IB Theatre - Director's Notebook (last assessment 2023): British & Irish Plays

Find Drama for Students articles and WSA Library books with plays from the British and Irish   playwrights listed below.  Go to the next page to see links to plays by William Shakespeare.  Also see:

Digital Theatre Plus - films of leading theatre productions
Drama Online - films of National Theatre productions

Writers with plays in the WSA library are marked with:   

Anonymous  (c. 1400s - 1500s )  
John Arden  ( 1930 - 2012 )
Alan Ayckbourn  ( 1939 - )
Peter Barnes  ( 1931 - 2004 )
Sir J(ames) M. Barrie  ( 1860 - 1937 )
Samuel Beckett  ( 1906 - 1989 )  
Brendan Behan  ( 1923 - 1964 )    
Aphra Behn  ( 1640 - 1689 )
Robert Bolt  ( 1924 - 1995 )
Edward Bond  ( 1934 - )
Susanna Centlivre  ( 1669 - 1723)
Mary Chase  ( 1907 - 1981 )    
Agatha Christie  ( 1890 - 1976 )
Caryl Churchill  ( 1938 - )
Wilkie Collins  ( 1824 - 1889 )
William Congreve  ( 1670 - 1729 )
Noël Coward  ( 1899 - 1973 )
Hannah Cowley  ( 1743 - 1809 )
Shelagh Delaney  ( 1939 - 2011 )
Maureen Duffy  ( 1933 - )
David Edgar  ( 1948 - )
John Ford  ( c. 1586 - 1639? )
Michael Frayn  ( 1933 - )
Brian Friel  ( 1929 - 2015 )  
Pam Gems  ( 1925 - 2011 )
Oliver Goldsmith  ( 1728 - 1774 )  
David Hare  ( 1947 - )  
Henry Fielding  ( 1707 - 1754 )
Ben Jonson  ( 1572 - 1637 )  
Thomas Kyd  ( 1558 - 1594 )
Bryony Lavery  ( 1947 - )
Hugh Leonard  ( 1926 - 2009 )  
Doris Lessing  ( 1919 - 2013 )
Christopher Marlowe  ( 1564 - 1593 )
Somerset Maugham  ( 1874 - 1965 )
Thomas Middleton  ( 1580 - 1627 )
William Nicholson  ( 1948 - )
Sean O'Casey  ( 1880 - 1964 )    
Joe Orton  ( 1933 - 1967 )
John Osborne  ( 1929 - 1994 )  
Harold Pinter  ( 1930 - 2008 )
Terence Rattigan  ( 1911 - 1977 )
Tim Rice  ( 1944 - )
William Rowley  ( 1585? - 1626 )
Anthony Shaffer  ( 1926 - 2001 )
Peter Shaffer  ( 1926 - )
George Bernard Shaw  ( 1856 - 1950 )  
Richard Brinsley Sheridan  ( 1751 - 1816 )  
Tom Stoppard  ( 1937 - )  
John Millington Synge  ( 1871 - 1909 )  
John Van Druten  ( 1901 - 1957)
Andrew Lloyd Webber  ( 1948 - )
John Webster  ( 1580? - 1634? )
Oscar Wilde  ( 1854 - 1900 )    

Search Follet Destiny to find plays held by the WSA Library - both print and digital.

Includes 'Everyman', a medeival morality play by an anonymous author:  The story of a man who must face final judgment on the strength of his good deeds

Includes 'The Bay at Nice' by David Hare:  The setting is a large room n the Hermitage Art Museum in Leningrad 1956.  The elderly yet energetic Valentina Nrovka is summoned by the Hermitage Art Museum in Leningrad to confirm the authenticity of a painting – The Bay of Nice - attributed to the famous artist (and her old art teacher) Matisse. Her nervous daughter Sophia Yepileva accompanies her to the museum, and uses the outing to speak seriously with her mother. 

Includes 'A Bond Honoured' by John Osborne:  One-act adaptation of Lope de Vega's La Fianza Satisfecha.

Includes 'The Boundary' by Tom Stoppard and Clive Exton:  Arriving at the library to continue work on his dictionary, Johnson is horrified to discover that the place has been ransacked. The true explanation is outside the window and beyond, when the significance of the cricketer becomes clear.