! It's all happening at the same time, in the same community hall kitchen, in the same small town. Stag and Doe offers a laugh-filled look at a distinctly rural Canadian prenuptial tradition...and shines a light on the nature of love, marriage, and weddings. Bed and Breakfast's Brett and Drew want to move out of their tiny downtown condo and into a house, but they just lost their seventh bidding war in Toronto. When Brett unexpectedly inherits the historic family home, the couple moves out of the quick-paced city to set up a B & B in a quiet little tourist town. When they face friction in their new community, the boys discover the simple life is more complicated than they thought. With dozens of hilarious characters all portrayed by two men, Bed and Breakfast is a heartfelt comedy about "being out" in small town Canada, skeletons in the closet, and finding a place to call home

    I used to go in his room and see all his stuffed animals in a line and I'd mess them up. I'd mess the line up.Rose loves her brother Mikey. Mikey loves Rose, Bruce Willis films and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but he hates change. When their mum is diagnosed with leukaemia, their world is plunged into chaos. Rose returns home to find a very different brother to when she left. But today is his eighteenth birthday and Rose wants everything to be perfect, though life with Mikey isn't ever that simple.Inspired by events in the playwright's own life, Plastic Figurines is a funny and moving play that explores the relationship between siblings with very different views of the world.It received its world premiere in a production by Box of Tricks Theatre Company, which comprised of a six-week national tour at Liverpool Playhouse Studio, New Diorama, the Lowry, Hull Truck, Derby Theatre, Theatr Clwyd from 8 April until 16 May 2015.

    These translations are both faithful to the rich, pure poetry and music of the original Russian language and at the same time fluid for the modern actor and accessible for the contemporary American audience. Included is a glossary and pronunciation guide.