Random House New Releases - Drama

As You Like It by Eric Rasmussen

2010-05-04T00:30:00-05:00

As You Like It
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Trade Paperback, 240 pages | Modern Library | Drama | $5.95 | 978-0-8129-6922-1 (0-8129-6922-7)

This wisely funny comedy, which contains some of Shakespeare’s loveliest poetry, contrasts a court’s world of envy and rivalry with a forest’s world of compassion and harmony. In the Forest of Arden, the banished young heroine, Rosalind, disguised as a gentleman farmer, encounters an extraordinary assemblage of characters, including a fool, a malcontent traveler, her own banished father, and the banished young man she loves. Romantic happiness triumphs, even as we laugh at the excesses of love, at the ways of court and countryside, indeed, at everything, in this masterpiece of comic writing.

Each Edition Includes:
• Comprehensive explanatory notes
• Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship
• Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English
• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories
• An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

From the Paperback edition.

As You Like It by Eric Rasmussen

2010-05-04T00:30:00-05:00

As You Like It
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

eBook | Modern Library | Drama | $5.95 | 978-1-58836-842-3 (1-58836-842-4)

Henry V by Eric Rasmussen

2010-05-04T00:30:00-05:00

Henry V
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Trade Paperback, 240 pages | Modern Library | Drama | $5.95 | 978-0-8129-6926-9 (0-8129-6926-X)

A triumphantly patriotic play that also casts a critical eye at war and warriors, this great epic drama depicts a charismatic ruler in a time of national struggle. The young King Henry’s victory over the French despite overwhelming odds creates a spectacle of action, color, and thundering battles. Whether the warrior-king is urging his men “Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” or wooing Katharine of France, Henry is magnificently adapted to the role he must play in England’s greatness. Henry V represents the culmination of Shakespeare’s art as a writer of historical drama.

Each Edition Includes:
• Comprehensive explanatory notes
• Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship
• Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English
• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories
• An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

From the Paperback edition.

Henry V by Eric Rasmussen

2010-05-04T00:30:00-05:00

Henry V
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

eBook | Modern Library | Drama | $5.95 | 978-1-58836-846-1 (1-58836-846-7)

The Merchant of Venice by Eric Rasmussen

2010-05-04T00:30:00-05:00

The Merchant of Venice
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Trade Paperback, 240 pages | Modern Library | Drama | $5.95 | 978-0-8129-6927-6 (0-8129-6927-8)

This is one of Shakespeare’s darkest comedies, for the romantic story of a young man, Bassanio, who has squandered his fortune and must borrow money to woo the wealthy lady he loves is set against the more disturbing story of the Jewish moneylender Shylock and his demand for the “pound of flesh” owed him by the Venetian merchant, Antonio. Here pathos and farce combine with moral complexity and romantic entanglement to display the extraordinary power and range of Shakespeare at his best.

Each Edition Includes:
• Comprehensive explanatory notes
• Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship
• Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English
• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories
• An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

From the Paperback edition.

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

2010-05-04T00:30:00-05:00

The Merchant of Venice
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

eBook | Modern Library | Drama | $5.95 | 978-1-58836-874-4 (1-58836-874-2)

Twelfth Night by Eric Rasmussen

2010-05-04T00:30:00-05:00

Twelfth Night
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Trade Paperback, 240 pages | Modern Library | Drama | $5.95 | 978-0-8129-6923-8 (0-8129-6923-5)

Set in a topsy-turvy world like a holiday revel, this comedy devises a romantic plot around separated twins, misplaced passions, and mistaken identity. Juxtaposed to it is the satirical story of a self-deluded steward who dreams of becoming “Count Malvolio” only to receive his comeuppance at the hands of the merrymakers he wishes to suppress. The two plots combine to create a farce touched with melancholy, mixed throughout with seductively beautiful explorations on the themes of love and time, and the play ends, not with laughter, but with a clown’s sad song.

Each Edition Includes:
• Comprehensive explanatory notes
• Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship
• Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English
• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories
• An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

From the Paperback edition.

Twelfth Night by Eric Rasmussen

2010-05-04T00:30:00-05:00

Twelfth Night
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

eBook | Modern Library | Drama | $5.95 | 978-1-58836-843-0 (1-58836-843-2)

I Am an Emotional Creature by Eve Ensler

2010-02-09T00:30:00-05:00

I Am an Emotional Creature The Secret Life of Girls Around the World
Written by Eve Ensler

eBook, 176 pages | Villard | Social Science - Women's Studies; Drama | $20.00 | 978-0-345-51973-3 (0-345-51973-6)

In this daring, provocative, and insightful book, bestselling author and internationally acclaimed playwright Eve Ensler writes fictional monologues and stories inspired by girls around the globe. Moving through a world of topics and emotions, these voices are fierce, alive, tender, complicated, imaginative, and smart. Girls today often find themselves in a struggle between remaining strong and true to themselves and conforming to society’s expectations in an attempt to please. They are taught not to be too intense, too passionate, too smart, too caring, too open. They are encouraged to shut down their instincts, their outrage, their desires and their dreams, to be polite, to obey the rules. I Am an Emotional Creature is a celebration of the authentic voice inside every girl and an inspiring call to action for girls everywhere to speak up, follow their dreams, and become the women they were always meant to be.

Among the girls Ensler creates are an American who struggles with peer pressure in a suburban high school; an anorexic blogging as she eats less and less; a Masai girl from Kenya unwilling to endure female genital mutilation; a Bulgarian sex slave, no more than fifteen, a Chinese factory worker making Barbies; an Iranian student who is tricked into a nose job; a pregnant girl trying to decide if she should keep her baby.

Through rants, poetry, questions, and facts, we come to understand the universality of girls everywhere: their resiliency, their wildness, their pain, their fears, their secrets, and their triumphs. I Am an Emotional Creature is a call, a reckoning, an education, an act of empowerment for girls, and an illumination for parents and for us all.

From the Hardcover edition.

I Am an Emotional Creature by Eve Ensler

2010-02-09T00:30:00-05:00

I Am an Emotional Creature The Secret Life of Girls Around the World
Written by Eve Ensler

Hardcover, 176 pages | Villard | Social Science - Women's Studies; Drama | $20.00 | 978-1-4000-6104-4 (1-4000-6104-0)

Henry VI by William Shakespeare

2010-01-13T00:30:00-05:00

Henry VI Parts One, Two, and Three
Written by William Shakespeare

eBook, 608 pages | Bantam | Drama - British & Irish | $6.99 | 978-0-307-42125-8 (0-307-42125-2)

House Arrest and Piano by Anna Deavere Smith

2010-01-13T00:30:00-05:00

House Arrest and Piano Two Plays
Written by Anna Deavere Smith

eBook | Anchor | Drama - American | $13.00 | 978-0-307-48606-6 (0-307-48606-0)

From the award-winning actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, two teeming, pungent cross-sections of the American experience.

In the provocative and at times bitterly funny play House Arrest, Smith examines the relationships between a succession of American presidents and their observers in and out of the press. Arcing from Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to Jefferson and Sally Hemings and alive with the voices of such real-life figures as Ed Bradley, George Stephanopoulos, Anita Hill, and Abraham Lincoln, the result is a priceless examination of the intersection of public power and private life.

In Piano, Smith casts her gaze back a century as she follows the tangled lines of race, sex, and exploitation in a prosperous Cuban household on the eve of the Spanish-American War. Deftly and suspensefully, Smith tells a story of ruptured allegiances and ramifying deceptions in which no one—master or servant, friend or enemy—is what he or she pretends to be. Together these two plays are further proof that Anna Deavere Smith is one of the most searing and revelatory voices in the American theater.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

King John and Henry VIII by William Shakespeare

2010-01-13T00:30:00-05:00

King John and Henry VIII
Written by William Shakespeare

eBook, 592 pages | Bantam Classics | Drama - British & Irish | $5.99 | 978-0-307-42164-7 (0-307-42164-3)

These two history plays—one written in the early days of Shakespeare’s career and one at the very end—are alike in the complexity of their political vision. King John probes the nature of good and evil as self-interest and ruthless ambition proceed unchecked while an unpopular ruler wages a brutal fight to keep his throne. Henry VIII is a sumptuous spectacle of pomp and ceremony, as well as an exploration of the mysterious ways in which the rise and fall from power of individuals led ultimately to England’s destiny as a Protestant nation.

From the Paperback edition.

The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman

2010-01-13T00:30:00-05:00

The Laramie Project
Written by Moises Kaufman

eBook, 128 pages | Vintage | Drama | $14.00 | 978-0-307-53656-3 (0-307-53656-4)

On October 7, 1998, a young gay man was discovered bound to a fence in the hills outside Laramie, Wyoming, savagely beaten and left to die in an act of hate that shocked the nation. Matthew Shepard’s death became a national symbol of intolerance, but for the people of Laramie the event was deeply personal, and it’s they we hear in this stunningly effective theater piece, a deeply complex portrait of a community.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Richard II by William Shakespeare

2010-01-13T00:30:00-05:00

Richard II
Written by William Shakespeare

eBook, 304 pages | Bantam Classics | Drama - British & Irish | $6.99 | 978-0-307-41615-5 (0-307-41615-1)

Simpatico by Sam Shepard

2010-01-13T00:30:00-05:00

Simpatico
Written by Sam Shepard

eBook | Vintage | Drama - American | $12.00 | 978-0-307-55972-2 (0-307-55972-6)

Set within the netherworld of thoroughbred racing, this hair-raisingly funny new play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of True West explores the classical themes of memory, loyalty, and restitution. Simpatico launches readers into regions where high society meets the low life, and where, as one of the main characters observes, "someone is cutting someone else's throat."

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Five Modern No Plays by Yukio Mishima

2009-12-01T00:30:00-05:00

Five Modern No Plays
Written by Yukio Mishima

Trade Paperback, 224 pages | Vintage | Drama | $15.00 | 978-0-307-47311-0 (0-307-47311-2)

Japanese No drama is one of the great art forms that has fascinated people throughout the world. The late Yukio Mishima, one of Japan's outstanding post-war writers, infused new life into the form by using it for plays that preserve the style and inner spirit of No and are at the same time so modern, so direct, and intelligible that they could, as he suggested, be played on a bench in Central Park. Here are five of his No plays, stunning in their contemporary nature and relevance—and finally made available again for readers to enjoy.

Imaginary Friends by Nora Ephron

2009-11-25T00:30:00-05:00

Imaginary Friends
Written by Nora Ephron

eBook | Vintage | Drama - American | $12.00 | 978-0-307-48620-2 (0-307-48620-6)

Although Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy probably only met once in their lives, their names will be linked forever in the history of American literary feuds: they were legendary enemies, especially after McCarthy famously announced to the world that every word Hellman wrote was a lie, “including ‘and’ and ‘the.’” The public battle, and the legal squabbling, that ensued ended, unsatisfactorily for all, with Hellman’s death.

In Imaginary Friends, Nora Ephron brilliantly and hilariously resuscitates these two bigger-than-life women to give them a post-mortem second act, and the chance to really air their differences.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

As You Like It by David Scott Kastan

2009-10-28T00:30:00-05:00

As You Like It
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by David Bevington and David Scott Kastan

eBook, 288 pages | Bantam Classics | Drama - British & Irish | $4.99 | 978-0-307-41707-7 (0-307-41707-7)

Master Harold and the Boys by Athol Fugard

2009-10-13T00:30:00-05:00

Master Harold and the Boys
Written by Athol Fugard

Trade Paperback, 64 pages | Vintage | Drama | $12.95 | 978-0-307-47520-6 (0-307-47520-4)

This play about a young white boy and two African servants is at once a compelling drama of South African apartheid and a universal coming-of-age story. Originally produced in 1982, it is now an acknowledged classic of the stage, whose themes of injustice, racism, friendship, and reconciliation traverse borders and time.

Random House New Releases - Drama

As You Like It by Eric Rasmussen

As You Like It Written by William Shakespeare Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

As You Like It by Eric Rasmussen

As You Like It Written by William Shakespeare Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Henry V by Eric Rasmussen

Henry V Written by William Shakespeare Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Henry V by Eric Rasmussen

Henry V Written by William Shakespeare Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

The Merchant of Venice by Eric Rasmussen

The Merchant of Venice Written by William Shakespeare Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

The Merchant of Venice Written by William Shakespeare Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Twelfth Night by Eric Rasmussen

Twelfth Night Written by William Shakespeare Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Twelfth Night by Eric Rasmussen

Twelfth Night Written by William Shakespeare Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

I Am an Emotional Creature by Eve Ensler

I Am an Emotional Creature The Secret Life of Girls Around the WorldWritten by Eve Ensler

I Am an Emotional Creature by Eve Ensler

I Am an Emotional Creature The Secret Life of Girls Around the WorldWritten by Eve Ensler

Henry VI by William Shakespeare

Henry VI Parts One, Two, and ThreeWritten by William Shakespeare

House Arrest and Piano by Anna Deavere Smith

House Arrest and Piano Two PlaysWritten by Anna Deavere Smith

King John and Henry VIII by William Shakespeare

King John and Henry VIII Written by William Shakespeare

The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman

The Laramie Project Written by Moises Kaufman

Richard II by William Shakespeare

Richard II Written by William Shakespeare

Simpatico by Sam Shepard

Simpatico Written by Sam Shepard

Five Modern No Plays by Yukio Mishima

Five Modern No Plays Written by Yukio Mishima

Imaginary Friends by Nora Ephron

Imaginary Friends Written by Nora Ephron

As You Like It by David Scott Kastan

As You Like It Written by William Shakespeare Edited by David Bevington and David Scott Kastan

Master Harold and the Boys by Athol Fugard

Master Harold and the Boys Written by Athol Fugard

As You Like It
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

As You Like It
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Henry V
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Henry V
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

The Merchant of Venice
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

The Merchant of Venice
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Twelfth Night
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Twelfth Night
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

I Am an Emotional Creature The Secret Life of Girls Around the World
Written by Eve Ensler

I Am an Emotional Creature The Secret Life of Girls Around the World
Written by Eve Ensler

Henry VI Parts One, Two, and Three
Written by William Shakespeare

House Arrest and Piano Two Plays
Written by Anna Deavere Smith

King John and Henry VIII
Written by William Shakespeare

The Laramie Project
Written by Moises Kaufman

Richard II
Written by William Shakespeare

Simpatico
Written by Sam Shepard

Five Modern No Plays
Written by Yukio Mishima

Imaginary Friends
Written by Nora Ephron

As You Like It
Written by William Shakespeare
Edited by David Bevington and David Scott Kastan

Master Harold and the Boys
Written by Athol Fugard