Mike Bartlett's 'future history play' explores the people beneath the crowns, the unwritten rules of our democracy, and the conscience of Britain's most famous family. Queen Elizabeth II is dead. After a lifetime of waiting, her son ascends the throne. A future of power. But how to rule? Drawing on the style and structure of a Shakespearean history play, King Charles III opened at London's Almeida Theatre, directed by its Artistic Director Rupert Goold, in April 2014, before transferring to the West End. The play went on to win Best New Play at both the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and the Olivier Awards. It also won the South Bank Sky Arts Theatre Award.

Greig Coetzee's latest play Happy Natives is a triumphant confirmation of this writer's ability to comment satirically and powerfully on South African society. The play is extremely gripping, very funny and yet keeps surprising the audience with its insight into the complexities of cross-cultural relationships, ten years on from the start of the rainbow nation. The play shows how little we still know each other and how South Africans still make assumptions about each other based on racial grouping rather than on individual reality. This is rich material for comedy, and Coetzee excels in using such theatrical techniques as the reversal of expectation and the revelation of the unexpected and the contradictory. Happy Natives is very contemporary, looking at the way in which South Africans struggle to define their present identity. Coetzee's play points out just what an interesting and richly human world we inhabit. He shows that no human being in fact fits into the images that the media w

An explosive play that took critics and audiences by storm, "Equus" is Peter Shaffer's exploration of the way modern society has destroyed our ability to feel passion. Alan Strang is a disturbed youth whose dangerous obsession with horses leads him to commit an unspeakable act of violence. As psychiatrist Martin Dysart struggles to understand the motivation for Alan's brutality, he is increasingly drawn into Alan's web and eventually forced to question his own sanity. "Equus" is a timeless classic and a cornerstone of contemporary drama that delves into the darkest recesses of human existence.

Kristin Miller is an eminent and successful art historian. As a young mother, she followed her politics and vocation, storming Parisian barricades and moving to Florence. Her successful memoir secures her place in history but fails to mention her sons. Her birthday should be a time for celebration but when her son Simon decides to deliver his version of the past, everyone must confront the cost of Kristin's commitment to her passions.

Someone sneezes. Someone can't get a signal. Someone shares a secret. Someone won't answer the door. Someone put an elephant on the stairs. Someone's not ready to talk. Someone is her brother's mother. Someone hates irrational numbers. Someone told the police. Someone got a message from the traffic light. Someone's never felt like this before. In this fast moving kaleidoscope, more than a hundred characters try to make sense of what they know. Caryl Churchill's play Love and Information was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in September 2012.

Jim Becker and his unlicensed drivers take the people of Pittsburgh Hill District where regular taxi cabs won't - healing old wounds and tearing new ones as they pass the time in a condemned taxi rank between pick-ups. August Wilson's groundbreaking modern classic explores the fragile bond between eight men as they live, love and work in a racially segregated, post-Vietnam America. Jitney received its British premiere at the National Theatre, London, in 2001, when it won the Olivier Award for Best New Play. This new edition was published alongside the 2021-22 revival by The Old Vic, Headlong and Leeds Playhouse, directed by Tinuke Craig.

This is an English translation of Aristophanes' popular comedy in which the god Dionysus seeks to bring the great dramatist Euripides from Hades, where he encounters another great Classical playwright, Aeschylus. Includes background material on the historical and cultural context of this work, suggestions for further reading, and notes. The Focus Classical Library provides close translations with notes and essays to provide access to understanding Greek culture and the roots of contemporary thought.

"The Price is one of the most engrossing and entertaining plays that Miller has ever written." - The New Uork Times When patriarch of the Franz family dies, his two sons return home to dispose of the furniture crammed in his attic: one is a successful surgeon, the other gave up everything to support their father following the Great Depression. As the pair sort through these abandoned belongings, frustrations, secrets and surprise guests are uncovered. With its touching and farcical presentation of American life beyond the Vietnam War and Great Depression, The Price is widely recognised as one of Miller's major works, earning him a Tony Award nomination in 1968. This Methuen Drama Student Edition is edited by Yuko Kurahashi, with commentary and notes that explore the play's production history (including excerpts from interviews with the director and designers of the 2017 Arena Stage production) as well as the dramatic, thematic and academic debates that surround it.

Sephy and Callum sit together on a beach. They are in love. It is forbidden. Sephy is a Cross and Callum is a Nought. Between Noughts and Crosses there are racial and social divides. A segregated society teeters on a volatile knife-edge. As violence breaks out, Sephy and Callum draw closer, but this is a romance that will lead them into terrible danger. This gripping Romeo and Juliet story by acclaimed writer Malorie Blackman is a captivating drama of love, revolution and what it means to grow up in a divided world. Sabrina Mahfouz's stage adaptation first toured the UK in 2019 and won the Excellence in Touring category at the UK Theatre Awards. It was commissioned and presented by Pilot Theatre in co-production with Derby Theatre, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Mercury Theatre Colchester and York Theatre Royal.

Susie Salmon is just like any other young American girl. She wants to be beautiful, adores her charm bracelet and has a crush on a boy from school. There's one big difference though - Susie is dead. Add: Now she can only observe while her family manage their grief in their different ways. Susie is desperate to help them and there might be a way of reaching them... Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones is a unique coming-of-age tale that captured the hearts of readers throughout the world. Award-winning playwright Bryony Lavery has adapted it for this unforgettable play about life after loss.

A group of students arrange a sponsored 24-hour fast to raise money for charity. Two of the students, Charlie and Holly, brag that they could carry on, and in refusing to back down they end up embarking on a dangerous fast that lasts for days. The national media picks up the story, setting up a donations hotline and spurring the two on until a story breaks that threatens to ruin everything. Played out entirely through chats in the school canteen, the script relies on the realistic and often hilarious dialogue that is David Grant's trademark. What's the hook? Snappy, comic dialogue and hugely relevant issues. What are the themes? Celebrity, media and friendship. Teaching points Perfect for reading around a classroom, full-blown performance or for close analysis as a text, this is a play about a range of important issues presented with humour and sensitivity. * Realistic dialogue coupled with witty insights make this the ideal play for Key Stage 3. * Explores interesting topics in a way that is accessible to Key Stage 3 students. * Supported by back-of-book activities and free online teaching resources including lesson plans mapped to the Framework.

‘Anthony Neilson's 2004 play is half a lark, half deadly serious’ TIME OUT ‘A profane, madcap, Alice-in-Wonderland trip morphs into something much more profound in Anthony Neilson’s weirdly compelling 2004 study of mental instability’ EVENING STANDARD Lisa Jones is on a journey. It's a colourful and exciting off-kilter trip in search of one lost hour that has tipped the balance of her life. The inhabitants of the wonderful world she finds herself in – Dissocia – are a curious blend of the funny, the friendly and the brutal. This Student Edition of Anthony Neilson’s 2004 play, which premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival, features a commentary and notes by anna six. It introduces students to debates surrounding mental health and situates Neilson within a British theatrical tradition, including through an interview with him.

Better by the dozen! This book of twelve royalty-free mystery plays allows you to choose from a wide variety of plays to fit whatever your current staging and casting needs may be. They are especially workable for middle grades and high school, but they may be performed by actors of all ages. Each of the plays has an element of mystery that is often laced with comedy. The Mother Goose Mystery features a cast of suspicious nursery-rhyme-quoting characters. In Queen of Hearts, a young Shakespeare helps solve a crime. Clue in the Library is perfect for a library fund-raiser. Mommy's a Zomblel is a classic farce. All of the plays are fun to perform on stage or in the classroom. Plays include: Queen of Hearts, Clue in the Library, The Mermald, A Very Cold Case, Mystery of the Magical Forest, For Better or Worse, Mommy's a Zomblel, The Mother Goose Mystery, Case of the Dangerfield Diamond, The Little Women Mystery, into Thin Heir, Where Did Everybody Go?

Tennessee Williams's evocation of loneliness and lost love, The Glass Menagerie is one of his most powerful and moving plays. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes a new introduction by Robert Bray. Abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield comforts herself with recollections of her earlier, more gracious life in Blue Mountain when she was pursued by 'gentleman callers'. Her son Tom, a poet with a job in a warehouse, longs for adventure and escape from his mother's suffocating embrace, while Laura, her shy crippled daughter, has her glass menagerie and her memories. Amanda is desperate to find her daughter a husband, but when the long-awaited gentleman caller does arrive, Laura's romantic illusions are crushed. 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), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), 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 The Glass Menagerie, you might like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Tennessee Williams will live as long as drama itself' Peter Shaffer, author of Equus

Based on the remarkable true story of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan, this inspiring and unforgettable play has moved countless readers and become an American classic.

Young Helen Keller, blind, deaf, and mute since infancy, is in danger of being sent to an institution because her inability to communicate has left her frustrated and violent. In desperation, her parents seek help from the Perkins Institute, which sends them a "half-blind Yankee schoolgirl" named Annie Sullivan to tutor their daughter. Despite the Kellers' resistance and the belief that Helen "is like a little safe, locked, that no one can open," Annie suspects that within Helen lies the potential for more, if only she can reach her. Through persistence, love, and sheer stubbornness, Annie breaks through Helen's walls of silence and darkness and teaches her to communicate, bringing her into the world at last.

In this collection of plays from one of our finest dramatists, Caryl Churchill demonstrates her remarkable ability to find new forms to express profound truths about the world we live in. Complete with a new introduction by the author, this volume contains: Seven Jewish Children (Royal Court Theatre, London, 2009): a short play about seven families wondering how to protect their children, written at the time of the bombing of Gaza by Israel in 2008-9. Love and Information (Royal Court, 2012): a fast-moving kaleidoscope in which more than a hundred characters try to make sense of what they know. Ding Dong the Wicked (Royal Court, 2012): two families on opposite sides of a war, locked in identical hatred. Here We Go (National Theatre, 2015): a play about dying and being dead. Escaped Alone (Royal Court, 2016): three old friends and an unexpected neighbour have tea in a sunny back yard, and face catastrophes. Pigs and Dogs (Royal Court, 2016): a look at how colonialism crushed the fluidity of sexuality in Africa and brought a new intolerance, as shown in the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014. Also included are three previously unpublished short plays, each written in response to political events: War and Peace Gaza Piece (2014), Tickets are Now On Sale (2015) and Beautiful Eyes (2017). 'The wit, invention and structural ingenuity of Churchill's work are remarkable... she never does anything twice' Telegraph 'The most dazzlingly inventive living dramatist in the English language' New York Times