The habit creeps up on me out of nowhere. Like a sheep on a country road in Limerick. Sinéad Murphy can orgasm with an electric toothbrush; she's getting together with boys in car parks at church discos; and she's doing so well in exams, her teachers think she's cheating. But she's struggling to manage a big secret, and there's only one person she can talk to about it. Written and performed by Sarah Hanly, Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks premieres at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in June 2020. 'This year's recipient is a writer of extraordinary potential. She has a completely distinctive theatrical voice and engages with the darkness in our world in a fiercesome way.' Vicky Featherstone, Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre, on awarding Sarah Hanly the 2019 Pinter Commission.

"Written and performed by Sarah Hanly, Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and transferred to the Royal Court Theatre, London, in February 2022"--About the play

Irish Theatre in the Twenty-First Century is the first in-depth study of the subject. It analyses the ways in which theatre in Ireland has developed since the 1990s when emerging playwrights Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson, and Enda Walsh turned against the tradition of lyrical eloquence with a harsh and broken dramatic language. Companies such as Blue Raincoat, the Corn Exchange, and Pan Pan pioneered an avant-garde dramaturgy that no longer privileged the playwright. This led to new styles of production of classic Irish works, including the plays of Synge, mounted in their entirety by Druid. The changed environment led to a re-imagining of past Irish history in the work of Rough Magic and ANU, plays by Owen McCafferty, Stacey Gregg, and David Ireland, dramatizing the legacy of the Troubles, and adaptations of Greek tragedy by Marina Carr and others reflecting the conditions of modern Ireland. From 2015, the movement #WakingTheFeminists led to a sharpened awareness of gender. While male playwrights showed a toxic masculinity on the stage, a generation of female dramatists including Carr, Gregg, and Nancy Harris gave voice to the experiences of women long suppressed in conservative Ireland. For three separate periods, 2006, 2016, 2020-2, the author served as one of the judges for the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, attending all new productions across the island of Ireland. This allowed him to provide the detailed overview of the 'state of play' of Irish theatre in each of those times which punctuate the book as one of its most innovative features. Drawing also on interviews with Ireland's leading theatre makers, Grene provides readers with a close-up understanding of Irish theatre in a period when Ireland became for the first time a fully modernized, secular, and multi-ethnic society.

You do not feel pain. You do not feel hunger. Now get out there and dance as though you love this island. When a river breaks its banks one night resulting in a massive flood, one medium-sized village (or very very very small town) finds itself completely cut off - unexpectedly an island. As the residents embrace their independence, a new leader rises and a shared identity emerges – but at what cost? Shortlisted for the George Devine Award 2020, Nina Segal's O, Island! is a funny and furious modern myth about disaster and community, exploring how borders can be changed by people, by nature and by accident. This edition is published to coincide with the world premiere at The Other Place by the RSC, in September, 2022.

Teenage boys Ste and Jamie are neighbours on a South London estate. Jamie is more knowledgeable about The Sound of Music than football, while classmate Ste never misses a sports day. Both are being bullied, Jamie at school and Ste at home by his violent father and brother. One night, when things get too much, Ste seeks refuge in Jamie's flat and, sharing a bed, the boys strike up a new relationship. Together they come to terms with their sexuality and explore their feelings alongside their Mama Cass loving, rebellious friend Leah and with the much-needed emotional support of Jamie's lioness mother, Sandra. Thirty years on from its initial publication, Jonathan Harvey's iconic, coming-out and coming-of-age story set in the nineties still resonates with ideas on community, friendship, rites of passage and what it is to be sixteen and in love. This edition is published to coincide with the revival at London's Stratford East theatre, in September, 2023.

You don't tell an American to switch off her light; you build her a better light bulb. A leading British doctor with a radical plan to save the NHS and a Silicon Valley billionaire with a radical plan to halt climate change, meet outside an abandoned train on a salt flat in South America. A landscape so bright in its whiteness that it isn't easy to look at, and so uninterrupted in its flatness there's no echo. For Kimsa and his daughter who live there, the arrival of these strangers initially seems like an opportunity. Until they both stake their claim on the land, each following their ruthless pursuit of 'the greater good'. Al Smith's landmark play premieres at the Royal Court following his 2016 hit Harrogate which saw him nominated for Most Promising Playwright at the 2017 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.