{"id":5387,"date":"2025-09-06T06:09:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T06:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/5387\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T06:09:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T06:09:05","slug":"top-5-books-set-in-theatres-chosen-by-playwright-edward-carey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/5387\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 5 books set in theatres, chosen by playwright Edward Carey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Writer and illustrator\u00a0Edward Carey was a member of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyt.org.uk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">National Youth Theatre<\/a> and studied drama at the University of Hull. His plays have been performed at the National Theatre of Romania and Vilnius Small State Theatre, Lithuania, as well as the Young Vic Studio and the Royal Opera House Studio. His latest novel, <a href=\"https:\/\/uk.bookshop.org\/a\/9500\/9781805338000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Edith Holler<\/a>, tells the macabre and gothic story of a girl trapped inside a Norwich theatre. <\/p>\n<p>Now he\u2019s giving Big Issue the benefit of his experiences by choosing his top five books set in theatres.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/uk.bookshop.org\/a\/9500\/9781454954590\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">The Phantom of The Opera<\/a>\u00a0by Gaston Leroux\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A monster book where the theatre is fully described from the director\u2019s office to deep below stage. A love song to the theatre and a twisted romance, it\u2019s deeply thrilling and alarming.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/uk.bookshop.org\/a\/9500\/9781847493538\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Black Snow<\/a> by Mikhail Bulgakov\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A backstage story of a suicidal writer whose work is taken away from him.<br \/>A furious attack on censorship and Bulgakov\u2019s own personal revenge on the theatre director Konstantin Stanislavski, father of method acting.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/uk.bookshop.org\/a\/9500\/9780349116150\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">An Awfully Big Adventure<\/a>\u00a0by Beryl Bainbridge\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Set in Liverpool during the 1950s, this coming-of-age story is structured around a Christmas production of Peter Pan and is Bainbridge at her bold, brilliant best \u2013 here is a very acutely drawn picture of life backstage.<\/p>\n<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.bigissue.dsb-fly.net\/the-big-issue-contribution-SJHF625\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>                                                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"polaris__image image-cta__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Support-journalism-in-article-CTA.png\"  alt=\"\" height=\"250\" width=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        <\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/uk.bookshop.org\/a\/9500\/9781999331870\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Little Dancer Aged 14: The True Story of Degas\u2019 Masterpiece\u00a0<\/a> by Camille Laurens, translated by Willard Wood\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The true story behind Degas\u2019 famous sculpture is also a portrait of \u2018les rats\u2019, the downtrodden and mistreated girls who appeared as basically set dressing on the Op\u00e9ra Garnier stage in Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writer and illustrator\u00a0Edward Carey was a member of the National Youth Theatre and studied drama at the University&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,5788,111,139,69,7069,7070],"class_list":{"0":"post-5387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-from-the-magazine","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-theatre","15":"tag-top-5-books"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}