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Winner of the 2021 Alfred Fagon Award It's a play, a performance, a ritual, about human farming, farming humans, soil and the soul, seeds and cells... nursing the nursery, curing creation, remedies and vaccinations against white supremacist racism; birthing revolution, raising redemption, finding yourself in the forest of futurity, the promise of immortality and the matter of Black lives. Henrietta Lacks is one of most remarkable people in medical history. Her cells were taken without her or her family's knowledge or permission. Meet Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy and three NHS nurses in the pandemic, each denied their place in history. Now is the time for their incredible legacy to undergo a transformation. To blossom and grow into something beautiful and new. Mojisola Adebayo's Alfred Fagon Award-winning play Family Tree is a beautifully poetic drama about race, health, the environment, and the incredible legacy of one of the most influential women of modern times. This edition was published to coincide with the Actors Touring Company co-production with the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry and Brixton House, in March 2023.
Includes the plays Moj of the Antarctic, Desert Boy, Matt Henson: North Star and Muhammad Ali and Me This collection signals the emergence of a distinctive new voice on the British theatre landscape. Moj of the Antarctic is inspired by the true story of an African American woman who cross-dresses as a white man to escape slavery; taken on a fantastical odyssey to Antarctica. Time Out Critics’ Choice ‘The language is rich and densely poetic. Reveling in the materiality and playfulness of words, cracking open complex ideas like eggshells.’ - Total Theatre Magazine Muhammad Ali and Me is a lyrical coming of age story, following the parallel struggles of a gay girl child growing up in fost...
My husband died and it's taken my whole life but Dr, I've never had one and I want one, before I die... My orgasm has got to be out there - somewhere! I know you all think I'm losing it, that I'm some kind of a space cadet and you might just be right about that! So one last job for you Dr: I'll be needing a medical certificate to prove I am fit for travel. I am going away... Meet Mrs: an old lady who goes into outer space... in search of her own orgasm. Isn't that where all orgasms go? Her quest is sparked by three encounters: a young neighbour who discloses a secret, an old friend who reveals she is intersex, and a would-be lesbian lover in a launderette who offers Mrs two drops of her own ...
'These five plays represent the diverse scope and content of Mojisola's work, and demonstrate an ongoing commitment to an artistic practice that is both stylistically innovative and politically astute.' – Lynette Goddard, from her introduction The plays collected here showcase Adebayo's varied talents through her unflinching political writing about race, gender, sex and sexuality, feminist history and politics. With settings spanning from South Africa to the Middle East, the United States, a mythical kingdom, South London and outer space, the five plays included are: I Stand Corrected: a soulful artistic response to the phenomenon of 'corrective' hate rape and murder of lesbians and trans ...
The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism is the first wide-ranging anthology of theatre theory and dramatic criticism by women writers. Reproducing key primary documents contextualized by short essays, the collection situates women’s writing within, and also reframes the field’s male-defined and male-dominated traditions. Its collection of documents demonstrates women’s consistent and wide-ranging engagement with writing about theatre and performance and offers a more expansive understanding of the forms and locations of such theoretical and critical writing, dealing with materials that often lie outside established production and publication venues. Thi...
This book examines the political alliances that are built across the diaspora in contemporary plays written by Black women playwrights in the UK. Through the concept of creative diasporic solidarity, it offers an innovative theoretical approach to examine the ways in which the playwrights respond creatively to the violence and marginalisation of Black communities, especially Black women. This study demonstrates that theatre can act as a productive space for the ethical encounter with the Other (understood in terms of alterity, as someone different from the self) by examining the possibilities of these plays to activate the spectators’ responsibility and solidarity towards different types o...
My husband died and it's taken my whole life but Dr, I've never had one and I want one, before I die... My orgasm has got to be out there - somewhere! I know you all think I'm losing it, that I'm some kind of a space cadet and you might just be right about that! So one last job for you Dr: I'll be needing a medical certificate to prove I am fit for travel. I am going away... Meet Mrs: an old lady who goes into outer space... in search of her own orgasm. Isn't that where all orgasms go? Her quest is sparked by three encounters: a young neighbour who discloses a secret, an old friend who reveals she is intersex, and a would-be lesbian lover in a launderette who offers Mrs two drops of her own ...
B is for Black by Courttia Newland Moj of the Antarcticby Mojisola Adebayo The Sons of Charlie Paora by Lennie James Brown Girl in the Ringby Valerie Mason-John Something Dark by Lemn Sissay 35 Centsby Paul Anthony Morris This distinctive new volume of drama by black British playwrights exemplifies how experiments with form, subject-matter and genre can serve to centralise the experiences of black people in local, national and international contexts of culture, politics and performance. Each play is critically introduced, to create an anthology of interactions - between the people who have long championed the work through teaching and writing about it and the people who produce, perform and explain their intentions behind it. Something Dark by Lemn Sissay is now a set text on Edexcel’s syllabus for A level English Literature and English Language and Literature.
Shortlisted for The TaPRA David Bradby Monograph Prize 2023 As the first full-length study to analyse utopian plays in Western drama from antiquity to the present, Utopian Drama: In Search of a Genre offers an illuminating appraisal of the objectives of utopianism as manifested in drama through the ages, and carefully ascertains the added value that live performance brings to the persuasion of utopian thought. Siân Adiseshiah scrutinises the distinctive intervention of utopian drama through its examination alongside the utopian prose tradition – in this way, the book establishes new ways of approaching utopian aesthetics and new ways of interpreting utopian drama. This book provides fresh...
Monologues are an essential part of every actor's toolkit. Actors are required to perform monologues regularly throughout their career: preparing for drama school entry, showcasing skills for agents or auditioning for a role. Following on from the bestselling first volume (2008), this book showcases selected monologues from some of the finest modern plays by some of today's leading contemporary playwrights. These monologues contain a diverse range of quirky and memorable characters that cross cultural and historical boundaries. The pieces are helpfully organised into age-specific groups: 'Teens', 'Twenties', 'Thirties' and 'Forties plus'.