8285 shows
Clear filtersHalf-brothers Michel, a molecular biologist incapable of desire and love, and Bruno, a schoolteacher obsessed with sex, are followed through the 1980s and 1990s as the ideas of the 1960s and 1970s shape their self-loathing, narcissism, and boredom.
(Taken from the Broadway version); Shots are heard by the audience before the curtain rises. When the stage is revealed, Henri appears to be dead with his wife Lucile Miremont, in a striking white satin gown, holding a gun over the corpse. Lucille targeted Henri for cheating on her. Henri surprisingly springs to life, as the bullets were blanks. A strange absurd comedy ensues, including Lucile reloading her weapon with real bullets, shooting Henri a second time, and resulting in Henri transforming into a grandfather clock. A further plot point involves Lucile Nicole unsuccessfully trying to seduce Pierre, Henri's married son. In the end Lucille awakes to discover the events were all a nightmare.
Judge Dandin, forced into retirement, is obsessed with holding trials and turns his home into a courtroom where servants and even animals plead and are convicted. His son Léandre is in love with Isabelle, daughter of the lawsuit-obsessed Chicanneau.
Across episodes from childhood to adulthood, Antoine de Saint-Flour is haunted by guilt over a childhood prank and later faces family and class tensions as a contested playwright.
Two provincial young women reject eligible suitors as unrefined. The men take revenge by sending their valets disguised as sophisticated suitors; the women fall for the impostors and are left ashamed when the deception is exposed.
Two couples pride themselves on absolute sincerity but use it mainly to criticize others. When the Marquise and Ergaste become romantically involved, their candid remarks wound each other; she ultimately turns to Dorante, while Ergaste marries Araminte.
A pastoral drama by Alexis Piron, performed with incidental music by Rameau for its final divertissement and choreography by Antoine-François Dangeville.
A two-act French verse tragedy in the style of Greek drama, adapting the first two parts of Aeschylus’ Oresteia: Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers.
The impoverished poet Catullus decides to break up with his mistress, Lesbia, and marry Affra, an elderly widow, to get access to Affra's fortune. Unwilling to let the relationship end, Lesbia conspires with her servant Sibilla to win Catullus back. They pretend that Lesbia is heartbroken because her pet sparrow has died. Seeing her pretended grief reminds Catullus what a kind, gentle woman Lesbia is, and he decides to stay with her.
A tragic drama about labor at a cotton mill in the American South.
Alfred, an emotionally closed-off Windrush-generation man living alone after his marriage breaks down, hires Maria, an outspoken Eastern European immigrant housekeeper. Their debates challenge his assumptions and help him confront loneliness and his strained relationship with his daughter Gemma.
Let Tyrants Tremble! is a 1946 comedy play by the British writer Bernard Miles revolving around a unit of the Home Guard. It was staged at the Scala Theatre in London's West End, running for 28 performances between 11 March and 13 April 1946. The original cast included Miles, Arthur Hambling, Erik Chitty, Oliver Gordon and John Blythe. It was staged by the impresario Prince Littler.
The children of two clashing families fall in love. Set in Noosa, the play draws on Williamson's observations of life after moving there, while its fictional characters are distinct from the real people who inspired them.
A young woman and her husband wait at a wealthy lawyer's home. The husband grows impatient and leaves, claiming a business appointment while heading to his mistress; the lawyer, hidden in the next room, emerges to declare his love to the woman, and they arrange to meet that evening.
Letter from Paris is a play by the British writer Dodie Smith which was first staged in 1952. After first being performed at the Theatre Royal in Brighton, it ran for 27 performances at the Aldwych Theatre in London. Inspired by Henry James's 1888 novel The Reverberator, it was not considered a success by critics. The cast included Peter Barkworth, Nicholas Phipps, Maxine Audley, Brenda Bruce and Michael Nightingale.
Walt, a former captain of industry, trades his city life for a hundred-acre farm and tries to make a living with a broken-down racehorse and single-furrow plough; his letters to the editor recount his rural misadventures.
Lettice and Lovage is set in England. The action takes place in three primary locations: the Grand Hall of Fustian House, Wiltshire, England; Miss Schoen's office at the Preservation Trust, Architrave Place, London; and Miss Douffet's basement apartment, Earls Court, London. This synopsis delineates the action of the production seen by American audiences in 1990. Lettice Douffet is showing a group of tourists around Fustian House, an old, dreary, and (as the name suggests) fusty sixteenth-century hall. The rain-drenched tourists are clearly bored and miserable. Lettice is reciting a rehearsed monologue pointing out the not-very-interesting history of the hall. As the tourists leave in a kind of stupor, Lettice feels dejected. The scene shifts to several days later at the same spot. Lettice is again reciting her boring monologue, but suddenly she is filled with inspiration and begins improvising a wildly untrue (yet entertaining) story about the staircase in the hall. The tourists are jolted from their reveries and thoroughly enraptured by her tale. Some days later, Lettice is once again telling the "history" of the hall, only her tale has become even more fanciful and grandiose. She is filled with confidence and the (larger) audience of excited tourists hangs on her every word. Lettice is challenged by a disagreeable fellow who demands to see her references for the story. She successfully averts his questions, much to the enjoyment of the rest of the crowd. The next scene reveals Lettice telling an even larger version of the now completely ridiculous yet salacious story to salivating tourists. She is this time interrupted by Lotte Schoen, who dismisses the rest of the crowd, insisting she must speak to Lettice alone. Lotte reveals she works for Preservation Trust, which owns Fustian House. She tells Lettice she must report to the Trust the next day to have her position reviewed. The next afternoon Lettice is shown in to Lotte's office. She defends her embellishment of the facts by stating that the House's architecture and history is too dull. Lettice says she lives her life by a code her mother taught her: "Enlarge! Enliven! Enlighten!". Lotte chafes at the discovery that Lettice's mother was an actress and sits dumbfounded at Lettice's assertions of her mother's colorful past and its influence on her. Lotte tells Lettice that she has twenty-two letters of complaint about her false recitations at Fustian House. She fires Lettice, who despairs and wonders what a woman of her age can do. She leaves the Trust, but not before telling Lotte a story about Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary had dressed herself in a red dress the day of her execution to defy her accusers. As she tells the story, Lettice drops her cloak to reveal a red nightdress. It is ten weeks later. Lettice is in her basement flat with her cat, Felina. The apartment is adorned with theatrical posters, furniture, props, and relics. Lotte Schoen unexpectedly arrives at the flat and is dismayed by the sight of the cat, saying she has an aversion to them. Lotte then produces a letter of reference she has written for Lettice to obtain a new position giving tours on boats on the Thames. Lettice is very moved by her gesture and apologizes for behaving rudely. She insists they have a celebratory drink together. They spend a long scene drinking and talking, where they begin to find similarities in their very different personalities—notably, a disgust with modern English architecture and all things "mere". Inebriated, Lotte begins telling of a man with whom she was once in love, who aspired to be a terrorist by blowing up modern buildings in London to oppose the destruction of historical architecture. Lotte divulges he and she had a secret alliance called E.N.D.—Eyesore Negation Detachment. She says she ran out on her end of the bargain and did not plant a bomb intended to blow up a wing of the Shell Building. Her betrayal of the agreement ruined the relationship and, consequently, her life. Lettice listens with much sympathy. Lotte invites her to dinner and tells her it is her Mary, Queen of Scots story that really prompted her to come. Lettice tells her the rest of the story—how Queen Mary also wore a wig to her execution, prompting the executioner to grab her wig and not her head after it was detached. Lotte reveals that she is wearing a wig and requests Lettice to take it off, in an act of solidarity. Six months later, Lettice is being interviewed in her home by a lawyer, who says she is accused of a "peculiarly unpleasant crime". We learn through a series of questions and answers that Lotte and Lettice had become fast friends and taken to enacting famous historical trials and executions in Lettice's flat. It becomes clear that, during one of these theatrical displays, Lotte was inadvertently injured and that the lawyer is at Lettice's home to inform her of an indictment against her. Lotte again shows up unexpectedly. The lawyer insists on hearing the whole story, claiming Lettice's defense relies upon it. Lotte insists it cannot be spoken at a trial. As Lettice continues her story (acting it out along the way and embellishing it with stories of Lotte's now rather theatrical behavior), Lotte becomes more and more agitated. We learn Lettice's cat startled Lotte in the midst of their performance, causing her to become injured. The lawyer tells them both that they must testify to this to get the case against Lettice thrown out. Lotte says, if the information gets out, it will ruin her life and career. Lotte claims Lettice tricked her into the acting games and suggests her theatricality is one big act. She cruelly insults Lettice and walks out. Lettice stops her with a heartfelt speech about how the technological modern age is leaving her behind. Lotte storms back in, outraged that Lettice is "giving up". They make up and decide to re-invent E.N.D., only without bombs. They plan to give tours at the "fifty ugliest new buildings in London", using Lotte's architectural knowledge and Lettice's flair for the dramatic (and propensity for lying). The play ends with the two women toasting the audience.
Alice, an aging descendant of Meriwether Lewis, runs a roadside fireworks stand with her roommate Connor. When developers buy the surrounding land, Alice and Connor expect a condo; then Alice’s estranged granddaughter Marnie arrives, pitches a tent and tries to buy the last family parcel. Marnie listens to her dead mother’s cassette diaries as the two women confront their shared grief.
Sir Mark Loddon, a war hero and Member of Parliament, is suing a newspaper for libel. The paper claims that he is an impostor, a fellow soldier and friend of Loddon from the war who happened to resemble the original Loddon. The play is set in the courtroom as the trial for the lawsuit takes place. Loddon takes the stand as the first witness. He recounts being taken prisoner during the war, then escaping a few years later. After the war he married his pre-war fiancée, Enid, and was elected to the House of Commons. However, he says he has no recollection of events from before he was taken prisoner, a condition he attributes to shell shock. On cross-examination, defence lawyer Thomas Foxley accuses Loddon of being Frank Wenley, a soldier who escaped with Loddon and had strikingly similar features. Another soldier from the escape, Patrick Buckenham, testifies that Loddon and Wenley looked so much alike that they could have been twins. He believes Wenley killed the real Loddon. Loddon's attorney elicits testimony that Buckenham is being paid a stipend by the newspaper and had previously attempted to blackmail Loddon. Dr. Emile Flordon testifies to treating a severely beaten patient who was wearing a jacket from Loddon's brigade. The patient has recovered physically, but his injuries have left him mentally incapacitated. This man could be Wenley, or he could be Loddon. Foxley calls Enid Loddon to the stand, and she testifies that she no longer believes her husband is the real Mark Loddon. Just as it seems Loddon will lose his case, he has a sudden memory and asks to take the stand again. Loddon explains that the injured man was a German soldier that he encountered while escaping. He beat the man and switched clothing to aid the escape. He cuts open the lining of the jacket that Flordon had brought from his patient. Loddon pulls out a photograph of Enid from before the war, saying it was a gift from her before he left. The defence accepts this demonstration as proof of Loddon's identity. He wins his case and reunites with his wife.
A farcical morality play personifies Liberality and Prodigality and dramatizes the conflict between the ethical qualities associated with them.
Liberation is a 2025 American memory play by Bess Wohl. Developed by the Roundabout Theatre Company, it explores second-wave feminism, memory, and the complexities of social change across generations. The play premiered off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre in February 2025, directed by Whitney White, and transferred to Broadway in October 2025 at the James Earl Jones Theatre. The production won the 2026 Tony Award for Best Play. On May 4, 2026, it was announced that Bess Wohl won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Liberation.
Liberty Hall is a comedy-drama play by the British writer R. C. Carton which premiered in London on 3 December 1892, at the St James's Theatre. It ran for 192 performances, until 20 May 1893. The cast was: Mr Owen – George Alexander William Todman – Edward Righton Hon Gerald Harringay – Ben Webster Mr Pedrick – Nutcombe Gould J. Briginshaw – H. H. Vincent Robert Binks – Richard Saker Luscombe – Vernon Sansbury Mr Hickson – Alfred Holles Miss Hickson – Ailsa Craig Crafer – Fanny Coleman Amy Chilworth – Maude Millett Blanche Chilworth – Marion Terry Source: The Era. The play was revived at the St James's for a single matinée performance in March 1894 and 16 performances in November 1895.
Fritz, involved with a married woman, is challenged to a duel by her husband. His friend Theodor introduces him to Christine, who falls in love with him. After Fritz fails to meet her, then appears to have recovered from his affair, the two plan a trip that is actually a cover for the duel. Christine later learns from Theodor, her father and Mizi that Fritz died; the ending leaves open whether she kills herself.
Life is an 1800 comedy play by the British writer Frederick Reynolds. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 1 November 1800. The Irish premiere took place at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin on 20 January 1801. The original Covent Garden cast included William Thomas Lewis as Sir Harry Torpid, Joseph Shepherd Munden as Paul Primitive, John Fawcett as Lackbrain, John Emery as Crafty, Charles Farley as Jack Clifford, Charles Murray as Marchmont, Frances Chapman as Mrs Belford, Catherine St Ledger as Mrs Decoy and Harriet Siddons as Rosa Marchmont.
After charismatic professor Peter George dies in a plane crash, his current and two former wives confront his legacy and their relationships with him. The play explores Australian intellectual and political life from the 1960s to the 1990s.
King Basilio imprisons his son Segismundo after a prophecy predicts the prince will ruin Poland and kill his father. Briefly freed, Segismundo acts violently and is returned to prison, where Basilio tells him his time at court was a dream. When rebels free him, Segismundo chooses mercy and restraint, reclaiming his throne while Rosaura seeks justice for her honor.
Twenty-year-old Kip leaves his mother's home in the Hamptons. His divorced mother, Jinx, is involved with Hank, while Kip meets Amy-Beth, who has had a breakdown, and Amy-Joy, who believes in sea monsters.
Recently widowed Beth faces her family's insistence that she needs their help, while her late, overbearing husband Gordon appears to return as a ghost. Over Christmas, Beth confronts her unhappy marriage and asserts that she can manage without him.
During the 1929 Wall Street crash, financier J. G. Conwell faces ruin. Years earlier, he had built his fortune from an addictive painkilling syrup given to him by Mephisto. Offered a night to relive his youth in exchange for his soul, Conwell agrees; masked spectators follow the mostly silent characters through two repeating loops of scenes in a five-floor performance space.
Galileo uses a telescope to support the heliocentric model, but his discoveries conflict with Catholic doctrine. Under threat from the Inquisition he recants and lives under house arrest; he later gives Andrea a copy of his scientific work to smuggle out, while insisting his surrender was self-interested rather than heroic.
Life of Pi is a play based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Yann Martel adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabarti. The play premiered in June 2019 at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield before transferring to the Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End in November 2021. The play won five Laurence Olivier Awards (including Best New Play), five UK Theatre Awards (including Best New Play) and Best New Play at the WhatsOnStage Awards.
Over seven months after George Riley is diagnosed with a terminal illness, six people around him navigate their relationships; Riley remains unseen and is discussed by the onstage characters.
Life with Father is a 1939 play by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, adapted from a humorous autobiographical book of stories compiled in 1935 by Clarence Day. The Broadway production ran for 3,224 performances over 401 weeks to become the longest-running non-musical play on Broadway, a record that it still holds. The play was adapted into a 1947 feature film and a television series.
Life's Vagaries is a 1795 comedy play by the Irish writer John O'Keeffe. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 19 March 1795. The original cast included John Bernard as Lord Torrendel, William Thomas Lewis as Lord Arthur D'Aumerle, Joseph Shepherd Munden as Sir Hans Burgess, John Quick as Dickins, John Fawcett as George Burgess, John Henry Johnstone as Timolin, Edward Townsend as Robin, Charles Farley as Leillet, Tryphosa Jane Wallis as Augusta and Jane Pope as Lady Torrendel. Its first Dublin performance was at the Crow Street Theatre on 7 January 1796.
Set during the English Civil War, the play dramatizes the Putney Debates and the ideals of Diggers, Levellers and Ranters, contrasting their political hopes with the pragmatism of Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton.
The story concerns the tryout of a fictional play, The Time Is Now, at the Colonial Theatre in Boston. The play itself is neither seen nor heard. The setting is the living room of the star's luxury suite, in the Ritz-Carlton hotel across the street from the theater. The first act takes place at 5:30 pm, before the tryout starts, with hopes high and nerves on edge. Miss Lowell sits at a typewriter in the living room, with just Orson for company. One or two at a time the other characters come in and are introduced: Carleton FitzGerald, the overly emotional director; Frances Black, the shockingly outspoken wife of the producer; Owen Turner, the experienced older playwright just stopping by for a drink; Stella Livingston, the star's pessimistic mother who prophisises doom; Peter Sloan, the starry-eyed young trucker turned author, whose novice effort is now being given a tryout; Sidney Black, the excited, over-eager producer sponsoring his first play; and finally, Irene Livingston, the self-absorbed, aristocratic-behaving star. The second act occurs at 12:30 am, after the performance has had a seemingly disastrous finish, many in the audience having laughed and walked out before the ending. Sloan is blamed for the failure, and in turn vents about the harsh treatment lavished on him by those who earlier praised his work. Turner counsels him to accept compromises in his play in order to salvage it. Meanwhile, joyfully raucous Shriners, attending a convention, roam the hotel hallways and even burst into the suite on occasion. The act ends with Sloan storming out, headed for the airport. The final act is set at 3:30 am; the rest of the characters are still conducting a gloomy post-mortem on the performance. They are disturbed by the entry of an uninvited guest, William H. Gallegher, a Shriner, who announces the play is a success. He has copies of the early morning papers, from which it is learned the audience were largely his drunken compatriots, with the critics hailing the play as very good but needing some work. Sidney Black phones a plain-clothes detective, who brings Sloan unwillingly back from the airport. Grasping the changed state of affairs, Sloan takes charge of the others, who now look to him for advice on how to proceed.
A worn-out landowner, Renyova, returns from Paris and tries to seduce her young neighbour Rabachev, damaging both his life and that of Olya, the woman he loves. Renyova’s effect on the two men exposes the emptiness of their lives.
Lightnin’ Bill Jones spends his time carousing while his wife runs their shabby hotel on the California–Nevada state line, a convenient place for people seeking quick divorces. When he refuses to sell it to out-of-town businessmen, his wife files for divorce; in court, Bill and young John Marvin expose the buyers as unscrupulous and he wins back his wife’s love.
A lumber baron tries to disrupt his son's romance and arranges for a woman to initiate the sexually inhibited young man. In the later retitled staging, the father proposes that his public-relations agent's mistress seduce the son, with the two older men watching by closed-circuit television.
Two teenage fans of violent action films break into a Hollywood filmmaker’s home and force him and his actress partner into a frightening enactment of their screen obsessions; the filmmaker uses his own storytelling skill to regain control.
An aging prisoner confesses to a bishop, and scenes performed by male prisoners reconstruct their shared past. The confession reveals a love triangle and the bishop's responsibility for a young man's death.
Carousel barker Liliom falls in love with maid Julie, but bitterness leads him to mistreat her. When Julie becomes pregnant, he joins his criminal friend in a disastrous robbery and kills himself rather than be captured. Years later, he returns from beyond to try to do a good deed for their daughter, but fails; Julie remembers him with affection.
Lilith tempts Prince Tancred to steal his dead mother's ruby, leading to his father's death. Over decades she repeatedly pulls him away from friendship, love and spiritual inquiry, until she seduces a troubadour while Tancred is tortured to death.
Lily of the Valley is a drama in three acts by Ben Hecht. The play is set inside New York City's county morgue and centers around a visiting preacher who hears the ghosts of the dead. Other central characters include a police lieutenant and a photographer for the morgue. It premiered on Broadway at the Windsor Theatre on January 26, 1942. It had a short run of just eight performances. It was produced by Gilbert Miller and directed by Hecht. Harry Horner designed both the lights and sets. Helene Pons designed the costumes. The cast was led by Siegfried Rumann as the Rev. Swen Houseman, Clay Clement as Lieutenant Balboa, Myron McCormick as the longshoreman Shorty, Minnie Dupree as Emma Jolonick, Katharine Bard as Frances, Will Lee as Joe, Grania O'Malley as Annie, Alison Skipworth as Mag, and Richard Taber as Blakie Gagin among others.
The play dramatizes the January 25, 1981 discussions among Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers that led to the Limehouse Declaration.
Lincoln is a historical play in four acts by the American actor and playwright Benjamin Chapin. Chapin was a celebrated Abraham Lincoln impersonator, and his play centered around three key events from the life of the American president: the 1861 defeat of Fort Sumter which initiated the American Civil War; the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863; and the last day of Lincoln's life prior to his assassination at the Ford's Theatre. The events themselves were not actually seen on stage, but rather Lincoln's reactions to news of events from within the White House in conversations with his advisors and his family.
This Lehrstück presents the stages of Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight as a lesson about the relation between individual achievement and collective effort. Its original radio version combined Brecht’s text with music by Kurt Weill and Paul Hindemith.
Five people wait in a line for an event whose nature remains unclear, and whose expectations contradict one another. Each tries to maneuver ahead of the others, growing increasingly vicious as the competition unfolds.
In an allegorical contest, Lingua personifies language and challenges the five senses for a crown and robe. Communis Sensus judges the competition, but Lingua rejects the result, drugs the senses at a banquet and is ultimately imprisoned after confessing her plot.
Liolà is a middle-aged single father with three young sons by different mothers, roaming Sicily to enjoy nature and avoid ties to the children's mothers. After trying to sell one son to elderly Zio Simone, he learns from former lover Mita that he is father to her unborn child.
The ghost of nine-year-old Isobel wanders through connected scenes of private trauma and violence in Toronto, searching for her killer. In the final encounter she confronts him and chooses forgiveness.
An old husband catches his wife meeting her lover and plans to confront her. Her friend persuades him that he imagined the affair, but when he returns home and repeats the accusation, his wife turns on him and the farce ends in a quarrel.
Two straight couples spend the Fourth of July weekend on Fire Island in a house Sally inherits from her brother, who died of AIDS. Through private monologues and tense exchanges with the unseen gay neighbors, the weekend exposes the characters' isolation and unease with their surroundings.
Little Accident was a 1928 Broadway three-act comedy written by Floyd Dell and Thomas Mitchell (who also played Norman Overbeck in the play). It was based on Dell's 1927 novel An Unmarried Father. It was produced by Crosby Gaige and directed by Joseph Graham and Arthur Hurley running for 303 performances from October 9, 1928, to July 1929 at the Morosco Theatre and the Ambassador Theatre. It was included in Burns Mantle's The Best Plays of 1928-1929. The play and the novel were made into the 1930 film The Little Accident starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Anita Page and the 1939 film Little Accident starring Hugh Herbert and Florence Rice. Both films were released by Universal Pictures.
An estranged aunt and nephew reunite in rural Idaho at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to settle the estate of her brother and his father. Though emotionally distant, they begin to care for one another.
After their disabled son Eyolf drowns while following the Rat-Wife to the sea, Alfred and Rita confront their guilt and failed marriage. Asta leaves with Borghejm, while Rita resolves to help poor children and Alfred agrees to remain and share that work.
Three generations of Dublin women narrate months of emotional crisis and strained communication: Amber faces an uncertain relationship and pregnancy, Loraine deals with her estranged partner's drug addiction, and Kay copes with her husband's stroke. The newborn named Gem offers a point of connection and shared care.
A Cubist experimental play that uses the idea of tragic nobility in relation to Molière's satire; a review noted its affinity with farce.
Little Ladyship is a 1939 comedy play by the British writer Ian Hay. It premiered at the King's Theatre, Glasgow before beginning its West End run at the Strand Theatre and later transferring to the Aldwych Theatre. The original West End run lasted for 126 performances. The cast included Cecil Parker, Lilli Palmer, David Tree, Joan Greenwood, Aubrey Mather, Norma Varden, Diana King and Iris Vandeleur. In March 1939, the BBC broadcast a recorded version of the play on television.
Expelled art student Malcolm Scrawdyke recruits fellow students into the Party of Dynamic Erection and rehearses a surreal campaign against the authority figures he blames for his failure.
A Carmarthenshire-set stage version of Le Mariage de mademoiselle Beulemans, relocating the Belgian comedy to a Welsh town.
Little Peter and his sister Anneli help the beetle Mr. Zoomzeman recover his missing sixth leg from the Moon. With aid from the Sandman and celestial spirits, they evade the Man in the Moon, retrieve the leg and return home before dawn.
Stranded after totaling their car, Dave and Karen try to distract themselves and each other with Pez dispensers as their relationship falls apart.
Little Women is a play in four acts by Marian de Forest which was adapted from the novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott. The only full-length stage adaptation of the work authorized by the Alcott family, the work was first staged on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre in 1912. It was subsequently revived on Broadway in 1917, 1931, 1944, and 1946. The play was frequently performed in regional theatre in the United States during the early to mid 20th century.
A celebrated pianist retreats from her career after her son’s death. A young student who claims to have known him offers a connection to his final years, drawing Liv into a troubling arrangement.
After eloping with Dasha, Pyotr moves to Moscow, drinks heavily, and neglects his work. He courts another woman while pretending to be single; when both women reject him and Dasha's father refuses to take her back, Pyotr goes out with a knife to kill her. Church bells stop him, and he asks forgiveness and promises to change.
After Commandant Frank Butler returns from a successful UN mission, his children and young second wife gather at home. The artificial narrator Sir directs their memories as a family secret gradually reconnects father and son before a grim conclusion.
A drama about slum clearance and its effects on the people involved.
As Death personified arrives in an elderly woman’s living room, she awakens and confronts the nearness of her death. Their exchanges, joined by her grandson and doctor, form a comedy about life and death.
A traumatic family weekend in a Victorian country house unfolds from the living room; this play presents the action seen in that room as one part of Ayckbourn’s three-play Norman Conquests cycle.
An elderly aristocratic couple learn that a motorway bypass will cross their estate. Lady Sheila threatens to kill herself in protest, drawing press attention and pressuring the government as bulldozers approach.
At a celebration of the God of Seeds, America and Occident defend their beliefs against Religion and Zeal, who demand their conversion and threaten violence. The loa concludes by introducing a separate play, Divine Narcissus, intended to teach the audience against idolatry.
A worldly, ambitious parson courts a wealthy widow and schemes for a bishopric, ultimately winning a pretty heiress.
During a night in the lobby of a middle-income Manhattan apartment building, security guard Jeff, his supervisor William, police officer Dawn, and her senior partner Bill become entangled in questions of loyalty and ethical conduct. The play examines how good intentions can be undermined by desire and dishonesty.
In 1946 at Walt Disney Studios, reserved animator John Finch is assigned to work with Salvador Dalí, whose surrealist ideas upend the studio’s routine. Finch’s assistant Alice is drawn to Dalí’s imagination, prompting Finch and Alice to confront their feelings and the gap between artistic fantasy and daily life.
In this revenge tragedy about legendary Trojan founders of Britain, Locrine marries Guendoline but falls in love with the captured Scythian queen Estrild. After hiding the affair for seven years, he makes it public when Guendoline's father dies. Guendoline and her brother lead forces against Locrine; defeated, Locrine and Estrild kill themselves, and their daughter Sabren drowns herself.
Loggerheads was a 1925 Broadway three-act comedy written by Ralph Cullinan and produced by Barry Macollum and Whitford Kane with Macollum also playing Padna Collins and Kane playing Corny Halpin. It ran for 72 performances from February 9, 1925 to April 1925 at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Actress Gail Kane was not related to Whitford Kane. Time Magazine—from a February 23, 1925 article—says this about the play: "An Irish sea-coast comedy, with a sob here and there, slipped quietly into the tiny Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village and was welcomed quietly. In the main, it was an honest play, possessed one excellent performance, and was interesting to the audience scarcely at all. The story told of a feud patched up by the fisherman's daughter who wanted to be a nun. Amid the rolling of exceedingly old country “r's,” she married her mother off to the son of the hated opposition. Joanna Roos (as the daughter) gave the performance."
A narrator comments on linked scenes tracing Humbert Humbert’s exploitation of Dolores Haze and their travels across America. Albee’s adaptation places the telling of their story alongside the events being portrayed.
During a week in the 1965 NFL season, Look reporter Michael McCormick investigates what makes Packers coach Vince Lombardi successful. When the players refuse interviews, McCormick turns to Lombardi’s wife Marie, learning about the coach’s ambition, family’s move to Green Bay and relationships with his players. Their conflict turns into mutual respect as the Packers win and McCormick chooses independence.
Charles Courtly and his companion Dazzle travel to Oak Hall, where Charles disguises himself as Augustus Hamilton and courts Grace, who is promised to his father, Sir Harcourt. Sir Harcourt falls for the spirited Lady Gay, but attempted elopements and deceptions are interrupted; after Charles’s creditors catch up with him, Sir Harcourt accepts his son’s marriage to Grace.
The comedy centres on two brothers Willie and George Craft, whose American mother and British father long have been divorced. Willie Craft has been raised in America by his mother, George by his father in London, England. When George appears for a surprise visit to Manhattan, he and Willie soon fall for a designing woman, Anne Hunter. Their mother decides she is not suitable and prevents her from seeing them, and in the process tries reconciling with their father.
London Life is a 1924 play by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblock. It ran for 36 performances at the Drury Lane Theatre in London's West End. It was produced by Basil Dean. The large cast included Clifford Mollison, Henry Ainley, Gordon Harker, Ian Hunter, Edmund Breon, Mary Jerrold and Olive Sloane. It marked the West End debut of Benita Hume, appearing in a small role.
Four one-act comedies unfold in a London hotel: a novelist confronts his manager over stolen money; a daughter arranges a date for her reluctant mother; a divorced actress and her former husband revisit their relationship; and an American couple's Wimbledon trip unravels after lost tickets and an injury.
London Wall is a play by the British writer John Van Druten that was first staged in 1931. It based on the romantic entanglements of the staff at a firm of British solicitors in London. It premiered in May 1931 and ran for 170 performances at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End. The play remained largely forgotten until it was rediscovered by the Finborough Theatre with a production in 2013 and a subsequent West End adaptation at the St James Theatre. In 2014 the play received its American premiere when it was staged by Mint Theater Company in New York City; this production was filmed and later broadcast as part of the WNET Off-Broadway Series, Theater Close Up.
For Prince Henry's investiture as Prince of Wales, an allegorical river pageant travels from Chelsea to Whitehall. Corinea, Queen of Cornwall, declares London's love for the Prince, who then meets Amphion, Genius of Wales; the festivities also stage a mock naval battle with a Turkish pirate ship and fireworks.
In a small map shop, Jody retreats from a community devastated by AIDS while his friend Carl fills the room with chairs taken from homes of people who have died. The chairs force Jody to confront the losses and rejoin the world; later, Carl's own chair appears.
The play takes place on a single day in August 1912. The setting is Monte Cristo Cottage, the seaside home of the Tyrones in Connecticut. The four main characters are the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill, his older brother, and their parents, including his father, actor James O'Neill. The play portrays a family struggling to grapple with the realities and consequences of each member's failings. The parents and two sons blame and resent each other for various reasons; bitterness and jealousy serve as proxies for ultimately failed attempts at tenderness and compassion. The family's enduring emotional and psychological stress is fueled by their shared self-analysis, combined with articulate honesty. The story deals with addiction, unfulfilled dreams, moral flaws, and the struggle of family relationships.
At a declining country estate, Moscow lawyer Kolia tries to rescue his indebted alcoholic friend Sergei, while Misail, an architect’s son who wants to paint roofs, is drawn into marriage with a wealthy man’s daughter. Their intertwined stories turn on frustrated desires, commitment and regret.
Four poor households living beside Beijing’s filthy Longxugou ditch endure poverty, flood damage, official extortion and local violence. After the ditch is rebuilt, the neighbors’ circumstances change and the community celebrates a new start.
In 1908 Paris, the cocotte Lulu agrees to a mock wedding with Marcel so he can secure his godfather’s fortune, while her lover Philippe is away on military service and a prince seeks an assignation. A string of mistaken letters, hidden guests and bathroom and bedroom disguises turns the sham ceremony into a real marriage, then leaves Lulu free to return to Philippe.
In a cramped Midlands flat, working-class Jimmy Porter’s attacks on his upper-middle-class wife Alison intensify as their friend Cliff tries to mediate. Alison leaves with her father, and Jimmy begins an affair with her friend Helena. Months later Alison returns after losing her baby; Helena leaves, and Jimmy and Alison reconcile through their private game of bears and squirrels.
Look Before You Leap is an 1846 comedy play by the British writer George William Lovell. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in London's West End on 29 October 1846. The cast included Henry Howe as Brandon, John Baldwin Buckstone as Tom Tilly, William Farren as Mr. Oddington, Benjamin Nottingham Webster as Jack Spriggs, Julia Glover as Miss Brown, Priscilla Horton as Mary Oddington, Mrs Edwin Yarnold as Elinor Mortimer, Julia Bennett as Fanny Hardman.
Look Homeward, Angel traces the coming of age of Eugene Gant, as well as the lives of his family members. It takes place in the town of Altamont, North Carolina. Eugene's mother, Eliza, runs a boarding house, "Dixieland", where boarders often interact with and affect the lives of the Gants. His father, William Oliver, runs a marble sculpture shop, where his prized possession, a statue of an angel, is kept. The play begins by showing life in the boarding house when a young woman, Laura enters and requests to stay there. Gant enters drunk, but is eventually helped by his daughter, Helen. The next scene sees Eugene and his brother, Ben, discussing life and love. Eugene meets Laura, and they appear to fall in love, though Eugene lies about his age, claiming to be older. Eliza and Gant fight over the matter of selling his shop and the angel statue. Eliza enters the boarding house and begins arguing with Ben, cumulating in her slapping him. The next scene, days later, sees Gant and Eugene working in his shop. Laura enters to confront Eugene about the truth—she has lied about her age and he has as well. Eliza enters, ready to sell Gant's shop, until he at last announces that rather than use the money for Dixieland's expenses, he would take the money, put Gene in college, and begin traveling. Eliza rips up his check in a fit of fury and exits. Immediately following, Ben falls ill. He is then seen on his deathbed, where he dies. The third act opens with Eugene and Laura in their bedroom.
A man is accused of gross indecency, and the accusation affects his upper-middle-class family. The play examines the personal and social consequences of the charge.
This Punjabi verse play reworks the Puran Bhagat legend from Loona's perspective. A young woman is married to an older man and rejected by his adult son; the work centers her suffering and challenges the patriarchal judgment that casts her as a villain.
During an eight-hour recording session in 1965, an inebriated Tallulah Bankhead struggles to redub one line for her final film. The session becomes a battle of wills with sound editor Danny Miller, who must work through Bankhead’s outsized personality and repeated attempts to get the line right.
Two young thieves hide their bank-robbery proceeds in the coffin of Hal’s recently deceased mother. As the body repeatedly appears around the house, they try to evade Inspector Truscott, while the farce satirizes bereavement rituals, religious and secular respectability, and police corruption.
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime is a 1952 comedy thriller play by the British writer Constance Cox, based on the short story Lord Arthur Savile's Crime by Oscar Wilde. After a palm reader convinces him it is his destiny to commit murder before he can marry his fiancée, an aristocrat makes several inept attempts to kill people. It premiered at the Theatre Royal in Aldershot before transferring to the Court Theatre in London where it ran for 21 performances. The play was directed by Jack Hulbert and starred his younger brother Claude Hulbert in the title role, along with Peter Haddon and Jean Lodge. In 1960, Gerald Savory adapted Cox's play into an episode of the Armchair Theatre anthology series on the ITV network in the UK.
In 2008, after entering a civil partnership, Donald and Jim live in a house once occupied by Lord Arthur Clinton and Ernest Boulton. The play revisits Boulton and Frederick Park’s Victorian lives through the perspective of contemporary gay culture.
Lord Babs is a comedy play by the British writer Keble Howard. A farce, the plot revolves around an aristocrat who has to pretend he is a small child in order to avoid being arrested. It premiered at the Kings Theatre, Southsea in Hampshire in 1925. Donald Calthrop, the actor engaged to play the lead, had to withdraw at short notice due to illness. Keble Howard, the play's author and an amateur actor, stood in for the first two nights at Southsea while another professional actor prepared for the part. After Southsea, the play performed for a week each in Cardiff and Brighton, followed by two dates in North Wales. Three years later it enjoyed a run of 142 performances in London's West End between 26 January and 19 June 1928, initially at the Vaudeville Theatre before transferring to the Criterion Theatre. The West End cast included Billy Merson, Hermione Baddeley, Lawrence Anderson and Joan Barry.
During Mardi Gras in late-19th-century New Orleans, a spinster and an old woman claim to possess a love letter Lord Byron sent the spinster’s grandmother. As the grandmother’s diary is read to visitors, it becomes clear that the old woman and grandmother are the same person, who has lived in seclusion in Byron’s memory.
A wedding court masque for James Hay and Honora Denny, built around a sylvan setting with Diana's grove, Flora's bower and the House of Night. Nine knights of Apollo emerge from moving golden trees, accompanied by torchbearers representing the Hours of night.
Lord and Lady Algy separate over disagreements about money, cigarettes and racehorses, though both still hope to reconcile. When Algy's brother courts a married woman and her jealous husband suspects Algy, Lady Algy covers for the pair; after Algy loses his money betting and she wins, they reunite.
In Renaissance Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici feigns debauchery to gain the tyrant Duke Alessandro’s trust, then kills him hoping to spark a republic. The conspirators fail to act, Cosimo becomes the new duke, and Lorenzo is assassinated.
Drawn from trial transcripts, this solo performance tells Lorilei Guillory's story after her six-year-old son is murdered. At the killer's retrial, she testifies that he was mentally ill and should not be sentenced to death, exploring her grief and compassion for him.
At Honest Sancho’s Used Mexican Lot, a secretary for Governor Reagan seeks a Mexican-American “type” for the administration. Sancho demonstrates four stereotyped models: a farm worker, a violent pachuco, a revolutionary bandit, and a polished, bilingual professional. When the secretary selects the last, he launches a protest and awakens the others. They reveal they are living people, leave together, and share the money, while Sancho is exposed as a robot.
Clara visits Pérez, her husband's close friend, and discovers a clandestine homosexual circle to which her husband belongs. After finding a letter revealing their childhood relationship, she kills Pérez; Flórez then takes his own life, leaving their son with his mother.
A family reunites after years of separation as secrets surrounding Louis Ellis’s 1950s marriage and affair resurface in the bedroom where the confusion began, forcing his adult sons and their wives to face the past.
Joy, a former actress with early-onset dementia, lives in an assisted care facility. She remembers performing King Lear and sees her caregiver Liam as the Fool and her visiting son Conor as Cordelia, while her memory of the play remains clearer than her recognition of her family.
Thirty years after Donna and Pat’s carefree youth, they feel diminished by their lives and relationships; a confrontation with a bouncer prompts them to wonder what happened to the fun times.
In Brooklyn in 1942, Evelyn Kurnitz has just died following a lengthy illness. Her husband, Eddie Kurnitz, needs to take a job as a traveling salesman to pay the medical bills incurred, so he decides to ask his stern and straight-talking mother (from whom he is slightly estranged) if his two early-teen sons, Jay and Arty (whom she insists on calling by their full given names, Jacob and Arthur, which she pronounces "Yakob" and "Artur"), can live with her and their Aunt Bella Kurnitz in Yonkers. She refuses. After a threat by Bella, she lets them stay without ever saying they could stay. Despite their grandmother owning and operating a candy store, Jay and Arty do not like their new living situation. They are afraid of their grandmother and find it difficult to relate to their crazy Aunt Bella, whose slow mental state is manifested by perpetual excitability and a short attention span, which outwardly comes across as a childlike demeanor. Into their collective lives returns one of Eddie and Bella's other siblings, Louie Kurnitz, a henchman for some gangsters. He is hiding out from Hollywood Harry, who wants what Louie stole and is hiding in his small black bag. Jay and Arty's mission becomes how to make money fast so that they can help their father and move back in together, which may entail stealing the $15,000 their grandmother has hidden somewhere. Bella's mission is to find a way to tell the family that she wants to marry Johnny, her equally slow movie theater usher boyfriend; the two could also use $5,000 of Grandma's hidden money to open their dream restaurant. And Louie's mission is to survive the next couple of days.
In a seedy Neapolitan variety tavern, blind pianist Nunzio and fragile young Paolina are caught among exploitative and impoverished patrons. Their love and vulnerability unfold against the corruption and hardship surrounding them.
Loud Speaker is a play by American playwright John Howard Lawson. It was first produced by the New Playwrights' Theatre at the 52nd Street Theatre in New York, opening on March 2 1927. Harry Wagstaff Gribble directed, Mordecai Gorelik designed the sets, Eugene L. Berton composed its music, and Leonard Sillman choreographed its dances.
Publicity men fake the disappearance of a film star who is "lost at sea".
A historical tragedy inspired by the life of medieval French king Louis IX, who took part in the Seventh and Eighth Crusades.
In 1935 Budapest, longtime company accountant Virág is slapped at work by Pali, the boss’s nephew, after their interests collide around secretary Gizike. Humiliated, Virág returns to his ordinary office life, where his daughter Baba’s arrival changes the balance of the romantic triangle and forces the men to settle the affair of honor.
Love (also known as The Countess and the Serf) is an 1839 play by the Irish writer James Sheridan Knowles. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 4 November 1839 with a cast that included Charles Selby as Prince Frederick, James Vining as Sir Rupert, Alfred Wigan as Sir Conrad, William Payne as Stephen, Ellen Tree as Countess, Emma Brougham as Empress and Lucia Elizabeth Vestris as Catherine. Knowles was paid six hundred pounds for the work by the management of Covent Garden. Mary Shelley praised the play for its "inspiring situations founded on sentiment and passion". It went on to enjoy success in the United States where it became part of the repertoire, being performed at the Broadway Theatre in New York many times in the 1850s. It was celebrated by abolitionists who cheered its anti-slavery theme of a serf falling in love with a countess despite her father's disapproval and the threat of execution.
Two families placed in temporary British housing accommodation in the run-up to Christmas.
A romance writer leaves his wife, herself a playwright, for his mistress in Venice. When both women return to London and encounter him at the wife's flat, each chooses work over a relationship with him.
Love At First Sight is a comedy play that has been released in 1704 by the writer David Crauford. The play was written with comedy and funny ideas, But David Crauford never thought about writing Comedy play, But this time he wrote one. It premiered at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London. The original cast included Barton Booth as Courtly, George Powell as Lovewell, George Pack as Sir Nicholas Empty, William Fieldhouse as Gripeall, Francis Leigh as Hector, John Freeman as Jeremy, Joe Miller as Watchman, Mary Porter as Fidelia and Lucretia Bradshaw as Celinda.
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