Book picks similar to
Queen Anne by Helen Edmundson
historical-fiction
lgbt-book-club
plays
genre-dramatic-literature
The Libertine
Stephen Jeffreys - 1995
He was an anti-monarchist Royalist, an atheist who converted to Christianity and a lyric poet who revelled in pornography. The play centres on the moment his cynicism is confounded when he falls in love in earnest.Thoroughly modern in its attitude to Rochester's sexual indulgence, the play is also a thrillingly convincing portrait of the period and an accomplished comedy of manners.Commissioned and directed by Max Stafford-Clark for Out of Joint, The Libertine was first performed on tour and at the Royal Court Theatre alongside the Restoration comedy, The Man of Mode, which offers another, contemporary view of Rochester. Stephen Jeffreys is the author of A Going Concern, The Clink and Valued Friends, which won him the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award. He also adapted A Jovial Crew for the RSC.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay
J.K. Rowling - 2016
Rowling's screenwriting debut is captured in this exciting hardcover edition of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them screenplay.When Magizoologist Newt Scamander arrives in New York, he intends his stay to be just a brief stopover. However, when his magical case is misplaced and some of Newt's fantastic beasts escape, it spells trouble for everyone…Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them marks the screenwriting debut of J.K. Rowling, author of the beloved and internationally bestselling Harry Potter books. Featuring a cast of remarkable characters, this is epic, adventure-packed storytelling at its very best.Whether an existing fan or new to the wizarding world, this is a perfect addition to any reader's bookshelf.
The Melting Pot Drama in Four Acts
Israel Zangwill - 1908
Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Rent
Jonathan Larson - 1996
Sweeping all major theater awards, including the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama, as well as four 1996 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score for a Musical, Rent captures the heart and spirit of a generation, refleting it onstage through the emotion of its stirring words and music, and the energy of its young cast. Now, for the first time, Rent comes to life on the page -- through vivid color photographs, the full libretto, and an utterly compelling behind-the-scenes oral history of the show's creation. Here is the exclusive and absolutely complete companion to Rent, told in the voices of the extraordinary talent behind its success: the actors, the director, the producers, and the librettist and composer himself, Jonathan Larson, whose sudden death, on the eve of the first performance, has made Rent's life-affirming message all the more poignant.
In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play
Sarah Ruhl - 2010
Set in the 1880s at the dawn of the age of electricity and based on the bizarre historical fact that doctors used vibrators to treat 'hysterical' women (and some men), the play centers on a doctor and his wife and how his new therapy affects their entire household. In a seemingly perfect, well-to-do Victorian home, proper gentleman and scientist Dr. Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating "hysteria" in women (and occasionally men): the vibrator. Adjacent to the doctor's laboratory, his young and energetic wife tries to tend to their newborn daughter-and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room. When a new "hysterical" patient and her husband bring a wet nurse and their own complicated relationship into the doctor's home, Dr. and Mrs. Givings must examine the nature of their own marriage, and what it truly means to love someone.This laugh out loud, provocative and touching play premiered at Berkely Rep and subsequently marked Sarah Ruhl's Broadway debut opening at the Lyceum Theatre on November 19th, 2009.
The Field
John Brendan Keane - 1966
Keane's fierce and tender study of the love a man can have for land and the ruthless lengths he will go to in order to obtain the object of his desire. It is dominated by Bull McCabe, one of the most famous characters in Irish writing today. An Oscar-nominated adaptation of The Field proved highly successful and popular worldwide, and starred Richard Harris, Sean Bean, John Hurt, Brenda Fricker and Tom Berenger.
Cloud 9
Caryl Churchill - 1979
The same family appears in Act Two 25 years older and back in London, only now it’s 1979. Cloud 9 is about relationships between women and men, men and men, women and women. It is about sex, work, mothers, Africa, power, children, grandmothers, politics, money, Queen Victoria, and Sex. Cloud 9 premiered in London at the Royal Court Theatre in 1979 and has since been staged all over the world.
Wasted
Kate Tempest - 2013
I'm changing things. This is it.Three old friends in their mid-twenties. One remarkable day. For Ted, Danny and Charlotte, it’s time to seize control. Make a difference. Change things. This is it.A day trip through the parks and raves and cafes of South London, where life is what you make it. The rapid fire words of Kate Tempest paint a picture of lives less ordinary in an unforgiving world, sound-tracked by an exhilarating score.The drama mixes rap-style poetry delivered with microphones and self-reflexive addresses to the audience.A play about love, life and losing your mind, and the first play from one of the UK’s most exciting performance poets, Kate Tempest.
Indecent
Paula Vogel - 2017
Performing at first in Yiddish and German, the play’s subject matter wasn’t deemed contentious until it was produced in English, when the American audiences were scandalized by the onstage depiction of an amorous affair between two women. Paula Vogel’s newest work traces the trajectory of the show’s success through its tour in Europe to its abrupt and explosive demise on Broadway in 1923—including the arrest of the entire production’s cast and crew.Paula Vogel's play How I Learned to Drive received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel Prize, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play, as well as earning Vogel her second Obie. Other plays include The Baltimore Waltz, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, The Long Christmas Ride Home, A Civil War Christmas, and Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq. She has also had a distinguished career as a teacher and mentor to younger playwrights, first at Brown University and currently at the Yale School of Drama.Based on real events, a provocative new drama from a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright about one of Broadway’s greatest controversies
The Willow Pool
Elizabeth Elgin - 2000
But before Meg can take her first steps into the unknown alone, she must look to her past. Why, she wonders, did her mother wear a wedding ring but never marry? Why, for instance, does the tallyman never call at No. 3 Tippet's Yard to collect any rent? He does everywhere else. With Ma gone, Meg must go back to her roots to uncover her 'family tree'. However, the process of simplfying her life leads to unforseen complications. But there's always Kip, reliable and loving, to pick up the pieces of her unsolved life and love.
Gasping
Ben Elton - 1990
A satire on big business, the media and product exploitation. Designer air proves to be the marketing phenomenon of the decade, but as demand outstrips supply, Lockheart Industries plunders the Third World for resources. The world is starting to gasp, and only the biggest suckers survive.Lockheart Industries are making big money - if God wanted to buy into their stock he'd have to think twice and talk to his people. They have a profit curve wound so far round the room that it looks like a "Blue Peter" Christmas appeal. But they want more.
The Rover
Aphra Behn - 1681
It is a revision of Thomas Killigrew's play "Thomaso", or "The Wanderer" (1664), and features multiple plot lines, dealing with the amorous adventures of a group of Englishmen and women in Naples at Carnival time. According to Restoration poet John Dryden, it "lacks the manly vitality of Killigrew's play, but shows greater refinement of expression." The play stood for three centuries as "Behn's most popular and most respected play."
My Boy Jack
David Haig - 1998
Rudyard Kipling's determination to send his myopic son to war triggers a bitter family conflict which leaves Kipling devastated by the conflict between his two greates passions: a love for children-above all his own-and a devotion to King and Country.
The Game's Afoot
Richard Foreman - 2018
Henry V receives intelligence, through his agent Thomas Chaucer, that the French intend to re-forge their old alliance with Scotland. The king orders Chaucer and veteran archer Robert Cooper to travel across the border and intercept a French agent, Reynard of Troyes, before he can deliver the gold which will fund Scotland's war with England. Chaucer also learns of a plot to murder the man that England cannot afford to go to war without. He orders the man-at-arms, Edward Fordham, to remain in the capital, solve the mystery and stop the assassin. But all is not what it seems. Some wars are fought in the shadows as well as on the battlefield... 'Band of Brothers: The Game’s Afoot' is a story is action, intrigue and historical insight. It is perfect for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Conn Iggulden and George Macdonald Fraser.