There is no known source for Christopher Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta, but it makes copious allusions to the famous Turkish seize of Christian Malta in 1565 that forms the international setting for the main character, Barabas. It greatly influenced William Shakespeare's Merchant of V...

An industrial port of a war-torn city. Women survivors wait to be shipped abroad. Officials come and go. A grandmother, once queen, watches as her remaining family is taken from her. The city burns around them. Euripides' great anti-war tragedy is published in Don Taylor's translation and feature...

To Kill a Mockingbird is an immensely important work of literature studied worldwide. Literature and film students will find plenty of material to support their courses on how the film versions provide different readings of the original text. Focusing on several film versions and adaptatio...

"Meyer's translations of Ibsen are a major fact in one's general sense of postwar drama. Their vital pace, their unforced insistence on the poetic centre of Ibsen's genius, have beaten academic versions from the field."-George Steiner, New Statesman

This Methuen Student Edition is tr...

Ghosts is Henrik Ibsen's haunting study of the lingering poison in a marriage based on a lie. It is presented by the Gate Theatre, London, in a new version by Amelia Bullmore, directed by Anna Mackmin, in January and February 2007.

A rich tapestry of human life, peopled by a profusion of wistful dreamers, pining lonely hearts, and beer-hall philosophers, this is a twentieth-century American masterpiece. The Time of Your Life was the first play to win both the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Pulitzer Pr...

The first full-fledged example of a revenge tragedy, the genre that became so influential in later Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, The Spanish Tragedy (1589) occupies a very special place in the history of English Renaissance drama. This new edition has been freshly revised by Professor An...

Since it was first performed in Athens in the 420s BC, Oedipus the King has been widely regarded as Sophocles' greatest tragedy and one of the foundation stones of Western drama. Don Taylor's translation, accurate yet poetic, was made for a BBC TV production of the Theban plays in 1986, wh...

New to this edition of The Revenger's Tragedy are an examination of the dark brilliance of the hero Vindice and the placement of the play in the context of contemporary debates about justifying rebellion against tyranny. New material on the play's borrowing from several Shakespeare plays i...

An indispensable text for wherever stage writing is taught, this book also serves as a foundational book for anyone taking courses in performance media.

Coupling theory with practice throughout, Michelene Wandor draws on her experience as both a playwright and teacher of creative writing to...

This student edition uses the Doctor Faustus "A" text, widely accepted as the most authentic published edition. Fully revised by leading Renaissance scholar Ros King, it contains a completely new introduction and the latest criticism, stage history, and revised commentary and notes.

In The Crimson Hotel, an absurdist comedy, two lovers-a playwright and his lead actress-escape to a discreet and charming Parisian hotel, conjured from a desert landscape. As the walls, door, and crimson curtains of room 322 materialize around them, a fumbling of fastenings ensues. But the...

Tamburlaine is Christopher Marlowe's story of a Scythian shepherd who through using his brutality, lust for power, and charm becomes a mighty conqueror and the king of Persia.

Powerful and poetic, Symptômes is a deeply moving threnody inspired by the horrific aftermath of 9/11. Adopting the heightened prose of epic Greek tragedy, the play inventively explores and deconstructs the ideologies underlying the "war on terror" we currently face. Shocking, heartbrea...

Comprising four one-act comic vaudevilles and four short stories adapted for the stage by Michael Frayn, The Sneeze introduces readers to a less familiar selection of work by one of the greatest precursors of modern drama. First published in 1989, this reissue includes The Sneeze, <...

Roy Williams has a deserved reputation as one of the most exciting young writers whose plays have electrified the sort of audiences most theaters rarely see: streetwise urban youth. This third collection of plays contains Fallout, Slow Time, Days of Significance, and Absol...

Winner of the prestigious Olivier Award for Best Comedy

Three sisters meet on the eve of their mother's funeral. As the conflicts of the past converge, everyday lies and tensions reveal the particular patterns and strains of family relationships. This Methuen Student Edition features...

John Webster's tragedy in five acts centers on the love affair between the Duke of Brachiano and Vittoria Corombona, two of the play's many unscrupulous characters. Both evil and good characters are drawn into schemes of political intrigue, adulterous desire, and bloody revenge.

This dark love story is set in occupied Ireland in 1775. Knowing that her soldier lover is leaving for England, a local woman unleashes a sequence of events that will result in tragedy for their children. With poetic fearlessness, Leo Butler looks at what happens when a brutal foreign power is in...

In an age of infinite choice made possible by new technology and a disturbing move away from traditional reporting into colorful comment and speculation by blogs and "citizen journalists," there has never been a better time to focus on pure journalism skills. This book is a vastly comprehensive w...

A Methuen Student Edition of the revised version of Willy Russell's classic play, with full introduction, commentary, notes on the text, and questions.

Willy Russell lives in Liverpool and is one of the most successful contemporary playwrights whose works are studied in schools and c...

"Penny takes away the fear of an accent for the actor."-David Morrissey...

Beats and Cold, two ambitious DJs, are gaining reputation in the music industry. They have found a new sound-jungle-and it's going to be massive! At first the chemistry between them produces gold. But as Beats turns into a producer, and Cold fights for the space to be a true artist, the tension b...

Murphy Plays: 5 brings together four of the author's recent works: The Wake, Too Late for Logic, The House, and Alice Trilogy.

The Wake recounts the story of a woman returning from the United States to her home town in Ireland.

H...

This is one of the earliest examples of "citizen comedy" plays set in London and dealing with the dominant concerns of metropolitan society—class mobility, sexual intrigue, and the pursuit of wealth and status. Thomas Dekker uses the colorful and vivid backdrop of London's streets, taverns, and...