This trio of plays explores the use of drama as a support in healing, training, and entertaining all. Using the healing and accessible art of theater, timely interests-addiction, HIV, mental illness, racial injustice, sexual harassment, and more-are brought to life in a trio of contemporary scripts. In the title play, The Stakes, an idealistic African American social worker-the target of workplace racism, sexual harassment, and political machinations-is encouraged by a coworker who shares with her his enthusiasm for African proverbs. A young woman strives to overcome her dual afflictions of mental illness and substance dependence in Abiona. With the help of health-care professionals, plus her own insights related to her African heritage, she learns to find hope again. In an addiction-recovery center, one man struggles in his quest for sobriety. He finds solace in learning that the origins of the group's holiday celebration can be found in African traditions. GumBO won the 2000 Script Writing Award given by the Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago.

Agamemnon is the first of the three plays within the Oresteia trilogy and is considered to be one of Aeschylus' greatest works. This collection of 12 essays, written by prominent international academics, brings together a wide range of topics surrounding Agamemnon from its relationship with ancient myth and ritual to its modern reception. There is a diverse array of discussion on the salient themes of murder, choice and divine agency. Other essays also offer new approaches to understanding the notions of wealth and the natural world which imbue the play, as well as a study of the philosophical and moral questions of choice and revenge. Arguments are contextualized in terms of performance, history and society, discussing what the play meant to ancient audiences and how it is now received in the modern theatre. Intended for readers ranging from school students and undergraduates to teachers and those interested in drama (including practitioners), this volume includes a performer-friendly and accessible English translation by David Stuttard.

The creator of Story Theater, the original director of Second City, and one of the greatest popularizers of improvisational theater, Paul Sills has assembled some of his favorite adaptations from world literature. Includes: The Blue Light and Other Stories, A Christmas Carol (Dickens), Stories of God, Rumi.

When a house party gathers at Gull's Point, the seaside home of Lady Tressilian, Neville Strange finds himself caught between his old wife, Audrey, and his new flame, Kay. A nail-biting thriller, the play probes the psychology of jealousy in the shadow of a savage and brutal murder. With reflections on suicide, depression and redemption, the play is a layered drama of piercing intelligence.

In 1915, Mary Barbour led 20,000 women in Glasgow's Rent Strikes. Mary Barbour's Army fought against evictions from their homes with bundles of washing, cooking pots and wooden spoons. They won. 100 years on, an old woman sits in a sinking Govan tenement, battling her memories and reaching for an idea of a time which put all of us first. The 2014 Oran Mor production, in association with the Traverse, played to sold-out audiences. This year the play returns to Glasgow to join the city's celebrations of the centenary of the Rent Strikes when the Clydeside blazed with political activism. Contains foreword, essays and reflections from Karine Polwart, Catriona Burness, John Foster and Mary Lockhart.

A major new edition of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy,an outstanding landmark of Elizabethan drama. In its time, it quickly became a box office success and probably inspired Shakespeare to write Hamlet, as it contains a ghost, murders that demand revenge and a hero that hesitates and contemplates suicide. As a revenge tragedy, it set up the salient features of a dramatic genre that would last decades. Its hero, the aged Marshall of Spain Hieronimo, whose son is murdered at night, soon transcended the play and became the standard stage representation of grief, rhetorical passion and madness. Hieronimo's main antagonist is one of the first Machiavellian characters of English drama. This edition explores the play in relation to its historical context and contemporary Iberian dynastic policy. It also relates the play, as a literary artefact, to other artistic manifestations of the European Renaissance and offers a fresh assessment of the play's stage history. For the first time in the play's textual history, this edition presents an integrated text inviting a reading of the play as it was published both in 1592 and in 1602.

Praise for Restless Hearts Who amongst us would not want to be offered a second chance to correct a previous mistake? Who amongst us would not want the support and participation-even in a dream-of national heroes to help us turn a failed mission into a mission completed? Writing in a smooth, easily reading style, Commander Baker weaves a complex, but almost plausible story of a group of modern-day heroes who use a dream to gain the support and participation by a group of earlier national heroes to turn a failed mission into a mission completed. Drawing on his own experience as an enlisted man and then an officer in the navy, he learned about living right as you go, making amends if need be, and the importance of second chances. I commend this book to your reading. -Lawrence F. Snowden, Lieutenant General, US Marine Corps, retired; veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam; highest ranking survivor of the battle of Iwo Jima If Ernie Pyle had breached the consciousness of war weary Americans with narrative rather than articles and cartoons, he would have done so much in the context of RESTLESS HEARTS. For those many patriots, past and currently serving, who have crossed into the line of fire and returned home, especially those bearing the scars of conflict, Dennis Baker's uniquely woven and reflection provoking story of service and sacrifice will be an emotional and satisfying read. We were all changed by our experience in the combat arena, no matter how brief that experience. RESTLESS HEARTS speaks to the humanity of every American warrior, and the countless motivations that lead a Soldier, Sailor, Marine or Airman to shield a comrade in mortal combat. -James H Flatley III, Rear Admiral, USN (Retired) One of three generations to command a carrier fighter squadron in combat, a Navy test pilot and a recipient of the Navy's John Paul Jones Award for inspirational leadership. Restless Hearts recognizes all warriors and their families, as well as the hardships they encounter from the scars of war, and seeks to provide hope for a new tomorrow. The perfect gift for any veteran, their family, or active military member serving today.