One wintry morning academic Prudencia Hart sets off to a conference in the Scottish Borders. Stranded there by snow, she is swept off on a dream-like journey of self discovery, complete with magical moments, devilish encounters and wittily wild music. Inspired by the Border ballads, The National Theatre of Scotland's production of The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart by David Greig has toured throughout Scotland and the world since 2011. In 2013 the Royal Court Theatre presented the London premiere of this production as part of their Theatre Local strand of site specific productions. 'You shouldn't miss this for the world . . . Rambunctiously life-affirming and touchingly beautiful.' Herald 'More vibrantly alive than any piece of theatre I've seen in Scotland for years.' Scotsman

They won't even know we won this game. Only you and I will know that we Topped Their Love. Love has no limits for the Diggs siblings: there's nothing that seventeen-year-old Jude won't do to keep her younger brother Acton safe. Growing up in the turbulence of 1970s America, Jude works nights and weekends to pay the bills, just so that they can stay together with their mother. But when Acton's troublesome pals form a club in their basement, a foolish game threatens to upend Jude's plans and derail their lives forever. Jude will do anything to protect her brother, but someone may have to pay the price. As trust and loyalty are put on the line, hindsight proves devastating in Naomi Wallace's riveting drama. The Breach opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in May 2022.

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was one of the most successful dramatists of the Restoration theatre, a popular poet and author of the influential novel "Oroonoko". This is a seven-volume set of all her works. Volumes 5,6 and 7 are scheduled for publication in early 1996.

Martin McDonagh's plays have been produced in Galway, Dublin, London and New York. They have created excitement and have won numerous awards. In individual editions the plays have been among Methuen's most popular sellers. 'Martin McDonagh's The Leenane Trilogy, one of the great events of the contemporary Irish theatre' (Irish Times). This volume contains: The Beauty Queen of Leenane - 'McDonagh's writing is pitiless but compassionate: he casts a cold, hard, but understanding eye on relationships made of mistrust, hesitation, resentment and malevolence' (Sunday Times); A Skull in Connemara - 'Here, McDonagh's gift is at its most naked and infectious ...it leaves you giddy with gruesome exhilaration' (Financial Times); The Lonesome West: 'The play combines manic energy and physical violence in a way that is both hilarious and viscerally exciting' (Daily Telegraph)"A star is born, bright and blazing, confident, individual and shockingly accomplished" (Sunday Times)

Goldoni's eighteenth-century masterpiece is an enduring story of love, passion and mistaken identity. Young Venetian Clarice can't marry her lover, Silvio. She had been betrothed to Rasponi, who appears to have returned from the dead to claim her. But the Rasponi who appears is actually Beatrice, Rasponi's sister who is in disguise as her brother and has come to Venice to find her suitor, Florinda. Complications arise when a servant greedily seeks employment with both the disguised Beatrice and Florinda and spends the rest of the play trying to serve two masters while keeping the two unaware of the other's presence.

The play is based on the Italian Renaissance theatre style, "Commedia dell'arte," and reinvigorated the genre, which is so heavily based on carnival, while bringing to it an element of realism, mishaps, mix-ups, confusions, disguises and mistaken identity that come with the style.

In this new, rapid fire adaptation by award winning dramatist Lee Hall, the language has been updated to now in order to give the action the fast-paced feeling of a Christmas pantomime.

A sizzling drama of desire, avarice and deception set in the American Deep South, Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is published in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Big Daddy' Pollitt, the richest cotton planter in the Mississippi Delta, is about to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday. His two sons have returned home for the occasion: Gooper, his wife and children, Brick, an ageing football hero who has turned to drink, and his feisty wife Maggie. As the hot summer evening unfolds, the veneer of happy family life and Southern gentility gradually slips away as unpleasant truths emerge and greed, lies, jealousy and suppressed sexuality threaten to reach boiling point. Made into a film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a masterly portrayal of family tensions and individuals trapped in prisons of their own making. Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was born in Columbus, Mississippi. When his father, a travelling salesman, moved with his family to St Louis some years later, both he and his sister found it impossible to settle down to city life. He entered college during the Depression and left after a couple of years to take a clerical job in a shoe company. He stayed there for two years, spending the evenings writing. He received a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1940 for his play Battle of Angels, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 and 1955. Among his many other plays Penguin have published The Glass Menagerie (1944), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), The Night of the Iguana (1961), and Small Craft Warnings (1972). If you enjoyed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, you might like Williams's The Glass Menagerie, also published in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Tennessee Williams will live as long as drama itself ... he is, quite simply, indispensable' Peter Shaffer, author of Equus

"Oedipus Tyrannos is the first Greek play many readers encounter, and this version is their ideal gateway. Emily Wilson's verse line is effortlessly graceful, whether in taut, tense dialogue exchanges or in the lyrical choral odes." -JAMES ROMM, Bard College

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a play which, as it were, takes place in the wings of Hamlet, and finds both humour and poignancy in the situation of the ill-fated attendant lords. The National Theatre production in April 1967 made Tom Stoppard's reputation virtually overnight. Its wit, stagecraft and verbal verve remain as exhilarating as they were then and the play has become a contemporary classic.

Screenwriting for micro-budget films can present its own challenges and this book takes the reader through all the considerations that need to be made to write an effective screenplay for a low-budget film. Drawing on his own experience, case studies from films such as Primer, Coherence and Reservoir Dogs, as well as the perspectives of working screenwriters such as Joe Swanberg and Alex Ross-Perry, Greenberg explores common pitfalls screenwriters face and suggests practical solutions. This book lays the groundworks of the realities of low-budget filmmaking and also talks through the practical aspects, such as story structure and genre considerations. Greenberg makes the process of writing a screenplay for a low-budget film accessible and creative, allowing student and independent filmmakers to tailor their writing for their films. This book is ideal for aspiring screenwriters, independent filmmakers and students of screenwriting.

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was one of the most successful dramatists of the Restoration theatre and a popular poet. This is the fourth volume in a set of seven which comprises a complete edition of all her works.

William Shakespeare's Othello (1601-2) has delighted and disturbed theatre audiences for the past four centuries, and remains one of the most frequently performed and widely studied of his plays. This volume is a broad-ranging guide to Othello, providing an introduction to:
* the contexts of the play, through a concise, accessible overview, a chronology and reprinted documents from the period
* the range of critical responses to the play, through a brief critical history and reprinted critical texts, accompanied by explanatory headnotes; and
* the play in performance, through a selection of clearly introduced readings on this topic, along with illustrations.
The Sourcebook then examines key passages of the play in detail. Each passage is reprinted in full, along with a headnote and annotations offering crucial guidance to Shakespeare's language and the critical issues which surround the text. Throughout the volume, cross-references link together the contextual materials, critical responses and the play's text.
If you are beginning to study Othello, this Routledge Literary Sourcebook is the one guide you cannot afford to be without.

Kneehigh now finds itself celebrated as one of the UK's most exciting theatre companies. This collection contains the performance texts of four of their highly acclaimed shows: Tristan & Yseult, The Bacchae, The Wooden Frock and The Red Shoes. With forewords from Emma Rice, Tom Morris, Anna Maria Murphy and Carl Grose, it offers a unique insight into Kneehigh's approach to making theatre, revealing how ascript can emerge from a collaborative devising process.

'30 just matters, innit. Like there's no doubt you're a proper adult then. Like 25 to 29 is just training, but 30, it's real.' Tunde's thirtieth birthday is fast approaching. So he's started therapy because he hasn't been able to get to the gym for weeks, and a recent one-night stand ended in tears - his. Interrogating the challenge of opening up and accepting our own vulnerabilities, Ifeyinwa Frederick's Sessions is a raw, funny, bittersweet deep-dive into the complexities of masculinity, depression and therapy. It was first produced in 2021 on tour of the UK, before a run at Soho Theatre, London, co-produced by Paines Plough and Soho, and directed by Philip Morris.

The show that we're about to do is a story about the future. The story that we're going to tell is the story of us; the story of our future. It's a story that we are going to tell together. I hope that sounds okay. From the makers of Five Encounters on a Site Called Craigslist and the accident did not take place comes an act of communal storytelling. There's a baby born in a lighthouse, a man on fire in the middle of the desert, two lovers reunited in a ruined city, there's a dying spaceship on the edge of a black hole. we were promised honey! is a hopeful, hopeless prophecy for humankind. A meditation on inevitability, despair and how we tell a story when we already know the end. This new edition includes a foreword written by Katie Hawthorne. This edition was published to coincide with the production at London's Soho Theatre in November 2022, following a successful run at Edinburgh Fringe 2022.

Part One of the two-part Angels in America, Tony Kushner's epic drama set during the Reagan years in America - now recognised as one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century. Prior, visited by ghosts of his ancestors and abandoned by his lover after his diagnosis with AIDS, is wondering if he is still sane when the angels select him to be their prophet. Powerbroker Roy Cohn also has the virus - but he believes that only the powerless can have that particular illness, and so kicks back against his diagnosis. In the 'melting pot where nothing melted' of modern America, the nation's reaction to the sickness - and its sufferers - is laid bare. Millennium Approaches was premiered in May 1991 by the Eureka Theatre Company, San Francisco, directed by David Esbjornson. In London it was premiered in January 1992 in a National Theatre production at the Cottesloe Theatre, directed by Declan Donnellan. The play received many awards, including Best Play at the 1992 Evening Standard Awards, Best New Play at the 1992 Critics' Circle Awards, Best Play at the 1993 Tony Awards and the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

"Barron paints a wholly plausible picture of teenage insecurity and ambition ... a play that wittily shows how dance can be a source of liberation without ever quelling the tremulous terrors of adolescence." - The Guardian Somewhere in America, a revolution is coming. An army of competitive dancers is ready to take over the world, one routine at a time. With a pre-teen battle for power and perfection raging on and off stage, Dance Nation is a ferocious exploration of youth, ambition and self-discovery. Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and The Relentless Award, Dance Nation is Clare Barron's explosive play about the challenges of being young, and competitive dancing. Published for the first time in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, this edition features a brand new introduction by Eboni Booth and Purva Bedi.

From an early age I discovered a talent for rhyme that amused me and it wasna t until I was in my teens that I realised that I could write rhyming pieces at will. This manifested itself in a series of plays I did for the NatWest Bank, one of which, a A Queen for all Seasons.a was broadcast on the BBC in 1979. Fun and frolics were the main ingredient but a double entendrea was the cutting edge to the plays. Others followed in quick succession. Here are a few that have survived.

An inventive, fast-paced comedy featuring P.G. Wodehouse's iconic double act. Winner of the 2014 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. When a country house weekend takes a turn for the worse, Bertie Wooster is unwittingly called on to play matchmaker - reconciling the affections of his host's drippy daughter Madeline Bassett with his newt-fancying acquaintance Gussie Fink-Nottle. If Bertie, ably assisted by the ever-dependable Jeeves, can't pull off the wedding of the season he'll be forced to abandon his cherished bachelor status and marry the ghastly girl himself! Based on P.G. Wodehouse's delightfully bonkers stories, especially The Code of the Woosters, the Goodale Brothers' dramatisation premiered at the Duke of York's Theatre, West End, in November 2013, prior to a UK tour. Written for a cast of three, who play multiple roles, this adaptation will suit any theatre company or drama group looking for a comic play to perform.

Written in 1836, Woyzeck is often considered to be the first truly modern play. The story of a soldier driven mad by inhuman military discipline and acute social deprivation is told in splintered dialogue and jagged episodes, which are as shocking and telling today as they were when first performed, almost a century after the author's death, in Munich 1913. This edition contains introductory commentary and notes by Laura Martin from the University of Glasgow. METHUEN DRAMA STUDENT EDITIONS are expertly annotated texts of a wide range of plays from the modern and classic repertoires. A well as the complete text of the play itself, this volume contains: * A chronology of the play and the playwright's life and work * an introductory discussion of the social, political, cultural and economic context in which the play was originally conceived and created * a succinct overview of the creation processes followed and subsequent performance history of the piece * an analysis of, and commentary on, some of the major themes and specific issues addressed by the text * a bibliography of suggested primary and secondary materials for further study.

Ntozake Shange’s classic, award-winning play encompassing the wide-ranging experiences of Black women, now with introductions by two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward and Broadway director Camille A. Brown.

From its inception in California in 1974 to its Broadway revival in 2022, the Obie Award–winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has excited, inspired, and transformed audiences all over the country for nearly fifty years. Passionate and fearless, Shange’s words reveal what it meant to be a woman of color in the 20th century.

First published in 1975, when it was praised by The New Yorker for “encompassing…every feeling and experience a woman has ever had,” for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf will be read and performed for generations to come. Now with new introductions by Jesmyn Ward and Broadway director Camille A. Brown, and one poem not included in the original, here is the complete text of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world.

"We've stood up - we've lain down - we've concentrated. We've sat interminably while that tiresome old woman recited extremely unflattering verses at us. We're endured five ""seances ""- we've watched her fling herself in and out of trances until we're dizzy, and at the end of it all we find ourselves exactly where we were at the beginning."Researching for his new novel, Charles Condomine invites the implausible medium Madame Arcati to his house for a seance. Whilst consumed in a trance, Madame Arcati unwittingly summons the ghost of Charles's dead wife, Elvira. Appearing only to Charles, Elvira soon makes a play to reclaim her husband, much to the chagrin of Charles's new wife, Ruth. One husband, two feuding wives and a whisper of mischief in the air - who will win in Coward's unworldly comedy?Written in 1941, "Blithe Spirit" remained the longest-running comedy in the history of the British theatre for three decades thereafter. Dealing with relationships on both sides of the grave, it is an enduring classic.A new edition of Coward's classic play ""published to coincide with the 2014 new West End revival at the Gielgud Theatre, starring Angela Lansberry as Madame Arcati."

The bark creeps up my body like a rising sea level. I wonder what will happen when it reaches my heart. When a woman tells a lie to her girlfriend, a seed is planted that grows in the darkness. Now roots are cracking through the pavement and branches are coming in at the windows. As she starts to see things that no one else can, she becomes the focus of some seriously unwanted attention. A queer urban fable about passion, power and photosynthesis and a contemporary thriller with ancient roots, Rafaella Marcus's Sap, her first full-length stage play, opened at Roundabout @ Summerhall, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in August 2022.

Aristophanes's satirical masterpieces, immensely popular with the Athenian public, were frequently crude, even obscene. His plays revealed to his contemporaries, and now teach us today, that when those in power act obscenely, patriotic obscenity is a fitting response. Until now English translations have failed to capture Aristophanes's poetic genius. Aaron Poochigian, the first poet-classicist to tackle these plays in a generation, offers "effortlessly readable and genuinely theatrical" (Simon Armitage) versions of four of Aristophanes's most entertaining, provocative and lyrically ingenious comedies, finally giving twenty-first-century readers a sense of the subversive pleasure audiences felt when these works were first performed on the Athenian stage.