With over 60 plays written and staged, many playing in the West End or the Royal National Theatre, Alan Ayckbourn's expertise on writing and directing plays is unsurpassed. Here, he shares his tricks of the trade. From helpful hints on writing (Where has your play come from? Where is it going? How does it get there? What is comedy and how do you write it? What is tragedy and how does it work?) to tips on directing (working with actors and technicians, when to listen to the experts, how to cope with rehearsals), the book provides a complete primer for the tyro and a refresher for the more experienced.

Alan Ayckbourn introduces this second collection of work containing some of his wonderfully inventive children's plays, which are a treat to read and a joy to perform.

Characters: 3 male, 2 female Composite set: part of a bedroom, sitting-room, eating-area in kitchen The Rodales seem like an ordinary family, but beneath the surface things are beginning to crack. Jill and Mal have lost the spark in their marriage, their son Sam resents his father and their daughter Chrissie has recently become a mum and is dealing with marriage issues of her own. And while they all share advice on how others should live their lives, nobody is really taking it on board - until Mal and Jill see things from a dramatically different perspective, that is. Waking up one morning and finding they have switched personas, Mal in Jill's body and Jill in Mal's, they must continue life "as normal" as their other half. Jill faces the challenges of working with their son-in-law, Dean, as the Store Manager of a homewares shop, while Mal has suddenly becomes a housewife, learning more about his children - and finding out the secrets they already know about him! Will seeing things from the other side make matters even worse, or is this just what they need in order to save their family?

Characters: 2 male, 4 female Comedy Winnie is nearly nine. Her mum, Laverne, is second-generation Afro-Caribbean and heavily pregnant but continues with her cleaning job since her husband left while she dreams of moving the family back to Martinique. Tuesdays are special: Laverne insists that Winnie speaks only French (in preparation for Martinique) and today is Tuesday - not her usual day to clean at the north London house of Kevin Tate, an affluent, bad-tempered, philandering, minor television personality. Not well enough to go to school, Winnie accompanies her mum and settles down to her homework: an essay entitled "My Wonderful Day." Throughout the course of the next few hours, the shy, astute and ever-watchful Winnie will amass plenty of material for her essay as a variety of adults parades before her: Kevin's baby-talking and patronizing mistress, his vengeful wife, and the hungover family friend who pours out his heart believing that Winnie doesn't speak English. But as events reach a frenzied climax, Winnie's essay will speak volumes. This hilarious and bitter-sweet classic from Alan Ayckbourn premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough before transferring to New York and a UK tour. The play is told through the child's eyes, without an interval, and there is much scope for imaginative lighting and staging. "Alan Ayckbourn back on blistering form...My Wonderful Day finds him in top form - and breaking new ground. The play is often blissfully and farcically funny. But there is an ache of sorrow here for children who have to grow up too quickly." - Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph "...a startling play full of Ayckbourn's rueful, comic wisdom." - Michael Billington, Guardian "A compellingly still center lurks within the farcical storm of My Wonderful Day, the charming, rueful new comedy." -The New York Times "Ayckbourn is on top form here in his devilishly witty writing...His social commentary has renewed bite too, Ayckbourn taking a swipe at soulless city developments in an advert for Fantacity, and issuing a cry from the heart about the loneliness of boarding schools...Ayckbourn triumphs again with his wonderful new play." -The Press "One of Ayckbourn's terrific qualities lies in making what must be awful for his characters funny for us. Why this never seems cruel is part of the miracle, and must relate to their inability ever to consider they are being ridiculous...Ayckbourn can bring the house down with a single word!" -The Times "Ayckbourn's 73rd play is a feat of extraordinary imagination. Sorry, another extraordinary feat of imagination. At 70 years old, the playwright is still tinkering with the mechanics of the stage and what can be done within its realms...By the end of the interval-less hour and 50 minutes I was willing the show to go on. I could have spent several more hours watching the world through Winnie's eyes." -Yorkshire Post

Alan Ayckbourn

Comedy

Characters: 7 male, 5 female

Multiple Interior Scenes

England's master of satire is in top form in this comic morality play which was triumphantly presented by the National Theatre of Great Britain. Jack McCraken has the opportunity of a lifetime: he is the new head of a family furniture business and believes he will initiate a new age of honesty and integrity. He quickly learns that everyone else involved in the enterprise has a vested interest in maintaining business as usual, rife with dishonesty and deceit. "One of Alan Ayckbourn's best." -The New York Times "If you demand your fun fast and furious, this is your ticket." - The New York Post "You'll laugh 'till it hurts. Don't miss it " - WNEW Radio

"The laughs never stop. Easily one of the best plays to arrive in this Broadway season." - USA Today "Ayckbourn has never written more skillfully." -Evening Standard "Brilliant." - Financial Times "The laughs heap up, but by the evening's end our theatre's master craftsman and finest recorder of social nuance has delivered a disturbing morality play."- London Daily News

This brilliant comic trilogy details the amorous exploits of Norman, assistant librarian, whose one aim is to make the women of his life happy--these women being, as it happens, three sisters, one of them his wife, who can't wear contact lenses because "life with Norman is full of unexpected eye movements." Each play stands uproariously on its own yet interlocks with the others to form an ingenious Chinese puzzle of successive relations.

This third volume of Alan Ayckbourn plays includes Haunting Julia, Sugar Daddies, Drowning on Dry Land and Private Fears in Public Places, with an introduction by the author. Haunting Julia 'A play for today. It touches on the failures of education and parenting, on media pressure and overdoses. Kurt Cobain comes to mind. More universally, Haunting Julia mourns how in adolescence and adulthood, we do our loves wrong.' Financial Times Sugar Daddies 'A timely warning about the dangers of role-playing and pretence . . . But the real fascination lies in watching Ayckbourn's own transformation from social observer to impassioned moralist.' Guardian Drowning on Dry Land 'Ayckbourn at the top of his game.' Guardian 'A coruscatingly acid and funny play.' The Times Private Fears in Public Places 'Ayckbourn's construction has a masterly clarity; his writing combines ruthless observation with mature tolerance. Nobody else writing today can create a sense of a complicated little world in 90 minutes, or make banal lives seem so unforgivably interesting. Listen: it's a master's voice.' Sunday Times

The chorus of gods set out to relate the tale of the Great Ulmar, legendary warrior and champion of Sollistis. But their narrative suffers a major technical hitch when Orvin, Ulmar's hopeless squire, oversleeps on the eve of battle. What follows proves a challenge even to such seasoned storytellers as the gods themselves as they vainly attempt to re-write history with only the help of Orvin, the unlikeliest, most reluctant of last minute replacement champions. With a cast of 40, this is the perfect entertainment for those in search of musical fun, thrills and spectacle. Written and directed by Alan Ayckbourn, with music composed by Denis King, Orvin: Champion of Champions was first co-produced by the Stephen Joseph Theatre and the National Youth Music Theatre and presented at the SJT, Scarborough in August 2003.

I mean, what do you do when you suddenly find you've got a mother who's younger than you are? And a kid brother who turns out to be twenty years older than you? Right. You panic. Yes, eleven-year-old Polly has quite a problem. Now the police are after her as well. Not to mention the Social Services. And a very, very big dog . . . Heeeeeelllllp! The Jollies is another magical tale for children from Britain's most popular and most frequently performed playwright. It premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in December 2002.

Nasty Uncle kills Nice Uncle, gets Bob the Footman to take the blame and Emily gets away to the future in the Time Machine. She has adventures in 1940s Blitz-torn London where she picks up a couple of friendly passengers and they move to 2010 where Droids rule. They pick up one of the more intelligent Droids (Z1991 = Ziggie) and bump up against The End of Time where the only creature left is Hoombean (Human Being) who is barely able to communicate. So they all return to the 1880s where Emily is just in Time to save Nice Uncle from death and Bob the Butler from being hanged for the murder.

How Ms. Poopay Dayseer, a twenty-first century Specialist Sexual Consultant, while peddling her "services" to an elderly hotel room client unexpectedly finds herself running for her life. How her flight through a communicating door brings her face to face with her own past and with Ruella who apparently died under suspicious circumstances twenty years earlier. And how Poopay's gradual friendship with that remarkable woman changes the future for both of them.

A time-travelling comedy thriller, Communicating Doors was published to coincide with the West End opening in 1995.

Stanley, Hazel, Warren and Rick make the weekly escape from their real life nightmares into a role-playing board game peopled by dragons and monsters. A safe world where the dangers are of their own imagining; where they are free to become heroes of their own devising. But how clear is the dividing line between what they choose to be and what they really are? What would it take for them to lose sight of it altogether? All it requires is Marcie. Loveable, understanding, sympathetic Marcie - destined to become the new demon to haunt their wildest dreams.

With an Introduction by the author.

'The prolific master of suburban mayhem has still got his mojo.' Evening Standard

Time of My Life

'One of Mr. Ayckbourn's most virtuosic experiments in postmodern narrative.' Wall Street Journal

Neighbourhood Watch

'Ayckbourn's tartly topical, pitch-black comedy, a startling evocation of the panic induced by nightmarish notions of "broken Britain"... An arresting, nastily comic cautionary tale.' The Times

Arrivals and Departures

'Ayckbourn's genius lies in his ability to write what you might call 'sad comedies,' uproariously funny farces that are at second glance deeply serious, at times despairing portraits of modern middle-class life and its discontents. On occasion, as in Arrivals & Departures, he puts the despair at centre stage, and what results is a play that at bottom can no longer be called a comedy at all.' Wall Street Journal

Hero's Welcome

'Alan Ayckbourn is the poet laureate of missed connections. In play after pensive, droll and acid play, Ayckbourn anatomizes how we fail to understand and trust our lovers and friends.' Guardian

A Brief History of Women

'As A Brief History of Women follows Spates at twenty year intervals through the next sixty years, it becomes progressively more funny, more tender, more Ayckbourn. Ayckbourn knows that moments of real connection between people are hard-won and hard to forget.' The Times

A student edition of five one-act plays by Britain's most popular playwright. Ayckbourn's series of plays for 4-5 actors typify his black comedies of human behaviour. First produced in 1976, the plays are alternately naturalistic, stylised and farcical, but underlying each is the problem of loneliness. The Mother Figure shows a mother unable to escape from baby talk; in The Drinking Companion an absentee husband attempts seduction without success; in Between Mouthfuls, a waiter oversees a fraught dinner encounter. A garden party gets out of hand in Gosforth's Fete whilst A Talk in the Park is a revue style curtain call piece for the five actors. Whether the comedies concern marital conflict, infidelity or motherhood and take place on a park bench or at a village fete, the characters are familiar and their cries for help instantly recognisable. "Principally he is respected as a radical re-inventor of form" Dominic Dromgoole

Alan Ayckbourn introduces his first volume of collected work that contains his morality plays from the 1980s.

Musical

Characters: 1 male, 3 female

Interior Set

Book and Lyrics by Alan Ayckbourn. Music by Paul Todd.

Mrs. Mary Yately is no run of the mill housewife-- she has been chosen by the Evening Echo as Mum of the Year. And, Mrs. Yately is no ordinary character in this brilliantly inventive new musical by Britain's comic master-- she is three separate personalities, played by three actresses. One actor plays all the men in Mary's life, all of whom are, shall we say, not on this world to make her life easier.

"We know that Alan Ayckbourn writes more ingenious comedies than anyone else. Now, he is starting to write more ingenious musicals as well. Me, Myself and I offers more civilized pleasure than any other British musical I've seen this year."-- London Guardian.

"Splendid, galloping music and rapid fire lyrics."-- London Standard.

Features ten plays, which have been selected from the BT National Connections scheme, in which some contemporary playwrights in the UK and Europe were commissioned by the Royal National Theatre to produce original drama specifically for young people. The scripts are specifically written for 11-16+.

Five interrelated one-act plays, written to be performed in any order determined randomly prior to performance, looking at the lives of a judge, agent, politician, budding star and novelist.

The Revengers' Comedies A hugely entertaining pitch that recalls the old movies to which it frequently pays homage - Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, Kind Hearts and Coronets - and expands after intermission to reveal an immensely disturbing vision of contemporary middle-class England poisoned by the rise of economic ruthlessness and the collapse of ethics. New York Times Things We Do for Love Lloyds Private Banking Playwright of the Year Award One of his best, his most shockingly and uproariously funny: a cruel and hilarious masterpiece of tragic comedy and comic tragedy. Sunday Times House & Garden The triumph of his ingenuity lies in the fact that you have to see both plays . . . A second time round, in whichever order you take them, characters will deepen, while those you know become the background. It is a superb Ayckbourn joke that a comedy about non-communication should depend on the sharpest communication skills. Sunday Times

Alan Ayckbourn

Comedy

Characters: 7 male, 5 female

Multiple Interior Scenes

England's master of satire is in top form in this comic morality play which was triumphantly presented by the National Theatre of Great Britain. Jack McCraken has the opportunity of a lifetime: he is the new head of a family furniture business and believes he will initiate a new age of honesty and integrity. He quickly learns that everyone else involved in the enterprise has a vested interest in maintaining business as usual, rife with dishonesty and deceit. "One of Alan Ayckbourn's best." -The New York Times "If you demand your fun fast and furious, this is your ticket." - The New York Post "You'll laugh 'till it hurts. Don't miss it " - WNEW Radio

"The laughs never stop. Easily one of the best plays to arrive in this Broadway season." - USA Today "Ayckbourn has never written more skillfully." -Evening Standard "Brilliant." - Financial Times "The laughs heap up, but by the evening's end our theatre's master craftsman and finest recorder of social nuance has delivered a disturbing morality play."- London Daily News

Snake in the Grass "A terrific piece - brilliant, bizarre and yet totally believable... In fact, it's more than classic; it's close to the top of its class." Yorkshire Post If I Were You "A blissfully funny comedy that's also filled with sadness, a devilishly simple theatrical idea that spins out all kinds of complex truths about human nature." Daily Telegraph Life and Beth "A wise, humane, funny play about the inevitability of death and the continuity of life." Guardian My Wonderful Day "A transformation happens as magical as the most magnificent pantomime transformation anyone could ever imagine... the playwright dissolves the paraphernalia of our adult selves and uncovers that space inside each of us that is still the child we once were." Observer Life of Riley "As perceptive as ever... Ayckbourn has once again achieved a satisfyingly rich, tragi-comic complexity." Daily Telegraph

Love stories yet to happen, in a future filled with surprises. Who is the amorous stranger, Titus, who materialises in young Grace's bedroom? Can she believe he is who he says he is? For her parents, Franklin and Martha, does love everlasting still hold true if death is postponed indefinitely? Can lawyer Lorraine, who prides herself on her infallibility, have finally discovered the ideal partner, one who is also never wrong? Will lonely secretary Sylvia, after unhappy affairs with everyone from deep sea divers to space shuttle pilots, ever find her Mr Right? A comedy with its head in the future and its heart in the past, Alan Ayckbourn's Surprises premiered in July 2012 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in a co-production with Chichester Festival Theatre.

Thriller

Characters: 1 male, 2 females

Scenery: 2 interiors, 1 exterior

When Miss Pickhart visits the illusionist Ratchet on official Town Hall business, she discovers a sinister secret. Alone in the cellar after Ratchet is called away, she confronts the ghost of Rosalinda who met an untimely death during the saw the woman in half trick. The ghost believes it was not an accident and calls upon Miss Pickhart to release her. To do this Miss Pickhart must relive that fateful night and climb into the cabinet. It seems as though she too is to meet a grim death until the play takes an unexpected twist.