This new series brings together some of the best new writing from contemporary American playwrights.

Volume One is introduced by Andre Bishop, Artistic Director of the Lincoln CenterTheater, the most prestigious theatre in the USA. Each play is introduced by critically acclaimed writers themselves.

The volume includes:

KIN by Bathsheba Doran, (with an introduction by Chris Durang)

Kin sheds a sharp light on the changing face of kinship in the expansive landscape of the modern world.

'Simply terrific. Perhaps the finest new play of the season. Funny andaudacious, haunting, and exquisitely wrought.' Charles Isherwood, New York Times

MIDDLETOWN by Will Eno (with an introduction by Gordon Lish)

Middletown was awarded the prestigious Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play in 2010.

'Middletown glimmers from start to finish with tart, funny, gorgeous little comments on big things: the need for love and forgiveness, the search for meaning in life, the long, lonely ache of disappointment.' Charles Isherwood, New York Times

COMPLETENESS by Itamar Moses (with an introduction by Doug Wright)

Completeness is a 21st-century romantic comedy about the timeless confusions of love.

'A funny, ridiculously smart new play. I haven't seen another play recentlythat so perfectly captured love - hot-blooded, fearless, fi ckle - at this stagein life. I was left with nothing but admiration.' Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg News

GOD'S EAR by Jenny Schwartz (with an introduction by Edward Albee)

'This ode to love, loss and the routines of life has the economy and drywit of a Sondheim love song ... Schwartz is a real talent and she is trying something ambitious ... In [her] very modern way, [she is] making a rather old-fashioned case for the power of the written word.' Jason Zinoman, New York Times

It's dusk. Mother and father are in their bedroom dressing in preparation for Parents' Evening at their only daughter's primary school. During this rare opportunity to check in the couple embarks on a volatile passionate and surprising confrontation that challenges every one of their life choices. The play is a painfully witty perceptive exploration of the landlines of parenting in modern marriage.

5m, 2f / Drama Based on historical fact, Nest is a taut domestic love triangle set against the landscape of a fledgling nation on the verge of realizing its manifest destiny at a terrible bloody cost. The play re-imagines the real life story of Susanna Cox, a young indentured servant from Pennsylvania who murdered her baby in 1809, and the story of the man who wrote the ballad that was sold at her hanging. The play is a searing exploration of American dreams and violence and their place in the national psyche. [Susanna Cox's] tale is uniquely American, involving all our national obsessions: sexuality, class, gender roles, the search for national identity, and, most of all, the insidious, hypocritical piety coded into our cultural DNA...Doran is particularly deft at constructing dialogue filled with small, characterizing moments to elucidate her themes.-Washington City Paper Bathsheba Doran has crafted this seemingly simple but gripping 90-minute work from the true story of Susanna Cox- talkinbroadway.com Nest...is no simple costume-drama rendering of [a] young woman's life and death....When the artificial walls of the earlier scenes fall away and the stage is flooded by the cast working as a kind of chorus, one feels the heart of the playwright.- MetroWeekly

4m 3f / InteriorChildhood friends Edward and Marie have moved to a village in Africa while Edward is setting up a museum there with money from the West. Within weeks it becomes apparent that they have moved to an area devastated by AIDS. Questions about their own personal and political responsibilities become impossible to ignore and as Edward becomes increasingly anxious to leave Marie makes the unexpected decision to stay there without him. When news of Edward's imminent departure reaches Anthony the African contractor for the gallery he goes to beg Edward for the last time to help him escape to America forcing the couple into a final analysis of what their experience in Africa means to them and what they mean to each other.Ms. Doran has mapped out a situation worthy of a Conrad or Naipul novel. - The New York TimesBathsheba Doran's direct thought-provoking Living Room in Africa aims to shine the flickering light of Western attention on the so-called Dark Continent and especially on the suffering wrought there by AIDS. -Time Out New YorkDefinitely a writer worth watching starting with this play. - CurtainUpDoran is a terrific playwright who never resorts to sermonizing. Moreover her attention to character and detail is excellent. -TheaterMania

Would you please remember that it's not us they're assessing.

She's been disruptive in class. She's rude to the teachers. And now she wants to learn the trumpet. But whose performance is really being judged? A mother and father prepare to discuss their daughter's progress at the local primary school, but their rare opportunity for some quality time together begins to test the bonds of love, work and family.

Charged, passionate and surprising, Parents' Evening is a fierce and funny play about modern marriage and parenthood. This European premiere marks the homecoming of a major British talent already acclaimed in America.