Showing results by narrator "Amanda Friday" in All Categories

Ellie Agresti's not sure anything could be worse than being dumped by her boyfriend, Hunter, the first day of senior year. But sharing a "life skills" class with him and his new girlfriend, Brynn? And getting partnered with a "family" of misfits (A.J., the loudmouth; Isaiah, the horse-racing obsessive; and Luke, the tattooed stunt-biker)? It's a recipe for certain disaster...until an in-class competition allows Ellie to channel her angst into beating Hunter and Brynn's team, and she unexpectedly bonds with her own group - especially Luke - in the process.

Richard Dudgeon, who has become an outcast from his puritanical family due to his religious apostasy, returns home on the death of his father. Much to everyone’s surprise, it is revealed that the father changed his will shortly before his death and has left the bulk of the estate to Richard. Now that he is lord of the manor, Richard asserts himself and declares his opposition to the colonial British authorities. Later, he is arrested by the British and sentenced to death but is rescued in the nick of time by a local militia commanded by Anthony Anderson, who, ironically, is a pastor.

New South Wales struggled as a new British penal colony, facing drought, famine, social incoherence, and the development of an intransigent military cartel which did not lose any opportunity to exploit the circumstances. Together with an entrepreneurial landowner society led by John Macarthur, they made the task of the Governor, William Bligh (of The Bounty) very difficult.

I was taught that from a very early age that children should be only seen but are never allowed to speak unless they are told to speak. Seen, but not heard. These words resonated with me for years and years. Until, one day, I became so isolated from the real world I forgot how to connect with anyone. But, one day, one fateful day, I was shown that if you look through the darkness, there is a light. A bold, bright light that can shine so beautifully at the end. My story is certainly not a fairy tale.

According to George Bernard Shaw, Joan of Arc was in fact one of the first Protestant martyrs. She was one of the first apostles of nationalism, and the first French practitioner of Napoleonic realism in warfare. She also refused to accept the specific woman's lot, and dressed and fought and lived as men did. Shaw's exploration of the story of this ingenuous and eponymous heroine is set in six scenes and an epilogue, which takes place in 1456, when the church cleared Joan of the charge of heresy and condemned her accusers of corruption.

Fresh off his victory at The Battle of Lodi, Napoleon is planning to enjoy his lunch when a lieutenant arrives with the bad news that the dispatches he had been carrying were stolen. Infuriated, Napoleon threatens him with being court-martialed unless he can recover them. A woman appears who claims to know about the theft. Unconvinced of her story, Napoleon and the woman enter into a battle of wits in true Shaw style. Will the conqueror of worlds end up conquered by a woman?

Anatol, one of Arthur Schnitzler's earliest works, concerns the life of a shallow and immature playboy, who has multiple dalliances with various women but suffers from a crippling fear of commitment underneath his womanising facade. The play offers sharp social commentary on the themes of toxic masculinity and fidelity, and has been adapted in English to two different musicals: The Game of Love and The Gay Life.

Walter Hartright, a struggling art teacher, is stopped for directions while traveling on a dark road by a mysterious woman in white. Thus begins Walter's deep dive into the twists and turns of stolen identities, fraud, spies, conspiracy and death. Along the way, he meets the lovely Laura Fairlie and her emboldened half-sister, Marian Halcombe. Marian is brazen and assertive in her search for the truth, a strong female during a time when women were simply viewed as the weaker sex. She joins Walter on his journey to untangle the web of lies and deceit that has been spun so expertly.

Carlo Collodi's whimsical recasting of the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea was first published in 1883 and has since become an established classic of children's literature. Geppetto, a poor wood carver, receives a piece of wood from which he carves a marionette. Much to his surprise, the puppet springs to life and embarks on a wild series of adventures.

Jane Eyre is a plain orphan girl, unloved and abused by her Aunt Reed, who is sent away to boarding school. Strong of heart and craving independence, Jane embarks upon a life of governess to a young French girl named Adele, the benefactor of the mysterious Mr. Rochester. Life at Thornfield Hall proves just as mysterious as its owner with haunting laughter and a dark secret living in the attic.

Ten years after a tragic incident on the lake, an AA meeting in a small, religious town in the deep south of the USA descends into bitterness and chaos when a flood hits. Trapped within the local church, tempers escalate and well-buried secrets begin to emerge. Personalities clash, reputations are dissected and questioned, and everybody's demons are laid bare.

Cutting Room is set in the "Town Welfare Department" of a town in the Midlands, Burtonwood, during public sector cuts. Four characters (David, Lucy, Ian, and an intern, Anne) have to take calls from members of the public complaining about the loss of public services, with the boss Harry coming in occasionally to offer cheerful but often useless encouragement. As the cuts continue, tensions run high, with Ian in particular taking his anger and frustration out on the secretary, Tilly. At the play's conclusion there is a surprising twist.

Scorned by her 17th century New England Puritan village, Hester Prynne struggles to raise her precocious daughter, Pearl, who is the result of an affair and whose father is unknown. Despite being forced to wear a scarlet letter A as a brand for her adultery, Hester tries to live a life of repentance and dignity. Pearl's father comes forward as he is struggling under the weight of his own shame and sin.

When a young child, a traumatic event happens to Duncan which blocks out all memories of the supernatural his family is a part of. When he and his wife Molly are witness to a strange sighting on the Bremerton ferry in the waters of The Puget Sound, he's thrust into the paranormal, whether he likes it or not. In reporting the drowning, Duncan and Molly become uncomfortable with the state trooper sent to question them. That combined with the outrageous nature of what they saw, causes them to not report all they’d witnessed.

Hands Around, also known as La Ronde or Reigen, is possibly Schnitzler's most provocative and controversial work. In a series of 10 conversations occurring before or after a sexual encounter, between 10 pairs of characters from all walks of life, Hands Around offers a playful scrutiny of the sexual morals and class ideology of the era.

According to legend, the Pyncheon family has been cursed by their 17th century ancestor, Colonel Pyncheon, who stole the land from Matthew Maule. Maule was later put to death after being accused of witchcraft and the deed for the land could not be found. Now living in the New England mansion fraught with haunted miseries of the past, Hepzibah Pyncheon opens a small shop to pull herself from the poverty-striken curse she has lived under while her brother, Clifford, was serving a decades-long prison sentence for murder.

A Doll's House, published in 1879, was the earliest of Ibsen's "social dramas", and the first of his works to attract attention outside of Scandinavia. The central theme of the play is a woman's right to individual self-development, and represents, as humourist Stephen Leacock observed of many Ibsen plays, "a profound problem stated but not solved".

On the day of her mother's funeral, 23-year-old Grace Maxwell discovered the man who raised her was not her biological father. Instead, he was a best-selling self-help author and a world famous "Guru to the Stars." Known as Mr. MAJIC, for the miraculous impact his books and seminars had on millions of people, he had inexplicitly vanished around the time Grace's mother became pregnant with her. For over 20 years, the mystery of Mr. MAJIC’s sudden and unexpected disappearance, and the speculation of what might have become of him, was the stuff of Urban Legend.

Margaret Campbell lost her family to war between the humans and the magical folks. Only, the humans had magical help from those seeking power. Margaret does not know of her heritage, but seeks out her family's history as an adult. In returning to the village for the first time since the massacre, strange feelings and memories begin to resurface. In her quest to find herself and people like her, Margaret steps into the very war which had claimed her parents. More, the others seem to think she needs to lead them.

Two British members of Parliament - one an elder conservative, the other a younger man with a liberal bent (and an eye on the older man's daughter) face a difficult choice. Some stranger has left each of them a considerable fortune on condition they give up their well-respected family names and adopt that of Wurzel-Flummery.