Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Macbeth, and The Tempest... in a way you’ve never seen them before. Away from the rest of their plays, Malvolio, Cinna, Peaseblossom, Banquo, and Caliban tell their tales, each in a solo-show written for younger audiences, by acclaimed playwright Tim Crouch. No longer burdened by iambic pentameter, these five can finally speak their truth… Fusing Shakespeare with meta-theatre, multimedia, creative tasks, and philosophical playfulness, Crouch reimagines these secondary Shakespearean characters in a way that is accessible and engaging to young audiences. Featuring an introduction from Crouch that explains the origin of the five plays and their performance processes, the I, Shakespeare collection provides a fresh perspective on some of theatre’s most well-known stories, finding the parallels between the Bard’s time and present day.

Theatre has a complex history of responding to crises, long before they happen. Through stage plays, contemporary challenges can be presented, explored and even foreshadowed in ways that help audiences understand the world around them. Since the theatre of the Greeks, audiences have turned to live theatre in order to find answers in uncertain political, social and economic times, and through this unique collection questions about This anthology brings together a collection of 20 scenes from 20 playwrights that each respond to the world in crisis. Twenty of the world's most prolific playwrights were asked to select one scene from across their published work that speaks to the current world situation in 2020. As COVID-19 continues to challenge every aspect of global life, contemporary theatre has long predicted a world on the edge. Through these 20 scenes from plays spanning from 1980 to 2020, we see how theatre and art has the capacity to respond, comment on and grapple with global challenges that in turn speak to the current time in which we are living. Each scene, chosen by the writer, is prefaced by an interview in which they discuss their process, their reason for selection and how their work reflects both the past and the present. From the political plays of Lucy Prebble and James Graham to the polemics of Philip Ridley and Tim Crouch. From bold works by Inua Ellams, Morgan Lloyd Malcom and Tanika Gupta to the social relevance of Hannah Khalil, Zoe Cooper and Simon Stephens this anthology looks at theatre in the present and asks the question: "how can theatre respond to a world in crisis?" The collection is prefaced by an introduction from Edward Bond, one of contemporary theatre's most prolific dramatists.

"My cheek is folded into his neck. He's speaking into my ear and I can feel his chest rising and falling against me. This hug is long, gentle, intimate and alien. Thanks to the huge sheet of plastic squeezed between us, covering us from head to toe and several feet further, it's also completely risk-assessed." - The Guardian In the Summer of 2020 Dante or Die's Artistic Directors came across photographs of plastic hug tunnels in Brazilian care homes: plastic curtains with plastic arm-holes that allow two people to hug one another safely. They enabled elderly people to hug their loved ones during the Covid-19 pandemic. It struck a nerve, and inspired the company to make a one-on-one performance installation exploring the role of touch in our lives, which could be performed live during the pandemic. Skin Hunger is about the power of touch - a vital aspect of humanity that so many of us didn't realise we needed until it was restricted. The company invited pioneering writers Ann Akinrijin, Tim Crouch & Sonia Hughes, to respond to the idea with a piece of writing that would integrate the physical act of touch into the performance. Crucially, each piece of writing simply cannot be performed without an audience member sharing the space with a performer. This book includes each writer's piece of writing, reflections from the creative team, a foreword from a neuroscientist specialising in touch and images from the original production that took place in a hidden chapel in London's West End in June 2021. Dante or Die is an award-winning, independent theatre company, led by Daphna Attias & Terry O'Donovan, that has been creating new performances in unexpected places since 2006. You could experience one of our shows in your local leisure centre or cafe, the self-storage unit down the road, or on your mobile phone. We collaborate with local people, academics and experts to create a distinctive Dante or Die world, telling stories that grapple with knotty topics through intimate, witty and poignant experiences. @danteordie www.danteordie.com

And that's the moment when I leave. The moment when the jokes fail us. When I fail. I fail. This precise moment here, look, see with your ears. The Fool leaves King Lear before the blinding. Before the killing starts. Before the ice-creams in the interval. In his new solo work, playwright Tim Crouch draws on ideas of virtual reality to send the Fool back to the future of the play that he left. Back to a world without moral leadership or integrity; a world where wealth covers vice; where the poor are dehumanised; where the jokes fall flat; where live art has become the privilege of the few. Truth's a Dog Must to Kennel is a daringly unaccommodating piece of theatre that switches between scathingly funny stand-up and an audacious act of collective imagining. King Lear meets stand-up meets the metaverse. Crouch's previous celebrated works include An Oak Tree, The Author, Adler & Gibb, Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation, and Beginners. This edition was published to coincide with the production at The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in August 2022.

Jesus didn't die so we could be reborn, lady, the stars did. The writer leads his followers towards the end of this world and the start of a new one. The book he's written predicts it all - the equations, the black hole, all the words we'll speak till then. On this last day, at this last hour, a defector finds her voice and returns.

'You'd like that, would you, your most private, pinkest, tenderest - small bird, small bird, small fragile - stolen from you, slammed down onto the slab, the block, poked at and paraded.' The children swing their legs on the chairs. The student delivers the presentation. The older woman stands with the gun. The young couple arrives at the house. The house is returning to nature. A movie is being made. The truth is being plundered. But the house is still lived in and the spirit to resist is strong. Janet Adler and Margaret Gibb were conceptual artists working in New York at the end of the last century. They were described by art critic Dave Hickey as the 'most ferociously uncompromising voice of their generation'. With Adler's death in 2004, however, the compromise began. Adler & Gibb tells the story of a raid - on a house, a life, a reality and a legacy. The play takes Tim Crouch's fascination with form and marries it to a thrilling story of misappropriation. Also includes what happens to the hope at the end of the evening by Tim Crouch and Andy Smith, a facsimile of the text as used in performance.

Tim Crouch's new play is about the abuse carried out in the name of the spectator; it is a story of hope, violence, and exploitation. Laugh with the actors, tap your feet to the music, and turn to your neighbor.

Two guides in a gallery - Two lovers with a lifestyle to maintain - Two hearts beating 8,000 miles apart - Translations - Transactions - And a transplantation. "England" is the story of a search for a new heart. It's a story about a life saved and an illness overcome at any cost. It's a tour through spaces and across borders: from an art gallery to a jam factory, from Edinburgh to Osaka, from a hospital bed to a hotel room. It's a tour to the end of the world.

Includes the plays The Author, England, An Oak Tree and My Arm. My Arm '...he is actually exploring on stage the nature of art and performance itself, taking risks in the process... At these moments, Crouch is armed and dangerous.' Guardian An Oak Tree 'Pirandello for a modern audience and better. It's philosophy inaction, playful and seriously thought-provoking.' Independent on Sunday ENGLAND '...created with rigorous, poetic economy... ENGLAND belongs to that wonderful genre of thoughtful plays that could be discussed for hours without exhausting its ideas.' New York Times The Author 'This is not audience participation; it is the audience at once being the theatre and interrogating it.' Financial Times

I, Cinna (The Poet) has one short scene in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar where he is mistaken for someone else and killed by the mob. Now, in a new play by Tim Crouch, this unlucky man is given a chance to tell his story. Written for ages 11+, I, Cinna (The Poet) is a fusion of theatre, multimedia and creative writing tasks. Cinna asks his young audience to consider the relationship between words and actions, art and politics, self and society. During the performance he asks us to write alongside him: a small poem on a big theme. Originally commissioned for the World Shakespeare Festival which is produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company for London 2012 Festival. Shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Award for Theatre Play for Young People 2013.

'Since your daughter's death I've not been much of a hypnotist.' A man loses his daughter to a car accident. Nothing now is what it seems. It's like he's in a play - but he doesn't know the words or the moves. The man who was driving the car is a stage hypnotist. Since the accident he's lost the power of suggestion. His act's a disaster. For him, everything now is exactly what it is. For the first time since the accident, these two men meet. They meet when the Father volunteers for the Hypnotist's act. And, this time, he really doesn't know the words or the moves... An Oak Tree is a remarkable play for two actors. The Father, however, is played by a different actor - male or female - at each performance. They walk on stage having neither seen nor read a word of the play they're in...until they're in it. This is a breath-taking projection of a performance, given from one actor to another, from a hypnotist to their subject, from an audience to a person. An Oak Tree is a bold and absurdly comic play about loss, suggestion and the power of the mind. An Oak Tree premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in August 2005.

"This brilliant collection of re-imagined stories is a perfect introduction to Shakespeare for students of all ages. They are funny, fresh, intriguing and poignant, and use a supreme storyteller's skill to bring us into the worlds of some of Shakespeare's best-loved characters and plays. A must for all teachers who want to excite and inspire their students about Shakespeare's work and the possibilities of theatre." Jacqui O'Hanlon, Director of Education Royal Shakespeare Company I, Shakespeare brings together Tim Crouch's take on four Shakespeare classics: Twelfth Night, Macbeth, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream. These solo pieces are written for younger audiences but their originality and strength make them suitablefor any age. Each play in this collection combines the need to tell Shakespeare's primary story with an opportunity for the secondary characters to finally have their say - Malvolio, Banquo, Caliban and Peaseblossom. Each play is different but all display a formal inventiveness and a philosophical playfulness that make them stand alone as brilliant examples of contemporary theatre.