Octavia is a work of exceptional historical and dramatic interest. It is the only surviving complete example of the Roman historical drama known as the fabula praetexta. Written shortly after Nero's death by an unknown author, the play deals with events at the court of Nero in the decisive year 62 CE, for which it is the earliest extant (almost contemporary) literary source; its main themes are sex, murder, politics, power and the perceptions and constructions of history. It is a powerful, lyrical and spectacular play. This is the first critical edition of Octavia, with verse translation and commentary, which aims to elucidate the text dramatically as well as philologically, and to locate it firmly in its historical and theatrical context. The verse translation is designed for both performance and serious study.

America in the mid-1980s. In the midst of the AIDS crisis and a conservative Reagan administration, New Yorkers grapple with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell. Originally premiered in Britain at the National Theatre, London, where it won the Evening Standard Best Play Award, Tony Kushner's Angels in America went on to win two Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This volume contains both Part One: Millennium Approaches and Part Two: Perestroika, plus 45 pages of bonus material including a new introduction by the playwright, a full production history, deleted scenes, and notes on staging. It was published alongside a new production in 2017 at the National Theatre, London, directed by Marianne Elliott and starring Andrew Garfield, Denise Gough, Nathan Lane, James McArdle and Russell Tovey.

Jacobean tragedy is typically seen as translating a general dissatisfaction with the first Stuart monarch and his court into acts of calculated recklessness and cynical brutality. Drawing on theoretical influences from social history, psychoanalysis and the study of discourses, this innovative book proposes an alternative perspective: Jacobean tragedy should be seen in the light of the institutional and social concerns of the early modern stage and the ambiguities which they engendered. Although the stage's professionalization opened up hitherto unknown possibilities of economic success and social advancement for its middle-class practitioners, the imaginative, linguistic and material conditions of their work undermined the very ambitions they generated and furthered. The close reading of play texts and other, non-dramatic sources suggests that playwrights knew that they were dealing with hazardous materials prone to turn against them: whether the language they used or the audiences for whom they wrote and upon whose money and benevolence their success depended. The notorious features of the tragedies under discussion - their bloody murders, intricately planned revenges and psychologically refined terror - testify not only to the anxiety resulting from this multifaceted professional uncertainty but also to theatre practitioners' attempts to civilize the excesses they were staging.

Some Truths And Other Perversities is a compilation of some theatrical works and scripts for short fictions written by Kalent Zaiz during the point of her life when she was given a break in acting. The works written during the process were created and designed as a concern of an actress, the feelings during the career years in the majority of the projects where she worked. The scripts have strong, masculine characters. After that, she began to start searching for feminine or historical character like "Frida Kahlo," whose lives marked a milestone in culture and in the society. Its main objective is to create a strong-willed feminine character and a deep content, away from false vanity and the established prototype. The works of Kalent narrates a real story and daily lives of human life from simple dimension to the most complicated ones.

Modern Death is written in the form of a symposium, in which a government agency brings together a group of experts to discuss a strategy for dealing with an ageing population. The speakers take up the thread of the ongoing debates about care for the aged and about euthanasia. In dark satirical mode the author shows what grim developments are possible. The theme of a "final solution" is mentioned, though the connection with Hitler is explicitly denied. The most inhuman crimes against human dignity are discussed in the symposium as if they were a necessary condition of future progress. The fiercely ironical treatment of the material tears off the thin veil that disguises the specious arguments and insidious expressions of concern for the well-being of the younger generation. Though the text was written nearly thirty years ago, the play has a terrifyingly modern relevance.

The council chambers at Chimneys, the Brent family estate, holds a dark and intriguing secret and someone will stop at nothing to prevent the monarchy being restored in faraway Herzoslovakia. A young drifter finds more than he bargained for when he agrees to deliver a parcel to an English country estate. Little did Anthony Cade suspect that a simple errand on behalf of a friend would make him the centrepiece of a murderous international conspiracy. A sinister plot rife with diamonds, oil concessions, exiled royalty, an elusive master criminal and the combined forces of Scotland Yard and the French Surete. "There is more than murder in this story; there is a treasure hunt in it, not for gold but a diamond, and the story is suitably staged for the main part at Chimneys, that historic mansion whose secret will be found." TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

"I'm walking down the street and there's a door in the fence open and inside there are three women I've seen before." Three old friends and a neighbour. A summer of afternoons in the back yard. Tea and catastrophe. Escaped Alone premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2016, in a production directed by James Macdonald.

Ray Gentry loved airplanes from the time he was a boy, watching the old biplanes dusting cotton fields near his home in Tennessee. After college, he became a military pilot, flying in Vietnam, and later took a job as a sprayer pilot in the Mississippi Delta. It was his insatiable love for flying, however, that eventually led him to make a fateful decision with disastrous consequences for himself and those he loved. His compromise to make a "one-time flight" to Central America would lead him deep into the dark world of drug smuggling, murder, and corruption in high places. It seemed he would spend the rest of his life paying the Devil's due. God had a different plan Ray's flight to redemption would begin, ironically, with a deadly plane crash and a suitcase full of dirty money. With ruthless and relentless pursuers never far behind, there would be strategic stops across the lower forty-eight and Alaska. With the help of godly people along the route and a salty old bush pilot, who convinced him prayer was his answer, Ray reaches a stunning destination complete with a new flight plan and mission for life

Cyrano de Bergerac has been the most admired play of Edmond Rostand for years; over one hundred years have made many translations of this classic work a little hard to understand. Let BookCaps help with this modern translation. If you have struggled in the past reading old English, then BookCaps can help you out. We all need refreshers every now and then. Whether you are a student trying to cram for that big final, or someone just trying to understand a book more, BookCaps can help. We are a small, but growing company, and are adding titles every month.

Siener in die suburbs gaan oor die lief en leed van 'n groepie mense wat al volkskarakters geword het. Jakes wat so graag 'n laaitie wil he, Tiemie wat oor haar tyd is, Tjokkie wat met die helm gebore is, Giel en Ma wat in sonde saamleef. Hulle bly aan die verkeerde kant van die spoor; mense van wie daar "nie geweet" word nie.

In the countdown to Christmas the disappearance of a young girl rocks a small town community instigating a chain of events that will alter the lives of everyone involved. For Simon, the world he has built here was a second chance; though still ridden with guilt, in the eyes of the law he has paid for his mistake. Given a new identity, new history and a single confidante, he has successfully buried the truth of his past; even from Jessica, the woman he loves. Will events force Simon to step outside the prison his new identity has become and does the community have the right to know his true identity?

This novel is an opportunity to see a world full of prejudice and ignorance through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old. Many of the facts are real, but for personal reasons, the author has used fictitious names and places. The story takes place in Romania during the communist period, and most of the situations reflect a dark side of the underground life which the totalitarian regime of that time tried to hide. The author discovered a thread of events that he followed, driven by curiosity, and then he tried, through the naivety of his age, to depict it in a mature and dramatic way. Beyond the psychological exaggerations of the author, you will discover a bygone world of human ignorance and indifference in an outmoded and morally rotten society.

How Not To Drown was first performed on 4 August 2019 at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. "I don't know why my Dad let me go... I was too young, too weak, to make this journey. I wouldn't have sent me... He wouldn't have sent me unless there was a reason." In 2002, in the turmoil after the end of the Kosovan War, Dritan is sent on the notoriously perilous journey across the Adriatic with a gang of people smugglers to a new life in Europe. He relies on his young wit and charm to make it to the UK. But the fight for survival continues as he clings to his identity and sense of self when he ends up in the British care system. Painful yet uplifting, How Not to Drown shares a story of endurance for a little kid who wasn't safe or welcome anywhere in the world. Award-winning theatre company ThickSkin (Chalk Farm, The Static) returns to the stage with an action packed, highly visual production.

This collection, which Mr Hampden has now revised and expanded was probably the first attempt to make a really representative selection of modern one-act plays. English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish dramatists are her tragedies, comedies, fantasies, poetic plays, a religious play, and almost inevitably, a play for women only. There are a number of established favourites: including such masterpieces in their own kind as T.S. Eliot's Sweeney Agonistes and Charles Lee's Mr Sampson. Besides Sweeney Agonistes, Mr Hampden has chosen three other pieces to make up the twenty four items in this new edition - A Pound on Demand by Sean O'Casey The Dreaming of the Bones by W.B. Yeats and The Bespoke Overcoat by Wolf Markowitz - and has written a new Introduction.

In the beginning, there is an almighty power, known by the name the Lord God, his royal majesty. His greatest creation, Lucifer, stands on his right and is the almighty's go-to divine servant. The almighty does ask Lucifer to complete many tasks, such as creating the heavens and the earth. But Lucifer also has a few ideas of his own, some of which are cause for speculation.

In The Greatest Fall from Grace, the most devilish character in history experiences mind-bending adventures through time and space, breaching heavenly and hellish bodies both physical and otherworldly. Lucifer understands that being the first of anything is difficult, but being the first created to fall from grace is even more difficult. Trying to redeem himself and trying hard not to fall in love, are challenges he faces.

This drama follows Lucifer through his life's adventures and answers the question of whether or not he, the others, and earth will survive the catastrophes this universe and beyond can create.