It's harder to kill people when there's a peace process on. Ulster Loyalist Alan Black is kept awake every night by his neighbour McCorrick's dog barking. To add to his difficulties, McCorrick refuses to acknowledge that he even owns a dog, let alone one that is creating a disturbance. In a Northern Ireland he barely recognises, where politics has proved just to be the continuation of war by other means, a disconsolate Alan sets out to rid himself of the incessant noise. As he seeks help from authority figures, he finally - as a very last resort - turns to the only voice he can really trust, Eamonn Holmes... Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the partition of Ireland and the foundation of Northern Ireland, Yes So I Said Yes is a blackly comic, ferocious, dystopian satire about what it's like to feel alone in a place where everyone else is conspiring to erase you and your history. This edition was published to coincide with the production at London's Finborough Theatre in November 2021.

A new, beautiful updated edition of Tom Stoppard's best-loved play and one of Grove Atlantic's bestselling backlist titles, published with a new introduction by Tom Stoppard to coincide with the 50th anniversary of its debutRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is one of the most enduring and frequently performed plays of contemporary theater and has firmly established itself in the dramatic canon. Acclaimed as a modern masterpiece, it is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm's-eye view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare's play. In Tom Stoppard's best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, where reality and illusion intermix, and where fate leads our two heroes to a tragic but inevitable end. Revised and reissued to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the play's first performance, this definitive edition includes a new introduction and previously unpublished ancillary material.

Meet the couple every couple wants to be. Attractive and immaculately turned out, they are the perfect team. Tomorrow they will be in Stockholm, a city where, in summer, the sun shines 24/7 and sometimes it's dark all day long. Today it's his birthday and she's going to give him all his presents and treats and surprises. Treading a fine line between tenderness and cruelty, Stockholm reveals a relationship unravelling. It's beautiful, but it's not pretty. Stockholm unites leading physical theatre company Frantic Assembly with award-winning playwright Bryony Lavery and designer Laura Hopkins (Black Watch, Mercury Fur) to deliver an extraordinary perspective on the nature of modern love. Stockholm opened at the Theatre Royal Plymouth in September 2007.

Adapted from Paula Hawkins' novel - an international phenomenon selling over twenty million copies worldwide - this gripping new play will keep you guessing until the final moment. Rachel Watson longs for a different life. Her only escape is the perfect couple she watches through the train window every day, happy and in love. Or so it appears. When Rachel learns that the woman she's been secretly watching has suddenly disappeared, she finds herself as a witness and even a suspect in a thrilling mystery.

Do algorithms and machine learning set us free, or trap us forever? Roger hates technology, but when his daughter gives him an Isla device for Lockdown 2020, he finds himself opening up to the virtual assistant device. What happens when the only fulfilling relationship you have is with a digital slave? Isla asks what are the costs and benefits of machine learning...and do we want the AIs to learn from us? This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Theatre Clwyd, in association with the Royal Court in October 2021.

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)

Published in 1991 The Tragedye of Solyman and Perseda is a late Elizabethan romantic tragedy by Thomas Kyd, author of The Spanish Tragedy. It dramatises the triangular relationship of the Turkish emperor Soliman, his captive Perseda and her beloved Erastus against the fictionalised backdrop of the Turkish invasion of Rhodes in the early sixteenth century. This volume contains the original text along with textual and critical notes.

Originally published in 1987, An Old-Spelling Critical Edition of James Shirley's The Example, offers a critical examination of James Shirley's 1634 play, The Example, based on collating ten of the twenty-one copies of the play noted in Sir Walter Greg's Bibliography.

Lads, when it comes to your time for pickin' women, you're not going to have my kind of luck. The best one is taken. All Julia and John want is to live their lives with their two sons, on their own terms. But despite their hopes, the outside world and its racism puts paid to their plans. A world premiere of a new play from Rosaleen McDonagh, this tender, complex and beautiful love story examines how external circumstances pull us apart, when all we really want is to be together. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in August 2021

Nominated for the 2022 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre One man's spiritual journey is about to begin... after he's sent this tweet When Yasser decides to take part in itikaf, sleeping and fasting in the mosque for the last ten nights of Ramadan, he soon regrets his decision. But as he navigates smug worshippers, shared bathrooms, and recurring thoughts of chunky chips, Yasser's isolation forces him to confront a side of himself he's been trying to keep hidden. A moving and funny new play by Shahid Iqbal Khan, 10 Nights is the story of one man's journey of self-discovery and facing the consequences of your actions.

Orestes' parents are at war. A family drama spanning several decades, a huge, moving, bloody saga, Aeschylus' greatest and final play asks whether justice can ever be done - and continues to resonate more than two millennia after it was written. Following Mr Burns and 1984, Almeida Associate Director Robert Icke radically reimagines Oresteia for the modern stage, in its first major London production in more than a decade. Lia Williams returns to the Almeida as Klytemnestra.

In Killology, players are rewarded for torturing victims, scoring points for "creativity". But Killology isn't sick. In fact it's marketed by its millionaire creator as a deeply moral experience. Because yes, you can live out your darkest fantasies, but you don't escape their consequences. Out on the streets, not everybody agrees with him. "There is an instinctive revulsion against taking a human life. And that revulsion can be conquered."

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple," declares Algernon early in Act One of The Importance of Being Earnest, and were it either, modern literature would be "a complete impossibility." It is a moment of sly, winking self-regard on the part of the playwright, for The Importance is itself the sort of complex modern literary work in which the truth is neither pure nor simple. Wilde's greatest play is full of subtexts, disguises, concealments, and double entendres. Continuing the important cultural work he began in his award-winning uncensored edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Nicholas Frankel shows that The Importance needs to be understood in relation to its author's homosexuality and the climate of sexual repression that led to his imprisonment just months after it opened at London's St. James's Theatre on Valentine's Day 1895. In a facing-page edition designed with students, teachers, actors, and dramaturges in mind, The Annotated Importance of Being Earnest provides running commentary on the play to enhance understanding and enjoyment. The introductory essay and notes illuminate literary, biographical, and historical allusions, tying the play closely to its author's personal life and sexual identity. Frankel reveals that many of the play's wittiest lines were incorporated nearly four years after its first production, when the author, living in Paris as an exiled and impoverished criminal, oversaw publication of the first book edition. This newly edited text is accompanied by numerous illustrations.

A darkly funny political thriller, winner of the 2017 Tony Award for Best Play. In 1993, in front of the world's press, the leaders of Israel and Palestine shook hands on the lawn of the White House. Few watching would have guessed that the negotiations leading up to this iconic moment started secretly in a grand manor house in the middle of a forest outside Oslo. J.T. Rogers' play Oslo tells the true story of two maverick Norwegian diplomats who coordinated top-secret talks and inspired seemingly impossible friendships. Their quiet heroics helped lead to the groundbreaking Oslo Accords. The play had a sell-out run in New York in 2016, and received its UK premiere at the National Theatre, London, in September 2017, prior to a West End transfer.

We're in Bradford. It's been a few months since Jabala's beloved Mum died. Dad is a brilliant father, but it's an effort to get to school on time every day.One morning, when she says goodbye to her house as usual, Jabala hears a voice replying to her in Arabic. But no one's there. Could it be Mum? Has she imagined it?With the help of a 'Refugee Boy' at school, a Shakespeare enthusiast called Munir, she summons... a Jinn. But this is no ordinary 'Jinn', as told in grandma's stories and Jabala is in for a surprise.As the day of Eid approaches, events take a drastic turn and Jabala is forced to make some difficult decisions. Will things come together in time for the big celebration? Combining physical theatre, original music and vivid design, this new play by award-winning writer Asif Khan is a funny and endearing story for the whole family.

Does Tommy know you're Jewish? Tommy knows I'm Irish. At 12:37pm on 22 July 1946, the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was bombed. 91 people were killed, 46 wounded. The bombing was carried out by right-wing Zionists, targeting the headquarters of the British in Palestine. Two Irish Jewish brothers, Paul and Cecil Green, journey from their Dublin birthplace to battle antisemitism on the streets of East London. Their Irish nationalism propels them towards Jewish nationalism as they struggle against British Imperialism to form a Jewish nation state. As violence between British soldiers and Jewish terrorists erupts, Paul and Cecil become involved in an act of terrorism that changes both their lives. 12:37 raises complex and controversial questions around Jewish violence, homeland and national identity in a stunning new play that is both a hard-hitting historical epic and an intimate family drama. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Finborough Theatre, London, in November 2022.

"I've got a new law for you mate, it's called survival of the fittest, it's called fuck you we're the Riot Club." In an oak-panelled room in Oxford, ten young bloods with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule. Members of an elite student dining society, the boys are bunkering down for a wild night of debauchery, decadence and bloody good wine. But this isn't the last huzzah: they're planning a takeover. Welcome to the Riot Club.

At least I am my own boss. No regrets. I choose what I do. I am lucky It's 1973 and the West Indies have spectacularly beaten England at their own game, in their own backyard. Shakie, an 18-year-old super-savvy wheeler-dealer, is in his element - and not just because of the cricket. Life is good: his furniture business is making serious money and he owns a flat on the King's Road, the epicentre of everything that's cool. Moreover, his best friend Stumpie has come up with a plan to crack the booming music industry together - the possibilities are endless so when Shakie's ex-lover Jackie arrives at the Chelsea flat, the trio toast the future. The champagne is flowing and ambition is running sky high - but how far will they go, and who will they sacrifice, in their quest to be rich beyond their wildest dreams? The Death of a Black Man received its world premiere at Hampstead Theatre in 1975. This new edition is published to coincide with its return to Hampstead Theatre, 46 years on, in May 2021.

The five plays collected here offer a unique insight into the role of theatre in a situation of oppression. They were produced in close collaboration with their original black amateur casts, drawing on their lives and everyday experiences in the townships. They range from the early apprentice work of the brash but vital Sophiatown plays, No-Good Friday and Nongogo, to the freer, more urgent, and profound New Brighton plays, including the most famous Sizwe Bansi is Dead and The Island, and the previously unavailable The Coat.

This volume presents a contrastive study of the overlapping careers of Shakespeare and Caravaggio through the comparison of their strikingly similar conventional belief in symbol and the centrality of the subject, only to gradually open it up in an exaltation of multiplicity and the "indistinct regard" (Othello). Utilizing a methodological premise on the notions of early modern indistinction and multiplicity, Shakespeare, Caravaggio, and the Indistinct Regard analyses the survival of English art after iconoclasm and the circulation of Italian art and motifs, methodologically reassessing the conventional comparison between painting and literature. The book examines Caravaggio's and Shakespeare's works in the perspective of the gradual waning of symbolism, the emergence of chiaroscuro and mirror imagery underneath their radically new concepts of representation, and the triumph of multiplicity and indistinction. Furthermore, this work assesses the validity of the twin concepts of multiplicity and indistinction as an interpretive tool in a dialectical interplay with much recent work on indeterminacy in literary criticism and the sciences.

John Kane sits on a hospital trolley. Very shortly, a giant lobster, two women called Mary, a very old man and a jazz percussionist arrive. Then everything starts. Enda Walsh's Medicine is a dark and frequently absurdist play. Devastatingly funny and profoundly moving, it examines how, for decades, we have treated those we call 'mentally ill'. It was first produced by Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival as part of the 2021 Edinburgh International Festival, prior to performances in Galway and New York. It was directed by Enda Walsh, with a cast including Clare Barrett, Aoife Duffin and Domhnall Gleeson, with drummer Sean Carpio. This edition also includes Walsh's play The Same, about two women who meet in a psychiatric institution. Published here for the first time, it was produced by Corcadorca in 2017, and won The Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for Best Play. 'One of the most fiercely individual voices in the theatre today' New York Times

Mystery / Casting: 5m, 7f / Scenery: InteriorThe announcement in the local paper states time and place of a murder to occur in Miss Blacklock's Victorian house. The victim is not one of several occupants, temporary and permanent, but an unexpected and unknown visitor. What follows is a classic Christie puzzle of mixed motives, concealed identities, a second death, a determined Inspector grimly following the twists and turns, and Miss Marple on hand to provide the final solution at some risk to herself in a dramatic confrontation scene just before the final curtain. "Had the first night audience on the edge of their seats." Evening Post. "Re enter Agatha with another whodunit hit, another of her fiendishly ingenious murder mysteries." London Evening News.