Theatre / Drama Research Guide: Playscripts

Tipping the Velvet

Playscript based on the novel by Sarah Waters.  Additional author: Laura Wade.

It’s 1887 and Nancy Astley sits in the audience at her local music hall: she doesn’t know it yet, but the next act on the bill will change her life. Tonight is the night she’ll fall in love… with the thrill of the stage and with Kitty Butler, a girl who wears trousers.

PLAYS BIN 145 #1715

Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies

Play based on the work of Hilary Mantel, adapted by the author.

Wolf Hall begins in England in 1527. Henry has been King for almost twenty years and is desperate for a male heir; but Cardinal Wolsey cannot deliver the divorce he craves. Yet for a man with the right talents, this crisis could be an opportunity. Thomas Cromwell is a commoner who has risen in Wolsey's household―and he will stop at nothing to secure the King's desires and advance his own ambitions.

In Bring Up the Bodies, the volatile Anne Boleyn is now Queen, her career seemingly entwined with that of Cromwell. But when the King begins to fall in love with plain Jane Seymour, the ever-pragmatic Cromwell must negotiate within an increasingly perilous Court to satisfy Henry, defend the nation, and above all, to secure his own rise in the world.

PLAYS BIN 128 #1542

Paradise Lost by Erin Shields

"The 17th century and present day are seamlessly intertwined as Satan vents to an audience about her frustration at being cast out of heaven and her thoughts on oppression. When she finds out that God has created delicate new creatures called "humans," she crafts a plan for revenge and betrayal on the Almighty. Erin Shields turns heaven and hell upside down in this witty, modern, feminist retelling of John Milton's epic poem about the first battle between good and evil. Shields's wickedly smart and funny script questions the reasons of the universe, the slow process of evolution, and the freedom of knowledge." 

Plays Bin 161 #1895

Blueberry Toast by Mary Laws

On a regular Sunday morning, Walt sits in his sunny suburban kitchen while wife Barb makes him breakfast. It’s not long before the mundane descends into madness.

PLAYS BIN 160 #1889

Prodigal Daughter of Korea by Asa Palmer

When Mina's father dies, she returns to Korea to visit a family she barely knows, desperately looking for some answers. But her mother is reluctant to discuss the past, especially the war, or the reasons that Mina was sent so far away as a child, to America. When the truth is finally revealed, it is both shocking and redemptive.

Plays Bin 161 #1901