Two plays from the Royal Shakespeare Company's Making Mischief Festival, which features exciting playwrights challenging and questioning our society. This volume contains Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier by Somalia Seaton and Fraser Grace's Always Orange.
Crowning Glory is a new play that explores some of the ways in which mainstream Western definitions of beauty in today's world affects the way women see themselves.
A major new play by the author of Breakfast with Mugabe.
A truly gripping and exciting play written by the award winning playwright.
Full of inspiration and practical advice, Playwriting: A Writers' & Artists' Companion is a comprehensive companion to writing for the stage. PART 1 includes reflections on the art and the craft of playwriting, guidance on writing for a full range of genres and spaces and a brief history of the theatre. PART 2 contains inspiring advice and reflections from leading playwrites such as Alan Ayckbourn, Michael Frayn, David Hare, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Rona Munro, Lucy Prebble, Mark Ranvenhill, Yazmina Reza, Tom Stoppard, Timberlake Wertenbaker and many others. PART 3 offers practical exercises and advice on planning and conducting research, working out plots and characters, mastering authentic but accessible dialogue, navigating the industry and the rehearsal and production process.
Two explosive plays about the need to be seen.
Based on a short story by the brilliant but often overlooked Russian writer Andrey Platonov (1899-1951), Bliss is the tragi-comic tale of a young couple trying to build a life against the odds in the aftermath of the Russian civil war. As ex-soldier Nikita struggles to overcome what we now might recognise as PTSD, the play opens up into a colourful and strangely heart-warming kaleidoscope of stories, song, laughter and magic, as the survivors of years of devastating war and political revolution all strive to comprehend how society can recover from catastrophe, how real love has both passionate and practical faces, and how the future is only built by those who manage to survive their past--back cover.
The story revolves around a psychiatrist's challenging first meeting with Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, who is grappling with a personal crisis. As Andrew Peric attempts to uncover the source of Mugabe's anxiety, he faces the complexities of treating a powerful political figure. The narrative delves into themes of power, mental health, and the unique dynamics between a therapist and a patient of such stature, raising questions about the nature of treatment in extraordinary circumstances.
When pirate-turned-explorer Martin Frobisher discovers a new land in the Arctic filled with riches, the Queen glimpses a golden future of wealth, prestige and influence. Charmed by tales of the exotic singing 'Esquimaux' who live there, Elizabeth invests heavily to bring 'Civilisation to the natives', and their assets home to England.
Somalia Seaton's Red is an unflinching and bold exploration of the internal lives of young women. It is part of Platform. Aimed at addressing gender imbalance in theatre. Platform comprises big-cast plays with predominantly or all-female casts, written specifically for performance by young actors.