8284 shows
Clear filtersMedea 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.
On Midsummer’s Eve at a Swedish estate, aristocrat Julie flirts with her father’s valet Jean, who is engaged to the cook Christine. Julie and Jean have sex and plan to flee and open a hotel, but their class positions and dependence on Julie’s father undermine the plan. After the Count returns, Julie asks Jean for a way out; he gives her a razor, and she leaves, presumably to die by suicide.
In Mississippi in 1964, a wealthy white woman and her father’s Black chauffeur enter a dangerous sexual encounter. Their struggle over power unfolds against the violence and contested freedoms of the civil-rights era.
Lulu Bett lives with her sister’s family, cooking and serving while enduring their criticism and condescension. This comedy of manners exposes the routine humiliations beneath a respectable middle-class household.
A grave crime committed for an altruistic purpose draws Miss Mabel and those around her into legal and moral scrutiny. The play follows the consequences of the act and asks whether noble intentions can justify the means.
Miss Margarida's Way (Apareceu a Margarida) is a satirical play written by Brazilian playwright Roberto Athayde in 1971 as a satire on abuse of power based on the dictatorship in his country, Brazil. It was first performed in the United States at the American Contemporary Theatre in San Francisco on 4 March 1975. It became well known when Estelle Parsons played in the performance on Broadway in 1977/8. The play is set in what looks like a school classroom. The play's cast typically consists of only two people: Miss Margarida, a school teacher, and a male student. This "student" often sits among the audience members, whom the "teacher" addresses and treats as if they were real school children. In many productions, the audience is encouraged to behave like a group of naughty, unruly 13- to 14-year-old students in a classroom. Frequently, there is a blackboard on stage, along with chalk that audience members can use to write or draw whatever they wish. The actress playing Miss Margarida has a great deal of power to improvise, and can deliver jokes or rants inspired by audience members. Playwright Athayde intended Miss Margarida to represent power: the power of government, the power of church, the power of family, the power of peers, raw power in all its forms. She can and will do anything to impose her will upon her students- first attempting to charm them, then to intimidate them, then to manipulate them with her sexuality. Miss Margarida's classroom techniques represent all the ways in which life can rob human beings of their individuality, and beat them into conformity and submission.
Sara and her lover Mellefont have fled to France, but his hesitation to marry and the return of his former lover Marwood set off a chain of deception. Marwood poisons Sara; before dying, Sara forgives her and asks her father to care for Mellefont and Marwood’s daughter.
After suicide, Veronica finds herself in the Tibetan Buddhist bardo and wants only to die again. Her upbeat spirit guide Maryamma repeatedly sends her back to life to learn its value, while Veronica's pessimism earns her the name Miss Witherspoon among the other spirits.
Teenager Tammy travels back one day in time to prevent her older brother’s death in a motorcycle accident.
Miss Biddy is devoted to Captain Loveit but has inadvertently encouraged two unwanted suitors. When they arrive in succession, she conceals one and presents him as her lover to the other, setting up a duel between a cowardly bully and an effeminate fop. Loveit returns and exposes the bully as a deserter.
A live comedy show in which comedians portray the touching and torrid posts in Craigslist’s “missed connections” section, using stand-up, improvisation and dozens of characters.
The two one-act plays examine intimacy and isolation: in Missing Marisa, Terry and Eli debate the disappearance of the woman both men love; in Kissing Christine, a separated married man and a woman recovering from a traumatic accident meet on a first date and form a tentative connection.
Mister Roberts is a 1948 play based on the 1946 Thomas Heggen novel of the same name.
A browbeaten wife takes revenge on her philandering husband.
A solo sequence of brief comic monologues draws on Biblical apocrypha and popular stories about Christ. Fo performs in Italian, regional dialects, and grammelot, a partly improvised language, following the tradition of medieval itinerant giullari.
A lyrical journey through inner-city London moves from night-bus arguments to the pressures of life as an artist, as Arinzé confronts the expectations others place on him.
Set in the kingdom of Pontus, Racine’s tragedy follows Mithridates’ sons Xiphares and Pharnaces as Roman forces threaten the kingdom and Monime, their father’s fiancée, becomes the focus of competing loyalties. Mithridates returns from apparent death, tests his sons’ allegiance, and plans an invasion of Italy; after Roman attack and his own defeat, he pardons Monime and unites her with Xiphares before dying.
Mithridates, King of Pontus is a 1678 tragedy by the English writer Nathaniel Lee. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London by the King's Company. John Dryden wrote the play's epilogue. The original Drury Lane cast included Michael Mohun as Mithridates, Charles Hart as Ziphares, Cardell Goodman as Pharnaces, Philip Griffin as Archelaus, William Wintershall as Pelopidas, Martin Powell as Andravar, Thomas Clark as Aquilius, John Wiltshire as Another Roman Officer, Mary Corbett as Monima and Elizabeth Boutell as Semandra. The play has been revived a number of times, including a 1708 version again at Drury Lane featuring Robert Wilks, John Mills, Barton Booth and Anne Oldfield.
Jivram Bhatt hides his night blindness from his in-laws, repeatedly blundering while trying to preserve his reputation. His deception leads to escalating comic confusion, a false arrest, and a final repentance for his pride and hypocrisy.
Set on a pre-Independence college campus in Poona, the play follows Bapu, Mitra and Nama in a love triangle shaped by Mitra's attraction to Nama and her struggle with her sexuality.
Mitzi is advised by her doctor to end a pregnancy after the fetus is diagnosed with anencephaly. The play follows the woman's experience and the social and cultural conflicts surrounding the decision.
An emerging DJ fights to keep a Bronx record shop alive as an older generation confronts the loss of its musical and cultural home. Live DJ sets accompany a conflict over ownership, legacy and survival in a changing neighborhood.
A stage revue of short two-character sketches and linking monologues traces marriage from its blessing to a silver anniversary, using acid humor to portray everyday marital problems.
In Belfast, John Rainey tries to temper sectarian tension during a factory strike, but his son’s announcement that he intends to marry Catholic Nora Murray challenges his Protestant beliefs. As John withdraws support from the strike, riots intensify and the family is trapped in their home.
The storyline is set in a military unit during the socialist era. The simple intrigue showed shooting a civilist for guard's service. A starting point of this satiric comedy depicts people's army as totally absurd "machine" destroying people's characters.
A meta-theatrical lecture on memory leads into parallel stories: Virgil searches across Europe for Alice, who has left to find her father, while archaeologists investigate the ancient Iceman Ötzi. Recurring images link the journeys and ask how imagination helps recover the past.
In a mid-19th-century repertory theatre, actors milling about an empty stage are told to rehearse a version of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. As they improvise scenery from the sparse objects around them, they gradually become the characters and enact the story.
Across a year, a bridesmaid and bridegroom, a dissatisfied wife and handyman, a media executive and lover, a one-night couple, and a practiced pickup encounter explore sex, power, desire, and intimacy. One actor and one actress play all eight characters, changing costumes onstage between scenes.
This biographical drama follows Victorian painter Elizabeth Thompson and her poet sister Alice Meynell as they confront the Royal Academy’s exclusion of women. Its staging combines song and music-hall forms with drag and gender-nonconforming performance, framing the sisters’ artistic ambitions and equality campaigns through changing Victorian attitudes.
At a London school, teacher Amanda is pushed down by student Jason while intervening in a fight. To avoid expulsion, Jason and friends claim she attacked and racially abused him, isolating Amanda as the accusation escalates. The lies unravel, but the conflict exposes grief, self-harm, family pressure and institutional failures, ending in suicide and Amanda’s refusal to return.
Mohan searches for a missing diary containing memories of Gandhi’s youth, then narrates his early life and the experiences that shaped Gandhian ideas.
Set entirely within the seedy Atlantic club, Silver Johnny - a young and talented performer on the road to fame and fortune - is held back by his jealous and protective manager Ezra, owner of the nightclub and father to a psychotic unloved son, Baby. As Silver Johnny progresses up the ladder to stardom, local gangster/entrepreneur Sam Ross begins to take an interest, and the only way to remove his opposition (Ezra) appears to be sawing him in half, kidnapping Silver Johnny and leaving the club's fate in a state of limbo. Ezra is discovered the next morning by his second-in-command, the highly ambitious Mickey, who announces that Ross intends to take over the Atlantic Club setting the stage for a major power struggle; "He's been fucking cut in half. He's in two bins." Terrified by the potential threat of extermination by Ross and his gang, associates of the now deceased Ezra, (Potts, Sweets, Skinny and Baby) begin to lose their nerve and try to convince themselves that it's Mickey's idea of a joke; "It's Mickey's joke, it's Mickey's morning joke!" When this turns out to be false, the Atlantic Club gang prepare for what could be their final night. With just an ancient cutlass and an old Derringer as defence, the group starts to argue amongst themselves and even considers joining Ross or simply leaving. As the day wears on, people begin to gather outside the club waiting for the doors to open, oblivious to the situation. Sweating it out inside, the small group of four have to break the tragic news of Ezra's grisly death to Baby who takes the news in a dreamlike, distant manner. Uneasy about Baby's mental stability, the Atlantic gang begins to become restless - especially about their catering. Arguments break out over frivolous matters (Skinny's Uncle Tommy), and the group finally settles to consider just what its rivals are doing at that very moment. In the climax to the fast-paced story, Sweets checks downstairs to see if the coast is clear for the gang to have a little space, rather than being cooped up in a single room and finds Silver Johnny hanging from the ceiling. In sheer panic, Sweets calls for help and is joined by the others. Baby reveals that by saving Silver Johnny he killed Mr Ross and discovered that Mickey had betrayed them all for a share in the business. Skinny arrives and insults Baby, who responds by shooting him in the head with the Derringer. Mickey, Potts and Sweets attempt to cover the wound and to calm Skinny down while Baby wanders around aimlessly. Silver Johnny is lowered to the floor and Skinny dies. Unable to save Skinny's life, Mickey's authority and status break down and he kneels beside his friend's body.
As Molière's young wife Armande draws the attention of the court, Madame de Montespan tries to seduce the playwright and Louis XIV withdraws his favor. Molière turns his loyalty from king to nation, but later poverty, illness and Armande's departure do not stop him performing The Imaginary Invalid; he collapses backstage before the king can restore his favor.
Blind since infancy, Molly Sweeney undergoes an operation to restore her sight at her husband Frank’s urging and under the care of a surgeon seeking to revive his career. Her story, told in monologues by Molly, Frank and Mr Rice, traces the consequences of the operation for her independent life.
Physics students David and Elspeth fall in love but divide over belief. Years later they reunite while caring for their former lecturer Molly, who has Alzheimer's; David asks Elspeth to help end Molly's suffering, forcing them to confront conflicting ethics and their past. The play alternates time periods, using surrealism, direct address and parallel narratives.
On a Monday morning, eighteen-year-old Neena prepares for university while haunted by a childhood experience. Determined to protect her younger half-sister from the same fate, she struggles with its effects on her relationships with family and school peers and on her sense of self.
When a wealthy man’s will unexpectedly makes Alfred Evelyn an heir, his engagement to Clara falters as each fears the other is motivated by money. Evelyn feigns losing his fortune to test the people around him; mistaken assumptions and concealed generosity finally reunite him with Clara and bring other couples together.
When mathematician Peter is financially ruined by his brother's bankruptcy, neighbour Margaret asks his wealthy friends to help him, but they hesitate. The play grew from Williamson's question about whether a close-knit beach community would support a beloved member facing a disaster beyond his control.
Money the Mistress is a 1726 comedy play by the Irish writer Thomas Southerne. It was his final play. Staged by John Rich at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, the cast included James Quin as Warcourt, Lacy Ryan as Mourville, Thomas Walker as Marsan, Richard Diggs as Governor of Tangier, William Milward as Wingrave, Anthony Boheme as Don Manuel, John Hippisley as Davila, Jane Rogers as Harriet and Elizabeth Younger as Mariana.
Monique is a drama in two acts and six scenes by Dorothy and Michael Blankfort that is based on the novel She Who Was No More by Boileau-Narcejac. It premiered on October 10, 1957, at The Playhouse on Rodney Square in Wilmington, Delaware. A murder mystery thriller, the play was produced and directed by Shepard Traube and starred Denholm Elliott as Fernand Ravinel and Patricia Jessel as Dr. Monique Rigaud. The costumes were designed by Helene Pons.
Wasim, a small-time con artist, keeps several scams running under different identities. As his lies and disguises collide, misunderstandings escalate until his schemes are exposed in a comic confrontation.
After returning from a three-year journey, Vandome tries to repair the troubled lives of his friends: he helps the grieving Earl of St. Anne recognize Eurione’s love and breaks Countess Marcellina’s self-imposed isolation. In the comic subplot, the vain Monsieur D’Olive is tricked by courtiers into embarrassing himself at court and pursuing a forged love letter.
In the main plot, Valentine gives up his young fiancée Cellide when he learns his traveling companion Francisco loves her, only to discover Francisco is his long-lost son. In the subplot, wild young Thomas torments Mary with mock sanctimony until her pranks reform him and make him a suitable husband.
Duchotel disguises his affair with his friend's wife as country shooting trips. When his own wife agrees to an affair with Dr Moricet, overlapping rendezvous and mistaken identities in neighboring apartments lead to escalating farcical confusion before she forgives her husband.
A provincial lawyer comes to Paris to marry a young woman he has never met, but becomes the target of comic deceptions and ridicule.
A biographical play following the life and exploits of rock musician and political activist Screaming Lord Sutch.
Montauk is a play by David Hare. Its world premiere is announced for Broadway in spring 2027.
Two emergency telephone operators handle a terrifying sequence of calls in New York City on the morning of September 11, 2001.
A monologue centered on a vaqueiro, the horse-mounted livestock herder of the Iberian Peninsula, written for the royal celebration of Prince Dom João's birth.
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