TOM MURPHY   


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   Nationality:
Irish
   Literary Agent: *:
   Email:
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Plays by Tom Murphy

TOM MURPHY
Alice Trilogy
1st Produced:
2005
Company:
-
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
3
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
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?
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TOM MURPHY
Bailegangaire
1st Produced:
1986
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
3
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
1st published Gallery Press, Dublin, 1986
Synopsis:
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
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TOM MURPHY
Blue Macushia, The
1st Produced:
1980
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
13
Female
4
Parts Other:
doubling possible
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
a live gangster movie on stage set in the Republic of the 1970s with the politics of the Troubles emerging in Northern Ireland spilling over into the South.
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TOM MURPHY
Cherry Orchard, The
1st Produced:
2004
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
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Genre:
-
Adaptation
Parts:
Male
12
Female
6
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
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. Their estate is hopelessly in debt: urged to cut down their beautiful cherry orchard and sell the land for holiday cottages, they struggle to act decisively. 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.
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TOM MURPHY
Conversations On A Homecoming
1st Produced:
1985
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
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Genre:
-
Comedy
Parts:
Male
4
Female
3
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
1st published Gallery Press, Dublin, 1986
Synopsis:
In Conversations on a Homecoming, Michael returns from America to Ireland for a long-awaited reunion with his drinking companions: "A bilious bar-room comedy on the irreducible elements in the Irish character and the death of the Kennedy dream" (Observer)
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TOM MURPHY
Crucial Week In The Life Of A Grocer's Assistant, A
1st Produced:
1969
Company:
-
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Comedy
Parts:
Male
9
Female
4
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
1st published Gallery Press, Dublin, 1978
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
Drunkard, The
1st Produced:
2003
Company:
Produced by B*spoke Theatre Company In association with Galway Arts Festival, Ireland >>>
1st Published:
Carysfort Press, Dublin, 2004
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Adaptation
Parts:
Male
13
Female
9
Parts Other:
doubling possible
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
Epitaph Under Ether
1st Produced:
1979
Company:
1st Published:
-
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
Adaptation
One Act
Parts:
Male
4
Female
4
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
Famine
1st Produced:
1968
Company:
-
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Irish Drama
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
18
Female
3
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
1st published Gallery Press, Dublin, 1977
Synopsis:
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)
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TOM MURPHY
Fooleen, The
1st Produced:
Dublin
1969
Company:
-
1st Published:
Proscenium Press, Dixon, California, 1970
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
Gigli Concert, The
1st Produced:
1983
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
1st published Gallery Press, Dublin, 1984
Synopsis:
The language of the play is on a sort of inspired bender. It surfeits on its own potency. Tom Murphy's gift - here and in his other plays - is at once to stimulate and destabilise. It's a thrilling and intense experience to sit in a theatre and hardly to know where you are or that anything exists beyond the stage in front of you. . .This is a dark, funny, consuming evening of high points, breaking points, hangovers and hints - uncertain hints - of hope (Observer)
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TOM MURPHY
House, The
1st Produced:
2000
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
7
Female
4
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
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 and dangerous. None more so than the seemingly gregarious Christy Cavanagh. His childhood fixation with Mrs de Burca and her daughters becomes a frightening obsession when he finds that the date has been set for the auctioning of their house, and his bid to possess heaven has tragic consequences.
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TOM MURPHY
Informer, The
1st Produced:
1981
Company:
1st Published:
-
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Adaptation
Parts:
Male
37
Female
23
Parts Other:
doubling possible
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
J. Arthur Maginnis Story, The
1st Produced:
Pavilion Theatre Dun Laoghaire
1976
Company:
Irish Theatre Company, Dublin
1st Published:
-
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
11
Female
4
Parts Other:
doubling possible
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant, The
1st Produced:
2009
Company:
-
1st Published:
ISBN
9781408199947
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
11
Female
7
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
Inspired by The Golovlyov Family by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant, The
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 peasant genes saving it from extinction. 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 begins to wonder what is it all for? She slackens her hold and loses her power to the hypocrisy and relentless grasping of her chosen son.
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TOM MURPHY
Little Love, A Little Kiss, The
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Fantasy Drama
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
Morning After Optimism, The
1st Produced:
1971
Company:
-
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Fantasy Drama
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
1st published Mercier Press, Cork, 1973
Synopsis:
The Morning After Optimism introduces fairytale characters with consciously artificial language and explores the relationship between illusion and freedom. "A play of a dream world. . .profoundly engaged with the archetypes of Western culture" (Fintan O'Toole)
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TOM MURPHY
On The Inside
1st Produced:
1974
Company:
-
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
7
Female
5
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
1st published Gallery Press, Dublin, 1976
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
On The Outside
1st Produced:
1974
Company:
Project Arts Centre In association with Four-in-One Players
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Play
One Act
Parts:
Male
7
Female
3
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
1st published Gallery Press, Dublin, 1976
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
Orphans, The
1st Produced:
1968
Company:
-
1st Published:
Proscenium Press, Dixon, California, 1970
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
3
Female
3
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
Patriot Game, The
1st Produced:
1991
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Documentary Drama
Documentary
Parts:
Male
6
Female
7
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
a documentary drama charting the 1916 Easter rising
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TOM MURPHY
Sanctuary Lamp, The
1st Produced:
1975
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
3
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
1st published Poolbeg Press, Dublin, 1976
Synopsis:
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)
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TOM MURPHY
She Stoops To Conquer
1st Produced:
1982
Company:
1st Published:
-
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Adaptation
Parts:
Male
13
Female
6
Parts Other:
doubling possible
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
She Stoops To Folly
1st Produced:
1996
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
-
Adaptation
Parts:
Male
14
Female
8
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
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. It centres around the downfall of Dr Primrose, who relates the misadventures that have caused his downfall and brought disintegration and ruin on his loved ones.
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TOM MURPHY
Thief Of A Christmas, A
1st Produced:
1985
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
10
Female
4
Parts Other:
extras, 4c, musicians
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
Too Late For Logic
1st Produced:
1989
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
8
Female
10
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
Too Late for Logic is a cunning mix of fact and fiction. Christopher has sacrificed much to haul himself up the academic ladder. As the play opens he has been asked to deliver a key lecture on Schopenhauer, but Cornelia is dead and Michael has disappeared on a drinking bout with his father's pistol in his pocket. With his career at make-or-break point, Christopher's family is not helping. A marvellously inventive play full of compassion and humour.
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TOM MURPHY
Vicar Of Wakefield, The
1st Produced:
1974
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Adaptation
Parts:
Male
6
Female
5
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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TOM MURPHY
Wake, The
1st Produced:
1998
Company:
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
5
Female
5
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
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 learns their attitudes and Irish society in general. A homecoming play, haunting yet fiercely comic.
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TOM MURPHY
Whistle In The Dark, A
1st Produced:
1961
Company:
-
1st Published:
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
7
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
A Whistle in the Dark depicts the reunion of an Irish family in Coventry. "It is a considerable and refreshing shock to encounter this clenched fist of a play. . .National identity has been a theme in contemporary Irish drama common to Murphy, Friel and McGuinness. Nothing has been so brutish and direct, though, as this picture of Irishmen 'over here' asserting themselves in one of England's post-war dream cities" (Financial Times)
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TOM MURPHY
White House, The
1st Produced:
1972
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
ISBN
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes:
-
Synopsis:
-
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