Drama

This introduction offers an overview of early English theatre from the earliest recorded vernacular texts in the late medieval period to the closing of the theatres in 1642. Where most...

Which lyric writer perpetrated the immortal line 'Every pedagogue goes to bed agog'? Which Hollywood actress was told by an even more famous British one that she was 'so sane...

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little PriceThe first great 'resistance' drama - and perhaps the definitive Greek tragedy.Creon, the King of Thebes, has forbidden the burial...

Hurled words. Thrown objects. Dodged burgers.A burger was thrown at Travis Alabanza on Waterloo Bridge in 2016. From this experience they have created a poetic, passionate performance piece based around...

Sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself(Miles Davis)Two men meet at a funeral. Gil knew the deceased. Benny did not. Before long their families are close. Soon...

Something strange happens when the past comes crushing into you, right in the present.April, 1980. The British colony of Rhodesia becomes the independent nation of Zimbabwe. A born-free, Tonderai Munyevu...

Set in St Louis during the depression, the glass menagerie is one of Tennessee Williams' most powerful and moving plays. Abandoned by her husband when he 'fell in love with...

Acting, direction, stagecraft, theatre architecture and design, above all the whole extraordinary evolution of dramatic literature - here is a history of theatre, worldwide in scope and ranging from its...

Do you want to know why I'm here?Northern Ireland are playing Poland on the TV. Jimmy and Ian, two middle-aged Belfast men, are meeting tonight for the first time. They...

with: Arup, Jens;

You haven't asked, but yes, you both may stay in our house for the time being. And use our things. I figure it'll take a war to settle it all.A...

"This Malevole is one of the most prodigious affections that ever conversed with nature: a man, or rather a monster, more discontent than Lucifer." The Malcontent is a striking example...

'Miss Delaney brings real people on to her stage...she is busy recording the wonder of life as she lives it' Kenneth Tynan, Observer A Taste of Honey became a sensational...

"One of theatre's subtlest, most sophisticated minds" (The Times) Alphabetical Order: "A comic essay about two types of woman...a very intelligent comedy because of its classic simplicity, and unusual in...

Games for Actors and Non-Actors is the classic and best selling book by the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal. It sets out the principles and practice of...

The first eight astonishing plays by Enda Walsh, 'one of the most dazzling wordsmiths of contemporary theatre' (Guardian).Bursting onto the theatre scene in 1996 with Disco Pigs, Enda Walsh has...

'A first-rate piece of writing... the simplicity and innocent beauty of the language give it depth and elegiac quality' Independent'The play, based on Barry's own great-great-grandmother, shows he has the...

'A magnificently readable tour of theatrical history conducted by our best-informed living critic.' - Michael Billington'Benedict Nightingale's characteristically witty, insightful and enthusiastic reports make you wish you'd been sitting next...

"Fishamble: The New Play Company" produces first plays by new playwrights as part of its "Fishamble Firsts" initiative. This anthology, published during the Company's twentieth birthday year in 2008, is...

Titus Andronicus was the young Shakespeare's audacious, sporadically brilliant experiment in sensational tragedy. Its horrors are notorious, but its powerful poetry of grief is the work of a true tragic...

Sam Shepard has been described by the New Yorker as 'one of the most original, prolific and gifted dramatists at work today'. Here are seven of his finest plays, including...

The Taming of the Shrew is unique among Shakespeare's plays and is a perennial and compelling success in the theatre. Its reception is marked, however, by ongoing polarized debate over...

Richard III is one of the great Shakespearean characters and roles. James R Siemon examines the attraction of this villain to audiences and focuses on how beguiling, even funny, he...

In 1934, the people of Inishmaan learn that the Hollywood director Robert Flaherty is coming to the neighbouring island to film his documentary Man of Aran. No one is more...

The Pitchfork Disney heralded the arrival of a unique and disturbing voice in the world of contemporary drama. Manifesting Ridley's vivid and visionary imagination and the dark beauty of his...

A murderer becomes the toast of the village as his charm negates his crime. A young countess saves her tenants from starvation, but only by selling her soul to the...

In his essay on Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Kennelly writes: 'A poet's critical judgements are always, at bottom, necessary justifications of his own most dearly held aesthetic.' This selection of his...

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little PriceJ.M. Synge's extraordinary play about a young man on the run, and his unexpected elevation to folk hero.A stranger, Christy...

Trees don't have ears.How are you so sure?As they attempt to flee the Best Nation in the World, North Korean sisters Minhee and Junhee are torn apart at the border....

Nominated for Best New Play at the 2023 Olivier AwardsI found a king in me and now I love youI found a king in you and now I love meFather...

Every decade a small German village in the remote Bavarian Alps continues a tradition that dates back four centuries to the time of the Bubonic Plague. All performers must be...

'In the beginning was the three-pointed star, One smile of light across the empty face; One bough of bone across the rooting air, The substance forked that marrowed the first...

Richard Wagner's vast Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle comprises four full-length operas (Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung) and is arguably the most extraordinary achievement in the history of...