On the Side of the Angels
An aid worker becomes involved in Afghan women's rights when a land-rights dispute is to be settled by betrothing two young girls to older men.
Plays
8284 shows
Clear filtersOn the Spot
On the Spot is a 1930 Chicago-set play by the British writer Edgar Wallace. Wallace was inspired by a visit to the United States and, in particular, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Known as a prolific author, he reportedly dictated the manuscript for the play in just four days. It was his greatest theatrical success. The lead role of a Capone-like gangster Tony Perelli was played by Charles Laughton with Emlyn Williams as his henchman and Gillian Lind playing Perelli's Chinese mistress. Other cast members included W ronin Wilson, Roy Emerton, Carol Reed, Dennis Wyndham and Gladys Frazin. It transferred to America in October 1930, with Crane Wilbur as Perelli and Anna May Wong as Minn Lee, and ran for 167 performances at the Forrest Theatre in New York. In 1931, Wallace novelised the play using the same title.
On the Verge
The basic plot of the play follows the adventures of three Victorian women explorers into what they believe to be Terra Incognita, a new, unexplored land. The three are from very different exploration backgrounds but all exhibit their own form of independence. From the world in general and specifically men. The three together discuss many aspects of their pasts in exploring, with Mary and Fanny frequently trying to outdo each other. As the ladies progress on their travels it becomes apparent that they are not on an ordinary journey. Mary reaches the conclusion at the end of the first act that the three of them are in fact traveling forward through time and that, while doing so, they are beginning to absorb knowledge from the future. Alex dubs this phenomenon osmosing and from that point forward in the play, the ladies actively, and often fruitlessly try to osmose what the things they are encountering are, e.g. In the scene where Alex first encounters Cool Whip she takes several guesses at the item's identity: "(Osmoses) 'Mo hair'. No. 'Jello mold'. No. (Tastes) Noxzema! Yes! Heaven!"
On'yado Kawasemi
A stage adaptation of Yumie Hiraiwa’s Edo-period story centered on Shōji Rui, the proprietress of an inn.
Once More, with Feeling
A comedy about an egotistical orchestra conductor and his harpist wife as their relationship strains under his demands and infidelity.
Once Over Nightly
A public-relations man finds his picture in a newspaper beside a curvaceous model wearing only his client’s product.
Once a Catholic
A comedy looking back at the values of 1950s Catholic convent schools and the responses of female adolescents to those values.
Once in Royal David's City
Will Drummond faces the loss of his father and the imminent loss of his mother as familiar certainties give way. The play moves between the 1950s and present, West Berlin and Byron Bay, using appearing characters from other plays to explore family, aging, grief, social change and theatre itself.
Once in a Lifetime
A satirical comedy, Once in a Lifetime focuses on the effect talking pictures have on the entertainment industry. When the New York City vaudevillean team of Jerry Hyland, May Daniels, and George Lewis find themselves in a faltering vaudeville act, they decide to head west and present themselves as elocution experts in the hope someone will hire them to train actors unaccustomed to speaking on screen. On the train they meet gossip columnist Helen Hobart, who introduces them to megalomaniac film mogul Herman Glogauer when they arrive in Hollywood. The trio's misadventures include encounters with Lawrence Vail, a New York City playwright driven to distraction and eventually a sanatorium by studio bureaucracy and a lack of work to keep him busy; silent screen beauties Phyllis Fontaine and Florabel Leigh, whose voices sound like nails on a blackboard; two pages in 18th-century dress who periodically arrive carrying placards with announcements about Glogauer's latest doings; a ditzy receptionist who wears an evening gown to work; and aspiring actress (and proverbial dumb blonde) Susan Walker and her chaperoning stage mother. Dimwitted George becomes a director who shoots the wrong script, forgets to turn on the soundstage lights, and audibly cracks nuts during filming, yet his movie is called a masterpiece and he is declared a genius by trend-conscious journalists who believe he is ahead of his time.
Ondine
The play opens in a fisherman's hut near a lake in the forest. Outside a storm rages. Here live the old fisherman Auguste and his wife Eugenie. And here lives Ondine whom the old couple found as a baby at the edge of the lake, and brought up in place of their own daughter who was mysteriously snatched away as an infant. Auguste is upset because Ondine is out somewhere in the storm. As Auguste rages, naiads, the wind, and even the King of the Ondines himself (throughout the play referred to as the Old One) peer in at the windows gently mocking Auguste. Evidently this is not unusual—the old couple are well aware that Ondine is "not like anyone else". A knight-errant, Hans von Wittenstein zu Wittenstein, arrives seeking shelter and he is welcomed. While he is in the midst of telling Auguste and Eugenie about his betrothal to the princess Bertha, Ondine appears. On seeing Hans she says, "How beautiful he is!" In spite of taunts from Ondine's sister naiads, and against the advice of Auguste, Hans immediately falls in love with Ondine. All thought of Bertha, his "dark angel" — the woman who sent him off on his quest — is banished. Ondine in turn swears eternal love for Hans. The Old One warns her, "The man will deceive you. He will abandon you." Ondine does not believe him. He gives a final warning "You will remember our pact." Ondine reluctantly agrees. In the great hall of the king's palace, it is the day that Hans is to present his bride Ondine at court. The Lord Chamberlain, who needs to arrange an entertainment for the day's ceremonies, is in conference with the director of the royal theater, the trainer of the seals, and the Illusionist (in actuality the King of the Ondines). Soon they are joined by the poet Bertram and several ladies of the court. The Illusionist says he will arrange a little private entertainment while they are waiting. As to what they would like to see, everyone is curious to see what will happen when Hans and the embittered Bertha finally meet after avoiding each other for three months. The Illusionist says he can arrange for this event to take place at once. Bertram objects asking, "Why are we doing this evil thing?" The Chamberlain cynically replies, "Sooner or later it would have to happen. That's life." They all conceal themselves behind a pillar and watch as the inevitable events unfold. Hans and Bertha meet. Bertha manipulates Hans with guilt. The Illusionist gives the spectators a further glimpse into the future showing them the scene when Hans realizes that he married the wrong woman. Bertha intimately knows the Wittenstein family history, she plays the lute, she recites, she illuminates manuscripts—she is the perfect woman. When Bertha asks Hans what Ondine does that might advance her husband's interests at court, he replies, "Oh, she swims. Occasionally." Continuing the play-within-a-play structure, the Illusionist presents the remaining events of the day in scenes which the astonished participants themselves watch from behind the pillar. The Chamberlain just has time to prepare Ondine for her reception with the king. Ondine is particularly advised not to mention the wart on the king's nose. Ondine tactlessly mentions that the Chamberlain's hand is damp and constantly interrupts him to talk to Bertram with whom she immediately establishes a rapport. At the king's reception Ondine cannot take her eyes off Bertha. She accuses Bertha of trying to steal Hans from her. The King says, "Bertha only wants to be your friend." Ondine replies, "You are entirely mistaken! Bertha is a hypocrite. She flatters you constantly. Has she ever dared to speak to you about...the wart on your nose?" In panic, the Chamberlain clears the room. Ondine is alone with the king. The king asks, "Who are you, Ondine?" Ondine explains everything and says that she weeps because "they are trying to take Hans away from me." "But what if they did", the king asks. "Would that be such a misfortune?" Ondine answers, "Oh yes. If he deceives me, he will die." The king says, "Men have been known to survive such things." "Not this one", Ondine replies. The Illusionist has one more scene. Bertha is revealed to be not a princess, but the long lost daughter of Auguste and Eugenie. When Bertha refuses to acknowledge her true parents, the king banishes her until she apologizes. She leaves sobbing, but at Ondine's urging, she is soon forgiven. After the events of this disastrous day, Ondine laments, "Oh, how difficult it is to live among you, where what has happened can never again not have happened. How terrible to live where a word can never be unspoken and a gesture can never be unmade." Act Three takes place in the courtyard of castle of the Wittenstein. Five years have passed. Hans has deceived Ondine with Bertha, and Ondine has long since vanished. It is the morning of the day of the marriage of Bertha and Hans. But Hans is troubled. He tells Bertha, that she should have married a man full of pride and joy. He complains, "Oh Bertha, how she lied to me, that woman!" Bertha points out that Ondine was no woman, "you married a creature of another world. You must forget her." Hans remembers the day that Ondine left and asks, "But why does she proclaim to the world that she deceived me with Bertram?" In addition to being preoccupied with Ondine, Hans is worried because the servants are starting to speak in poetry and there is a Wittenstein legend that this always happens just before misfortune strikes. Two fishermen arrive. The second fisherman is the Old One. They have caught Ondine. Two judges from the inquisition are summoned and immediately put her on trial. Ondine is brought in draped in the net in which she was caught. She does not deny being an Ondine and proclaims to all who will listen that she deceived Hans with Bertram. The judge asks Hans to clearly state the exact nature of his complaint. Hans says, "My complaint? My complaint is the complaint of all mankind. I claim the right to be left in peace in a world that is free of intrusions by these creatures. Has there never been an age when they did not afflict us?" The judge answers, "An age? There has never been a moment." But the other judge says, "Yes, there was once a moment. For that instant, the whole world was single-hearted, at play, at peace — and yet I tasted for the first time a certain loneliness." As the trial progresses it becomes clear that Hans is still in love with Ondine. Ondine, in a vain attempt to get out of her pact with the Old One (Hans must die because he deceived Ondine with Bertha) continues to insist that she deceived Hans first with Bertram. Bertram is summoned and supports Ondine's story. But no-one believes them, least of all the second fisherman. Ondine is accused of sorcery. The Old One leaps to her defense saying, "This woman could call upon the earth and the heavens to do her bidding. But she gave up her power to be human. Write this into your record, Judge — this Ondine was the most human being that ever lived. She was human by choice." In the end the judges decide that Ondine transgressed the boundaries of nature, but in so doing she brought only kindness and love. So they are compassionate in merely sentencing her to death while sparing her a public execution. The earthly judges have no power over Ondine, however, and as the executioner attempts to lead her away, the Old One waves him off. But Hans must die because of the original pact between the Old One and Ondine. The Old One says kindly to Ondine, "If you wish, I will let him die at the same moment that you forget him." Hans and Ondine have one last moment of tenderness. Her sisters will call Ondine three times, and then she will forget everything. Hans laments that their parting will be "a real farewell, a farewell forever. Not like those lovers who part, but are destined to be reunited again in the afterlife. We part for eternity, we go to different worlds." They recall their first meeting, the night Hans came out of the storm. Ondine recalls that she said, "In after years we shall have this hour to remember. The hour before you kissed me." Hans says, "I can't wait. Now, Ondine. Kiss me now." As they kiss, the third Ondine calls. Hans dies. Ondine looks around in puzzlement. She asks, "Who is this handsome young man lying here, can you bring him back to life, Old One?" He replies, "Impossible." As the curtain falls Ondine says, "What a pity! How I should have loved him!"
One Bright Day
A New England pharmaceutical manufacturer learns that his company’s patent medicine may have caused a child’s death and could endanger other patients. He must choose between recalling the drug at the risk of bankruptcy or concealing the danger; the dispute divides the company and its family.
One Flea Spare
In plague-stricken 17th-century London, a wealthy couple, a sailor, and a young girl are quarantined together in a boarded-up house, testing boundaries of morality and survival.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The plot revolves around mental hospital patient Randle McMurphy who leads a revolt against cold Nurse Ratched.
One Last Look
During a Harlem funeral service in the 1960s, mourners reflect on their relationships with the deceased patriarch.
One Man Star Wars Trilogy
Charles Ross performs a one-person parody of the original Star Wars trilogy, portraying all characters, recreating sound effects and singing from John Williams’s score. The solo show condenses the films into a comic stage performance.
One Man, Two Guvnors
In 1963 Brighton, out-of-work musician Francis Henshall secretly works for both gangster Roscoe Crabbe and upper-class Stanley Stubbers, trying to stop the two from meeting. Roscoe is actually his twin sister Rachel in disguise, and Stanley killed her brother; local gangsters, an engagement, a heavy trunk and Francis's appetite compound the confusion.
One Monkey Don't Stop No Show
Set in 1970s Philadelphia, the play examines the clash of values between middle-class and working-class African Americans.
One Night in Miami
On the night Cassius Clay wins the world heavyweight title, he celebrates at Miami’s Hampton House with Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown. The one-act drama imagines their conversation and the choices facing four emerging Black American figures.
One Night in November
During the Coventry Blitz, aspiring teacher Katie Stanley meets Michael, an Oxford language tutor who works at Bletchley Park and knows the city is under threat. As her family faces the bombing, the play examines whether Churchill knew of the attack and whether Coventry was sacrificed to protect the Enigma codebreaking secret.
One November Yankee
In the aftermath of a plane crash, three interwoven stories connect six characters; a brother and sister survive, as the action moves between New York’s Museum of Modern Art and New Hampshire across past and present.
One Was Nude and One Wore Tails
A nude ambassador escapes discovery in a love affair by hiding in a road sweeper’s bin. A sweeper helps him recover his evening clothes, and the ambassador’s status makes the worker question the social hierarchy that treats him as less important in his own clothes.
One Way Pendulum
In an absurdist household, Kirby Groomkirby tries to teach stolen talking weighing machines to sing Handel's Hallelujah chorus while his father builds a replica Old Bailey in the sitting room. Kirby is put on trial for murder, and the family pursues its own eccentric obsessions.
One Wild Oat
Two feuding neighbors, a barrister and a bookmaker, join forces to try and prevent their secret pasts from coming back to haunt them.
One for the Road
In a new middle-class housing development, Dennis and Pauline Cain wait for his parents, lost among identical streets, while the neighborhood blames the “Parnes Kids” for a wave of absurd garden vandalism. Their guests Jane and Roger join the conversation as the play teases whether the culprit is closer to home—and what Dennis is hiding in his bureau.
One for the Road
In an unspecified country, officer Nicolas interrogates imprisoned couple Victor and Gila and their young son Nicky. Through threats and insinuations, he reveals the torture and sexual violence inflicted on the family and signals that Nicky has been killed, exposing the regime's abuse of power.
One of Each
Estranged twins run rival seaside fish-and-chip shops that become finalists for a coveted award. Their competing traditions and ambitions attract a journalist whose search for a scoop uncovers more than a culinary contest.
One-Third of a Nation
A Living Newspaper dramatization of housing conditions and slum growth in the United States, focused on New York. Through an impoverished “little man” who witnesses a century of landlord power and housing corruption, it criticizes the limited impact of the Housing Act of 1937 and ends with a pledge to continue campaigning for decent housing.
Onna Shibaraku
A parody of Shibaraku that follows its plot with a female role in place of the hero.
Open Admissions
At an urban college, sophomore Calvin Jefferson reads at a fifth-grade level but earns Bs and faces a future for which his diploma alone will not prepare him. He asks Ginny Carlsen, an overworked speech teacher, for help building the basic skills he lacks. The play examines equal opportunity in admissions and the strain on both student and teacher.
Operation Crucible
Four fictional steelworkers are trapped in the cellar of Sheffield’s Marples Hotel when the building is destroyed during the Sheffield Blitz. The play examines their struggle to survive the bombing and its immediate aftermath.
Operation Elvis
Ten-year-old Malcolm, convinced he is Elvis Presley reincarnated, runs away toward Memphis and instead meets Michael, a boy with severe brain damage who cannot speak; with help from their friends, the boys find a way to take Michael sailing, and Malcolm no longer needs to pretend to be Elvis.
Opheliamachine
A postmodern response to Heiner Mueller's Hamletmachine, the play fragments Hamlet and Ophelia into multiple characters and voices. Through nonlinear scenes, collage and pastiche, it examines sexuality, gender, power, violence and identity in a globalized, media-saturated world.
Ophélie n'est pas Morte
In a postcolonial present, Hamlet and Macbeth are actors stripped of their Shakespearean stature and confined by paralysis, censorship and fractured identity. Across two acts of repeating micro-dramas and changing confined spaces, Macbeth and Hamlet perform multiple roles; Ophelia remains absent, and Hamlet ends alone, waiting for her and for change.
Oppenheimer
A biographical drama about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist whose work led to the atomic bomb.
Optimistic Tragedy
A three-act drama set in St. Petersburg and Kronstadt during the Russian Civil War, with scenes aboard a Red Navy ship on the Baltic near the city.
Opus
When the Lazara String Quartet fires its violist Dorian, the remaining members recruit talented young musician Grace as they prepare for a White House performance. Relationships and tensions within the group intensify around the quartet’s violin, Dorian’s return, and cellist Carl’s illness.
Or You Could Kiss Me
Puppetry connects two men’s imagined old age in Port Elizabeth in 2036 with their younger selves falling in love in 1971. Their real-life counterparts stand between the remembered beginning and imagined ending of their life together.
Orange Flower Water
David and Beth, each married to someone else, begin an affair that destabilizes both families. As their spouses confront the betrayal and separate, Beth becomes pregnant with David's child, and the couple considers building a home together.
Orbecche
Princess Orbecche has secretly married Oronte and borne two children. Her father Sulmone discovers the marriage and exacts a brutal revenge, prompting Orbecche to retaliate against him before she and her nurse take their own lives.
Orders Are Orders
Orders Are Orders is a 1932 comedy play by the British writers Ian Hay and Anthony Armstrong. A Hollywood film crew takes over a British Army barracks for a film shoot, with chaotic consequences. It premiered at the King's Theatre in Southsea, before transferring to the Shaftesbury Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 193 performances from 8 August 1932 to 21 January 1933. The cast included Reginald Purdell, Marjorie Corbett, Kathleen Kelly, Olive Blakeney and Michael Shepley.
Ordinalia
A Cornish mystery-play trilogy spanning biblical history from Creation through the Passion and Resurrection, interwoven with the Legend of the Holy Cross.
Ordinary Dreams; or How to Survive a Meltdown with Flair
During an economic recession, a character suffers a breakdown and fantasizes about becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Ordinary People
Ordinary People is a dramatic stage play written by American playwright Nancy Pahl-Gilsenan. Gilsenan published the adaptation in 1983, three years after the successful film version was released in 1980. The original novel was published by Judith Guest in 1976.
Ordo Rachelis (Fleury version)
The Fleury drama combines Rachel’s lament with the Flight into Egypt, shepherds, Herod’s order for the massacre, and the return of the holy family. Rachel sings four laments; two comforters fail to console her, and the piece concludes with the Te Deum.
Ordo Rachelis (Freising version)
Rachel opens by singing a lament over her children’s bodies. A female comforter arrives but cannot console her; the drama incorporates the Flight into Egypt and shepherd themes alongside the Rachel lament.
Ordo Virtutum
The Soul is drawn from the Virtues by the Devil toward worldly life, then returns repentant. The Virtues accept her, bind the Devil, praise God and join a final procession. The allegorical morality drama uses sung roles and plainchant, with the Devil limited to shouts and grunts.
Oresteia
Aeschylus’s three-play tragedy follows Agamemnon’s murder after his return from Troy, Orestes’s revenge against his mother, and the trial that replaces the family’s cycle of vengeance with a civic judgment.
Orestes
After killing his mother Clytemnestra, Orestes is tormented by the Furies and faces execution. With Electra and Pylades, he plots revenge against Menelaus, but Apollo intervenes and orders a trial in Athens.
Orestes
Orestes is a 1731 tragedy with musical elements by the British writer Lewis Theobald, based on the Ancient Greek story of Orestes. The original Lincoln's Inn Fields cast included James Quin as Thoas, Lacy Ryan as Orestes, Thomas Walker as Pylades, Thomas Chapman as Barzanes and William Milward as Araxes, Charles Hulett as Magician, William Pinkethman and John Hippisley as sailors, Elizabeth Younger as Hermione, Anne Berriman as Circe, and Elizabeth Mills as Laodice. The epilogue was written by Henry Fielding. It was dedicated to the prime minister Sir Robert Walpole.
Orfeu da Conceição
A three-act tragedy relocates the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to a contemporary Rio de Janeiro favela during Carnival. The stage work combines drama and music, with a score by Antônio Carlos Jobim.
Orghast
An experimental, ritual-oriented performance that weaves a comprehensive myth around Prometheus. It uses an invented language alongside Classical Greek and Avestan, developed through improvisation and sound experimentation.
Orlando
Orlando begins life as an Elizabethan nobleman and travels through centuries before becoming a woman in the modern world. Love, poetry, and shifting social expectations shape this theatrical adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel.
Orphans
Two grown orphan brothers live in an old dilapidated row house in North Philadelphia—deserted in childhood by an unfaithful father and by the death of their mother. Older brother Treat, brutal and violent, provides for his younger brother Phillip by being a petty thief—interpreting the role of father. With the love and protectiveness of an older brother and an orphan's fear of abandonment, Treat takes away Phillip's chances to grow up, depriving him of knowledge and forcing him to live in a world of illiteracy and innocence: relegating him to their lost childhood. As Treat is out stealing to put food on the table, Phillip never leaves the house, thinking he will die from something outside because of a near deadly allergic reaction he had as a child. Haunted by the death of their mother, he spends his time lying in her closet filled with unworn clothes. Curious about the world, he secretly attempts to understand things by watching reruns of The Price Is Right and underlining words in newspapers and old books he finds lying around. Treat kidnaps and ties up a Chicago gangster named Harold. Harold, an orphan himself, with the prowess of an escape artist, loosens the ties that bind him, turns the tables around, and with gun in hand, puts himself into the role of teacher, healer and surrogate parent.
Orphans
Helen and Danny’s quiet celebration of her pregnancy is interrupted by her blood-covered brother Liam, who says he found an injured boy. As his story shifts, Helen and Danny suspect that Liam committed a racist assault; Helen then pressures Danny to intimidate the victim to prevent police involvement, fracturing the family over the course of the night.
Orphans for the Czar
A young orphan moves to St. Petersburg and becomes entangled with revolutionaries and government spies. Attempting to please everyone, he struggles to survive the rival ideologies surrounding the approach to Bloody Sunday.
Orpheus
Orpheus follows a supernatural horse’s cryptic messages and enters its verse in a contest, provoking scandal. After the Bacchantes murder Eurydice, he travels through a mirror to rescue her, but a rule forbidding him to look at her makes their reunion impossible.
Orpheus Descending
In a Mississippi town, a wandering singer named Val takes a job at a store run by Lady Torrance, whose husband Jabe is dying. Their relationship and hopes for a new life collide with the town's hostility and Jabe's violence.
Orson's Shadow
The play, based on true events, is set in 1960 London. In his declining years, Orson Welles is directing a production of Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright. Olivier is fresh from his triumphant theatrical portrayal of vaudevillian Archie Rice in John Osborne's The Entertainer and is about to reprise the role in the film adaptation. He and Plowright are in the early stages of a romantic liaison; Olivier's tumultuous marriage to Vivien Leigh is all but ended. Critic Kenneth Tynan also figures in the plot, which debates the merits of stage versus screen, the internal struggle that theatrical performers endure when contemplating a leap to films, and the ways that the studio system frustrated the careers of individual artists. It is a study of theatrical egos, each of the protagonists living more on the stage than in real life, each one feeling insecure while jockeying for power.
Orya
A Greek comedy named for the sausage term orya, which Epicharmus also uses in the work.
Osama the Hero
When seventeen-year-old Gary writes a school project defending Osama bin Laden, his frightened neighbours turn on him, mistake him for a local vandal and work themselves into a frenzy that threatens his safety.
Osawatomie Brown
A historical play about John Brown's attack on slaveholders in Kansas and his subsequent raid on Harpers Ferry.
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde is a 1936 play written by Leslie Stokes and Sewell Stokes. It is based on the life of the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde in which Wilde's friend, the controversial author and journalist Frank Harris, appears as a character. The play, which contains much of Wilde's actual writings, starts with Wilde's literary success and his friendship with Lord Alfred Douglas, turns into a courtroom melodrama, and ends with Wilde as a broken alcoholic after two years in prison.
Oslo
Oslo is a play by J. T. Rogers, recounting (in dramatized, partially fictional form) the true-life, previously secret, back-channel negotiations in the development of the pivotal 1990s Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The play premiered Off-Broadway in June 2016 and then transferred to Broadway in April 2017. In May 2017, Oslo won the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Broadway Play, the 2017 Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Play, and two 2017 Obie Awards, one for Best New American Theater Work and the other an Ensemble Award (shared by the director and the entire Off-Broadway cast). At the 71st Tony Awards, Oslo won the Tony Award for Best Play and Best Featured Actor in a Play award for Michael Aronov. It also won the 2017 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play and the 2016-2017 New York Drama Critics' Circle award for Best Play – for a sweep of the 2016-2017 awards season.
Osorio
On a shore on the coast of Granada, Maria, the orphan ward of Velez, reaffirms her fidelity to Velez's son, Albert, who is missing. Velez urges the case for his other son, Osorio, the younger brother of Albert, but Maria dislikes Osorio. Velez believes Albert is dead because of Osorio's (false) report that he witnessed Albert's ship founder in a storm after it was captured as a prize by a Moorish pirate. Velez and Maria are interrupted by Francesco, an inquisitor, who has arrested and imprisoned a Moresco, Ferdinand, on suspicion of relapsing to Islam. Alhadra, the Moorish wife of Ferdinand, pleads for Osorio to intervene on his behalf. Osorio declares he will question Ferdinand. He then departs, followed by Francesco and Velez. Albert enters disguised as a Moor and wearing forbidden Moorish garments. He has been ‘loitering’ in the area for three weeks with a view to arousing the pain of remorse in Osorio and Maria for jointly plotting to have him murdered. When he encounters Maria, she fails to recognise him. Under the veil of a dream account, Albert relates the attempt on his life by a hired assassin. Maria's reaction to his account suggests to Albert that she was innocent of the assassination plot. After arranging Ferdinand's release from prison, Osorio asks Ferdinand to trick Maria using a mock incantation to convince her that Albert is dead. Ferdinand was the assassin hired by Osorio to kill Albert. Osorio, convinced of Albert's death, is persuaded by Ferdinand to ask the "stranger" to trick Maria instead. Ferdinand relates how the stranger (the disguised Albert) has identified himself as "He that can bring the dead to life again". Osorio goes to Albert's cottage and fails to recognise his disguised brother. He demands that Albert perform a fraudulent séance before Maria in which her portrait, which Albert used to wear around his neck, materialises. Osorio obtained the portrait from Ferdinand as proof of Albert's assassination. Osorio "returns" the portrait to Albert so that it can be used in the "dark trick". This will convince Maria that Albert is dead and encourage her to accept Osorio as husband. Albert performs his act of sorcery before Maria, Velez and Osorio. Instead of using the portrait of Maria, however, Albert reveals a picture he has painted of his own assassination. Albert does this to show Osorio that his scheme to have his brother killed is known. Maria swoons and Velez is delighted by what he regards as a harmless manoeuvre by Osorio to convince Maria of Albert's death. Upon seeing the painting of Albert's assassination, Osorio immediately assumes that he has been betrayed by Ferdinand. He allows Francesco to imprison Albert for his sacrilegious act of sorcery. Osorio confronts Ferdinand in a dark cavern. The two men fight with swords before Ferdinand is disarmed and hurled down a chasm by Osorio to die. In the court before Velez's castle, Maria and her Foster-Mother discuss the stranger (Albert). The Foster-Mother recounts a tale of a baby boy found by a woodman. The boy was a wild child of nature but became a learned youth. He was imprisoned for heresy but escaped to the New World where it is believed "he lived and died among savage men". The tale awakens sympathy within Maria for the imprisoned Albert. Velez condemns Maria for stubbornly refusing Osorio, and Francesco suggests that Maria should enter a convent. Maria's response is to mock Francesco's faith and oppressive behaviour. At night, Alhadra and her cohort of Moors meet in the mountains. In defiance of the Christian laws, they wear Moorish garments and proclaim their adherence to Mahomet. Alhadra reveals to the group that she followed Ferdinand to the cave and, after seeing Osorio leave the scene, entered the cave to hear Ferdinand's death groan in the chasm. She calls on the group to avenge his death. Alhadra and the Moors capture Francesco but are prevented from killing him by Albert's companion, Maurice, who has joined the group. Alhadra and the Moors then proceed to the castle of Velez. In the dungeon, Osorio visits Albert and reveals a tortured sense of remorse for Albert's disappearance. Maria enters with the intention of helping Albert escape and Albert finally reveals himself to Osorio. Although Osorio begs for forgiveness, he nevertheless craves punishment for his crimes. When Alhadra enters, Osorio openly admits to murdering Ferdinand, whereupon he is dragged away and killed by the Moors.
Osv.
This two-part play moves among Washington, London, Sarajevo, Kigali, and Grozny during the 1990s conflicts. It follows the Zimmer family: Vietnam veteran Joseph confronts his past, his daughter Nola reels from an attack that killed her family, and war photographer Alan travels through Bosnia, Rwanda, and Chechnya. The work examines recurring war and human suffering.
Othello
The ensign Iago manipulates the Moorish commander Othello into believing that his wife Desdemona has been unfaithful. Othello kills her, then learns the truth and dies by suicide as Iago is exposed.
Other Desert Cities
The play's name refers to a control city guide sign on eastbound Interstate 10 in California, which indicates that the freeway is headed towards Indio, California, and "Other Desert Cities" (that is, the rest of the Coachella Valley and onward towards Phoenix, Arizona). The play's events occur around Christmas Eve 2004, when the family of Polly and Lyman Wyeth gather in Palm Springs, California. Their daughter Brooke Wyeth returns home after six years in New York writing magazine pieces. Polly's sister Silda is also visiting, out of a time spent in rehab. Polly and Lyman are Republicans, while Silda is a liberal who has fallen into alcoholism. The sisters co-wrote a series of MGM comedies in the 1960s, but have since become estranged chiefly due to Silda's resenting Polly for shifting social worldviews over time. Brooke announces and presents to her family a memoir recounting a pivotal and tragic event in the family's history: the suicide of her late brother Henry, who had been involved with the radical underground subculture in Venice, and a horrific incident resulting from their advocacy. During the course of the story, Brooke experiences bitter conflict between her yearning for independent understanding and reliance, and her parents' doting yet secretive motives towards her. During this, she also comes to terms with her family's sorrowing frustration in dealing with her post-divorce depressive episode, even years after Henry's disappearance. Nonetheless, after absorbing the family's perspectives, Brooke insists the memoir is vital for her continuing on in life, whether her family continues to embrace her or not. In an act of submission from Lyman, he and Polly finally recount the specifics surrounding the recruitment center bombing Henry was implicated in, after years of personal clashes and rejection from both parents and son. Henry showed up disheveled, begging for help and insisting he was unaware of his friends' terrorism. When Lyman insisted Henry turn himself in nonetheless, another argument broke out and Lyman slapped him. Henry disappeared into the night, and wasn't found until three weeks later by Polly. She reveals that she made an interstate trip with Lyman and her son to the northern border, and the ferry he disappeared from. But Lyman painfully reveals they had also doctored Henry's suicide note themselves, and stuck it in his shoes with a tearful goodbye. With their darkest secret unearthed, Lyman and Polly come to terms with their grief, and give Brooke their consent for publishing. Brooke, in the play's penultimate moment, launches all the pages of her memoir into the air in anguish, screaming of her internal suffering since Henry left her life, and trying to spare her parents the potential pain of her suicide despite her continual grief. Lyman embraces his daughter in remorse. An epilogue reveals Brooke at her memoir's publishing, years after Polly and Lyman's passing, per their initial request. She recounts a memory of her brother, wondering when she will see him again.
Other Men's Wives
Other Men's Wives is a 1928 comedy play by the British-American writer Walter Hackett set in a French hotel. After premiering at the Theatre Royal in Brighton it transferred to the West End where it ran for 143 performances between 9 April and 11 August 1928, initially at Wyndham's Theatre before moving to the St Martin's Theatre. The original London cast included Fay Compton, Leslie Banks, Dino Galvani, Bruce Belfrage and Marion Lorne. The following year it appeared at the Times Square Theatre on Broadway, running for twenty three performances.
Other Side of the Game
In 1970s Toronto, student Beverly becomes involved with Black civil-rights activists. In contemporary Toronto, Nicole is stopped by police while with her ex-boyfriend at a basketball court. The play connects their experiences and the effects of incarceration on women and relationships.
Otherwise Engaged
Publisher Simon Hench plans a quiet afternoon listening to Parsifal, but tenants, friends, relatives and aspiring writers repeatedly interrupt him. As his composure falls away, he emerges as a selfish, cruel and lonely bully, and his wife announces she is leaving.
Oulanem
In an Italian mountain town, the mysterious German traveler Oulanem arrives with his companion Lucindo. In the surviving first act, Oulanem confronts mortality and the world’s destruction, and considers whether he must destroy in defiance.
Our American Cousin
When Asa Trenchard, a boorish but honest Vermont cousin, arrives in England to claim a family estate, he helps his aristocratic relatives escape financial ruin and thwart the scheming Coyle. Asa burns the inheritance that would displace his impoverished cousin Mary, and the play ends with several couples marrying.
Our Betters
Our Betters is a comedy play by the British writer Somerset Maugham. Set in Mayfair and a country house in Suffolk, the plot revolves around the interaction between newly wealthy Americans and upper-class British society. It premiered at the Nixon Theatre in Atlantic City, New Jersey before transferring to the Hudson Theatre on Broadway where it ran for 112 performances. It did not premiere in London immediately, but then enjoyed a West End run of 548 performances at the Globe Theatre between 12 September 1923 and 3 January 1925. The London cast included Constance Collier, Ronald Squire (succeeding Yorke Stephens), Reginald Owen, John Stuart, Alfred Drayton, Margaret Bannerman and Martita Hunt.
Our Boys
Two fathers welcome home their sons, but each disapproves of the son’s chosen partner and disowns him. The young men move into a poor London lodging house and try to earn a living by writing; the fathers later find them near starvation, and the family’s misunderstandings are resolved.
Our Boys
In 1984, six injured servicemen share a ward at the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital. They form a guarded group around their injuries and army rules, but a drinking game leads to an investigation and threatens one man’s career. The conflict forces the survivors to confront their own injuries and the authority they have built within the ward.
Our Cosmic Dust
A boy leaves home to search for his dead father, and his mother sets out to find him. Their separate journeys bring them into contact with people confronting love, grief and death, in a story combining puppetry with projected imagery.
Our Country's Good
In the hold of the convict ship Sirius, the convicts witness an (off-stage) flogging and express fear about their future. In Sydney Cove, an unnamed Aboriginal Australian witnesses the arrival of the first fleet. Throughout the play, he comments on the British settlement's effect on the indigenous populations, reacting with curiosity, confusion, and finally fear. Some time after arriving in Sydney, Governor Arthur Philip, Captain David Collins, Captain Watkin Tench, and Midshipman Harry Brewer debate the purpose of prison: should it be to punish or rehabilitate?; and the nature of criminal tendencies: are they innate or acquired? When Tench mentions that the convicts consider hanging to be "entertainment," Philip wonders if they could be offered something else. He suggests that the convicts could stage a play, but nevertheless orders Harry to find a hangman and execute three men who have been convicted of stealing food. After hanging two of the thieves, Harry is plagued by guilt, especially as one of the thieves, Handy Baker, was Harry's rival for the affection of Duckling Smith, a young convict woman. Harry tells Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark about the Governor's idea to have the convicts stage a play and Ralph decides to take this project on, hoping to get the Governor to notice him. Ralph chooses George Farquhar's restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer and holds auditions. Some of the convicts who audition are Meg Long, an aged prostitute; Robert Sideway, a flamboyant pickpocket; the shy Mary Brenham; her more outspoken friend Dabby Bryant; and the hardened criminal Liz Morden. Ralph offers Mary the main female role of Silvia and reluctantly agrees that Dabby can play Rose. Liz Morden is offered the role of Melinda. One evening, the officers discuss theatre, punishment, criminality and morality, and debate the value of Ralph's project. Major Ross, his acolyte Captain Campbell, and the pragmatic Captain Tench express conservative opinions and oppose the play, which is defended vehemently by Philip, Collins and Ralph Clark. Collins conducts a vote and with the majority in favour, Ralph is allowed to start rehearsals. Duckling complains that Harry is always watching her, leaving her no freedom. To appease her, he says that he will let her take part in the play. Dabby and Mary start learning their lines. Mary feels inadequate to play a noble lady, as she is ashamed of having sold herself to a sailor on the ship for food. Dabby argues that Mary was no virgin and that she might otherwise not have survived the voyage. Liz interrupts them and demands to be included, but Dabby becomes resentful when it becomes clear that Liz can't read. Their fight is broken up by James “Ketch” Freeman, the hangman. Freeman visits Ralph in his tent, claims that he is innocent of the murder that got him transported to Australia. He explains why he agreed to take on the office of hangman; having been convicted for stealing food, he was told “hang or be hanged”. He finally begs Ralph for a part in the play. A Jewish convict, John Wisehammer, engages Mary in a conversation about the meanings and sounds of words; she suggests he also take part in the play. At the first rehearsal, two actors, Kable and Arscott, are missing; Sideway overacts, and Liz can't act at all. A convict named Black Caesar arrives and asks to play a servant. The rehearsal is interrupted by Ross and Campbell, who inform Ralph that Cable and Arscott have escaped. Ross arrests Caesar, who initially went with the escapees but came back. He also arrests Wisehammer, because Cable was last seen near Wisehammer's hut; and Liz, accused of helping Cable steal food from the stores. The rehearsal is left in shambles. In prison, Liz tells Wisehammer her life story. Wisehammer protests that he is innocent. Caesar dreams of making another escape attempt and returning to Madagascar. John Arscott, who has been recaptured, desperately cries out that escape is impossible. Sideway, Duckling and Mary arrive in prison so they can continue to rehearse. Ralph tells Philip that, because half of his actors are in prison, he wants to stop the play, but Philip exhorts him to continue trying, making Ralph see the much larger meaning that the play has for the colony. Philip especially advocates for Liz Morden, as he wants to make an example of her – through redemption. In his tent, Harry Brewer sees the ghosts of the two men he hanged, including his rival Handy Baker. He shouts for Duckling, but when she arrives, he cannot trust her, saying that the "ghost" told him that Handy and Duckling had been on the beach together. On Philip's orders, Ross brings Wisehammer, Caesar, and Liz to the second rehearsal. Nobody feels comfortable rehearsing in Ross's presence and Ralph tries to get him to leave. This just infuriates Ross. He starts humiliating the convicts, forcing Sideway to show his flogging scars, Dabby to imitate a dog and Mary to show the tattoo high up on her inner thigh. As the rehearsal continues, Sideway and Liz begin to enter more fully into their parts, boldly using the full length of the room and interacting with the others. The words of the play take a double meaning highly significant to the situation. In response, Ross orders Campbell to flog Arscott as punishment for his escape; the sounds of the flogging and Arscott's cries end the rehearsal. Liz has been sentenced to death for stealing food. Freeman reluctantly measures her for hanging. Harry, who oversees the process, still hears the ghosts of the dead. It becomes clear that Liz did not defend herself at her trial, but just as 'Ketch' and Harry are about to leave, she asks Harry to tell Ralph that she did not steal the food. As they question her as to why she didn't speak up, Harry collapses. As Kable is not back, Ralph has taken over his part in The Recruiting Officer. It is clear by now that Wisehammer and Ralph are rivals for Mary's affection, just as they are for Silvia's in the Farquhar play. Dabby complains that she can't relate to her character, but Wisehammer argues that a play should teach you something new. Arscott remarks that the play allows him to forget about own situation, contrasting with Dabby, who wants to play herself. The arrival of Ketch Freeman ends the rehearsal, as the others refuse to act with a hangman. In Harry Brewer's tent, Duckling promises love and fidelity to Harry, only to discover that he has just died. She collapses. Mary is rehearsing on her own. Ralph joins her. Reciting their lines in the play, they end up confessing their love. Philip, Ross, Collins, Campbell and Ralph discuss Liz Morden one more time. Collins is afraid of a miscarriage of justice, as the evidence against her is flimsy. Liz is given a last chance to defend herself. She finally speaks, saying that she knew Cable wanted to steal the food, but she wasn't present when he did. Collins orders a retrial. Despite her situation, Liz surprises everyone present by politely promising to perform her role in the play. Backstage before the performance, the actors attempt to console Duckling. They also discuss the future: Dabby plans to escape that night; Sideway wants to start a theatre company; Liz and Freeman want to join Sideway's company as actors and Wisehammer as playwright; Mary and Ralph plan their lives together. Caesar is very drunk and suffering from stage fright; only ludicrous threats from his fellow actors convince him to go on stage. Wisehammer reminds Ralph of the prologue he wrote for the play and reads it. Although pleased, Ralph does not dare to use it, because it is too political. The play begins: Arscott and Caesar go onstage while as the rest of the cast listens in trepidation. The first speech of the play is met with tremendous applause.
Our Flat
Young London couple Reginald and Margery Sylvester are buried in debt as creditors invade their flat and repossess the furniture. When Margery secretly learns that her play has been accepted, she and the cook improvise replacement furnishings to impress the manager and secure payment; the comedy ends with the couple’s family reconciliation.
Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again
A former military major enters Nigerian politics and finds that his vanity and inexperience complicate his campaign; when his American wife returns and discovers that he has married two other women, the wives form alliances that challenge his political plans.
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour is a play based on the 1998 novel The Sopranos by Alan Warner, adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. It received its world premiere at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2015, before embarking on a short UK tour. The play is a co-production between the National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre. The production ran at London's National Theatre in August 2016 and was scheduled to transfer to the West End's Duke of York's Theatre in May 2017. In April 2017, the production won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, for its run at the National Theatre.
Our Town
In the small town of Grover’s Corners, the Webb and Gibbs families go about their daily lives. Guided by a Stage Manager, Thornton Wilder’s play moves through everyday routines, love, marriage, and loss, inviting us to notice the moments we so often take for granted.
Our Wives
Bachelor Frank Bowers seeks to collaborate with composer Wilson, only to discover she is a woman to whom he is attracted. They try to keep their relationship professional, while his friends' marriages and their own tangled feelings fuel a comedy of errors.
Ourselves
Ourselves is an 1811 comedy play by the British writer Marianne Chambers. It premiered at the Lyceum Theatre in London on 2 March 1811. The Lyceum was at the time hosting the company of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane while it was rebuilt following damage by an 1809 fire. It was Chambers' second staged work following the successful The School for Friends in 1805. The cast included William Dowton as Sir John Rainsford, Benjamin Wrench as Sir Sydney Beaufort, Charles Holland as Fitzaubin, John Henry Johnstone as O'Shanauhan, Vincent De Camp as Darlington, William Penley as Cuff, Maria Rebecca Davison as Miss Beaufort, Julia Glover as the Unknown Lady and Sarah Harlowe as Mrs O'Shanauhan. It was performed sixteen times on its original run.
Out of Bounds
Out of Bounds is a comedy thriller play by the British writer Arthur Watkyn. It enjoyed a successful run at Wyndham's Theatre in the West End with Michael Redgrave in the lead role of Lancelot Dodd, a naive headmaster who is an exact Doppelgänger of a British spy who has recently died. The West End cast also included Pauline Jameson, Anton Diffring, Graham Armitage, Peter Stephens, Michael Balfour, Michael Bates, Lionel Gamlin and Charles Heslop. It was directed by Harold French.
Out of Order
Out of Order is a 1990 farce written by English playwright Ray Cooney. It had a long run at the Shaftesbury Theatre starring Donald Sinden and Michael Williams. As with many other Ray Cooney plays, it features a lead actor (in this case a junior UK minister) who has to lie his way out of an embarrassing situation (in this case a planned adultery with a secretary) with the help of an innocent side-kick (in this case the minister's personal private secretary), who gets more and more embroiled in the increasingly tangled tale improvised by the lead character as events unfold. The action takes place in a suite in a posh London hotel and revolves around accidents caused by a defective sash window. In 1996, the play was adapted in France as Panique au Plazza, starring Christian Clavier and Gérard Lartigau. In 1997 the play was made into a successful Hungarian movie A Miniszter Félrelép. The 2019 Italian comedy film Natale a cinque stelle is based on the plot. The play has also been staged internationally in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur in April 2012, by the British Theatre Playhouse. Other recent productions have been made in Poland as "Okno na parlament" (Komedia and Och theatres in Warsaw; theatres in Kraków, Wrocław, Gdynia, Szczecin, and Słupsk), at the Moscow Art Theatre in Moscow, Russia under the name "№ 13D", elsewhere in Russia under the name "Two in the Room, Not Counting...", in Beijing, China, and in a Hindi adaptation as "Sweet Suite" in Delhi, India. In 2023, the Mill at Sonning premiered an adaptation by Michael Barfoot, It's Her Turn Now, which changed the lead character into a female MP.
Out of the Ordinary
Defensive, cynical twenty-something Theodora Sprout wants to escape her wild family and live an ordinary life, while her father Jasper pursues greatness and a self-help guru exploits him. The play mixes everyday relationships with fantasy sequences, musical numbers and cartoon-like projections.
Out to Win
Two rival business empires compete for a chemical concession in a foreign country and resort to violence. Their conflict centers on Anthony Barraclough, who has discovered an entire field of radium.
Outlying Islands
In 1939, English ornithologist Robert and Scottish ornithologist John are sent to catalogue bird colonies on a remote island, where they live with the lease-holder Kirk and his niece Ellen. A painful triangle develops as the play explores nature and technology, tradition and change, against the looming war.
Outrageous Fortune
Outrageous Fortune is a comedy play by the British writer Ben Travers. A farce, it premiered at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle before transferring to the Winter Garden Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 250 performances from 13 November 1947 to 19 June 1948. The West End cast included Robertson Hare, Ralph Lynn and Gordon James. A review in The Illustrated London News said it "has grandly reestablished the old "Aldwych" tradition."
Outside Edge
A village team struggles to assemble for a cricket match while marital conflicts engulf the players and their partners. Bob hides visits to his ex-wife, Dennis’s wife resists another move, Kevin and Maggie quarrel, and Miriam learns of Roger’s infidelity; then rain halts the match.
Outside Looking In
Outside Looking In is a 1925 Broadway three-act comedy written by Maxwell Anderson, produced by Kenneth Macgowan, Robert Edmond Jones and Eugene O'Neill and directed by Augustin Duncan.
Outside Mullingar
Outside Mullingar is a play by John Patrick Shanley, which ran on Broadway in 2014.
Outward Bound
Seven passengers meet in the lounge of an ocean liner at sea and gradually discover that they are dead. They must face an Examiner who will determine whether each is bound for Heaven or Hell.
Over 21
Near Miami in 1943, 39-year-old newspaper editor Max struggles through Army Air Corps training alongside younger recruits. His novelist wife Paula joins him to encourage him, while his former publisher tries to lure him back to work.
Over My Dead Body
Trevor Foyle, Dora Winslow, and Bartie Cruikshank are British mystery writers whose time has come and gone. Having watched their style of fiction—with its eccentric detectives, "impossible" murders, and least-likely suspects—dwindle in popularity and sales over the decades, they're resigned to living out their few remaining years in the reading room of the Murder League: a crime-writers' literary club of which they are the last surviving founders. There, day after day, waited upon by the League's loyal (and even more aged) butler Charters, the pompous Trevor rails against the decline in crime-writing standards, while the more philosophical Dora busies herself with her knitting, and ever-oblivious Bartie dozes in his easy chair, dreaming of murder plots long past. Passing through the club, Simon Vale—a younger member who writes best-selling thrillers steeped in sex and gore—belittles the elder trio for their persistence in portraying murder as stylish, ingeniously contrived puzzles, rather than the brutal, bloody, frequently irrational thing it is in real life. Stung by his words, the three older writers hypothesize what would happen should a real-life murder be committed as it is in their books, with outré touches and cryptic clues. Conceivably, it would spark a renaissance of "Golden Age" whodunits—perhaps even motivate people to buy their books again. Fired with enthusiasm at the prospect, they resolve to turn their hypothesis into reality: instead of merely writing a fictional murder, they'll commit a real one! Needless to say, they ultimately learn that arranging for someone to be found shot, stabbed and hanged in a room locked and barricaded from the inside (wearing a gorilla costume, no less) is somewhat more difficult to accomplish in real life than on the printed page. Especially when the would-be murderers are considerably past their physical prime and, prone to queasiness when confronted with the necessity of having to inflict actual physical mayhem on a real human being. With the aid of, among other diverse items, a bayonetted rifle, a Xanax-laced bottle of ketchup, a mace-wielding suit of armor, an ill-fitting red dress, a recalcitrant thumbtack, a convenient gust of wind, and an unsuspected fly in the ointment—the classic British detective story and the protagonists' reputations are ultimately rescued from a premature demise.
Over Night
This synopsis is compiled from contemporaneous newspaper reviews. Act I (Deck of the S. S. Hendrik Hudson. Afternoon.) The newlywed Kettles and Darlings are travelling together on a ship of the Hudson River Day Line to a Catskill Mountains resort for their honeymoons. After boarding the ship, they find some of their luggage has been left behind on the dock. Percy Darling and Georgina Kettle race to retrieve their bags, and the ship sails without them. Richard Kettle, recognized as the son of a famous suffragette, is known to have been recently married, so Elsie is mistaken for his bride. The situation becomes acute, when Elsie, who has old-fashioned values, is presumed to be in favor of women voting and is coerced into making a speech for female suffrage. Richard is compelled to protect her from the other passengers overwhelming interest. They decide to leave the ship at the next landing. (Curtain) Act II (Rip Van Winkle Inn. That evening.) At Poughkeepsie, New York, Richard and Elsie are dismayed to find the last train for the Catskill Mountain resort has already departed. Because some passengers from the ship have also come to the Rip Van Winkle Inn, they have to register as newlyweds but ask for separate rooms, arousing the interest of the hotel clerk. Through his meddling, Richard and Elsie are launched into a series of misadventures and near compromising situations, culminating with Richard falling down the stairs in the hotel lobby. (Curtain) Act III (Same as Act II. Next morning.) Percy and Georgina arrive at the Rip Van Winkle Inn, and become enraged when they see Richard and Elsie arm-in-arm in the lobby. They demand an explanation, but are satisfied when Professor Diggs hypnotizes Elsie and she reveals nothing untoward happened. Richard has also discovered new confidence in himself to deal with Georgina's overwhelming personality, and both couples proceed on to their honeymoons in happiness. (Curtain)
Over the River and Through the Woods
When Nick announces that his job is moving him from New Jersey to Seattle, his four Italian-American grandparents try to keep him nearby by introducing him to Caitlin. Their matchmaking embarrasses him, but the family’s tensions deepen as he weighs career ambitions against the bonds he shares with his grandparents.
Overruled
At a seaside hotel, two married couples discover mutual attractions and debate whether they can exchange partners; they leave with an ambiguous arrangement that lets each pursue the affair they enjoy.
Owners
A satire of property rights, real estate owners, and the people who live in rented accommodation, criticizing the culture that treats property-owning entrepreneurs as heroes.
Oxygen
A dramatization of the events leading to the discovery of oxygen in the eighteenth century.
P.O. Box Unabomber
Interwoven stories follow a man who disappears into the mountains, an endangered animal searching for a mate, scientists attempting to build a cosmic elevator and a satellite observing Earth, as the play asks whether violence can change society and where relentless technological progress leads.
P.S. Your Cat Is Dead
On New Year’s Eve, actor Jimmy Zoole discovers burglar Vito in his Manhattan loft. Already facing unemployment, a departing girlfriend and his cat’s illness, Jimmy ties Vito to the kitchen sink and holds him captive.
POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive
The show centers around a PR nightmare for the White House while seven women try to keep the president out of trouble.
Pa
Pa is a farce-musical comedy in three acts by playwright Cal Wallace that was originally performed by the Sol Smith Russell Company. The play made its New York premier at the Standard Theatre on February 14, 1887.
Pack of Lies
The Jackson family is friendly with their neighbors, the Krogers, until the couple are arrested for espionage. As the Krogers' identities and their role in a Soviet spy network emerge, the Jacksons confront the cost of their friendship and cooperation with authorities.
Page From a Diary
Page From a Diary is a 1936 play by the British writer Charles Bennett. It is a melodrama set on the Northwest Frontier where a British unit is trapped by the enemy and a Captain's wife is involved in a love triangle. It ran for 33 performances at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End. The cast included Greer Garson and Ernst Deutsch.
Pageant of London
A four-part historical pageant presents scenes from British history, from pre-Roman London through the British Empire. Its final Masque Imperial has the Genius of the World address Britannia and conclude with a procession celebrating imperial expansion.
Pagla Ghoda
At a cremation ground, four men gather to perform the rites for a young woman who died by suicide. As they drink, play cards and recall their relationships with women, the dead woman's spirit draws out their regrets and the social pressures behind their failed loves.
Paid on Both Sides: A Charade
A tragic charade about two feuding families whose reconciliation is shattered when a mother, avenging her elder son's death, incites her younger son to shoot the bridegroom at a wedding.
Painting Churches
In a townhouse in the Beacon Hill area of Boston, an elderly couple, Fanny (in her 60s) and Gardner (in his 70s) Church, are packing. They are moving to a beach home on Cape Cod. Gardner is a poet and Fanny is from a "fine old family". Their daughter Margaret (Mags), an artist who lives in New York City, has arrived to help them pack and paint their portrait. Over the course of several days, Mags sees her role in the parent-child relationship changing. Gardner is having memory problems and has become frail, and in his frustration, recites the poetry of William Butler Yeats and Robert Frost, among others. Mags finishes the portrait of her parents, in the style of Renoir. Her parents are able to see her talent, and enjoy being in a "Renoir" party as they dance a waltz.
Palace of the End
Three monologues examine Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion. One presents Lynndie England and the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, another gives the perspective of weapons inspector David Kelly, and the third follows fictional Iraqi communist Nehrjas Al Saffarh through detention and later death during the 1991 Gulf War.
Palamon and Arcite
Based on Chaucer's Knight's Tale, the play follows the imprisoned Palamon and Arcite as they see Emilia and quarrel over her. After escapes and disguises, Theseus arranges a tournament; Arcite wins but dies, and Emilia marries Palamon.
Pamphilus de amore
Pamphilus falls in love with the virgin Galatea but pays an old woman to entrap her; despite Galatea’s protests, he rapes her, leaving her despairing.
Pan
A three-act satirical comedy celebrating the triumph of its protagonist's joyous paganism.
Pan's Anniversary, or The Shepherd's Holiday
In a pastoral Arcadia, nymphs and a shepherd encounter a clownish fencer whose martial spirit is contrasted with the peace of the countryside. Anti-masques of Boeotians and Thebans frame a dance honoring James I as Pan.
Pandora's Box
After escaping prison by a substitution arranged by Countess Geschwitz, Lulu leaves Germany with Alwa Schön. Their fortunes rise and collapse in Paris; in London, working as a prostitute, Lulu is murdered by a client known as Jack the Ripper, while Geschwitz dies after declaring her love.
Pang!
A live radio-play performance draws on oral histories of three families confronting hunger and poverty: a Los Angeles family displaced after a relative is defrauded, a Burundian immigrant family in Iowa, and a seven-year-old in Miami whose friend was killed in a shooting. The work uses three half-hour segments and foley to bring their experiences to the stage.
Panic
During the 1933 bank panic, financier McGafferty, the world’s richest man, faces the collapse of his fortune and the human toll of the Depression.
Papegøien
A spoiled boy named Johan is transformed by elves into a parrot after harming animals and mocking nature. Sent to Norway to run a Danish bookstore and undermine Norwegian patriotism, he encounters the poet Polemikkel Poetikkel and is exposed by the poet Siful; the story ends with Johan waking from the dream determined to reform.
Paper Wheat
Documentary theatre about Saskatchewan settlers' hardships and the creation of wheat pools and the Co-operative movement, assembled from stories collected in local communities. The work was later reworked for a provincial and national tour through the same collective process.
Showing 4,009–4,128 of 8,284 shows
Load more shows