Play Ground
A fortnightly theatre bookclub hosted by Nancy Netherwood and Sam Webber. Every other Thursday we take a deep dive into a different play from a range of genres, writers, times and places - join in the conversation over on Instagram @playground_pod
Episodes
42 episodes
A Table Tennis Play by Sam Steiner
An underground bunker filled with a thousand ping pong balls (which are actually other things) and a table tennis table (which is itself). 3 days, 3 characters, and some very rapid dialogue make this fringe play by Sam Steiner the perfect compa...
The Frogs by Aristophanes
In the ancient play The Frogs, which has survived 2.5 thousand years and been a lynchpin of many hundreds of academic careers, Dionysus and his slave (eesh) Xanthius go in desperate search of funny bits they can do. Some good funny bi...
No Particular Order by Joel Tan
A 300 year epic told through 17 minute portraits, Joel Tan's No Particular Order is a very heavy going, incredible piece of writing detailing the rise and fall(?) of an unnamed despot in an unnamed country in an unnamed time....
Design for Living by Noël Coward
Noël Coward has a legendary reputation - and this play lives up to it!Otto, Gilda and Leo all love each other, but due to the world's boring machinations they must keep trying out monogamy - can they, as a three, discover a new....
American Psycho the Musical - book by Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa, Music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik, based on the novel by Brett Easton Ellis
We're doing a musical! And trying our very best to discuss the published script rather than the four thousand different live shows that Nancy has obsessively watched.This 2013 show is an adaptation of the controversial book (and cult fil...
The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe
Football! Wait no soccer - Soccer!This Pulitzer-nommed play from 2016 follows an U17s indoor girls soccer team as they warm up for various games. Very little happens, and it's one of the most devastating plays we've ever read.We t...
Spider's Web by Agatha Christie
'The trashiest play we've ever done.'Content Warnings: Murder/Drugs/ClassismHave some feedback? A play you'd like us to cover?Chat to host Nancy @N_Netherwood on variousChat to host Sam @Samwebbercool2 on In...
The Seagull by Anton Chekhov
After an infamously terrible debut, this classic Russian play went on to define naturalism, changing how we make theatre in the West forever. It is also full of sad theatre makers, which may go some way to explain its enduring popularity with t...
Futureproof by Lynda Radley
A travelling 'Odditorium' is struggling to make ends meet, and as a change of tactic the performers start trying to make themselves as normal as can be. If you can see how bleak this is about to get, then congratulations on having more insight ...
Misterman by Enda Walsh
Cillian Murphy somehow remains looking beautiful through this deeply intense and gruelling play - first performed in 1999 by Walsh himself, we very specifically take a look at the revised/updated 2011 version which took the intimate one-person ...
31 - Midnight Movie by Eve Leigh
Is this a play? Performance art? Essay? Real or not real? This play/text/email chain was originally presented as a live performance and digital experience combination, then printed onto paper, and now thrust back onto the internet by us in the ...
30 - The Sea by Edward Bond
East coast round 2! We talk aliens, village gossip, and the strange prescience of this play written in 1973 about 1907 when being read in 2025.FAIRYTALE UPDATE:I have searched and can find nothing substantial about thi...
29 - The Welkin by Lucy Kirkwood
Once again we dive into a time bending play about sad women. This time it's Lucy Kirkwood's 2020 play The Welkin; set in 18th century Suffolk/Norfolk, 12 women must decide the fate of another in this epicly jam-packed courtroom(ish) drama. We t...
28 - The Glow by Alistair McDowall
Time. Ghosts. Violence. Hope. Academia. We return to pod favourite Alistair McDowall for his incredible 2022 play The Glow. Have some feedback? A play you'd like us to cover?Chat to host Nancy @N_Netherwood on v...
27 - True West by Sam Shepard
We recorded this 3 years ago and then forgot to make more podcasts. It holds up!!! Declaring this the end of season 1, we'll be back with certified fresh content in 2 weeks time.Sam Shepard's True West is about two things: truth and the ...
26 - Mr Burns by Anne Washburn
Step 1) Nuclear MeltdownStep 2) Gang Warfare Over Simpsons QuotesStep 3) ????Step 4) The Greatest Story Ever ToldIf you're not familiar with the play of post-apocalyptic pop-culture mythology, prepare to have your mind blown...
25 - Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams
Despite the characters explicitly talking about the cold all the time, prepare to hear about some very hot and sweaty goings on in this William's classic. When a young hot guy walks into a Southern town that's afraid of hot peopl...
24 - Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind
Up front:1) TW, this episode contains quite frank discussions of a variety of grisly topics, including sexual assault and suicide.2) This podcast is about the original play, NOT the musical version (though we do of course mention the mu...
23 - Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
It was inevitable that at some point we'd bump into the bard on our ever winding theatrical-textual journey, and we do so what in our un-researched opinion is 'one of the more obscure ones.' Cymbeline is a play about a young couple who vow thei...
22 - You Stupid Darkness! by Sam Steiner
You Stupid Darkness! takes us into the world of Brightline, a call centre for those who need to talk to someone about their problems, and the 4 volunteers who answer those calls late at night. Meet Frances, Angie, Jon, and Joey the work experie...
21 - The Flick by Annie Baker
The Flick is a 2013 play set in a cinema, in which you the audience sit where the screen is and watch as three employees get into some serious sweeping. This often silent and uneventful play is brim full of sad heartfelt characters, musings on ...
20 - The Hothouse by Harold Pinter
The Hothouse (so called because the house is...hot?) is a 1980 play by Harold Pinter which was actually written in 1958, but still has his signature style of heightened language, biting edge and yes, lots of famous pauses. It's been a while sin...
19 - Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello
Six Characters is a modern classic. Or maybe just a classic. It's hard to know where the age boundaries for those things are. Either way in this play Pirandello brings an early example of going full meta in theatre, introducing a rehearsal room...
18 - The Woods by Robert Alan Evans
The Woods is poetry on the stage. Okay, so all plays are poetry on the stage, but this one even more so. Inhabiting an American woodland and also a British kitchen, our protagonist 'The Woman' is continually haunted by 'The Wolf,' an evil figur...
17 - The Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney
This is the second in McCraney's 'Brother Sister Plays' trilogy, though is the first one he wrote. Drawing on Yoruba cosmology transposed into present day Louisiana, The Brothers Size is a poetic yet brutally grounded story of two brot...