8284 shows
Clear filtersThe Greek fleet is stranded at Aulis, where Agamemnon is told he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to obtain favourable winds. Her family and Achilles resist, but she ultimately offers herself for Greece. The authenticity of the surviving ending, in which a deer replaces her, is disputed.
Iphigenia, a Greek priestess forced to sacrifice foreigners in Taurica, learns that her brother Orestes has arrived with Pylades to steal Artemis’s statue. The siblings recognize one another and devise an escape by deceiving King Thoas; Athena intervenes to secure their departure.
Iphigenia, serving as Diana's priestess in Tauris, longs to return to Greece. When her brother Orestes and his companion Pylades are captured, she must choose between escaping with them through deception or appealing to King Thoas's humanity; she finally tells him the truth and wins their release.
At Aulis, Agamemnon faces pressure to sacrifice his daughter Iphigénie so the Greek fleet can sail against Troy. As Iphigénie accepts her fate and Achille tries to save her, Ériphile is revealed as the intended sacrificial victim and dies in her place.
During the German occupation of Poland, nurse Irena Gut hides twelve Jews from the Holocaust in a German officer’s house. When he discovers them, she begs him to spare their lives; he agrees and does not betray them. As the Red Army approaches, Irena and the people she protected flee into the forest.
After the Ottoman Sultan Mahomet captures the Greek Christian Irene, he offers to spare her and grant her power if she converts. Her choice draws her into a court power struggle; she is killed amid false suspicions, and Mahomet grieves when he learns she was not conspiring against him.
Iris Bellamy, a wealthy young widow bound by her late husband’s will to lose her fortune if she remarries, loves the penniless Laurence Trenwith but accepts millionaire Frederick Maldonado. After her trustee loses her money, Iris and Trenwith separate; years later Maldonado’s control and her divided choices lead to a tragic confrontation.
Sir Patrick Worthy represents good nature, arranges suitable marriages for his family without regard to money, and tricks his unprincipled son Charles into marrying a serving girl he has seduced.
In ancient Rome under Elagabalus, Greek rebel Irydion seeks to overthrow Roman despotism, but his pursuit of revenge and use of deception and ruthlessness undermine his cause. The tragedy weighs resistance against its motives and methods.
Irène loves Alexis, who returns victorious to Constantinople and defies Emperor Nicéphore's order to leave. After Nicéphore is defeated and killed, Alexis takes the throne, but Irène's father forces her toward a convent; she takes her own life rather than reconcile love and duty.
Twenty-one-year-old African-American twin sisters Racine and Anaia were burned and scarred as babies. Racine has burn scars on her arms, back, and neck, and Anaia has scars on her arms, face, and neck. After receiving a letter in their apartment in Northeast, they journey to the Dirty South to the deathbed of their mother, who is known as "SHE" or "God" and has scars all over her body. SHE informs them that their father, referred to as “Man”, set the fire that burned the three of them. SHE instructs the sisters to go west to The Valley to find and kill him for revenge. The sisters travel to the Valley to face Man and his new family.
A group of poor artists in Barbizon, France, fake a friend’s death to raise the value of his paintings, setting off a farce of cross-dressing, a sham funeral and lovers’ deceptions that satirizes the art market.
Impoverished painter Jean-François Millet and his artist friends stage his death to raise the value of his paintings. Millet disguises himself as the Widow Daisy Tillou, generating romantic and financial complications until his friends' scheme is exposed and he returns to claim his life and love.
Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? is a 1944 comedy play by the British writer Vivian Tidmarsh. The title is a reference to the wartime slogan Is Your Journey Really Necessary?. It ran for 981 performances in its original West End run at the Duke of York's Theatre, lasting from 1 August 1944 to 14 December 1946. The cast included Ralph Lynn, who also directed, and Enid Stamp Taylor.
Brooklyn boxer Chick Cowan and his talkative manager Hap Hurley enter Fifth Avenue society after wealthy Clint invites them to live with him and train him to fight. Their relationships and a prize bout become entangled with an embezzlement scandal and mistaken suspicions about a fixed fight.
An actor sentenced to death for performing a banned author's works is granted a final performance. He stages a satirical history of Christopher Columbus, depicting him as a shrewd but compromised figure navigating royal power and political advantage.
In a fictional 1930s United States, Senator Buzz Windrip wins the presidency and imposes authoritarian rule. Newspaper editor Doremus Jessup opposes the regime and joins a resistance movement as the country descends into conflict.
Alan Ayckbourn’s murder mystery is structured so that subtle changes can produce three different endings, each naming a different character as the murderer.
An idle son of a wealthy manufacturer sets up a sham business to compete with his father's company. The farce turns on the son's elaborate attempt to sell a product he has not yet manufactured.
It Pays to Sin is an American play in four scenes with an English adaptation by Louis Macloon and George Redman from the Hungarian by Johann Vaszary. The Broadway production was directed by Monty Collins at the Morosco Theatre, opening on November 3, 1933, and closing on November 5, 1933. It survived only 3 performances, receiving scathing reviews from the critics. Leon Ames, who played David Janossy (credited as "Leon Waycoff") and Garnett Lucille Ryman, who played Greta Kasda (credited as Jane Starr), each made their Broadway debut. Victor Sutherland played Zoltan Keleti.
During a storm in Massachusetts, guests become stranded at an isolated inn with the eccentric Saltmarsh family and follow a mystery involving a peculiar nurse, an obsession with “Effie,” and the family’s late ancestor known as the General.
A Yiddish comedy about the difficulties of Jewish-Gentile relationships in the Russian Empire.
A comedy of Moscow merchant life centered on Akhov, a domestic tyrant whose authority over the people around him is collapsing. Ostrovsky reproduces the merchants’ speech and way of life as he portrays the waning power of the samodur.
Elvis fanatic Tom and his fiancée Alice arrive in Spain for their wedding. Tom joins fellow fan Keith in trying to kidnap a man believed to be the real Elvis and sell the story, but the captive appears to die, setting off frantic attempts to hide the body and confusion among several apparent Elvises.
At a producer's opening-night party for a new Broadway play, the playwright, director, actors and friends nervously await the reviews. Their gossip, rivalries and disappointments unfold as the reviews arrive, and they start planning another show.
Louis returns home to tell his family that he is terminally ill, then leaves after his relatives deliver long, repetitive monologues marked by failed communication and self-correction.
Ostrovsky's comedy satirizes the self-satisfied Moscow merchant class through the household of merchant Samson Bolshov, his wife and daughter, his clerk Podkhalyuzin, a matchmaker, and a lawyer. The work's censorial troubles centered on its bleak view of merchant society and lack of positive examples.
On Christmas Eve 1946, a small group of actors gathers at Manhattan radio station WBFR to perform It’s a Wonderful Life live. The ensemble plays multiple roles, using sound effects and props to create the broadcast.
Racing driver Marshall takes the blame after his foster brother James borrows his car and hits a cyclist. When their mother is murdered, Marshall plants clues that make James appear guilty, setting up a crime puzzle built around their divided identities and alibis.
A comic romance set in Italian American New York, blending tall tale with a slice of local life and exploring gender conflict, loneliness and the joys and strains of a close-knit community.
Ribeiro’s Konkani stage version of Italian Boy unfolds through a sequence of changing scenes. Songs and dances on separate subjects entertain the audience in front of the curtain while the next setting is prepared behind it, creating the distinctive dramatic form later known as tiatr.
After twenty years away, Odysseus returns to his court in Ithaca and massacres the suitors who have pursued Penelope, seeking to restore order.
A malfunctioning time machine swaps a Moscow apartment superintendent with Ivan the Terrible, setting up a farce that satirizes parallels between Soviet and tsarist authority.
Nikolai Ivanov, deeply indebted and disillusioned, neglects his tubercular wife Anna while spending time with the Lebedevs. He becomes involved with their daughter Sasha; after Anna's death and as Ivanov prepares to marry Sasha, a public accusation about his motives prompts him to shoot himself.
A sardine seller falls for an upper-class courtesan and disguises himself as a samurai to reach her. After comic deceptions involving his father, a horse seller and a three-legged horse, the courtesan reveals she is a runaway princess who once fell for a sardine seller; the two are reunited and leave to marry.
At Ariwara Temple, a traveling monk meets a woman by a grave. She recounts the childhood love of a poet and his wife, then reveals herself as the wife’s ghost and dances beside the well where they once played.
The play opens in "a corner inside an enormous circus tent". Two vendors, Mr. Zuss (evoking the chief Greek god Zeus) and Nickles (i.e., "Old Nick," a folk name for the Devil) begin the play-within-a-play by assuming the roles of God and Satan, respectively. They overhear J.B., a wealthy New York banker, describe his prosperity as a just reward for his faithfulness to God. Scorning him, Nickles wagers that J.B. will curse God if his life is ruined. Nickles and Zuss watch as J.B.'s children are killed, his property is ruined, and the former millionaire is left to the streets. J.B. is then visited by three Comforters: Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar (representing history, science, and religion), who each offer a different explanation for his plight. J.B. declines to believe any of them, asking God himself to explain. Instead, he encounters Zuss and Nickles. Nickles urges him to commit suicide to spite God; Zuss offers him his old life back if he will promise to obey God. J.B. rejects them both, and finds comfort in the person of his wife Sarah. The play ends with the two building a new life together.
A semi-biographical play about James Thurber's childhood and eccentric family as they live through World War I.
A wartime reworking of Sheridan’s comedy The Rivals, set in July 1940.
Pasquil and Katherine face trials on their way to happiness, alongside the romance of Camelia and Planet. The play combines romantic and comic plots with satire of human folly, the absurdities of being in love, and the self-satisfied belief that some people are above foolishness.
Four flawed lower-middle-class New Yorkers navigate romantic and marital troubles while taking cooking classes, learning to swim and dealing with drug use.
The lazy servant Jenkin Careaway lies and steals to escape trouble. Jack Juggler, a trickster, dresses in Jenkin's clothes and impersonates him; when Jenkin tries to expose the prank, his master and mistress disbelieve him and punish him.
After Emma leaves her husband Jack, who has abandoned law for creative work as an island-resort bellhop, their friends' failing marriage and the arrival of new partners bring the group into confrontation.
In this absurdist play, Jack’s family arranges his marriage to Roberta; when she does not satisfy them, they present Roberta II. Their exchanges spiral through clichés and surreal conceits, including Roberta’s multiple noses.
After the Fitzgerald sisters win the lottery three times, their good fortune attracts family, opportunists and an investigator who suspects a crime.
Poor Leonard hopes to marry Lucilia, but faces competition from two wealthier, eloquent rivals: soldier Jacob von Thyboe and Styge Stygotius.
Jacques and his aristocratic Master travel through an unexplained void, exchanging and interrupting stories of romantic betrayal. An innkeeper adds a third tale, and the three stories interweave as variations on one another, while the characters' dialogue questions authorship and artistic creation.
A Caucasian woman passes herself off as a minority to sell a book to a major publishing company.
After returning from the city to his rural Bavarian village, mechanic Abram faces rumors about his homosexuality and rejection by his mother, who fears losing her standing. Hoping to fit in, he courts Tonka, whom villagers stigmatize, but his closeness to troubled Rovo turns Abram into the target of a merciless manhunt.
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding in Harlem is a salon full of funny, whip-smart, talented women ready to make you look and feel nice-nice. Every day, a lively and eclectic group of West African immigrant hair braiders are creating masterpieces on the heads of neighborhood women. On this particularly muggy summer day, Jaja’s rule-following daughter Marie is running the shop while her mother prepares for her courthouse, green-card wedding—to a man no one seems to particularly like. Just like her mother, Dreamer Marie is trying to secure her future; she’s just graduated high school and all she wants to do is go to college. While Marie deals with the customers’ and stylists’ laugh-out-loud drama, news pierces the hearts of the women of the salon, galvanizing their connections and strengthening the community they have longed to make in the United States. The uncertainty of their circumstances simmers below the surface of their lives and when it boils over, it forces this tight-knit community to confront what it means to be an outsider on the edge of the place they call home.
Hajiya Bilikisu, enslaved as a child and denied the royal title promised to her, learns that her son was secretly exchanged with the queen’s stillborn child. When her son becomes emir, she gives her life to perform the blessing required for his survival.
Writer Jake struggles to save his marriage to Maggie while interacting with women from his life, including some who exist only in his imagination.
A biographical play about 19th-century writer and philosopher Manilal Dwivedi, presenting his work as a scholar and advocate of women’s education, his illness, and the entanglement of lust, literature, and spirituality in his life.
James Baldwin: A Soul on Fire is an American stage play about author and activist James Baldwin. It was written by Howard Simon and first performed in 1999. Originally directed by Chuck Patterson, the first run starred Charles Reese as James Baldwin and Forrest McClendon as his counterpart, an ethereal force that takes multiple identities. The play uses themes from throughout Baldwin's life and writing, while also portraying 1963 as a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The setting is Baldwin's apartment on the morning of May 24, 1963, immediately before the Baldwin–Kennedy meeting with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
A four-act comedy about the conflict between James VI of Scotland and Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, in the early 1590s, following key events of their historical conflict.
Servants William Tipson and Jane, secretly married and saving to open a store, agree to help their employer Charley Shackleton deceive his trustee by having Jane pose as Shackleton's wife. The scheme grows more complicated when Jane's cousin arrives with a baby, prompting a second mistaken claim about the child's parentage.
Jane is a play by the American writer S. N. Behrman, based on a 1923 story by Somerset Maugham. It was first staged in Britain December 1946 at the Grand Theatre in Blackpool. Its West End run at the Aldwych Theatre lasted for 274 performances from 29 January to 27 September 1947. The original cast included Yvonne Arnaud in the title role, as well as Irene Browne, Ursula Howells, Ronald Squire, Charles Victor. Arnaud was praised for her comic acting. In 1952 it was staged at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway, lasting for more than a hundred performances.
Jane Clegg, a lower-middle-class housewife, tends to her family as her feckless husband accumulates gambling debts and pursues illicit affairs.
The Tragedy of Jane Shore is a 1714 historical tragedy, written in blank verse after Shakespeare's verse dramas, by the British writer Nicholas Rowe. It was his penultimate play, and was inspired by the life of Jane Shore the mistress of King Edward IV. It premiered at the Drury Lane Theatre in London on 2 February 1714. The original cast included Anne Oldfield as Jane Shore, Robert Wilks as Dumont, Colley Cibber as the Duke of Gloucester, Barton Booth as Lord Hastings, Benjamin Husband as Catesby, John Bowman as Sir Richard Radcliff, John Mills as Bellmour and Mary Porter as Alicia. The play was a major success, and was performed eighteen times by mid-March. Rowe dedicated the published work to Charles Douglas, 3rd Duke of Queensberry, the son of the Second Duke who had employed Rowe as under-secretary when he was serving as Scottish Secretary between 1709 and 1711. Rowe wrote one further play Lady Jane Grey, another historical work set in England. In 1715 he was appointed as Poet Laureate by the new monarch George I, having been a strong supporter of the Hanoverian Succession that brought him to the throne.
A documentary historical play portraying five years in the lives of Jane and John Franklin in Hobart during Sir John's tenure as lieutenant-governor.
In an aging village in northwestern Bulgaria, an innovation brings conflict between the past and modernity, exposing tensions between communication and isolation through folklore and biblical allusions.
Jessica and Denny, though each married to someone else, meet in New York for a yearly romantic affair and write a best-selling novel together under the pen name Janus. When Jessica’s shipping-tycoon husband arrives unexpectedly, the arrangement faces disruption, compounded by a taxman investigating Denny’s false filings.
At a spa, painter Saint-Franquet pursues his friend’s wife, Micheline, who rejects him. Their shifting affairs and attempted deceptions converge in the painter’s studio and bedroom, where Bichon persuades Micheline’s husband that she only faked adultery in revenge, reconciling the couple and freeing Saint-Franquet to marry Miss Doty.
A Black veteran returns to his rural Southern home with an artificial leg and the skill to operate an adding machine, but the job he pursues is considered a white man's work. Facing relentless opposition, he ends up in Harlem, beaten but committed to returning South in a larger cause.
God sends Death to summon the wealthy bon viveur Jedermann. His friends, wealth and mistress abandon him as he faces death, in Hofmannsthal’s morality play drawing on several medieval mystery plays.
The plot revolves around Bertie Wooster deciding to stage a one-man show revolving around his recent experiences at a country house called Totleigh Towers (the events of The Code of the Woosters), only to discover, as he is starting the show, that he needs help to tell the story. He enlists his valet Jeeves to assist on very short notice, though Jeeves anticipated that Bertie would need help and has prepared some scenery. Jeeves has also asked Seppings, the butler of Bertie's aunt, to help stage the production. Problems arise both in the story Bertie is narrating and the play as it is being performed, and Jeeves intervenes to make sure all ends well. In addition to narrating, Bertie plays himself in the story. Jeeves and Seppings each play multiple characters. In addition to playing himself, Jeeves plays Sir Watkyn Bassett, an imposing silver-collector who, as a magistrate, once fined Bertie five pounds for stealing a policeman's helmet as a prank; Madeline Bassett, Sir Watkyn's excessively sentimental daughter; Gussie Fink-Nottle, a shy young man who studies newts and is engaged to Madeline; and Stiffy Byng, the scheming ward and niece of Sir Watkyn Bassett. Seppings plays himself as well as Bertie's Aunt Dahlia, the genial, loud-voiced woman who employs Seppings; Roderick Spode, a crony of Bassett and aspiring dictator; Constable Oates, the local policeman who feuds with Stiffy Byng over her dog; Butterfield, the polite butler employed by Bassett; and an unnamed antique-shop proprietor who sells a cow-creamer to Bassett. In the story recounted by Bertie, Bertie's uncle, a collector of silver and rival to Sir Watkyn Bassett, has arranged to buy a silver cow-creamer, but Bassett acquires the object first by underhanded means. Bertie's Aunt Dahlia tells Bertie to go Bassett's country house, Totleigh Towers, to steal the cow-creamer. She gets Bertie to agree by threatening to withhold her brilliant chef's cooking if he refuses, though Bertie is nervous about Bassett and his intimidating associate Spode, who are both suspicious of Bertie. Meanwhile, a rift occurs between Bertie's friend Gussie and Gussie's fiancée Madeline. This puts Bertie in danger since Madeline incorrectly believes Bertie wants to marry her, and he is expected to marry her if she drops Gussie. Gussie secretly writes insults about Bassett and Spode in a notebook, but loses the notebook and worries about what will happen if they read it. Stiffy Byng schemes to get her uncle's approval to marry a penniless curate whom she loves, and to divest her enemy Constable Oates of his helmet. Despite various challenges and mishaps, Bertie manages to tell the story of his weekend at Totleigh Towers with the assistance of Jeeves and Seppings. The conflicts in Bertie's narrative are resolved and the story is concluded. Lastly, Bertie, Jeeves, and Seppings perform a comical Charleston dance routine.
Spanning the American Revolution and its aftermath, the play contrasts Thomas Jefferson's role in writing the Declaration of Independence with slavery's continuation in the new nation and on his Monticello estate.
Jeffrey is a 1992 American play by Paul Rudnick. At first no theater would produce the play, because it was described as a comedy about AIDS, but after an acclaimed, sold-out run at the tiny WPA Theater in New York City, the show transferred for a commercial run. The play ran from December 31, 1992 to February 14, 1993 at the WPA Theatre.
Locked overnight in his favourite pub, journalist Jeffrey Bernard recounts anecdotes from his life to the audience. The autobiographical monologue includes the story behind the magazine's “Jeffrey Bernard is unwell” notice, though the production also features a supporting cast.
After Jephthah vows to sacrifice whoever first greets him on his return from war, his daughter Iphis meets him. Jephthah believes the vow binds him, while a priest and his wife urge him to spare her. Iphis moves from fear to acceptance, first framing her death as filial duty and then as Christ-like; she rejects Jephthah’s offer to die in her place and is sacrificed.
Abused peasant Jeppe is sent to buy soap, but the shoemaker’s innkeeper persuades him to spend his money on drink. A baron’s household finds him unconscious, dresses him as a nobleman, and stages a prank that makes Jeppe believe he is the baron. After he is returned to the roadside and later put through a mock trial, Jeppe becomes the village’s laughingstock.
Written during the First World War, Zweig’s nine-scene dramatic poem uses the biblical and Jewish story of Jeremiah to oppose wartime propaganda and imagine peace. Its central idea is the moral strength of the defeated, whose spirit can endure even when a people is put in chains.
Several years after the September 11 attacks, a family and their friends meet for Thanksgiving on Long Island. Their gathering grows confrontational as they discuss their experiences of the attacks, grief and their relationships.
In this one-person puppet play, David Brooks has learned puppetry in prison and, as part of his rehabilitation, reenacts the murders he committed with Dean Corll using glove puppets and ventriloquism. The performance includes audience reading of pamphlets presented as Brooks’s texts for the puppet play.
Two gay men, J.R., a disabled Vietnam veteran, and Bert, a businessman, begin as phone-sex partners and grow into caring friends through a series of telephone calls during the early AIDS epidemic. When J.R. can no longer reach Bert, he learns that Bert has died and declares his love.
Under a military regime, the opportunistic prophet Jero seeks control of religious services at public executions on Bar Beach. He brings rival prophets together in a uniformed church and appoints himself General, reshaping spiritual authority in the image of the rulers he hopes to exploit.
Jerry is a 1914 American play by Catherine Chisholm Cushing, written as a star vehicle for Billie Burke. It premiered on Broadway March 28, 1914 at the Lyceum Theatre, and the first time she played an American character onstage. They suggested that the play as first written by Cushman may have originally centered on the character of Joan Doubleday, and been rewritten to be more of a star vehicle for Burke, making it less of a comedy and more of a farce.
On St George’s Day in Wiltshire, local outsider Johnny “Rooster” Byron faces eviction from his woodland caravan as his son asks to go to the county fair, a local thug threatens him, and young friends gather for his drugs and alcohol. The day’s festivities and conflicts expose the fragile community around him and the mystery of a missing girl hiding in his caravan.
Set in a Rikers Island prison, the play follows Angel Cruz and Lucius Jenkins, who are facing murder charges. The work explores imprisonment and moral responsibility.
A young couple repeatedly declare their love until a hurricane separates them and a collision of stars unleashes a succession of grotesque, apocalyptic stage images. As the world collapses around them, the play overturns conventional figures of innocence, religion, and authority in a surreal spectacle of destruction.
A passion play and modern mystery drama performed outdoors in Bruges’s market square before the medieval cloth hall, traditionally returning every fifth year in July or August.
A satirical sotie in which the allegorical character Mother Fool represents the papacy, allowing the play to criticize it in a satire tolerated by the French king.
Two friends, one Jewish and one Gentile, help each other pursue partners from the group they each prefer, while seeking to avoid their own cultural roots or take advantage of stereotypes.
The play follows Jiang Qing from her early career as an actress in the 1930s to her political power in the 1970s, focusing on her relationships with the men in her life, including Mao Zedong. It compares her life with her best-known acting role as Nora in A Doll’s House.
Act I (Living room of Claire's penthouse at Hotel Harwich in NYC, a late spring afternoon.) Letty drops in to see Claire, but settles for the glass and bottle of gin Rosa brings her. Claire met Julie at the dock, but turned her over to Mr. Burnell for a shopping trip, and has since vanished. Del Marsh shows up with a suitcase, to be scolded by Letty on account of Julie's homecoming. He leaves to find a cot to sleep on the terrace. Claire returns in the throes of early love. She has a met another young man and given him her penthouse key, in lieu of a calling card. The door of the penthouse opens, and in comes Nathan Gifford, the young man. Letty is sent to fetch cocktails while Claire and Nathan gush over themselves. As they sip their drinks, Frank Mason comes in thru the terrace, dressed for sunbathing. Oblivious to his unwanted status, he grabs a cocktail and explains that his collaborator is writing the second act of a new play. Del returns, adding to the discomfort level. Claire introduces Nathan to Del as her instructor in Spanish. Del in turn introduces himself as Claire's dancing master. Julie enters; she remembers "Uncle Del" and "Uncle Frank" from childhood, but when Nathan proclaims himself "Uncle Nate", she contradicts him. She had encountered him at a Paris restaurant while dining with her aunt. She sent a note to his table and a photo the next day. Prompted, Nathan recalls the "schoolgirl". Claire is shocked that her daughter is as forward as herself. When asked to pass canapés to her mother's young man, Julie replies, "My young man, Uncle Del". (Curtain) Act II (Same as Act I, three weeks later at cocktail hour.) Del and Nathan arrive at the penthouse, each having been away for a few days. Del asks Nathan how he supports himself. Nathan says every so often a relative pops off: "Fortunately my ancestors were provident souls as my descendants will have to be". Del tasks Nathan about Julie's obsession with him and learns of his uneasiness at Julie's persistence. Claire, Letty and Frank join them from the terrace. Claire is upset with Del's presence, but reminds Nathan of their plans to visit Harlem that evening. Julie's arrival puts an end to cocktails and talk of Harlem. Instead, Julie reminds Nathan of his promise to take her to midnight mass at St. Nicholas'. Claire tries to forbid Julie from going out, provoking an argument. Frank takes this as a cue to move the cocktail party to his place; he and Letty leave through the terrace, but Julie won't let Nathan leave with Claire and Del. At last alone with him, she turns on the pressure. His charm and wit, effective with older women, are useless against Julie's willpower and tears. She leads him into one concession after another: he finds her attractive, he likes her, and finally he loves her. Claire and Del return to Julie's announcement of their engagement. Another mother-daughter brawl ensues, as Nathan sneaks out. Julie leaves to look for him. Del tries to get Claire to accept the inevitable, but only provokes her into calling it quits with him. (Curtain) Act III (Terrace of Claire's penthouse, three days later.) Frank, Letty, and Mrs. Finch are on the terrace, the latter two sitting at a garden table. On a table nearby is Claire's unfinished jigsaw puzzle. Their conversation reveals Julie and Nathan have disappeared, with Claire frantically trying find him. Rosa cautions Frank about putting his bottle of rye near the puzzle. Frank sneers: "A thousand pieces of nothing put together to make nothing", and tosses an unused piece over the terrace wall. Ethel calls to Frank from an upper balcony, so he and the two women go to join her in a rubber of bridge. Simpson steps out on the balcony for a moment, apologising to Ethel, then they both disappear inside. Nathan and Del arrive on the terrace, each surprised to see the other. Del twits Nathan for hiding from Julie, who has camped out in his apartment. But Rosa tells Del that Claire has ordered all his things tossed over the terrace wall. Julie shows up and puts the squeeze on Nathan, who finally tells her good-bye. Letty comes to commiserate with Julie, only to find her unmoved. Julie has told his apartment manager and all the newspapers that they will be married soon. She will run him down and manage him from here on out. Claire returns, and quarrels again with Julie, who is moving out to Nathan's. When she leaves, Del and Claire get into it, until he softens hers with blarney. The play ends as the bridge players come back to the terrace, with Claire leaning on Del's shoulder as he fits a piece into the jigsaw puzzle. (Curtain)
Time police teams Wecker and Pendel travel to eighteenth-century France to stop a crime that would prevent the French Revolution. They confront inspector Zambiel, who seeks to change history for his ideals and love of Marie Antoinette.
Jimmy Shine is a play with music. It was written by Murray Schisgal with music and lyrics by John Sebastian. The plot centers on its title character who is a struggling artist in Greenwich Village during the 1960s. Much of the story follows Jimmy's relationships with various women in his life and how he copes with love, sex, death, and rejection in relation to both himself and his art.
After Partition, Muslim refugee Sikander Mirza and his family move into a Lahore haveli and find an elderly Hindu woman who refuses to leave her former home. As communalist Yaqoob Pehalwan threatens her and a compassionate Maulvi urges coexistence, the Mirzas and neighbors form a bond with the woman and ultimately honor her Hindu funeral rites.
Regular taxi cabs will not travel to the Pittsburgh Hill District of the 1970s, and so the residents turn to jitneys—unofficial, unlicensed taxi cabs—that operate in the community. This play portrays the lives of the jitney drivers at the station owned by Jim Becker. We are rapidly introduced to the drivers at the station: solid, easy-going Korean War veteran Doub, gossipy hothead Turnbo, alcoholic Fielding, and Darnell (called Youngblood by the other drivers), an army veteran recently returned from Vietnam who is attempting to build a new life for his family. Flamboyant numbers runner Shealy is not a driver, but uses the station's phone as his base of operations. Conflict arises when Turnbo insinuates himself into Youngblood's love life, telling Youngblood's girlfriend Rena that he has been seen around town with her sister when he should have been at home with their young son. Despite his protestations of innocence, she accuses Youngblood, who has been acting secretively and has taken money needed for groceries to pay a vague "debt", of cheating on her, which he has done in the past. Youngblood attacks Turnbo for causing trouble and Turnbo pulls a gun on him, threatening to shoot him, but station boss Becker intervenes and defuses the situation. Becker's son, Clarence (nicknamed Booster) is released early from prison after serving 20 years for the murder of his college girlfriend, a white woman who had falsely accused him of rape. Becker has not visited him in prison once during that span, furious that he made sacrifices to provide for Booster's future only for him to throw it away on needless revenge. Booster comes to the station anxious to reconcile with his father, but Becker refuses to listen to him, furiously blaming him for his mother's death; she died of grief after Booster was sentenced to death. Angry recriminations are thrown on either side and Becker disowns his son. When Booster returns later to apologize, Becker pointedly ignores him. News arrives that the building housing the station is to be condemned and torn down by the city. The drivers contemplate renting new space elsewhere, or disbanding the jitney company, but later that evening Becker encourages them to resolve to fight the eviction. Youngblood admits to Rena that his secretive behavior has been because he has been saving up to buy a house as a surprise for her; her sister was helping him look at houses. Rena admonishes him for buying a house without consulting her, but acknowledges his intentions, and they reconcile. Tragedy strikes unexpectedly when Becker, who has taken a second job at the steel mill where he used to work before retiring, is killed in an industrial accident. Booster breaks down in agony on hearing his father is dead, but at the end of the play appears ready to take his place as the head of the jitney station.
Jitta, alienated from her husband, has an affair with his friend Bruno, who dies of a heart attack in a bordello. Before his death he asks her to publish his research under her husband’s name. As the truth emerges, Jitta’s husband struggles with both the betrayal and the proposed false attribution, before agreeing to edit the book; he later reveals his own affair.
A theatre company prepares to open a new Canadian play under the eyes of a visiting American producer. Ambition, backstage rivalries, faulty props, and stage fright threaten to turn the performance into a disaster.
An acting company stages a dramatization of Joan of Arc, and the story affects the performers. The fictional star Mary Grey, who plays Joan, clashes with the play's fictional director Jimmy Masters over how Joan should be portrayed; their conflict resolves during the drama.
Joanna of Montfaucon is an 1800 historical play by the British playwright Richard Cumberland. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 16 January 1800 and was inspired by a work by German writer August von Kotzebue. The original cast included Maria Ann Pope as Joanna, Alexander Pope as Albert, Lord of Thurn, Joseph George Holman as Lazarra, Charles Incledon as Darbony, John Waddy as Wensel, Henry Erskine Johnston as Philip, John Emery as Guntram, Charles Murray as Hermit, Joseph Shepherd Munden as Wolf, Thomas King as Ulrick, William Claremont as Mountaineer, Charles Klanert as Soldier and Nannette Johnston as Eloisa.
Content moderator Jane, placed on leave after a public breakdown, arrives for a session with therapist Loyd. Their conversation turns into a psychological confrontation when she believes he is among the users whose abusive online material she had to review, and she accuses him of crimes against his children. The play tests their conflicting accounts and the power between patient and therapist.
The biblical story of Job is combined with elements of Christ's Passion. Across seven acts and an epilogue, Job encounters repeated groups of beggars, messengers, friends, soldiers and entertainers.
In this verse interpretation of the Book of Job, Job's wife prepares to leave him, believing his suffering reflects sin. Her maid delays her with a false promise of a healer; when a mysterious healer arrives, he exposes her hypocrisy and redirects her attention from Job's lost prosperity to what his suffering reveals about her.
A wealthy Portuguese traveller captures a monkey in Brazil. During the Atlantic crossing, Jocko saves the traveller’s child from a shipwreck at the cost of his own life.
Valet Jodelet uses his position as confidant to learn several lovers’ secrets, then pretends to be an astrologer to protect his beloved Nise from her mistress. The comedy satirizes astrologers and fortune-tellers who sold their claims to Parisian audiences.
Scene one: Set in the 1910s, the audience is introduced to Seth Holly's boardinghouse, where Seth and his wife Bertha are in the kitchen watching Bynum in the backyard. Seth is complaining to Bertha about Bynum's strange spiritual activities. Bertha tells Seth to let him be as he isn't bothering anyone. They also talk about Jeremy, a young man staying in the boardinghouse, getting arrested the night before for supposedly being drunk in public. Seth then has a monologue about the poor situation that the freed slaves are in after traveling up North. He worries that the African Americans are too naïve and that all the promises of jobs in the North will be taken by the poor white Americans. Then Rutherford Selig, the People Finder, comes to order dustpans from Seth, a maker of pots and pans. Then Bynum talks about an adventure that he once took up river where he found the "shiny man", a man he found on the road that offered to explain to him the Secret of Life. He had a spiritual encounter with the man, and sees the ghost of his father, telling him to find his song in life. His song, he later explains, is the Binding Song, which he uses to bind people to one another. Selig leaves and Jeremy enters, and after getting a scolding from Seth, he tells him that the white cops came and picked him up for no reason and that he was, in fact, not drunk at all. Then Herald Loomis and his daughter Zonia enter, looking for a place to stay for the week. They reveal that he is looking for his wife, Martha. After Seth shows them to their room, Jeremy relates a story about his guitar-playing abilities and how he is wary of playing for white men or money because of a bad experience. Bynum convinces Jeremy to go down to a bar to play for some money. Seth confides in Bynum and Bertha his lack of confidence in Loomis, and thinks that he is a "mean looking" man and he doesn't want to help him find his wife because of it. After this Mattie Campbell enters, looking for Bynum because she has heard that he can "fix things". Her man, Jack, has up and left her, but she wants him to come back. Bynum tells her that he can only bind people that wish to be bound; that she is better off just letting him find his own path in life. Jeremy intervenes and suggests that Mattie stays with him as to cure both of their loneliness. The scene ends with Zonia and Reuben, the little boy from next door. Reuben discloses Bynum's odd tendencies to Zonia and tells her a story about his friend Eugene that used to sell pigeons to Bynum so he could use their blood in his rituals. Scene two: It is a week later and the audience again finds Seth and Bertha eating breakfast in the kitchen. Seth is still worried about Loomis's intentions and doesn't like the look of the man. He suspects that he knows who Loomis's wife is but won't tell him because he is worried about what he will do once he finds her. Selig returns to the house to pick up the dustpans that Seth has made for him and Loomis pays him to try to find his wife because Bynum tells him that Selig is the People Finder. Scene three: It is the next day and yet again we find Seth and Bertha in the kitchen. Seth is upset because he can't find anyone to front him the money to make a new factory for making pots and pans. Then Bynum and Jeremy talk about the importance of being in love with a woman and how being with a woman is all a man needs in life. Then the last boarder enters, Molly Cunningham. She is also looking for a place to stay because she missed her train to Cincinnati. Jeremy takes a liking to Molly's appearance. Scene four: Again they are in the kitchen of the boardinghouse when the scene opens. The group has just finished eating dinner when Seth suggests they "juba"- an African-style call-and-response song and dance. Herald Loomis enters and demands that they stop the singing. He goes into an episode where he talks in tongues and falls to the floor. He starts recalling a religious hallucination and Bynum has to calm him down and take him upstairs. Scene one: Seth informs Loomis that he has to leave the boardinghouse because he thinks that Loomis was drunk when he had his episode. Seth tells him that he runs a respectable house and won't put up with any shenanigans. Loomis and Zonia have until the next Saturday to leave the house. Bynum, Molly and Mattie are left in the kitchen where they talk about how children often follow in their parents' footsteps. Molly asserts that she will never follow her father's path and that she will always be a strong, independent woman. Mattie leaves for Doc Goldblum's, where she cleans and irons for work. Jeremy returns to the house from work and reveals to Seth that he would not give a white foreman 50 cents to keep his job so he was fired. Seth thinks it was an idiotic choice because now he is out of a job and no longer makes $8 a week. Molly tells Jeremy that he could easily get his job back by simply returning to work. Jeremy then asks Molly to travel around with him because he needs a woman that is independent and knows what she wants. Molly agrees but refuses to return to the South. Scene two: Bynum and Seth are playing a game of dominoes and Bynum is singing a song about Joe Turner. Loomis asks Bynum to stop because he is uncomfortable with the song. Bynum reveals that he knew all along that Loomis was taken away by Joe Turner and that he needs to find his song in order to start his life again. Loomis relates his story to Bynum and Seth, telling them that he was taken by Joe Turner's men while trying to preach to some gambling African Americans. He spent seven years on Turner's chain gang and only survived by the thought of his wife and daughter. He tells them that after seven years he returned home to find that his wife had left and his daughter was living with her grandmother. The scene ends with Loomis being skeptical of Bynum and his voodoo abilities. Scene three: The scene opens with Bertha reassuring Mattie that she will find everything that she wants and needs in life and that she just has to be patient. The scene ends with Loomis telling Mattie that he's noticed her watching him and that he finds her attractive. He goes to touch her, however, but feels awkward and says "I done forgot how to touch". Scene four: It is the next morning and Zonia and Reuben are in the yard. Reuben tells Zonia that he has seen the ghost of Seth's mother earlier that morning and she made him keep his promise to Eugene and release the pigeons. They marvel at the idea that people could come back to life in the form of spirits. Reuben then asks Zonia if he can kiss her on the lips and she agrees. They decide that later in life they will find each other to get married. Scene five: In the final scene Loomis and Zonia leave the boardinghouse as it is Saturday. Bertha tells Mattie that all she needs in life is love and laughing- which they all start to do. Then Martha Pentecost [Loomis] enters with Selig looking for Loomis and Zonia. Loomis reenters with Zonia and he recounts the last decade of his life; his search for her and the heartache it has caused him. Martha tells him that she has moved on with her life because she couldn't wait for him any longer. Martha also reveals that she had Bynum put a binding spell on her and Zonia and that is why they have come to find each other. Loomis goes into a rage and pulls out a knife. He denounces his Christian background and slashes his chest. The stage directions read "Having found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected, cleansed and given breath, free from any encumbrance other than the workings of his own heart and the bonds of the flesh, having accepted the responsibility for his own presence in the world, he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his spirit into terrifying contractions." He leaves and the play ends with Bynum yelling: "Herald Loomis, you shining! You shining like new money!"
An interactive dinner-theatre wedding casts the audience as guests and members of the couple’s family. Participants mingle, dine, sing, dance and take part in the reception alongside the two families.
Venetian fugitive Johan Padan escapes the Inquisition by joining Columbus’s voyage, then survives a shipwreck by floating ashore on a pig. Rescued by Indigenous people, he joins a Caribbean community and uses surgery, horse training, and fireworks to help it resist Spanish colonization. Fo performs the one-man work through narration, mime, and invented sounds.
John is a play from Pulitzer Prize winning American playwright Annie Baker. The show premiered off-Broadway at New York's Signature Theatre Company in 2015, and was directed by Sam Gold. Time ranked John as one of its top 10 plays and musicals of 2015, where it took the number four spot. The play also reached number eight on the Hollywood Reporters list of the "Best New York Theatre of 2015."
A royalist historical drama told from a peasant perspective, depicting John Balliol as a weak king influenced by his mother and Robert de Brus as a noble rival. The five-act play includes a seer, omens and ghosts.
John Bull is an 1803 comedy play by the British writer George Colman the Younger. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 5 March 1803. The original cast included George Frederick Cooke as Peregrine, Henry Erskine Johnston as Frank Rochdale, Charles Klanert as Williams, John Waddy as Lord Fitz-Balaam, William Thomas Lewis as Honourable Tom Shuffleton, John Henry Johnstone as Dennis Brulgruddery, John Fawcett as Job Thornberry, George Davenport as Mr Pennyman, John Emery as Dan, Nannette Johnston as Lady Caroline Braymore, Mary Ann Davenport as Mrs Bulgruddery and Maria Gibbs as Mary Thornberry. The prologue was written by Thomas Dibdin. Its Irish premiere was at Dublin's Crow Street Theatre on 18 May 1803.
English business partners Larry Doyle and Tom Broadbent visit Doyle's Irish home village to develop land, where Broadbent wins the locals' affection while their scheme threatens the community.
Eight years after bank manager John Gabriel Borkman's release from prison for financial fraud, he, his wife Gunhild, and her twin sister Ella struggle over the future of their son Erhart.
A new stage version of Ibsen's drama about a disgraced former banker and the family members contesting their son Erhart's future.
An English gentleman and a forger-murderer have the same appearance, allowing one actor to play both. Kate Norbury, sister of the murdered man, moves from love through suspicion and cross-examination to a denunciation of the crime.
John Proctor Is the Villain is set in a high-school classroom in a small, rural Georgia town in 2018. Carter Smith is the English teacher for several 11th-graders—the straight-A student Beth, the new transfer student Nell, the wealthy girl Ivy, the pastor's daughter Raelynn, the slightly awkward Mason, and Raelynn's boyfriend Lee. Mr. Smith assigns the students the play The Crucible, the protagonist of which is John Proctor, who was convicted of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. John Proctor Is the Villain includes several songs by pop artists such as Lorde and Taylor Swift. The Broadway production used ominous sounds and flickering lights to denote the transitions between each scene. Belflower received permission to use excerpts from The Crucible from Arthur Miller's estate.
Two rival magicians intervene as Welsh lovers try to win their chosen partners against family opposition and competing suitors. Magical contests and rustic entertainers complicate the struggle to prevent the arranged marriages.
In this sequel to Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Bacon visits the Emperor’s court in Germany. Ferdinand pursues the married Rossalin, wife of commander John of Bordeaux, and has her disgraced and imprisoned. Bacon defeats the returning magician Vandermast and helps restore John and Rossalin, while servant Perce provides comic relief.
John of Procida: The Bridals of Messina is an 1840 historical tragedy by the Irish writer James Sheridan Knowles. It is based on the life of the thirteenth century Italian physician and diplomat. It premiered at the Covent Garden Theatre in London.
In an isolated late-19th-century Prince Edward Island community, a doctor teaches deaf Belinda sign language. After she is raped and gives birth, gossip turns the community against her; she kills the baby's father when he tries to take the infant, and a trial tests whether the truth will emerge.
Sixteen-year-old Johnny Edwards wants to leave school to become a poet, disappointing his schoolteacher mother. Set in a Long Island town, the family drama centers on his struggle to understand himself and his relationships with his parents and a teenage neighbor.
After his death, meek businessman Robert Johnson looks back on his life while journeying toward the Inn at the End of the World. Along the way he encounters institutions of insurance and finance and a nightclub, in an elaborate theatrical departure from Priestley’s naturalistic drama.
Over four gatherings across twelve years, Anthea and Richard's effortless success and kindness unintentionally undermine their friends' lives: Sven loses his business, Brian cycles through relationships while pursuing Anthea, and vicar Hugh falls for her while his wife Louise is driven toward drugs.
After escaping from the whale, Jonah is told to warn Nineveh of its impending destruction. He delays, completes the warning after his sea voyage, and rebukes God when the city repents; God answers with a lesson in forbearance.
Over twenty-four hours, an ageing, lonely vicar and a young itinerant magician and father share a fleeting connection as they discuss religion, friendship, God, redemption and magic.
An all-American military family and an overbearing Jewish family gather for their daughters' wedding. Actors mingle with audience members playing wedding guests, who join the reception, dances, bouquet toss and sing-along finale.
Joseph's jealous brothers sell him into slavery in Egypt, where Potiphar's wife Zuleika falsely accuses him. After prison, Joseph interprets Pharaoh's dreams and guides Egypt through famine; years later he reveals himself to his brothers and reunites the family.
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