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Clear filtersHappy Birthday is a comedic stage play written by American playwright Anita Loos. The play premiered on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre in 1946. The show was nominated for two Tony Awards, Best Costumes by Lucinda Ballard and Best Lead Actress in a Play for Helen Hayes, who won the award as Addie Bemis. The plays tells the story of a librarian and her escapades when she decides to have a night on the town.
Big-game hunter Harold Ryan returns to find that his wife and son have changed during his absence. The play contrasts his glorification of killing with pacifist characters, while Wanda June and other dead acquaintances address the audience from Heaven.
Winnie, buried first to her waist and later to her neck in a mound, persists in her daily rituals and talk with her mostly silent husband Willie, sustaining an uneasy optimism as her circumstances worsen.
In Northern England in 1978, a boy named John looks back on the stresses of growing up with his parents Vic and Dot, grandparents and aunts. The memory play moves through his teenage years, from age nine to his graduation as a drama teacher, mixing humor with sadness.
Two brothers, Danny and Lyle, were locked in a chicken pen as children. Their mother abandoned them there for months, and the brothers later become celebrities; the play develops the story through dark comedy and abrupt shocks.
After meeting businessman Michael at a conference, Kitty questions her life as she tries to balance family and freedom, fidelity and a demanding marketing job at a cancer charity. Her husband Johnny and friends are also struggling, while her parents drift apart and Carl appears to have found happiness with a new boyfriend.
Women living in a psychiatric treatment centre form difficult, sustaining relationships as they confront trauma and consider life beyond its walls. Their encounters bring humour, conflict, and solidarity into an uncertain process of recovery.
Happy with Either is a 1948 comedy play by the British writer Margaret Kennedy. Best known as a novelist, it was her last play. It ran for 35 performances at St James's Theatre in London's West End between 22 April and 22 May 1948. The original cast included Cyril Raymond, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Adrienne Corri, Valerie Taylor, Angela Baddeley and Constance Cummings. It was produced by Basil Dean. The plot revolves around a bigamist who is allowed back into the lives of his two wives because they miss him.
The surviving fifth-act portion, Krauncha-vijaya, stages a conversation among Shiva, Gauri, the Vidushaka and a Pratihara, recalls the Kiratarjuniya story, and ends with Shiva blessing King Vigraharaja.
In post-revolutionary Iran, Mahmoud, an aspiring footballer struggling at school, is paired with Ayaz, a book collector whose library includes works forbidden by the regime. Mahmoud is drawn to Ayaz's escape through reading; their friendship provokes jealousy in Mahmoud's teammate Fareed, whose intervention leads to their arrest and trial.
Across three Harlem eras—1860, 1928, and the present—Billie confronts Othello’s departure for a white woman and the racial pressures shaping their relationship. The play reframes Othello as a non-chronological prequel and uses a two-act, seven-stanza blues structure to explore racism, history, and Black identity.
A migrant family comes to Harlem seeking a better life but meets hardship; the melodrama depicts vice and crime in Harlem.
A one-performance English burlesque parody of Hydaspes by Isabella Aubert, reusing much of its music along with numbers from other operas. The entry names Harlequin and the Doctor among its roles but gives no plot summary.
This is a one act play about a professional theatre company presenting Romeo and Juliet. The opening night is in the town of Brackley in the English Midlands. The principal characters are Arthur and his wife Edna (who play Romeo and Juliet) and the stage manager Jack. Arthur is horrified to be confronted by his grown up daughter (Muriel) and grandchild, neither of whose existences he had been aware of. To discover that he's a grandfather just before playing Romeo is too much for him. They later learn that he's still married to Muriel's mother (Flossie) and that he is bigamously married to Edna. There are a number of other threads running through this play, such as Jack's attempts to leave the theatre and do a 'real job' and the humdrum world of bit players and the attempts in post-war Britain to bring culture to the masses. It is a funny farce which has a strong satirical element.
Forty-one-year-old Harper leaves her West London family to visit her dying father, undertaking a journey through England that examines sex, death, and her relationships with her daughter, husband, and mother.
The last man on earth considers whether to prolong his life or end it, in a metaphysical play described as vernacular yet literary in style.
A stage play following Harry Potter and a new generation at Hogwarts, nineteen years after the events of the original novels.
In a future Mumbai, unemployed Om Prakash agrees to sell his organs to wealthy Western recipients through InterPlanta, which then monitors and controls his family. The recipient Ginni treats them condescendingly, while the plan shifts to using Om's brother Jeetu's body and virtually impregnating Om's wife, Jaya.
Aloho is drawn into the unlawful schemes of corrupt officials. The satire follows how people entrusted with making, interpreting and enforcing the law exploit the people who trust them.
Elwood P. Dowd is an affable man who claims to have an unseen (and presumably imaginary) friend Harvey – whom Elwood describes as a six foot, three-and-one-half inch pookah (Chase uses the spelling p-o-o-k-a as noted especially by the character Wilson who is reading the definition from a dictionary on page 33 of Chase's playbook) resembling an anthropomorphic rabbit. Elwood introduces Harvey to everyone he meets. His social-climbing sister, Veta Simmons, increasingly finds his eccentric behavior embarrassing. She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium. When they arrive at the sanitarium, a comedy of errors ensues. When Veta confesses that she has seen Harvey too, the young Dr. Sanderson commits Veta instead of Elwood. But when the mistake comes out, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion. When Elwood shows up at the sanitarium looking for his lost friend Harvey, it seems that the mild-mannered Elwood has had a strange influence on the staff, including sanitarium director Dr. Chumley. Only just before Elwood is to be given an injection that will make him into a "perfectly normal human being, and you know what bastards they are!" (in the words of a taxi driver who has become involved in the proceedings) does Veta realize that she would rather have Elwood the same as he has always been – carefree and kind – even if it means living with Harvey.
When Hasemann’s wife indulges their daughters, he eventually takes control of the family. The contemporary review frames the folk comedy as a portrait of parental overindulgence and the resulting household conflict.
Hattie Stowe is a 1947 historical play by the British writer Ian Hay. It portrays the life of the nineteenth century American abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was very different in tone from Hay's usual plays, generally light comedies with naval themes. It was first staged at the Embassy Theatre in the West End on 11 February 1947.
At a music centre built as a shrine to Julia Lukin, who died by suicide at nineteen, her father Joe summons a psychic and Julia’s former admirer Andy to investigate signs that she haunts the room. Their accounts uncover the painful circumstances of her death, while recordings, music and a final apparition blur grief and the supernatural.
The four eccentric members of the Bliss family each invite a guest to their country house for a weekend, without telling one another. They impose parlour games, flirtations, and theatrical outbursts on their increasingly bewildered visitors. The next morning the guests slip away while the family is absorbed in a row and does not notice until the door slams.
After Devdutta and Kapila behead themselves, the goddess Kali restores them with each man’s head on the other’s body, leaving both to claim Padmini. A frame story follows Hayavadana, born with a horse’s head, as he seeks completeness; the play’s narrator links both stories through questions of identity and wholeness.
Miller’s daughter Hazel loves Arthur, a young English lord her father rescued, but her father has promised her to the creditor who saved the mill. When a forged marriage ceremony leads Hazel to believe her wedding was illegal, she leaves Arthur and returns to the mill, where an attempted drowning and proof of the marriage’s validity bring her family’s conflict to a resolution.
Recently widowed Ruth, evicted from her home, meets Blake, a television producer seeking a breakthrough story. As he investigates her husband's murder and the disputed trust fund, the story's racial and political complexities challenge his simple narrative.
A cultured stranger joins a French circus as a clown whose act is to be slapped. Betrayed by his friend and former wife, he falls in love with horse rider Consuelo, but her father plans to marry her to a wealthy baron. The clown poisons Consuelo to prevent the marriage, then takes poison himself.
He Would Be a Soldier is a 1786 comedy play by the Irish writer Frederick Pilon. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 18 November 1786. The original cast included Francis Aickin as Colonel Talbot, John Quick as Sir Oliver Oldstock, William Thomas Lewis as Captain Crevelt, William Farren as Mandeville, Ralph Wewitzer as Count Pierpoint, James Fearon as Wilkins, John Edwin as Caleb, James Thompson as Caleb, Elizabeth Pope as Charlotte, Lydia Webb as Lady Oldstock and Mary Wells as Harriet. The Irish premiere took place at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin on 2 January 1787
Sculptors Anne and Tom Herford enter competing works in a contest. When Anne wins, Tom and others react with hostility, while Anne’s friend Ruth also clashes with her fiancé over his expectation that she give up work for domestic life. Anne ultimately sets aside her sculpture to care for her daughter.
He's Much to Blame is a 1798 comedy play by the British writer Thomas Holcroft. The original Covent Garden cast included William Thomas Lewis as Sir George Versatile, John Quick as Lord Vibrate, Alexander Pope as Mr Delaval, Charles Murray as Doctor Gosterman, James Thompson as Master of the Hotel, Jane Pope as Maria, Julia Betterton as Lady Jane and Isabella Mattocks as Lady Vibrate.
Headstrong is an American play by Patrick Link, commissioned by the EST/Sloan Project. It premiered at The Ensemble Studio Theatre in April 2012. The play explores the research behind concussions in professional sports and depicts a fictional former linebacker who must come to terms with the long-term consequences he may suffer from playing the game he loves. Headstrong was noted in an article on Grantland, in addition to other sites, to illustrate the growing public awareness of CTE. In 2013, the play was recorded by LA Theatre Works as part of its Relativity Series, featuring Ernie Hudson and Scott Wolf.
Hear Both Sides is an 1803 comedy play by the British writer Thomas Holcroft. The original Drury Lane cast included William Dowton as Fairfax, John Bannister as Transit, Charles Kemble as Headlong, Richard Suett as Sir Charles Aspell, Richard Wroughton as Stewart, Alexander Webb as Sir Luke Lostall, Thomas Hollingsworth as Robert, Ralph Wewitzer as Bailiff, Jane Pope as Caroline and Dorothea Jordan as Eliza.
A collection of monologues, songs and dance based on Nigerian women’s real-life struggles for equality, safety and opportunity, moving from everyday marginalization and gender-based violence to resistance, triumph and a call for action.
At an eccentric household during World War I, a dinner party exposes the irresponsibility and disillusionment of its cultured guests as an air raid approaches.
Hearts of Oak is an 1803 comedy play by the English writer John Till Allingham. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London on 19 November 1803. The original Drury Lane cast included William Dowton as Ardent, Alexander Pope as Dorland, John Bannister as Tenpercent, Vincent De Camp as Edward, Charles Holland as Philip, Thomas Collins as Joe, George Frederick Cooke as Jerard, John Henry Johnstone as Brian O'Bradleigh, Jane Powell as Eliza, Nannette Johnston as Laura, Sarah Harlowe as Fanny and Sarah Sparks as Mrs O'Bradleigh.
A shipwrecked orphan girl marries her guardian out of gratitude and duty, although she loves another man closer to her age. Her husband's self-denial and the resulting strain drive the melodrama.
In a street in Attica, a father who regrets sending his son abroad secretly shelters the returning young man. A slave’s deceptions entangle two neighboring households over the sons’ romances, until a ring reveals that one young woman is the other father’s lost daughter and the families arrange marriages.
After schoolgirl Angela Farnsworth is killed by a van, three children perform a ritual to bring her back.
After the fall of Troy, captive queen Hecuba learns that the Greeks will sacrifice her daughter Polyxena at Achilles' tomb. When the body of her youngest son Polydorus washes ashore, she discovers that Polymestor murdered him for his treasure. With Agamemnon's reluctant support, Hecuba lures Polymestor and his sons into a tent, kills the sons and blinds Polymestor. Agamemnon rules her revenge justified.
Hecuba is a 1726 tragedy by the British writer Richard West. It is named after Hecuba, a figure in Greek Mythology from the time of the Trojan War. The original Drury Lane cast included Mary Porter as Hecuba, Barton Booth as Polymnestor, John Mills as Agamemnon, Roger Bridgewater as Ulysses, John Roberts as Talythibius, William Mills as Aegon, John Thurmond as Maelaines, Jane Cibber as Polyxena and Anne Brett as Iphis.
Pamphilus is forced to marry Philumena after ending his affair with Bacchis, then leaves town. Philumena returns to her parents’ home while pregnant from a rape that occurred before the marriage; Pamphilus fears she was unfaithful and rejects her. A ring reveals that he himself was the assailant, and the couple reconcile when he accepts his son.
Hedda, the daughter of a general, has just returned to her villa in Kristiania (now Oslo) from her honeymoon. Her husband is George Tesman, a young, aspiring, and serious academic who continued his research during their honeymoon. It becomes clear in the course of the play that she never loved him, but married him probably because she thinks her years of youthful abandon are over. The reappearance of George's academic rival, Eilert Løvborg, throws their lives into disarray. Eilert, a writer, is a recovering alcoholic who has wasted his talent until now. Thanks to a relationship with Hedda's old schoolmate, Thea Elvsted (who is in the process of leaving her husband for him), Eilert is showing signs of rehabilitation (for example refusing alcohol) and has just published a bestseller in the same field as George's. When Hedda and Eilert talk privately together, it becomes apparent that they are former lovers. The critical success of his recently published work makes Eilert a threat to George, as Eilert is now a competitor for the university professorship George had been hoping for and anticipating. George and Hedda are financially overstretched, and George tells Hedda that he will not be able to finance the regular entertaining or luxurious housekeeping that she had been expecting. Upon meeting Eilert, however, the couple discovers that he has no intention of competing for the professorship, but rather has spent the last few years working on what he considers to be his masterpiece, the "sequel" to his recently published work. Apparently jealous of Thea's influence over Eilert, Hedda hopes to come between them. Despite his previous drinking problem, she encourages Eilert to accompany George and his associate, Judge Brack, to a party, which promises to be raucous. George returns home from the party at dawn the following day and reveals that he found the manuscript (the only copy) of Eilert's great new work, which the latter lost while drunk. George is then called away to his aunt's house, leaving the manuscript in Hedda's possession. When Eilert next sees Hedda and Thea, he tells them that he has lost the manuscript. Thea is horrified, and it is revealed that she had considerable influence in its development. Hedda says nothing to contradict Eilert or to reassure Thea. After Thea has left, Hedda encourages Eilert to commit suicide, giving him a pistol that had belonged to her father. She then burns the manuscript and tells George she has destroyed it to secure their future. George is momentarily horrified. Almost immediately the news comes that Eilert has killed himself after the party, and George and Thea are determined to try to reconstruct his unpublished new book from Eilert's notes, which Thea has kept. Hedda is shocked to discover from Judge Brack that Eilert's death, apparently in a brothel, was messy and probably accidental; this "ridiculous and vile" death contrasts with the "beautiful and free" one that Hedda had imagined for him (and asked him to ensure). Worse, Brack knows the origins of the pistol. He tells Hedda that if he reveals what he knows, a scandal will likely arise around her. Hedda realises that this places Brack in a position of continuous power over her, which he implies he will use to coerce her, possibly into a sexual relationship. Leaving the others, she goes into her smaller room and then shoots herself in the head with her other pistol. The others in the room assume that Hedda is simply firing shots, and they follow the sound to investigate. The play ends with George, Brack and Thea discovering her body.
In Ypsilanti, ten-year-old Nugget Gordon presents on Henrik Ibsen while her family films a documentary. Her pregnant mother Jane is kidnapped by robots and taken to a rainforest, where they force her to play Hedda Gabler; Jane's husband and brother-in-law try to rescue her. After Jane's suicide attempt, the family returns to Michigan and faces its aftermath as Nugget finishes her presentation.
Bowen transforms Julius Caesar into a modern political conspiracy thriller about a society slipping toward military dictatorship and authoritarian personality cults. The action unfolds in a near-future mixture of Italy and Britain.
Magda, an unconventional singer who returns home after a morally irregular life and operatic success, clashes with her father over paternal authority, duty and personal independence. Pastor Heffterdingk mediates their debate.
Georgie Burns, a 42-year-old woman, and Alex Priest, a 75-year-old butcher, meet in a London railway station. They begin a relationship and eventually travel to New Jersey to search for Georgie's missing son.
A comedy satirizing citizens who believe an alchemist can make them easy money; the poet Haji-Nuri represents the view that personal ability and work create well-being.
On the day of Jewish professor Josef Schuster’s funeral, his family and household discuss his life and death. After returning from exile to Vienna, he could no longer bear the noise he associated with the 1938 Nazi rally at Heldenplatz and killed himself. Through their conversations, the play confronts Austria’s continuing antisemitism and denial of its past.
In Euripides' version of the myth, the real Helen has been kept in Egypt while a phantom went to Troy. When Menelaus arrives, they recognize one another and devise a ritual burial as a pretext to escape by sea from King Theoclymenus, who intends to marry Helen.
A mysterious woman arrives in postwar Vancouver with an account to settle. Police, criminals, and displaced residents become entangled in a film-noir story performed through live actors and digitally reconstructed settings.
A tragicomic retelling of the Trojan War from Helen's perspective: Paris abducts her from Sparta for an affair, only to find his captive fastidious and demanding, while Menelaus's rescue attempt is obstructed by a Pan-Hellenic no-sail list.
Anita, a single woman encouraged by a friend to date online, meets a man who first treats her like a queen. After they marry, his behavior changes, and Anita becomes someone she never expected to be.
The setting is the living room of Tanglewood Lodge, a country hotel, in the fictional New Dauville, Connecticut, over the course of two days. The lodge is owned by Mrs. Buck, a widow. Living elsewhere in town is Mrs. Amos Todhunter, another widow, who lives with her son Jimmy and daughter Gladys. Also in town is Abigail Stillson, spinster sister of Mrs. Todhunter. The two sisters' attention is caught by a newspaper item detailing the munificent spending of two Arizona prospectors visiting New York. They recognize one of the prospectors as their long-lost brother Danial Stillson, who goes by the nickname "Jap". Jap Stillson and his partner D.O. had sold the Gango River Gold Mine for $1000 to a promoter. The promoter formed a corporation and sent the boys back East to flog shares in the corporation. Secretly, he gave them a generous expense account with instructions to flash money to draw buyers. The boys have followed instructions so well they are down to their last $500 bill. They decide to visit New Dauville so Jap can vent spite on the family that disowned him over a romance with a poor local girl. They take rooms with Mrs. Buck at Tanglewood Lodge, and to keep up pretenses, tip her with the $500. They then learn the speculator backing them has gone bust. Mrs. Buck informs them the $500 bill may be redeemed upon one of them (she isn't fussy) marrying her. Also living at Tanglewood is Nan Winchester, who is the daughter of Jap's old flame. After visiting Tanglewood to meet Jap, Abigail and Mrs. Todhunter solicit their attorney Hoarce Pitkens to draw up involuntary commitment papers for him, so they can gain control of his supposed wealth. Meanwhile Jimmy Todhunter and Nan Winchester are having their own secret romance, while Gladys Todhunter is an unwilling helper in the commitment plot. When Judge Herman signs the papers, Chief Pitkins and Dr. Bushell send their men to grab Jap Stillson, but D.O. draws a pistol from his coat to stop them. He renders the scheme moot by revealing the partners are "stony broke". The sisters are embarrassed and withdraw the petition for commitment, since otherwise they would have to pay for Jap's care. With their discomfiture and moral retreat, Jimmy and Nan are able to get married, as does Mrs. Buck and Jap Stillson.
Sid Hunt returns from war to his family in the Blue Ridge Mountains and resumes his relationship with Jude Lowry. Rufe Pryor, a religious fanatic who also wants Jude, stokes the longstanding feud between the Hunt and Lowry families to remove Sid; when his scheme is exposed, the families reconcile.
Through dialogue between Sultan Mahmud and Ahasuerus and choruses of enslaved Greek women, the drama views the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman side. Mahmud’s dream and the Greeks’ hopes of freedom frame an antiwar meditation on defeat and liberation.
A comedy-drama about a husband and wife’s need for trust and fidelity in their relationship.
In a small Texas jail, down-on-his-luck gambler Photo-Finish and unhappy cook Emily fall in love and plan to leave for San Francisco. Their plans end when the men pursuing Photo-Finish find and kill him.
In a squalid family home, Johnny and his estranged sister Hester reunite for one tense night. As they revisit childhood memories and uncover buried secrets, their conflict exposes the damage of their shared past.
In a low-class bordello, Bertha imagines events and allusions to her final moments as Lena listens and landlady Goldie threatens to evict her.
Set around the 1997 UK general election, the play brings together former left-wing activists Will and Claire, their daughter Frankie, and old friend Hugh as their relationships and compromised ideals resurface. Will's uneasy relationship with Kate and her decision to have a child lead to the play's final reckoning with responsibility and family.
A one-man stage show about the life of Ernest Hemingway.
Composer Jerome devises a scheme to persuade his estranged wife to let their daughter stay with him, first hiring an actress to pose as his fiancée and then reprogramming a female android to take her place. The plan collapses when his family chooses the android, and Jerome sacrifices reconciliation for the musical work he has long sought to create.
Middleton’s historical play recounts Saxon king Hengist’s wars against the Britons, using dumb-show to stage murders and a personified Fortune. Its comic subplot follows the Mayor of Quinborough, including thieves who impersonate actors to cheat him.
A seven-scene chronicle of Henri Christophe, a former enslaved man who became a general under Toussaint Louverture and later ruled northern Haiti, first as president and then as king, in conflict with the southern government of Alexandre Pétion.
Henriette the Forsaken is an 1832 play by the British writer John Baldwin Buckstone. It premiered at the Adelphi Theatre in London's West End. Melodrama was in fashion at the time, and the play was a popular hit. The original cast included Frederick Henry Yates as Ferdinand De Monval, John Reeve as Chevalier Pirouette, John Baldwin Buckstone as Pierre Gigot, Elizabeth Yates as Henriette and Fanny Fitzwilliam as Rose.
Henry The Second, King Of England; With The Death Of Rosamond is a 1692 historical play often attributed to William Mountfort but possibly written by John Bancroft. It was first staged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane by the United Company. The prologue and epilogue were written by John Dryden. Some incidental music was composed by Henry Purcell. The play portrays the reign of Henry II of England, and his relationship with his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine and mistress Rosamund Clifford. The original Drury Lane cast included Thomas Betterton as King Henry the Second, Anthony Leigh as Vaughan, Samuel Sandford as Abbot, Edward Kynaston as Verulam, John Hodgson as Sussex, Thomas Doggett as Bertrard, Elizabeth Barry as Queen Eleanor, Anne Bracegirdle as Rosamond and Mary Kent as Rosamond's Woman.
A historical drama based on the life of Henry III of France and his court.
After an Italian aristocrat falls from his horse during a carnival pageant, he believes himself to be Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. Years later, visitors try to confront his identity and madness, leading to a violent final act.
Henry IV of France is a 1719 tragedy by the British writer Charles Beckingham. It portrays the reign of Henry IV of France, who was assassinated in 1610. The play was written and produced a time when the Catholic Jacobite pretender James III was attempting to launch an invasion of Britain with the assistance of Spain, and reflects Whig concerns about Catholic power and the persecution of French Huguenots. Although a Catholic by the time of his death, Henry IV is portrayed as a defender of liberty and a victim of plotting by the Catholic factions at his court. The original cast included James Quin as Henry, Lacy Ryan as Prince of Conde, John Leigh as Duke of Vendome, John Ogden as Duke of Boullion, Thomas Smith as Villeyor, Richard Diggs as Rosny, John Harper as Montmorency, Christopher Bullock as Nuncio, Anthony Boheme as French Bishop, John Egleton as François Ravaillac and Jane Rogers as Charlotta. The epilogue was written by George Sewell.
Prince Hal divides his time between the royal court and the tavern company of Falstaff while rebellion gathers against King Henry IV. At the Battle of Shrewsbury, Hal defeats Hotspur and shows himself as a capable heir, though the wider rebellion continues.
Prince Hal moves toward kingship and ultimately rejects Falstaff, whose comic story of recruiting soldiers and recalling youthful exploits runs largely apart from Hal's. After defeating the rebellion and succeeding his dying father, Hal refuses Falstaff's expectation of royal favor and orders London’s lowlifes purged.
King Henry V invades France, uncovers a plot to assassinate him, and leads an outnumbered English army to victory at Agincourt. After the battle, he woos Princess Katharine as England and France negotiate peace.
After Henry V’s death, English leaders struggle to hold their French territories as Joan of Arc rallies the French and helps them reclaim ground. Back in England, York and Somerset’s feud deepens into factional division; Talbot and his son die when reinforcements fail to arrive, Joan is captured and executed, and Suffolk arranges Henry VI’s marriage to Margaret of Anjou.
As Henry VI proves unable to control his court, Queen Margaret and Suffolk help bring down the Lord Protector Gloucester. York advances his claim to the throne, while Jack Cade's rebellion exposes the kingdom's disorder; the play ends with the first Battle of St Albans and the opening of the Wars of the Roses.
During the Wars of the Roses, Henry VI’s agreement to yield the crown to the York line collapses into renewed civil war. York’s sons and their allies fight Margaret and the Lancastrians; after shifting loyalties and bloody battles, Edward takes the throne, while Richard plots his own rise and murders Henry.
The play follows Henry VIII's court as Wolsey engineers Buckingham's arrest and Katherine's trial, Anne Bullen rises to queenship, Wolsey falls from favor, and Cranmer survives a plot against him. The work concludes with Elizabeth's birth and baptism.
A novelist talks confidently about sexual freedom and modern marriage. When an impressionable young woman takes his ideas seriously, he retreats in alarm, exposing the gap between fashionable arguments and the security of conventional domestic life.
A young vaudeville actress prepares for her first photo shoot.
Her Master's Voice was a 1933 Broadway two act comedy written by Clare Kummer, produced by Max Gordon and staged by C. Worthington Miner with scenic design created by Raymond Sovey. Roland Young, who played Ned Farrar, was Clare Kummer's son-in-law at the time. The play ran for 224 performances from October 23, 1933 to May 1934 at the Plymouth Theatre. The play was included in Burns Mantle's The Best Plays of 1933-1934.
Set during the British suffrage campaign from a protest at the Derby to the outbreak of the First World War, the play centers on a love affair between upper-class suffragette Lady Celia Cain and working-class activist Eve Douglas. Repeated imprisonment shapes their relationship and the play’s view of the movement.
Her Own Way is a play by Clyde Fitch. Written as a starring vehicle for actress Maxine Elliott, it premiered at the Star Theatre in Buffalo, New York on September 24, 1903. The production moved to Broadway where it made its New York City premiere at the Garrick Theatre on September 28, 1903. The United Kingdom premiere took place at the Lyric Theatre, London on April 25, 1905. It was adapted into a silent film of the same name in 1915. Fitch was a modern and exacting director. Maxine Elliott recalls, "A great deal of attention was given to rehearsing this play, more than I ever knew to be given before." Four weeks of rehearsals from 10 in the morning until 5 in the evening with an hour for lunch were considered strenuous. Elliott continues, "To begin with, to each player was explained exactly what the character was that he was to enact. Then each part was gone over line by line, and the exact meaning of the words pointed out, or rather the meaning that it was intended to have. In this way the players and the author get in perfect sympathy." The hard work put into Her Own Way paid off. An ornate set typical of Fitch plays was complete with leatherbound books, real doors, authentic tapestries, and real silverware. The acting as well as the set received rave reviews.
As Diana Spencer leaves before her wedding to Prince Charles, royal officials recruit an Australian woman who resembles her and train her to appear publicly as the princess while the household tries to keep the deception from the press.
Olga, a painter and professional woman raped as a teenager, is treated as unsuitable for marriage in a society that expects men to choose inexperienced, obedient wives. Through Olga and the flirtatious Graziana, the play criticizes those gendered expectations and frames marriage as requiring respect and mutual understanding.
While Heracles is in the Underworld, the usurper Lycus threatens his family in Thebes. Heracles returns and kills Lycus, but Hera sends Madness, causing him to kill his wife and children. Theseus helps him choose exile and a future in Athens over suicide.
After Hercules returns from the underworld, he learns that the usurper Lycus has killed Creon and seeks to marry Megara. Juno drives Hercules into madness, and he kills his wife and children before recovering his senses and departing for Athens to seek atonement.
After Hercules destroys Oechalia and takes Iole captive, his jealous wife Deianira sends him a garment treated with the centaur Nessus’s blood, believing it will restore his love. The poison instead brings about his death; Deianira kills herself, and Hercules is raised to the gods.
A young couple move into a new flat and repeatedly argue about how they make decisions.
A Nazi-era photo album reaches Holocaust Museum archivist Rebecca Erbelding. As historians investigate its images, a German businessman recognizes his grandfather and begins confronting his family’s past and the lives of other Nazi descendants.
A short meditation on death and aging, the play includes a funeral scene and later reflects on the indignities of sickness and old age before a dialogue-free finale.
A couple in their twilight years relives a relationship marked by youthful possibility, secrets, disappointments, and enduring connection.
Structured as a recreation of Max Miller’s performance, the one-man play shifts between a shabby 1950s rehearsal room and the London Palladium. John Bardon performs Miller’s comic routines and songs, then breaks the fourth wall to reveal the performer’s private life behind his stage persona.
In Derek Freeman's dream, people from his life, including Margaret Mead, return to discuss his objections to her account of Samoan adolescence.
A hermit welcomes Elizabeth I at Theobalds, while related speeches by the gardener and molecatcher turn the estate’s garden, maze, and discovered jewel into an elaborate tribute to the Virgin Queen.
Three men—bandit Hernani, King Don Carlos, and Hernani's elderly rival Don Ruy Gomez—love Doña Sol. Hernani and Gomez make a pact that Hernani will surrender his life when Gomez sounds a horn. After Don Carlos becomes emperor, he pardons the conspirators and allows Hernani to marry Sol, but Gomez calls in the pact at their wedding. Hernani and Sol drink poison and die, and Gomez kills himself.
Herod and Mariamne is a 1671 tragedy by the English writer Samuel Pordage. It was first performed by the Duke's Company at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London shortly before they moved to the Dorset Gardens Theatre. It was the company's attempt to respond to the great success of John Dryden's heroic drama The Conquest of Granada by the rival King's Company. It is inspired by the accounts of Josephus portraying the reign of Herod II.
In this interactive biblical pageant, Herod fears the prophecy that Jesus will become king and orders the killing of Bethlehem’s infants; the mothers resist and lament their children.
Heroes is a 2005 translation into English and adaptation by Tom Stoppard of the 2003 French play Le Vent Des Peupliers by Gérald Sibleyras. The play is a comedy set in 1959 in a French retirement home for First World War veterans. (The literal translation of Le vent des peupliers is "The Wind in the Poplars". During the adaptation into English, there was concern this might cause confusion due to being too close to the popular children's title The Wind in the Willows, so Heroes was agreed as the English title. At the time, Stoppard said, "To tell you the truth, if Charles Wood hadn't written a play called Veterans [in 1972], we would have called it that.")
The play is set in 2017, shortly after the Unite the Right rally.
The show follows the life of the founder of political Zionism, with its characters and plot based on historical fact. The show was directed by J. Ranelli, with scenery by Douglas W. Schmidt, costumes by Pearl Somner, lighting by John Gleason, production stage manager Frank Marino, stage manager Judith Binus, and press by Louis Sica, Suzanne Salter, and John Springer Associates, Inc. The cast included Paul Hecht (Theodor Herzl), Louis Zorich (Moritz Benedikt), Stephan Mark Weyte (Hermann Bahr, Ibrahim), William Kiehl (Captain Henruach, Kaiser Wilheim), John Michalski (Heinrich Kana, Sultan, Arthur Schnitzler), Leo Bloom (Russian General), Roy K. Stevens (Rabbi Gudeman), Jack Axelrod (Edouard Bacher), Eunice Anderson (Jeanette Herzl), Roger DeKoven (Jakob Herzl), Judith Light (Julie Herzl), Rebecca Schull (Nursemaid), Ralph Byers (Nachum Sokolov), Mitchell Jason (David Wolffsohn), Richard Seff (Baron De Hirsch, Pope Pius X), Ellen Tovatt (Fraulein Keller), Lester Rawlins (Count Paul Nevlinski), David Tress (Menachem Issishkin), and Saylor Creswell (Martin Buber).
A sequence of stage tableaux explores women’s history, particularly the history of their oppression.
A theatrical account of Pope John Paul I's mysterious death, described by its author as a cross between Shakespeare and The Prisoner.
During the ninth-century Viking invasion of Ireland, King O’Brien is besieged at the Hill of Tara by Viking king Tergesius and waits for aid from the Ulster leader O’Neill. Phillips presents the Irish as defending their country against Viking tyranny.
Sister Jamison Connelly is an acerbic and profanity-inclined nun and drug counselor with a checkered past of her own. She herself is a former drug user and alcoholic whose promiscuity caused her sister's tragic death. Her employer, Father Michael Delpapp, introduces her to Cody Randall, a 19-year-old gay drug user and hustler, hoping that Randall can be reformed. Sister Jamison is left to stop Cody from self-destructing with his crystal meth addiction and to confront her own past. Various plot twists reveal that Father Michael is Cody's uncle and that he has been enabling him financially for years. This support culminated in a cover-up of Cody's murdering his 14-year-old lover. At first resistant, Cody eventually begins to take to Sister Jamison's unconventional approach to religion, but he relapses into drug abuse and a life of crime. Sister Jamison, not knowing what to do, prays with Cody in a back alley and leaves him to die.
Four men with criminal pasts and drug dependencies devise a scheme to rob automated banking machines. Their hopes for an easy fortune collide with competing loyalties, volatile behaviour, and the practical demands of the heist.
High Life Below Stairs is a 1759 comedy play by the British writer James Townley. An afterpiece, it premiered at Drury Lane on a double bill with a revival of Congreve's The Mourning Bride. A popular hit, it was frequently revived. The original Drury Lane cast John Palmer as Duke's servant, Thomas King as Sir Harry's servant, William O'Brien as Lovel, Richard Yates as Philip, John Hayman Packer as Freeman, Thomas Mozeen as Tom, John Moody as Kingston Mary Bradshaw as Cook, Frances Abington as Lady Bab's maid and Kitty Clive as Kitty.
High Tor is a 1936 play by Maxwell Anderson. It received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play of the 1936–37 season. Twenty years after the original production, Anderson adapted it into a television musical with Arthur Schwartz.
An outdoor religious pageant dramatizes episodes from the Book of Mormon, including the resurrected Christ’s appearance in the Americas, and Joseph Smith’s encounter with the golden plates and the angel Moroni. Its ten short scenes trace a restoration narrative through large-scale theatrical staging.
The play takes place in an alternate universe and centers on a woman named Hillary Clinton who is running for President of the United States in 2008. A few days before the New Hampshire primary, Clinton is in her hotel room trying to turn her struggling campaign around. Her campaign manager Mark advises her to concede the primary race and accept her opponent's offer to be his running mate. Against Mark's advice, Clinton turns to her husband Bill for assistance, but the two disagree on how much vulnerability Clinton must show to win over voters.
In this surreal, metatheatrical three-act play, a would-be playwright called Him and his lover Me alternate between intimate room scenes and scenes from the play he is writing, including absurd tableaux; the ending breaks the fourth wall.
In a limbo populated by Elvis look-alikes, the deceased Elvis Presley grows exasperated with his stillborn twin brother and revisits his death. The surreal play imagines Presley faking his death and fleeing to Morocco, where he lives as a waitress after a sex-change operation.
In a Lancashire mill town during wakes week, mill worker Fanny Hawthorn and mill owner’s son Alan Jeffcote have an affair. Their families press them to marry, but Fanny refuses, treating it as a brief romance and choosing to support herself as a weaver despite being disowned.
Aphrodite punishes Hippolytus for honoring Artemis and rejecting her by causing his stepmother Phaedra to desire him. When Phaedra's nurse reveals her feelings, Hippolytus reacts with outrage; Phaedra kills herself and leaves a false accusation. Theseus curses Hippolytus, who is fatally injured in a chariot crash. Artemis reveals the truth, and father and son reconcile before Hippolytus dies.
His Bridal Night is a three-act play originally written by Lawrence Rising and significantly revised by Margaret Mayo. Producer A. H. Woods staged it on Broadway in 1916. The play is a farce about a newlywed who is unsure which of two identical twins he has married. The roles of the twins were originally played by the Dolly Sisters, who were popular vaudeville performers, and the play was crafted to make use of their skill as dancers.
Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry travel through parallel universes amid conflicts involving witches, armoured polar bears and other beings. The two-part stage adaptation follows their coming-of-age adventures across the epic events of Pullman’s trilogy.
His Excellency is a 1950 play by the British writers Campbell Christie and Dorothy Christie. A former docker takes over as the British governor of an island colony in the Mediterranean. It premiered at the Grand Theatre, Leeds before transferring to the West End where it ran for 453 performances between 23 May 1950 and 23 June 1951 initially at the Princes Theatre before moving to the Piccadilly Theatre. The play starred Eric Portman later replaced by Donald Wolfit in the title role, Clive Morton, John Wood, Ian Fleming, Arnold Bell, Sebastian Shaw, Michael Shepley and Annabel Maule.
Bunker Bean is a stenographer who lacks self-confidence and initiative. He is transformed after a meeting with the Countess, a psychic, who convinces him that he is the reincarnation of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ram-Tah, a king of allegedly great historic importance. This false belief instills in Bunker Bean a renewed sense of confidence and self importance which allow him to go boldly into the world with kingly resolve. A farcical comedy ensues when Bean fires himself from his job. He ends up besting his former boss in business, and becomes romantically involved with his former boss's daughter, The Flapper, after she discovers a mummy in Bunker Bean's room and becomes fascinated with a man she previously found dull. Bean obtained the mummy from Egypt after sending off for the remains of his former self, Ram-Tah. A comedy of absurdity ensues with a revolving group of eccentric characters. All ends well in the end.
On her last day as a park ranger, Maggie unloads an arsenal of invented historical facts on her listeners.
Through symbolic scenes, the moral allegory depicts human nature and shows how pride, greed, and sloth lead society into war and destruction. It also satirizes professional actors and other social targets.
Through intersecting monologues, the play examines the working relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann, including their collaborations on films and the reasons they parted company. Herrmann’s music is interspersed at dramatic points.
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