The most recommended drama books

Shakespeare’s tragedies resonate in most cultures because they address the human condition. That is why Romeo and Juliet have spawned West Side Story, many films, and Russian ballets. I personally organised the Joe and Zara workshop with a mixed group of teenagers working on a modern take on the story. The young people in this ten-minute video from the workshop are impressive. 

Othello too is tragic. Othello describes how Desdemona would come again ‘greedy –to hear tales of adventure sorrow and suffering. ‘She loved me for the dangers I had passed and I loved her that she did pity them.’ I relate to that.

I love the author’s style, which goes deeply into character and motivations in an unhurried way. 

The suspense in this noir builds powerfully as it takes the time to detail the remote setting of the events and interactions. Here is one thriller that definitely cannot be called a guilty pleasure, given the intense involvement to which it compels you.

The Son of the House is modern, original, page-turning, powerful, and beautifully written. I was curious about the seeming contradiction between Onyemelukwe-Onuobia’s title, and the novel’s subject, two women who have been kidnapped in Enugu, Nigeria. Of course, I soon learn there is no contradiction. The lives of both Nwabulu and Julie are impacted by the value once placed upon the son of the house. The novel makes clear that these traditions are changing fast, even as the characters grapple with the reverberations. The novel introduces us to fascinating women who I have thought about long after I finished reading it. 

These authors’ shared love of hockey shines through in this book, which is as much about the romance as it is about the heart of this game.

The drama, as a combination of personal and interpersonal conflict for Elias and Nisha, makes a separate external plot superfluous, especially for professional athletes whose lives are wholly entwined with their day jobs. It’s easy to forgive when best friends assume they already know what the other wants, but this book dives head-first into “idiots in love” territory when they proceed to Not-Talk-About-It, elevating the story even more.

These guys don’t have issues; they have volumes, and this isn’t a romance arc; it’s a roller coaster, one I definitely didn’t want to get off.

Euripides is the Greek tragedian who, in my humble opinion, appeals most to the modern sensibility. Even in his own time (5th century Athens, BCE) he was regarded as an innovator who questioned the certainties of previous ages. The Bacchae is probably his greatest play, but Ion is the play set in Delphi. It includes the oracle (the Priestess of Apollo), as well as Apollo and Athena, as characters and, in it, the playwright begins to question the legitimacy of the gods themselves. Ion is the result of a divine rape, taken from his mortal mother at birth. The son of Apollo, he believes his parents abandoned him and works as a dogs-body and general helper in Apollo's Temple in Delphi. Then his mother and her husband, childless, arrive for a consultation...

Deven is a super nice and laid-back guy who is sent by his village leaders to seduce the dragon who lives up on the hill, in order to get one of the dragon’s scales. The dragon has never hurt anyone (it turns out he supports the local businesses), and when he takes his human form, he’s awkward and bumbling, while trying to be commanding and scary. It’s the perfect setup for a sweet love story with some high-stakes background drama (for example, Deven has to meet the parent dragons) without a lot of stress. And, like all romance novels, it has a guaranteed happy ending.

This is an anthology that thirty authors submitted stories to. This book dealt with the serious subject of domestic violence. The writers ranged from the tender age of 12, who shared her real-life story dealing with abuse, to authors who submitted poetry, and others peeks into their novels. This book touched my heart and soul on a personal level as domestic violence in all its ugly forms is something that too many people don't want to discuss. It's become a secret that women, men, and children learn to deal with quietly for fear of not being believed or shame.

Shaw believed he was a better writer than Shakespeare, and I think he may be right in this play. His wit and language combine to inform and entertain. Cleverness and iconoclasm abound. You can't help but revel in Shaw's pin-pricking of cherished beliefs. In response, we are forced to reevaluate customs and standards. If you want intellectual fun, this play is for you.

My granddaughter Maeve loves this series. The babysitters are always finding themselves in different places and in the middle of different challenges.

In one such adventure, the group goes to the big city, and they begin to get on each other's nerves. Maeve can identify with this as she is the eldest and is a "babysitter" of sorts to her younger brother, Silas. He's a pickle. Thinks he's Buzz Lightyear and mostly wants to be his own "man." The Babysitter Club series is a fun read and helps my granddaughter see an easy, often humorous, way to deal with being a babysitter.

This book will appeal to people who love and know Shakespeare well or to people who don’t know Shakespeare very well but would like to know more about his famous plays.

I loved this book because Smith divides the book into relatively short chapters on each of the bard’s plays, for each of which she provides a unique and interesting perspective.

Smith is an entertaining and informative guide who looks for contemporary resonances, none of which feel forced. Having written a book about the Beatles, I know how daunting it can be to take up a subject about which much has already been said and written and try to look at it in a fresh way.

I can only hope my effort was half as successful as Smith’s is. 

Megan has been transparent about the fact that Behind the Red Door is not the most popular of her books, but it’s my personal favorite!

Fern Douglas is out of the loop: a missing woman shows up on the news whose famous kidnapping two decades ago—and subsequent return—everyone seems to have heard about. But Fern has no memory of that story; she only knows that she has seen the woman’s face before, and she comes to fear that she might have somehow been involved in what happened to her.

This book has one of the best portrayals of chronic anxiety I’ve read, and one of the most twisted and f-ed up stories, which I absolutely tore through. Read it, and prepare to be chilled to the bone.

This modern edition gives readers a sample plays by the remarkable Margaret Cavendish, who privately published 2 volumes of plays in 1662 and 1668 though many were probably written earlier.

I find her plays fascinating for the ways they deal explicitly with women’s experiences in love, in war and in marriage.

In this selection Love’s Adventures Parts I and II features a cross-dressing heroine in pursuit of her intended husband; Bell In Campo Parts I and II, dramatizes the experience of a superheroine leading an army, while The Bridals and The Convent of Pleasure satirize love and marriage.

I love The Convent of Pleasure’s depictions of same-sex retreat and desire. Cavendish’s witty prefaces on the difficulties of writing plays for a woman are included as appendices to Shaver’s edition.

This is the book that inaugurated a whole field of Shakespeare studies—repertory studies—that focuses on the commercial concerns of the London playing companies, treating plays as commodities used by companies to make money, and examining the strategies used by companies to remain competitive in the theatrical marketplace. Knutson’s work de-emphasises the significance of playwrights and focuses instead on playing companies.

You can read a good screenplay with as much ease and pleasure as you read a novel, and the Fleabag scripts aren’t just good—they’re immaculate.

I pore over this book again and again, hoping that maybe this time I will see the trick, the moment of misdirection or sleight of hand that enables a story of profound personal pain—grief, loneliness, fear, they’re all here, all the big ones—to be so bloody funny. There is no trick, of course. There’s just flawless writing.

You should of course watch the TV show these scripts underpin, but do yourself a favour and read them too. Phoebe Waller-Bridge really did something here.

In the wake of Knutson’s work, a number of seminal studies of individual playing companies from Shakespeare’s London have appeared, but I particularly value Manley and MacLean’s for the prominence they give to the role of lost plays in the repertory of Lord Strange’s Men. This book normalised the understanding that if one is to study a company—its patron, its players, its performance venues (including touring), and its style—then one cannot do so without attending to the plays once performed by the company but which have since been lost.

I read a lot of Agatha Christie growing up and Ten by Gretchen McNeil is a modern And Then There Were None with a cast full of snarky teens with secrets stranded on an island with a killer who just might be one of them. I love a good mystery and this one had me at hello. Gretchen knows how to write a good twist and delivers such clever one-liners that I bet she would make an excellent script writer. This is the sort of book that plays in my head like a movie. I read it all in one go and stayed up way too late, but I regret nothing.

Another excellent book about plot and the importance of making sure you have a good one. The difference between a good plot and a great plot is a bestseller. If you want your story’s plot to speak of mastery, do not miss out on reading this insightful book. Add it to your personal library for good measure. It’s always a good idea to have it there, so you can reference it in the future even after finishing it.

I remember reading Wilson’s play for the first time as a grad student, not long after I’d been a street musician in Harlem working with a brilliant, irascible old bluesman from Mississippi, and thinking “I know these guys.”

Wilson, the greatest American blues playwright (and one of the greatest American dramatists period), has an uncanny ear for the jibing, jiving, wisdom-declaiming back-and-forth that fills the conversational space between four southern-born musicians who find themselves in a Chicago recording studio one day in 1927, getting ready to back up their boss, Ma Rainey.

Toledo, elder and griot, the keeper of ancestral wisdom, butts heads with Levee, the hotheaded young innovator who bears, and brandishes, deep wounds inflicted by white southern violence. The play’s denouement is hurtful, shattering, unforgettable.  

Caz is on a cruise with her new partner, Pete, but when she wakes after her first night on board, she finds, to her horror, she is completely alone on the ship. Believe me, when I say that what happens next is utterly unhinged, like Squid Game crossed with The Woman in Cabin 10.

While some of the plot twists can be frustratingly unbelievable at times, this book features some incredibly tense set pieces and a reveal in the ship’s ballroom that is utterly chilling. Once you’ve suspended your disbelief, you’ll absolutely race through this one. It’s an ideal holiday read – and as for that last chapter...

Whoa, this book is a fun, chaotic dip into burnout. I had to just let go when I was reading, let the words crash over me like a wave, and get bashed around by the crazy stream-of-consciousness. The narrator's memories, fantasies, thoughts, delusions, worries, and everything else are all mixed up with crazy secondary characters and set in a realistically gritty and raw New York City. As a former resident of NYC, who has heard horror stories from lifelong residents, I could hear the desperate truth in every line. The narrator wants to quit—quit the trauma, the stress eating away at his nerves, but he keeps drinking, shooting up, and speeding to the next overdose, shooting, and heart attack. The narrator’s struggle between giving up on everything and trying one more time to find redemption in a broken city full of violence, sickness, and death took me one step closer… show more.