Earthquakes in London


Mike Bartlett - 2010
    It is a fast and furious metropolitan crash of people, scenes and decades, as three sisters attempt to navigate their dislocated lives and loves, while their dysfunctional father, a brilliant scientist, predicts global catastrophe.Mike Bartlett's contemporary and directed dialogue combines a strong sense of humanity with epic ambition, as well as finely-aimed shafts of political comment embedded effortlessly into every scene. Earthquakes in London represents modern playwriting at its most exciting and ambitious.It's Cabaret, we've got our heads down and we're dancing and drinking as fast as we can. The enemy is on its way, but this time it doesn't have guns and gas it has storms and earthquakes, fire and brimstone…. You were the glimmer. At the end of the tunnel. And you went out.

Someday


Drew Hayden Taylor - 1993
    The story in Someday, though told through fictional characters and full of Taylor's distinctive wit and humour, is based on the real-life tragedies suffered by many Native Canadian families.Anne Wabung's daughter was taken away by children's aid workers when the girl was only a toddler. It is Christmastime 35 years later, and Anne's yearning to see her now-grown daughter is stronger than ever.When the family is finally reunited, however, the dreams of neither women are fulfilled.The setting for the play is a fictional Ojibway community, but could be any reserve in Canada, where thousands of Native children were removed from their families in what is known among Native people as the "scoop-up" of the 1950s and 1960s. Somedayis an entertaining, humourous, and spirited play that packs an intense emotional wallop.Reviews: "One of the 50 Essential Canadian Plays"-- Toronto Star

Serjeant Musgrave's Dance


John Arden - 1959
    In Arden's introductory note to the text, he describes it as "a realistic, but not a naturalistic" play. The work follows three privates in the British Army and their sergeant, all of whom are deserters from a foreign imperialist war. Serjeant Musgrave and his men, Hurst, Sparky and Attercliffe, come to a northern English coal mining town in 1879. The community is in the grip of a coal strike and cut off by winter snow. The one means of reaching the town is by canal barge. They arrive in the company of the Bargee, a foul-mouthed, disrespectful individual who teases and abuses everyone, especially those in authority. In the local inn the soldiers meet Mrs. Hitchcock, who runs the inn, and the barmaid Annie. The soldiers are greeted by the mayor, parson and constable, who ask them to recruit men in hopes of alleviating some of the town's unemployment as a way to rid the town of their economic dead weight. Musgrave pretends that this is indeed his goal, and asks Mrs. Hitchcock about Billy Hicks, a dead fellow soldier from the mining town. It is revealed that Billy was the father of Annie's illegitimate child, but the baby died, and Annie's sanity has suffered from the loss of both Billy and her child.

Woman and Scarecrow


Marina Carr - 2006
    What was life? What was love? What else could have been? Full of mordant, bitter humour, this is a passionate threnody from one of Ireland's leading playwrights.Woman and Scarecrow premieres at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in June 2006.

The Producers


Mel Brooks - 2002
    This songbook contains easy piano arrangements of a dozen songs from Mel Brooks' Broadway blockbuster, the winner of a record 12 Tony Awards! Includes: Along Came Bialy * Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop * Goodbye! * Haben Sie Gehort Das Deutsche Band? * I Wanna Be a Producer * In Old Bavaria * Keep It Gay * Prisoners of Love * Springtime for Hitler * That Face * 'Til Him * When You Got It, Flaunt It.

Babylon Heights


Irvine Welsh - 2006
    Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The production called for the casting of many dwarfs to play the Munchkins of the mythical Land of Oz and the studio began recruiting 'small persons' from all over the world. During production, rumours spread around Hollywood of wild Munchkin sex orgies, drunken behavior and general dwarf debauchery. More sinisterly, a Munchkin is said to have committed suicide by hanging himself on the set during filming - what appears to be a small human body is clearly visible hanging from a tree in the Tin Man scene. It is a claim that has passed into Hollywood legend. Set in a hotel room in Culver City, California, Babylon Heights is Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh's scabrous and hilarious imagining of what could, very possibly, have led to that dwarf suicide. Babylon Heights premiered at the Exit Theatre, San Francisco, in June 2006.

Blood Knot and Other Plays


Athol Fugard - 1989
    "A rare playwright, who could be a primary candidate for either the Nobel Prize in Literature or the Nobel Peace Prize."--Mel Gussow, The New Yorker

The Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays


Paula Vogel - 1995
    The first major collection of plays by leading lesbian playwright Paula Vogel.

His Dark Materials


Nicholas Wright - 2005
    * Consists of the two critically acclaimed plays performed at the National Theatre both printed in one volume - thus offering exceptional value for money. * Invaluable teacher's notes and student drama activities written by Ruth Moore and Paul Bunyan, recognised experts in the area of Drama in English. * Philip Pullman worked closely with playwright Nicolas Wright to create the text, and both writers have contributed introductions to our edition. * The exciting, highly imaginative storyline, which captivates boys and girls alike, offers a wide range of textual and dramatic investigations. Parts for all the class, and ideal for smaller groups, with potential for interchangeable male/female roles.

Hand to God: A New American Play


Robert Askins - 2017
    But when the young members of the Christian Puppet Ministry put those teachings into practice, one devout young man's puppet takes on a shocking personality that no one could have expected. In this hilarious black comedy, a foul-mouthed sock puppet named Tyrone soon teaches those around him that the urges that can drive a person to give in to their darkest desires fit like a glove. In Hand to God, a "true tour de force" (New York Times), Robert Askins has written a play of "unerring perfection" (Huffington Post). The must-see hit of the 2015 Broadway season, starring Steven Boyer and Geneva Carr, garnered an Obie Award and five Tony Award nominations, including Best Play, following its sold out, critically acclaimed off-Broadway runs at MCC Theater and Ensemble Studio Theatre.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning


Will Arbery - 2019
    They've returned home to toast their mentor Gina, newly inducted as president of a tiny Catholic college. But as their reunion spirals into spiritual chaos and clashing generational politics, it becomes less a celebration than a vicious fight to be understood. On a chilly night in the middle of America, Will Arbery's haunting play offers grace and disarming clarity, speaking to the heart of a country at war with itself.

The Weir and Other Plays


Conor McPherson - 1999
    collection of an extraordinary new voice in Irish drama.

My Sister in This House


Wendy Kesselman - 1981
    This extraordinary drama, produced to acclaim at the Actors Theatre of Louisville originally, and at NYC's Second Stage is about a celebrated 1930's French murder case, in which two maids sisters were convicted of murdering their employer and her daughter. This very cinematically structured work explores the motivations whi

The Collection and The Lover


Harold Pinter - 1963
    "The Lover" is a one-act play for television, in which two characters play the double parts of wife-mistress and husband-lover. Also included is a short story, "The Examination".

Lorca Plays: One: Blood Wedding, Doña Rosita the Spinster, and Yerma


Federico García Lorca - 1935
    Blood Wedding tells the story of a couple drawn irresistibly together in the face of an arranged marriage; Doña Rosita the Spinster follows the appalling fate of a young woman beguiled into the expectation of marriage and left stranded for a lifetime whilst Yerma is possibly Lorca's harshest play following a woman's Herculean struggle against the curse of infertility. Set in and around his home territory, Granada, the plays return again and again to the lives of passionate individuals, particularly women, trapped by the social conventions of narrow peasant communities. The plays appear here in new playable translations.