Works

In a dilapidated home, three siblings gather around their alcoholic and brain-damaged father after the death of their mother in an attempt to keep the dysfunctional family together. During the course of the action they’re beamed to an extraterrestrial space where they all, including the mother, meet in a surreal…

When Andy, an idealistic young graduate, gets a job in a wet house, a homeless hostel where residents can drink alcohol, he is plunged into a twilight world where the rules about what is right and what is normal have become a little blurred. And that’s just among the other…

Billy Roche’s THE WEXFORD TRILOGY consists of the full length plays BELFRY, POOR BEAST IN THE RAIN and A HANDFULL OF STARS. For synopsis of the three plays please see under each title.

A witty contemporary comedy that follows one person’s journey through a heart attack, a gay marriage, an obsession with Cher, and a trip to a concentration camp. So, yes, it’s a comedy!

Based on the personal experience of the actor Sancia Robinson, this play bravely examines the nightmare of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia, from the perspective of one who has made it through to the sanity of self – acceptance. Brimming with courage, humour and poignancy. Published by Currency Press 1995 Premiere…

The Prentices are not an ordinary couple. Dr. Prentice is a psychiatrist with his own hospital who believes that the best way to interview a girl for a job is to seduce her. Geraldine does her best to comply, but nothing is going to work smoothly in this nut house…

The play was written in 1983 initially in French as QUOI OÙ and translated by Samuel Beckett himself. In WHAT WHERE, four characters appear at intervals, all dressed in the same long grey gown with the same long grey hair. Bam controls and interrogates the others, sending them off “to…

The stage play adaptation of Henry Farrell’s famous thriller novel about two aging and rival sisters. The child star, Baby Jane, soon ended in oblivion as her sister, Blanche’s career flourished. When a mysterious car accident cripples Blanche , the bitter Baby Jane becomes her evil imprisoner in their isolated…

This hilarious farce begins quietly enough with Howard and Penny asleep. A burglar climbs through the window and steals various items, including Howard’s suit. Awakening, Howard announces his intention to get back to his wife! But how can he in only vest and underpants? Before you can say “jockey shorts”…

Based on a very popular British sit-com, this riotously-funny play is classic British sex-farce. When Mildred and Ethel go off on a trip to Paris, the “mice will play”. Egged on by Ethel’s philandering husband Humphrey Pomfrey, George agrees to invite two charming little sex-kittens over. Well, you know already…

In the process of getting control of her life after her husband’s death, Jane is invaded by cruel memories of the physical and sexual abuse her stepfather Cecil put her through when she was a child. Consumed with anger and pain, and with a kitchen knife in her purse, she…

This epic piece covers four generations and two continents. The play takes place in a claustrophobic flat in London during the 1950ies as well as the windy shores of Southern Australia and the heart of a futuristic Australian desert in the year 2039. In WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING, a…

Here a drug smuggling gangster is forced to stop over in New Mexico while his car is being fixed. To kill time, he sets out terrorizing the other motel guests in a most manipulating and cunning manner, though despite his brutal sadism and abuse, it is obvious that he is…

Magnus, Arni and Dori are brothers. Magnus is dating Gudrun. Arni is dating Halla, who is Magnus’ ex-girlfriend. Halla is having an affair with Dori. And magnus is also having an affair with Halla. Such is the basic situation in this clever and entertaining radio play, ending in murder. The…

The year is 2015 and Jeff and Judy are right where they’re supposed to be: waiting outside the stage door of If/Then to get an autograph from the star. But the experience they have while they wait will change the course of their decades-long friendship forever.

Two mature women meet at a funeral. One is the daughter of the deceased, the other the best friend. The two women haven’t met before, and when it turns out that the urn has not yet arrived, they start passing the time sharing their memories. The memories are very contradictory…

These are vignettes about growing up in America of the 50’s and 60’s, linked together by a folk-rock score.

Set in America’s Deep South in the late fifties, this evocative musical fuse epic storytelling with compelling characters to create an unforgettable theatrical experience. The musical revolves around the time and place where the word teenager was invented. Swallow, struggling to come to terms with the death of her mother,…

WHITE LIARS revolves around Sophie Lemberg, an eccentric and disillusioned fortune teller (who imagines herself to be a baroness of the Holy Roman Empire) living in a decaying seaside resort, and the two young men – Tom, the lead singer in a rock band, and Frank, his business manager –…

WHO DUNNIT is a comic spoof of the detective thriller genre a la Agatha Christie. This Broadway success by the author of SLEUTH takes audiences to Agatha Christie’s England, where six strangers and a butler have gathered for a black tie dinner in a wealthy lawyer’s mansion during a thunderstorm.…

Obsessed with a girl called Sylvia, whom he kissed just once at a garden party when he was 17, Mark makes a habit of pursuing physically identical girls for the rest of his life – despite having a wife and growing son. We meet him – and Oscar, his fellow…

A classic British thriller with unexpected twists. The mediocre dramatist John Terry has lured the respected theatre critic Arthur “Agatha” Christie to his flat for a secret meeting. The irritable and arrogant critic is shocked to learn that his homosexual lover is having an affair with the dramatist’s young wife.…

This play is a series of four intertwining stories of fringe-dwellers, living in an age of social, economic and moral deprivation. Mostly out of work, and politically uninterested, they work at survival. A gritty portrayal of real life in an urban wasteland. Winner 1999 Australian Writer’s Guild Award for Best…

Set in a hospital room, the action revolves around Ken Harrison, a sculptor by profession, who was paralysed from the neck down in a car accident and is determined to be allowed to die. Clark presents arguments both in favour of and opposing euthanasia and to what extent government should…

The story takes place in a fashionable flat in Saint Louis. Lily is a young intellectual (and temperamental) heavily smoking woman who just finished school. Her philistine widow mother, Mrs. Yorke, is an intense critic of her hopeless daughter who refuses to marry and does not like to crochet like…

Secrets, Lies & P45’s! When John Bailey loses his job as a civil engineer his life seems to fall apart. John struggles to come to terms with being a house husband whilst watching his wife Helen run a successful business of her own. He also has to cope with his…

George Clarke is a respected member of the Establishment, a Civil Servant living in a converted flat in Hampstead. One evening, a very pregnant hippy arrives on his doorstep from a flat upstairs. At the height of their differences, Louise’s labour pains begins and so George takes charge.

An adaptation of Dorfman’s moving novel set in a Greek village in 1942 where the corpses of “disappeared” men wash ashore. The village women claim the bodies as husbands and fathers, even though their faces are unrecognizable. A tug of war ensues between the local police, who insist the women…

Wieland is an artist and the best blacksmith for miles around. He has forged the magic ring Alberich and he is often used by the King. Wieland is in love with the king’s daughter, Bathilde. But instead of getting her he’s being tortured and banished to a desert island. To…

talk / nothing / people. a criminal piece / I’m looking for flowers in petrol / things. / holiday makers / doors

When the story opens, we find Jameson and Renaldo amongst table and chairs, deciding if they can live together in the world or not. They share their water and peanuts as they tear each other down to gain the upper hand. Jameson shoots Renaldo dead. Just in time, for Ramona…

The adaptation, of the early written and very long Tjekhov comedy PLATINOV, is so freely done that it is more often considered to be a work of Frayn than of Tjekhov. Obviously, the themes belong to Tjekhov; bankruptcy of the landed gentry, the intellectuals’ dilettantism, the boredom of provincial life…

In this play, eight people are participating in a dangerous role play where eventually, the line between game and reality diminishes. And that makes it some what of a psychological thriller about the high-tech time in which we live. Most certainly a thought-provoker.

The action takes place aboard a hijacked plane on its way to Tokyo, where the passengers and crew open up about their lives and concerns / discussions about, among other things, the environment while watching a Europe below in flames due to climate changes.  If we could go back in…

Shenja Keil’s absurd debut play takes place in a forest among huge and small creatures.

The ‘Follies’ created by Ziegfeld, was revues of endless female dancers walking up and down a set of steps with a variety of shows and celebrity names. This show THE WILL ROGERS FOLLIES is equally rich on dancers performing on steps and from the rooftops the phantom voice of Florenz…

In his version of the adventures of Snow White and Red Riding Hood, Friedrich Karl Waechter focuses on only four voices. It is the story about the longing for love, jealousy and vindictiveness. Radio play.

This is a psychological study of a blind voyeur, who hires a male nurse to watch through binoculars the activities of the girl in the flat opposite who has driven him to attempt suicide.

This remarkable play confirms the terror and hope in the human drama. Emily Stilson, a former aviatrix and stunt pilot, suffers a stroke in her seventies and is plunged into a disoriented world. Her mind has short-circuited her contact with the outside world. The doctors seem to be speaking gibberish…

Elfriede Jelinek follows in the footsteps of the wanderers from Franz Schubert’s famous song cycle “Winterreise”. Her “Winter’s Journey” begins with the insanity of the present day, touching on banking scandals and the plight of kidnapping victims before heading more clearly towards autobiographical territory: Jelinek’s complicated relationship with her mother…

“Winterset” intertwines the stories of three people struggling to escape their unhappy ties to a past crime. Written in a combination of prose and blank verse, the play develops a tragic love story at the same time as it explores thematic questions about the natures of both justice and death.

Jaap sitting with his parents inside a cave and is not permitted to go out do not because his parents warn him against the dangers of the vicious world. But one day Jaap hears stories about how wonderful the world may be and his curiosity about the reality outside the…

A polyphonic battle that follows a football match, with expert commentaries and live reports from the stadium. The voices on the national team are also a reflection on the nation’s situation. An intelligent metaphor for Germany at the beginning of the new millennium.

Two couples meet for an apartment exchange. Hannah will spend some time in Zurich to teach Zen classes to stressed-out bank managers. Her boyfriend Sebastian is supposed to accompany her. During that time Roman, a computer scientist, is moving into their apartment; his professional interest is to observe a satellite…

Set in a Swiss hotel in the mountains, a couple of ”Wessis” is holding a seminar where they’re going to turn six ”Ossis” into becoming smart businessmen capable of navigating in the Western consumer economy.

The theme has mythical greatness – it’s taken from the Old Norse Edda: it’s about power, life and death. In clear pictures we’re told about the power struggle between the gods and the giants, and the doomed love affair between the giant daughter Skaði and Odin’s son Balder.

A trilogy about life in a country town in WA between 1920-1970, it tells the saga of shopkeepers, farmers, local drunks, the Bank Manager, a mad lay preacher, Aborigines and young lovers set against the changing fortunes of Jarrabin – flood, fire, war, racism, the rising salt, and an Aboriginal…

The inspiration here for Turrini, is Goldonis’ comedy ‘La Lovandiera’. And so this tragicomic play is a gruesome and bitter game about money, power and social differences.

Tamsin packs boxes in a warehouse, on the clock, with a zero-hour contract. Her brother Dean is housebound. Working to obsessive-compulsive rituals of his own. When Dean is declared fit for work and his benefits are cut, Tamsin must fight to get the support she and her brother so desperately…

This Pulitzer Prize winning play, revolves around the acclaimed literary professor, Vivien Bearing who is suddenly diagnosed with incurable cancer. And so with all her intellectual might and merciless wit, for which she was feared in university circles, she sets herself up against the illness and the cocksureness of hospitals…

Vivian Bearing, Ph.D., a renowned professor of English who has spent years studying and teaching the brilliant and difficult metaphysical sonnets of John Donne, has been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. Her approach to the study of Donne: aggressively probing, intensely rational. But during the course of her illness—and her…

Ten years after Abigail Williams, instigator of the witch trials, disappeared from Salem, she turns up at the tavern of her fellow ex witch-hunter, Mercy Lewis. About to leave the colonies forever, it’s her last chance to understand the madness that overtook them. But with war threatening northern New England…

During a 1943 air raid in Newcastle, Wittgenstein and his neighbours meet in the basement, where he has taken his young male lover. Confronted with bigotry and cluelessness, as well as the enlightened mind of 13 year old Sandra, Wittgenstein gives a brief and humorous lesson on the notion of…

Fitzgerald Kusz has made playful, ironic and sad thoughts about the fact of being a widow and compiled them in this tragic comedy revue about women of all ages, from young to the very old.

This is the new musical version of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ is by Frank L. Baum. It is packed with rock, gospel and soul songs but is likely to be better known from the film, starring among others Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. Naturally it is the everlasting story about…

This sensational Australian drama comes with several awards. And quite right so. In a most gripping way, it deals with an issue that inevitably changes the lives of the people involved. As what makes a child commit murder? The story takes place in a far away town in Tasmania, where…

A fable about the survival of the fittest, of friendship, solidarity and resistance.

A man and a woman meet in a classroom, but it’s not clear who’s teaching who. Everything seems to be possible in what looks like to be a boring hour of lecture.

A monologue on identity and homeland in a highly artificial prose verse and manic “we-form,” which revolves around the exclusion of the strange or different. The source of this weave of quotations is the idealist philosophy and German language poetry, which is considered the origin of German Nationalism. The Germans,…

Few Dramatists master the art of combining subtle poetry with deadly drama. Carr masters the art, and it is always a pleasure to be seduced by her language and absorbed by her mysterious and often chilling universes – if one dares. Death is always lurking behind the corner and in…

The comic poet of middle class life, always so very funny, goes deeper and darker in this triumphant play about a housewife named Susan who is married to a boring cleric named George. After getting knocked out by stepping on the tooth-end of a garden rake, Susan experiences hilarious hallucinations…

The Mona Lisa has always captivated the world. But for Vincenzo Perugia, the painting holds a special power, one that compels him to steal it from the Louvre and return it to Italy. Before he returns it, however, he lives under the watchful smile of La Gioconda for over two…

Louis Nowra’s Australian family trilogy, ”The Boyce Trilogy” consists of the plays ”The Woman With Dog’s Eyes”, ”The Marvellous Boy” and ”The Emperor Of Sydney”. Property developer Boyce has one goal in life: to complete his final prestige project before his illness finishes him off and the sons take over…

In this hilarious satire on B movies of the 1950’s, Mary-Eleanor, an innocent duped into crime, lands in the Greenwich Village Woman’s House of Detention which is presided over by a massive matron with taste for sadism and female flesh. Poor Mary-Eleanor ends up hardened and cynical, but that’s just…

Ukrainian play. What happens when light disappears, and the big city gets dark? Women in the Dark is a dark comedy for two actresses. It reconsiders the role of electricity in everyday life through the female experience in wartime. The women in Kyiv, Ukraine, exchange funny, sad and scary stories…

Described by the author as “an Upper West Side story,” this provocative, brilliantly stylized and often very funny play delves into the lives of three upscale Manhattan female “yuppies” whose financial success is counterbalanced by their unmet emotional needs.

This is the only preserved piece from Euripides’ three tragedies that deal with the prelude to the battle of Troy, the battle itself and the postlude. Affected by the most violent wars of his time, Euripides provided a horrendous portrayal of the brutality of the victors and the despair of…

1 Act / 3M, 5F /Chorus of women / Possible doubling / A radio version is also available Euripides’ Tragedy is a frightening parable of the after-math of war: Hecuba, dethroned queen of defeated Troy, must see her city burned, her family humiliated, as she and her women wait to…

Best friends Vera and Anna have lots in common both being the wrong side of 40, experiencing marriage troubles as well as sharing a love of Irish singing sensation Daniel O’Donnell. During a trip to Donegal to see their idol live in concert they come face to face with the…

The play is an acidic commentary on the pampered lives and power struggles of various wealthy Manhattan socialites and up-and-comers and the gossip that propels and damages their relationships. While men frequently are the subject of their lively discussions and play an important role in the action on-stage, they are…

With this play, we are taken back to Friel’s Ballybeg, where three couples are sitting on the pier, awaiting the boat to take them to ‘The Mysterious and Different Island’. They spend the night and hours of anticipation singing, discussing serious matters as well as narrating good stories and all…

The Yirralong people have lodged a native title claim for the right to “possess, occupy and enjoy their ancestral lands”. Lon, a third generation pastoralist is terrified that his dream of passing the family property on to his son-in-law will be shattered. As the pressure mounts, long buried secrets begin…

An intense and raw yet ultimately affecting love story about the conflicts and contradictions of a struggling young relationship. It is a two-character drama in three swiftly moving acts, and it centers on Ruth and Nick, a 20-something couple attempting a romantic weekend at a lakeside cabin owned by Nick’s…

Rose, a shy five-and-dime salesgirl whose life centres on reveries and daydreams, lives in a dreary Philadelphia apartment. Into her life saunters Cliff, a hard-working, hard-drinking truck driver. He is rough and witty and just as starved for love as she is. This little gem of a play features several…

2 Acts / 2M (mid 50s, mid 20s) 1F (mid 50s) Frank, approaching death, talks for the last time to his son. They try to surmount the obstacles of sexuality, education, even class, that separate them Robert and his mother, Kath, are now confronted with the need to invent lives…

Inspired by Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Ange. The action takes place in a politician’s villa where a large company is invited for a midnight snack after the premiere of Verdi’s Othello. The company is soon being spellbound by the hand of an unexplained paralysis, and as the night approaches they…

A monodrama written for an older actress. In school, the play’s protagonist falls in love with the popular boy of her class. To her own amazement, she later marries him. Here starts the marital martyrdom. She loses her voice and eventually kills her him. In prison, from which the story…

Howard Barker’s controversial work explores the way in which we see ourselves and others through the character of the human face. The physiognomy of the face is central to our relationship with the outside world. It is the first thing we see when meeting strangers and the first they see…

The play tells the story of the brothers Clive and David Rodingham, who inherit the family fortune upon the death of their father. They then meet business man Charles and his wife Julie, a would-be thriller writer. Charles is anxious to work with the brothers on property deals, and so…

A ‘behind-the-scenes’ story of Harry, a successful playwright who decides he is going to make some ‘real money’ by writing scripts for a long running TV soap opera, ‘Diamond Hill’. But no sooner has he joined the team than he discovers that all is not as straight forward as he…

Variable cast. In the ancient mythology, the goddess Hera blinds the hero Hercules to eliminate his own family in rage. In 2015, the gods have other names; also the god of the religious fanatics behind the terrorist attacks in Paris, which are the basis of the material in WUT. Jelinek…

This play revolves around Mr. and Mrs. Elliot, who are harassed one day by a young diabolic computer hacker. Henceforth, their identities are totally played about with, so utterly powerless they witness how she is pictured as a porn star while he is displayed as the leader of a paedophile…

An entertainment, based on the life and writings of Jonathan Swift.

This short play examines a theme from Anton Chekhov’s short story, ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’, which Chekhov wrote in Yalta in the autumn of 1899. The Yalta Game tells the story of an accountant who holidays alone, leaving his wife and family behind in Moscow. While away, he…

David Hare was in charge of the staging of the Broadway version of Joan Didion’s National Book Award bestseller from 2005. Vanessa Redgrave played Didion. The play depicts the year after the death of her husband, author John Gregory Dune – at that time, her daughter Quintana was also seriously…

Yellow Moon is a modern Bonnie and Clyde tale that follows the fortunes of two teenagers on the run. Silent Leila is an introverted girl who has a passion for celebrity magazines. Stag Lee Macalinden is the deadest of dead-end kids in a dead-end town. They never meant to get…

The original writers of the classic BBC TV series reunited for a new satirical take on Whitehall. Prime Minister Jim Hacker and his Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby are back, spinning out of control through the collapsing euro and austerity measures in a world of 24 hour news, Blackberrys and…

The story of two older women navigating the perils of aging in suburban Detroit. Virginia Campbell was a longtime housekeeper for Denise Miller and her family, helping Denise raise her children during a difficult divorce. But when she shows up for work, Denise is very confused. Especially since she thought…