Series: Methuen Drama Play Collections

Sulayman Al Bassam is one of the world’s leading contemporary dramatists. His adaptations of Shakespeare, performed around the world, have won many awards and met with widespread acclaim on four continents. This volume brings together for the first time three of Al Bassam’s adaptations of Shakespearean plays, including versions of Hamlet, Richard III and Twelfth Night, collectively known as The...

Five new short plays, including author commentaries, from female and non-binary writers of Irish heritage in response to Samuel Beckett. What does Irish heritage mean to members of the modern-day diaspora? Global playwrights Olwen Fouéré, Jennifer Barclay, FELISPEAKS, Nicola McCartney and Hannah Khalil make their mark with five unique pieces loosely inspired by seeds from the Beckett canon. Originally staged...

Italy is home to one of the most vibrant contemporary playwriting scenes in Europe, yet Italian dramatists are little known to English-language readers and audiences: discover their stories and perspective in English for the very first time. Written between 2013 and 2022 by award-winning authors, the plays in this collection document a theatre culture not only preoccupied with the personal...

Finalist in the 2022 Lambda Literary Awards for the LGBTQ Anthology category The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays for the Stage is the first play anthology to offer eight new plays by trans playwrights featuring trans characters. This edited collection establishes a canon of contemporary American trans theatre which represents a variety of performance modes and genres. From groundbreaking...

Playwrights in Volume 3 agree: “These are the plays we wish we had.” The third volume in the Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays series offers nine new plays by trans playwrights featuring trans characters. This volume focuses on young characters whose ages range from twelve to late twenties. Following the critical and commercial success of the first two volumes,...

Between 2020 and 2022, theatre had to adapt and, in doing so, challenged ideas of what was possible – and what was even 'theatre'. Due to the global pandemic, an exceptional and wide range of works were made for, or adapted to, brand new conditions and limitations. While these works are defined by interpandemic conditions in the Anthropocene, they serve...

This anthology documents a decade of some of the UK’s most exciting queer performance, through a combination of retrospective scripts, development material and visual documentation. Queer performance is expected to live a brief, bright life without leaving any textual record. Indeed, it rarely begins with a complete script at all, being often developed instead by performance practices designed to fill...

Eleven plays that respond to the aftermath of the American-led invasion, providing a window into Iraq's cultural and theatrical landscape during a time of profound change. Standing as a testament to Iraq's enduring spirit and its deep-rooted tradition of political theatre, this volume expands on the previous instalment, showcasing the themes and dramatic styles that help define the country’s art....

A unique anthology bringing together stories of queer life from international playwrights, these seven plays showcase the dazzling multiplicity of queer narratives across the globe: the absurd, the challenging, and the joyful. From the legacy of colonialism in India to the farcical bureaucracy of marriage law in Kosovo; from a school counsellor in Taiwan coming out as HIV+, to coming...

This anthology is special: a book of trans plays about trans life as it is actually, materially lived in time and space. - Anthony Sansonetti in Theatre Survey on Volume 1. The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays Volume 2 offers eight new plays by trans playwrights centring trans characters, trans life, and gender diversity. Curated via an open submission...

Playwrights in Volume 3 agree: “These are the plays we wish we had.” The third volume in the Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays series offers nine new plays by trans playwrights featuring trans characters. This volume focuses on young characters whose ages range from twelve to late twenties. Following the critical and commercial success of the first two volumes,...

A first-of-its-kind anthology that explores adaptations of 17th-century Hispanic comedia within contemporary Los Angeles theatre. Performed outdoors for audiences of all classes and genders, comedias questioned orthodox ideologies and power systems of the 17th-century Hispanic world. 400 years later, these stories are still being used to call for change, but within modern-day America. Golden Tongues: Adapting Hispanic Classical Theater in...

Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, and The Tempest... in a way you’ve never seen them before. Away from the rest of their plays, Malvolio, Cinna, Peaseblossom, Banquo, and Caliban tell their tales, each in a solo-show written for younger audiences by acclaimed playwright Tim Crouch. No longer burdened by iambic pentameter, these five can finally speak...

Discover the power, resilience, and indomitable spirit of women who have shaped history. In her first collected works, Lauren Gunderson demonstrates why she has become one of America’s most produced playwrights. Weaving together the extraordinary stories of trailblazing women from various eras, Gunderson provides a unique and necessary perspective on modern American feminism, the beautiful humanism of science, and the...

Robert Icke’s thrilling and radical adaptations of some of the great texts of Western theatre have enthralled theatregoers in London, in New York, and around the world. This is the first collection of his multi-award-winning work. Includes: Oresteia: Orestes' parents are at war. A family drama spanning several decades, a huge, moving, bloody saga, Aeschylus' greatest and final play asks...

"The approach of mixing the factual with the fictional works brilliantly in delivering a spectacle that pulls off the difficult task of being both hugely entertaining and yet remains, a rigorous work.” - Sunday Independent Colin Murphy is one of Ireland's most significant writers for stage, screen and documentary. In his first published play collection, his work shows a history...

How do female Chilean playwrights address historical trauma, gender critique and collective memory in post-dictatorship, democratic Chile? Dramaturgas Chilenas: Plays by Chilean Female Writers in the Early 21st Century features five new English translations of plays by Chile’s leading female playwrights, exploring and decoding their lived experience. Gathering together the plays and analysis by Chilean and U.S. editors, this collection...

Ten new short plays by African women tackling taboo topics on identity, gender, sexualities, family relations and power. Following the international success of Contemporary Plays by African Women, this new collection is the next step in the African Women Playwright Network (AWPN), both showcasing and encouraging the development of new work. Consisting of the ten winners of the AWPN's international...