This was all right Stephenson's first play and opened in London in 1996, winning the "Olivier Award for Best Comedy" that year.""

Three sisters meet on the eve of their mother's funeral; as the conflicts of the past converge, everyday lies and tensions reveal the particular patterns and strains of family relationships. Teresa is seemingly content with her second marriage and health food business though she is an obsessive organizer to the point of extremes. Mary is a vaguely discontented successful doctor with an equally successful lover Mike, who is, alas, married. Catherine is the youngest and most immature and binges on shopping for inappropriate clothes, go-nowhere love affairs, and drugs. There's also the about to be buried mother who returns to haunt her three daughters in order to ensure everything is alright with the three of them before she is laid to rest.

Stephenson's story is a tragedy, peppered with laughter, about mothers and daughters who fail to successfully navigate the troubling shores of love and antagonism and also tend to fail in establishing healthy and enduring connections with sisters and lovers.

This Student Edition features the full text of the play and an introduction that includes a plot summary and a discussion of the themes, characters, structure, language, style and production history of the play. Notes on words and phrases in the text, questions for further study and a bibliography provide students with everything they need to study and appreciate this award-winning play.

1799 - On the eve of a new century, the house buzzes with scientific experiments, furtive romance and farcical amateur dramatics.

1999 - In a world of scientific chaos, cloning and genetic engineering, the cellar of the same house reveals a dark secret buried for 200 years.

An Experiment with an Air Pump was joint recipient of the 1997 Margaret Ramsay Award and premiered at The Royal Exchange Theatre Company, Manchester in February 1997. Due for a major London production in autumn 1998. Her previous play The Memory of Water won the 1996 Writers' Guild Award for Best Original Radio Play and the 1997 Sony Award for Best Original Drama.

Disappearance of son provides compelling study of grief and loss At three o'clock in the morning, this is what I think. I think somebody killed him. They killed him, God, I don't know how I'm uttering these words...they killed him because he's white and Western and they hated him. And it wasn't personal. Which somehow makes it worse. When Lia and Nick's son disappears when overseas, all they have is an email that he was thinking of going to Jakarta, leaving them with their own grief and uncertainty. And then a stranger appears, uncannily like their son, covered in scars and holding Adam's passport...Enlightenment is a powerful study of parental grief and of hope amidst uncertainty.; Published to tie-in with the world premier at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in March 2005.; Major new work by the writer of the Olivier Award-winning West End hit The Memory of Water.

A new play by the award-winning author of The Memory of Water London, the 1990s. Jack is afraid of dying, while his 40-something daughter is preparing for her wedding to a black lawyer, Sholto. As the family gathers for the forthcoming festivities, Jack attempts to reconcile himself with the unexpected decisions of those in whom he has always trusted, as well as starting to question his own, not unblemished past. A haunting play about memory, guilt and redemption."An acute and funny writer, Stephenson carves out a welcome territory that is distinctive, contemporary and theatrical" Independent Mappa Mundi is published to tie in with its premiere at the National theatre, London in October 2002

In The Memory of Water (winner of the 2000 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy), three sisters meet on the eve of their mother's funeral. As the conflicts of the past converge, everyday lies and tensions reveal the particular patterns and strains of family relationships. '"Combines a flair for witty dialogue with a relish for the dynamics of theatre ...a mistress of comic anguish" GuardianFive Kinds of Silence (winner of the 1996 Writers' Guild Award for Best Original Radio Play and the 1997 Sony Award for Best Original Drama) is the story of a family in which control has become the driving force, where everything has its place, and where there are only rules, duties and punishments. "An acute and funny writer, Stephenson carves out a welcome territory that is distinctive, contemporary and theatrical" Independent

After a sell-out run earlier this year, this topical and powerful play returns to Soho Theatre. A programme text edition published in conjunction with The Synergy Theatre Project in association with The Forgiveness Project and Soho Theatre, The Long Road runs from 10 - 29 November 2008. 'Mary wants us to talk about the girl that killed our son. I want to wipe her off the face of the earth' In the aftermath of Danny's pointless murder, his family struggles to find meaning and forgiveness. The Long Road evolved out of a period of research with prisoners by Synergy Theatre Project, in collaboration with The Forgiveness Project and award-winning playwright Shelagh Stephenson. Synergy Theatre Project works through theatre with offenders and ex-offenders towards resettlement and rehabilitation whilst placing the wider issues surrounding imprisonment in the public arena. The Forgiveness Project encourages and empowers people to explore the nature of forgiveness and alternatives to revenge. 'It is a rare play that hits the news with such cruel topicality ...Stephenson offers a powerful, illuminating piece of dramatic fiction' Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard 'Rare and remarkable ...this is a drama that cries out for attention - and richly rewards it' The Telegraph

D'you ever look in the mirror and you don't recognise the person looking back at you?

Tom Cavallero, Hollywood actor, and his girlfriend Iona are spending Christmas in England with his oldest friends, Bea and Kitty. Bea's new lover, Tad, would rather hole up quietly with his copy of Pathology For Beginners. Her daughter Joni would rather be in Shepherds Bush. Northumberland in a blizzard isn't quite what Tom was expecting. And how can anyone relax when Iona's filming their every move? She's making a documentary about 'the real Tom'. But who is that exactly? And what's out there in the garden that disturbs them all so much?

Tom, Bea and Kitty go back a long way. They've known each other since they were young and unformed. But who have they become? And what price have they paid?

Ancient Lights premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in November, 2000.

"An acute and funny writer, Stephenson carves out a welcome territory that is distinctive, contemporary and theatrical." - Independent

What you haven't realised is that I sew to aid my thought processes. Look - needle - stab - stitch - thought. Needle - stab - stitch - thought. So next time you see a woman demurely sewing a sampler, be very, very wary. God knows what she may be planning. Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) was a social theorist who is often credited as being the first female sociologist. In Harriet Martineau Dreams of Dancing, Shelagh Stephenson depicts the great writer in a period of convalescence, living as an invalid by the sea in Tynemouth. Shut off from her usual society, Harriet is visited by women of the locale; Impie, a recent widow who is using her new-found marital freedom to paint murals on the ceilings of her family home; Beulah, the daughter of a woman who'd been sold into slavery and escaped; and Jane, the housemaid, whose unfeted and unexpected gifts lift her out of domestic servitude and could help Harriet out of illness. Harriet Martineau is a play about female self-reliance in a time of patriarchal dominance. Written by Shelagh Stephenson, it premiered at Live Theatre, Newcastle, in winter 2016.

The first collection of plays by one of Britain's most acclaimed contemporary playwrights - "one of the most promising dramatic prospects of the new millennium" (Daily Telegraph)

The collection includes the THE MEMORY OF WATER in which three sisters meet on the evening after their mother's funeral and fight out old troubles with one another. FIVE KINDS OF SILENCE is a terrifying portrayal of a family for whom rules, duties and punishments are the driving force. In AN EXPERIMENT WITH AN AIR PUMP in a world of scientific chaos, cloning and genetic engineering, the cellar of a house yields up the secrets of the scientific discoveries of 1799. In ANCIENT LIGHTS, Hollywood stars come home to the hills of Northumberland.

The Memory of Water: "combines a flair for witty dialogue with a relish for the dynamics of theatre?a mistress of comic anguish" Guardian
Five Kinds of Silence: "this quietly eloquent play" Independent
An Experiment With An Air Pump: "teeming with interest, humour, eloquence and, above all, ideas?it's not often we see a new play with this much energy, variety and intelligence" Independent
Ancient Lights: "a cracking, grown-up play?with a light touch that cuts surprisingly deep" Daily Telegraph