Sprinklers swivelled to a hypnotic beat, cicadas pulsed to the shimmering heat, the concrete was caramel under your feet and the ice-cream van turned slow motion into our dead-end street'. Matt Cameron's arresting new play begins like a fairytale - but ends somewhere else entirely.

    This screenplay featured in the 2019 Black List, and is now in development with Olivia Wilde attached as director. Wilde will also appear in the film alongside Florence Pugh, Chris Pine, Shia LaBeouf and Dakota Johnson.

    In this sly critique of contemporary relationships, Reza skillfully picks apart the friendship of three men via a bowl of olives and a white-on-white painting. Now translated into more than 30 languages, Art continues to be performed worldwide, even as Reza's other plays have garnered similar acclaim. Life x 3, Reza's most recent offering, again highlights her satirical wit as two couples face off in three different versions of the dinner from hell. Praised as "compact, cool and clever" by Christopher Isherwood of Variety, Reza uses the acidic exchanges of her characters to illuminate their inner desire for love and acceptance. Also included in this edition are two earlier plays, The Unexpected Man and Conversations After a Burial. Each elucidates the startling difference between public and private life, be it in the confines of a train compartment or a country estate in the aftermath of a loved one's passing.

    Norman, who works in a doughnut shop and is unable to resist the lure of the sweet pastries, takes great pride in the huge bundle of keys that dangles from his waist; Lucien P. Smith has the mind of a five-year-old but imagines that he is able to read and comprehend the weighty books he lugs about; Arnold, the ringleader of the group, is a hyperactive, compulsive chatterer, who suffers from deep-seated insecurities and a persecution complex; while Barry, a brilliant schizophrenic who is devastated by the unfeeling rejection of his brutal father, fantasizes that he is a golf pro. Mingled with scenes from the daily lives of these four, where "little things" sometimes become momentous (and often very funny), are moments of great poignancy when, with touching effectiveness, we are reminded that the handicapped, like the rest of us, want only to love and laugh and find some meaning and purpose in the brief time that they, like their more fortunate brothers, are allotted on this earth.

    Strongly influenced by cabaret and female drag, this exquisite rejection of shame and stereotype will punch you in the gut, break your heart and then take you dancing.

    The topics include feminism and the role of women in the drama, the American Dream, business and capitalism, the significance of technology, the legacy that Willy leaves to Biff, and Miller's use of symbolism. The authors of the essays include prominent Arthur Miller scholars such as Terry Otten and the late Steven Centola as well as young, emerging scholars. Some of the essays, particularly the ones written by the emerging scholars, tend to employ literary theory while the ones by the established scholars tend to illustrate the strengths of traditional criticism by interpreting the text closely. It is fascinating to see how scholars at different stages of their academic careers approach a given topic from distinct perspectives and sometimes diverse methodologies. The essays offer insightful and provocative readings of Death of a Salesman in a collection that will prove quite useful to scholars and students of Miller's most famous play.

    Nowhere is this more evident than in his latest play, Book of Days, which has won the Best Play Award from the American Theater Critics Association. Book of Days is set in a small town dominated by a cheese plant, a fundamentalist church, and a community theater. When the owner of the cheese plant dies mysteriously in a hunting accident, Ruth, his bookkeeper, suspects murder. Cast as Joan of Arc in a local production of George Bernard Shaw's St. Joan, Ruth takes on the attributes of her fictional character and launches into a one-woman campaign to see justice done. In Book of Days, Lanford Wilson uses note-perfect language to create characters who are remarkable both for their comic turns and for their enormous depth. "Mr. Wilson's cosmic consciousness, intense moral concern, sense of human redemption and romantic effusion have climbed to a new peak." -- Alvin Klein, The New York Times; "A significant addition to the Lanford Wilson canon . . . his best work since Fifth of July . . . Book of Days manages to combine Wilson's signature character-based whimsy with an atypically strong narrative book and politically charged underpinnings." -- Chris Jones, Variety; "Book of Days is lively storytelling by one of our best playwrights." -- Lawrence DeVine, Detroit Free Press.

    It finds in the lives of Maggie, her family and her neighbours not only all the tragedy that appalling housing, massive unemployment and grinding poverty can produce, but alo a rich vein of comedy - the sense of the ridiculous, the need for a good laugh.

    It broke all historic records for plays of any kind, with an original London run of 1,466 performances.The play was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds in February 1892.

    Head "greaser" Danny Zuko and new (good) girl Sandy Dumbrowski try to relive the high romance of their "Summer Nights" as the rest of the gang sings and dances its way through such songs as "Greased Lightnin'", "It's

    Alan Baker, a 30-ish swinging bachelor with time, money and women to spare, welcomes rebellious and eager 21-year brother Buddy into his den of iniquity while their horrified parents can only watch and pray. This farcical 60's romp became a hit movie starring Frank Sinatra. "A slick, lively, funny comedy."-The New York Times

    "An unflaggingly witty and often moving slice of life . . . Poor Super Man explodes on to the stage like a bold comic strip, complete with snappy captions and hard, bright, witty dialogue," writes the Edmonton Journal.

    As a blizzard rages outside, a lonely figure, Henry Harry, lies sleeping under a heap of blankets. Suddenly, he is awakened by the insistent knocking of an unexpected visitor who turns out to be Rosannah DeLuce, a distraught young woman who has fled all the way from Arizona to escape her impending marriage, and who bursts into the cabin dressed in full bridal regalia. Exhausted, she throws herself on Henry's mercy, but after sleeping for two days straight, her vigor and combativeness return. Both characters, it develops, have been wounded and embittered by life, and both are refugees from so-called civilization. Thrown together in the confines of the snowbound cabin, they alternately repel and attract each other as, in theatrically vivid exchanges, they explore the pain of the past and, in time, consider the possibilities of the present. In the end their very isolation proves to be the catalyst that allows them to break through the web of old griefs and bitter feelings that beset them both and to reach out for the solace and sanctuary that only hard-won understanding, self-awareness and compassion for the plight of others can bestow.

    There's a funny smell coming from one of Jim's storage units. And Kate's losing it after spending all day with the police. There's no going back after what they've seen.Breathing Corpses was first performed at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs in February 2005.

    Harold Pinter specializes in the tragicomedy of the breakdown of communication, broadly in the tradition of the theatre of the absurds and this is demonstrated in both The Caretaker and The Birthday Party.