Harper Regan

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.

"The Reagan Files," using top-secret letters between President Reagan and the Soviet General Secretaries and NSC meeting minutes released in 2008, takes readers inside the White House Situation Room to see what it was like to be with President Reagan when he made some of the most important decisions of his presidency: decisions that helped to end the Cold war and shape the 21st Century.

Simon Stephens is one of Europe's pre-eminent living playwrights. Since the beginning of his career in 1998, Stephens's award-winning plays have been translated into over twenty languages, been produced on four continents, and continue to feature prominently in the repertoires of European theatre. His original works have garnered numerous awards, with his stage adaptation of Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time winning seven Olivier Awards and enjoying acclaim on Broadway. In the first book to provide a critical account of Stephens's work, Jacqueline Bolton draws upon the playwright's unpublished personal archives, as well as original interviews with directors and actors, to advance detailed analyses of his original plays and their productions, examine contemporary approaches to playwriting, and deliver insights into broader debates regarding text, performance and authorship. Caridad Svich addresses Stephens's theatrical output between 2014 and 2019, and essays from Mireia Aragay and James Hudson provide additional perspectives on international productions and the playwright's adaptive practices. Andrew Haydon's edited interviews with six of Stephens's key collaborators – Marianne Elliott, Sarah Frankcom, Sean Holmes, Ramin Gray, Katie Mitchell and Carrie Cracknell – further illuminate the work from a director's viewpoint. The Theatre of Simon Stephens situates the playwright's oeuvre within his embrace of aesthetics and working relations encountered in European theatre cultures, focusing in particular upon shifting attitudes towards the function of the playwright, the relationship between playwrights and directors, and the role of the audience in live performance. The Companion serves as a lively and engaging study of one of the most restlessly creative and important dramatists of our generation.

This book explores the impact that high-profile and well-known translators have on audience reception of translated theatre. Using Relevance Theory as a framework, the book demonstrates how prior knowledge of a celebrity translator's contextual background can affect the spectator's cognitive state and influence their interpretation of the play. Three canonical plays adapted for the British stage are analysed: Mark Ravenhill's translation of Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht, Roger McGough's translation of Tartuffe by Molière and Simon Stephens' translation of A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. Drawing on interviews, audience feedback, reviews, blogs and social media posts, Stock examines the extent to which audiences infer the celebrity translator's own voice from their translations. In doing so, he adds new perspectives to the long-standing debate on the visibility of the translator in both the process of translating and the reception of the translation. Celebrity Translation in British Theatre offers an original approach to theatre translation that sheds light on the culture of celebrity and its capacity to attract new audiences to plays in translation.

Playwriting Intensive takes a fresh approach to playwriting—putting dialogue first. Castagno shows novice playwrights how to use language to generate character and structure. His decades of experience teaching and writing have resulted in a fresh, informed pedagogy designed to get students off to the right start and progressing quickly. Castagno emphasizes learning by process through the text, encouraging readers to experiment and familiarize themselves with the best practices provided. His lessons focus on the skills contemporary playwrights will use in their careers, including promoting diversity both through featured examples and dedicated exercises.