A manifesto for the future of playwriting, this book challenges you to be a part of that future in the belief that it is fundamentally important to write plays. Plays help us understand ourselves, others, and the world around us. Reading this book, you will be challenged to learn your craft, explode what you know, prioritise what is important to you, and write in the way that only you can write. Most books on playwriting explain how to create a believable character in a story driven by plot. This book, however, goes even further in its exploration of the playwright's most valuable tool: theatricality. By learning from the past, and the present, the playwrights of tomorrow can create new, vivid, theatrical drama for the future. This manifesto also examines the process of writing, the art of collaboration, and the impact of writing on a playwright's mental health. It identifies the highs and lows, as well as the trials and tribulations, of life as a playwright in today's world. Theatre is a living artform. It is time for playwrights to acknowledge that fact and to celebrate the unique, primal thrill that a live theatre experience offers us. The future of playwriting is in your hands. Do you accept the challenge?

A manifesto for the future of playwriting, this book challenges you to be a part of that future in the belief that it is fundamentally important to write plays. Plays help us understand ourselves, others, and the world around us. Reading this book, you will be challenged to learn your craft, explode what you know, prioritise what is important to you, and write in the way that only you can write. Most books on playwriting explain how to create a believable character in a story driven by plot. This book, however, goes even further in its exploration of the playwright's most valuable tool: theatricality. By learning from the past, and the present, the playwrights of tomorrow can create new, vivid, theatrical drama for the future. This manifesto also examines the process of writing, the art of collaboration, and the impact of writing on a playwright's mental health. It identifies the highs and lows, as well as the trials and tribulations, of life as a playwright in today's world. Theatre is a living artform. It is time for playwrights to acknowledge that fact and to celebrate the unique, primal thrill that a live theatre experience offers us. The future of playwriting is in your hands. Do you accept the challenge?

Confronts the ethics of HIV/AIDS drug trials in Africa. Performed at Theatre Royal Stafford East.

"Worlds Apart" is a devastating play about political asylum, even more relevant today than when it was written ten years ago. In "Crusade" a bus-load of very different individuals are stranded in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and its not long before the tensions overflow. "This Other Eden" examines a mismatched string quartet, riven by social and political differences, as it gradually falls apart.

Think about it. Think what you could achieve without women in your life. If all the time you spent on them, you spent on yourself. Think how much money you could save. Think how much aggravation you could avoid. Journeying over from the West Indies to England, Ferdy, Lennie, Dennis and Bernie are all eager to make successes of themselves and take full advantage of what they think The Big Life has to offer. So they pledge to abstain from women for three years. But Mary, Kathy, Zuleika and Sybil have other ideas. They know that man cannot live by bread alone! Will the men stick with their idea of The Big Life, or will Cupid have the final say? The Big Life is a brand new musical, a wonderfully upbeat story of unrequited love and a great comedy all rolled into one.

Lotte is a club singer from Newcastle, who's spent a lifetime singing the songs of Ella Fitzgerald. With two kids to support she sings by night and works by day to make ends meet. After a series of bad relationships, Lotte meets Michael, a charismatic art dealer from London and her luck seems to have changed for the better. But when he disappears without explanation, she follws him to America where she must make a pilgrimage of her own. Beside the grave of Ella Fitzgerald, the extraordinary events and scenes of Lotte's life are revealed.

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. They were the most famous entertainers on the planet and they made the rules. Their world was full of charisma, talent and charm, gambling, private jets, drink, drugs and girls to excess. This was vintage Hollywood This was showbiz This was the Rat Pack Shawn Levy's compelling and atmospheric bestseller has been adapted for the stage for Nottingham Playhouse, in co-production with The Octagon Theatre, Bolton. Opens on September 6th 2002, tours to Bolton and Ipswich. Further UK tour planned for 2003.

A Night in Tunisia and Jamaica House were produced at Stratford East, while Skaville went on a tour encompassing Edinburgh and London. A Night in Tunisia plays on a stage split between past and present, and describes the fall of a great jazz musician through self-doubt and guilt. Jamaica House features two characters in a tower block that is due to be demolished shortly, deciding whether their lives are worth leaving the building for. Skaville is about desire, escape, violence and music in the late seventies, as a stranger arrives in town to transform the fortunes of a lonely man's record shop.

A contemporary retelling of a classic gothic story, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, set against a background of cuts to our 70 year old NHS. Alison is heading to her first shift at St Nicholas's Hospital in Gosforth. She's nervous. It's a night shift on an all-male psychiatric unit and she hasn't finished her training yet. But Rod, the senior Staff Nurse, seems to know what to do. Take a deep breath... Inspired by Alan Hull's time working at St Nick's the play features many of the hit songs he wrote at that time, including Winter Song, Lady Eleanor and Clear White Light played by a live band. Live Theatre wants to bring this incredible music to a new generation. Clear White Light is based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Fall of the House of Usher and written by Olivier Award nominated writer Paul Sirett.