8284 shows
Clear filtersFour 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.
A tragedy named for its Phoenician women chorus, celebrating Xerxes I's defeat at the Battle of Salamis four years earlier. Themistocles financed the production and the play highlighted his deeds.
In this incomplete tragedy, Antigone guides her blinded father Oedipus in exile. Their sons Eteocles and Polynices break an agreement to rule Thebes in turn and go to war; Jocasta tries to reconcile them.
Phormio, a clever parasite, helps Antipho keep a wife chosen through a legal trick while arranging to use the payment to free Phaedria’s beloved lyre-player. The plan exposes Chremes’s secret second marriage and daughter, leaving his wife Nausistrata to decide how to respond.
Photograph 51 is a play by Anna Ziegler. Photograph 51 opened in the West End of London in September 2015. The play focuses on the often-overlooked role of X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin in the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA while working at King's College London. This play won the third STAGE International Script Competition in 2008. The title comes from Photo 51, the nickname given to an X-ray diffraction image taken by Raymond Gosling in May, 1952, under the supervision of Rosalind Franklin. The one-act play runs for 95 minutes with no intermission. Photograph 51 was commissioned, developed, and given its world premiere under the direction of Mary Resing by Active Cultures Theatre in Maryland in 2008. That year, it also won the 2008 STAGE (Scientists, Technologists and Artists Generating Exploration) International script competition for Best New Play. Photograph 51 had subsequent productions at The Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York, Theater J in Washington DC, Seattle Repertory Theatre in Seattle, amongst many others, then in London's Noël Coward Theatre, in the West End, directed by Michael Grandage. The play premiered in Australia in Melbourne in 2019.
At Achilles’ hut outside Troy, Priam and his Phrygian attendants seek the release of Hector’s body. The lost play included a long, veiled silence by Achilles, the weighing of Hector’s body against gold, and likely a lament and funeral procession.
During Theseus’s absence, Phèdre confesses her forbidden love for her stepson Hippolytus, who loves Aricia. After Theseus returns, Oenone falsely accuses Hippolytus of assaulting Phèdre, and Theseus invokes Neptune against him. Hippolytus dies, and Phèdre confesses the truth before dying by poison; Theseus pardons and adopts Aricia.
Piaf is a play by Pam Gems that focuses on the life and career of French chanteuse Edith Piaf. The biographical drama with music portrays the singer as a self-destructive, promiscuous alcoholic and junkie who, in one controversial scene, urinates in public. The original production starred Jane Lapotaire in the title role, and included Ian Charleson as Pierre. It premiered in 1978 at Royal Shakespeare Company's The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon, after which it moved to the Donmar Warehouse in London, the Aldwych Theatre, the Piccadilly Theatre, and then Wyndham's Theatre, before going to the United States. In the U.S. the play began in Philadelphia. After six previews the show opened on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre on February 6, 1981, with Lapotaire returning in the lead. It ran for 165 performances, and Lapotaire won the 1981 Tony Award.
At a Montmartre bar in 1904, Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein debate genius, skill, and the future of art and science. Their discussion is disrupted by an unnamed visitor from the future, whom the play suggests is Elvis Presley.
It is Labor Day, and everyone is preparing for a neighborhood picnic. Hal Carter, a drifter, arrives in town looking for work and visits his college friend Alan, who is dating Madge Owens with the intent to marry her. Hal does odd jobs for the welcoming Helen Potts. Her neighbor, Flo Owens, distrusts Hal, especially around her daughters, Madge and Millie. Since shy Millie does not have a date, neighbor Mrs. Potts suggests that Hal accompany her, much to the chagrin of Flo. Hal agrees, but he is much more interested in Madge. There is an undeniable attraction between the two, as much as they try to fight it. While getting ready for the picnic, the family and friends dance in Flo's backyard to music playing nearby. Hal grows on both Millie and Madge, and they both vie for his attention. Rosemary, an "old maid schoolteacher" who boards at the Owens house, notices, disapproves, and is attracted to the shirtless Hal as she waits for her Labor Day date, local shop proprietor Howard Bevans. As Madge and Hal dance passionately, and a drunken Rosemary later butts in so she can dance with Hal (and proceeds to rip his shirt when Howard pries her away from Hal), Millie gets sick from drinking too much whiskey while no one is paying attention. Rosemary blames Millie's drinking on her date with Hal, and says he'll never rise beyond the gutter, and Flo joins in criticizing him. Hal sits in the shadows by himself while everyone leaves for the picnic. Rosemary and her boyfriend Howard decide to skip the picnic and go for a drive. Madge stays behind to change her dress. When she comes back outside and tries to console Hal, they kiss after a deep and revealing conversation. They run off together and spend the night in the car. Howard brings Rosemary back to the house. As he leaves, Rosemary begs him to marry her. When Madge and Hal return, Madge is ashamed of what they did. Hal asks for one more kiss, and their “passion is revived”. In the morning, Flo is frantic because she has seen Madge crying hysterically. Rosemary leaves with Howard to get married, and everyone goes to the street to see her off. When Madge is left alone in the backyard, Hal shows up to talk to her. He has spent the night in hiding after Alan falsely reported to the police that Hal stole his car, in order to drive him out of town for "stealing" Madge. The others come back into the yard, and Hal leaves after defending himself when Alan arrives to drive him away, but only after telling Madge that he loves her and asks her to leave with him, despite Flo's presence and disapproval. Madge finally realizes that she loves him after he's gone, and she enters the house crying. Alan leaves, and it is obviously over between him and Madge. A little while later, Madge comes out of the house with a suitcase and tells her mother that she's going after Hal. The play ends with Flo watching her daughter leave.
Picon Pie is a musical play by Rose Leiman Goldemberg about the life and career of Molly Picon, a performer associated with Yiddish theatre, Broadway, film, radio, and television. The play premiered at the Santa Monica Playhouse in California on April 6, 2002, with Barbara Minkus as Picon and Jack Kutcher as her husband and manager, Jacob "Yonkel" Kalich. The production was directed by Chris DeCarlo, with musical direction by Beth Ertz. Minkus later reprised the role in a 2003 Florida production and in the play's 2004 Off-Broadway production in New York City. The New York production opened at the DR2 Theatre on July 15, 2004, and later transferred to the Lamb's Theatre, where June Gable succeeded Minkus in the role of Picon.
Struggling performers pin their hopes on a visiting Hollywood producer. To secure a future in film, they attempt to create a Napoleonic epic in just two weeks, turning artistic ambition into a chaotic production scheme.
The show is a domestic comedic drama, and exploration into the relationship between a son who is a photographer and his parents who live in California. The cast includes Danny Burstein as the son and photographer, Nathan Lane as the father and former razor salesman, and Zoë Wanamaker as his mother who later in life became a realtor. The production spans 1 hour and 45 minutes with no intermission.
A tramp falls asleep in a wood and dreams of insects whose habits and morality mirror human society: a vain butterfly, a self-serving dung beetle and ants whose mechanized behavior turns militaristic. Their allegorical lives comment on postwar Czechoslovakia.
In a barn on a pig farm, four fictionalized voices respond to the Pickton murders of Indigenous women. In one time frame, the Sister searches for her missing sibling and the Police Officer confronts his failures; in another, the Dying Woman and Killer enact violence in real time. The play foregrounds the women’s voices, resistance, and social marginalization.
A paranoid East End gangster and his prostitute girlfriend are sent to guard a pig farm haunted by its former tenants. Their assignment turns fatal when a German prisoner-of-war farm worker escapes from a nearby asylum and visits the farm.
The play is set in the fictional town of Medbury, Indiana, near the Illinois state line. Act I (Atkins living room) Senior is upset with Junior's pleas to borrow $250 to buy 250 cholera-infected pigs. Senior's finances are precarious; his mother-in-law borrowed $2000 from him and he has no ready cash. There is also a note coming due on the mortgage. Junior is convinced he can cure the pigs and resell them for a large profit. Grandma Spencer and Hector are in the living room when Ellen returns from visiting a bereaved neighbor. Grandma Spencer is incensed, claiming the recently deceased still owed her own dead husband $16. Ellen gently refutes her; the neighbor showed a ledger wherein the money had been paid to Hector. The latter quickly leaves for a trip downtown. Junior departs to return a healed goat to a neighbor. Later, Mildred explains to Senior that Junior and her are engaged and need the profits from the pig deal to get married. Spencer Atkins enters, dressed in Junior's only good suit for a party. He's surprised to learn Junior and Mildred are coming as well, and quickly departs. When Junior returns, Mildred tells him about the note for the mortgage, which she overheard her uncle discuss. Junior hurries upstairs to put on a suit that is no longer there. When Hector returns, Mildred innocently asks if he's feeling better now. Suspicious, he deduces Junior has secretly given him something. His yells of "Poison!" bring everyone else. Junior confesses he gave Hector a store-bought tonic to perk him up so he could go find work. Junior is angry with Mildred and breaks the engagement. (Curtain) Act II (Same setting, about 2pm the next day) Mildred and Junior reconcile while considering how $250 might be had. Smith Hastings comes by to talk with Senior, reminds him of the note coming due and rejects any delay. On his way out Mildred hits up her uncle for the cash, but he declines. Lenore comes by in her car, and Mildred tries to put the screws to her, on the basis of past indiscretions. Mildred coyly mentions to Hector that Tillie Hendricks was in town, holding a baby. He panics and runs out calling for his mother. Junior is in despair until Ellen twists her engagement ring off, and hands it to him. Use this, she urges, its worth more than $250. (Curtain) Act III (Scene 1: Hendrick's farm about 4am the next morning) Dr. Springer and Mildred are readying buckets of slop mixed with Junior's tonic. They can't see how many pigs are still alive until dawn comes. Junior rushes in with more tonic. He had to dodge an auto with Spencer and Lenore, who are out looking for them. The auto pulls into the farmyard; Junior and Mildred hide, while Dr. Springer deals with the searchers. After they leave, Junior and Mildred come out as Dr. Springer fills the pig troughs with the slop. The pigs come running and eat, delighting all three of them. (Scene 2: Atkins living room about 8pm same day) Everyone has been in an uproar about the missing couple. Junior and Mildred explain they got married over the state line, with Dr. Springer and Tillie Hendricks as witnesses. The buyer of the pigs gave Junior a certified check for $2400, which he endorses over to Senior. Tillie phones, and Mildred pressures Hector to talk with and later go see her. Junior asks for some of the money back when the check is cashed, so he can redeem his mother's ring. Grandma Spencer is left alone, muttering "Pigs!". (Curtain)
Across 1973, 1978 and 1983, six African American steel mill workers meet in a South Side Chicago basement apartment. They weigh the risks and costs of moving from blue-collar work toward professional aspirations associated with the affluent neighborhood of Pill Hill.
In an urban Bengali household, teenage Pinki and village girl Buli form a friendship across class differences while Buli works as a domestic helper and babysitter. After their encounter with an old man known as Nature ends in his death, Pinki is overcome with guilt, and Buli helps her through the crisis.
In 1926 Ingolstadt, soldiers arrive to repair a bridge, disrupting the town’s civilian life. Berta, a servant, becomes attached to soldier Korl amid local sexism, selfishness and the uneasy relations between townspeople and militia.
Pipeline is a 2017 play written by Dominique Morisseau. It originally opened Off-Broadway on July 10, 2017, and closed on August 27, 2017.
On her one day off, the silk-winding girl Pippa walks through Asolo, passing four groups of people whose private crises include murder, deception, political conspiracy, and religious intrigue. Her songs prompt them to confront their actions and the possibility of a moral order.
Headstrong Mabel Renfrew marries one man to spite another, then faces the stronger will of her new husband's father, Matthew Standish. The domestic drama moves between comic conflict in the Standish household and melodramatic action, including Matthew's search through a thieves' den for his missing grandchild.
On Mother's Day, brothers Alan and Terry argue over their dead mother's flat and their conflicting memories of her. Terry has brought fifteen-year-old Lilly; her sixteen-year-old partner arrives with their plastic doll Bubba, while Alan's son Garth appears and reveals a cruel personality. The real-time farce escalates as each character pursues their aims.
A stage drama based on the 1788 mutiny aboard the Bounty and the mutineers' subsequent colonization of the Pitcairn Islands.
Pizarro is a 1799 historical tragedy by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was inspired by August von Kotzebue's play Die Spanier in Peru, based on the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 by Francisco Pizarro. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London on 24 May 1799.
After an overdose, Stuart is caught between life and death and meets a welcoming committee in limbo, including an old school crush. A visit from his younger sister forces him to choose between life and death.
The play reenacts the high-profile court case following John Gielgud's 1953 arrest in a public lavatory and uses the incident to examine changes in gay people's lives over the following decades.
College students Freeman and Angelita fall in love, but Angelita’s mother Samana opposes her relationship with an African American man and tries to break them up. Freeman’s student government campaign and the families’ mismatched ideas about generations and culture complicate the romance.
At a dilapidated country house, schoolmaster Mikhail Platonov becomes the object of desire for several women, including landowner Anna Petrovna and her stepson’s wife Sofia. Disillusioned with society yet part of it, Platonov retreats into alcohol, and Sofia eventually shoots him.
At a country estate, schoolmaster Mikhail Platonov becomes entangled with several women who seek love or escape from their lives. His disillusionment and inability to find a way forward end in his death.
A man, his wife or long-time partner, and his mistress occupy adjoining funeral urns. A spotlight compels each to recount the affair from their own perspective, repeating the action as they relive their past and reflect on their isolation.
Play Dead is a 2010 Off-Broadway show co-written by magicians Todd Robbins and Teller, the latter best known as the non-speaking half of the illusionist duo Penn & Teller. The show also features Charlotte Pines as Margery Crandon, Geri Berman as Eusapia Palladino, Don Meehan as Albert Fish, and Drea Lorraine as Phantoms. The opening minutes of the show are performed in complete darkness, and the show itself features carefully crafted tricks and illusions ranging from killing a real audience member, to contact with the dead. This incarnation of Play Dead began with two weeks of workshop performances at The Calypso Room in Las Vegas in September, 2010, at the Rio, the home of Penn and Teller. Teller told the opening night audience that the show marked the first time ever that a show was created in Las Vegas to bring to New York, and was headed directly for an off-broadway venue in New York City. It opened for previews on October 21, 2010, and opened officially November 10, 2010 at The Players Theatre on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. In 2013, Teller and Robbins brought the production to The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, with a cast including: Todd Robbins, Julie Marie Hassett, Pearls Daily (credited as Brianna Hurley), Shar Mayer, and Rick Williamson.
The play is about a recently divorced film magazine writer, Allan Felix, who is trying to restart his romantic life. Eventually he falls in love (and has a brief affair) with Linda, the wife of his best friend, Dick. During the course of the play, he repeatedly seeks advice from the ghost of his idol, Humphrey Bogart, but eventually decides that he needs to be himself rather than imitating Bogart. Telling Linda that the right thing for her to do is to return to her husband, Felix quotes the famous lines that Bogart delivers to Ingrid Bergman in the last scene of Casablanca.
Edgar and Alice’s marriage has become an exhausting contest of cruelty. The arrival of Alice’s cousin Kurt intensifies their struggle, rendered as a comic psychological fight divided into twelve rounds.
Using characters Peter Cook and Dudley Moore portrayed together and separately, including Pete and Dud, Derek and Clive, and E. L. Wisty, the play tells Cook’s life story as a tribute to his comic work. After Moore’s death, the script was revised to pay tribute to him as well.
An unfinished experimental drama that turns the stage-audience boundary into part of its subject, confronting class and ideological division, intolerance, and hatred through actors who are also an audience to one another.
A medieval Latin liturgical drama with monophonic music, following Daniel at the court of Belshazzar.
A medieval Latin liturgical drama following Daniel at the court of Belshazzar.
A multilingual Portuguese colonial religious drama, performed in Portuguese, Spanish, Old Tupi and Old Guarani. The work incorporates local ethnographic knowledge, place names and episodes including the Battle of the Canoes within a Catholic autos sacramentales form.
A Caribbean adaptation of Synge's comedy, relocating its story to a small fishing village in the West Indies with a 1950s setting and Creole dialogue.
Set in the 17th-century London theatre world, the play follows six actresses through excerpts from popular plays of the time, exploring their strengths, vulnerabilities and commitment to their art.
An obstetrician schedules a patient’s delivery around his own vacation, prompting God to confront him about his god complex and challenge him to squash a fly.
In a Sarajevo theatre commandeered as a military hospital, an embittered old actor is joined by his actor daughter, her boyfriend, patients, and a military doctor. Their overlapping stories expose the city's divisions and test how ordinary life, art, and human understanding can endure amid war.
After a production of The Merchant of Venice is halted over public objections, the actor playing Shylock addresses the audience. His response examines artistic freedom, Jewish identity, and the responsibilities of performance.
A play about race relations and multiculturalism.
A John Osborne double bill pairing The Blood of the Bambergs, subtitled “A Fairy Story,” with Under Plain Cover.
A collection of short plays satirizing the sex and violence of American pulp magazines aimed at servicemen, using figures such as Nazi war criminals, Vietnam soldiers, revolutionaries, hippies, and go-go dancers in a fast, cartoon-like performance style.
The play is composed of three acts, each involving different characters but all set in Suite 719 of New York City's Plaza Hotel. The first act, Visitor From Mamaroneck, introduces the audience to not-so-blissfully wedded couple Sam and Karen Nash, who are revisiting their honeymoon suite in an attempt by Karen to bring the love back into their marriage. Her plan backfires and the two become embroiled in a heated argument about whether or not Sam is having an affair with his secretary. The act ends with Sam leaving (allegedly to attend to urgent business) and Karen sadly reflecting on how much things have changed since they were young. The second act, Visitor from Hollywood, involves a meeting between movie producer Jesse Kiplinger and his childhood sweetheart, suburban housewife Muriel Tate. Serial divorcé Jesse attempts to seduce Muriel, who represents to him a longed-for innocence and purity. Meanwhile, celebrity-obsessed Muriel wants to hear every sordid detail of Hollywood life. She attempts to maintain her virtuous self-image which becomes increasingly at odds with her behaviour, and the act ends with the pair beginning to have sex as Muriel makes Jesse recite the names of the celebrities he sat nearby at the most recent Academy Awards dinner. The third act, Visitor from Forest Hills, revolves around married couple Roy and Norma Hubley on their daughter Mimsey's wedding day. In a rush of nervousness, Mimsey has locked herself in the suite's bathroom and refuses to leave. Her parents make frantic attempts to cajole her into attending her wedding while the gathered guests await the trio's arrival downstairs. It appears that the marriage will go ahead, as the act ends.
Set among the performers and crew of a touring vaudeville show, the play follows womanizing performer Rodney Terrill, whose relationships with the show's women provoke conflict. After he assaults Mary Ann, Terrill is murdered; the final act follows the police investigation and the arrest of his killer, engineer Ted Arnold, Mary Ann's brother.
In this court masque, Hercules confronts competing claims of duty and pleasure and, guided by Mercury, finds a middle course in Daedalus; comic anti-masques and court dances frame the action.
Plenty is a play by David Hare, first performed in 1978, about British post-war disillusion. The inspiration for Plenty came from the fact that 75 per cent of the women engaged in wartime SOE operations divorced in the immediate post-war years; the title is derived from the idea that the post-war era would be a time of "plenty", which proved untrue for most of England.
In a one-act kitchen drama, laundress Charity Brown weighs the cost of surgery that might save her gravely ill daughter against her fear of another unaffordable funeral, as a friend and a physician press competing views of care and belief.
D'Arcy Tuck and gentleman burglar Freddy Malone plan to steal jewels from Mrs Hewlett, whom they believe has wronged Tuck's fiancée. Their attempted robbery ends with Simon Veal's accidental death, exposing them to a murder charge; later, they uncover Veal's blackmail of Mrs Hewlett and escape by shifting suspicion onto him.
Robot detective Gesicht investigates a string of murders of humans and robots, each marked by objects positioned like horns. The seven most advanced robots appear to be targets, while the victims are linked to protections for robots’ equal rights.
Athenian Chremylos brings home the blind personification of Wealth and seeks to restore his sight so wealth will go to the virtuous; Poverty argues against the change, whose consequences disrupt human and divine society.
Agorastocles, a young man in love with Adelphasium, plots with his slave Milphio to trick the slave-dealer Lycus. Hanno arrives from Carthage searching for his daughters and discovers that Adelphasium and her sister are his lost children; he also recognizes Agorastocles as his cousin's son. The family is reunited, and Hanno consents to Agorastocles marrying his daughter.
A satirical comedy in which Jonson's exchange with rival playwrights is joined to an argument about poets' moral duties in society, contrasting good poets with pretentious or bad ones.
Set around 1850 in South Ostrobothnia, the play depicts local life and peasants' rebellion against a Swedish-speaking, arbitrary local law officer. The officer also carries associations with earlier oppressive rule and contemporary Russification.
A collective stage work comprising seven ten-minute pieces responding to George Orwell’s Room 101, exploring the idea through separately authored dramatic segments.
Point Break Live! is a parody by Jaime Keeling of the 1991 Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze action crime movie Point Break. Sometimes credited as the first-ever "reality-play", each performance features a new, unrehearsed actor in the protagonist role of Johnny Utah, reading their lines from cue-cards delivered by a production assistant.
At a hotel on a West Indian island, owner Linda Valaine, a former missionary’s daughter and war widow, becomes involved with a young airman, Martin. Her Russian head waiter and lover Stefan grows jealous; after Linda rejects him, he drowns himself, and she responds by arranging to hire a new head waiter.
A bank official who has devoted himself to climbing the financial ladder approaches a coveted vice-presidency, only to realize that the success he pursued may not be what he wants.
Poison Pen is a mystery play by the British writer Richard Llewellyn. In a small English village, a series of poison pen letters cause chaos and suspicion. It premiered at Richmond Theatre before transferring to the West End where it ran for 176 performances between 9 April and 19 September 1938, initially at the Shaftesbury Theatre before moving to the Playhouse Theatre and then the Garrick Theatre. The original West End cast included Roddy Hughes, Walter Fitzgerald, Neville Brook, Jack Allen, Ethel Warwick, Dorothy Black and Margaret Yarde.
John struggles to sustain his relationship with Kay through her changing psychological states. An elliptical timeline explores how love and care endure when one partner’s experience becomes difficult for the other to reach.
This synopsis is compiled from contemporaneous newspaper and magazine reviews. Act I (An apartment in a Russian city.) The setting shows signs of struggle from outside; flames flicker dimly through glassless windows and holes in the walls. From time to time shots are heard: singly, a few together, then in bursts. Podoff has gathered the others to discuss their upcoming mission to America. To hone their language skill, they have agreed to speak only English among themselves. Maria serves them tea; Poldekin has joined the group solely to see no harm comes to her. They discuss the mission, though Poldekin's enthusiasm seems more nuanced than the others ideological fervor. He punctures their assertions about Bolshevism with dry wit. They regard him as an amiable halfwit, and so assign him an easy task: printing propaganda tracts when they reach New York. (Curtain) Act II (Backyard of a New York City tenement.) The group's members have taken separate rooms in a tenement filled with immigrants from many countries. They meet in the backyard, and continue to speak in English, since Poldekin points out it is the least understood language among the building's inhabitants. Poldekin annoys everyone by asking the same question repeatedly: What is America? He confounds his colleagues proposals by pointing out the inherent difficulties, and thwarts any suggestion that Maria carry out her task to assassinate an official. Having heard about baseball, he asks Pinsky to take him to see it. Pinsky, who pretends to be indifferent, agrees. (Curtain) Act III (Same as Act II.) Poldekin reports back to the group on baseball, but his appreciation of it draws rebukes from his colleagues. The others try to convince Blanche to join their cause. Being a social outcast, who names the geraniums in her flower-box after lovers, they feel she should be an easy convert. But Blanche isn't eager to give up what little she has to state ownership. She rejects their arguments, and the commotion draws the attention of Welch. He plys Endechieff with a vile concoction he calls a Brunswick cocktail, and the tipsy bolshevik soon turns tipster. Poldekin realizes he has embraced the idea of America in preference to Bolshivik theory; as he does so, the act ends with a Decoration Day parade, only the flags of which are glimpsed over the top of the tenement fence as they go by to stirring music. (Curtain) Act IV (An apartment in the same tenement.) The police have picked up Endechieff, who fingers the others. They are all brought to Poldekin's apartment. The police intend to charge them with distributing seditious literature. However, they find that instead of Bolshevik propaganda, Poldekin has printed copies of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Welch and the police are stymied; they release the whole group from arrest and depart. Poldekin argues with the others that America is better run than their own revolution. Maria is convinced, some of the others are swayed. Nicolai is more upset with Poldekin than with Endechieff. He pulls out a pistol and shoots Poldekin. In the original ending of the play, Poldekin dies at this point, with Blanche afterward placing a small American flag on his chest. Tarkington's revised ending has Poldekin only slightly wounded, and he survives to marry Maria. (Curtain)
In 16th-century Rome, orphan Lalage becomes jealous when Castiglione, son of a duke, is betrothed to her ward Alessandra. Lalage persuades Politian, the Earl of Leicester, to avenge her against Castiglione. The surviving melodrama reworks the 1825 Kentucky murder of Solomon P. Sharp, and includes Politian’s proposed suicide pact with Lalage.
Polly's heavy novel reading shapes her ideas of romance and life. Her father plans to marry her to wealthy Ledger, but she prefers Scribble, an attorney's clerk who shares her self-conscious use of novelistic conventions. When they escape, Ledger brings them back, only for the family to discover that the couple has already begun marrying by proclaiming their banns.
Polly, a star bareback rider in a circus, is injured during a performance. The circus leaves town and she is left behind to convalescence at a local minister's house. During her 11-month stay they fall in love but the disapproval of the town folk causes Polly to rejoin the circus. A month later the circus comes back to town and the minister goes to it in search of Polly. This third act of the play recreates an actual circus on stage, complete with animals, during which the lovers reunite. The final star lit tableau scene has the lovers together watching lights of the circus wagons as they disappear over the hills.
Polly, a housekeeper who hopes to study music, helps her shy friend Rex win Myrtle by posing as the glamorous French temptress Paulette. The scheme brings society’s disapproval, but Rex falls genuinely in love with Polly.
Act I (Miss Polly Harrington's parlor, a summer afternoon.) Mrs. Carmody, Miss Carroll, and Mrs. Gregg are sewing and packing old clothes into a missionary barrel. They are aghast at Nancy's free tongue and astonished at Miss Polly's news about her niece coming to live with her. When Pollyanna does arrive, she charms Aunt Polly and Mrs. Gregg a little, but not the others. Pollyanna says there wasn't any black clothing in the last barrel they received, so she lacks mourning clothes. Her father told her to be glad when he died, for he would go to Heaven. She explains the Glad game to them and gets the Aid ladies to try. Spying a doll on a chair, Pollyanna thinks it is for her, but Aunt Polly says no, its for the barrel. Pollyanna then brings in her own gift for Miss Polly, a basket with a tiny kitten and puppy, who she introduces as Sodom and Gomorrah. The ladies become hysterical and Aunt Polly sternly orders Nancy to take away the animals. Pollyanna picks up Aunt Polly's locket and opens it, telling everyone there's a pretty man inside. Aunt Polly grabs the locket and hustles Pollyanna to her bedroom. Aunt Polly confides that Pollyanna was out the window before she could stop her. Pollyanna re-enters the parlor, bringing Jimmy Bean, who she announces is another gift for Aunt Polly. This is the last straw: the ladies are dismissed, Jimmy is told to shove off, and Pollyanna given the rules of the house. She is distressed to learn that Aunt Polly sent for her only out of a sense of duty. Sobbing to herself, she is surprised by Jimmy's reappearance. He explains there's a castle next door with an ogre in it no one ever sees. They decide to explore it but are forestalled by Aunt Polly's scolding. (Curtain) Act II (John Pendleton's Library. Some weeks later.) Pendleton scolds Bleecker over his insistence on having seen a ghost come through the hedge. Dr. Chilton visits, and reminds Pendleton of how the Harrington sisters were once their loves. He informs Pendleton about the new girl who has cured all the hypochondriacs in the village and cheered the truly ill with her "Glad game". He confesses to having sicced her on Pendleton: "Old King Grouch" as she has labelled him. A sudden knocking on a cabinet door, and out pops Pollyanna. Dr. Chilton had told her about the secret passage between the houses, made twenty years before. Pollyanna slowly thaws Pendleton's heart with a fairy-tale she was told by her mother. A king had loved a princess, but they were forced apart by her father. The princess was forced to marry and to save souls, but still loved the king and prayed for him every night. Pendleton is entranced that his long-lost Charity Harrington had still loved him and prayed for him, even though married. He shows Pollyanna a large portrait of her mother, who Pollyanna resembles. Pollyanna is stunned; for the first time her composure breaks, and she cries out to the portrait, "Mother, come back to me! Nobody wants me!" She sobs until Pendleton comforts her, saying she can stay with him if Aunt Polly doesn't want her. Dr. Chilton is alarmed; Polly Harington won't allow it. But even as he and Pendleton debate, Pollyanna reappears, with her hat and suitcase. (Two quick curtains, each opening on a still tableau of Pollyanna and Pendleton embracing, and Dr Chilton beaming.) Act III (Same as Act II. An hour later.) Pollyanna, Chilton, and Pendleton are eating ice cream. Bleecker announces Nancy, who has brought Pollyanna's things. Since Aunt Polly doesn't want her, Pollyanna wants to stay with Pendleton. But Aunt Polly appears and demands Pollyanna return with her. She insists that she wants her niece. As she takes Pollyanna by the hand, her locket falls from its chain. Pollyanna picks it up, opens it and recognizes Dr. Chilton's photo. Aunt Polly refuses to let Dr. Chilton see the locket, but that is enough to convince him. He is delighted she has worn his photo over her heart for twenty years. Later, Pollyanna sneaks back into the library through a window, bringing the basket with Sodom and Gomorrah, who Pendleton reluctantly agrees to keep. Next, Jimmy Bean comes through the window, and Pollyanna beseeches Pendleton to adopt him. As a trustee of the Orphanage, Pendleton agrees to let Jimmy stay until they know each other better. Pollyanna departs, but soon there is a great commotion from outside. A car has struck her. She is brought into the library, where she discovers she can't stand or walk. Pendleton, however, uses her own philosophy to cure her despair. (Curtain) Act IV (Same as Act III. Five years later, a summer evening.) Bleecker and Pendleton are fixing up the library to celebrate Pollyanna's return from Europe, where she has been treated by medical specialists. Jimmy Bean, now James Pendleton, returns from a horseback ride to describe the throng waiting at the train station. Nancy explains though that Pollyanna has come by auto, and will arrive shortly. Dr. Chilton and Miss Polly, now Mrs. Chilton, arrive. They were married in Paris, but like Nancy won't tell Pendleton if Pollyanna is cured. Finally Pollyanna herself comes in, obviously cured. Pollyanna and Jimmy confess their love and agree they are engaged. They kiss, but are surprised by the adults. Pendleton calls for Bleecker to bring in "the menagerie", which he does, carrying a fully-grown Sodom and leading a giant Gomorrah. Pollyanna marvels at their survival and size. They then play the Glad game, with Pollyanna stepping forward last to face the audience and extoll its benefits. (Curtain)
In ancient Armenia under Roman persecution, the Armenian nobleman Polyeucte converts to Christianity despite his wife Pauline and father-in-law Felix. He becomes a martyr, leading them to convert; Pauline rejects Severus, who loves her, and remains loyal to her husband.
The overall setting is laid on Pomander Walk near Chiswick, a residential street of five tiny houses in Queen Anne style, on the bank of the river Thames. For a matinee charity benefit in April 1911, Parker wrote a brief rhyming prologue, delivered by the character of Marjolaine before the curtain rises, which became part of the play thereafter. Act I (Saturday afternoon, 25th May, 1805.) The inhabitants of Pomander Walk are introduced through little interactions. Caroline Thring seeks Pomander Lane to dispense alms, and is sent packing. Baron Otford comes by to ask Admiral Sir Peter to convince his son Jack to marry an heiress. He himself is still pining for his lost love. Sir Peter promises, not realizing he just sent off the pushy heiress. Marjolaine is surprised by Jack, who has rowed up the river. At first standoffish, she agrees to bring him refreshment. He finds the name "Lucy Pryor" in her book, but is laughingly told it is Maman's. The Muffin-Man's bell brings all the inhabitants out to buy his wares. Brooke-Hoskyn and Jack recognize each other; it is apparent the former is actually a servant. Jack greets Sir Peter, who introduces him to the folks, but Mme. Lachesnais faints when she hears his full name. (Curtain) Act II (Saturday morning, 1st June, 1805.) Brooke tells his wife he sent an unsigned letter to Baron Otford about Jack and Marjolaine. His goal is to keep Jack away from Pomander Walk, so Brooke's secret will be safe. A gloomy Marjolaine tries to pump Sir Peter about Jack's service with him at Copenhagen. Baron Otford tells Sir Peter about the letter and Jack's owning up to loving the girl. The Baron made him promise to stay away for a week, which is now up. Madame tries to console her daughter about Jack's broken promise to come back, and ends up telling her about her own broken romance with Baron Otford. Ruth complains to Marjolaine of her sister and Basil's inability to display their affection. Marjolaine tells Barbara to train her parrot to say "Tell Barbara you love her". Madame Lachesnais meets up with Baron Otford at the Gazebo; he does not recognize her as Lucy Pryor at first. She dismisses his concerns, saying her family wanted nothing to do with his. Jack explains to Marjolaine why he stayed away. Together, they waylay Rev. Sternroyd, who agrees to ask the Bishop for a special license to marry. Sir Peter rescues Mrs. Poskett's cat from the river, earning him a warm embrace. Caroline Thring returns, but as she walks past, the open door of each house slams shut. (Curtain) Act III (Monday evening, 3rd June, 1805.) The Moon not yet risen, the Lamplighter lights the Walk's two street lamps. All the inhabitants of Pomander Walk gather for tea outside by the big elm tree. They are sore at Sir Peter for not proposing to Mrs. Poskett, who sits in gloom. Brooke-Hoskyn is thus set to take over leadership of the Walk, but retreats when Baron Otford comes by. Otford informs Sir Peter that Hoskyn used to be his butler. Sir Peter is elated, but decides it would be unfair to expose him. Barbara and Basil are now engaged, Marjolaine's suggestion about the parrot having worked. Eventually Sir Peter's reluctance is overcome and he asks Mrs. Poskett to marry him. Baron Otford and Madame Lachesnais reconcile and agree to give each other a new chance, while giving Jack and Marjolaine their blessing to wed. (Curtain)
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