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Clear filtersArtist Alex Macklin's family gathers after a second stroke leaves him in a persistent vegetative state. His son and two wives disagree about whether to end life-sustaining care, confronting questions of mercy, mortality, and the meaning of life.
A two-part play: “Winners” follows teenage lovers Joe and Mag as they revise for exams before their planned marriage, with the narrators foreshadowing their deaths in a lake; “Losers” follows Hanna and Andy's relationship under the scrutiny of Hanna's mother and neighbor, ending in a loveless marriage.
Act I: The play opens with Agatha being ejected from an inn when her money runs out. Too proud to beg, she is desperate. Frederick enters, sees her, and offers her money although it will mean he cannot pay for his own breakfast. She recognizes him as her son, absent for five years as a soldier. He has returned in order to find his birth certificate, which he needs in order to find employment. Distraught, Agatha tells him that there is no certificate; she was seduced at the age of seventeen by Baron Wildenhaim with a promise of marriage. Despite the resulting pregnancy, the Baron broke his promise and married another, wealthier woman. Agatha, turned out of her home, struggled to make ends meet and raise her son alone. Frederick is dismayed, and he arranges for his destitute mother to stay with some charitable cottagers. Act II: Frederick leaves, intending to beg for money. Not knowing her relationship to him, the cottagers tell Agatha of the recent history of Baron Wildenhaim, now widowed and with a daughter. She faints. Meanwhile, reluctant to force her inclination as his own was forced, the Baron tries to determine whether or not his daughter, Amelia, loves the affected and foppish Count Cassel. It becomes clear to the audience that she instead loves Anhalt, a poor clergyman, and he her. It also becomes clear that the Baron regrets the misdeeds of his youth and has long sought, fruitlessly, to make amends. Act III: Frederick, desperate as his begging has been unsuccessful, attempts to rob the Baron and the Count as they go hunting, not knowing who they are. He is arrested. Anhalt speaks to Amelia about matrimony, at the Baron's request, but she in turn confesses her love for him and forces his own confession. They are interrupted by Verdun, a versifying butler, with the news of Frederick's attack on the Baron. The Baron enters and Amelia pleads for the life of the unknown young man, but the Baron is adamant on the grounds that an example must be made. Act IV: Amelia takes Frederick food and he discovers who it was that he had threatened. He asks to meet the Baron privately. Amelia reveals to her father what she has learned from Verdun about the Count's sexual immorality. The Baron confronts the Count; he replies that he is a man of the world, and reminds the Baron that many men have behaved likewise. Confused and embarrassed, the Baron dismisses him. Amelia re-enters and reveals her love for Anhalt. They are interrupted by Anhalt, who tells the Baron that Frederick is in the next room and wants a private interview. Frederick reveals their relationship to the Baron, and then leaves. The Baron is much affected. Act V: Anhalt goes to Agatha at the cottage and explains some circumstances which mitigate the Baron's prior conduct. Frederick, and then Anhalt, insist to the Baron that he must marry Agatha. After some agitation due to the social difference between them, he agrees, and grateful to Anhalt for his advice, agrees also to let him marry Amelia, despite his poverty. Agatha enters the room and all are reconciled.
In Ferrara, Clariana’s adultery with her fiancé Bellamente’s friend Hippolito leads to escalating deception and violence. Their intertwined conflicts with the Duke and his intended bride Eubella end in the deaths of Clariana, Hippolito, and Bellamente.
In Seville, a feud between Vitelli and Alvarez threatens the love between Vitelli and the disguised Clara, Alvarez’s daughter raised as a boy and famed as a warrior. Alvarez’s son Lucio, raised as a girl, also falls in love. When the families prepare to settle the feud by combat, the young women intervene and secure peace and two marriages.
A commissioned theatrical evening of seven short plays inspired by Shakespeare’s sonnets, ranging from comic and romantic scenes to a dance piece with original music.
Theodosia disguises herself as a boy and travels to Barcelona after her fiancé Mark-Antonio deserts her; Leocadia, also disguised, follows him after he abandons her. Mark-Antonio’s betrayals and a street brawl bring the travelers together, where the women’s disclosures and a contrived duel between their fathers lead to reconciliations.
At the Stuart court, twelve depraved lovers invade the suburbs of idealized Callipolis and perform an anti-masque of sensual excess. After they are expelled and the place purified, allegorical figures celebrate the ordered, virtuous love of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria.
For Charles I and Henrietta Maria, a banquet masque at Bolsover Castle combines a song of welcome, a dance of craftsmen personified by Inigo Jones as Colonel Iniquo Vitruvius, and a second banquet brought from a cloud. Eros and Anteros, allegories of the King’s and Queen’s love, descend among the spectacle.
The play is an exposé of antisemitism in English upper-class society in the 1920s. It is set in Meldon Court, a country house near Newmarket, the home of Sir Charles and Lady Adela Winsor. One of their guests, Ferdinand de Levis, has had £1000 stolen from his room, and he charges another of the guests, Captain Ronald Dancy, with the theft. However, de Levis is Jewish and Dancy is a war hero. Despite evidence that Dancy may be guilty, de Levis is threatened with social ostracism by the members of the gentleman's club to which he belongs. He is suspended from the club and in turn resigns. When Mabel, Dancy's wife, pleads with de Levis, as a gentleman, to withdraw the charge, he replies "I'm not a gentleman - I'm a damned Jew!" echoing what Dancy has previously called him. Dancy, under pressure from the members of his club and from his wife, agrees to bring court proceedings against de Levis. The trial begins, but the case ends prematurely when the culprit is discovered. During the play several characters admit that they don't like Jews, while at the same time phrasing their opinions in ways that seek to avoid a charge of prejudice. Early on, Charles Winsor says "I like Jews. That’s not against him—rather the contrary these days. But he pushes himself." A friend of Mabel's, Margaret Orme, says, "I know lots of splendid Jews,... but when it comes to the point—! They all stick together; why shouldn't we? It's in the blood." And when Lady Adela tells Margaret that she is proud of her Jewish great grandmother, Margaret says "Inoculated." A well-to-do grocer, Gilman, says, "I don’t like—well, not to put too fine a point upon it—’Ebrews. They work harder; they’re more sober; they’re honest; and they’re everywhere. I’ve nothing against them, but the fact is—they get on so." Gilman has come to give evidence in the case because he thinks that it will help Dancy against de Levis. Few of the characters come out well.
This second play in A Texas Trilogy moves among three Bradleyville settings at the Hampton home in 1953, Red Grover’s bar in 1963, and the Hampton home again in 1973.
Miller Libor lives with his grandmother and foster daughter Hanka; the nearby waterman Michal is in love with Hanka.
In an episodic nocturnal journey through Madrid, blind poet Max Estrella and his companion Don Latino move among artists, officials, workers and prisoners. Max encounters poverty, political repression and the killing of a Catalan prisoner, then dies; Latino discovers that Max’s lottery ticket has won as the poet’s wife and daughter also die.
When God elevates humanity above the angels, Lucifer foments a revolt in Heaven. Michael defeats and casts the rebels down; Lucifer then seduces Adam and Eve, bringing about their expulsion from Paradise.
Lucius or Lucius, the First Christian King of Britain is a 1717 tragedy by the British writer Delarivier Manley. It is based on the life of Lucius of Britain, the second century ruler of Britain traditionally considered to have introduced Christianity to Britain. It was Manley's final play to be staged. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 11 May 1717 with a cast that included John Thurmond as Honorius, Lacy Ryan as Vortimer, Barton Booth as Lucius, John Mills as Arminius, John Bowman as Prince of Cambria, Anne Oldfield as Rosalinda and Christiana Horton as Emmelin.
Lucius Junius Brutus; Father of his Country is a Restoration tragedy play by Nathaniel Lee from 1680. It depicts the life of Roman statesman Lucius Junius Brutus. It was first staged at the Dorset Garden Theatre by the Duke's Company. The original cast included Thomas Betterton as Lucius Junius Brutus, William Smith as Titus, Joseph Williams as Tiberius, John Wiltshire as Collatinus, Thomas Gillow as Valerius, Henry Norris as Horatius, William Fieldhouse and Thomas Percival as Fecilian Priests, James Nokes as Vindicius, Thomas Jevon as Fabritius, Mary Slingsby as Sempronia, Mary Betterton as Lucretia and Elizabeth Barry as Teraminta. It was published the following year by Jacob Tonson, and dedicated to the Earl of Dorset.
In the first part, an older married couple in Sheffield face the bitterness and desperation in their relationship after their son leaves home. A later, nearly silent section takes place abroad a year afterward; the central surreal episode has Sue acting like the couple's dog.
Inspired by the country-and-western bars of rural Alberta, this stage expansion combines live country music with a set built around an oversized jukebox.
Act I Mike McAlary, from 1985 to 1993, bounds from one New York City newsroom to another as he achieves career success, covering such stories as the tainted Tylenol case and the Buddy Boys of the 7-7 scandal. His salary increases as he ascends from being a cub reporter to star crime reporter to star columnist. In 1993, McAlary's suffers a near-fatal auto accident that leaves him physically impaired. Act II McAlary recovers from the accident and writes two defining stories of his career: the Jane Doe rape case, during which he is sued for libel after his column questions the truthfulness of the victim, and the Abner Louima story, for which he wins the Pulitzer. Eight months after he publishes the Louima story, on Christmas Day 1998, he succumbs to cancer at age 41.
JoLayne Lucks wins a Florida lottery and plans to protect land from development. When two fellow winners steal her ticket to claim the whole prize, she pursues them with a journalist’s help.
Lucrece is a play in six scenes by Thornton Wilder with incidental music by Deems Taylor. Wilder adapted André Obey's French play Le Viol De Lucrece into English, and Taylor composed the shows music. Obey's play was in turn based on William Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece about the Roman noblewoman Lucretia. Katharine Cornell and her husband Guthrie McClintic produced the work. It premiered at the Hanna Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio on November 29, 1932. It then played at the Teck Theatre in Buffalo before transferring to Broadway where it opened at the Belasco Theatre on December 20, 1932. Katharine Cornell portrayed the title role, and Robert Loraine and Blanche Yurka portrayed narrators reminiscent of a Greek chorus. Others in the cast included Brian Aherne as Tarquin, Charles Waldron as Brutus, Joyce Carey as Emilia, Pedro de Cordoba as Collatine, Brenda Forbes as Marina, and George Macready as both Valerius and a soldier.
Victor Hugo's historical drama portrays Renaissance Italian aristocrat Lucrezia Borgia.
An anthropologist unexpectedly takes responsibility for her autistic teenage daughter after years apart. Their attempt to build a relationship challenges the mother’s preference for solitude and her assumptions about how people understand the world.
Roommates Rachel and Agnes spend a night in which Rachel dwells on her remorse after turning in a boyfriend who stole from her, while Agnes tries to console her and reveal her own romantic feelings. When Rachel sleeps, Agnes is left with her quieter, more genuine emotions.
A medieval drama depicting eschatological events and warning monastic audiences of the Antichrist; the work presents the Emperor as God's instrument in the final events, while depicting his eventual submission to the Antichrist.
The play's action takes place in an agricultural Yorkshire setting. Clara Wakefield receives financial help from farmhand Charles to free her father, Farmer Wakefield, from debtor’s jail. Luke, the titular character, is Farmer Wakefield's former employee whom he previously mistreated for being drunken, and has experienced extreme poverty resulting in the death of his wife. He has somehow saved enough money to lend to Farmer Wakefield, whose failing business cannot pay the debt. Clara frees her father, and he returns home to Clara and her mother. The local Squire, enlisting Luke's service, attempts to kidnap Clara, but she is saved by sailor Philip’s intervention. Philip is welcomed into the Wakefield household, where he reveals that he knew the family’s lost son, and is given Farmer Wakefield’s bed for the night. Luke, thinking that Philip is Wakefield, breaks in and tries to shoot him as revenge, but ends up being killed. In the chaos that ensues, an old local 'gypsy' reveals that he witnessed Wakefield's missing son being stolen and sold to a sailboat by Luke, and identifies Philip as the lost son.
A quartet of plays about prisoners and staff at Broadmoor Hospital and the victims of the prisoners' crimes.
Set in San Juan Hill, Harlem, and Paris, the play centers on Lulu Belle, a Black Harlem prostitute who seduces a married white man; a fictional Harlem nightclub is among its settings.
The Muses, driven from Greece and Italy, wander until they find a new home in Britain. The court masque surrounds their arrival with grotesque anti-masques and elaborate lighting, ending with the Queen descending from the clouds as the Earthly Deity.
A young couple, M and W, examine their life together and the world around them as they consider whether to start a family.
A blank-verse tragedy centered on Luria, a Moorish commander of Florence's forces, among his friend, the former Florentine commander, the republic's commissary, the opposing Pisan commander and a noble Florentine lady.
In the Spanish court, Moorish prince Eleazar uses the Queen Mother’s passion to advance his claim to the crown. He manipulates her into killing her son, then kills her and betrays his own wife to wound a cardinal before murdering the king; his schemes ultimately fail and he dies unrepentant.
Act 1 Scene 1 – The Convent of the Augustinian Order of Eremites at Erfurt, 1505 Luther is accepted into St. Augustine's Monastery in Erfurt. His father, Hans, expresses scepticism and scorn for excessive religion. Luther displays anguished guilt at what he believes to be his own imperfections and sins. Scene 2 – The same. A year later Luther is preparing to conduct his first Mass as a priest. Another friar, Brother Weinand, tries to persuade him not to exaggerate his own wickedness, and gently dismisses Luther's anxiety as "a few imaginary sins". Luther, is tormented mentally by guilt and physically by constipation. Scene 3 – Two hours later In the refectory of the monastery after the celebration of Mass, Luther's father is a guest. He has most reluctantly accepted his son's monastic vocation but has nevertheless made a generous donation to the monastery's funds. He drinks too much at luncheon and his comments make clear his disappointment that his intellectually brilliant son has confined himself to a religious order. Act 2 Scene 1 – The Market Place, Jüterbog. 1517 Johann Tetzel, described by Osborne as "an ecclesiastical huckster", addresses a crowd of local people, persuading them to part with their money in exchange for papal indulgences (originally a remission of penance in exchange for a pious donation, but by 1517 represented by such as Tetzel as complete absolution for all sins). Scene 2 – The Eremite Cloister, Wittenberg. 1517 The Vicar General of the Augustinian Order, Johann von Staupitz, has sent for Luther. Staupitz respects and admires the young friar, and has much sympathy for Luther's scorn of relics and outrage at indulgences. He counsels Luther to be moderate in his public criticisms. Scene 3 – The steps of the Castle Church, Wittenberg. Eve of All Saints. 1517 Luther preaches a sermon scorning scholarly sophistication and insisting that faith alone is the key to salvation. He then nails to the church door his 95 theses against indulgences, issued as a challenge to Tetzel or anyone else to engage him in theological debate. Scene 4 – The Fugger Palace, Augsburg. October 1518 Cardinal Cajetan, the Papal Legate to Germany, has sent for Luther. The latter's views are by now seen by the Church as verging on heresy, and Cajetan tries, in vain, to persuade Luther to retract. Cajetan warns that Luther's views, if pursued, will cause the break-up of Christendom. Scene 5 – A hunting lodge, Magliana, Italy. 1519 Pope Leo X dictates a decree ordaining that unless Luther recants his views, he will be a heretic and will be excommunicated. Scene 6 – The Elster Gate, Wittenberg. 1520 Luther has by now broken completely from the Roman Catholic Church. He preaches a sermon denouncing the Pope. He burns the papal decree of excommunication and prays for God's support. Act 3 Scene 1 – The Diet of Worms. 1521 Luther engages in theological debate with Johann von Eck, who represents orthodoxy against Luther's revolutionary preachings. Luther demands that his opponents should refute his arguments by showing that the Bible contradicts them. He rejects the authority of the Pope and of church councils. Scene 2 – Wittenberg. 1525 A knight, who has until this point merely announced to the audience the time and place of each scene, now has a long speech commenting on the civil disorder that has erupted in the wake of Luther's religious revolution. He engages Luther in conversation, and it emerges that Luther is hostile to the peasant uprising. The knight is deeply disillusioned. Luther prepares to marry an ex-nun. Scene 3 – The Eremite Cloister, Wittenberg. 1530. Luther and his wife are living in the former monastery. Staupitz, now an old man, visits them, and looks round the building nostalgically. Luther expresses regret at turning Staupitz's world upside down. He is stung when he believes Staupitz disapproves of his siding with the princes against the peasants during the uprisings. Staupitz counsels moderation, as he had done in 1517. He leaves, and Luther muses aloud while cradling his baby son in his arms.
A mix of absurdist humor and traditional Broadway comedy in the Neil Simon vein, Luv concerns two college friends—misfit Harry and materialistic Milt—who are reunited when the latter stops the former from jumping off a bridge, the play's setting. Each discovers the other is equally miserable as they share hard-luck stories. Milt sees in Harry an answer to his primary problem—his wife Ellen, whom he tries to foist on his old pal so he can run off with his mistress.
After a car crash leaves teenaged Ceci severely brain-damaged, her Mexican-American family hires Lydia, an undocumented maid who can understand her. Lydia’s arrival unsettles the family’s fragile routines, bringing hidden desires and resentments to the surface until Ceci reveals that her siblings’ forbidden relationship led to the crash.
Lysistrata persuades women from the warring Greek city-states to withhold sex and occupy Athens's Acropolis until the men negotiate peace. After the women's action exposes the costs of the Peloponnesian War, Athenian and Spartan delegates agree to terms and the conflict ends.
A prince, inconsolable after the death of the Romanian opera singer Léocadia, lives inside the memory of their three days together. His aunt recreates their settings and hires Amanda, a poor milliner who resembles Léocadia, to draw him back toward life; Amanda helps him recognize that his idealized memory is an illusion.
De Ryons, a worldly observer of relationships, acts as confidant and adviser to women facing romantic and marital difficulties.
Djana hypnotizes her wealthy husband, leaving him paralyzed and speechless but conscious, so she can make love to her lover Robert before him. As the husband’s mental power takes hold of Robert, the affair turns into a struggle for revenge.
A prose comedy in three acts adapting the story of a carefree cobbler whose singing disturbs a financier. The financier gives him money for security, but anxiety over the gift destroys the cobbler’s rest; the play expands the fable with two pairs of lovers.
A three-act theatre drama drawing on the Book of Tobit.
After Genghis Khan's conquest of China, the mandarin Zamti hides the last imperial heir and offers his own son in the child's place. Zamti's wife Idamé reveals the substitution; Genghis's love for her conflicts with his demand for the orphan's death, until the couple's courage changes his decision.
During the final years of Napoleon’s Empire, Georges de Coûfontaine brings the captured Pope to his cousin Sygne’s estate. Toussaint Turelure, the former servant responsible for her parents’ deaths and now an imperial prefect, pressures Sygne to marry him in exchange for the Pope’s release, forcing her to choose between her love for Georges and the hostage’s rescue.
A French prisoner of war dreams of his orphaned grandchildren and a puppet theatre in their bedroom. In the nested farces, a plush bear who is a swindling financier tries to keep a stolen diamond, while an old Moon schemes to win a legless aviator’s love; the schemes entangle with the orphans’ future and end in a dreamlike release.
M'Lady is a 1921 play by the British writer Edgar Wallace. It is a drama about a woman who tries to raise her daughter in high society, only for her husband to return from Broadmoor where he has been serving a sentence for killing a police officer. It was panned by theatre critics. It ran for twenty three performances at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End. The original cast included Frederick Leister, Frederick Worlock and Henrietta Watson. In 1930 Wallace adapted the play into a novel The Lady of Ascot.
The first act introduces the main character, René Gallimard, a civil servant attached to the French embassy in China. In a prison, Gallimard is serving a sentence for treason. Through a series of flashbacks and imagined conversations, Gallimard tells an audience his story about a woman that he loved and lost. He falls in love with a beautiful Chinese opera singer, Song Liling. Gallimard is unaware that all female roles in traditional Beijing opera were actually played by men, as women were banned from the stage. The first act ends with Gallimard returning to France in shame and living alone after he asks his wife, Helga, for a divorce, admitting to her that he's had a mistress. It is revealed in act 2 that Song had been acting as a spy for the Chinese government, and she is actually a man who has disguised himself as a woman to seduce Gallimard and extract information from him. They stay together for 20 years until the truth is revealed, and Gallimard is convicted of treason and imprisoned. Unable to face the fact that his "perfect woman" is a man, he retreats deep within himself and his memories. The action of the play is depicted as his disordered, distorted recollection of the events surrounding their affair. In act three, Song reveals himself to the audience as a man, without makeup and dressed in men's clothing. Gallimard claims he only loved the idea of Butterfly, never Song himself. Gallimard throws Song and his clothing off the stage, but holds onto Butterfly's kimono. In scene three, the setting returns to Gallimard's prison cell, as he puts on makeup and Butterfly's wig and kimono. Then he stabs himself, committing suicide just as Butterfly does in the opera. For the Julie Taymor–directed revival in 2017, Hwang revisited the text to incorporate further information that had emerged about the Boursicot case, and address intersectional identities. Taymor and Hwang wanted their new approach to consider “present public discussion and awareness of nonbinary genders, the growth of China as a superpower, and details about the true story... which were not available to Hwang when he wrote the first version.” Changes include: Song Liling initially presents as male to Gallimard, only to claim to be physically female but made to dress up as a man by her parents. Hwang noted in an interview that the surprise reveal that Song Liling is actually a man no longer carried the shock value it did in 1988, especially after The Crying Game used the same tactic only a few years later. Another said it “was neither a critical nor a popular success…[but] an important, timely, and productive reconsideration of the play and its story in light of new acceptances of gender fluidity and the changing balance of power between Asia and the West.” Regarding the long-debated questions of Song and Gallimard's intimate relations, another reviewer said “Song’s defiant explanation to an over-curious French judge struck me as Hwang wanting to put an end to the prying once and for all.”
Two medieval brothers invite strangers into their isolated monastery while the Abbot is away. Their everyday tasks become an unpredictable comic adventure involving lentils, a missing donkey and the audience.
In a Chicago recording studio in 1927, Ma Rainey's band players Cutler, Toledo, Slow Drag, and Levee gather to record a new album of her songs. As they wait for her to arrive they tell stories, joke, philosophize, and argue. Tension is apparent between the young hot-headed trumpeter Levee who dreams of having his own band, and veterans Cutler, Slow Drag, and Toledo who all desire to stay true to Ma Rainey. By the time Ma Rainey arrives with entourage in tow, recording has fallen badly behind schedule, enraging producers Sturdyvant and Irvin. Ma's insistence that her stuttering nephew Sylvester speak the title song's introduction wreaks further havoc. As the band waits for various technical problems to be solved, Levee and Cutler come to blows. Levee is then simultaneously fired by Ma for his uncompromising behavior and rejected by producer Sturdyvant when he tries to get his own record deal. In a rage, Levee fatally stabs Toledo, destroying any possibility of a future for himself.
In a Midwestern town, an aging Black matriarch experiences visions and communicates with ancestors. Her children see her behavior as senility and try to intervene, while her granddaughter Rosa is drawn into the family's struggle over independence, memory and inherited pain.
Childhood friends reunite in Ghana for a funeral after twenty-five years apart. Conflicting memories draw them back toward the events that separated them, mixing personal history with myth and the desire to reconnect.
Seven schoolgirls perform Macbeth in their free time, a pastime that leads to the murder of a classmate.
A political burlesque of Macbeth transposes the Kennedy assassination and Lyndon Johnson's vice presidency into Shakespearean tragedy, following MacBird from the 1960 convention through the 1968 election.
In a one-person comic adaptation of Macbeth, Rick Miller performs the Shakespearean roles in voices drawn from The Simpsons, rearranging the text and inserting familiar characters and comic asides.
Macadam and Eve is a comedy play by the British writer Roger MacDougall. Adam arrives in modern Scotland still looking for his Eve. It premiered at the Q Theatre near Kew Bridge in London before transferring to the Aldwych Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 55 performances between 12 March and 28 April 1951. The original West End cast included John Gregson, John Laurie, Richard Pearson, Sheila Latimer, Beatrice Varley and Patricia Dickson. In 1956 it was adapted for an episode of the ITV Play of the Week.
After three witches prophesy that he will become king, the Scottish general Macbeth murders King Duncan at his wife’s urging. Guilt and fear drive the couple into further violence, until Malcolm’s forces and Macduff overthrow Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth urges her husband to murder Duncan, but Shaw’s Macbeth misunderstands her Shakespearean imagery literally, taking directions such as looking like an innocent flower at face value. The short comic exchange ends when Lady Macbeth’s performer breaks character in frustration.
After generals Macbett and Banco suppress a rebellion, Archduke Duncan reneges on his promised rewards. Spurred by Lady Duncan, Macbett assassinates the Archduke and seizes the throne, then tries to retain power through further violence while haunted by his victims and confronting a new tyrant.
College students confront female ambition and a casting dispute when a freshman is cast as Lady Macbeth.
In Ottoman-ruled Macedonia, Osman Bey kidnaps Cveta, who resists conversion and renunciation of her identity. Her lover Spase and brother Duko seek her release; when the bey attacks her wedding, Duko and Cveta are killed in the confrontation.
A young woman works as a low-level stenographer and lives with her mother. She follows the rituals that society expects of a woman, however resistant she may feel about them. She subsequently marries her boss, whom she finds repulsive. After having a baby with him, she has an affair with a younger man who fuels her lust for life. Driven to murder her husband, she is convicted of the crime and is executed in the electric chair.
Thirteen-year-old Mackenzie lands a small role on a children’s television show. When a make-up artist predicts she will become the world’s biggest pop star, Mackenzie and her ruthless stage mother pursue fame with increasingly destructive ambition.
Three acts follow a Romanian family and community shortly before, during, and after the 1989 revolution. The first and third acts are dramatic fictions; the middle act draws on interviews and shifts among witnesses to the events in Bucharest.
In rural Pennsylvania, Michael struggles to care for his dying, tyrannical father. A hospice nurse arrives, but his brother and sister soon appear, intent on securing their inheritance.
In 1993 Algeria, the deceased Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir return from the afterlife to attend Tahar Djaout’s funeral. Islamists abduct them and try to convert them, while the captives challenge the kidnappers’ ideas and defend intellectual freedom amid the civil war.
Madam Fickle; Or, The Witty False One is a 1676 comedy play by the English writer Thomas D'Urfey. It was first staged at the Dorset Garden Theatre by the Duke's Company. The original cast included Thomas Betterton as Lord Bellamore, William Smith as Manley, Samuel Sandford as Sir Arthur Oldlove, Matthew Medbourne as Captain Tilbury, Anthony Leigh as Zechiel, James Nokes as Toby, Cave Underhill as Old Jollyman, Thomas Jevon as Harry, John Richards as Flaile, Henry Norris as Dorrel, Mary Lee as Madam Fickle, Elizabeth Barry as Constantia and Anne Shadwell as Arbella. The published version of the play was dedicated to the Duke of Ormonde.
In her home overlooking a Japanese harbor, Cho-Cho-San waits for Lieutenant Pinkerton to return. Pressured to accept another suitor, she clings to her marriage as an American consul struggles to tell her that Pinkerton has a new wife.
Madame Louise is a 1945 comedy play by the British writer Vernon Sylvaine. It premiered at His Majesty's Theatre in Aberdeen and then went on to a long West End run at the Garrick Theatre, lasting for 410 performances between February 1945 and February 1946. The original cast included Robertson Hare, Alfred Drayton and Paul Demel.
Set in Paris in 1966, the play follows American student Carl, who finds himself alone in his teacher Claudie’s flat. Their encounter leads them to explore art, life, love, and themselves.
In three episodic acts, George Sand pursues Alfred de Musset in Paris, Pietro Pagello in Venice and then Frédéric Chopin in Paris. Witty literary figures surround the affairs, while Sand records her declarations and steers former lovers and rivals into new pairings.
Catherine, an outspoken laundress engaged to Sergeant Lefebvre, shelters Count Neipperg during the Revolution. Years later, as Duchess of Danzig, she faces pressure from Napoleon to divorce Lefebvre, but reminds the emperor of her earlier help and preserves her marriage. When Neipperg is accused of an affair with the empress, Catherine and Lefebvre help clear his name and foil Savary’s efforts to disgrace them.
After her jealous husband casts her out and separates her from their son, a woman falls into poverty and becomes the mistress of a criminal. She kills him when he plans to blackmail her husband, now the attorney general, then faces trial before the son who does not recognize her and dies after protecting him from the truth.
Across three periods of imprisonment, Renée de Sade tries to free her husband Alphonse despite his betrayals and her family’s opposition. Her mother exposes Renée’s own participation in his sadism, while her sister Anne urges escape; after reflecting on de Sade’s novel Justine, Renée rejects her former devotion and chooses a convent, refusing to see him when he returns.
Set in 1980s Bangkok, the play explores sex tourism and its ramifications.
After a quarrel following a party, a husband leaves his wife and moves into a city hotel. His lonely attempt at bachelor life leads to a compromising encounter just as his wife arrives hoping to reconcile.
In 1970s Jasper, a teenage son of Italian immigrants dreams of a life inspired by Rocky Balboa and John Travolta. His ambitions collide with his father’s expectations in a solo coming-of-age story shaped by family, food, and popular music.
In Sheffield, three brothers and their mother struggle with grief after the father’s death. Gary feels bound to his family, racist Miles loses his building job and is later defrauded by Errol, while unstable Pete begins a relationship with Carol and reenacts masculine rituals associated with his father.
After legal trouble and probation force Madea out of retirement, she performs community service at a nursing home, where her outspoken advice changes residents' and staff members' outlooks and relationships.
Madea is jailed after refusing to pay for gas and befriends Katie, who is serving time for stabbing her abusive ex-husband. Outside prison, Katie's daughter Toni is taken in by Madea, while Sonny's marriage collapses after his wife's affair and their child is endangered. Madea helps Toni and Katie reconcile, while Sonny moves on and adopts the child.
When Shirley learns her cancer is active, she gathers her adult children with help from Madea and Aunt Bam. Family conflicts surface, and after Shirley dies, Madea urges the family to reconcile and support one another.
At the Pandora Hotel's 50-year class reunion, Madea and the hotel staff become embroiled in a series of personal crises. Madea helps a couple confront infidelity, encourages Stephanie to escape an abusive marriage and reconcile with her mother, and exposes the hotel's manager's mistreatment of employees.
Josette loves a man whose plans to leave the country are opposed by her parents. To deter other suitors while preserving her attachment, she persuades her elderly bachelor godfather to become her nominal husband; their shared life and the affection between them unsettle that arrangement.
Yayati gives his daughter Madhavi to Galav to help fulfill the young man’s obligation to his teacher. Her miraculous youth and promise of bearing great kings make her useful to men who control her, until she rejects their claims over her life.
In the forest where the Pandavas are in exile, Ghatotkacha captures a Brahmin family for his mother Hidimba, who wants a human meal. Each family member volunteers to die in the others’ place, until the priest’s middle son goes to fetch water. When Ghatotkacha calls for the “middle one,” Bhima mistakes the call for himself and arrives. The ensuing dispute and wrestling match reveal that Ghatotkacha is Bhima’s son; Hidimba recognizes her husband, and both families part in peace.
Set in Nigeria in 1969, the play contrasts “madmen” and “specialists” amid war and political oppression. Corrupt Dr. Bero imprisons and torments his physician father, exposing the human cost of authority detached from reality.
After killing a prince in a duel, Floriano feigns madness and takes refuge in a Valencian asylum. There he meets Erifila, who has fled an arranged marriage; their romance becomes entangled with jealous patients, a staged wedding, Floriano’s pursuit and his arrest before an unexpected resolution brings the couples together.
Five notorious high-school students have spent more than a decade failing and repeating their final year, driving previous teachers to breakdowns. The principal hires a new teacher, Effat, to change their behavior, but her efforts meet with little early success as the students and teacher clash.
A historical drama about the relationship between illusionist Harry Houdini and author Arthur Conan Doyle.
Magic Goes Wrong is a comedy play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, Henry Shields (of Mischief Theatre Company) and Penn & Teller. It follows the series of Mischief's Goes Wrong series of plays following The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong.
Magic/Bird (stylized sometimes as Magic-Bird and Magic Bird) is a play by Eric Simonson about basketball stars Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers and Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics throughout their careers. The play premiered on Broadway in 2012, where it ran for 61 total performances.
Patricia believes a conjurer is truly magical, while her rationalist brother Morris explains away his tricks. When one apparently impossible effect drives Morris toward madness, the conjurer's account of real demons and Patricia's faith unsettle the household's certainty about truth and belief.
Five far-left revolutionaries squat in an empty London house while a Conservative cabinet MP loses faith in himself. Their stories converge when revolutionary Jed accidentally kills both himself and the MP with plastic explosive.
A Sanskrit drama of Rama's early life, from his defense of Vishvamitra's sacrifice and marriage to Sita through exile, Sita's abduction, and Rama's campaign against Ravana. The surviving seven-act text includes disputed later extensions beyond Bhavabhuti's original portion.
During a truce amid the siege of Mecca, Mahomet manipulates captive siblings Seid and Palmira, who are secretly the children of Meccan leader Zopir. He sends Seid to assassinate Zopir, who is killed before the siblings learn he was their father. Palmira discovers Mahomet's deception and kills herself rather than submit to him.
In an unfinished prose tragedy, Ibrahim tells captive Greek princess Irène that Mahomet intends to marry her. Irène rejects the sultan’s offer and despises Ibrahim for serving the Turks; Mahomet then arranges her marriage to Lascaris, while Roxane and Lascaris profess love.
Mahomet the Imposter is a 1744 tragedy by the British writer James Miller. His final play, it was inspired by the 1736 French work Mahomet by Voltaire. It was Miller's only tragedy, as his other works were sentimental comedies. The title is sometimes spelt as Mahomet the Impostor. The original Drury Lane cast included David Garrick as Zaphna, Dennis Delane as Mahomet, Henry Giffard as Alcanor, Richard Winstone as Pharon and Anna Marcella Giffard as Palmira.
After his wife Princess Libuše dies, Prince Přemysl grieves; Vlasta flirts with him. The play is inspired by the Czech legend of the Maidens' War.
This Buddhist drama concerns Maitreya, the future Buddha and savior of the world. It was composed in a mixed prose-and-verse style in 27 acts; surviving Tocharian fragments include stage directions, while the text was also intended to be read.
Major Barbara Undershaft, a Salvation Army officer in London, is disillusioned when the Army accepts donations from her estranged father, Andrew Undershaft, a wealthy munitions maker, and a whisky distiller. She visits his factory and sees the wages and stability it provides to workers, while he visits her shelter and observes her work with its visitors. Barbara ultimately decides that bringing salvation to those with material plenty may be more meaningful than feeding the starving; her fiancé Adolphus Cusins becomes heir to the factory.
Blind Major Chandrakanth shelters a fugitive who killed the man responsible for his sister’s suicide. Chandrakanth’s police-officer son pursues the murderer, unaware that the victim was Chandrakanth’s own younger son; the fugitive and Chandrakanth are also unaware of each other’s identities.
In an English small town between the wars, pretentious newcomer Lucia clashes with local queen bee Miss Mapp.
The play presents Hugh O'Neill's leadership of an Irish-Spanish alliance against England during the Nine Years' War and his ill-fated marriage to Mabel Bagenal, daughter of an English enemy. Set before and after Kinsale, it explores Irish nationalism and how historical narratives shape a national hero's legacy.
Teenagers Connor and Hannah plan how to make a first date succeed, each seeking advice from a best friend. Three parallel conversations—before the date, between Connor and Stan, and between Hannah and Charlotte—lead into the date and first kiss, exploring teenage friendship, romance, and the friend zone.
Renaissance ruler Sigismondo Malatesta is offered other cities in exchange for Rimini, travels to Rome intending to kill the pope, accepts an honorary Vatican office, then returns home and is poisoned.
A fallen woman from Málaga is eventually redeemed; Malvaloca is the name of the leading character.
A Macbeth adaptation that recasts the struggle as a battle to take over a powerful corporation in Ghana.
In an Italian-Canadian family in Quebec, Angelo’s relationship with Nino overturns his parents’ expectations. Both men face pressure from their families and must decide whether they can acknowledge their love openly.
A 70-year-old former partisan nurse recalls confronting a politician at a rally in a village where fascists had killed partisans, then being arrested and tried. She recounts losing her husband and son in the war and declares herself the mother of the younger generation, urging them to resist fascism.
During a weekend visit, childless friends Phil and Lorna join Jane and Kev, parents of two young girls, in a family kitchen where adulteries and confessions disrupt their apparently settled lives. The children are played by adult performers.
Linguistics professor Ivan Antonov, his wife Martha and their son Bozhidar see a mammoth's shadow appear on their wall; said to mark an unsolved crime, it spreads from their building across the neighborhood and city.
Man Alive! is a comedy play by the British writer John Dighton. In a strange turnaround at a department store in Oxford Street, a shop window mannequin comes to life and takes over the store while the unpopular manager is temporarily turned into a dummy. After premiering at the Pleasure Gardens Theatre in Folkestone it transferred to the Aldwych Theatre where it ran for 84 performances from 14 June to 25 August 1956. The cast included Robertson Hare, Brian Reece, Wendy Craig, Joan Hickson and Joan Sims.
In colonial India, Irish civilian Galy Gay is forcibly transformed into an ideal soldier. Brecht's epic comedy treats personality as something that can be dismantled and reassembled, using military collective action to explore war, identity, and the replaceability of individuals.
The play is a study of a ruthless, sociopathic businessman: his inability to love and the impact of this on others (notably, his son and his wife). The central character Gregor Antonescu was based on the lives of Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish Match King, and Samuel Insull the Anglo-American investor.
Ann Whitefield is placed under the guardianship of the revolutionary John Tanner, who resists her persistent efforts to marry him. Their romantic comedy is paired with a philosophical debate about human evolution and the Life Force; the third-act Don Juan in Hell sequence stages that debate directly.
Ken Carpenter, a devoted Baptist from Nebraska, abruptly loses his faith and leaves his wife for a solitary trip to London. There he befriends bartender Tamyra and her flatmate Harry, while confronting unfamiliar desires and the death of his mother. Returning home, Ken says he has recovered his faith and asks his hurt, uncertain wife to accept him again.
Celebrity bank robber Vic Parks has become a television personality and lives in a Mediterranean villa. His fame is entangled with the life of Douglas Beechey, the former hero who stopped Parks’s bank robbery but lost his future wife when she was shot during it.
Management is a 1799 comedy play by the British writer Frederick Reynolds. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 31 October 1799. The original cast included William Thomas Lewis as Captain Lavish, John Fawcett as Mist, Joseph Shepherd Munden as Worry, Alexander Pope as Sir Hervey Sutherland, Charles Farley as Alltrade, Charles Klanert as Frank, Samuel Simmons as Stopgap, George Davenport as Geoffrey, Mary Ann Davenport as Mrs Dazzle and Maria Ann Pope as Juliana. The Dublin premiere was at the Crow Street Theatre on 13 February 1800.
A cross-dressing Australian Rules football player faces the influence of managers in a sport increasingly shaped by money and professional representation.
The play interweaves Jane Snake’s rise at Lehman Brothers before and during the 2008 financial crisis with her family’s financial troubles and a 17th-century story of Dutch colonization, land seizure and violence against the Lenape, drawing parallels between colonialism and capitalism.
An African slave is trained to fight other slaves on an antebellum Southern plantation.
A guilt-ridden nobleman in the Bernese Alps summons supernatural spirits and seeks relief from his remorse over Astarte’s death. Unable to escape his past, he rejects the religious redemption offered to him and chooses death.
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