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Irene Coates

IRENE COATES

  
Nationality:    British
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    n/a

Irene Coates was born in London. In the 1940s she lived in Cambridge and ran the Cambridge Drama Centre. From 1953-56 she lived in India, studying Hindustani music. Between 1961 and 1981 she wrote 14 plays, many of them professionally produced. Since moving to Australia in 1982 her plays Three Short Plays and Self Service have been produced. In 1998 she was Writer in Residence (drama) at the University of Western Sydney, Nepean. She has had four books published, including Who's Afraid of Leonard Woolf.

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below is a list of Irene Coates's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Imbalance         Making Of Lilith, The         Moon Women         Self Service         Sweet Fanny Adams         Thieves         This Space Is Mine         Wideawakes, The         Winter Queen
Imbalance

Synopsis:
Women's lib group copes with violence done to one of its members.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Theatre Writer's Events     1980

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
17 min One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Making Of Lilith, The

Synopsis:
Three generations of women, descended from Cornish wreckers, live through the 1920's, the 1940's and the 1960's

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Moon Women

Synopsis:
Set over 3,000 years ago in Minoan Crete. Women rutting, until theseus tries to destroy the natural balance of good and evil by killing the Minotaur.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
-     1977

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Self Service

Synopsis:
Ann falls in love with Peter in a cafe and takes the lead in a romantic affair. He is escaping the hurt from the loss of a child. The affair doesn't work, but whereas Peter's marriage is mended, Ann leaves her husband and children.

Notes:
ariel theatre Company. Aka the Smile

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
http://Australianplays.org/   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
drama 40 min

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Sweet Fanny Adams

Synopsis:
The researched account of the death of Fanny Adams and who killed her. The action takes place on a single hot August day in a small country town in Victorian England. Frederick Baker, a respectable solicitor's clerk, gives some halfpennies to three small children and takes one of them off to a hop garden, where he makes a shrine of her dismembered body. Her name is Fanny Adams. She is immortalized as "sweet f. a." -- nothing at all.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Reading At Soho Poly, London    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
http://Australianplays.org/   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Full-Length 120 mins Tragi/Comic

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Thieves

Synopsis:
Dr. West invents a mechanical womb, which he installs in his attic. He stocks it with the fetus of a young girl, Rita, helped by his assistant Steve. His daughter Clare understands what is happening and tells Rita, who fights everyone to get the fetus out of the machine.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Camorra Abbey Theatre Club     1981

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
http://Australianplays.org/   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Full-Length 120 mins Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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This Space Is Mine

Synopsis:
The unforgivable things that a husband will say to a wife and a wife to a husband. Rowena sits like a dying bird in her marital home, until she starts drawing the shadows on the wall of her dead child's nursery. Her drawings are exhibited -- now it is her husband Robert's turn to react negatively. Are both mad or neither? The action takes place in a mental institution.

Notes:
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1st Produced:

Organisations:
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1st Published:
http://Australianplays.org/   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
2 act 100 mins Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Wideawakes, The

Synopsis:
Death in life. A married couple waits for an Indian student to light their fire. When he arrives, they take no notice. He lights their fire, which rouses them to activity which results in the student leaving. The fire dies. A dark, surreal comedy drama which takes a cutting look at a married couple and the tiny world they have come to occupy.

Notes:
part of "Home And Colonial" by the RSC

1st Produced:

Organisations:

1st Published:
http://Australianplays.org/   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Surrealist comedy drama 35 mins

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Winter Queen

Synopsis:
Story of Elizabeth of Bohemia, told with music of the period, 1612 on.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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