This important, landmark survey dispels the myth that there aren't any good plays for women.

This book is a guide to One Hundred Plays addressing the most urgent and important issue of our time: the climate crisis 100 Plays to Save the World is a book to provoke as well as inspire—to start conversations, inform debate, challenge our thinking, and be a launchpad for future productions. Above all, it is a call to arms—to step up, think big, and unleash theatre’s power to imagine a better future into being. Each play is explored with an essay illuminating key themes in climate issues: Resources, Energy, Migration, Responsibility, Fightback, and Hope. 100 Plays to Save the World is an empowering resource for theatre directors, producers, teachers, youth leaders, and writers looking for plays that speak to our present moment.

Gather any group of actresses, from students to stars, and someone will inevitably ask, "Where are all the great roles for women?" The roles are right here, in this unprecedented and magnificently diverse collection of plays with all-female casts. The seven full-length and ten one-act selections range in tone from the unabashed theatricality of Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning Three Tall Women to the blistering black comedy of Laura Cunningham's Beautiful Bodies. Their characters include uprooted Japanese war brides, outrageously liberated Shakespearean heroines, an avenging African American housewife, and nuns who double as Catholic schoolgirls. Whether you're looking for a script to produce or a scene for an acting class, this book will provide you with a wealth of juicy, challenging female roles as it introduces you to some of the finest playwrights at work today.

Gather any group of actresses, from students to stars, and someone will inevitably ask, "Where are all the great roles for women?" The roles are right here, in this magnificently diverse collection of plays–full-lenghts, one-acts, and monologues--with mainly female casts, which represent the answer to any actress's prayer. The editors of the groundbreaking anthology Plays for Actresses have once again gathered an abundance of strong female roles in a selection of works by award-winning authors and cutting-edge newer voices, from Wendy Wasserstein and Christopher Durang to Claudia Shear, Eve Ensler, and Margaret Edson. The characters who populate these seven full-length plays, four ten-minute plays, and eleven monologues include a vivid cross-section of female experience: girl gang members, Southern debutantes, pilots, teachers, traffic reporters, and rebel teenagers. From a hilarious take on Medea to a taboo-breaking excerpt from The Vagina Monologues to a moving scene from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit, the plays in Leading Women are complex, funny, tragic, and always original--and a boon for talented actresses everywhere. From the Trade Paperback edition.

'Lucy Kerbel's work has become increasingly pivotal in helping the entire industry raise its game... this illuminating book answers the cynic, informs the impartial, converts the supporter into an activist and equips them all; not in a rallying cry of anger-fuelled idealism, but in a calm, pragmatic and clear-eyed way.' Rufus Norris, Director of the National Theatre, from his Foreword Theatre needs to change. Everywhere - in its boardrooms, on its stages, throughout its repertoires - it could be so much more successful at reflecting the gender balance of the world it seeks to represent. This is a book about why change matters, its benefits - artistic, commercial, ethical and social - and how, with everyone's help, we can actually achieve it. From small shifts, such as how you run your meetings, or what's on the shelves of your school library, to rethinking concepts as huge as the art we inherit, how we attribute excellence, and the constraints we unwittingly pass on to the next generation, there are things we can all do to bring about change. In this book, you'll find provocations to help you consider your current practices and their effects, challenge unconscious biases and identify opportunities for change, plus strategies and tools to help you decide where best to focus your efforts, to convince others why change matters, and to achieve meaningful, lasting success. Eye-opening, empowering and inspiring, All Change Please is a book for anyone who loves theatre. Whether you make it, teach it, watch it or study it, everyone has their own unique part to play in helping refresh, reshape and re-imagine the industry as truly diverse, equal and inclusive. 'We are the industry. If things will shift it is down to us, all of us, to make that happen. We all need to reflect on how we work, how we think, and how we make choices. That's what will drive the greatest change.' Since 2011, Lucy Kerbel and her organisation Tonic Theatre have been working with companies and individuals across the theatre industry to support them in achieving greater gender equality in their work and workforces. Her first book, 100 Great Plays for Women, is also published by Nick Hern Books.

Theatre in America has had a rich history—from the first performance of the Lewis Hallam Troupe in September 1752 to the lively shows of modern Broadway. Over the past few centuries, significant works by American playwrights have been produced, including Abie’s Irish Rose, Long Day’s Journey into Night, A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, A Raisin in the Sun, Fences, and Angels in America. In 100 Greatest American Plays, Thomas S. Hischak provides an engaging discussion of the best stage productions to come out of the United States. Each play is discussed in the context of its original presentation as well as its legacy. Arranged alphabetically, the entries for these plays include: plot details production history biography of the playwright literary aspects of the drama critical reaction to the play major awards the play’s influence cast lists of notable stage and film versions The plays have been selected not for their popularity but for their importance to American theatre and include works by Edward Albee, Harvey Fierstein, Lorraine Hansberry, Lillian Hellman, Tony Kushner, David Mamet, Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, Sam Shepard, Neil Simon, Gore Vidal, Wendy Wasserstein, Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, and August Wilson. This informative volume also includes complete lists of Pulitzer Prize winners for Drama, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for American Plays, and the Tony Award for Best Play. Providing critical information about the most important works produced since the eighteenth century, 100 Greatest American Plays will appeal to anyone interested in the cultural history of theatre.

Selected from the Renaissance period, these selections go from monologues for women, including The alchemist and The witch of Edmonton, to monologues for men, including Catiline and Such stuff as dreams are made of.