Playwriting category: 893 books

The swimming pool frequently appears in film not merely as a setting but as a dynamic site where social, political, cultural and aesthetic forces converge. What is it about this space that has so fascinated filmmakers and what kinds of cinematic investigations does it encourage? This collection features...

Within two years of the success of his first play Die Räuber on the German stage in 1781, Schiller wrote a drama based on a rebellion in sixteenth century Italy, its title: The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa. A Republican Tragedy. At the head of the conspiracy stood Gian Luigi de’ Fieschi (1524-1547),...

Alan Ayckbourn's play is about a very ordinary teenager called Lucy. With her father glued to the cowboys on the telly, her mother preoccupied with neighbourly gossip and her brother enclosed in his ear-phones, no one wants to know about her place in the school swimming team. So Lucy revives her childhood...

A treat to read and a joy to perform, this second collection of Alan Ayckbourn's work is a cornucopia of some of his wonderfully inventive children's plays. From the story of the teenage Lucy in Invisible Friends who revives her childhood imaginary friend when things get difficult at home, onto the...

Snake in the Grass A terrific piece - brilliant, bizarre and yet totally believable . . . In fact, it's more than classic; it's close to the top of its class. Yorkshire Post If I Were You A blissfully funny comedy that's also filled with sadness, a devilishly simple theatrical idea that spins...

Love stories yet to happen, in a future filled with surprises. Who is the amorous stranger, Titus, who materialises in young Grace's bedroom? Can she believe he is who he says he is? For her parents, Franklin and Martha, does love everlasting still hold true if death is postponed indefinitely? Can...

Blaire, an early twenty-something woman, struggles with the pain of a past trauma and loses herself in the fight for equality. Meanwhile her best friend Halle is stuck in a relationship defined by passé gender roles, which increasingly affects her friendship with Blaire. In a melodic yet naturalist...

Midsummer's weekend in Edinburgh. It's raining. Bob's a failing car salesman on the fringes of the city's underworld. Helena's a high-powered divorce lawyer with a taste for other people's husbands. She's totally out of his league; he's not her type at all. They absolutely should not sleep together....

Duck Macatarsney cares for her biker dad, Duke, whose MS is getting worse. Duke is a spliff-smoking (for medicinal reasons you understand), bike-riding, heavy-metal- and horror-movie-loving, pizza-eating widower who has brought up Duck since the death of her mum in a crash. The two of them are just...

The first thing I remember is... falling. A young man arrives in a dying city with seashells in his pockets. He doesn't know who he is, or how he got here. He goes by the only name he can think of: Lanark. Lanark is a portrait of the outsider artist as a young man, an exploded life story like...

‘You have to realise your decisions have consequences not only for you but for all of us – most of all your father!’ It’s late. Richard and Joyce have just returned home from the House of Lords – another boozy, gruelling but important social event that further cements Richard’s...

author : Stéphane Ternoise Translated by Kate-Marie Glover (http://www.frenchauthor.info) The Teddy (Bear) Whisperer Act 1 *The little girl, sitting up in bed, is barely visible amongst all her cuddly toys. There are cuddly toys all over her bedroom. All the children...

Morna works as a cleaner in Edinburgh. She spends her time drinking, attempting affairs and trying to work out the mind of the twenty-year-old son with whom she shares her flat. Her elder brother, Athol, lives near Glasgow airport with his wife. The owner of a floor-tiling company, with two grown-up...

For Lilly and her mother, going to Indonesia isn't just another holiday. It's an escape and a new start. But when Will takes a gentle ride along the beach on an elephant called Oona, calamity strikes. As a tsunami comes crashing towards them, Oona charges deep into the jungle, her young rider desperately...