Stephens Plays: 1

Author: Simon Stephens
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408141612
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
First collection from the 2004 Pearson Award-winning playwright Simon Stephens Plays: 1 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. Bluebird: Cabbie Jimmy overhears the weird, wonderful and violent tales of his passengers he confronts his past and his estranged wife. 'A rough gem of a play' - The Times Christmas: One night in an East end pub, four men confront their past and brace themselves for an uncertain future. 'Beautifully crafted' - What's On Herons: The disturbing story of one teenager on a violent estate in London, which saw Stephens nominated for an Olivier Award for Most Promising Playwright in 2001. Port: One woman's struggle to cope with and finally escape her life in Stockport. (Winner of Pearson Award for Best New Play.) 'A brilliant writer of immense imagination with an acute observation of people's foibles' - Independent

Bluebird

Author: Simon Stephens
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc
ISBN: 9780822225744
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 68

Book Description
THE STORY: BLUEBIRD charts a night in the life of London mini-cab driver Jimmy McNeill. We share with him a night of his fares--the despondent and delirious, the inspired, inspiring and insane. Jimmy is a surprising cabbie: a writer fallen from grac

Stephens Plays:1

Author: Simon Stephens
Publisher: Methuen Drama
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
This first collection from the Pearson Award–winning playwright Simon Stephens brings together four of his earliest plays. 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.

Punk Rock

Author: Simon Stephens
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408126362
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 114

Book Description
William Carlisle has the world at his feet but its weight on his shoulders. He is intelligent, articulate and f***ed. In the library of a grammar school, William and his fellow Sixth-Formers are preparing for their mock A-Levels while navigating the pressures of teenage life. They are educated and aspirational young people but step-by-step, the dislocation, disjunction and latent aggression is revealed. Punk Rock premiered at the Lyric Hammersmith on 3 September 2009 in a co-production between the Lyric Hammersmith and the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.

Morning

Author: Simon Stephens
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408173417
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 69

Book Description
'I missed first time. I could feel his skull caving in. It was like a shell.' Morning - a play for young people - is the latest offering from acclaimed playwright Simon Stephens, written after a workshop involving actors from the Young Company at the Lyric, Hammersmith and the Theater, Basel, Switzerland. It's the end of summer in a small, claustrophobic town and two friends are about to go their separate ways: one to university; the other will be staying local. But no matter what separates them, they will always share one moment: a moment that changed them forever. This dark coming-of-age play, to be performed by the Lyric Young Company, is a disturbing look at the cruel acts we are capable of committing; our society's numbness to physical pain; and the consequences of our actions. This programme text will coincide with the Lyric's production of the play at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh as part of the Festival (2 - 22nd September) followed by a brief run at the Lyric Hammersmith, London in September.

Harper Regan

Author: Simon Stephens
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472574680
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 132

Book Description
If you go, I don't think you should come back. On a startlingly bright autumn night in 2006, Harper Regan walked away from her home, her husband and daughter, and kept walking. She told nobody that she was going. She told nobody where she was going. She put everything she ever built at risk. For two lost days and nights, until it looked as though her entire life might unravel, she didn't turn back. From Uxbridge to Stockport to Manchester and back again, Harper Regan navigates the UK, exploring family, love and delusion. It received its world premiere at the National Theatre, London, in 2008.

Three Kingdoms

Author: Simon Stephens
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408172968
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Book Description
Three Kingdoms is a blackly entertaining and unsettling detective story cum parable about the devil in us all, international human trafficking and the changing state of Europe. As the severed human head of an Estonian woman is found in a river in Hammersmith, two British detectives set off in search of her origins in Europe and how she came to be found dead. Accompanied by a mephistophelian German detective acting as their guide, they gradually sink deeper and deeper into the world of prostitution and international human trafficking. Fighting to cross international borders and language barriers, they enter a nightmarish world that will change one of them forever. Three Kingdoms tells the stories of trafficked women, the gangs and the police forces across Europe that attempt to control them. This dark new thriller by Simon Stephens, set across three countries, explores an international business where the goods are not products, but people. Questioning and undermining not just tenets about the nature of Europe with its old and new borders, Three Kingdoms also explodes moral certainties. With good and evil presented not as polarised forces but as disturbingly shifting, overlapping and contradictory, the play provocatively unbalances convictions of truth, ethical codes, violence and justice. This edition also includes a preface with contributions from playwright Simon Stephens, German director Sebastian Nuebling and Estonian dramaturg Eero Epner, discussing this uniquely collaborative and tri-lingual project.

Herons

Author: Simon Stephens
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472517571
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Book Description
"A major new voice in British theatre" (Scotsman) Set around Limehouse Cut and the Lee River in East London, Herons is the disturbing and moving story of fourteen-year-old Billy, whose life has been made a misery by his father's actions. As the teenagers that surround him on the estate step up their campaign of bullying, the play escalates to a violent climax.Commissioned by the Royal Court, Herons premiered there on 18 May 2001.

Motortown

Author: Simon Stephens
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472517687
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 77

Book Description
Danny returns from Basra to a foreign England and a different kind of battle. He visits an old flame, buys a gun and goes on a blistering road trip through the new home front. 'I don't blame the war. The war was alright. I miss it. It's just you come back to this.' Written during the London bombings of 2005, Motortown is a fierce, violent and controversial response to the anti-war movement - and to the war itself. Chaotic and complex, powerful and provocative, Simon Stephen's new play portrays a volatile and morally insecure world. Motortown premieres at the Royal Court Theatre on 21 April 2006. It follows the critically acclaimed On the Shore of the Wide World (Manchester Royal Exchange/National Theatre), winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Play (2005).

Birdland

Author: Simon Stephens
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472587693
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 138

Book Description
Everything can be quantified. All worth can be quantified. Artistic worth. Human worth. Material worth. Everything. Some food is simply better than other food. Isn't it? Some clothes are better than other clothes. Aren't they? The last week of a massive international tour and rock star Paul is at the height of his fame. Everybody knows his name. Whatever he wants he can have. He can screw anybody he wants to. He can buy anything he desires. He can eat anything. Drink anything. Smoke anything. Go anywhere. As the inevitability of the end of the road looms closer and a return home becomes a reality, for Paul the music is starting to jar. Birdland received its world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs on 3 April 2014.