Vince Locker's life is tragic. His comedy act for the LaughCom competition has just bombed, ruining any chance of the cash prize he desperately needed. His life is in tatters; abandoned by his father as a child, an estranged wife, Jessica, who he seems to disappoint just by his mere existence, and living in his mother's house with his bipolar brother and facing foreclosure. As he stands on Smith Avenue Bridge, suicide seems the only option until he is unexpectedly rescued by an old school mortician named Truss. Vince meets another of Truss's rescues, Winona. Although beyond social norms, the trio seize on a quick cash fix that just might help Vince meet his child support demands-comedic tributes for the dead. The eulogies are hilarious and off the wall, sometimes disastrous and sometimes enlightening. They propel Vince into the dark underworld of the funeral industry, life insurance scams, savage politics, a kidnapping, the murder investigation of a destitute unclaimed young woman and threats to Jessica and his young daughter. As details of the murdered young woman are slowly revealed, Vince realizes that he has many ghosts of his own to put to rest. The story is a brilliant thought-provoking exploration of grief and death nested in clever humor.

This new Student Edition of Dennis Kelly's popular play DNA contains introductory commentary and notes by Clare Finburgh Delijani, which gives an in-depth analysis of the play's context and themes. As well as the complete text of the play, this new Methuen Drama Student Edition includes: · An introduction to the playwright and social context of the play · Discussion of the context, themes, characters and dramatic form · Overview of staging and performance history of the play · Bibliography of suggested primary and secondary materials for further study. Dennis Kelly's play DNA centres on friendship, morality and responsibility in odd circumstances. When a group of young friends are faced with a terrible accident, they deliberately make the wrong choices to cover it up and find themselves in an unusually binding friendship where no one will own up to what they've done.

Helen and Danny keep themselves to themselves. But the outside world comes crashing into their lives one day when Helen's brother turns up. Covered in blood. Dennis Kelly's new play is a thrilling contemporary suspense story which takes its audience on a chilling journey into a world just outside the front door. This disturbing urban drama has it's world premiere at the Traverse Theatre on 31st July 2009, reuniting the team that brought Kelly's play After The End to the Traverse Theatre in 2005. After a month's run at the Traverse, it transfers to Birmingham Rep and the Soho Theatre (London).

A city under attack from a nuclear blast. As the dust settles, Louise wakes to find herself in a fallout shelter with Mark, the colleague who has saved her life. They have enough water and food to last two weeks. Now they just need to find a way of surviving each other. A chilling post-nuclear play that examines what it takes to endure catastrophe. After the End was originally published in 2005. This revised and updated edition was published to coincide with the London production at Theatre Royal Stratford East in February 2022.

"A piece that takes us on an extraordinary journey ... The energy and the vividness of the writing never lets up." The Independent An unexpected meeting at an airport leads to an intense, passionate, head-over-heels relationship. Before long they begin to settle down, buy a house, juggle careers, have kids – theirs is an ordinary family. But then their world starts to unravel and things take a disturbing turn. A tragic, violent look at parenthood and trauma, Denis Kelly's stirring monologue play premiered at The Royal Court Theatre in 2018 starring Carey Mulligan. Published for the first time in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, this edition features a new introduction by David Pattie.

Dennis Kelly explores Kelly’s unusual career path and sheds light on his eclectic approach to the arts, characterised by a refusal to write texts that people can fit within neat categories. This is the first monograph on Kelly’s work for stage and screen and brings to light his essential contribution to contemporary British drama and his huge range of work including his rise to international fame with Matilda the Musical. Drawing on Kelly’s published and unpublished texts, his work in production, reviews, original interviews with directors, actors and with Kelly himself as well as critical theory, Dennis Kelly examines and reappraises key motifs in his work such as his preoccupation with violence, the complex relationship between the individual and the community or his emphasis on storytelling. It also offers new insights into overlooked aspects of Kelly’s work by setting out to explore his traumatic narratives and his post-romanticism. In keeping with Kelly’s wish never to repeat himself, this study offers multiple critical entries into his plays, television series and films, drawing on moral and political philosophy, trauma studies, studies in humour, feminist theory and film studies. Part of the Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatist series, Dennis Kelly is addressed to students and scholars in Drama, Theatre and Performance as well as theatre practitioners and offers in-depth analysis of one of the most unique and challenging voices in contemporary British playwriting and screenwriting.

'None of this is the truth. It's just people saying things. It's all subjective. There's the truth, and there's what people think is the truth, and it all depends on how you slant it...' Taking Care of Baby tackles the complex case of Donna McAuliffe, a young mother convicted of the murder of her two infant children. In a series of probing interviews the people in this extraordinary story, including Donna herself and her bewildered mother Lynn, reveal how they may have harmed those they sought to protect. Dennis Kelly's ambitious play uses the popular techniques of drama-documentary and verbatim theatre to explore how truth is compromised by today's information culture.