Nadia Davids's moving play Cissie evokes the life of an extraordinary woman Cape Town activist, Cissie Gool. From the early days of her girlhood to her death in 1963, the play allows us to glimpse into her world: the dynamic social and political home of her childhood, the heady years of her public speaking and marriage, and her difficulty in trying to live a free life under the traumatic shadow of colonialism and apartheid. Through monologue, shadow theatre and poetry, the lost world of Cissie's home, District Six, is recreated. This edition includes: an introduction by the playwright, vocabulary help on the page, exam-style questions for learners, and information on the play's historical background.

In the years that followed the end of apartheid, South African theatre was characterized by a remarkable productivity, which resulted in a process of constant aesthetic reinvention. After 1994, the “protest” theatre template of the apartheid years morphed into a wealth of diverse forms of stage idioms, detectable in the works of Greg Homann, Mike van Graan, Craig Higginson, Lara Foot, Omphile Molusi, Nadia Davids, Magnet Theatre, Rehane Abrahams, Amy Jephta, and Reza de Wet, to cite only a few prominent examples. Marc and Jessica Maufort’s multivocal edited volume documents some of the various ways in which the “rainbow” nation has forged these innovative stage idioms. This book’s underlying assumption is that creolization reflects the processes of identity renegotiation in contemporary South Africa and their multi-faceted theatrical representations. Contributors: Veronica Baxter, Marcia Blumberg, Vicki Briault Manus, Petrus du Preez, Paula Fourie, Craig Higginson, Greg Homann, Jessica Maufort, Marc Maufort, Omphile Molusi, Jessica Murray, Jill Planche, Ksenia Robbe, Mathilde Rogez, Chris Thurman, Mike van Graan, and Ralph Yarrow.

Commissioned for the 1985 Perth Festival, this is the spirited story of the Millimurra family's stand against government 'protection' policies in 1930s Australia.

The kettle boils in 1936 as the fascists are marching. Tea is brewed in 1946, with disillusion in the air at the end of the war. Twenty years on, in 1956, as rumours spread of Hungarian revolution, the cup is empty. Sarah Khan, an East End Jewish mother, is a feisty political fighter and a staunch communist. Battling against the State and her shirking husband, she desperately tries to keep her family together. This landmark state-of-the-nation play is a panoramic drama portraying the age-old battle between realism and idealism. Chicken Soup with Barley captures the collapse of an ideology alongside the disintegration of a family. Chicken Soup with Barley, the first in a trilogy that includes Roots and I'm Talking about Jerusalem was first performed at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry in 1958 and transferred to the Royal Court in the same year.

These 16 tales, by both new and internationally known writers, reveal the rich diversity of story writing in English today. They offer a variety of forms, settings, contexts, characters, themes and language in stories that are both accessible and challenging.

An Imperfect Blessing is a vibrant, funny and moving debut that places one family's story at the heart of a country's rebirth and interrogates issues of faith, race, belonging and freedom.

This volume contains two plays by one of Britain's finest playwrights. In Quartet Cecily, Reggie and Wilfred are in a home for retired opera singers. Each year, on 10 October, there is a concert to celebrate Verdi's birthday. Jean, who used to be married to Reggie, arrives at the home and disrupts their equilibrium. She still acts like a diva and refuses to sing. But the show must go on . . . Equally Divided begins shortly after the funeral of Edith and Renata's mother. Edith, severe, embattled, unmarried, has sacrificed her life to nurse the bedridden old woman. Renata, glamorous and married several times, has spent her life doing what she pleases. When the contents of the will are made known, childhood rivalries re-emerge and the result is a moral tale both powerful and comic.

The author gives voice to five other Islamic women in this iridescent series of monologues.