You know, sometimes, the best solution really is to kill the King. At least that’s what Ma and Pa Ubu have been convinced of by the Prime Minister of Pooland and his lackeys who need the King overthrown so they can make more money through their mining empire. What they didn’t anticipate was Pa Ubu caring even less for his fellow humans than they do.
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Before Agatha Christie was a household name for crime fiction, she worked in hospital dispensaries, a profession that would later inform many of her future fictional poisonings. The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Christie’s first published novel and one of the first books published by Penguin Books, features a mysterious poisoning that bridged the two realms of Christie’s careers in pharmacology and murder.
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Three women, three lives, one house, one family. When a change in living conditions splits them up for the first time, the women in this family, two daughters and their mother, feel more exposed than they expected. They begin lashing out at each other and at their memories of the people they thought they would grow into. Some problems can be worked through while others just need to be let go.
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The concept of a nude calendar isn’t new but replacing the typical bikini model or buff fireman with your average middle-aged Women’s Institute member is entirely novel. Based on a true story, the calendar girls of the Knapeley branch of the WI did exactly that and became international sensations for their trouble.
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Death puts everything into perspective. When tomorrow isn’t promised, suddenly you’re looking over all your yesterdays wondering where they all went and how come you didn’t do all those things you planned? Mary won’t let her friends live with the “what ifs” she had, so she’s sending a message from beyond the grave whether they’re ready to hear it or not.
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The city can be a brutal place to make a life with shifty characters and crime around every corner. Sara had thought she’d found her ticket out of her poky Chicago apartment in her soulmate David but then David is found shot dead and embroiled in a complicated web of kidnappings, extortion, and drugs. Did Sara’s imagination run away from her or is there someone else to blame?
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Before the advent of television and the growth of televangelist greats like Pat Robertson and Joel Osteen, Evangelist preachers would tour all over the United States, spreading the word of God and performing miracle cures that garnered even more attention for their preaching. Just as televised fame was taking over the performance of prayer, a young woman sought out a miracle healer to take away her pain and make her future bright again.
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Parents are a complete mystery to children. They exist as these all-powerful figures who seem to hover over your life whether bossy, friendly, embarrassing, absent, or inexplicable. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, you are one yourself and the focus on your own parents becomes crystal clear for the first time. At least that’s what happened to the four generations of Gumbaynggirr mothers and daughters at the heart of Brittanie Shipway’s new play.
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Like many performers around Australia, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on Bel a cappella; preventing and postponing performances due to lockdowns and throwing up obstacles for the choir and its audiences left and right. Ancient Lands was scheduled as a triumphant return to full programs again but for more unexpected hurdles.
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Every few years a movie gets released with a central gay character whose life is tragedy and whose story ends in a tear-jerking death. And every time this reignites a conversation about this seemingly inescapable link between queerness and death. Is it a curse from God? Is it unresolved trauma from the AIDS crisis? Is it pedestrian homophobia? Or is it true?
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Night Writes 