Books in the Contemporary Dramatists series

"Stephens writes dramas set in uncaring, uncompromising worlds, whose characters speak in a language at once naturalistic and yet artificially pared-down and whose uncertain attempts to assert their own identities sometimes lead to gratuitous and brutal acts of violence." - Financial TimesA fifth collection of plays by one of Britain's most prolific contemporary playwrights, Simon Stephens, charting his work from 2011-2016, ranging from London's Royal Court Theatre, Manchester's Royal Exchange and Broadway. Wastwater (2011) "Metaphoric, allusive, and thoroughly disturbing in its evocation of suspicion and uncertainty, Wastwater is a thought-provoking play whose quiet intensity stays with you for days - its effect is like that of a ugly stone dropped into a pool, which results in constant ripples of dirty water lapping at your subconscious" (Aleks Sierz)Birdland (2014) "Mega-fame and limitless cash can turn a man into a monster, and Simon Stephens's new play excellently evokes its hero's spiritually shrunken world" (Michael Billington, Guardian) Blindsided (2014) "the dialogue has a rare quality of moment-by-moment intensity" (Telegraph)Song From Far Away (2015) "a meditative monologue - a searching study of impotently self-aware emotional insufficiency" (Independent) Heisenberg (2016) "Mr. Stephens ... is an uncannily subtle dramatist who never wears his depths on the surface ... he probes clichés until they fall apart, before reassembling them into solid but transformed shapes, reminding us why such clichés have become enduring elements of our collective mythology." (Ben Brantley, New York Times)

A collection of plays by Sarah Daniels which includes "Masterpieces", a study of the effects of pornography, "Ripen Our Darkness" and the George Devine Award-winner "Neaptide".

A mixture of social satire, comedy and tragedy. This volume contains two major plays, "Red Noses" and "Sunset Glories", and a series of three short plays on disability including "Nobody Here But Us Chickens". Two plays on figures from the past, "Columbus" and "Socrates" have also been included.

Howard Brenton is one of Britain's best-known and most controversial dramatists

Released to follow on from "Michael Frayn Plays: 2", this anthology contains three of Frayn's plays: "Here"; "Now You Know"; and "La Bele Vivette". The plays explore time and space, official and unofficial secrets, idle curiosity and investigative purpose.

Represents some of the work of the Dublin playwright, Tom Murphy. "The Gigli Concert" had its London premiere at the Almeida Theatre in 1992. "Conversations on a Homecoming" was revived at the Abbey Theatre, and "Bailegangaire" was first performed in Galway and London in 1985.

Formerly part of the "World Dramatists" series of play collections by classic and modern playwrights, including foreign works in workable and accurate translations, this title and seven others are reissued in a new format under the heading, "World Classics".

Jonathan Harvey has worked with the Royal Court and National theatres, written the sitcom "Gimme Gimme Gimme" for television and collaborated with the Pet Shop Boys, writing the words to their musical "Closer to Heaven". This book contains three of his plays.

Four plays inspired by and originating on the European stage from one of Britain's most important playwrights.Three Kingdoms was presented at Teater NO99 in Tallinn, Estonia on 17 September 2011, before opening at the Munich Kammerspiele, Germany, on 15 October 2011. 'An inconsolable mood of dread, abandon, violence and suspicion lurks beneath the show's skin of arty insouciance, and at times the script attains a lyrical pitch of accusation against the West that quite overrides the flippancy. There's something of value here.' Daily Telegraph;The Trial of Ubu premiered at the Schauspielhaus Essen in a co-production with the Toneelgroep Amsterdam. 'The play certainly gets at the banality of evil, and evokes the slow, sometimes dull, often uncertain slog of justice.' Sunday Times.Subtitled 'A Play For Young People', Morning was developed in partnership between the Lyric Hammersmith, London, and the Junges Theater, Göttingen. The Financial Times described it as 'theatrically daring and uncompromising'; Carmen Disruption, a reimagining of Bizet's opera, premiered at the Deutsche Spielhaus in spring, 2014, before its UK premiere at the Almeida, London, in April 2015. 'You can't help but be moved by the circumstances facing the five main characters. There's an understanding and a compassion amid the bleakness. And a fierce sense that something needs to change.' Guardian;

A collection of Mark Ravenhill's plays: "Shopping and Fucking"; "Faust"; Handbag"; and "Some Explicit Polaroids".

This first collection of Mike Bartlett's plays showcases the adroit expertise and flair of a writer known for laser-sharp political comment, tight dialectics and needlingly real characters. Charting Mike Bartlett's stellar rise as a playwright, this volume is introduced by Sacha Wares.

Five recent hit plays by one of the most talented writers to emerge from the 1990s who made his mark with the seminal Shopping and F***ing.

Lucy Prebble is one of Britain's foremost writers for the stage and screen. This eagerly anticipated play collection brings together her landmark plays for the first time, showcasing her work from 2003 to 2019. Beginning with her George Devine Award-winning play The Sugar Syndrome it continues through her explosive look at the biggest financial scandal in history, concluding with her pointed dramatization of the one of the most shocking news stories of the 2010s. The Sugar Syndrome (2003) Dani is on a mission. She's just 17, hates her parents, skives college and prefers life in the chatrooms. What she's looking for is someone honest and direct. Instead she finds Tim, a man twice her age, who thinks she is 11 and a boy. What seems at first to be a case of crossed wires, ends up as an unlikely, and unsettling friendship between the two, which culminates in a shocking, and morally challenging revelation.Enron (2009) One of the most infamous scandals in financial history became a theatrical epic in Enron, a dazzling exposition of the shadowy mechanisms of economic deceit. Mixing classical tragedy with savage comedy and surreal metaphor, Enron follows a group of flawed men and women in a narrative of greed and loss which reviews the tumultuous 1990s, and the financial chaos which has spilled over into the new century.The Effect (2012) a clinical romance. Two young volunteers, Tristan and Connie, agree to take part in a clinical drug trial. Succumbing to the gravitational pull of attraction and love, however, Tristan and Connie manage to throw the trial off course, much to the frustration of the clinicians involved.A Very Expensive Poison (2019) A shocking assassination in the heart of London. In a bizarre mix of high-stakes global politics and radioactive villainy, a man pays with his life. At this time of global crises and a looming new Cold War, A Very Expensive Poison sends us careering through the shadowy world of international espionage from Moscow to Mayfair.

This collection of Jim Cartwright's plays includes "Road", "Bed", "Two" and "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice".

The third in a series of "World Classics" presenting David Mamet's stage plays. Those in this volume date from the 1980s.

This collection brings together four of the early plays from the winner of the 2002 Pearson Best New Play Award. Since "Bluebird" in 1998, Stephens has gained recognition for humane plays that display a sharp observation and compassionate response to the lives of ordinary people in urban locations.

Stephens Plays: 2 brings together four major plays by this award-winning playwright from the first decade of the twenty-first century and the short play Sea Wall, frist produced at the Bush Theatre in October 2008. The collection features an introduction by the author.