8284 shows
Clear filtersWhen 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.
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.
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.
A dramatization of the events leading to the discovery of oxygen in the eighteenth century.
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.
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.
The show centers around a PR nightmare for the White House while seven women try to keep the president out of trouble.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
A three-act satirical comedy celebrating the triumph of its protagonist's joyous paganism.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In a Latin dramatic retelling of Saint Thaïs's conversion, the hermit Paphnutius confronts the courtesan about her life and guides her toward repentance. She destroys her accumulated treasures, enters a convent in the Egyptian desert, and lives in penitence until her death.
During the Depression, Leo and Clara Gordon’s once-prosperous middle-class family faces financial collapse after Leo and his partner lose their handbag business, exposing the family’s strained and uncertain lives.
Paranormal Activity is a horror play written by Levi Holloway, based on the film series of the same name, set in the world of the film series. The play premiered at Leeds Playhouse in July 2024, had its West End premiere at the Ambassadors Theatre on 5 December 2025, and opened on Broadway in the August Wilson Theatre in August 2026.
Duke Hercules disguises himself as the flattering courtier called the Fawn to observe Duke Gonzago’s court and his son Tiberio. He exposes the courtiers’ sexual intrigues and Gonzago’s vanity, then stages a symbolic Court of Cupid to punish them.
Employees at a Budapest perfume shop navigate strained relationships at work. Two clerks who quarrel in person unknowingly correspond as romantic pen pals.
In a farmhouse during a storm, Mr. X and Mr. Y debate their past crimes while a box of gold sits between them. Their contest over guilt and justice escalates into a threat of violence.
Paris Is Out! is a 1970 Broadway comedy by Richard Seff that starred Sam Levene and Molly Picon as Daniel and Hortense Brand, a married couple planning a vacation. The Broadway production ran for 96 performances after 16 previews at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre between February 2 and April 18, 1970; it was directed by Paul Aaron and produced by David Black in association with businessman and future U.S. President Donald Trump.
Eight women who were former inmates of Parramatta Girls Home reunite in 2003, forty years after their terms. Moving between the reunion and flashbacks, they revisit abuse, institutional mistreatment, escape attempts, and loss, then confront secrets and tell their stories together. The verbatim-based drama draws on interviews with former inmates.
The play follows Mollie Mae, a woman who has recently been discharged from a mental health facility. She hosts a party in her newly renovated kitchen, hoping for a fun and lighthearted evening. However, as the guests arrive—including her perfectionist mother, her anxious sister, and an unexpected outsider—the event quickly descends into chaos. As the night progresses, secrets are revealed, tensions flare, and the characters’ carefully constructed facades begin to crack. Beneath the witty banter and comedic exchanges, Party Face delves into serious themes such as depression, self-worth, and the unrealistic expectations society places on women. The play balances humor with heartfelt moments, ultimately delivering a message about authenticity, self-acceptance, and the importance of support systems in overcoming personal struggles.
Party Manners is a comedy play by the British writer Val Gielgud. A political farce it was described in one review as "domestic comedy touched-up with witticism some good, some feeble, about the Labour Party government". It originally premiered at the Opera House, Buxton on 22 August 1949. It later transferred to the Princes Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 48 performances between 31 October and 9 December 1950. The West End cast included Raymond Lovell, Jill Esmond, Terence Alexander, Michael Hordern, George Merritt, Brown Derby and Diana Calderwood.
An original work inspired by the revolutionary movements of the 1960s and 1970s, especially the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords.
Pasquin is a 1736 comedy play by Henry Fielding. It is a satire on both politics and the theatre, with a play within a play plot about a group of actors attempting to put on a production about a local election. It takes its name from Pasquin, a historic statue in Rome. The original Haymarket cast included John Roberts as Trapwell, James Lacy as Fustian, Charlotte Charke as Lord Place and John Freeman as Colonel Promise. It was the success of the season with an estimated 25,000 people seeing its original run of forty performances.
During the 1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute, striking waterside worker Cliff and Jeannie and Gus, who are involved with the union, publish a bulletin conveying the workers' views despite emergency regulations restricting supportive coverage. The play traces changes in the relationship between Cliff's wife Nell and Jeannie, culminating in a march to build support for a public meeting.
In a stylized present-day street that also evokes an 1855 plantation and ancient Egypt, Moses and Kitch imagine a promised land while confronting a white passerby and a police officer. Their games and encounters with violence echo Beckett and the Exodus story, as they struggle to survive and leave the block.
A play about adultery and betrayal in which each of the two leading characters is portrayed by two actors, separating public speech from private thoughts.
Shaw’s skeptical, unfinished retelling of the Gospel story begins with Jesus as a young man in Nazareth, rejected by Rahab, then befriended by Judas. Years later in Jerusalem, Jesus and Judas remain close as Barabbas preys on temple traders and other figures gather, but the manuscript breaks off before resolving its events.
A four-day mystery begins with a trial in Paradise, where Justice and Mercy testify about Satan's evils; God sends his son to redeem mankind. It then presents Jesus's life from birth through the Passion and his return to heaven.
In a fashionable London bedroom, Lady Magnesia's admirer Adolphus drinks poisoned whisky and soda. An attempted antidote turns him into a plaster statue; the landlord, policeman, and doctor are killed in a storm, and the household and audience are swept into a surreal mock-tragic finale.
A comic play following one day in the life of an Italian-American family in an apartment in South Philadelphia.
Pastor Fido; Or, The Faithful Shepherd is a 1676 tragicomedy by the English writer Elkanah Settle. It was first performed by the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theatre in London. It is inspired by Giovanni Battista Guarini's pastoral work Il pastor fido. The original cast included Matthew Medbourne as Montano, John Crosby as Sylvio, William Smith as Mirtillo, Thomas Betterton as Sylvano, Henry Norris as Ergasto, Thomas Percival as Carino, John Richards as Dameta, Thomas Gillow as Lynco, Mary Betterton as Amaryllis, Mary Lee as Corisca and Margaret Hughes as Gerana.
During the Paterson silk strike, workers performed a dramatic depiction of their own labor struggle before a large audience at Madison Square Garden. The pageant brought the strike's events onto the stage while the conflict was still underway.
In an allegorical realm of the emotions, King Love and Queen Hatred neglect their duties, allowing a rebellion among their subjects. Passions personified as vices masquerade as virtues until Justice suppresses and orders them. The play unfolds through dialogue among these personifications rather than conventional action.
After losing his job, marriage and brother in quick succession, businessman Reuben becomes obsessed with finding the moment that set his life’s collapse in motion. Encounters with family, friends and former lovers challenge his belief that events have a single cause and that he can control their outcomes.
A poor basket-maker's virtuous daughter, Grissil, marries the Marquess of Salucia, who subjects her to humiliations and cruelties to test her patience. The comedy reworks the Griselda folktale and examines marriage, social rank, and authority.
In a five-act tragedy set in 1707, Livonian nobleman Patkull leaves his fiancée Namry in his friend Paikel's care while he goes to war. Paikel tries to steal her and deceives Patkull into believing she has betrayed him, leading toward Patkull's tragic death.
A one-act Ankia Naat drama addresses opposition to bhakti, or devotional faith.
Patriots is a dramatic stage play by British playwright Peter Morgan. The play explores the rise and fall of Boris Berezovsky, a powerful Russian oligarch who was instrumental in shaping post-Soviet Russia. Set during the 1990s and early 2000s, the play follows Berezovsky’s meteoric rise from mathematician to billionaire media mogul and kingmaker, as he helps Vladimir Putin ascend to power—only to later become his enemy. As Berezovsky's influence wanes and Putin consolidates control, the play explores themes of loyalty, ambition, betrayal, and the cost of political power. Morgan’s sharp dialogue and historical insight provide a chilling portrait of modern Russian politics and the moral compromises behind empire-building.
Howard Brenton portrays Paul the Apostle’s life and career in modern dress. In this revisionist account, Jesus survives the crucifixion, and Paul’s encounter near Damascus is engineered by Mary Magdalene and Peter rather than occurring as the vision Paul believes it to be.
The curious, idle Paul Pry meddles in other people’s affairs and leaves his umbrella behind so he can return and eavesdrop. In the end, he becomes a hero by recovering papers from a well that expose more serious troublemakers.
An ensemble uses improvisation, transformation, mime and dance to enact fairy tales and other traditional stories, including Grimm tales and Aesop’s fables. The episodic play was developed from company improvisations.
Paulinka loves Yakim Saroka, the village teacher, but her father plans to marry her to the wealthier Bykovsky. The lovers plan to run away; Yakim is arrested for his revolutionary views after Bykovsky informs on him. Productions often replace the ending with an escape together.
Trygaeus flies to the gods on a dung beetle and, with Greeks' help, frees Peace from War's imprisonment. The return of peace revives rural life, while the comic ending celebrates Trygaeus's marriage to Harvest and exposes the trades and leaders invested in war.
In an imagined Nazi-occupied Britain, patrons and staff at a London pub negotiate collaboration and resistance from 1940 to 1945. The Shattock family shelters resistance activity; betrayal, imprisonment, and the death of their daughter Doris shape the community’s struggle through liberation.
Teacher Xin Yongnian devotes himself to educating young people and supports pupils from poor families. As Japanese forces advance, he urges his son to enlist and leads teachers and students out of occupied territory to continue public education.
In 1640s England, Irish political operative Pearl and playwright Tom Backhouse try to use Parliament’s appetite for Shakespearean history to advance Irish sovereignty. Their strategy unfolds inside a shifting play-within-a-play, with characters and viewpoints moving between the political story and its theatrical rehearsal.
On a fictional Caribbean island in the 1890s, a sorceress falls in love with a shallow womanizer in Carter’s retelling of the Medea story.
Pedal Pusher begins with Marco Pantani lying dead in a hotel room. The play goes on to describe a detailed account of the great rivalry, and achievements, of the three cycling legends – Armstrong, Ullrich and Pantani – and each of their individual struggles – Pantani's horrific 1995 crash and struggle with drugs, Ullrich's depression and subsequent drug allegations and Armstrong's fight against cancer.
Pedro dreams of flying despite being a penguin. After finding himself at the North Pole, he sees a chance to prove himself when one of Santa’s reindeer is injured.
The boastful Peer Gynt leaves Norway and spends years pursuing wealth, power, and self-glorification across North Africa and elsewhere. Returning home as an old man, he confronts the lives he avoided and seeks an answer to whether he has ever truly been himself.
A streamlined contemporary reworking of Ibsen's story of Peer Gynt, with references updated for its time and themes of selfishness and love.
Twin Asian-American students compete for admission to a top college in Jiehae Park's reimagining of Macbeth.
Irish-American heiress Peg arrives at the English Chichester family's home under a will requiring them to teach her refinement in exchange for an annuity. She befriends Jerry, protects Ethel from an exploitative suitor, and ultimately rejects her inheritance to return to her father, accepting Jerry's proposal.
Two doctors return from years of aid work in Africa and reunite with friends who have remained comfortably at home. Over dinner, their competing accounts of responsibility, privilege, and personal sacrifice fracture the surface of polite conversation.
At Medea's direction, the daughters of Pelias kill their father, believing Medea's claim that she can restore his youth. The play is lost.
In this one-person play, Melanie Salomon performs multiple characters in a comic, reflective story of growing up in 1970s Adelaide.
Golaud finds and marries Mélisande, who becomes drawn to his brother Pelléas. Golaud discovers their intimacy, kills Pelléas and wounds Mélisande; she later dies after giving birth.
As Matt prepares for college, his mother Helen wants him to stay nearby while his father Jerry urges him to leave home. Their struggle over his future forces the divided family to confront old wounds.
Five years into their marriage, Penelope is amused rather than jealous when her husband Dickie’s flirtation with Ada Fergusson comes to light. Her calm acceptance unsettles Dickie, who must confront the complacency behind their relationship.
Four suitors wait in an empty swimming pool, competing through monologues for Penelope while anticipating Odysseus’s return. After they plot to ensure one will win her, their attempt at alliance ends in violence, and the play closes with their deaths as Penelope departs into a new future.
In this short sequel, Box and Cox have inherited titles from Spanish and Venetian relatives and compete to marry the wealthy widow Penelope Anne. Their quarrel ends when she introduces her new husband, General Bouncer.
Two friends in their twenties are alone when Tadge, an old school friend returning from service in the Gulf War, arrives. His military experiences have changed him, and the men confront the distance between the person they knew and the person he has become.
Klapproth wants to visit a psychiatric institution, so his nephew and a friend pass off Schöller’s eccentric boardinghouse guests as patients. When the guests later visit his estate, he believes they have escaped and locks them in rooms.
In the early 1990s, the discovery of a mural in a small Eastern European church unfolds amid negotiations after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
During the Trojan War, Amazon queen Penthesilea and Greek warrior Achilles fall in love, but Amazon marriage customs make her pursue victory over him in battle. A misunderstanding leads Penthesilea to kill Achilles and then herself. The tragedy reverses the familiar account in which Achilles kills Penthesilea.
In a deteriorating Yorkshire country estate, Lady Dorothy Stacpoole resists transferring the property to the National Trust. To raise money for its upkeep, she considers selling its contents or allowing films to be shot there, proposals opposed by her more conventional sister.
Four surreal vignettes show people caged for paying visitors: a supposed killer manipulates a couple, strange ‘babies’ turn dangerous, a trapped couple is replaced by unemployed visitors, and a green captive is falsely accused after a girl’s murder. The cage-keeper links the pieces, which can also be performed separately.
Mukul Ahmed reworks Romeo and Juliet as a pared-down touring production in the Bengali Pala Gaan tradition, combining Shakespeare’s words with Bengali poetry, storytelling, folk songs, music and dance.
Emma, a talented theatre actress, collapses during rehearsals for a staging of The Seagull by Chekhov, due to the abuse of alcohol and drugs; the company she works for dismisses her and requires her to detox in order to return to acting. Unwillingly, Emma checks in a rehabilitation clinic, initially determined to stay there only for the time necessary to be declared clean and return to work, but she ends up staying there for several months. After a long and difficult drug treatment, Emma begins to interact with the community of the clinic. Some nurses and doctors are in fact ex-patients, who serve there in order of remain under observation; this is the case of nurse Foster, who immediately takes Emma in sympathy. Even the doctor who has her in treatment (who looks disturbingly similar to Emma's mother) is particularly interested in her case, and offers her a singular method of self-help that leads the patient to directly facing people, places and things that trigger their addiction. Emma agrees to try the method despite her strong skepticism, which leads her to reject for a long time the group sessions provided by the program. Some time later, Emma has completed much of the program, but she cannot be declared clean unless she attends the group sessions; she is therefore forced to take part. Her new psychotherapist pushes her to talk openly about the traumas that fostered her addiction. She responds by employing her acting skills to tell falsified, unlikely stories (in which, however, fragments of truth are hidden). This draws the hostility of Mark, another patient. The situation worsens when Paul breaks in, being a former patient who was kicked out for bringing heroin into the clinic. Paul tries to apologize to the group, and tells Emma that he had begun to take drugs after his partner died of an overdose. Though the other patients oppose the idea of readmitting him, Emma vehemently emphasizes the group's hypocrisy, which causes a fight. In turn, the psychotherapist threatens to expel her too, which would make it impossible for Emma to be officially complete the program and return to work. Emma decides to continue attending the group sessions, during which patients can practise – this involves staging moments outside of rehab, preparing to confront the triggers and causes of their addictions. Emma stubbornly refuses to take part in the practise, despite Mark's insistence (who, after his initial reluctance, sincerely longs to help her). With him, Emma opens up for the first time: she reveals her real name, Sarah; she tells him about her beloved brother who, despite leading a much more stable life than her, had died from a cerebral hemorrhage; she talks about her poor relationship with parents. She says that she chose to be an actress so she could live many wonderful lives instead of her own miserable one. She then compares her experience in the clinic to the theatre, insinuating that neither will save her. Some time later, Mark is declared as recovered and allowed to leave the clinic. During a celebration in his honour, Emma lashes out suddenly and confesses the same truths she had revealed to Mark, to all her companions. Taken aback at her prolific lies, the group rejects her. Emma then leaves the clinic and relapses, getting drunk at a nightclub before collapsing. Two months after her relapse, Emma has fallen back into the throes of her addictions, and returns to the clinic to begin rehab anew. This time, however, she appears more humble and committed. She notes many changes in clinic and its community since her departure: Mark has become a nurse, replacing Foster, who died after relapsing into drug addiction; Paul finds comfort in religion, which nevertheless prompts him to drink even more. Her new doctor initially appears hostile to her, and both she and Mark doubt that Emma will ever fully recover because of her refusal to face her trauma. Emma proves to be very cooperative and confides again in Mark, telling him that she wound up with an acting career purely by chance; her first role was at a carnival, during which she performed a trivial motivational speech. She admits that she has never really faced the death of her brother, and that she wants the approval of her mother, who has always opposed her choices. Eventually, Emma even agrees to stage a confrontation with her parents during a group practise session. For the first time, Emma role-plays confronting them and admits her discomfort about the situation, which leads the doctor to declare her recovered. Having completed rehab, Emma returns to her parents' house and tries to replicate the confrontation she staged in the clinic, but her attempt quickly goes sour. Her father does not believe her and attacks her selfishness, and says that Emma should have died instead of her brother. Her mother believes that Emma will never be able to escape the clutches of her addictions, but has kept all the drugs that Emma had asked her to dispose of when she re-entered treatment. Emma is therefore condemned to remain with people, places and things that cause her addiction. In the last scene, Emma slurs through the same motivational speech that began her acting career.
Percy is a 1777 verse dama tragedy by the British writer Hannah More. It was inspired by the French play Gabrielle de Vergy by Pierre-Laurent Buirette de Belloy. The play premiered at the Covent Garden Theatre in London. The original cast included William Thomas Lewis as Percy, Francis Aickin as Earl Raby, Thomas Hull as Sir Hubert, John Whitfield as Edric, Thomas Robson as Harcourt, James Thompson as Servant, Richard Wroughton as Earl Douglas and Ann Street Barry as Elwina. David Garrick wrote both the prologue and epilogue. The opening remarks read:This tragedy, in which Mrs. Hannah More is supposed to have been assisted by Garrick, was produced at Covent Garden Theatre, in 1778, with success; and revived, in 1818, at the same Theatre. The feuds of the rival houses of Percy and of Douglas have furnished materials for this melancholy tale, in which Mrs. More has embodied many judicious sentiments and excellent passages, producing a forcible lesson to parental tyranny. The victim of her husband's unreasonable jealousy, Elwina's virtuous conflict is pathetic and interesting; while Percy's sufferings, and the vain regret of Earl Raby, excite and increase our sympathy.
Paralleling Rudolf Kastner’s 1954–55 libel case in Israel, the play imagines a London trial in 1967 in which Ruth Kaplan accuses Dr. Yaron of collaborating with Adolf Eichmann during the Holocaust in Hungary. It questions whether saving some Jews came at the expense of those left behind.
One Sunday night, at the home of the wealthy Brents, psychiatrists living in a swanky Connecticut community, a woman shoots a man. By the time handsome detective James Ascher arrives, the body is gone. Ascher suspects the wife, Margaret Thorne Brent, a smart and sharp-tongued psychiatrist and novelist, although her patients are also suspect. One of her patients, Lionel McAuley, seeks fame as the "Baseball Bat Killer": he had previously killed his wife's lovers. During the course of his week-long investigation, more people are murdered (with a baseball bat), and Ascher finally learns the following: Margaret and her husband Harrison had been rehearsing a nightmare, for some time, with her patient Carlotta Donovan involving Carlotta's pretending to shoot and kill a man. Six months ago, Harrison, during one of these role playing therapy sessions, committed suicide by putting real bullets in the gun he gave to Carlotta. Realizing that she had just killed Harrison, Carlotta also committed suicide. When Margaret returned home to find the dead bodies, she hid Harrison's body behind the fireplace brickwork and, after disfiguring Carlotta's dead body to disguise its identity, sank it in Scotty's Pond. Knowing that Harrison's huge fortune would revert to his family in England upon his death, she quickly arranged for a former lover, Phillip Reynolds, to impersonate Harrison until she could transfer all of his accounts. During Ascher's investigation, Reynolds kills Mrs. Johaneston, the cook, when she realizes that he is an imposter. Margaret's patient McAuley takes credit for the murders of Harrison and Carlotta and then Mrs. Johaneston. Nevertheless, Reynolds also kills McAuley, because McAuley witnessed Phillip and Margaret enter Mrs. Johaneston's apartment on the night of her murder. Believing that Margaret was falling in love with Ascher, the insanely jealous Reynolds, after beating McAuley to death, flees to England, leaving Margaret in the house with the dead body lying in her office as the police arrive. Ascher also finds, to everyone's surprise, that Margaret was Carlotta's birth mother, that Carlotta had tracked down Margaret and become Harrison's lover. It is not clear whether her birth father was Harrison or Reynolds. Carlotta had hoped to work her way into the Brents' lives, angry at her English upbringing by a sexually abusive adoptive father rather than by the wealthy Brents. When Margaret finds out that Carlotta was her daughter and that she will be arrested as an accessory to the murders of Mrs. Johaneston and McAuley, she tries to commit suicide, but Ascher has filled her gun with blanks. A key clue to Ascher's finding Harrison's body in the fireplace is a painting on the fireplace brickwork that Ascher realizes was altered when the bricks were replaced in the wrong order. Nevertheless, Ascher and Margaret seem to be falling in love. Because of the complexity, a two-page Perfect Crime answer sheet is available at the end of the performance.
The play follows Patsy and Marie from childhood into adulthood, revisiting the abuse Marie suffered on prom night and its lasting effects.
On his wedding morning, Bill wakes beside a woman he cannot remember meeting. As his bride arrives, he and his best man try to conceal her presence, drawing the hotel chambermaid into a web of mistaken identities.
Periander is a 1731 tragedy by the British writer John Tracy. It is based on the life of Periander, the Ancient Greek ruler of Corinth. The original cast included James Quin as Periander, Lacy Ryan as Procles, William Milward as Aristides, Thomas Chapman as Alcander, Thomas Walker as Hypsenor and John Ogden as Lycon.
After the Comendador of Ocaña becomes obsessed with the peasant Peribáñez’s wife Casilda, he schemes to send Peribáñez away and assault her. Peribáñez returns secretly and kills the Comendador when he attempts to force himself on Casilda; the king hears Peribáñez’s account and pardons him.
After fleeing Antioch, Pericles travels through a series of kingdoms and shipwrecks, marries Thaisa, and loses her and their infant daughter Marina at sea. Marina survives, is kidnapped and sold to a brothel, but persuades its clients to virtue. Years later she and Pericles reunite in Mytilene, and Pericles finds Thaisa alive at Diana's temple.
A New Comedy of reconciliation, probably set in Corinth, follows the mercenary Polemon and Glykera, his pallake. After Polemon cuts Glykera’s hair in jealousy, she takes refuge with a neighbor; a recognition reveals that she and Moschion are siblings, clearing the way for Glykera’s reconciliation and marriage to Polemon.
A Hercule Poirot mystery set over five days at St. Loo in Cornwall, unfolding across the Majestic Hotel terrace and End House.
On Christmas Eve, two couples—one newly married, the other married for five years—confront difficulties in their relationships. Their troubles include one veteran’s combat trauma and another husband’s feelings of inadequacy; seeing each other’s struggles helps the couples reconcile.
The pretender Perkin Warbeck claims to be Richard IV and seeks the English crown with Scottish and Cornish support. Ford treats him sympathetically as he faces defeat, capture, and pressure to renounce his claim; Warbeck refuses and is led to execution. The play also shows the historical Lambert Simnel, a pardoned pretender who urges Warbeck to surrender.
The slave Toxilus devises a scheme with fellow slave Sagaristio to buy freedom for Lemniselenis, who is held by the pimp Dordalus. They trick Dordalus into buying Saturio’s daughter, disguised as a Persian’s captive; Saturio then reclaims her and takes Dordalus to court, while the others celebrate the pimp’s loss.
Movie star Carole Arden’s car breaks down in the Pennsylvania backcountry while she tours to promote her latest film. Taken in overnight by a gas-station attendant’s family, she falls for the young man and plans to bring him to Hollywood, but her press agent disrupts her scheme.
At a cocktail party, James Brent receives a call from a woman named Fay, supposedly waiting at the station where his first wife died. Further calls reveal that James has concealed his wife’s identity and the circumstances of her death. A later encounter at the station turns the calls into a trap exposing James as a serial killer, though a final unexplained call leaves Pam unsettled.
In a 1953 American town, the Constant family learns that Don, believed killed in Korea, is alive but has defected to North Korea. A federal investigator probes the family's ties to communist librarian Ward Perry, while Arnie defends his friendship with Ward and his own beliefs. Political suspicion tears at the household and its idealized image of American life.
Persons Unknown is a 1929 mystery play by the British writer Edgar Wallace. The plot revolves around the murder of a "person unknown" in a street by a mysterious blackmailer. It features the character of Sergeant Elk, a Scotland Yard detective who appeared in several of Wallace's novels. Its original run lasted for 108 performances, from 8 May 1929 to 10 August 1929, at London's Shaftesbury Theatre. The cast included Gordon Harker and Minnie Rayner.
Set on a chat show in the early 1980s, the play examines the comic partnership of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore through Moore's perspective and celebrates his contribution to their comedy.
Peter Ibbetson is a play by John N. Raphael based on George du Maurier's 1891 novel of the same name. It debuted in London in 1915 for a single charity event performance, but did not receive a proper run in the West End until 1920. It ran on Broadway in 1917 and was revived on the New York stage in 1931.
Wendy Darling appears in an in-the-round adaptation of Peter Pan, performed inside a purpose-built pavilion with 360-degree video projections surrounding the audience.
Peter Pan Goes Wrong is a comedy play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of the Mischief Theatre company, creators of The Play That Goes Wrong (2012).
Peter Pan, a boy who refuses to grow up, takes Wendy and her younger brothers to Neverland, where they join the Lost Boys and face Captain Hook and his pirates. After their adventures, Wendy and the boys return to their parents, while Peter declines the offer to stay with the family.
The play is based on a meeting between Alice Liddell Hargreaves, the woman who inspired Alice, and Peter Llewellyn Davies, one of the boys who inspired Peter Pan, at the opening of a Lewis Carroll exhibition in 1932. The play sees enchantment and reality collide as this brief encounter lays bare the lives of these two characters.
At a bustling port in England, two ships set sail for the kingdom of Rundoon. The Wasp carries Lord Leonard Aster, escorted by a squadron of British navy seamen, led by Lieutenant Greggors. The Neverland, captained by the sinister Bill Slank, carries Lord Aster's daughter Molly, her nanny, Mrs. Bumbrake and three orphan boys: Prentiss, Ted, and a nameless orphan known only as Boy. Each ship has a trunk aboard, one containing precious cargo belonging to the Queen and the other a decoy. After realizing that no one cares enough to say goodbye to the orphans, the Boy proclaims that he hates grownups. Aster places an amulet around his own neck and a matching one around Molly's. He warns her never to take it off or let anyone else touch it, and to use it if she is ever in trouble. Molly says that she is only an apprentice Starcatcher. Once at sea, Lieutenant Greggors reveals that his real name is Smee and the seamen are pirates. Captain Scott and the real seamen have been taken prisoner. Smee introduces Captain Black Stache, who threatens to kill Molly unless Aster gives him the key to the trunk. When Aster refuses, he steals the trunk key. The amulet around Lord Aster’s neck begins to glow. Molly’s matching amulet starts to glow and the boys notice. Molly divulges that her father is on a secret mission for the Queen. It is revealed that Slank swapped the trunks and the Queen's treasure is on board The Neverland. Stache commands that the ship be turned around. The Wasp pursues The Neverland. Lord Aster contacts Molly through the amulet and instructs her to bring the Queen’s trunk to him once the two ships meet. Aster tells Molly that she is now a part of the mission. The Boy overhears and insists that Molly tell him what is going on. Molly tells the Boy about Starcatchers, a handful of people whose sole mission is to protect "starstuff." Molly explains that a Starcatcher’s primary duty to collect starstuff as it falls to earth and dispose of it. Slank catches the Boy and throws him overboard. The Boy starts to drown and Molly saves him. When the two ships meet, Molly asks the Boy to stall the pirates while she gets the Queen’s trunk to The Wasp, and the Boy sits on the decoy trunk to “protect the treasure”. Stache tries to lure the Boy off the trunk by offering him a place on his crew. Stache suggests some piratical names for him. One of them, ‘Pirate Pete’, strikes a chord with the Boy and he chooses a name for himself: ‘Peter’. Losing patience, Stache knocks Peter off the trunk, opens it, and realizes he has been tricked. As Peter celebrates his own cleverness, Stache knocks him overboard. Molly dives into the ocean and swims after Peter. Atop a mountain on the island, Peter absorbs the freedom of open skies and clean air for the first time in his life. A yellow bird flies around his head. Ted and Prentiss arrive, and Peter enlists them in the mission to get the trunk to The Wasp. The island’s natives, the Mollusks, capture the boys. The chief, Fighting Prawn, sentences them to death. They are to be sacrificed and fed to Mr. Grin, the island’s hungriest crocodile. Trapped inside Mr. Grin’s cage, Molly and the boys bicker about what to do. Peter gets Mr. Grin to open his mouth and Molly tosses her amulet in. Mr. Grin grows to an enormous size, bursting out of the cage and floating away as Molly and the boys flee. The Mollusks are furious and pursue them. Peter falls into a lake, where he is greeted by the mermaid who calls herself ‘Teacher’. Teacher and the island give Peter a second name: ‘Pan’. Peter climbs out of the grotto and bolts back up to the mountaintop. The next morning, Smee and Stache try to lure the children into the open. Smee reveals he has taken Mrs. Bumbrake and Alf prisoner. The Mollusks enter with prisoners of their own — Lord Aster and Captain Scott. Mrs. Bumbrake recognizes Fighting Prawn as her long-lost kitchen boy from Brighton. Stache captures Molly with his razor at her throat. Peter realizes the only way to save Molly is by giving Stache the trunk, although this means he will never leave the island. Stache lifts the lid to find an empty trunk. The water that seeped into the trunk has dissolved the starstuff and it is now diffused into the ocean. Frustrated, Stache slams the lid down on his right hand, cutting it off. He vows to be Peter's foe for all eternity. Hearing Mr. Grin approaching, the Pirates feed Stache’s severed hand to the crocodile. Fighting Prawn honors Peter as a true hero and allows the English to leave. Lord Aster makes Molly a full-fledged Starcatcher. Peter mentions his encounter with Teacher. They realize that Peter, by being dunked in the starstuff-infused waters of the grotto, has been transformed and cannot leave the island. Lord Aster captures the yellow bird and turns it into a pixie to protect and guide Peter. As The Wasp sails away, Peter settles into the eternal present of childhood.
In Sophocles’ lost tragedy, Phaedra’s desire for her stepson Hippolytus leads to a rejected proposal and a rape accusation. Theseus returns from the Underworld; surviving fragments and scholarly reconstructions suggest Hippolytus dies and Phaedra later confesses and takes her own life, though the sequence and details remain uncertain.
Phaedra confesses her desire for her stepson Hippolytus, who rejects her. With her nurse, she falsely accuses him of assault; Theseus condemns his son to die, then learns the truth. Phaedra admits the falsehood and kills herself.
In Kane's modern adaptation of Seneca, Queen Phaedra falls in love with her cynical stepson Hippolytus. After he rejects her and she kills herself leaving an accusation of rape, the ensuing violence ends with Strophe killed by Theseus, Hippolytus torn apart by a mob and Theseus's suicide.
In a mortal setting in Aethiopia, Clymene tells Phaethon that he is the son of Helios, not Merops, and urges him to seek confirmation from his divine father. Phaethon drives Helios’s chariot and dies; Clymene hides his body from Merops, who discovers the truth and appears to threaten her. The surviving fragments leave the bride’s identity and the ending uncertain.
A two-act adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s Phantom story, incorporating performances of music from Gounod’s Faust and Romeo and Juliet.
Philadelphia, Here I Come! centres on Gareth (Gar) O'Donnell's move to America, specifically Philadelphia. The play takes place on the night before and morning of Gar's departure to America. Gar is portrayed by two characters, Gar Public ("the Gar that people see, talk to, talk about") and Gar Private ("the unseen man, the man within, the conscience"). Gareth lives with his father, S. B. O'Donnell ("a responsible, respectable citizen") with whom he has never connected. Gar works for his father in his shop and their relationship is no different from that of Boss and Employee. Private often makes fun of S.B. calling him "Screwballs" and parodying his nightly routine as a fashion show. Essentially, this play is a tragicomedy. It contains many comical scenes, especially the scene with Lizzy Sweeney, Gar's aunt, in which Gar decides to go to America. Despite the fact that Gar seems to have a relationship with his father no different from that of Boss and Employee, there are indications that there is love between them. In episode 1, Madge says "It must have been near daybreak when he (SB O'Donnell) got to sleep last night. I could hear the bed creaking." Other indications that SB is secretly devastated by his son's imminent departure, include his remembrance of Gar in a sailor suit proudly declaring he need not go to school, he'll work in his father's shop – a memory of an event that may not have happened, and the scene when he pretends to read the paper, but fails to notice that it has been upside-down. Gar's reasons for going to America (he wanted to prove to Aunt Lizzie that he was not "cold like the O'Donnells"), along with his secret love for his uncommunicative father, and their desperate final, pathetic attempts to communicate make this play quite tragic. All of the action in this play takes place within a period of a few hours on the evening of Gar's departure, but it also includes flashbacks to Gar's relationship with local girl Kate Doogan, and the visit from his Aunt Lizzie.
In a fictional Sicily ruled by a king who displaced its royal house, rightful heir Philaster is loved by Princess Arethusa. The king plans to make a Spanish prince his heir, and the lovers face slander, mistaken identity, imprisonment and a death sentence before citizens' rebellion restores Philaster to the crown.
In a bakery, “Philip Glass” encounters an old love and her friend. Between the ordinary opening and ending, a bell triggers repeated rhythmic rearrangements of their words, parodying minimalist music and suggesting Philip's subconscious response to the reunion.
Philip of Macedon is a 1727 tragedy by the British writer David Lewis. It is set during the reign of Philip of Macedon. The original Lincoln's Inn Fields cast included Thomas Walker as Perses, Charles Hulett as Philip, Lacy Ryan as Demetrius, William Milward as Antigonus, John Ogden as Lysimachus, James Quin as Didas, James Lacy as Herodorus, John Berriman as Philocles, Robert Morgan as Xychus, Elizabeth Younger as Olympias and Anne Berriman as Isteria.
On Lemnos, where the Greeks abandoned him after a snakebite wound, Philoctetes is sought by Odysseus because his bow is needed to conquer Troy. Odysseus, who helped maroon him, wins his trust with a false story; the surviving accounts leave uncertain how he secures Philoctetes’ cooperation.
On Lemnos, Odysseus disguises himself to persuade the wounded Philoctetes, abandoned by the Greeks years earlier, to return with his bow to the Trojan War. A Trojan embassy also tries to win Philoctetes to its cause, and Diomedes joins the effort to bring him back to the Greeks. The surviving fragments leave the final persuasion uncertain.
On Lemnos, Odysseus and Neoptolemus try to bring the abandoned, wounded archer Philoctetes and Heracles' bow to Troy. Neoptolemus deceives him, then returns the bow and agrees to take him home; Heracles appears and persuades Philoctetes to go to Troy, where he will be healed and help win the war.
A newly founded Spanish university attracts sham philosophers, fraudsters, and prostitutes, prompting the Duke to consider closing it. Two scholars persuade him to judge the villains and victims, punish the wrongdoers, and put the university on a sounder footing.
Philotas is a 1731 tragedy by the British writer Philip Frowde. It is based on the life of the Ancient Greek warrior Philotas who was executed for conspiring against Alexander the Great. The story had previously been written as a 1604 play by Samuel Daniel. The cast included Lacy Ryan as Philotas, James Quin as Clitus, Anne Berriman as Antigona, John Ogden as Perdiccas, Thomas Chapman as Lysimachus, William Milward as Arsaces and Thomas Walker as Cassander.
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