Welcome to the best virtual theatre bookshop on the web. Treat yourself to a classic, a new release, discover new playwrights, and rediscover some of the most brilliant dramatists to ever put pen to paper.
We boast a catalogue of many great theatre and literary titles.
Everything from award winners and bestsellers to new releases, classics, educational tools and more. It's all right here!
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play by Arthur Miller and is considered a classic of American theater. Viewed by many as a caustic attack on the American Dream of achieving wealth and success without regard for principle, Death of a Salesman made both Arthur Miller and the character Willy Loman household names. Some of the other titles Miller considered for the play were The Inside of His Head and A Period of Grace. It was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949, the 1949 Tony Award for Best Play, as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. Death of a Salesman was the first play to win these three major awards, helping to establish Miller as an internationally renowned playwright.
"Even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh."
George Bernard Shaw (born 26 July 1856 in Dublin – died 2 November 1950 in Hertfordshire) was an Irish playwright based in England. He had the unique honour of being awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar (the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925, and the Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay in 1938 for Pygmalion).
Visit our Audiobooks page for all of the latest promotions and special offers on the very best titles available, including BBC Audiobook of the Day, and a daily editors' choice from each genre's comprehensive listing.
Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish dramatist, novelist and poet. Beckett's work is stark, fundamentally minimalist, and, according to some interpretations, deeply pessimistic about the human condition. The perceived pessimism is mitigated both by a great and often wicked sense of humour, and by the sense, for some readers, that Beckett's portrayal of life's obstacles serves to demonstrate that the journey, while difficult, is ultimately worth the effort. Similarly, many posit that Beckett's expressed "pessimism" is not so much for the human condition but for that of an established cultural and societal structure which imposes its stultifying will upon otherwise hopeful individuals; it is the inherent optimism of the human condition, therefore, that is at tension with the oppressive world. His later work explores his themes in an increasingly cryptic and attenuated style. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969, "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation."
Arsenic and Old Lace is a film directed by Frank Capra based on a play by the same name by Joseph Kesselring. The script was adapted by Julius J. Epstein. Capra actually filmed the movie in 1941 but it was not released until 1944 while the studio waited for the stage version to finish its run on Broadway. The lead role of Mortimer Brewster was originally intended for Bob Hope, but he couldn't be released from his contract with Paramount. Capra had also approached Jack Benny and Ronald Reagan before settling on Cary Grant.
In addition to Grant as Mortimer Brewster, the film also starred Josephine Hull and Jean Adair as the Brewster sisters, Abby and Martha, respectively. Hull and Adair and John Alexander (who played Teddy) reprised their roles from the original 1941 stage production.
Death of a Salesman
George Bernard Shaw
