'As funny as it's intellectual, this page-turner about crashing and burning is spot-on about ambition, infatuation, theatre, film, ethics, teens, and everything else.' Emma Donoghue, author of Room 'Witty...Earnest...Laugh-out-loud...Pitch-perfect' New York Times In the pursuit of fame, how do you know when you've gone too far? When Cass - a thirty-something, promising, queer playwright - receives a prestigious award, it seems as though her career is finally taking off. That is until she finds herself at the centre of a searing public shaming, which relegates her from rising star in New York to a nobody on her best friend's sofa in L.A. As she comes to terms with the extent of her failure, she is forced to question who she is without the thing that has always defined her: her art. So she fills the days by stalking her playwright nemesis, of whom she is excruciatingly envious, and getting pulled into the orbit of the charismatic but manipulative filmmaker next door. As Cass becomes increasingly involved with her neighbour and the group of pugilistic teenage girls she's documenting, Cass begins to dream of a comeback. But when the film spins dangerously out of control, Cass is once again forced to reckon with her ambition, and her rage. We Play Ourselves is a darkly funny novel about the cost of making art, and the art of making enemies. 'Funny, sharp, modern - this is an excellent debut novel. Its bold, edgy, strange heroine has adventures and misadventures, screws up again and again, but somehow won my love. I couldn't put this book down.' Weike Wang, PEN/Hemingway-award winning author of Chemistry

Two sisters and a dog live out their lives on the bleak English moors, dreaming of love and power. The arrival of a hapless governess and a moor-hen set all three on a strange and dangerous path. The Moors is a dark comedy about love, desperation, and visibility.

Wink follows unhappy housewife Sofie and her breadwinning husband, Gregor, who both seek weekly counseling from an unorthodox therapist, Doctor Frans. Their current topic of disagreement: the cat, Wink. When Wink goes missing, violent desires, domestic anarchy, and feline vengeance emerge, threatening the neatly ordered reality Sophie, Gregor, and Doctor Frans have constructed.

Bringing together some of the innovative, thought-provoking, and daring new works from New York's downtown theater scene, The Downtown Anthology offers a rich collection of plays from both up-and-coming and established playwrights. Includes: A Map of Virtue by Erin Courtney; We Are Proud To Present A Presentation About The Herero Of Namibia, Formerly Known As Southwest Africa, From The German Sudwestafrika, Between The Years 1884-1915 by Jackie Sibblies Drury; Trevor by Nick Jones; The Lily's Revenge by Taylor Mac; Alice in Slasherland by Qui Nguyen; Phoebe in Winter by Jen Silverman. Trevor: "Hugely entertaining tragicomedy... the genius of [Jones's] play is how he has so cleverly humanized both characters." Chicago Sun Times The Lily's Revenge: " offers so many incidental pleasures that theatrical time always a curiously malleable element seems to contract." New York Times A Map of Virtue: "With a Hitchcockian sensibility, [Courtney] makes psychodrama out of the mystery of what keeps people together even as imaginations and egos push them apart. Like a souvenir from a fleeting dream, this play will pass over you painlessly, and then it will linger." Backstage

'As funny as it's intellectual, this page-turner about crashing and burning is spot-on about ambition, infatuation, theatre, film, ethics, teens, and everything else.' Emma Donoghue, author of Room 'Witty...Earnest...Laugh-out-loud...Pitch-perfect' New York Times When Cass - a thirty something year old queer playwright - receives a prestigious award, it seems as though her career is finally taking off. That is until she finds herself at the centre of a searing public shaming. Fleeing New York, Cass moves to L.A. to start anew. Once there, she is pulled into the orbit of her charismatic neighbour, a filmmaker who's making an ethically murky documentary inspired by a group of teenage girls and their underground fight club. But just as Cass begins to dream of a comeback, the past starts to catch up with her and she is forced once more to reckon with her ambition and the chaos it creates. We Play Ourselves is a darkly funny novel about the cost of making art, and the art of making enemies. 'Funny, sharp, modern - this is an excellent debut novel. Its bold, edgy, strange heroine has adventures and misadventures, screws up again and again, but somehow won my love. I couldn't put this book down.' Weike Wang, PEN/Hemingway-award winning author of Chemistry

Sharon, in her mid-fifties, is recently divorced and needs a roommate to share her Iowa home. Robyn, also in her mid-fifties, needs a place to hide and a chance to start over. But as Sharon begins to uncover Robyn's secrets, they encourage her own deep-seated desire to transform her life completely. A dark comedy about what it takes to re-route your life - and what happens when the wheels come off.

'As funny as it's intellectual, this page-turner about crashing and burning is spot-on about ambition, infatuation, theatre, film, ethics, teens, and everything else.' Emma Donoghue, author of Room 'Witty...Earnest...Laugh-out-loud...Pitch-perfect' New York Times In the pursuit of fame, how do you know when you've gone too far? When Cass - a thirty-something, promising, queer playwright - receives a prestigious award, it seems as though her career is finally taking off. That is until she finds herself at the centre of a searing public shaming, which relegates her from rising star in New York to a nobody on her best friend's sofa in L.A. As she comes to terms with the extent of her failure, she is forced to question who she is without the thing that has always defined her: her art. So she fills the days by stalking her playwright nemesis, of whom she is excruciatingly envious, and getting pulled into the orbit of the charismatic but manipulative filmmaker next door. As Cass becomes increasingly involved with her neighbour and the group of pugilistic teenage girls she's documenting, Cass begins to dream of a comeback. But when the film spins dangerously out of control, Cass is once again forced to reckon with her ambition, and her rage. We Play Ourselves is a darkly funny novel about the cost of making art, and the art of making enemies. 'Funny, sharp, modern - this is an excellent debut novel. Its bold, edgy, strange heroine has adventures and misadventures, screws up again and again, but somehow won my love. I couldn't put this book down.' Weike Wang, PEN/Hemingway-award winning author of Chemistry

Three plays about transformation, intimacy and power from award-winning American Playwright Jen Silverman. Contains the plays The Roommate; The Moors and Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties. Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties - Five different women named Betty collide at the intersection of anger, sex, and the "thea-tah", falling in love in unexpected ways. The Moors - Two sisters and a dog living on the bleak English moors, and dreaming of love and power, are surprised by a sudden arrival. The Moors is a dark comedy about love, desperation, and visibility. In The Roommate a middle-aged housewife makes a new friend with a big secret. A dark comedy about what it takes to re-route your life - and what happens when the wheels come off.

The Astonishing and Dangerous History of Mazefield the Frog, Old Folks, and The Lost Girl (or First Chair) were presented as part of Keen Teens 2015, a unique and free educational theatre program, run by the Drama Desk and Obie award-winning Keen Company. Keen Teens seeks to improve the quality of plays written for high school students by commissioning scripts from highly regarded playwrights, and gives students the opportunity to work with professional artists in an Off Bro

A dynamic collection of five absurdist, hilarious, provocative plays exploring everything from power to loneliness to menstruating hippos. The collection contains: Real American Dinner Party - Sometimes you lose your keys, sometimes you lose your temper, and sometimes you lose the most unexpected of things. A particularly tense dinner party can change everything in the blink of an eye... (2f, 2m) Hippos of the Eastern Enclosure - On Thanksgiving, a nervous male zookeeper is overwhelmed by three female hippos, who all get their periods. While the zookeeper, his girlfriend, and his co-worker decide who is on clean-up, the hippos interrogate the nature of ambition. (5f, 1m) The Visitations - Dana has been alone in her home for a bit too long. Either she is losing it or she is having an increasingly intimate relationship with a ghost. (1f) Ubu Anew (A Play for Strange People) - A shortened and extremely loose adaptation of Ubu Roi, featuring Pixy Stix and Hillary Clinton. (2f, 4m) Your Mother in the Night Sky - Your mother leaves a voicemail, the strangest voicemail you've ever received. (1f)

In Collective Rage, the lives of five very different New York women named Betty collide at the intersection of anger, sex and "theat-ah." As they meet, fall in love, rehearse, revel and rage, they realise that they've been stuck reading the same scripts for far too long. They all come from different backgrounds, and are bored or angry about different things, but the Betty's - each one numbered 1-5 - come together to rehearse a new version of Pyramus and Thisbe, the play within a play in A Midsummer Night's Dream. What follows are discoveries, transformations and raucous comedy. Hitting the ring with an electrifying soundtrack, looks to kill and spectacular routines, this outrageous comedy packs the punch to shatter lacquered femininity into a thousand glittering pieces. Strongly influenced by cabaret and female drag, this exquisite rejection of shame and stereotype will punch you in the gut, break your heart and then take you dancing. Collective Rage had its UK premiere at the Southwark Playhouse.

Betty is rich; Betty is lonely; Betty's busy working on her truck; Betty wants to talk about love, but Betty needs to hit something. And Betty keeps using a small hand mirror to stare into parts of herself she's never examined. Five different women named Betty collide at the intersection of anger, sex, and the "thea-tah."