Emma Donoghue: Selected Plays

The first collection of plays from Booker Prize and Orange Prize finalist and author of international bestseller Room, Emma Donoghue. Contains the plays Kissing the Witch, Don't Die Wondering, Trespasses, Ladies and Gentlemen, and I Know My Own Heart. Don't Die Wondering A one-act play about a small-town Irish chef who gets unjustly sacked and fights back. Kissing the Witch Adapted from her novel of the same name, Kissing the Witch interweaves five fairytales for a cast of three women and one man, Received its world premiere at the Magic Theatre in 2000, and his since had numerous productions in the US and Canada. I Know My Own Heart A stage play with four female roles, inspired by the early diaries of Anne Lister (1791-1840). As the self-educated heiress to her uncle's estate near Halifax in Yorkshire, Anne Lister broke all the rules of Regency ladyhood. She cropped her hair short, travelled unchaperoned, studied Greek and Geometry, and even refused to consider marriage. Anne Lister was also known for a flamboyant devotion to women that exceeded the 'romantic friendship' considered normal at the time. I Know My Own Heart explores her exciting, dangerous and sometimes disappointing relationships with three women over ten years, probing the choices of a woman trying to understand and express herself in a society based on codes and conventions. Trespasses Trespasses is an hour long play about a seventeenth century Irish witch trial that sheds light on issues more relevant than ever today. Friendship, how it can be betrayed, how it can redeem. Is identity more a matter of who you think you are, or what others think of you? The play is telescoped to cover three days of Florence's imprisonment in a prison cell in Youghal: her arrest; her 'testing'; and her confession. Ladies and Gentlemen A stage play with songs. Follows a group of emigrant working in American Vaudeville in the late nineteenth century, exploring some of the multiple possibilities for self-fulfillment, gender bending and sexuality in a unique theatrical environment. A memory play that moves back and forward between a cottage in New Jersey and theatres across America, Ladies and Gentlemen is inspired by an 1895 tabloid newspaper account of the scandalous lives of two famous performers.