Drama

On 1 July 1916, the 36th (Ulster) Division took part in one of the bloodiest battles in human history, the Battle of the Somme. This enduring war play is a...

Written in French and first performed at the Theatre du Bablyone in Paris, in 1953, En attendant Godot was subsequently translated by Samuel Beckett into English as Waiting for Godot....

Aeschylus' Oresteia opens with Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter to the gods; an act which sets in motion a bloody cycle of revenge and counter-revenge. When he in turn is killed...

I want to give my country a model of perfection... Nothing less. My country needs cheering up. I'm the man to do it.Nobody can doubt John Christie's passion or his...

Krapp's Last Tape was first performed by Patrick Magee at the Royal Court Theatre in October 1958, and described as 'a solo, if that is the word, for one voice...

Subtitled 'A tragicomedy in two Acts', and famously described by the Irish critic Vivien Mercier as a play in which 'nothing happens, twice', En attendant Godot was first performed at...

Set in the mysterious landscape of the bogs of rural Ireland, Carr's lyrical and timeless play tells the story of Hester Swane, an Irish traveller with a deep and unearthly...

Whether you are a professional actor looking for fresh audition pieces, an amateur in search of competition-worthy monologues, or a student in need of the right speech for workshop, The...

Whether you are a professional actor looking for fresh audition pieces, an amateur in search of competition-worthy monologues, or a student in need of the right speech for workshop, The...

The first collection of plays by Marina Carr introduces the work of a major new voice in playwriting. Love in the Dark'One of the most exciting, new and absolutely original...

This second collection of Brian Friel's plays includes some of his most acclaimed work for the stage. The plays included are Dancing at Lughnasa, Fathers and Sons, Making History, Wonderful...

With the production of Philadelphia, Here I Come! in 1964, Brian Friel established his claim to be the true heir of such distinguished predecessors as Yeats, Synge, O'Casey and Beckett....

The plays in this collection reveal in combination the 'frivolous' and 'serious' aspects of Tom Stoppard's talent: his sense of fun, his sense of theatre, his sense of the absurd,...

The action takes place in late August 1833 at a hedge-school in the townland of Baile Beag, an Irish-speaking community in County Donegal. In a nearby field camps a recently...

First published in 2001, this is an accessible, wide-ranging and informed introduction to Shakespeare's comedies and romances. Rather than taking each play in isolation, the chapters trace recurring issues, suggesting...

This 2004 Companion is designed for readers interested in the creation, production and interpretation of Victorian and Edwardian theatre, both in its own time and on the contemporary stage. The...

This collection of specially written essays offers both student and theatregoer a guide to one of the most celebrated American dramatists working today. Readers will find the general and accessible...

Shakespeare's history plays have been performed more in recent years than ever before, in Britain, North America, and in Europe. This 2002 volume provides an accessible, wide-ranging and informed introduction...

Which plays are included under the heading 'Shakespeare's last plays', and when does Shakespeare's 'last' period begin? What is meant by a 'late play', and what are the benefits in...

This Companion offers a wide-ranging and innovative guide to one of the most exciting and important periods in British theatrical history. The scope of the volume extends from the age...

Caryl Churchill's plays are internationally performed, studied and acclaimed by practitioners, theatre scholars, critics and audiences alike. With fierce imagination the plays dramatise the anxieties and terrors of contemporary life....

Arthur Miller is regarded as one of the most important playwrights of the twentieth century, and his work continues to be widely performed and studied around the world. This updated...

This Companion, first published in 2000, addresses the work of women playwrights in Britain throughout the twentieth century. The chapters explore the historical and theatrical contexts in which women have...

This volume addresses the work of women playwrights throughout the history of the American theatre, from the early pioneers to contemporary feminists. Each chapter introduces the reader to the work...

This Companion brings together sixteen new essays which examine, from various perspectives, the social and cultural role of the actress throughout history and across continents. Each essay focuses on a...

This Companion explores the remarkable variety of forms that Shakespeare's life and works have taken over the course of four centuries, ranging from the early modern theatrical marketplace to the...

David Hare is one of the most important playwrights to have emerged in the UK in the last forty years. This volume examines his stage plays, television plays and cinematic...

Ben Jonson is, in many ways, the figure of greatest centrality to literary study of the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. He wrote in virtually every literary genre: in drama, comedy,...

This collection of fifteen essays offers both student and theatergoer a guide to the stage plays, novel, and screenplays of one of the most celebrated British dramatists since Noel Coward....

Brian Friel is widely recognized as Ireland's greatest living playwright, winning an international reputation through such acclaimed works as Translations (1980) and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). This 2006 collection of...

The drama of the English Middle Ages is perennially popular with students and theatre audiences alike, and this is an updated edition of a book which has established itself as...

This updated Companion offers students crucial guidance on virtually every aspect of the work of this complex and controversial writer. It brings together the contrasting views of major critics and...

This is a volume of specially commissioned essays containing studies of Eugene O'Neill's life, his intellectual and creative forebears, and his relation to the theatrical world of his creative period,...

This is a collection of thirteen original essays from a team of leading scholars in the field. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors cover a healthy sampling of Williams's works,...

A detailed introduction to Moliere and his plays, this Companion evokes his own theatrical career, his theatres, patrons, the performers and theatre staff with whom he worked, and the various...

This series of essays by prominent academics and practitioners investigates in detail the history of performance in the classical Greek and Roman world. Beginning with the earliest examples of 'dramatic'...

In the history of modern theatre, Ibsen is one of the dominating figures. The sixteen chapters of this 1994 Companion explore his life and work, providing an invaluable reference work...

Edward Albee, perhaps best known for his acclaimed and infamous 1960s drama Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is one of America's greatest living playwrights. Now in his seventies, he is...

The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe, first published in 2004, provides a full introduction to one of the great pioneers of both the Elizabethan stage and modern English poetry. It...

Scholars, amateur historians and actors have shaped theatre history in different ways at different times and in different places. This Companion offers students and general readers a series of accessible...

The essays in this collection cover the whole range of Irish drama from the late nineteenth-century melodramas which anticipated the rise of the Abbey Theatre to the contemporary Dublin of...

While Shakespeare's popularity has continued to grow, so has the attention paid to the work of his contemporaries. The contributors to this Companion introduce the distinctive drama of these playwrights,...