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Clear filtersLiz Lochhead’s play explores the relationship between Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart through a female perspective. Elizabeth performs masculine-coded behavior to expose women’s exclusion from political power, while Mary uses sexuality and emotional vulnerability to pursue her aims.
Mary Read is a 1934 historical play by the British writer James Bridie and Claud Gurney, based on the life of the early eighteenth century pirate Mary Read. After premiering at the Manchester Opera House it ran for a 108 performances in London's West End, first at His Majesty's Theatre before transferring to the Phoenix Theatre. Produced by Tyrone Guthrie, it starred Flora Robson in the title role supported by a cast that included Robert Donat, Claud Allister, Charles Farrell and Iris Hoey.
This is the fictional story of Mary Rose, a girl who vanishes twice. As a child, Mary Rose was taken by her father to a remote Scottish island. While she is briefly out of her father's sight, Mary Rose vanishes. The entire island is searched exhaustively. Twenty-one days later, Mary Rose reappears as mysteriously as she disappeared... but she shows no effects of having been gone for three weeks, and she has no knowledge of any gap or missing time. Years later, as a young wife and mother, the adult Mary Rose persuades her husband to take her to the same island. Again she vanishes: this time for a period of decades. When she is found again, she is not a single day older and has no awareness of the passage of time. In the interim, her son has grown to adulthood and is now physically older than his mother.
A five-act historical drama following the life of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, awaits a reprieve from Elizabeth I while her supporters plot to free her; after an invented meeting between the queens and a failed rescue attempt, Elizabeth signs the death warrant and Mary is executed.
Mary Stuart is an 1840 historical tragedy by the Irish writer James Haynes. It is based on the assassination of David Rizzio, a courtier to Mary, Queen of Scots. The play was staged as part of an ambitious plan to relaunch the reputation of London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane by the new manager William John Hammond, but faced issues of censorship from Charles Kemble and the Lord Chamberlain's office. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 22 January 1840. The original cast featured Mary Warner as Mary Stuart, William Macready as Earl of Ruthven, Samuel Phelps as Earl of Darnley, Henry Howe as George Douglas, Edward William Elton as Rizzio, George Yarnold as Earl of Bothwell, Sarah West as Countess of Argyle and Fanny Cooper as Celine. Haynes dedicated the work to Macready.
A history play portraying the reign of Mary I of England in the sixteenth century.
Mary of Scotland was a 1933 Broadway three-act play written in blank verse by Maxwell Anderson, produced by the Theatre Guild, directed by Theresa Helburn and with scenic and costume design by Robert Edmond Jones. It ran for 248 performances from November 27, 1933 to July 1934 at the Alvin Theatre. Anderson's son Quentin Anderson played a warder. It was included in Burns Mantle's The Best Plays of 1933-1934. It was adapted into a 1936 film Mary of Scotland mostly directed by John Ford and starring Fredric March and Katharine Hepburn. A rehearsal for the play provided the setting for a 1976 sketch of "Mama's Family" on The Carol Burnett Show that featured Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, and Madeline Kahn.
The play opens with Parson Hawthorne talking to George Lordly (the titular cynic), with George's father in law, Adam, in the immediate vicinity. Notably, Adam has gone mad after Helen, his daughter and George's wife, ran off with another man, Harley. Parson Hawthorne laments that a man whom he had recently begun to promote turned out to have cuckolded a parishioner the previous night. George expresses amusement at his friend's anguish. Parson Hawthorne and George spot George's brother Vernon Lordly walking down the path with Alice Hawthorne, Parson Hawthorne's daughter. George suspects that Vernon is unfaithful to his fiancé, George's ward, Mary Stillworth, and is courting Alice instead. The pair enters, and upon finding Parson Hawthorne and George at the grotto, Alice breaks off her relationship with George. George takes Vernon aside and tells him that he is breaking Mary's heart. Vernon insists that Mary does not love him. After all the aforementioned characters have departed, with the exception of Adam, Helen and Harley return, apparently from Italy, bedraggled and malnourished. Helen tearfully reunites with her father. George insists that Mary and Vernon marry. Because this is what he wishes, Mary consents, and decides to marry Vernon the following day- even though she is secretly in love with George. In a soliloquy, George implies that he is in love with Mary, who soon afterwards discovers a letter from her deceased father that was intended to be discovered on her twentieth birthday. The letter discloses that George took the blame for an act of financial fraud that Mary's father had committed. Mary confronts her guardian with the letter, and demands that he tell the world the truth. George rebuffs his ward, asserting that he has a duty to her father, who nursed George after he was injured in a duel with Harley. Mary argues that he has fulfilled his duty by raising her, but George disagrees, and insists that he will travel to England after Mary and Vernon are wed, as he does not want to be a damper on their lives. Later, Mary tells Alice that she need not despair over Vernon; Mary will die shortly after her wedding, covertly implying that she will die of heartbreak because she is in love with George. The day of the wedding, as guests gather at Lordly's house, a funeral bell tolls. Mary declares that this is a sign of her impending death. Vernon helps Mary and George realize that the other reciprocates their feelings. Suddenly, Adam, who has just regained his sanity, enters. He has rung the funeral bells himself. He tells the partygoers that Helen and Harley have died, and confesses that the former was always in love with the latter, but was forbidden by her father to marry him due to his lack of wealth. Upon revealing this, Adam dies. Throughout the play, the servants Beale and Jane provide humorous commentary on the events of the plot.
The plot focuses on wisecracking cynic Mary and infuriatingly-sensible Bob, who have recently divorced and have not seen each other in nine months. They meet at his apartment in hopes that they can avert an audit by the Internal Revenue Service, and a snowstorm forces Mary to spend the night. The next morning, mutual friend and lawyer Oscar, Hollywood-heartthrob neighbor Dirk Winston, and Bob's considerably-younger fiancée Tiffany arrive on the scene. The comedy's humor is derived from discussions about income taxes, marriage, alimony, divorce, remarriage, extramarital affairs, weight-loss programs, exercise, and sex.
Four women named Mary step out of the gospel narratives to tell their own stories. Their encounters reconsider faith, sacrifice, and rebellion through voices pushed to the margins of history.
Mary, Queen of Scots is a 1789 historical tragedy by the British writer John St John. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London on 21 March 1789. Its Irish premiere took place at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin on 22 December 1802. The original Drury Lane cast included Sarah Siddons as Queen Mary, John Philip Kemble as the Duke of Norfolk, James Aickin as Sir William Cecil, William Barrymore as Lord Herries, John Hayman Packer as Davison, Robert Benson as Earl of Shrewsbury, John Phillimore as Earl of Huntingdon, John Fawcett as Sir Amias Paulet, Matthew Williames as Beton, Sarah Ward as Queen Elizabeth, Jane Farmer as Lady Douglas and Charlotte Tidswell as Lady Scrope.
Young Maryša's father promises her to Vávra, a widower, although she loves Francek. Francek leaves for war rather than remain in the village and watch her marry, while the imposed marriage strains the family.
After a factory owner's son returns from abroad having renounced Islam, he falls out with his father as workers seize the factory. A worker portrayed as secretly Jewish incites the group to murder the owner, framing the play's political drama through antisemitic conspiracy tropes.
In Dar es Salaam before the Arusha Declaration, friends Juma and Kitaru rehearse a play in which the Devil torments Man. Their friendship strains as Juma's displaced family confronts loss while Kitaru's family gains wealth, bringing their class conflict and opposing political ideals into the open.
Masks and Faces is a British historical comedy play written by Charles Reade and Tom Taylor which was first performed in 1852. It features the Irish actress Peg Woffington (1720–1760) as a major character. It proved popular, earning the writers £150. The following year, to capitalize on the play's success Reade wrote a novel Peg Woffington which was also a major hit.
A welcome for the Countess of Derby unfolds into a masque at Ashby Castle. An enchantress and Saturn greet her, then Cynthia appears in a cloud-borne chariot to converse with Ariadne; four knights and four gentlemen masque, present shields, and invite guests to dance. An eclogue and Niobe's gift accompany the Countess's departure.
At the baptism celebrations for Prince Henry, a court masque uses a moving ship laden with sugar fish and musical performances to dramatize James VI and Anne of Denmark's sea journey and royal union. Six costumed maidens embody virtues, while allegorical sea figures and tableaux celebrate the prince's lineage and succession.
In aristocratic St. Petersburg, jealous Yevgeny Arbenin concludes that his wife Nina has been unfaithful after she loses a bracelet at a masquerade. He poisons her, then discovers a letter proving her innocence and goes insane. The play's final version adds The Unknown, through whom Arbenin is punished for his act.
Father Tim Farley is highly popular with his parishioners due to his charm, wit, easy-going manner, and entertaining (but unchallenging) sermons. One Sunday, seminarian Mark Dolson interrupts Farley's sermon to challenge his stance on the ordination of women. The pastor is outraged yet intrigued by the young man, and asks to have him assigned to work with him. Dolson is a firebrand eager to change the Church. He enjoys attacking Farley's "song and dance theology" and questioning why he drinks so much. Dolson feels it is his job to shake parishioners out of their complacency. Farley likes Dolson, but sees that he will never succeed as a priest if all he does is irritate people and make enemies. Each man has something to teach the other about how to perform his priestly duties.
Master Clarke is an 1840 historical play by the British writer Thomas James Serle. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket on 26 September 1840. It revolves around the life of Richard Cromwell, deposed Lord Protector of England, during the seventeenth century.
The opera diva Maria Callas, a glamorous, commanding, larger-than-life, caustic, and surprisingly funny pedagogue is holding a singing master class. Alternately dismayed and impressed by the students before her, she retreats into recollections about the glories of her own life and career. Included in her musings are her fierce hatred of her rivals, the unforgiving press that savaged her early performances, her triumphs at La Scala, and her relationship with Aristotle Onassis. It culminates in a monologue about sacrifice taken in the name of art.
The historical drama follows Protestant reformer Olaus Petri's struggle against the Roman Catholic Church in sixteenth-century Sweden.
A four-act melodrama in which Jack Walton competes with Robert Carlton and Humpy Logan for Hester Thornbury's love.
A congressional committee investigates an alleged covert arms scheme routed through a film company making an action movie. The hearings parody Watergate, Iran-Contra and political doublespeak, turning committee procedure and evasive language into the play’s central subject.
Tobi is an aging dancer, choreographer and teacher who enjoys knitting. His quiet life is interrupted when Mike and Lisa enter his home under the pretense of interviewing him for Lisa's thesis.
In an imaginary Spanish court, the king takes the married Tormiella from her shoemaker husband, while his brother plots to usurp the throne and the queen plots against her rival. A revenge scheme and a succession of apparent deaths, executions, and reversals ultimately lead the king to send Tormiella back to her husband and forgive his enemies.
Maternity deals with out-of-wedlock birth and the relations of motherhood to society.
A biographical drama about Soviet naval captain Ivan Belov and the events in Lauttasaari leading up to his death in 1944.
Pratap, who fails the matriculation examination, confronts a society that treats certificates as measures of a person’s worth; his wife Thariktha’s certificate becomes part of the satire on outdated social values.
In this Persian-language solo satire, Parsa Pirouzfar performs more than 30 characters across eight episodes adapted from selected short stories by Anton Chekhov.
The play centers on the exiled Emperor Sutoku's spirit, appearing in goblin form, and the poet Saigyō. Saigyō's poem about Sutoku's changed circumstances meets the emperor's drive for revenge; their tension between non-attachment and vengeance forms the dramatic core.
Two drunken Kapalika mendicants, Satyasoma and Devasoma, discover that their skull-bowl is missing. Satyasoma accuses a Buddhist monk, and their quarrel escalates until a Pasupata mediates; a madman then returns the bowl, which he recovered from a dog. The one-act satire lampoons religious sects and their rival claims.
Maud's Peril in an 1867 play by Watts Phillips. It debuted in London at the Adelphi Theatre on 23 October 1867, and at Wallack's Theatre in New York City on 25 November 1867. The play is based in part on Le Forcat by Charles de Bernard.
The play focuses on two half-sisters, Jackie and Mary, who inherit a stamp collection from Mary’s grandfather which might be worth a fortune. The title refers to the "Blue Mauritius", one of the world's rarest stamps. The sisters become involved with three men, including Phillip, the owner of a stamp store, and Dennis, whose occupation is somewhat mysterious. The characters try to out-do each other in attempting to reap possible rewards from the stamp collection.
Mavourneen is a 1915 historical comedy play by the British writer Louis N. Parker. It portrays a dalliance between Charles II and an young Irish woman in Restoration England. It ran for 98 performances at His Majesty's Theatre in London's West End between 23 October 1915 and 29 January 1916. The original cast featured Malcolm Cherry as Charles II, Lily Elsie as Patricia O'Brien, Gerald Lawrence as Buckingham and Athene Seyler as Catherine of Braganza. It also included C.V. France, Reginald Owen, Ben Field and Violet Graham. It was produced by Sir Herbert Tree while Joseph Harker designed the sets.
In a crowded Venetian comedy of intrigue and disguise, shy lovers Aurelio and Aemilia are brought together by their friend Lodovico, while soldier Quintiliano swindles others and the lustful Lorenzo is tricked into a humiliating disguise. A masked finale reveals hidden identities and unites the couples.
A short play exploring the life and death of a drug dealer.
The cook Beyle and other servants struggle with the wealthy landlord upstairs, exposing the divide between the people who work below and those who live above.
McNeal is a one-act stage play written by Ayad Akhtar.
McQueen is a play by British playwright James Phillips and directed by John Caird. It received its world premiere at the St. James Theatre, London, in May 2015. Starring Stephen Wight and Dianna Agron, the story is set over the course of one night. It focuses on the visionary imagination of the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, about a girl who breaks into the designer's home to steal a dress and is caught by McQueen. Following its premiere run, the play was transferred to the West End's Theatre Royal, Haymarket from August 27 to November 7, 2015.
A dramatization of Nathuram Godse’s defense plea, presenting the trial over Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination from Godse’s point of view.
The year is 1919, and the Goldbergs have recently moved from "downtown" (a tenement) to "uptown" (a lower middle-class apartment). After the movers have finished bringing the Goldberg's possessions in, Molly is embarrassed when they ask her to sign the receipt. The play is a series of domestic situations like this, in which Molly and Jake try to fulfill their own aspirations while raising their children. Among other situations they encounter is helping Mr. Mendel and Vera Wertheimer get together as a couple, overcoming Jake's suspicion that Molly has pillaged their savings to buy Rosie a piano (a secret gift from Uncle David), and trying to persuade Cousin Simon to advance Jake the money to start his own business.
Mother cannot distinguish her 28-year-old twin sons, OTTO and otto. When OTTO says he is leaving home to become Chinese and that his brother no longer exists, the claim unsettles otto and draws in his girlfriend Maureen; the comedy uses wordplay to probe identity and love.
When Duke Vincentio leaves Vienna in the hands of his deputy Angelo, Angelo revives a death penalty and sentences Claudio for fornication. Angelo then demands sex from Claudio's sister Isabella in exchange for his life; the disguised Duke intervenes through a series of deceptions and public revelations.
A Restoration-style farce set in 1751 follows romantic entanglements among nobles and servants, involving mistaken identities, mismatched lovers, deception and wordplay.
In Corinth, Medea takes revenge after Jason abandons her to marry Creon's daughter. She secures refuge in Athens, arranges the deaths of Creon and his daughter through poisoned gifts, then kills her own sons and escapes in a chariot sent by Helios.
After Jason leaves her for Creusa, Medea curses the king and his daughter, sends Creusa a poisoned robe, and pursues vengeance that extends to her own children. Seneca's Roman tragedy gives Medea more than half of its lines and a forceful central voice.
Medea is a 1730 play by the British writer Charles Johnson. It is about Medea from Greek mythology and based on the play Medea by Euripides. The original Drury Lane cast included Mary Porter as Medea, Robert Wilks as Jason, William Mills as Aegeus, Christiana Horton as Ethra, John Mills as Creon, Sarah Thurmond as Creusa, Thomas Hallam as Eumelus and John Corey as Therapion.
A “living newspaper” survey of the health problem in America.
Medusa recounts her transformation from a woman into a feared figure of Greek mythology. Moving between the ancient story and a contemporary rage room, the play examines violence, power, and women's anger.
Meet Mr. Callaghan is a 1952 crime thriller play by the British writer Gerald Verner. It was adapted from the novel The Urgent Hangman by Peter Cheyney featuring the private detective Slim Callaghan. It premiered at the Kings Theatre in Southsea before transferring to the Garrick Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 340 performances between 27 May 1952 and 4 April 1953. The cast included Terence De Marney as Callaghan, Larry Burns, Jack Allen, Trevor Reid, John Longden, Lisa Daniels, Harriette Johns and Simone Silva. In 1953 Verner wrote another stage play featuring Callaghan, Dangerous Curves based on Cheyney's novel of the same title.
After the family patriarch dies, Mr. Brown and Cora join relatives preparing for the funeral. Family tensions surface around grief, a failed marriage, and an affair, before several relationships are reconciled.
In 1923, the Cartozian family meet with their Irish lawyer Wallace McCamant regarding their upcoming case before the Supreme Court. The Armenian-born Tatos Cartozian, an Oriental rug merchant living in Portland, Oregon, has lost his newly acquired citizenship due to the legal uncertainty of whether to classify Armenia as part of Europe, Asia, or the Middle East. McCamant presents the argument that they should be considered white by virtue of the word "Caucasian" referring to the Caucasus Mountains, which were originally part of Armenia. The recent events of the Armenian genocide weigh heavily on the family, who were forced to move to America as a result. McCamant argues they can win their case by hiding any aspects of their culture that would jeopardize their claim to being white, which leads to tensions among the family due to their varying skin tones and ability to grasp the English language. In July 2024, a group of four Armenian-Americans gather to be interviewed in the Christmas episode of a reality television series called Meet the Cartozians (a parody of Keeping Up with the Kardashians). The plan is for them to meet "the celebrity" (parodying Kim Kardashian), a well-known reality star who is distantly related to Tatos Cartozian, on camera. While waiting for her arrival, the group and their cameraman discuss their differing relationships to their heritage, as well as whether they consider themselves white or not as a result of the 1924 United States v. Cartozian, which Tatos won and was declared white. The group's differing experiences of racism soon leads to a full-blown argument over the topic, eventually leading the cameraman to cancel the production of the episode entirely. After most of the group has departed, "the celebrity" arrives on set to find the only remaining guest, Robert (played by the same actor as Tatos), eating some kadayif another guest had prepared. The two share the dessert while commiserating over their struggle to connect with their heritage, and the lingering trauma of displacement.
Meet the Wife was a 1923 three act Broadway comedy written by Lynn Starling and produced by Stewart and French, Inc. It ran for 232 performances from November 26, 1923 to June 1924 at the Klaw Theatre. Mary Boland starred as inadvertent bigamist Gertrude Lennox, Humphrey Bogart as the juvenile lead reporter Gregory Brown and Clifton Webb as sporting youngblood Victor Staunton. It was set in Gertrude Lennox's living room. It was adapted as a feature film also titled Meet the Wife in 1931 starring Laura La Plante.
Two men in their forties meet again at a Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros concert after years apart. Their dialogue jumps through memories of punk, divorce, class conflict, acid house and soap fame, testing whether they still hold to the punk idealism they call their ‘inner Strummer’. The two-hander is staged on a bare floor with rapid shifts in time and place.
Neeta struggles to keep her household together as her own life deteriorates. Bratya Basu’s stage rendering of Ritwik Ghatak’s film blends cinematic elements with theatrical imagination.
A Bhojpuri drama about women’s oppression in a male-dominated society, addressing female foeticide, sati, purdah and equal property rights.
A farmer's son turns to robbery and later returns as a repentant brigand. His father, stern but loving, gives him over to the authorities, while the mother embodies the family's grief. Ortner dramatizes the medieval lost-son subject with substantial changes.
Bank teller Tilly's melancholy attracts a tailor, a psychologist and a hairdresser, then gives way to overwhelming happiness. The characters' emotions spread and transform one another, including Frances's fantastical change into an almond, before they gather to restore her.
A one-act historical drama set amid the medieval conflict between the Birkebeiner and Bagler factions, using modern dialogue and a tightly sustained dramatic tension.
Two impoverished villagers arrive in Tehran during the early demonstrations of the 1979 revolution and are hired to impersonate workers, party members, students and other groups at demonstrations; their unwittingly reactionary work leads to catastrophic consequences.
Jealous Prince Platon Imshin imprisons his unfaithful young wife Nastassya and her lover, while attacking his brother. Nastassya’s drunken father frees the captives and sets fire to part of the estate before a governor restores order. A dying Platon pardons everyone in a strange reconciliation.
A stage adaptation drawing on selected speeches by Helen and Clytemnestra from the Troy trilogy.
In a Depression-era Glasgow tenement, Maggie Morrison tries to hold together a crowded family struggling with poverty, unemployment, illness, and conflict. Her husband John and son Alec's violence drives family members away, while Jenny returns with a plan to help the family secure better housing.
Bank cashier William Prescott lets his innocent friend Edwin Seabury take the blame for money he has stolen. When Prescott learns that his fiancée knows his secret and would protect him, her devotion forces him to confront his guilt while the bank’s directors struggle to prevent its collapse.
Men in White is a 1933 play written by American playwright Sidney Kingsley. It was produced by the Group Theatre, Sidney Harmon and James Ramsey Ullman, directed by Lee Strasberg with scenic design created by Mordecai Gorelik. It ran for 351 performances from September 26, 1933 to July 28, 1934 at the Broadhurst Theatre. The play won the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was included in Burns Mantle's The Best Plays of 1933–1934.
Two twin brothers, separated as children, arrive unknowingly in the same city. Their resemblance causes a chain of mistaken identities involving a stolen cloak, a dinner, a bracelet, and accusations of madness until they recognize one another and reunite.
Yuri Volin must choose between his wealthy, overprotective grandmother and his financially struggling father, while he and his cousin Lyubov fall in love. A scheming housemaid spreads rumors, and Yuri misreads Lyubov’s conversation with another man as infidelity; after challenging his friend to a duel, he kills himself.
In Athens, young merchant Charinus loves Pasicompsa, a slave he has brought home from Rhodes. His father Demipho also falls for her and schemes to acquire her, prompting a comic contest of deception and a dispute between father and son.
Two filmmakers lament the failure of their picture and the nature of Hollywood merchandising.
In a post-apocalyptic East London, a youth gang survives by selling hallucinogenic butterflies and staging parties for wealthy clients. When one party is organized around the torture and murder of a child, the gang must decide how far it will go to protect those it loves.
The god Mercury expels alchemists who have abused his nature. After an anti-masque of alchemists and imperfect creatures is dispersed, Mercury, Prometheus and Nature introduce the courtiers as the Sons of Nature.
In a room after his death, Freddie Mercury confronts his life and seeks redemption before a God unmoved by celebrity.
Orphaned Mary Ann works in a South London lodging house, where she meets Lancelot, a baronet’s younger son who has abandoned inheritance to compose music. Their affection grows as she inspires his creativity, but he refuses to marry her while she is poor; after she inherits a fortune, their paths separate. Six years later, Mary Ann returns to him in her old apron, and the pair are reunited.
A two-act solo show by Barry Morse combining vignettes from the lives of actors from Elizabethan times to the present with episodes from Morse's own career; it includes more than a dozen characters and two musical numbers.
After their child disappears, estranged spouses Frank and Cheryl reunite at their home. Old resentments over Frank’s past affair and Cheryl’s emotional breakdown resurface as they try to understand the disappearance and their relationship.
Merope is a 1731 tragedy by the British writer George Jeffreys. It takes place in Ancient Greece, based around the myth of Merope. Voltaire wrote his own play Mérope on the subject in 1743. The original cast included Anne Berriman as Merope, James Quin as Glycon, Thomas Chapman as Nicanor, Thomas Walker as Adrastus, Lacy Ryan as Egistus, William Milward as Polydorus, Charles Hulett as Argaleon and John Ogden as Arbantes. The prologue was written by Aaron Hill.
Told in reverse chronology, the play follows playwright Richard Niles from a successful but empty middle age back to his idealistic youth. Across earlier scenes, he abandons serious artistic ambitions for commercial success, damaging his friendships and relationships along the way.
Store clerk Merton Gill dreams of film stardom and travels to Hollywood, where he befriends stuntwoman Flips. After his disastrous appearance as an extra, Flips exploits his resemblance to a matinée idol by casting him in spoof films; his earnest acting makes the satires unintentionally funny while he believes he is playing serious drama.
An Old and a Young Reciter frame two episodes in Messenia’s wars against Sparta. The first dramatizes Aristodemus’s sacrifice of his daughter Laodice and the eventual defeat and enslavement of the Messenians. The second follows Aristomenes’s resistance, the doomed defense of Eira, and the people’s exile. The reciters bring the history forward to the 369 BC return of the exiles and founding of a new Messene.
On the night of a family-company anniversary in 1913 Zagreb, Leone Glembay returns to confront his wealthy family’s corruption and hypocrisy. He accuses his father’s wife of responsibility for deaths and scandals; the argument ends with his father’s death and Leone killing the baroness.
During the conflict between Wampanoag people and English settlers, Metamora is portrayed as a heroic leader whose tribe is attacked. He kills his wife Nehmeokee to protect her from the invading settlers and dies with his family in the play’s tragic ending.
The play is staged as a series of vignettes. The order is as follows: Cosmogony — Used to explain the creation of the world, as well as give the audience a sense of the style and setting of the play. Woman by the Water, Scientist, and Zeus help narrate how our world of order came from chaos, either by the hand of a creator or by a "natural order of things." Midas — The story is framed by the narration of three laundresses, who tell the story of King Midas, a very rich man. After Midas shuns his daughter for being too disruptive during his speech about caring for his family, a drunken Silenus enters and speaks of a distant land capable of granting eternal life. Silenus later falls asleep, and Midas shelters him in the cabana. When Bacchus comes to retrieve Silenus, he grants Midas a wish for his gracious care of Silenus. Midas asks to have whatever he touches turn to gold. Midas accidentally turns his beloved daughter into gold and is told by Bacchus to seek a mystic pool, which will restore him to normal. Midas leaves on his quest. Alcyone and Ceyx — Also narrated by the three laundresses, this story portrays King Ceyx and his wife Alcyone. Despite his wife's warnings and disapproval, Ceyx voyages on the ocean to visit a far off oracle. Poseidon, the sea god, destroys Ceyx's ship and the king dies. Alcyone awaits him on shore. Prompted by Aphrodite, Alcyone has a dream of Ceyx, who tells her to go to the shore. With mercy from the gods, the two are reunited. Transformed into seabirds, they fly together toward the horizon. Erysichthon and Ceres — This story tells of Erysichthon, man of no god, who chops down one of Ceres' sacred trees. For vengeance, Ceres commands the spirit Hunger to make Erysichthon captive to an insatiable appetite. After eating endlessly and spending all his gold on food, Erysichthon tries to sell his mother to a merchant. His mother is transformed into a little girl after praying to Poseidon and escapes. Erysichthon eventually falls to his endless hunger and devours himself. Orpheus and Eurydice — The story of Orpheus, the god of music, and Eurydice is told from two points of view., the first is from the point of view of Orpheus in the style of Ovid from 8 AD, who has just married his bride Eurydice. Bitten by a snake on their wedding day, Eurydice dies. Distraught, Orpheus travels to the Underworld to negotiate with Hades and the gods to free Eurydice. After Orpheus sings a depressing song, Hades, the god of the Underworld, agrees to let Eurydice return with Orpheus as long as Eurydice follows Orpheus from behind, and he does not look back at her. If he does, she must stay in the Underworld. Orpheus agrees but, when almost back to the living world, he looks back, as he could not hear Eurydice, causing Hermes to return her to Hades. The action is repeated several times, resembling the memory that Orpheus will have forever of losing his bride. The second time is told from the point of view of Eurydice, in the style of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke from 1908. After an eternity of this repeated action, Eurydice becomes forgetful and fragile, no longer remembering Orpheus. She returns to the Underworld ignorant of Orpheus, the man she loved so long ago. Narcissus Interlude — A brief scene showing Narcissus catching a glimpse of his own reflection in a pool. Enthralled, he becomes frozen. The actors replace him with a narcissus plant. Pomona and Vertumnus — A female wood nymph, Pomona, becomes involved with the shy Vertumnus. Pomona has refused the hands of many suitors and remains alone. Vertumnus, in order to see her, disguises himself in a variety of gimmicks. Trying to convince Pomona to fall in love with him, he refuses to show himself. After telling the story of Myrrha, Pomona tells Vertumnus to take off his ridiculous disguise, and the two fall in love. Myrrha — Vertumnus tells the story of King Cinyras and his daughter Myrrha. After denying Aphrodite's attempts many times to turn her head in love, Myrrha is cursed by Aphrodite with a lust for her father. Myrrha tries to control her urges, but eventually falls to temptation. With the help of her Nursemaid, Myrrha has three sexual encounters with her father, each time keeping him inebriated and blind so he would not know it's her. The third time Cinyras takes off his blindfold and tries to strangle Myrrha, who escapes and is never seen again. Phaeton — Phaeton narrates his relationship with his father, Apollo (the sun god), to the Therapist. With the Therapist adding her psychoanalytical points, Phaeton tells the audience of a distanced relationship with his father. After bullying at school, Phaeton goes on a journey to meet his father, who drives the sun across the sky every day. Racked with guilt from neglect of his son, Apollo allows Phaeton to "drive" the sun across the sky as compensation for his years of absence. Phaeton, who constantly whines, drives the sun too close to the earth and scorches it. The Therapist closes the scene in a monologue about the difference between myth and dream. Eros and Psyche — "Q" and "A" essentially narrate a scene about Psyche falling in love with Eros. Psyche and Eros remain silent during the whole interlude, but act out what Q and A discuss. Eros and Psyche fall in love, as Q and A tell the audience that they might wander in the darkness of loneliness until they blind themselves to personal romantic desires and give in to a deeper love. Psyche becomes a goddess and lives with Eros forever. Baucis and Philemon — The final story tells of Zeus and Hermes disguising themselves as beggars on earth to see which people are following the laws of Xenia. After being shunned by every house in the city, they are accepted into the house of Baucis and Philemon, a poor married couple. The couple feed the gods with a great feast, not knowing the identity of the strangers, except that they are "children of God". After the feast, the gods reveal themselves and grant the two a wish. Baucis and Philemon ask to die at the same time to save each other the grief of death. The gods transform their house into a grand palace and the couple into a pair of trees with branches intertwined. At the end of the scene, Midas returns to the stage, finds the pool, washes, and is restored. His daughter enters, restored from being fixed as a gold piece, and the play ends with a redeemed Midas embracing his daughter. The stories as they are told in the classic Ovid tales: Characters Creation King Midas Alcyone and Ceyx Erysichthon Orpheus and Eurydice Pomona and Vertumnus Myrrha Phaeton Apollo Eros and Psyche Baucis and Philemon
Ancient stories of transformation unfold through mime, dance, speech, and illusion. Adapted from Ovid, the piece connects mythic violence and survival with the continual changes of contemporary life.
In 1993, a meteor shower occurs in Ojai, California. Corky and her husband Norm invite another couple for dinner, Gerald and Laura. Over the course of the evening, Gerald and Laura are belligerent and aggressive.
In Pinima, a fictional democracy where the president decides everything, the musical note Mi is banned. The stage action runs alongside online versions, with spectators invited to follow and participate through smartphones and social media.
Michael and Mary is a play by the British author A.A. Milne. It was staged at the Charles Hopkins Theatre in New York City, running for 246 performances between December 1929 and July 1930. It had by then transferred to the St James's Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 159 performances between 1 February and 21 June 1930. The original West End cast included Herbert Marshall, Edna Best, Elizabeth Allan, Frank Lawton, D.A. Clarke-Smith, Reginald Bach, Oliver Wakefield, J. Fisher White, Torin Thatcher, Olwen Brookes and Margaret Scudamore.
Woollen draper Ephestian Quomodo schemes to defraud Richard Easy of his land, while a newly rich upstart competes with a gallant for Quomodo's daughter. Quomodo fakes his death and watches in disguise as his family and confederates act; the fraud is exposed in court, and several other tangled relationships are resolved.
From a mental institution, the mother of Sicilian trade unionist Michele Lu Lanzone recounts his discovery of a spring in a drought-stricken region, the exploitation of local miners, and his murder by the Mafia.
King Midas asks Bacchus for the power to turn everything he touches to gold, then suffers when his clothes, food, wine, and beard all transform. Later, after judging a contest between Apollo and Pan in Pan’s favour, Midas receives ass’s ears. His daughter Sophronia seeks help at Delphi, and Midas’s barber Motto is drawn into a comic subplot about the golden beard and the secret ears.
In this mythological verse drama, Pan and Apollo compete musically, and King Midas overturns the judge’s decision in Pan’s favor. Apollo gives Midas ass’s ears; Midas later receives the golden touch, discovers that it makes ordinary life impossible, and asks Bacchus to remove it.
At the middle of their relationship, Maggie tells Gary, “I don’t think I love you any more.” The two confront their marriage and decide how to move forward.
Middle-Age Spread is a 1977 play written by New Zealand playwright Roger Hall that premiered at the Circa Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand. The play was later staged at the London West End Lyric Theatre in 1978, winning the Laurence Olivier Award Comedy of the Year.
A newcomer’s friendship with a local man anchors a series of encounters in a small American town. Ordinary conversations open onto questions about loneliness, mortality, and the mystery of sharing a life with others.
Midgie Purvis is a comedic stage play written by American playwright Mary Chase. The show premiered on Broadway in 1961 and starred Tallulah Bankhead as the titular character. For her performance, Bankhead was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. The play tells the story of a socialite who becomes bored with her life and decides to go to work as a nanny, altering her outlook on life in the process.
One year after A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Peter Quince and Nick Bottom prepare a new court play based on Bottom’s recollections, while missing actors and an unfinished ending threaten the performance.
A Spinoza-quoting Italian in Little Italy protests when authorities insist on holding an air-raid drill for a possible nuclear attack. The play ends with him beaten or killed and dragged offstage as his friends react.
Mile Away Murder is a 1937 murder mystery play by the British writer Anthony Armstrong. It ran at the Duchess Theatre in London's West End between 2 April and 8 May 1937. The cast included Walter Hudd, D. A. Clarke-Smith, Wilfred Caithness, Oliver Johnston, Evelyn Roberts and Gillian Maude. It received a negative review in The New Statesmanwhich considered it unmysterious while The New York Times described it as "highly competent".
The boastful soldier Pyrgopolynices has abducted Philocomasium from her Athenian lover. The clever slave Palaestrio and their neighbors stage a series of deceptions—including pretending Philocomasium has a twin and inventing a new admirer—to free her and reunite the lovers, while exposing and humiliating the soldier.
Across 1860, 1885, and 1912, three generations of a prosperous English family clash over marriage. Industrialist John Rhead resists his daughters’ and granddaughter’s choices, while changing technologies and family circumstances reshape each generation’s expectations.
True-crime writer Mark Styler visits an experimental hospital hoping to interview serial killer Easterman, but discovers that the doctor, nurse and patient identities are unstable and that his own identity may have been manipulated.
After their father is lynched and their mother dies, siblings in a northern city depend on Chris, who is crippled in factory work; when he is drafted for World War I, they debate whether he should serve a country that failed to protect his family before he chooses to enlist.
Minick is a three-act Broadway play written by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, based on Ferber's 1922 short story "Old Man Minick", that opened on September 24, 1924. Producer Winthrop Ames staged it at the Booth Theatre on Broadway, with O. P. Heggie in the title role. The play is about an elderly widower who comes to live with his son and daughter-in-law in their Chicago apartment.
As the Taliban closes in on Kabul's UN compound in 1996, a Western journalist imagines meeting President Mohammad Najibullah.
Major von Tellheim, a discharged Prussian officer facing financial hardship and bribery allegations, refuses to marry his fiancée Minna. She pretends to be penniless to make him accept her, then reverses the ruse when his honor and fortune are restored.
A one-act kabuki adaptation of the Okiku ghost story by Segawa Joko III.
In the preamble of the tragedy, John, Duke of Mirandola, marries a lady named Isidora, who was initially betrothed to Guido, the Duke's son. According to the deception of the monk Gheraldi (one of the main conspirators of the conspiracy), who had reported Guido's death in battle, Isidora is induced to consent to the marriage with Duke John. The first act therefore opens with Guido's unexpected return to Mirandola, impatient to claim the love of his betrothed and unaware of the plot that took place in his absence, since all the letters between father and son had been intercepted by the monk's machinations. Once the deception was discovered, feelings of jealousy and mistrust arose between the Duke and Guido, accentuated by the attitude of Isabella, the Duke's sister, who hoped to ensure her son's succession to the Duchy of Mirandola. With his arts and the help of the notorious monk, the Duke's passions are driven to madness: he discovers Isidora together with his son Guido, and in his jealous frenzy orders the young man to be put to death. Guido's friend, who breaks in with the intercepted letters he had accidentally recovered from Gheraldi, arrives too late to save him. Duke John then dies in an agony of repentance and passion, with Isabella's diabolical schemes crowned with success. Isidora's destiny is instead left to the imagination of the spectator.
In a present-day Dublin Italian restaurant, Mirandolina navigates the attentions of men who admire her while trying to control her. She resists their pressure in Marina Carr’s reworking of Goldoni’s comedy about an innkeeper and her suitors.
Mirele, a capable but autocratic widow, has rescued her late husband’s business. When her daughter-in-law insists that Mirele’s son inherit the business and home, Mirele is cut off from the family. Ten years later she resists reconciliation until her grandson approaches her on his bar mitzvah day.
In the South Bronx in 1975, the Nieves family struggles with the accidental death of seven-year-old Puli. The play moves between past and present as his sister Miriam and their grieving parents confront loss, depression and self-harm.
During one afternoon at a country house, a gathering of guests debates marriage, class and social convention as eight proposals arise. An aircraft crashes into the conservatory, and the arrival of a daredevil acrobat and a frustrated cashier unsettles the household; Lina ultimately chooses independence over marriage.
At a Sydney radio station, its owners and a doctor investigate a killing after a sponsor appears to have been poisoned. They hide the body to secure another sponsor's contract, then discover the victim was an investigator pursuing foreign spies broadcasting in code from Woomera; the group tries to solve the crime.
In an isolated farmhouse, injured novelist Paul Sheldon depends on Annie Wilkes for care after a car crash. When she rejects his new book, she makes him destroy the manuscript and write new installments of her favourite fictional heroine’s story to stay alive.
Novelist Paul Sheldon survives a car crash but becomes a captive in the home of Annie Wilkes, his devoted reader. Furious that he has killed her favourite character, she forces him to write a new novel while he searches for a way to escape.
At a mountain resort, a young couple make a suicide pact; the situation is complicated by the arrival of two former suitors of the woman, Cornelia.
Mercenary Thrasonides frees and courts Krateia, who rejects him because she mistakenly believes he killed her brother. When she learns her brother is alive, she accepts Thrasonides and her father approves their marriage.
A Christmas-set continuation of Pride and Prejudice centered on Mary Bennet, the middle Bennet sister.
An elderly woman regresses to her childhood.
A romantic comedy in which love is disrupted by competing claims of being soulmates.
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