It's risky work, handlin' men, my lass. For when a woman builds her life on men, either husbands or sons, she builds on summat as sooner or later brings the house down crash on her head - yi, she does. In Husbands and Sons, Ben Power has interwoven three of D. H. Lawrence's greatest dramas, The Daughter-in-Law, A Collier's Friday Night and The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd. Together, they describe the community Lawrence came from with fierce tenderness, evoking a now-vanished world of manual labour and working-class pride. On the cracked border of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire stands the village of Eastwood. The women of the village, wives and mothers, struggle to hold their families and their own souls together in the shadow of the great Brinsley pit. Husband and Sons by D. H. Lawrence, adapted by Ben Power, premiered at the National Theatre, London, in October 2015 in a co-production with Royal Exchange Theatre.

I choose to take back my life. My life. Medea is a wife and a mother. For the sake of her husband, Jason, she's left her home and borne two sons in exile. But when he abandons his family for a new life, Medea faces banishment and separation from her children. Cornered, she begs for one day's grace. It's time enough. She exacts an appalling revenge and destroys everything she holds dear. Ben Power's version of Euripides' tragedy Medea premiered at the National Theatre, London, in July 2014.

Most modern books and films glamorize World War II airborne soldiers as troopers leaping into the night to descend by parachute into combat. Much less often considered is the role of glider forces. Glider troops lacked the panache and special distinctions of paratroopers, despite their critical role in airborne warfare. Likewise, World War II ground combat is characterized as a combined arms fight of infantry and armor, backed up with field artillery; by comparison the role played by specialized, supporting arms has received scant attention. The 80th AAA Battalion was a glider outfit, providing anti-aircraft defense and anti-tank capability to the division's three infantry regiments as battlefield conditions dictated. Elements of the battalion fought in Italy, Normandy, Holland and the Battle of the Bulge, making combat glider assaults during both Operation Neptune and Operation Market Garden. The exploits of the men of the 80th tend to be obscured as commanders maneuvered the batteries wherever their special skills were needed on the battlefield, with no regiment to call a permanent home. The 80th AAA battalion was a hybrid unit. While its members were considered Coast Artillery (the branch responsible for defending ground formations from air attack during WWII), they fought alongside parachute and glider infantry, most often providing direct fire, anti-armor support with 57mm/6 pounder cannons. While field artillery, both parachute and glider, established their gunlines some distance behind infantry units to provide indirect fire support, the men of the 80th fought face to face with the enemy, alongside their infantry brothers.

Another Romeo and another Juliet in a strikingly different love story. Ben Power weaves the text of Romeo and Juliet into a provocative new tale of love and sacrifice. Re-imagining Shakespeare's story, A Tender Thing is an elegiac yet ultimately hopeful account of the human capacity for love. Shakespeare's timeless poetry provides the backdrop for this delicate and moving account of old age, memory and the demands we make of those we love. When a married couple discover that their lifetime together is drawing to a close, they realise they cannot contemplate being apart. A Tender Thing was first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Northern Stage, Newcastle, in 2009.

Pirandello's classic play, updated for the twenty-first century by Headlong. Blurring the border between fiction and life, between the stage and the world outside, Luigi Pirandello's play Six Characters in Search of an Author exploded onto the stage in 1921 as one of the unique achievements of twentieth-century drama. Updated and recontextualised in this vertiginous new version, it becomes a dark parable for a media-obsessed age and an exhilarating exploration of how we define art, ourselves and 'reality' in the twenty-first century. This version by Rupert Goold and Ben Power was first performed at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in June 2008, in a co-production between Headlong and Chichester Festival Theatre.