Alice Birch

Clean Break is a British theatre company set up in 1979 by two women in prison. It exists to tell the stories of women with experience of the criminal justice system and to transform women’s lives through theatre.Over 40 years, Clean Break has commissioned some of the most progressive and brilliant women writers to write ground-breaking plays, alongside developing the writing skills of the women they work with in its London studios and in prisons. This is a collection of monologues from this canon.Rebel Voices: Monologues for Women by Women celebrates the opportunities inherent when women represent themselves. Offering female performers a diverse set of monologues reflecting a range of characters in age, ethnicity and lived experience, the material is drawn from a mix of published and unpublished works. This book is for any performer who does not see themselves represented in mainstream plays, for lovers of radical women’s theatre and for rebels everywhere who believe that the act of speaking and being heard can create change.

Adventure and Truth. Sacrifice everything for it. It is worth it. He is a motherless child. A bullied schoolboy. An adventurer scaling mountains. A coloniser of land, of people. Brother. Father. Soldier. Cult leader. He is sipping champagne at his book launch. He is up by 4am for weights, cardio, ice bath. He is recording a podcast. He is living as a badger. Award-winning writer Alice Birch’s (Anatomy of a Suicide; Normal People) monumental, kaleidoscopic portrait of masculinity from the nineteenth century to the present day explores how male narratives have shaped the world we know. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere production at the Almeida Theatre in September 2025, featuring Olivier Award-winner Kyle Soller.

Three generations of women -- Carol, Anna and Bonnie; mother, daughter and granddaughter -- exist in three different temporal spaces but their stories are told simultaneously. Carol is in the hospital after having attempted to kill herself by slitting her own wrists. Anna is recovering from her drug addiction and has a daughter. That daughter, Bonnie, grows up to be a skilled physician who is gay, guarded and dead-set on not having children. The play, written in a unique style in which the characters' lives play out concurrently, asks whether trauma can be passed down through DNA. It's a harrowing, original work that leaves a lasting mark.

Through a series of arresting vignettes and a collection of nameless characters, Alice Birch examines the language, behaviour and forces that shape women in the 21st century. The play asks what's stopping us from doing something truly radical to change them?Written in response to the provocation that well-behaved women seldom make history, the play is an assault on the language that has fueled violence against women throughout history. Problematic language frequently attached to women is interrogated, from lazy sexist clichés to the conventions around a marriage proposal. Through doing so, the play rails against the conventions of work, sex, motherhood, aging and love. Revolt. She said. Revolt again was first performed at the 2014 Midsummer Mischief Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon. It transferred to the Royal Court Upstairs and was more recently produced at New York's Soho Rep.It is published here in a Student Edition alongside commentary and notes by Marissia Fragkou, who locates the play in our contemporary political and cultural context (including second- and third-wave feminism, and the #MeToo movement).

She can’t stay awake.She sold drugs.She’s good at interrogations.She drinks in the mornings.She ate a rabbit.She smashed up a shop.She stabbed a man.She used a hammer.She had a baby.She can’t find her mother.She’s covered in blood and doesn’t know why.Alice Birch’s heartbreaking new play reaches across society to explore the impact of the criminal justice system on women and their families.

PIG / SISSY: ‘Are you finding this harder to hear, is this more difficult on your stomachs because we are women.’This is about pornography.This is an interview. This is an intervention.This is an interrogation.We’re recording now.We want to pull its plug out. We want to stop its heartbeat. We want to blow its brains out and begin again.We know exactly what we’re doing.We’re not stupid.An unsettling, powerful new piece of theatre tackling pornography and violence against women.

Juniper is looking for love, Robert is trying to avoid it, Ollie doesn’t know what it is and Meg has resigned herself to never having it. As these four people move through a July day in London, they orbit each other, unaware that they are hurtling towards one moment that could devastate them all.Many Moons opened at groundbreaking Theatre 503 in summer 2011.

"Alice Birch’s new play is scored like a piece of music ... It is an extraordinary echoing text, full of pain and strange beauty. The three stories play out simultaneously on stage, the dialogue from one scene overlapping with the other two in a manner that borders on the choral ... Birch has provided a text that explores these ideas in a formally invigorating way." The StageThree generations of women. For each, the chaos of what has come before brings with it a painful legacy.A powerful, unflinching look at a family afflicted with severe depression and mental illness. Presented as a triptych of plays performed side by side, this groundbreaking play reverberates with audiences and readers. Published for the first time in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, this edition features a brand new introduction by Ava Davies.

You are expected to behave… Use the right words Act appropriately Don't break the rules Just behave. This play is not well behaved.Alice Birch examines the language, behaviour and forces that shape women in the 21st century and asks what's stopping us from doing something truly radical to change them.Winner of the George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwright 2014.

The complete screenplays of the acclaimed Emmy-nominated drama based on Sally Rooney's bestselling novel.'You know, I did used to think that I could read your mind at times.''In bed you mean.''Yeah. And afterwards but I dunno maybe that's normal.''It's not.'Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular. Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation, something life-changing begins.With an introduction by director Lenny Abrahamson and featuring iconic images from the show, Normal People: The Scripts contains the complete screenplays of the acclaimed Emmy-nominated television drama based on Sally Rooney's bestselling novel.OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD!WINNER OF THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2018 WINNER OF THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR WINNER OF NOVEL OF THE YEAR AND BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS WINNER OF THE SPECSAVERS NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS INTERNATIONAL AUTHOR OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018 LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019

Theatre has a funny way of getting to the heart of who we are now and – particularly in the case of Connections – who we are going to be.Drawing together the work of nine leading playwrights, National Theatre Connections 2018 features work by some of the most exciting contemporary playwrights. Gathered together in one volume, the plays offer young performers an engaging selection of material to perform, read or study.From friends building bridges and siblings breaking down walls; girls making their voice heard and boys searching for home; and not forgetting a band of unlikely action heroes taking control of the weather.The anthology contains nine play scripts along with imaginative production notes and exercises, as well as a short introduction to the writing process for the tenth Connections play [ BLANK ] by Alice Birch.National Theatre Connections is an annual festival which brings new plays for young people to schools and youth theatres across the UK and Ireland. Commissioning exciting work from leading playwrights, the festival exposes actors aged 13-19 to the world of professional theatre-making, giving them full control of a theatrical production - from costume and set design to stage management and marketing campaigns. NT Connections have published over 150 original plays and regularly works with 500 theatre companies and 10,000 young people each year.

Chicago May 21 1924. Nathan Leopold Jr. age eighteen and Robert Loeb age nineteen killed fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks. They were quickly apprehended when Leopold's glasses were found near the corpse. Clarence Darrow defended them pleading eloquently against capital punishment. A wildly experimental and inventive new play that does not behave. Playwright Alice Birch has put together a grouping of vignettes that ask how to revolutionize language relationships work and life in general w

A dark, volatile new play that asks if we can ever let go.Reminiscing.Once a year to tell stories.To share little bits of our little lives.A house by the sea. Teddy wants more light. He’s knocked that staircase down. Alison is soaked through. She’s livid. Clarissa’s ready to burst. They can’t keep meeting like this.

A volume of four new plays as part of the RSC’s Midsummer Mischief by Alice Birch, E. V. Crowe, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Abi Zakarian.The writers had the famous quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Well-behaved women seldom make history” as an initial provocation and each writer has responded to this line in a unique and distinctive way.Contents:The Ant and the Cicada by Timberlake WertenbakerA mysterious investor has set his sights on a prime piece of Greek real estate. Owned by two sisters whose lives and beliefs are at odds, and with debts rising all the time, the property's future is uncertain. In a Greek tragedy, everybody loses.Through the struggle between two very different sisters for control of their family home, Timberlake Wertenbaker's new play explores why we are willing to let the home of art and democracy crumble as the rest of Europe looks on.Revolt. She said. Revolt again. by Alice BirchYou are expected to behave… Use the right words Act appropriately Don't break the rules Just behave This play is not well behavedAlice Birch examines the language, behaviour and forces that shape women in the 21st century and asks what's stopping us from doing something truly radical to change them.Winner of the George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwright 2014I can hear you by E.V. CroweTommy is dead. It's always tragic when they die young.People have posted loads of nice stuff on his Facebook page. His sister Ruth has returned for the funeral and wants to get it just right. Proper cutlery and a good spread. The send-off he deserved, and certainly better than they managed when mum died.The following Sunday Ruth's plans to leave again are interrupted as the doorbell rings and in walks a still very much dead, Tommy.E.V. Crowe's naturalistic supernatural play examines what the possibilities are for the women in Tommy's family, and questions if it's as easy for everyone to reveal what it is they want.This is not an exit by Abi ZakarianYou wake up, tied to a radiator. Your hands are bound and there is a bag over your head.You know you should fight, but you don't know how or against whom. But you can't have it all: where would you put it?Abi Zakarian's new play is a funny and ferocious drama about the absurdity at the heart of modern womanhood, and what really stands in the way of fulfilment.