Carl Grose: Plays One

Carl Grose: Plays One
Author: Carl Grose
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2019-08-30
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1786825686

Bringing together five plays exploring our notions of family, myth, death, truth and the ever-fluctuating nature of reality, Carl Grose: Plays One celebrates the possibilities of theatre and humanity's desperate need to tell stories in order to survive. This collection includes Grose's blood-splattered love letter to the theatre, Grand Guignol, plus a quartet of anarchic Cornish-set comedies: Superstition Mountain, Horse Piss For Blood, 49 Donkeys Hanged and The Kneebone Cadillac.

Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and Other Love Songs)

Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and Other Love Songs)
Author: Carl Grose
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 105
Release: 2014-08-27
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 1783196556

Kneehigh Theatre Company presents Dead Dog in a Suitcase written by Carl Grose. What the HELL is the world coming to? Based on The Beggar's Opera, John Gay's classic musical satire, Dead Dog in a suitcase (and other love songs) is busting with wit, wonder and weirdness. An extraordinary Kneehigh cast of actor-musicians shoot, hoot and shimmy their way through this twisted morality tale of our times...by turns SHOCKING, HILARIOUS, HEARTFELT and ABSURD! Mayor Goodman has been assassinated. Contract killer Macheath has just married Pretty Polly Peachum and they plan to escape to a better world – but they aren't going anywhere. Not if pickled pilchard, hair gel and concrete tycoon Les Peachum and his wife have anything to do with it. See, they aren't happy with their daughter marrying Macheath. Not one bit. Before the day is out Macheath will face the hangman's noose and much more besides. All the while, the dogs are howling, the pier is creaking, the babes are crying, the concrete is cracking and the truth won't stay hidden for much longer... This is now, this is it The world is poor and man's a shit The game is rigged, nothing's truer Death's a joke and life a sewer!

Darke Plays: 1

Darke Plays: 1
Author: Nick Darke
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2014-05-20
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1408148714

"Passionately satirical and sharply observant, he is one of the most interesting of our playwrights" (Sunday Telegraph) The Dead Monkey - "Darke has something both hilarious and horrific to say about the decay of a marriage and he compels the attention while doing so." (Sunday Telegraph) The King of Prussia - "A meaty play...seethes with life, wit and ideas. Darke give shape to a Cornish identity that feels vital and real and has nothing to do with clay pipes and clotted cream. Like Cornwall's coves, it has many unexpected depths...It also raises questions about the points where justice, conscience and the law part company" (Financial Times) The Body - "The best moments in Nick Darke's play are extremely good - and not all good in the same way...the most obvious debt is to Brecht. There are other reminiscences of Auden and Isherwood's The Dog Beneath the Skin, of Tom Stoppard's After Magritte and of T.S Eliot's verse plays." Tin Tang Mine - "A lament for an industry and a way of life; but this should not suggest anything sentimental. The writing is rugged and muscular; lyrical but not ornate; vigorous but not folksy...oddball, quirkily parochial and as authentic as a slice of rough bread." (The Times)

The Global and Local Appeal of Kneehigh Theatre Company

The Global and Local Appeal of Kneehigh Theatre Company
Author: Catherine Trenchfield
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2022-07-25
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1527586618

This book explores Kneehigh Theatre Company’s notions of “Brand Kneehigh”, discussing how their theatrical style enjoyed local and global appeal, in relation to theories of globalisation, localisation and cultural exchange. It defines Kneehigh’s theatrical brand, indicating Cornish cultural identity as a core component in conjunction with international influences. By looking at the history of this company, the book’s analysis of key productions reflects on qualities attributed to “Brand Kneehigh” and considers the ‘local’ and ‘global’ nature of their work. The selection and review of productions examined here reveals the changes and reinventions Kneehigh have undergone to incorporate shifting interests and socioeconomic engagements. This book explores Kneehigh’s ambitions to establish themselves as a company delivering material that is ‘popular’ in appeal, meeting the needs of a Cornish (local) community and an international (global) audience. However, tensions working between local and global interests are also exposed, with an investigation into Kneehigh’s own cited solution: their self-created performance space, the Asylum.

National Theatre Connections 2011

National Theatre Connections 2011
Author: Sam Adamson
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 545
Release: 2014-03-10
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1408145693

This brilliant new collection of ten plays for young people will prove indispensable to schools, colleges and youth theatre groups. Specially commissioned by the National Theatre for the Connections Festival 2011 involving 200 schools and youth theatre groups across the UK and Ireland, each play is accompanied by production notes and exercises. The Pied Piper re-imagined, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, witches in seventeenth century Norfolk, a giant baby on the rampage, an extraordinary day in an ordinary school are just some of subjects covered in the thrilling and varied new plays created by talented writers for young actors to perform in National Theatre Connections 2011. The plays in this anthology offer a huge variety of stories and styles to ignite the imagination of young casts and creative teams. Themes are both teenage and universal - ambition, dashed hopes, fear and confidence, loyalty and betrayal. These new plays embrace a huge range for their inspiration: they plunder classics and imagine the future.

Grand Guignol

Grand Guignol
Author: Carl Grose
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 110
Release: 2009-11-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1849438234

1903. In the back streets of Montmartre, the Theatre du Grand Guignol opens its doors to an unsuspecting public. The plays performed, rife with madness and murder, are sold out every night. A psychiatrist obsessed with the playwright’s gruesome dramas ingratiates his way into the company. But when he starts to unpick the author’s mind, the boundaries between theatre and truth begin to blur... Delighting in this lost theatrical form, Carl Grose’s demented new play works fast and loose with convention. A black comedy, a psychological thriller and an unrepentant splatterfest, Grand Guignol is a head-spinning, genre-bending phantasmagoria guaranteed to keep you guessing (and wincing) to the very last horror show...

Kneehigh Anthology: Volume 1

Kneehigh Anthology: Volume 1
Author: Carl Grose
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2013-04-03
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 184943946X

Kneehigh now finds itself celebrated as one of the UK's most exciting theatre companies. This collection contains the performance texts of four of their highly acclaimed shows: Tristan & Yseult, The Bacchae, The Wooden Frock and The Red Shoes. With forewords from Emma Rice, Tom Morris, Anna Maria Murphy and Carl Grose, it offers a unique insight into Kneehigh's approach to making theatre, revealing how ascript can emerge from a collaborative devising process.

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Last Plays

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Last Plays
Author: Catherine M. S. Alexander
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2009-07-16
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 0521881781

In this book, leading international Shakespeare scholars consider the significant characteristics of Shakespeare's last plays and place them in their Jacobean context.

The Grinning Man

The Grinning Man
Author: Carl Grose
Publisher: Samuel French Limited
Total Pages: 116
Release: 2021-05-05
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780573132209

A strange new act has arrived at Trafalgar Fair's freakshow. Who is Grinpayne and how did he get his hideous smile? With the help of an old puppeteer, his pet wolf and a blind girl, Grinpayne's tale is told. When word spreads across the capital, everything changes. Desperate to know the terrible secrets of his mysterious past, Grinpayne leaves his true love behind and embarks on a journey into an even crueller world - the aristocracy. The Grinning Man is a fairy tale love story streaked with pitch-black humour, lashings of Gothic horror and swashbuckling adventure. It opened at Bristol Old Vic in 2016 to great acclaim and transferred to the West End's Trafalgar Studios in 2017 where it achieved cult status and rave reviews. "Defies theatrical convention by keeping its hand on its heart and its tongue in its cheek." - The Guardian "Blackly comic brilliance." - The Telegraph "The best British score in years" - WhatsOnStage

Connections 500

Connections 500
Author: Snoo Wilson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 753
Release: 2016-04-26
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1474284159

Drawing together the work of 12 leading playwrights, this National Theatre Connections anthology celebrates highlights from 21 years of the Connections festival with a retrospective selection of plays. Featuring work by some of the most prolific playwrights of the 20th and 21st centuries, and together in one volume, the anthology offers young performers between the ages of 13 and 19 an engaging selection of plays to perform, read or study. Each play has been specifically commissioned by the National Theatre's literary department over the years, with the young performer in mind. In 2016, these plays were then performed by approximately 500 schools and youth theatre companies across the UK and Ireland, in partnership with multiple professional partner regional theatres at which the works were showcased. The anthology contains all 12 of the play scripts; notes from the writer and director of each play, addressing the themes and ideas behind the play; and production notes and exercises for the drama groups. This year's anniversary anthology includes plays by Snoo Wilson, Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt; Simon Armitage; Jackie Kay; Patrick Marber; Mark Ravenhill; Bryony Lavery & Frantic Assembly; Davey Anderson; James Graham; Katori Hall; Carl Grose; Stacey Gregg; and Lucinda Coxon.