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Shanghai Dolls - NHB Modern Plays

Paperback (10 Apr 2025)

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Publisher's Synopsis

'Stick a woman in fatigues, put a wrench in her hand, an axe, a machine gun - they're just props, unless she can live her life freely - take lovers, have abortions, make art not babies!'

Two penniless actresses meet at auditions for a production of Ibsen's A Doll's House in Shanghai - and they quickly become inseparable.

As political upheaval rips through China, their tumultuous friendship will alter not only the course of their lives, but the course of history. One will become China's first female theatre director. The other, the architect of the Cultural Revolution.

Amy Ng's play Shanghai Dolls tells the untold true story of two of the most influential women in Chinese history - Madame Mao and Sun Weishi - and how the personal truly is political. It opened at Kiln Theatre, London, in 2025, in association with Paines Plough, directed by Katie Posner.

About the Publisher

Nick Hern Books

Nick Hern Books is the UK's leading specialist performing arts publisher with over 1,000 plays and theatre books in our catalogue. Our list of plays includes work by many of the UK's preeminent playwrights, as well as some of the most exciting emerging writers. We work with major theatres and theatre companies across the UK and in Ireland to publish new plays alongside their professional premieres, often in the form of a 'programme/text' that combines the functions of theatre programme and playtext. We also publish many classic plays and plays in translation, together with a wide range of authoritative theatre books, many of them written by well-known theatre practitioners.

Book information

ISBN: 9781839044182
Publisher: Nick Hern Books
Imprint: Nick Hern Books
Pub date:
DEWEY: 822.92
DEWEY edition: 23
Language: English
Number of pages: 96
Weight: 94g
Height: 197mm
Width: 128mm
Spine width: 8mm