Publisher: Charles River Editors
George Bernard Shaw was a prolific Irish playwright who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925. Shaw’s famous plays include Man and Superman and Pygmalion which was adapted into the classic musical My Fair Lady. This edition of You Never Can Tell includes a table of contents.
This unique take on Jane Austen's beloved novel is an adaptation like no other, drawing on over two hundred years of romantic pop history, and featuring six young women with a story to tell. You might have seen them before, emptying the chamber pots and sweeping ash from the grate; the overlooked and the undervalued making sure those above stairs find their happy ending. Of course, these women have always been running the show – after all, 'You can't have a whirlwind romance without clean bedding' – but now the servants are also playing every part. Let the ruthless match-making begin! Isobel McArthur's acclaimed Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) was first produced by theatre company Blood of the Young and seen at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, in 2018. It toured the UK in 2019, produced by the two companies and the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, with co-producers Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Leeds Playhouse, Northern Stage, Nuffield Theatres Southampton and Oxford Playhouse. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an amateur company in want of an irreverent all-female adaptation of a literary classic to perform, need look no further. 'Unfettered joy from start to finish' - Herald 'A have-your-cake-and-eat-it adaptation in which the gags are plentiful even when the stakes are high' - Guardian 'Clever, funny, feminist, and not even shy, in the end, of a few powerful moments of true romance' - ScotsmanShow book
In her fourth collection Isobel Dixon takes readers on a journey to far-flung and sometimes dark places in poems that are vivid forays of discovery and resistance, arrival and loss. Bearings sings of love too, and pays homage to lost friends and poets – the voices of John Berryman, Michael Donaghy, Robert Louis Stevenson and others echo here. And there is respite for the weary traveller – jazz in the shadows, an exuberant play of words between the fire and tremors. As Dixon explores form and subject, conflict and the self, she keeps a weather eye out for telling detail, with a sharp sense of the threat that these journeys, our wars and stories, and our very existence pose to the planet.Show book
In this collection of plays from one of our finest dramatists, Caryl Churchill demonstrates her remarkable ability to find new forms to express profound truths about the world we live in. Complete with a new introduction by the author, this volume contains: Seven Jewish Children (Royal Court Theatre, London, 2009): a short play about seven families wondering how to protect their children, written at the time of the bombing of Gaza by Israel in 2008–9. Love and Information (Royal Court, 2012): a fast-moving kaleidoscope in which more than a hundred characters try to make sense of what they know. Ding Dong the Wicked (Royal Court, 2012): two families on opposite sides of a war, locked in identical hatred. Here We Go (National Theatre, 2015): a play about dying and being dead. Escaped Alone (Royal Court, 2016): three old friends and an unexpected neighbour have tea in a sunny back yard, and face catastrophes. Pigs and Dogs (Royal Court, 2016): a look at how colonialism crushed the fluidity of sexuality in Africa and brought a new intolerance, as shown in the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014. Also included are three previously unpublished short plays, each written in response to political events: War and Peace Gaza Piece (2014), Tickets are Now On Sale (2015) and Beautiful Eyes (2017). 'The wit, invention and structural ingenuity of Churchill's work are remarkable… she never does anything twice' Telegraph 'What is extraordinary about Churchill is her capacity as a dramatist to go on reinventing the wheel' GuardianShow book
What is the Custom of Your Grief? by Timberlake Wertenbaker features an English schoolgirl who is befriended online by an Afghan girl after her brother is killed while on active duty in Afghanistan. The play is taken from Women Centre Stage; a collection of eight short plays, commissioned and developed as part of the Women Centre Stage Festival, that together demonstrate the range, depth and richness of women's writing for the stage. Selected by Sue Parrish, Artistic Director of Sphinx Theatre, these plays offer a wide variety of rewarding roles for women, and are perfect for schools, youth groups and theatre companies to perform. Other writers included in the collection include Winsome Pinnock, Rose Lewenstein and April De Angelis.Show book
G.K. Chesterton's first publication, "Greybeards at Play" is a collection of poetry and accompanying illustrations. The work is marked by the irreverent whimsy and ancient delight that would eventually be recognized as Chesterton's signature style. Short (only four poems long and a dedication), playful, and with a touch of awe, Chesterton's first piece (written at 26) is appropriately titled: it is the work of an amateur, mature in his spirit, young in his play. - (Summary by 5pak)Show book
Expanded from the award-winning Chicano poet’s 1977 original, this poetry collection explores the hardships and joys of migrant workers in California. A timely new edition of a pioneering work in Latino literature, National Book Award–nominee Gary Soto’s first collection (originally published in 1977) draws on California’s fertile San Joaquin Valley, the people, the place, and the hard agricultural work done there by immigrants. In these poems, joy and anger, violence and hope are placed in both the metaphorical and very real circumstances of the Valley. Rooted in personal experiences—of the poet as a young man, his friends, family, and neighbors—the poems are spare but expansive, with Soto’s voice as important as ever. This welcome new edition has been expanded with a crucial selection of complementary poems (some previously unpublished) and a new introduction by the author. Praise for The Elements of San Joaquin “A response to the charged, ideologically defiant voices from the seventies, The Elements of San Joaquin forever changed the course of Latino literature, redirecting us toward the mundane and ephemeral. The poet’s only commitment, Gary Soto seemed to suggest, is to life itself. His teacher and role model was Philip Levine, who encouraged him to see his own neighborhood, indeed his own backyard, as a kingdom. The result was a type of poetry that weathered inclement times in ways that scores of other instant “hits” couldn’t. It was new yet as old as the Bible and it still is. The word “classic” is overused these days. Not in this case.” —Ilan Stavans, Lewis-Sebring Professor in the Humanities, Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, and general editor of The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature “In the original The Elements of San Joaquin, Gary Soto defined the Chicano character as an underrepresented part of the American whole, the identity that would serve as foundation for my life’s work. My parents and grandparents had crossed borders, but Soto rooted me, us, here—in the daily poverty of mejicano vecindades—on all those rural “Braly Streets” of Fresno, Brawley, and Salinas. His elements of sun, wind, stars, and field shadowed my own destiny to bring justice there, to the people of the hoe and harvest.” —José Padilla, Executive Director of California Rural Legal AssistanceShow book
