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Playwrights
 The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights
Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer & Aleks Sierz
The Methuen Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights is an authoritative introduction to the work of twenty-five playwrights who have risen to prominence since the 1980s. Written by an international team of scholars, it provides detailed and insightful surveys of each writer's work, and considers their particular contribution contemporary British theatre. Softcover, 520 pp. $30.00.
 My Father's Fortune
Michael Frayn
Michael Frayn sets out to discover his family's past before all trace of it finally disappears beyond recall. In this searching and moving memoir, he comes to see how much he has inherited from his father - and makes some surprising discoveries along the way. Softcover, 260 pp. $18.00.
 I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections
Nora Ephron
Building on the success of her previous book, I Feel Bad About My neck, Nora Ephron offers stories of the pas, present and future that are filled with insights and observations that instantly ring true. Softcover, 140 pp. $16.00.
 Blue Nights
Joan Didion
From the acclaimed writer of The Year of Magical Thinking comes a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured, incisive, haunting, and profoundly moving, Blue Nights examines Joan Didion's thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old. Hardcover, 188 pp. $27.00.
 Feeding On Dreams: Confessions of an Unrepentant Exile
Ariel Dorfman
Playwright and activist Ariel Dorfman was exiled from Chile in 1973 when President Allende was overthrown. Here he portrays, through visceral scenes and startling hoensty, the persona and political maelstroms that have defined his life since the Pinochet coup. Hardcover, 332 pp. $31.95.
 Must You Go? My Life with Harold Pinter
Antonia Fraser
In this exquisite memoir, Antonia Fraser recounts the life she shared with the internationally renowned dramatist. In essence, it is a love story and a marvelously insightful account of their years together. Based on the author's recollections and diaries, Must You Go? is a moving testament to one of the literary world's most celebrated romances. Hardcover, 328 pp. $32.95.
 The Noel Coward Reader
Edited by Barry Day
From the editor of the acclaimed Letters of Noel Coward, comes this brilliant compendium of Coward's best work. Here are scenes from Coward's plays, The Vortex, Blithe Spirit, Private Lives, and Design for Living; from his film screenplays, Brief Encounter and the previously unpublished script for In Which to Serve; from his only published novel, Pomp and Circumstance, as well as four of his best short stories. Hardcover, 596 pp. $46.00.
 The Methuen Guide to Contemporary Irish Playwrights
Martin Middeke & Peter Paul Schnierer
This is a ground-breaking study of twenty-five writers whose work during the past fifty years has helped to shape and define Irish theatre. Written by a team of international scholars, it provides an authoritative survey and analysis of each writer's plays and considers their contribution to the contemporary theatrical scene and the narrative of a nation. Softcover, 460 pp. $34.00.
Terence Rattigan: A Biography
Geoffrey Wansell
From the heady days of Rattigan's early success to the darker days of his decline in popularity, Geoffrey Wansell paints a captivating portrait of one of the twentieth century's greatest theatrical lights. Softcover, 446 pp. $31.95.
 About Kane: the Playwright & the Work
Graham Saunders
Sarah Kane,one of the most controversial and talented playwrights of recent times is included in this excellent series which is distinguished by its student-friendly feel, highly readable and jargon free. Softcover, 184 pp. $18.00.
 Samuel Beckett
Andrew Gibson
The life of Samuel Beckett has been the subject of exhaustive scholarship, yet Beckett himself was a spare, minimalist writer who deeply distrusted biography as a form of knowledge. In this new, concise, critical account of Beckett's life and work, Andrew Gibson seeks to remain faithful to the writer's artistic aims, staying close to Beckett's style of thought and work in his analysis of this supremely modern figure. Softcover, 205 pp. $20.95.
 Anton Chekhov: A Brother's Memoir
Mikhail Chekhov
Anton Chekhov's plays represent the complexity of human emotions in ways that still resonate deeply with readers and audiences today. In fact, his writing has been so enduring that, other than Shakespeare, he is the most-staged playwright in the English-speaking world. In this illuminating biography, Anton's brother Mikhail shares unparalleled insights and transports readers into the delighful world of the Chekhov family. Hardcover, 238 pp. $30.00.
 A Life Like Other People's
Alan Bennett
A Life Like Other People's is the core of Alan Bennett's Untold Stories. It is a poignant memoir of his parrent's marriage and his early childhood, recalling his mother's sudden descent into depression and, later, dementia. This moving and, at times irresistibly funny work of auto-biography is a must-read for fans of one of the world's best-loved English writers. Softcover, 242 pp. $14.00.
 Travels With a Typewriter: A Reporter at Large
Michael Frayn
The eponymous Michael Frayn, one of Britain's finest playwrights, spent much of the sixties and seventies as a travelling journalist. Here, for the first time, is a wonderful collection of some of his writings from such exotic locations as Israel, Japan, Cuba and Russia. Frayn's trademark wit and intelligence make Travels with a Typewriter an entertaining and engrossing read. Hardcover, 285 pp. $32.00.
 Horton Foote: America's Storyteller
Wilborne Hampton
Long regarded by other playwrights and screenwriters, actors, and cognoscenti of the theatre and cinema as a master of American storytelling, Horton Foote is a writer whose rich life remains largely unknown to the general public. His is the story of an artist who refused to compromise his talents for the sake of fame or money, or just to keep working. The whole story is told here in the first comprehensive biography of this remarkable writer. Hardcover, $36.00.
 Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics
1948-2008
Harold Pinter
Various Voices is the only collection of Harold Pinter's prose, poems and political writing to span his career. This new edition includes a remarkable interview in which he reflects on his time as an evacuee in Cornwall during the Second World War, as well as new prose, poems and his Nobel Lecture. Softcover, 304 pp. $28.00.
 Letters of Noel Coward
Edited by Barry Day
Lavishly illustrated and annotated, this first and definitive collection of letters to and from Coward provides a divine portrait of an age, from the Blitz to the Ritz and beyond. Along with 191 rare photographs, these letters bring to life the people and events that shaped the twentieth century--and a remarkable man who made his own indelible mark at the heart of it. Softcover, 780 pp. $22.95.
 Noel Coward: In His Own Words
Edited by Barry Day
A delightful and revealing collection of quotations from the master wordsmith. Noel Coward chose his words to uniquely stylish and truthful effect in his plays, verse, song lyrics, stories and everyday life. Softcover, 159 pp. $16.50.
 The Dramatic Literature of Nawal El Saadawi
Edited by Adele S. Newson-Horst
Both God Resigns and Isis incorporate key themes to Nawal El Saadawi's work: that all religions are inimical to women and the poor, that the oppression of women is reprehensible and not uniquely characteristic of the Middle East or the "Third World", and that free speech is fundamental to any society. Softcover, 206 pp. $17.50.
 Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter
Edited by Peter Raby
Harold Pinter was one of the world's leading and most controversial writers, and his impact and influence continues to grow. This companion examines the wide range of Pinter's work - his writing for theatre, radio, television and screen, and also his highly successful work as a director and actor. Substantially updated and revised, this second edition covers the many developments in Pinter's career since the publication of the first edition, including his Nobel Prize for Literature win in 2005. Softcover, 321 pp. $33.99.
 New Selected Essays: Where I Live
Tennessee Williams
In addition to his plays, poems, prose, and letters, Tennessee Williams also wrote essays. Erudite, emotional, witty, sly, self-deprecating, self-possessed, sharp, tender, vivid, and charming, these often surprising essays open an enormous picture window on the man and his work. Found here are insights into his creative process, as well as portraits of some of the great writers, directors, and actresses he knew and worked with. Included is an introduction by John Lahr. Softcover, 313 pp. $23.50.
 The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929 - 1940
Martha Dow Fehsenfeld & Lois More Overbeck
The Cambridge University Press edition of The Letters of Samuel Beckett offers for the first time a comprehensive range of letters of one of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century. Selected for their bearing on his work from over 15,000 extant letters, the letters published in this four-volume edition encompass sixty years of Beckett's writing life (1929-1989), and include letters to friends, painters and musicians, as well as to students, publishers, translators, and colleagues in the world of literature and theatre. Hardvoer, 782 pp. $55.95.
 Samuel Beckett: Playwright & Poet
Christopher Murray
The masterly work of Samuel Beckett, as rich in enigma as it is in humor, is explored anew in this celebratory volume by editor Christopher Murray and twelve other Beckett authorities, among them John Banville, Richard Kearney, Rosemary Pountney, and actor Barry McGovern. Softcover, 172 pp. $16.50.
 The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder
Robin Wilder & Jackson Bryer
This volume of more than three hundred letters, selected from some seven thousand gathered around the world, is the first to provide a comprehensive collection of Thornton Wilder's correspondence. Wilder was known a man who knew everybody, and these letters vividly document the range of his friendships. Through these correspondences, readers can eavesdrop on his conversations with Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Noel Coward, Max Reinhardt, Gene Tunney, Alexander Woolcott, Laurence Olivier, Ruth Gordon, Garson Kanin, Aaron Copeland, Paul Hindemith, Leonard Bernstein, Edward Albee, and Mia Farrow. Hardcover, 729 pp. $42.95.
 Harold Pinter
William Baker
Harold Pinter is one of the most important writers in English of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first. This book offers students, academics, and readers a rich depiction of Harold Pinter, the man and the writer. Softcover, 166 pp. $21.95.
 Writing: Working In the Theatre
Edited by Robert Emmet Long
Countless playwrights and lyricists have participated in the American Theatre Wing's Working In the Theatre programs. In wide-ranging and dynamic conversations, before enthusiastic audiences, these great talents talk not to an interviewer but with each other, exploring every facet of the writer's work. In this book, more than 85 top artists discuss why they became writers, how the writer interacts with the director, the special challenges of the writer/director, how the writer relates to the actors, the process of workshopping and development, and the relationship between writer and dramaturg. Softcover, 148 pp. $18.95.
 David Mamet: A Life in the Theatre
Ira Nadel
Breaking through David Mamet's notoriously private persona, Ira Nadel delivers a revealing and insightful biography of the celebrated playwright, director, and essayist. With verve and precision, Nadel delves deep into Mamet's complicated family life, his life before the theatre, and his early career. By using Mamet's plays and other writing as a guide, Nadel is able to find clarity in Mamet's extraordinary life. Hardcover, $29.95.
 John Osborne: The Many Lives of the Angry Man
John Heilpern
John Osborne, the original Angry Young Man, shocked and transformed British theater in the 1950s with his play Look Back in Anger. This startling biography -- the first to draw on the secret notebooks in which he recorded his anguish and depression -- reveals the notorious rebel in all his heartrending complexity. Softcover, 525 pp. $20.00.
 Eugene O'Neill's America: Desire under Democracy
John Patrick Diggins
In the face of seemingly relentless American optimism, Eugene O'Neill's plays reveal an America many would like to ignore, a place of seething resentments, aching desires and family tragedy, where failure and disappointment are the norm and the American dream a chimera. Though derided by critics during his lifetime, his works resonated with audiences, won him the Nobel Prize and four Pulitzers, and continue to grip theatregoers today. Now noted historian John Patrick Diggins offers a masterly biography that both traces O'Neill's tumultuous life and explains the forceful ideas that form the heart of his unflinching works. Hardcover, 305 pp. $34.95.
 Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy
Park Honan
Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy brings us closer than ever to one of the most enigmatic figures in literary history. Softcover, 421 pp. $29.95.
 Tennessee Williams Notebooks
Margaret Bradham Thornton
These notebooks, here published for the first time, present by turns a passionate, whimsical, movingly lyrical, self-reflective, and completely uninhibited record of the life of this monumental American genius from 1936 to 1981. In these pages Williams wrote out his most private thoughts; reflected on his plays, stories, and poems; and gave accounts of his social, professional, and sexual encounters. Meticulously edited and annotated by Margaret Bradham Thornton, these notebooks form what is possibly the most spontaneous self-portrait by any writer in American history. Hardcover, 828 pp. $52.95 $47.95.
 Beckett Remembering Remembering Beckett
James Knowlson & Elizabeth Knowlson
In the first part of this book, Beckett, a notably reclusive man, talks candidly with his official biographer, James Knowlson, about his family, his youth, his school years in Dublin, his early life in Paris as lecteur at the famed Ecole Normale Superieure, his friendship with James Joyce, his work in the French resistance movement during the Nazi occupation, his precipitous flight from Paris when his involvement was discovered by the Gestapo, his clandestine years in the Vaucluse region of southern France, his postwar volunteer work with the Irish Red Cross Hospital in Saint-Lo, and his return to Paris in the late 1940s to resume his literary life. The second part of this book offer the other side of the coin, as friends and colleagues share their memories of Beckett. Hardcover, 313 pp. $39.95.
 In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights
Victor Wishna & Ken Collins
Presenting sixty-one playwrights, including Edward Albee, Eric Bogosian,
Christopher Durang, John Guare, Beth Henley, David Ives, Tony Kushner,
Neil LaBute, Terrence McNally, Suzan-Lori Parks, Neil Simon, and
Wendy Wasserstein, In Their Company is an illuminating tribute to written
drama. Each playwright profile includes a candid interview and a sparkling
black & white
photograph. Hardcover, 280 pp. $45.95.
 Tennessee Williams: Memoirs
Tennessee Williams
For Tennessee Williams, the past is always present. As he weaves
his Memoirs, the playwright continually shifts and intermingles times
and places - his childhood in Mississippi and St. Louis; his struggle
as a "starving
artist;" "overnight" success with The Glass Menagerie in
1945; the death of his long-time companion Frank Merlo in 1962; confinement
to a psychiatric ward in 1969, and his subsequent recovery from alcohol
and drug addiction in the 1970s. One of the world's greatest playwrights,
Tennessee Williams was the author of over thirty full-length plays,
including The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named
Desire, Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof, Camino Real, Not About
Nightingales, The
Rose Tattoo,
and Night of the Iguana. Softcover, 274 pp. $21.00.
 John Osborne: A Patriot For Us
John Heilpern
John Osborne, unapologetic rebel and original Angry Young Man, blow-torched
his way into our lives, changing the face of modern British theatre
in 1956 with Look Back in Anger. As iconoclastic as Shaw or Wilde,
he defined England in many controversial ways. There always was about
him a
public
showmanship - and he hid his anguished nature and immobilizing depression
in his secret notebooks. This is an essential, moving, and extraordinarily
frank portrait of the man, the playwright and his era. Hardcover,
528 pp. $62.50.
 Stoppard's Theatre: Finding Order Amid Chaos
John Fleming
In Stoppard's Theatre, John Fleming offers the first book-length
assessment of Stoppard's work in nearly a decade. He takes an in-depth look at
the three major plays of the 1990s (Arcadia, Indian
Ink, and The Invention of Love) and the recently revised
versions of Travesties and Hapgood, as well
as at four other major plays (Rosencrantz, Jumpers, Night
and Day, and The Real Thing). Fleming also mines Stoppard's
papers for a fuller, more detailed overview of the evolution of his plays. Softcover,
325 pp. $31.95.
 The Masks of Judith Thompson
Ric Knowles
As an acting student at the National Theatre School of Canada, Judith Thompson
discovered writing through a mask class; however, for her, masks are much more
than the route through which she came to be a writer -- they are her way of writing.
These essays examine how Judith Thompson turns her back on her own public persona
and dons the masks of each of her characters in order to discover what they have
to say and their richly various ways of saying it. Softcover, 149 pp. $25.00.
 George F. Walker
Harry Lane
Since 1971, George F. Walker has become one of the most prominent and innovative
English-language writers on the Canadian theatre scene, with some 30 stage scripts
professionally produced, an extensive career writing for television, radio, and
film, and a host of major awards. Through a representative selection of scholarly
articles and illuminating interviews that Walker has given over the years, this
volume provides a variety of critical perspectives on the playwright's career.
Softcover, 205 pp. $25.00.
 Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett
James Knowlson
Damned to Fame is the brilliant and insightful portrait of the mysterious
and reclusive master of twentieth-century literature, Nobel Prize-winning
author Samuel Beckett. Professor James Knowlson, Beckett's chosen biographer
and a leading authority on Beckett, vividly re-creates Beckett's life
from his birth in a rural suburb of Dublin in 1906 to his death in Paris
in 1989,
revealing the real man behind the literary giant. Scrupulously researched
and filled with information garnered from interviews with the author,
his friends, family, and contemporaries, Knowlson's unparalleled work
is the
definitive Beckett biography of her time. Softcover, 800 pp. $29.95.
Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy
Park Honan
This is the most thorough and detailed picture of Marlowe's life in over fifty
years. Based on years of meticulous research, Park Honan's biography contains
many new findings, including a thorough investigation of Marlowe's relationships
with fellow playwrights such as Kyd and Shakespeare, and his chief patron, Thomas
Walsingham. Hardcover, 421 pp. $44.00.
 Bernard Shaw: A Life
A.M. Gibbs
Bernard Shaw fashioned public images of himself that belied the nature and depth
of his emotional experiences and the complexity of his intellectual outlook.
In this absorbing biography, A.M. Gibbs debunks many of the elements that form
the foundation of Shaw's self-created legend -- from his childhood, to his sexual
relationships, his marriage, his politics, his Irish identity, and his controversial
philosophy of Creative Evolution. Drawing on previously unpublished materials,
including never-before-seen photographs and early sketches by Shaw, Gibbs offers
a fresh perspective and brings us closer than ever before to the human being
behind the masks. Hardcover, 554 pp. $57.95.
 How It Was: A Memoir of Samuel Beckett
Anne Atik
Often portrayed as a brilliant artist who shied away from celebrity and photographers,
Samuel Beckett remains a mysterious figure in the collective consciousness. However,
to poet Anne Atik, Beckett was a close friend, and this touching memoir is a
compilation of her recollections of their deep friendship. Illustrated throughout
with sketches of Beckett by Atik's husband, Avigdor Arikha. Hardcover, 127 pp.
$39.95.
 I Ain't Sorry For Nothin' I Done
Joan Herrington
The most successful African-American playwright of his time, August Wilson
is a dominant presence on Broadway and in regional theatres and college
drama courses throughout the country. In this book Joan Herrington
traces the roots of Wilson's drama to visual artists like Romare
Bearden and to
the jazz musicians who inspire and energize him as a dramatist. This
study is enriched and enlivened by interviews with Wilson himself
and with actors,
directors, and other theatre professionals who have worked closely
with him.
Softcover, 180 pp. $21.95.
 Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels
Deborah Martinson
Lillian Hellman was the author of Broadway hits The Children's Hour and The
Little Foxes, a Hollywood screenwriter until the Blacklist, a writer
of best-selling memoirs such as Pentimento and An Unfinished
Woman, and the volatile companion of writer Dashiell Hammett, foreign
service officer John Melby, and myriad other high profile men. Deborah Martinson
cuts through the myths that drift around Hellman like the smoke from her ever
present cigarette and finds the sassy, outrageous woman committed to writing,
to politics, and to having her say. This definitve biography is the first of
the iconoclastic playwright written with the full cooperation of her family,
friends, and inner circle. Hardcover, 448 pp. $37.95.
 Arthur Miller: A Playwright's Life and Work
Enoch Brater
This intelligent biography follows Arthur Miller's career from his prizewinning
student days at the University of Michigan, through the landmark success
of his 1949 drama, Death of a Salesman, to his doomed marriage to the actress
Marilyn Monroe and beyond. Examining seminal works, including All
My Sons,
The Crucible and A View from the Bridge, as well as commenting on Miller's
journalism, fiction, screenplays and acclaimed autobiography, Brater looks
at how the writer achieved a fusion of political allegory, family drama,
realism and expressionism, and themes of unrest and redemption to stunning
-- and often devastating -- effect.
 About Pinter: The Playwright & the
Work
Mark Batty
In About Pinter, Mark Batty provides a critical study of the work of one
of our most significant living dramatists. A wide variety of interviews
with Harold Pinter and those who have brought his plays to the stage
-- including Lindsay Duncan, Peter Hall, David Leveaux and Joseph
Losey --
offers fresh insights into his writing and the experience of confronting
his work in the rehearsal room and auditorium. This stimulating collection
of archive and original material is an invaluable guide to Pinter
and his work for stage and screen.
Softcover, 251 pp. $20.00.
 About Stoppard: The Playwright & the Work
Jim Hunter
In About Stoppard, Jim Hunter charts the work of one of Britain's
leading playwrights. His survey includes a brief biography, a chapter
locating Tom Stoppard in his context, and interviews both with Stoppard
himself
and with some who helped put his work on stage, including Peter Wood,
Trevor
Nunn, Richard Eyre, Felicity Kendal, Simon Russell Beale and John
Wood. This is an indispensible guide for anyone interested in this
unique dramatist. Softcover, 277 pp. $20.00.
 Obedience, Struggle & Revolt
David Hare
What is a political playwright? Does theatre have any direct effect on society?
Why choose to work in a medium that speaks to so few? Is theatre itself facing
oblivion? Since 1978, Hare has sought to address these and other questions in
occasional lectures given both in Britain and abroad. Now, for the first time,
these lectures are collected together with some of his more recent prose pieces
about God, Iraq, Israel/Palestine and the privatisation of the railways. Hardcover,
245 pp. $29.00.
 August Strindberg: Painter, Photographer, Writer
Olle Granath
While August Strindberg is well known to an international audience as a prolific
writer of plays, novels, poetry, scientific essays and letters, his work in the
visual arts has remained largely unseen. This beautifully illustrated book examines
the paintings, drawings, and photographs that display Strindberg's independent
and radical approach to art, and his experimental innovations in photography.
Softcover, 160 pp. $50.00.
 Arthur
Miller : A Critical Study
Christopher Bigsby
In this comprehensive and stimulating study, Christopher Bigsby explores
the entirety of Arthur Miller's work, including plays, poetry, fiction
and films. Drawing on interviews conducted over the last twenty years,
on unique rehearsal material and research archives, he paints a compelling
picture of how Miller's works were influenced by and created in the
light of events of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Softcover,
514 pp. $55.95.
 The World of Christopher Marlowe
David Riggs
The World of Christopher Marlowe is the story of the troubled
genius, raised in the stench and poverty of Canterbury's abattoirs, who revolutinized
English drama and poetry, challenging and scandalizing English society before
he was murdered in his prime. Riggs' magisterial work of reconstructing Marlowe's
enigmatic, contradictory and glorious life is immensely rich and illuminating.
Hardcover, 411 pp. $42.00.
 Future Indefinite
Noel Coward
This second volume of Noel Coward's legendary autobiography includes Future
Indefinite and the unfinished Past Unconditional. With his
celebrated panache, Coward shares anecdotes about his South American
travels, Hollywood encounters and his later theatrical successes, including
the Broadway triumph of Design for
Living. A wonderful memoir by one of the most exuberant characters in British
theatrical history. Softcover, 348 pp. $23.95.
 Present Indicative
Noel Coward
Displaying an early dedication to the theatre, Noel Coward's
first autobiography hints at the success that would come to him as
an actor, playwright, novelist and performer. Charting his progress
from a 'brazen odious little prodigy' to Cavalcade in 1931, Present
Indicative is a must read for anyone with an interest in the
British stage and the man who so clearly owned it. Softcover, 340
pp. $23.95.
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The Mrozek Reader
The Smoking Diaries 
The Smoking Diaries
The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader's Guide to His Works, Life,
and Thought
Are You There, Crocodile? Inventing Anton Chekhov
Birth of a Bookworm
The
Theatre of Bertolt Brecht
Love Me or Kill Me: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of the Extremes
The Essential Samuel Beckett: An Illustrated Biography
About O'Casey: The Playwright and The Work
About Beckett: The Playwright and The Work
About Hare: The Playwright and The Work
About Friel: The Playwright and The Work
Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton
The Theater of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope
The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams 
O'Neill: Life With Monte Cristo
Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey 
Stephen Sondheim: A Life
