Book picks similar to
Mosquitoes by Lucy Kirkwood
plays
plays-read
drama
theatre
X
Alistair McDowall - 2016
This is where they send the new, the under-qualified, the old. And most of all the British. Mars is full of blonde Americans. It's like they're building the master race out there.Billions of miles from home, the lone research base on Pluto has lost contact with Earth. Unable to leave or send for help, the skeleton crew sit waiting.Waiting.Waiting long enough for time to start eating away at them.To lose all sense of it.To start seeing things in the dark outside.Alistair McDowall's play X premiered at the Royal Court on 30 March 2016 in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.
The Anarchist
David Mamet - 2011
With a nod to his mentor, Harold Pinter, Mamet once again employs his signature verbal jousting in this battle of two women over freedom, power, money, religion—and the lack thereof. Broadway premiere, under the direction of the playwright, in fall 2012 starring Patti LuPone and Debra Winger.David Mamet is a playwright, director, author, essayist, screenwriter, and film director. His plays include Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, American Buffalo, A Life in the Theatre, Oleanna, The Cryptogram, and Race.
Punk Rock
Simon Stephens - 2009
Contemporary and unnerving the story explores the pressures of teenage life as as group of educated, intelligent young people begin to plan for college and the rest of their lives with the step-by-step, dislocated, latent violence simmering under the surface of success revealed.
Nell Gwynn
Jessica Swale - 2016
But at a time when women are second-class citizens, can her charm and spirit protect her from the dangers of the court? And at what cost?
Autobahn
Neil LaBute - 2005
In Autobahn, Neil LaBute's provocative new collection of one-act plays set within the confines of the front seat, the playwright employs his signature plaintive insight to great effect, investigating the inchoate apprehension that surrounds the steering wheel. Each of these seven brief vignettes explore the ethos of perception and relationship--from a make-out session gone awry to a kidnapping thinly disguised as a road trip, a reconnaissance mission involving the rescue of a Nintendo 64 to a daughter's long ride home after her release from rehab. The result is an unsettling montage that gradually reveals the scabrous force of words left unsaid while illuminating the delicate interplay between intention and morality, capturing the essence of middle America and the myriad paths which cross its surface.
Circle Mirror Transformation
Annie Baker - 2010
I think this was a really, really great start.Five lost people come together at a community centre class to try and find some meaning in their lives. Counting to ten can be harder than you think. Over six tangled weeks their lives become knotted together in this tender and funny play.
August: Osage County
Tracy Letts - 2008
When the patriarch of the Weston clan disappears one hot summer night, the family reunites at the Oklahoma homestead, where long-held secrets are unflinchingly and uproariously revealed. The three-act, three-and-a-half-hour mammoth of a play combines epic tragedy with black comedy, dramatizing three generations of unfulfilled dreams and leaving not one of its thirteen characters unscathed.
At Home at the Zoo
Edward Albee - 2009
More than fifty years later, master playwright Edward Albee (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?) wrote a prequel to this classic. Home Story contains the events in Peter’s life immediately preceding his encounter with Jerry on the park bench and is every bit as powerful as the original. We meet Ann, Peter’s wife, and see the conversation that compelled Peter to go for that fateful walk in the park. For the first time collected in one volume, At Home at the Zoo is a must for any theater lover.
Wonder of the World: Trade Edition
David Lindsay-Abaire - 2002
The New York production featured knockout performances by Sarah Jessica Parker and Amy Sedaris. Ben Brantley, in the "New York Times" wrote "clearly, Mr. Lindsay-Abaire hasn't lost his playfully wicked eye, equally appalled and affectionate . . . his style both embraces and spoofs the All-American appetite for spiritual lift, sitcom perkiness, and slimy tabloid prurience." A firm believer in destiny-and inspired by a Marilyn Monroe movie-Cass leaves her husband and boards a bus to Niagara Falls, where she hopes to meet the unknown man she believes herself fated to end up with. Along the way toward the inevitable climax on the brink of the waterfall, she checks items off her list of "things to do in life," and takes the audience on an often moving, always hilarious journey.
The Seafarer
Conor McPherson - 2006
It is absolutely intoxicating to ponder what he will give us in the future.”—Irish Echo“The unique and extraordinary aspect of McPherson’s writing is the way in which his characters reveal themselves in tiny details which almost imperceptibly build up an extensive picture of the past, present and future, not just of themselves but of Ireland.”—The Sunday Mail (London)Conor McPherson returns to his native Dublin for the setting of his new play, which he will direct in a much-anticipated production at London’s National Theatre in fall 2006. It is Christmas Eve, and James “Sharky” Harkin, erstwhile fisherman/van driver/chauffeur, gathers with friends at the dingy flat he shares with his blind brother to drink booze and play cards. As Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day, the familiar-looking stranger Mr. Lockhart reminds Sharky of the bargain he made when they last met in prison—and Sharky suddenly finds himself playing a game with the stakes set at his soul. With this magnificently atmospheric new play, McPherson is once again set to entrance his audience, this time with a new take on the Faustian theme.Conor McPherson was born in Dublin, where he still lives. His plays include This Lime Tree Bower, St. Nicholas, The Weir, Port Authority, Dublin Carol, and Shining City, which premiered on Broadway in spring 2006. One of Ireland’s leading playwrights, his work has been produced throughout the United Kingdom and the United States.
Lungs
Duncan Macmillan - 2011
If they over think it, they'll never do it. But if they rush, it could be a disaster.Lungs premiered in October 2011 at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C.In 2019 a production of the play was hosted at The Old Vic starring Matt Smith and Claire Foy.
The Memory of Water - Acting Edition
Shelagh Stephenson - 1996
The Globe and Mail describes THE MEMORY OF WATER as "both gloriously funny and deeply felt Indeed, THE MEMORY OF WATER is so funny that it appears at first to be pure black comedy, with the newly bereaved sisters indulging wildly in witty bickering and dope-induced dress-ups Their quarrels over the fu-neral arrangements, their well-worn family roles, their unsatisfactory men and their mixed memories of a highly feminine working-class mother are hilarious In THE MEMORY OF WATER, [Shelagh Stephenson] skillfully charts the joyous and painful territory of family relationships with insight and compassion."
Constellations
Nick Payne - 2012
Infinite possibilities. 'Let's go for a drink. I don't know what I'm doing here anyway. One drink. And if you never want to see me again you never have to see me again'. Nick Payne's "Constellations" is a play about free will and friendship; it's about quantum multiverse theory, love and honey. "Constellations" premiered at the Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in January 2012.
Bull
Mike Bartlett - 2013
Three candidates. This would be a really bad time to have a stain on your shirt...A savage, acid-tongued new play by Mike Bartlett, one of the UK's most exciting and inventive young writers, and the author of the off-Broadway smash hit Cock. Razor sharp and blackly comic, Bull is a savage and insightful play about office politics or playground bullying, depending which side you're on. Genuinely thrilling, daring and inventive, acclaimed playwright Bartlett probes the dark side of the modern workplace.Bull enjoyed its US premiere in spring 2013 at 59E59 Theaters's "Brits Off-Broadway" festival.