Theatre category: 6638 books

I thought everything would change, after the war. And now, no one even mentions it. It is as if we all got together in private and said whatever you do don't mention that, like it never happened. It's the late 1940s. Calm has returned to London and five people are recovering from the chaos...

Tragic Seneca undertakes a radical re-evaluation of Seneca's plays, their relationship to Roman imperial culture and their instrumental role in the evolution of the European theatrical tradition. Following an introduction on the history of the Roman theatre, the book provides a dramatic and cultural...

Arms and the Man is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw. Its title comes from the opening words of Virgil's Aeneid: "Arma virumque cano" (Of arms and the man I sing). (Perseus Project A.1.1) The play was first produced on April 21, 1894 at the Avenue Theatre, and published in 1898 as part of Shaw's...

Candida, a comedy by playwright G. Bernard Shaw, was first published in 1898, as part of his Plays Pleasant. The central characters are clergyman James Morell, his wife Candida and a youthful poet, Eugene Marchbanks, who tries to win Candida's affections. The play questions Victorian notions of...

You Never Can Tell is an 1897 four-act play by G. Bernard Shaw that debuted at the Royalty Theatre. It was published as part of a volume of Shaw's plays entitled Plays Pleasant. The play is set in a seaside town and tells the story of Mrs Clandon and her three children, Dolly, Phillip and Gloria,...

Caesar and Cleopatra, a play written in 1898 by George Bernard Shaw, was first staged in 1901 and first published with Captain Brassbound's Conversion and The Devil's Disciple in his 1901 collection, Three Plays for Puritans. It was first performed at Newcastle-on-Tyne on March 15, 1899. The...

The Philanderer is an 1898 play by G. Bernard Shaw. It is one of the three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898, because its purpose is not to entertain its audience - as the traditional Victorian theatre was supposed to - but instead to raise awareness of social problems and serve as a criticism...

Calamity strikes when Bernick's business prowess and pristine reputation are threatened by the revelation of a long-buried secret. Desperate to dodge exposure in the kowtowing local community, Bernick devises a pitiless plan which, by a shocking twist of fate, risks the one life he holds dear. The...

Gabriela Zapolska (1857-1921) was an actor, journalist and playwright. She was born during the 123 year partition of Poland by Austria, Prussia and Russia and wrote over thirty plays. The Morality of Mrs. Dulska (1906), a 'petty-bourgeois tragic-farce', is probably her best known.  Mrs Dulska is...

Write a Play - and Get It Performed is designed for would-be writers of every level and for all types of motivation by two prize-winning professionals. Whether writing for the specific needs of an amateur drama group, community event, political campaign or simply for personal or professional development,...

When life in New York gets to hot to handle, charismatic hustler Pharus escapes the clutches of rap star Jules and moves to London. A funny, uncompromising about surviving in the big city that challenges our assumptions about racial and sexual identity, American Trade celebrates twenty-first-century...

Black Antigone is a fresh and provocative interpretation of Sophocles’ tragedy, based on the belief that the potent rhythms of the African people were much more a part of ancient Greece than has ever been suggested - especially by the Victorian classics professors on whose translations of Antigone...

Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya in a new version by Christopher Hampton. This version will be first staged at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, on 25 October 2012 and run until 16 February 2013. 'It's often said that the best of the Chekhov plays is the one you've seen most recently. Uncle Vanya...

They call it a civil war, but there is nothing civil in this. Nothing civil at all. They came from Damascus, from Halab, from Banias where the bombs fall day and night and the wounded children look like sleeping angels. Now they live in camps and abandoned buildings in Lebanon or Jordan. Now...