"Its brilliance lies in the way Shinn marries ideological debate to psychological complexity, shedding light, laser-bright and precise, on the way in which political discourse informs and shapes individual experience." The Times Election night in the U.S. and things are looking rosy for the Democratic Party as the likely President-elect, his wife, advisors, and twenty-year-old son John Jnr prepare for victory. When controversial photos of John Jnr begin gathering momentum on the internet, his father's advisors are forced into damage limitation leaving father and son to try and reach an agreement. Christopher Shinn's potent play examines religion, freedom of expression and personal responsibility. It premiered at London's Royal Court Theatre in September 2008. This new Modern Classics edition features an introduction by Dominic Cooke.

You can't live your life thinking everything you text will become public knowledge. Censoring yourself is no way to live. Everyone needs Jim. His mother. His best friend. His brother. A hopeful future President. But can Jim really help anyone, when he isn't sure who he is any more, or what he actually believes? An expert in electoral strategy, he's forged a successful career by advising politicians how to communicate with voters. But following seismic shifts in the political landscape, he's disillusioned. And his marriage is in crisis. As he juggles the demands on his life through his smartphone, will the lure of success and fame prove irresistible? The Narcissist is a gripping, inventive and witty take on personal and political communication in the internet age by celebrated US playwright Christopher Shinn. This edition was published to coincide with the premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre in August 2022.

You lie there in the dark and the thoughts won't stop - you think of everything you could have done better... A meticulous and respected stationmaster struggles to overcome his guilt when he finds himself suddenly culpable for a violent train crash that results in eighteen deaths. As the community come together to grieve, they succumb to a mob mentality that threatens to ostracize anyone who challenges the collective definition of morality and truth. An intriguing hybrid of theatrical genres, OEdoen von Horvath's 1937 play is part moral fable, part socio-political commentary and part noir-ish thriller. Adapted by Obie Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize nominee Christopher Shinn, this thrilling new take on a classic play asks contemporary questions that resonate in our current political climate. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at New York's Park Armory in December 2019.

An insightful and revealing play, inspired by real events, which explores society's uncomfortable embrace of the outsider. It's Gabe's senior year and he's going to make the most of it. He's the chair of the LGBTQ Students Group, and he has one eye on a future in politics and one eye on Drew, the editor of the university newspaper. But as Gabe and his friends throw themselves into campus life, unexpected events reveal a darker, lonelier world inhabited by a freshman called Teddy Ferrara. Christopher Shinn's play Teddy Ferrara had its UK premiere at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in 2015, in a production directed by Dominic Cooke.

"The finest new American play I've seen in a long while . . . "Dying City" is a political play and also a psychodrama about what Arthur Miller called the politics of the soul. It's about public conscience and private grief, and real and symbolic catastrophes."-"The New York Observer"

"Anyone who doubts that Mr. Shinn is among the most provocative and probing of American playwrights today need only experience the . . . sophisticated welding of form and content that is "Dying City.""-"The New York Times"

In Christopher Shinn's new play "Dying City," a young therapist, Kelly, whose husband Craig was killed while on military duty in Iraq, is confronted a year later by his identical twin Peter, who suspects that Craig's death was not accidental. Set in a spare downtown-Manhattan apartment after dark, scenes shift from the confrontation between Peter and Kelly, to Kelly's complicated farewell with her husband Craig. Shinn's creepy, sophisticated drama-infused with references to 9/11 and the war in Iraq-explores how contemporary politics and recent history have transformed the lives of these three characters.

Christopher Shinn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and lives in New York. His plays include "Where Do We Live," "Other People," "What Didn't Happen," and "On the Mountain," which have been widely produced in New York, across the United States, and in London. He is the recipient of an OBIE Award in Playwriting, as well as the Robert S. Chesney Award. He teaches playwriting at The New School for Drama.

Ten years after the publication of Shinn Plays: One comes this second volume of his plays, bringing together some of the playwright's most acclaimed work to date. The volume includes: Now Or Later (Royal Court, London, 2008) examines religion, freedom of expression and personal responsibility, focused around a US presidential election. Four (Royal Court, London 1998) is set on the 4th July public holiday and is about four isolated young people searching for connection. Picked (Vineyard Theatre, New York, 2011) takes as its centre a young actor who is selected to star in a major movie and the impact this then has on his life and identity. On The Mountain (South Coast Rep, Costa Mesa, 2005) is about a teenager whose mother is starting out on a new relationship, while both are battling with the memories of the past. The anthology also features an introduction by the author.

A first volume of four plays from the Amercian playwright whose play Dying City was a critical and popular success at the Royal Court Theatre in May 2006. * Other People is set in New York among a twenty-something generation whose lives and hopes are blighted by disillusionment born of affluence and impotence in the face of the unknown. The play premiered in March 2000. * Where Do We Live, set in a post-September 11 world, asks to what extent New York's liberal multicultural society is under threat and how much we should care about the state in which our neighbours live. * The Coming World moves from Shinn's usual Manhattan environment to the coast of New England, where Dora is persuaded, against her better judgement, to help her ex, Ed, in a desperate attempt to escape from spiralling debt. Produced at the Soho Theatre in 2001. * Dying City shifts between 2004 and 2005 - the eve of one brother's departure for Iraq and the day that his twin brother visits his now widowed sister-in-law. The play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in May 2006 to great critical acclaim. The books also features an introduction by the author.

"The Methuen Drama Book of New American Plays" is an anthology of six outstanding plays from some of the most exciting playwrights currently receiving critical acclaim in the States. It showcases work produced at a number of the leading theatres during the last decade and charts something of the extraordinary range of current playwriting in America. It will be invaluable not only to readers and theatergoers in the U.S., but to those around the world seeking out new American plays and an insight into how U.S. playwrights are engaging with their current social and political environment. There is a rich collection of distinctive, diverse voices at work in the contemporary American theatre and this brings together six of the best, with work by David Adjmi, Marcus Gardley, Young Jean Lee, Katori Hall, Christopher Shinn and Dan LeFranc. The featured plays range from the intimate to the epic, the personal to the national and taken together explore a variety of cultural perspectives on life in America. The first play, David Adjmi's "Stunning," is an excavation of ruptured identity set in modern day Midwood, Brooklyn, in the heart of the insular Syrian-Jewish community; Marcus Gardley's lyrical epic "The Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry" deals with the migration of Black Seminoles, is set in mid-1800s Oklahoma and speaks directly to modern spirituality, relocation and cultural history; Young Jean Lee's "Pullman, WA" deals with self-hatred and the self-help culture in her formally inventive three-character play; Katori Hall's "Hurt Village "uses the real housing project of "Hurt Village" as a potent allegory for urban neglect set against the backdrop of the Iraq war; Christopher Shinn's "Dying City" melds the personal and political in a theatrical crucible that cracks open our response to 9/11 and Abu Graib, and finally Dan LeFranc's "The Big Meal," an inter-generational play spanning eighty years, is set in the mid-west in a generic restaurant and considers family legacy and how some of the smallest events in life turn out to be the most significant.

This anthology marks the emergence of one of the finest and most innovative new artists writing for the theater today. "The secret of Shinn's success is in the way he exploits the dramatic gap between what is said and that which is left unsaid . . . writing like this is rare," said the "London Independent." "Where Do We Live," the title play, was written shortly after 9/11 and though never referenced, it still haunts this chronicle of the struggles of several aspiring and gifted young New Yorkers on the Lower East Side. Like all his work, it is a deeply affecting story of how we define our lives and our place in the world.

"The Coming World"
"Shinn certainly looks like a shining prospect for the future."-"Daily Telegraph"

"Four"
"Nothing is simple emotionally. The play keeps delivering small shocks and aches that end in a standoff, or maybe in that pause between despair, resignation and a twinge of hope. Haunting."-Margo Jefferson, "The New York Times"

"Other People"
"Shinn writes with graceful compassion about people trapped inside their own skins unable to make sense of their lives."-"The Guardian"

"What Didn't Happen"
." . . is about the distance between people, and the ways in which even friends, spouses and lovers are ultimately unknowable to one another . . . a playwright to cherish."-"The New York Times"

Christopher Shinn's plays have been produced at Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, the Vineyard Theatre in New York and often at London's Royal Court Theatre. "Where Do We Live" received a 2003 Olivier Award nomination for most promising playwright. His next play, "On the Mountain," premieres in New York City early in 2005.

Go where there's violence. Silicon Valley. The future. A rocket launches. Luke is an aerospace billionaire who can talk to anyone. But God is talking to him. He sets out to change the world. Only violence stands in his way. Christopher Shinn's gripping play received its world premiere at the Almeida Theatre on 12 August 2017 in a production directed by Ian Rickson and featuring Ben Whishaw as Luke.