* The only book that provides a thorough introduction to the current state of play in Australian theatre, including coverage of previously marginalized voices; * Platforms previously marginalized voices in Australia, covering the work of writers of colour, queer writers and gender diverse writers; * Includes a series of duologues between major contemporary Australian playwrights which are provided in both written and podcast form.

This book, first published in 1985, assembles essential facts on Samuel Beckett and makes vital but elusive information available. It contains a comprehensive checklist of all the writer's plays, with a detailed performance history, excerpted reviews, and most importantly, a selection of Beckett's own comments on their work drawn from essays, interviews, letters and diaries. Other features include a chronology of life and work, a checklist of non-dramatic writings and an annotated bibliography.

The essays in this book, first published in 1975, suggest how best to approach Beckett, how to read him, how to get closer to the concrete experience offered by this most concrete of writers. It aims to bring out the full diversity of Beckett's art as dramatist and story-teller. His astonishing flexibility and inventiveness is stressed throughout, either in studies of single novels, or from the whole range of the fiction and stage drama, or from the experiments in other media: the solitary film, the radio plays. Beckett's bilingualism, one of the strangest aspects of his Proteanism, is examined through a comparison of the French and English texts of some of his stage plays. The emphasis of the essays is literary rather than philosophical: they explore narrative and dramatic processes, the strange partial transitions between them, the fine relations of form and feeling which Beckett aims at through whatever medium he is using, and his humaneness, expressed through the many nuances of his humour. The shorter fiction and the later writings also receive close attention.

An enhanced exam section: expert guidance on approaching exam questions, writing high-quality responses and using critical interpretations, plus practice tasks and annotated sample answer extracts. Key skills covered: focused tasks to develop analysis and understanding, plus regular study tips, revision questions and progress checks to help students track their learning. The most in-depth analysis: detailed text summaries and extract analysis to in-depth discussion of characters, themes, language, contexts and criticism, all helping students to reach their potential.

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1990. The book surveys of the development of German theatre from a market sideshow into an important element of cultural life and political expression. It examines Schiller as 'theatre poet' at Mannheim, Goethe's work as director of the court theatre at Weimar, and then traces the rapid commercial decline that made it difficult for Kleist and impossible for Buchner to see their plays staged in their own lifetime. Four representative texts are analysed: Schiller's The Robbers, Goethe's Iphigenia on Tauris, Kleist's The Prince of Homburg, and Buchner's Woyzeck. This title will be of interest to students of theatre and German literature.

An enhanced exam section: expert guidance on approaching exam questions, writing high-quality responses and using critical interpretations, plus practice tasks and annotated sample answer extracts. Key skills covered: focused tasks to develop your analysis and understanding, plus regular study tips, revision questions and progress checks to track your learning. The most in-depth analysis: detailed text summaries and extract analysis to in-depth discussion of characters, themes, language, contexts and criticism, all helping you to succeed.

This title, first published in 1960, is intended primarily to increase the understanding of drama among those who do not have easy access to the live theatre and who, therefore, study plays mainly in print. The author's emphasis is on Shakespeare, but most forms of drama receive some attention. A lucid and lively study of the techniques of plot, dialogue and characterization will help the reader to a deeper appreciated of the problems and successes of the dramatist.

More Bassey than Bhangra... Sonia's life has always been a bit of a double act, brought up as one half of a Shirley Bassey tribute act. Alongside her overbearing mother Gloria, she left a trail of sequins across the working men's clubs of East Anglia. Now she's divorced, battling through the middle-age jungle, wrangling unimpressed teenagers and navigating rocky friendships. But the arrival of her half-brother Naim brings a refreshed sense of belonging and cultural identity, and she begins to piece together the mosaic of her life. Can Sonia shake off the past, even with her ever-present mother keeping 'the show' on the road from beyond the grave? Glitterball is a play with live music, wry humour and a whole lotta sparkle. This edition was published to coincide with the first run produced by Rifco Theatre and Watford Palace Theatre at Watford Palace Theatre, in September 2022.

The comic grotesque is a powerful element in a great deal of Elizabethan literature, but one which has attracted scant critical attention. In this study, first published in 1980, Neil Rhodes examines the nature of the grotesque in late sixteenth-century culture, and shows the part it played in the development of new styles of comic prose and drama in Elizabethan England. In defining 'grotesque', the author considers the stylistic techniques of Rabelais and Aretino, as well as the graphic arts. He discusses the use of the grotesque in Elizabethan pamphlet literature and the early satirical journalists such as Nashe, and argues that their work in turn stimulated the growth of satirical drama at the end of the century. The second part of the book explains the importance of Nashe's achievement for Shakespeare and Jonson, concluding that the linguistic resources of English Renaissance comedy are peculiarly - and perhaps uniquely - physical.

In Stagecraft in Euripides, first published in 1985, Professor Michael Halleran examines certain aspects of the dramaturgy of the most extensively preserved Attic tragedian. Although the ancient dramatic texts do not contain performance directions, they do imply stage actions. This work explores the ways Euripides utilises the latter to make a point: to underline some issue, to suggest a contrast, or to shift the focus of the drama. Specifically, Halleran investigates the rearrangement of characters on stage at the major structural junctures of the play: entrances and their announcements; preparation for and surprise in entrances; and dramatic connections between exits and entrances. Three plays from the same era - Herakles, Trojan Women and Ion - are discussed in greater detail to reveal the potential of this approach for illuminating Euripides' 'grammar of dramatic technique'. Stagecraft in Euripides will thus appeal to students of theatre and drama as well as classicists.

The Art of Experience provides an interdisciplinary analysis of selected plays from Ireland's premier female playwright, Marina Carr. Dagmara Gizlo explores the transformative impact of a theatrical experience in which interdisciplinary boundaries must be crossed. This book demonstrates that theatre is therapeutic and therapy is theatrical. The role of emotions, cognitions, and empathy in the theatrical experience is investigated throughout. Dagmara Gizlo utilises the methodological tools stemming from modern empirically grounded psychology (such as cognitive-behavioural therapy or CBT) to the study of theatre's transformative potential. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre, performance, and literature, and will be a fascinating read for those at the intersection of cognitive studies and the humanities.

"McDowall masterfully plants ideas that grow until they explode into extraordinary shapes. Filthy humour breaks down into a cracked algorithm of letters and loss ... a play that will gnaw away at you. It's sci-fi - and theatre - at its best." The Stage 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. X premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2016. This new Modern Classics edition features an introduction by Dr Cristina Delgado-Garcia.

In Stagecraft in Euripides, first published in 1985, Professor Michael Halleran examines certain aspects of the dramaturgy of the most extensively preserved Attic tragedian. Although the ancient dramatic texts do not contain performance directions, they do imply stage actions. This work explores the ways Euripides utilises the latter to make a point: to underline some issue, to suggest a contrast, or to shift the focus of the drama. Specifically, Halleran investigates the rearrangement of characters on stage at the major structural junctures of the play: entrances and their announcements; preparation for and surprise in entrances; and dramatic connections between exits and entrances. Three plays from the same era - Herakles, Trojan Women and Ion - are discussed in greater detail to reveal the potential of this approach for illuminating Euripides' 'grammar of dramatic technique'. Stagecraft in Euripides will thus appeal to students of theatre and drama as well as classicists.

PAPERBACK FOR SALE IN AFRICA ONLY African dance is discussed here in its global as well as local contexts as a powerful vehicle of aesthetic and cultural exchange and influence. To date, scholars have tended, with a few exceptions, to write about African dance in primarily ethnographic terms. This collection seeks to challenge this pattern and expand dance research by engaging with the aesthetics and socio-political impact of dance for communities in and out of Africa in an increasingly global context. Contributors to this issue look at the impact that specifically situated indigenous dance forms have had on the development of newforms locally, and the reciprocal impact of local and international infrastructures, including funding bodies, tourism and festivals. African Theatre 17 examines how dance is contributing to a particularly African interculturalism, while analysing the issues of representation of Africa in a postcolonial context. Articles address the efficacy of dance to engage audiences with disavowed issues regarding gender, sexuality and dis/ability both within and beyond Africa. Highlights include a dance photo essay on F.O.D. Gang's 2017 site-specific street performance "Untitled" in Lagos, a new non-themed section, and the playscript Lunatic! by Zimbabwean playwright Thoko Zulu. Volume Editors: YVETTE HUTCHISON & CHUKWUMA OKOYE Series Editors: Yvette Hutchison, Reader, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick; Chukwuma Okoye, Reader in African Theatre & Performance University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds.

The authoritative edition of King Lear from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers. Shakespeare's King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the suffering of others. Lear himself rages until his sanity cracks. What, then, keeps bringing us back to King Lear? For all the force of its language, King Lear is almost equally powerful when translated, suggesting that it is the story, in large part, that draws us to the play. The play tells us about families struggling between greed and cruelty, on the one hand, and support and consolation, on the other. Emotions are extreme, magnified to gigantic proportions. We also see old age portrayed in all its vulnerability, pride, and, perhaps, wisdom--one reason this most devastating of Shakespeare's tragedies is also perhaps his most moving. This edition includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play's famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Susan Snyder The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

Love and marriage are the concerns of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Lucentio's marriage to Bianca is prompted by his idealized love of an apparently ideal woman. Petruchio's wooing of Katherine, however, is free of idealism. Petruchio takes money from Bianca's suitors to woo her, since Katherine must marry before her sister by her father's decree; he also arranges the dowry with her father. Petruchio is then ready to marry Katherine, even against her will. Katherine, the shrew of the play's title, certainly acts much changed. But have she and Petruchio learned to love each other? Or is the marriage based on terror and deception? The authoritative edition of The Taming of the Shrew from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Newly revised explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play's famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books -An up-to-date annotated guide to further reading Essay by Karen Newman The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

First published in 1970, this book includes all of the annual editions and also a final pamphlet of Samhain: October 1901 - November 1908, a literary magazine edited by W. B. Yeats. Samhain was one of the several magazines that the Irish Literary Theatre (later to become The Abbey Theatre) produced and it was born when the original magazine, Beltaine, came to an end in 1900. Yeats's editorial role was essential to the publication which served to publicize the work of the Theatre, promote current works of Irish playwrights and challenging those of their English opponents. The magazine mainly consists of a series of essays on the theatre in Dublin, and supplementing these are explanations and discussions of new plays, excerpts from which are often included. This book will be of interest to those with an interest in Yeats, early nineteenth-century literature, and Irish theatre.

You definitely want to f*ck her but you don't want to know her. You certainly don't want to stay for breakfast... Sarah Milton's new one-woman play tells the story of one woman's immediate response to a sexual assault, fueled by a toxic friendship and crisis of identity. Two best friends are heading out for the night. Our protagonist, known as 'She', is hoping to win over her crush - Isaac the bartender, at their favourite joint. That night, her best friend Trixie decides to invite a group of men home that she fancies, promoting She as her sexy, obtainable friend, to help seal the deal. But when She wakes up the next day, confused, sore, lying next to a man she doesn't recognise, she is forced to re-evaluate everything she thinks she knows about her friendships, identity and sexuality. This edition was published to coincide with the premiere at Park Theatre's Come What May Festival 2022. Do you remember the club, Amanda? Do you remember the club? In addition to 4, this play text also includesMilton's short spoken word piece The Night Tella which explores guilt, friendship and a night that should have ended in the chip shop. In these two complementary new pieces, Sarah Milton offers powerful, female led narratives with strong, complex characters.

First published in 1936, The Jacobean Drama is a brilliant interpretation of the drama written between the last years of Elizabeth I and the first years of Charles I. Professor Una Mary Ellis-Fermor's book traces the evolution of thought and mood from the end of Marlowe's career, through the works of Ben Jonson, Marston, Chapman, Middleton, Tourneur, Webster, Greville, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ford. The author then discusses a culminating phase in the plays of Shakespeare and the modifications of his successors. She finally looks into the Jacobean stage and in her Appendix considers the 'theatre war'.

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

The party ain't over yet! As long as that music keeps playing, I'll keep dancing! Raw, rude and raucous, Cherry Jezebel is a dazzling new drama. Hilarious and heartbreaking, it's a champagne blowout and the hangover from hell, a spin under the glitterball that lands in the gutter. The bass is pounding, the audience are cheering, and Cherry Brandy is blinking back tears. Tonight's the night she's finally recognised as the Queen she is, with the crown to prove it. Is this the triumphant moment she's always dreamed of? Behind the mascara, the wigs and the six-inch stiletto heels, all that glitters isn't gold. At least she's always got her best mate Heidi. But growing up queer in Liverpool is grim, and the queer family they've forged is about to slip through Cherry's nicotine-stained fingers. From the boudoirs to the bathrooms of Liverpool's gloriously gobby drag scene, Cherry Jezebel is a riot of lipstick and split lips, of bitching and bruises. It's a play that celebrates queerness while spilling the tea on the pain behind the polish.

First published in English 1961, this reissue relates the problems of form and style to the development of dramatic speech in pre-Shakespearean tragedy. The work offers positive standards by which to assess the development of pre-Shakespearean drama and, by tracing certain characteristics in Elizabethan tragedy which were to have a bearing on Shakespeare's dramatic technique, helps to illuminate the foundations on which Shakespeare built his dramatic oeuvre.

First published in 1964, this arresting and original work is a study of the relations between content and form in drama; the conflict between and ultimate reconciliation of certain kinds of material that life presents to the poet and the demands inherent in dramatic form and technique. There are chapters on Shakespeare's historical plays, on Troilus and Cressida, on Milton's Samson Agonistes and on general dramatic problems.

First published in 1939, The Irish Dramatic Movement is a critical study of the dramatic work of W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Synge, their contemporaries and some of their successors. Professor Ellis-Fermor relates each to the movement as a whole, discussing the nature of poetic drama in the hands of Yeats and Synge, while attempting to describe the remarkable contribution made by Irish drama to the literature of the early twentieth century. In her appendices, the author includes a chronological table of the main events in the first years of the movement, a list of plays produced in London in the last decade of the nineteenth century and a subject index to some of the main critical opinions of W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory.