Tom Murphy

Introduced by Patrick Lonergan, The Methuen Drama Anthology of Irish Plays brings together five major works from the Irish dramatic canon of the last sixty years in one outstanding collection. Behan's The Hostage, depicting the capture and death of a British soldier by the IRA, was first produced by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop in 1958 and was declared 'a masterpiece' by The Times. Murphy's Bailegangaire (1985) portrays a senile old woman's recitation of an epic tale to her two granddaughters who struggle to free themselves from her and exorcise the past. Reid's The Belle of the Belfast City, winner of the George Devine Award in 1986, examines the tensions present in three generations of women in a Belfast-Protestant family during the week of an anti-Anglo-Irish rally. Sebastian Barry's The Steward of Christendom won the London Critics' Circle Award for Best Play 1995 and was heralded by the Guardian as 'an authentic masterpiece'. McDonagh's 1996 play The Cripple of Inishmaan is a strange comic tale in the great tradition of Irish storytelling. McDonagh was awarded the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright.

This collection brings together three of Tom Murphy's finest plays, Famine, A Whistle in the Dark and Conversations on a Homecoming. Together, they tell the story of Irish emigration - of those who went and those who were left behind. Crossing oceans and spanning decades, Murphy's three plays cover the period from the Great Hunger of the nineteenth century to the 'new' Ireland of the 1970s, exploring what we mean when we call a place 'home'. Conversations on a Homecoming: County Galway, 1970s. Even the humblest of small-town pubs can be a magnet for dreamers. Michael, after a ten-year absence, suddenly returns from New York and has a reunion with old friends, in that same pub 'The White House'. A Whistle in the Dark: Coventry, 1960Irish emigrants, the uprooted Carney family, adapt aggressively to life in an English city. Famine: County Mayo, 1846In Glanconnor village in the west of Ireland, the second crop of potatoes fails. The community now faces the real prospect of starvation. With an introduction by Dr Patrick Lonergan, NUI GalwayDruidMurphy, presented by Druid in a co-production with Quinnipiac University Connecticut, NUI Galway, Lincoln Center Festival and Galway Arts Festival, marks a major celebration of one of Ireland's most respected living dramatists and toured Ireland, London and the US in 2012.

"Summertime, and the emigrant workers, dressed in new suits and dreams, are returning home for the annual sojourn. They are young, vigorous; they have money in their pockets. But they do not belong here any more - and they do not belong abroad. They are resentful, dangerous. None more so than the seemingly gregarious Christy Cavanagh. His childhood fixation with Mrs de Burca and her daughters moves into frightening obsession when he finds that the date has been set for the auctioning of their house."--BOOK JACKET.

Six weeks before her wedding, Peggy Moore learns that her parents created an Anniversary Box. Each year on their anniver-sary, they would write a message to each other to affirm their love and suggest ways to make it stronger, and they succeeded in living a married life that was the envy of their friends and family. When Peggy and her soon-to-be husband, Michael, find they are struggling with relationship issues as their wedding day draws near, Peggy sets out on a journey to find her parents' missing Anniversary Box and learn the secret to keeping love alive for a lifetime before she steps to the altar herself.

Six weeks before her wedding, Peggy Moore learns that her parents created an Anniversary Box. Each year on their anniver-sary, they would write a message to each other to affirm their love and suggest ways to make it stronger, and they succeeded in living a married life that was the envy of their friends and family. When Peggy and her soon-to-be husband, Michael, find they are struggling with relationship issues as their wedding day draws near, Peggy sets out on a journey to find her parents' missing Anniversary Box and learn the secret to keeping love alive for a lifetime before she steps to the altar herself.

'The Drunkard is a wonderfully eloquent play.’Young Edward Kilcullen's life is blighted by alcohol. Lawyer McGinty desires possession of all the Kilcullens ever owned and relishes the prospect of his demise. However, the temperance preacher and philanthropist Sir Arden Rencelaw is at hand... Can the young Kilcullen be saved? And what is Agnes, the maniac's, hidden secret? Comedy, tragedy, heroics, villainy and song in this exuberant, life affirming version of The Drunkard.'

The poetic canvas of Pearl is as vast as the poet's extensive learning. The thrust of the book is a series of achingly poignant poems about the poet's early life in California. Gifted with a prodigious memory for detail and an expansive heart, Murphy probes a litany of seminal life events including rebelliousness, drug and alcohol abuse, friendship, intellectual inquisitiveness, creativity, suicide, loss, and human sensuality, and he does so with extraordinary emotional honesty and courage. The stinging "bite" of these poems will remain with the reader long after the poems are read. -Larry D. Thomas is a Member, Texas Institute of Letters and the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate

When asked about the death toll from the September 11th attacks, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani stated simply and eloquently that the number would likely be "more than any of us can bear." He was right, of course. Yet often obscured in that inconceivable number is the fact that among those who died, as well as those who lived and continue to live, were many thousands of aviation professionals with names, families, lives, and individual experiences that are an important part of the 9/11 story. Some five years later, these stories are being told for the first time in Reclaiming the Sky. In the pages of this book, you will meet some of the people whose hard work propels a critical social and economic force -- the aviation industry -- and who on the morning of September 11th, were suddenly thrust into front-line positions in the battle to put our nation back on its feet. For many of these men and women and their families, the pain and after-effects of 9/11 are exceptionally acute, but their stories will serve as touchpoints for the thousands of people whose journey to closure is still ongoing. This powerful and ultimately uplifting book not only honors the heroes of September 11th, it also offers common ground to those in search of meaning and purpose in a changed world -- both in and outside of the air travel industry -- and gives Americans in all walks of life something they still seek five years after 9/11: the courage and strength to move forward.

BASED ON A REAL LIFE BOSTON MARATHON LEGENDThere has been a long-standing belief that a woman slipped into the 1951 Boston Marathon undetected and ran the race. If that could be proven it would make her the first woman to have run a marathon on American soil. She wore "red," as claimed by a group of Canadian runners who say they tried to bring the matter to the attention of race Director Jock Semple and other race officials. But to no avail, their story was never corroborated, and so today the "Runner in Red" remains a mystery and an urban legend. A period piece set against the backdrop of the 2000 Boston Marathon, the Millennial marathon, this fictional mystery novel is also a love story, family drama and uplifting tale of the human spirit that explores the history of women's running in page-turning fashion.

This is a collection of short poems inspired by personal thoughts and memories. These poems can be read and enjoyed as individual, mindful and inspirational poems or as chapters in a journey of self-reflection. Ultimately, the poems provide a challenge to the reader to determine ways of becoming a 'better me'.

All too often, communities paralyze themselves because they do not believe that they have the resources to initiate change—and therefore they do not even try. The case studies in Reaching for the Future: Creative Finance for Smaller Communities illustrate how communities have used and combined various sources of public funds to facilitate dramatic change. This publication focuses on six communities. Some are built on historic traditions, others are built on natural location, and others are newly built. Two neighborhoods are recovering from severe blight and disinvestment, two are suburban developments that have created a sense of place, and two are small cities that were watching their downtowns fail. In each case, to succeed required a strategic vision, leadership, and creative financing. The leadership rose in different ways but came together in effective public/private partnerships. In each case, the conversation started with “what do we want to be” rather than “how do we pay for it.” In each case, the communities, each with a struggling economy, figured out how to finance their dreams. The Financing Transformational Projects section identifies the most common public programs and how they might be used. It also addresses the use of public financing to catalyze private investment in public/private partnerships, and projects the strengths and weaknesses of those partnerships. Finally, a checklist offers leaders, both public and private, an opportunity to analyze whether they are ready to move forward.

BrigitI’d like it to be perfect . . . Beautiful . . . The statue . . . Unbeatable? . . . I’d like it to be what I feel . . . And I don’t know what that is. Set in the 1950s, Brigit, a prequel to Murphy’s critically-acclaimed Bailegangaire (1985), tells the story of Mommo and Séamus, grandparents living on the breadline, who are raising three grandchildren: Mary, Dolly and Tom, when Séamus is offered a job to carve a statue of St Brigit. Brigit premiered in September 2014, in a production by Druid Theatre Company, Galway, Ireland. Bailegangaire'One of the finest and most inventive pieces of Irish dramatic writing ever - the power of its language soaring beyond the loftiest aspirations of Synge and its insights on the human spirit cutting deeper than O'Casey's' - Sunday IndependentA Thief of a Christmas'Grand opera . . . both timeless and contemporary' - Fintan O'Toole

“A gleefully ludicrous book.”—ChildMake your kids laugh out loud over and over again with this warm, funny story! When a bear named Mack wakes up with a boy on his back, we know instantly that we’re back in the droll and sweetly wacky world created by Sean Bryan and Tom Murphy in their first two highly successful picture books about a bunny-wearing boy and his sister Claire, who wakes up with a gator on her hair. Like A Boy and His Bunny and A Girl and Her Gator, this new picture book will entertain young children and their parents, and put smiles on the faces of their grandparents too.

Murphy Plays: 6 brings together four plays by the author inspired by other great works of literature: The Cherry Orchard: In Chekhov's tragi-comedy - perhaps his most popular play - the Gayev family is torn by powerful forces, forces rooted deep in history and in the society around them. Tom Murphy's fine vernacular version allows us to re-imagine the events of the play in the last days of Anglo-Irish colonialism. It gives this great play vivid new life within our own history and social consciousness. She Stoops to Folly: Modelled on Oliver Goldsmith's classic novel The Vicar of Wakefield, Murphy builds a comedy peopled with thieves, pimps, bawds, lechers and imposters who will prey on innocence unless God - or the ruling class - takes a hand. The Drunkard is inspired by the American temperance play first performed in 1844 and attributed to W. H. Smith and A gentleman. A drama in five acts, it was perhaps the most popular play produced in the United States before the dramatization of Uncle Tom's Cabin in the 1850s. An epic family drama, shot through with dark humour, The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant tells the tragic story of a family disintegrating, having lost its moral values and is inspired by The Golovlyov Family by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. It follows Arina who rises from servant girl to matriarch controlling a vast family estate and empire until she slackens her hold and loses her power to the hypocrisy and relentless grasping of her chosen son.

An epic family drama, shot through with dark humour, The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant tells the tragic story of a family disintegrating, having lost its moral values. Arina is an ambitious woman. As a servant girl she marries into the degenerative family she works for; her ruthless energy saves it from bankruptcy and she expands the family estate into an 'empire'. As matriarch she rules with an iron hand, her avarice insatiable, until she questions what it is all for. She slackens her hold and loses her power to the hypocrisy and relentless grasping of her 'chosen son'. Inspired by The Golovlyov Family by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant is a haunting new work from leading Irish dramatist Tom Murphy, who has worked closely with the Abbey Theatre throughout his career. The play premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Ireland, on 3 June 2009.

Murphy Plays: 5 brings together four of the authors recent works: The Wake, Too Late for Logic, The House, and Alice Trilogy. The Wake recounts the story of a woman, returning from the USA to her home town in Ireland. As her family learn of her years as a prostitute, she finds the drewam of her homecoming turning into a nightmare. A homecoming play that is haunting yet fiercely comic. Too Late for Logic: "A major new play...these scenes are beautifully imagined, ache with feeling, and flower into incidents of piercing sadness or absurd laughter" (The Times) The House: "The most compelling indictment of emigration ever committed to the stage" (Irish Times) Alice Trilogy dramatises three stages in Alice's life: 1980, in the afternoon murk of her attic, is Alice losing her grip on reality? 1995, she has summoned a lost love to meet her by the gasworks wall. 2005, at the airport: if the worst has happened, why is it bearable?

Haunting new work from Ireland's leading dramatist Three ages of Alice. 1980, in the afternoon murk of her attic, is Alice losing her grip on reality? 1995, she has summoned a lost love to meet her by the gasworks wall. 2005, at the airport: if the worst has happened, why is it bearable? Alice Trilogy premiered at the Royal Court, London, in November 2005. Tom Murphy: 'The most distinctive, the most restless, the most obsessive imagination in the Irish theatre today' Brian Friel'Stevenson's mesmerising performance... Four stars' Guardian 'If you're looking for fine acting, it's here' The Times 'Rickson's production is spare, eerie and gripping' Independent on Sunday

"The most important and controversial work to be mounted by the National Theatre for many a year" (Irish Times) The Sanctuary Lamp is set in a church. "Murphy, in the best traditions of Bunuel, takes a hallowed institution and populates it with social misfits who desecrate every convention in both thought and action... Murphy's savage indignation is unbearably true..." (Irish Times)

A major play from a major Irish playwright "Bailegangaire is as complex and haunting as one of Yeats' later poems ... A senile bedridden old woman rehearses over and over again an epic tale of a village laughing match ... Meanwhile her two granddaughters struggle to release themselves from the prison of remembered unhappiness. Here is a potent allegory - of the need to exorcise the past and its myths if one is to be happy in the future." (Sunday Telegraph)

"A major statement by a major Irish playwright" (Irish Times) Famine portrays the Great Hunger of the Irish in 1840s, with fresh pathos and insight. "The macabre business of blight and death, of wakes and murder, of poisoned love and lost hope, and the scandal of an emigration policy that was in effect one of transportation...are some of the modern Irish theatre's most powerful and poetic scenes." (Observer)"A classic... Murphy's script burns through to the very soul of all of us" (Irish Independent)