April De Angelis

Four superlative stage adaptations by contemporary playwrights, giving bold new interpretations of classic novels This volume, relaunching the Frontline Intelligence series, contains stage adaptations by contemporary dramatists of well-known, well-loved classics. Included are Jane Austen's "Emma" by Michael Fry, John Cleland's "The Life and Times of Fanny Hill" by April De Angelis, Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations" by John Clifford and George Eliot's "The Mill on the Floss" by Helen Edmundson. The introduction by Michael Fry discusses the issue of adapting classics in context.

This was your first go. Did Shakespeare let Titus Andronicus put him off? An experimental tragedy about a pie. You've just begun. Mrs Sarah Siddons, acclaimed as the greatest actress of all time, holds complete sway over audiences and critics alike. Behind the scenes, however, she herself is subject to direction from her bone-headed brother, Kemble, who runs the Drury Lane theatre and chooses her roles. Sick of being cast as tragic, wounded mothers, Siddons decides it's time to harness her star power and become the leading lady of her own life. But she reckons without the absurdly comic plot twists of a life on the stage. The Divine Mrs S opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in March 2024.

So what have you got against gobby women running restaurants?El Barco is the newest tapas restaurant in fashionable Walthamstow Village, and it's Kerry Jackson's pride and joy.Wearing her working-class roots as a badge of honour, Kerry must navigate the local characters in a bid to make the business a success, without losing herself in the process.This biting comedy from April De Angelis premiered at the National Theatre, London, in November 2022.

Famous and respectable? Can a woman be both?Emma Hamilton is the name on everyone's lips. Her attitudes are the latest dance craze sweeping Europe, inspiring a generation of artists from Romney to Goethe. But Emma doesn't want to be somebody's muse, she wants to be the somebody.With rumours of Nelson's imminent arrival swirling around Naples, Emma knows exactly which pose to strike to catch his attention and leave her mark on history. Or so she thinks.The extraordinarily vivid life of one of the most remarkable figures in Georgian society bursts out of the history books in April De Angelis's play.Infamous opened at Jermyn Street Theatre, London, in September 2023.

April de Angelis's second collection covers six plays written between 2011 and 2021, including the previously unpublished short play Rune and her first musical, Gin Craze!Jumpy'The funniest new play the West End has seen in ages. It's not only funny, it's painfully acute; and its wit is of a piece with its insight.' - Daily TelegraphThe Village'A great piece of storytelling . . . flat-out wonderful.' - The TimesA Laughing Matter'De Angelis's writing is even funnier than it is stimulating. . Comedy needn't be soft and comforting. It can be mischievous and subversive. You see the bind in which Garrick finds himself, trapped as he is by the economic, social and moral pressures. It's a bind his descendants know even today. I haven't seen it dramatised before with such infectious brio.' - The TimesRune'A gorgeous little nugget of a show in which a bored teenager on a school trip to see the hoard at the Potteries Museum suddenly discovers a power within her when she gets to hold a piece of it.' - GuardianExtinct'Builds its drama with its own gripping truth ... Necessary and urgent.' - GuardianGin Craze!'It's terrifically vivid and exciting. . A Brechtian message delivered with the most glorious, full-throated ebullience: an intoxicating show that leaves your head spinning, your spirit soaring and a fire in your belly.' - The Times

I want you to imagine me in a crowd of people. It's 2030 and the mean temperature this summer has been 40 degrees celsius. It's midday. The sun is nuclear hot. There have been spontaneous outbreaks of fires round the country the closest to us in Epping forest, a monster conflagration which raged for 3 weeks.A woman stands alone on stage. She has one hour to change our future. One hour to avert catastrophe. She'll give everything she has.Addressing the climate emergency head on, Extinct includes testimony from environmental activists. Extinct opened at Stratford East in June 2021.

Eight short plays, commissioned and developed as part of the Women Centre Stage Festival, that together demonstrate the range, depth and richness of women's writing for the stage. Selected by Sue Parrish, Artistic Director of Sphinx Theatre, these plays offer a wide variety of rewarding roles for women, and are perfect for schools, youth groups and theatre companies to perform. How to Not Sink by Georgia Christou looks at duty, love and dependency across three generations of women. In Wilderness by April De Angelis, a patient and her psychiatrist head into the wilderness to find out how sane any of us really are. In Chloe Todd Fordham’s The Nightclub, three very different women at a gay nightclub in Orlando are caught up in a terrifying hate crime. Fucking Feminists by Rose Lewenstein is a fiercely funny investigation of what feminism means, and what it has become. Winsome Pinnock’s Tituba is a one-woman show about Tituba Indian, the enslaved woman who played a central role in the seventeenth-century Salem Witch Trials. In The Road to Huntsville by Stephanie Ridings, a writer researching women who fall in love with men on death row finds herself crossing the line. White Lead by Jessica Siân explores the expectations and responsibilities of being an artist and a woman. In What is the Custom of Your Grief? by Timberlake Wertenbaker, an English schoolgirl whose brother has been killed on active duty in Afghanistan is befriended online by an Afghan girl. Sphinx Theatre has been at the vanguard of promoting, advocating and inspiring women in the arts through productions, conferences and research for more than forty years.

It's Virgie's eighty-fourth birthday and she is bucking convention. But, always more committed as an artist than a mother, Virgie has not reckoned on her family and friends' determination to thwart her plans. This is a moving black comedy that reimagines the meaning of family.

-You're having some kind of crisis. -It's called being fifty. You must be having it too. Hilary once protested at Greenham. Now her protests tend to focus on persuading her teenage daughter to go out fully clothed. A frank and funny family drama questioning parental anxieties and life after fifty, Jumpy by April De Angelis premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in October 2011.

Selected and Introduced by Dame Jenny Sealey Plays by April De Angelis, Mike Kenny, Peter Wolf, Maria Oshodi, Katie O'Reilly, Ray Harrison Graham A unique, groundbreaking collection of new plays that redefine disability.

Winner of The Raymond Williams Prize Plays by Ayshe Raif, Cheryl Robson, April De Angelis, Nina Rapi, Eva Lewin, Jan Rupee, Jean Abbott.