Loading credits…
In the small town of Grover’s Corners, the Webb and Gibbs families go about their daily lives. Guided by a Stage Manager, Thornton Wilder’s play moves through everyday routines, love, marriage, and loss, inviting us to notice the moments we so often take for granted.
Three-act opera based on Thornton Wilder’s play of the same name, itself based on Euripides’ Alcestis. Roles include Alkestis, her husband Admettos, their son Epimenes, Tiresias, Herkules, and Apollo; no plot summary is supplied.
In this adaptation of Farquhar's comedy, two financially troubled gentlemen pose as master and servant while pursuing heiresses. The adaptation removes Count Bellair and Gibbet and replaces them with Gloss, a highwayman disguised as a priest.
On a bare stage, the Kirby family drives from Newark to Camden to visit a daughter who recently lost a baby in childbirth. Their reminiscences, jokes and sightseeing turn an uneventful trip into a meditation on ordinary life's joys and sorrows, with Ma Kirby as its emotional center.
Across ninety years, the Bayard family gathers for Christmas dinner as generations are born, customs change, and the family accumulates property. The action compresses ninety dinners and a broad sweep of American life into a single one-act play.
Across successive Christmas dinners over 90 years, the Bayard family ages, births and deaths alter the household. Roderick and Lucia’s children grow up, marry, and have children; one son dies in the Korean War, another leaves the family firm, and generations die in the old house. At the end, the dying Ermengarde discovers a letter and photographs showing that Lucia II and Roderick II have built a new Bayard house and named their children Roderick III and Lucia III.
The Matchmaker is a 1954 Broadway play by Thornton Wilder, a rewritten version of his 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers.
The Merchant of Yonkers is a 1938 play by Thornton Wilder.
Act I is an amalgam of early 20th century New Jersey and the dawn of the Ice Age. The father is inventing things such as the lever, the wheel, the alphabet, and multiplication tables. The family and the entire Northeastern U.S. face extinction by a wall of ice moving southward from Canada. The story is introduced by a narrator and further expanded by the family maid, Sabina. There are unsettling parallels between the members of the Antrobus family and various characters from the Bible. In addition, time is compressed and scrambled to such an extent that the refugees who arrive at the Antrobus house seeking food and fire include the Old Testament prophet Moses, the ancient Greek poet Homer, and women who are identified as Muses. Act II takes place on the Boardwalk at Atlantic City, New Jersey, where the Antrobuses are present for George's swearing-in as president of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Mammals, Subdivision Humans. Sabina is present, also, in the guise of a scheming beauty queen, who tries to steal George's affection from his wife and family. The conventioneers are rowdy and party furiously, but there is an undercurrent of foreboding, as a fortune teller warns of an impending storm. The weather soon transforms from summery sunshine to hurricane to deluge. Gladys and Henry attempt their individual rebellions and are brought back into line by the family. The act ends with the family members reconciled and, paralleling the biblical story of Noah's Ark, directing pairs of animals to safety on a large boat, where they survive the storm and the end of the world. Act III takes place in the ruins of the Antrobuses' former home. A devastating war has occurred; Maggie and Gladys have survived by hiding in a cellar. When they come out of the cellar, Gladys is seen to have a baby. Sabina joins them and is "dressed as a Napoleonic camp-follower." George has been away at the front lines leading an army. Henry also fought, on the opposite side, and returns as a general. The family members discuss the ability of the human race to rebuild and continue after continually destroying itself. The question is raised: "Is there any accomplishment or attribute of the human race of enough value that its civilization should be rebuilt?" The stage manager interrupts the play-within-the-play to explain that several members of their company cannot perform their parts, possibly from food poisoning (as the actress playing Sabina saw blue mold on the lemon meringue pie at dinner). The stage manager drafts a janitor, a dresser, and other non-actors to fill their parts, which involve quoting philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle to mark the passing of time within the play. The alternate history action ends where it began, with Sabina dusting the living room and worrying about George's arrival from the office. Her final acts are to address the audience and to turn over the responsibility of continuing the action, or life, to them.
In the small town of Grover’s Corners, the Webb and Gibbs families go about their daily lives. Guided by a Stage Manager, Thornton Wilder’s play moves through everyday routines, love, marriage, and loss, inviting us to notice the moments we so often take for granted.
Three-act opera based on Thornton Wilder’s play of the same name, itself based on Euripides’ Alcestis. Roles include Alkestis, her husband Admettos, their son Epimenes, Tiresias, Herkules, and Apollo; no plot summary is supplied.
In this adaptation of Farquhar's comedy, two financially troubled gentlemen pose as master and servant while pursuing heiresses. The adaptation removes Count Bellair and Gibbet and replaces them with Gloss, a highwayman disguised as a priest.
On a bare stage, the Kirby family drives from Newark to Camden to visit a daughter who recently lost a baby in childbirth. Their reminiscences, jokes and sightseeing turn an uneventful trip into a meditation on ordinary life's joys and sorrows, with Ma Kirby as its emotional center.
Across ninety years, the Bayard family gathers for Christmas dinner as generations are born, customs change, and the family accumulates property. The action compresses ninety dinners and a broad sweep of American life into a single one-act play.
Across successive Christmas dinners over 90 years, the Bayard family ages, births and deaths alter the household. Roderick and Lucia’s children grow up, marry, and have children; one son dies in the Korean War, another leaves the family firm, and generations die in the old house. At the end, the dying Ermengarde discovers a letter and photographs showing that Lucia II and Roderick II have built a new Bayard house and named their children Roderick III and Lucia III.
The Matchmaker is a 1954 Broadway play by Thornton Wilder, a rewritten version of his 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers.
The Merchant of Yonkers is a 1938 play by Thornton Wilder.
Act I is an amalgam of early 20th century New Jersey and the dawn of the Ice Age. The father is inventing things such as the lever, the wheel, the alphabet, and multiplication tables. The family and the entire Northeastern U.S. face extinction by a wall of ice moving southward from Canada. The story is introduced by a narrator and further expanded by the family maid, Sabina. There are unsettling parallels between the members of the Antrobus family and various characters from the Bible. In addition, time is compressed and scrambled to such an extent that the refugees who arrive at the Antrobus house seeking food and fire include the Old Testament prophet Moses, the ancient Greek poet Homer, and women who are identified as Muses. Act II takes place on the Boardwalk at Atlantic City, New Jersey, where the Antrobuses are present for George's swearing-in as president of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Mammals, Subdivision Humans. Sabina is present, also, in the guise of a scheming beauty queen, who tries to steal George's affection from his wife and family. The conventioneers are rowdy and party furiously, but there is an undercurrent of foreboding, as a fortune teller warns of an impending storm. The weather soon transforms from summery sunshine to hurricane to deluge. Gladys and Henry attempt their individual rebellions and are brought back into line by the family. The act ends with the family members reconciled and, paralleling the biblical story of Noah's Ark, directing pairs of animals to safety on a large boat, where they survive the storm and the end of the world. Act III takes place in the ruins of the Antrobuses' former home. A devastating war has occurred; Maggie and Gladys have survived by hiding in a cellar. When they come out of the cellar, Gladys is seen to have a baby. Sabina joins them and is "dressed as a Napoleonic camp-follower." George has been away at the front lines leading an army. Henry also fought, on the opposite side, and returns as a general. The family members discuss the ability of the human race to rebuild and continue after continually destroying itself. The question is raised: "Is there any accomplishment or attribute of the human race of enough value that its civilization should be rebuilt?" The stage manager interrupts the play-within-the-play to explain that several members of their company cannot perform their parts, possibly from food poisoning (as the actress playing Sabina saw blue mold on the lemon meringue pie at dinner). The stage manager drafts a janitor, a dresser, and other non-actors to fill their parts, which involve quoting philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle to mark the passing of time within the play. The alternate history action ends where it began, with Sabina dusting the living room and worrying about George's arrival from the office. Her final acts are to address the audience and to turn over the responsibility of continuing the action, or life, to them.