The Crafty Art of Playmaking

The Crafty Art of Playmaking
Author: Alan Ayckbourn
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2015-04-28
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1250083087

In The Crafty Art of Playmaking, this seminal guide from renowned playwright Alan Ayckbourn shares his tricks of the trade. From helpful hints on writing to tips on directing, this book provides a complete primer for the newcomer and a refresher for those with more experience. Written in Ayckbourn's signature style that combines humor, seriousness, and a heady air of sophistication, The Crafty Art of Playmaking is a must-have for aspiring playwrights, students of drama, and anyone who has ever laughed their way through one of Ayckbourn's plays.

A Small Family Business

A Small Family Business
Author: Alan Ayckbourn
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
Total Pages: 188
Release: 1992
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780573693779

Jack McCraken has the opportunity of a lifetime: he is the new head of a family furniture business and believes he will initiate a new age of honesty and integrity. He quickly learns that everyone else involved in the enterprise has a vested interest in maintaining business as usual, rife with dishonesty and deceit "--

Communicating Doors

Communicating Doors
Author: Alan Ayckbourn
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
Total Pages: 122
Release: 1999
Genre: English drama
ISBN: 9780573626845

This intricate time traveling comic thriller by the British master of farcical comedy delighted London and New York audiences. A London sex specialist from the future stumbles into a murder plot that sends her, compliments of a unique set of hotel doors, traveling back in time. She and two women who were murdered in 1998 and 1978 race back and forth in time trying to rewrite history and prevent their own violent ends. The frantic race begins when Poopay is hired for an evening at the Regal Hotel by an old man who eschews a fling in favor of confessing his role in the demise of his wives. Now a target, Poopay flees into the vestibule and somehow triggers the time machine. -- Publisher's website.

The Crafty Art of Playmaking

The Crafty Art of Playmaking
Author: Alan Ayckbourn
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Trade
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2003-05-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9781403962294

For the first time, Alan Ayckbourn shares all of his tricks of the playwright's trade. From helpful hints on writing to tips on directing, the book provides a complete primer for the newcomer and a refresher for the more experienced. Written in Ayckbourn's signature style that combines humor, seriousness, and heady air of theatrical sophistication that Noel Coward would envy, The Crafty Art of Playmaking is a must-have for aspiring playwrights and students of drama.

Woman in Mind

Woman in Mind
Author: Alan Ayckbourn
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Total Pages: 103
Release: 2014-07-17
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0571318223

The central character of Alan Ayckbourn's new play is Susan, a parson's wife, 'one of the most moving and devastating that he has created...' Robin Thornber reviewing the first production in Scarborough in the Guardian.

Comic Potential

Comic Potential
Author: Alan Ayckbourn
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2002
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780573627972

A play set in the foreseeable future when everything has changed except human nature; a future where TV daytime soaps are performed by android actors emotionally programmed by the control room. One, JC 31333, finds herself humanized as Jacie Triplethree, complete with a sense of humour and Adam, a young scriptwriter, falls for her.

Invisible Friends

Invisible Friends
Author: Alan Ayckbourn
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2015-02-12
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0571325777

Alan Ayckbourn's play is about a very ordinary teenager called Lucy. With her father glued to the cowboys on the telly, her mother preoccupied with neighbourly gossip and her brother enclosed in his ear-phones, no one wants to know about her place in the school swimming team. So Lucy revives her childhood fantasy friend, Zara, setting a place for her at the very ordinary tea table. This time Zara materializes, bringing with her an idealized father and brother, and showing Lucy how to make her real family vanish. The moral of this cautionary tale is carefully spelt out - that when you get what you want it's not what you wanted - as Lucy's dream family turns out to be a nightmare. The play is supposedly for children of seven upwards, but there's a message here for parents, too, about listening to kids.

A Creative Writing Handbook

A Creative Writing Handbook
Author: Bill Greenwell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2009
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

Packed with stimulating writing exercises, numerous quotes and over 30 extracts from literature across a wide variety of genres, this book will both inspire and assist anyone interested in creative writing. The book can be followed as a complete course or dipped into as desired.

The Roaring Girl

The Roaring Girl
Author: Thomas Middleton
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 1987
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780719016301

Ward was in a New York banking family, brother of Julia Ward Howe, married into the Astor family, was in the Gold Rush, involved in the social life of New York and London, and was an epicure. He was also a very powerful lobbying influence on Congress and an author. His family connections and friends were prominent in many fields.