From locking playwrights up until a drama emerged to dreaming up Sarah Kane’s Crave in a pub; the talent behind half a century of innovation reveal their secrets

From the archive: In this piece first published on 28 June 1995, the late playwright asks if Shakespeare was a Tory and suggests writers should run a stage at the National Theatre

The writer, who took her life 25 years ago this month, wrote five searing dramas that took in everything from despair to love, from mutilation to cannibalism. What was it like to direct or star in them?

Sarah Kane’s Cleansed is notorious for showing torture, assault and gore – but a new Sydney production is handling it with extra care. The director and actors share how they’ve got through harrowing rehearsals

As venues close due to Covid-19, there’s a world of published drama to savour, from text that falls off the page to Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘undirectable’ collage

As Hansard opens at the National Theatre and drama heats up in Westminster, our critic picks his favourite political theatre

Sarah Kane’s play becomes an exploration of living with profound disability in Deafinitely Theatre’s production

Dance and spoken word combine in an evocative retelling of Kane’s violent play about rape, madness and abuse

Stretching to well over three hours, three interpretations of the myth of Phaedra turn into a rugby ruck of postmodernism

A superb cast ignites Enescu’s epic Oedipe. And Philip Venables makes Sarah Kane’s final work sing