8284 shows
Clear filtersA couple sit apart on a bare stage and answer an unseen interrogator, recounting their troubled lives and the killing of their two children. The play draws on trial and media material, while its ending casts doubt on the reliability of the couple’s testimony.
Two neighboring couples, one older and one younger, clash over marriage, live-in relationships, and family expectations. The first act has the older couple observe the younger pair; in the second, the younger couple watch the older pair, with actors also addressing the audience.
An Urdu drama about treachery and the harms of prostitution.
Captive Moor Abdelazer seeks revenge on the Spanish king who killed his father and becomes the Queen’s lover. They poison the King and Prince Ferdinand, but Abdelazer later betrays the Queen, courts Princess Leonora and falls from power; Prince Philip ascends the throne, and Abdelazer is captured and killed.
Abe Lincoln in Illinois is a play written by the American playwright Robert E. Sherwood in 1938, based principally on the 1926 biography Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years by Carl Sandburg. The play, in three acts, covers the life of President Abraham Lincoln from his childhood through his final speech in Illinois before he left for Washington. The play also covers his romance with Mary Todd and his debates with Stephen A. Douglas, and uses Lincoln's own words in some scenes. Sherwood received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1939 for his work.
A Genesis-inspired tramelogedia bringing together the first humans after creation—Adam, Eva, Cain and Abel—and spiritual beings including God, Beelzebub, Sin, Envy, Death, angels and demons.
King Duṣyanta marries Śakuntalā, then forgets her after a sage's curse; a lost signet ring eventually restores his memory and reunites the couple with their son.
A long-suffering young wife endures a miserable marriage to Henry Marsden, a drunken sadist. A doctor takes her away from the household; the final scene brings Madame Marsden together with the old nurse.
Nichols' original Broadway play has the couple meeting in France during World War I. The young man is a wounded soldier and the girl a nurse who tended him. The priest and the rabbi from the wedding are veterans of the same war, and recognize one another from their time in the service. The rest of the plot was summarized by Judge Learned Hand in his opinion on the copyright lawsuit filed by Nichols: There have been some variations of the plot, as to setting, or how the characters meet, in later versions of the play or in adaptations for film.
A suburban comedy of manners in which Beverley and her husband host new neighbours and another neighbour for drinks while the guests navigate strained social expectations; the evening ends with Laurence suffering a fatal heart attack.
An elderly couple, identified as Old Man and Old Woman, talk and argue in four short scenes named for meals, set in their condo kitchen. Their conversations revolve around preparing and eating food, aging, their past, marriage, sex, and death.
Hermit Abraham and his companion Effrem guide his orphaned niece Mary into a life of chastity. After Mary is seduced and leaves the religious life to become a prostitute, Abraham finds her years later disguised as a lover. He persuades her to return, and she undertakes severe penance as the hermits celebrate her redemption.
John Drinkwater’s play follows Abraham Lincoln’s presidency from his election in 1860 through his assassination, omitting most of his private life.
A verse drama retelling Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac and the test of Abraham's faith.
When Colin returns to his circle of friends after his fiancée's death, Diana hosts a tea party. Colin appears euphorically happy while the others' marital tensions and secrets threaten to erupt.
Across three successive Christmas Eves, three married couples gather in different homes as their fortunes shift: socially awkward Sidney rises in status while the others' careers and relationships falter.
In 1860s Wyoming, mail-order brides Macon Hill and Bess Johnson form a lasting friendship while their marriages and hopes for frontier prosperity founder. After Bess disappears and returns with a public story of captivity, the women confront betrayal, hardship, and the distance between material success and emotional abundance.
A four-act poetic tragedy about people facing social injustice and being left alone with their experiences.
Accent on Youth follows a lazy, middle-aged playwright who is spurred to write by his new young secretary.
A quick-witted fraudster known as the Maniac impersonates officials to expose police accounts of an anarchist's death in custody. By forcing the officers to reenact the interrogation and contradict themselves, he reveals the Superintendent's role in the fatal fall. The play presents alternative endings and leaves the audience to judge what should happen to the corrupt policemen.
Accolade is a 1950 play by the Welsh playwright Emlyn Williams. Accolade was first presented in London by H. M. Tennent Ltd, in association with Leland Hayward and Joshua Logan, at the Aldwych Theatre, on 7 September 1950, with Emlyn Williams as Will Trenting and a cast including Diana Churchill, Anthony Nicholls, Dora Bryan, John Cavanah and Noel Willman. It ran for 180 performances. The play was revived in 2011 at the Finborough Theatre with a cast including Graham Seed, Aden Gillett and Saskia Wickham, and again in 2024, with a cast including Ayden Callaghan and Honeysuckle Weeks.
A stage reconstruction presents three Trojan War tragedies: Myrmidons concerns Patroclus’s death, Nereids follows Achilles’s mourning and return to battle against Hector, and Phrygians depicts Priam seeking his son’s body from Achilles.
Set in the Athens of Pericles, this satirical play pits artistic and intellectual culture against the forces of war.
Act One is a play written by James Lapine, based on Moss Hart's 1959 autobiography of the same title. The play premiered on Broadway in 2014.
A nameless man is flung into a desert and repeatedly blocked from leaving by a disembodied whistle. Objects, including a tree, scissors, blocks, rope, and a water carafe, are lowered within reach or just beyond it; each time he learns to use them, they are removed. At last he refuses to respond even when water is offered and sits motionless in the light.
A goad repeatedly awakens two men in sacks, who perform contrasting daily routines before returning to their sacks and beginning the cycle again.
An allegorical Catalan play arguing that the woman who became the Mother of God was free of original sin. Only a 732-verse fragment survives.
Ian McKellen performs Shakespearean monologues interspersed with anecdotes about acting and the theatre in a one-person recital.
At a Transdanubian nobleman’s court, a series of visitors converse with Gaude, a Protestant nobleman. The episodic comic exchanges, rather than a continuous plot, provide opportunities for his witty and often coarse remarks, while the play reflects sympathy for the Kuruc cause and hostility toward Germans.
Two men and two women are trapped in a house on Christmas after an implied disaster has occurred in the world outside. They attempt to prepare a holiday meal and carry out domestic rituals that shift from ordinary chores to absurd behavior.
Act I (Library of the King home on Long Island. Morning.) Appalled by the stack of bills brought in by Corinthia, James King tries to reason with his extravagant daughter Julie and her husband Clinton about clothing purchases. They are unmoved by his sarcasm, as are Aunt Abby with club bills, and daughter Eva about the expenses of horse-riding with Lord Andrew. King suggests the family will go to the Newark farm instead of a fashionable resort this season. The others come up with a plan to get Dr. Delamarter to prescribe a solitary vacation for father, leaving them free. Meanwhile, Adam Smith comes to plead for a re-assignment; he is so lonely on the rubber plantation in South America. The solitary life up the Amazon stirs King's fancy. He decides to exchange positions with Adam, whose honesty and resourcefulness he admires. Adam will take over managing the family finances, while King goes up the river. Uncle Horace tips King to the medical plot, but he satisfies the family with his proposed Amazon voyage. They eye Adam speculatively, particularly Eva, who announces she will call him "Father". (Curtain) Act II (Scene 1:Same as Act I. Ten days later, 5:30 pm.) Adam quickly realizes that no amount of reasoning or cajolery will divert the family from its spendthrift ways. He incurs resentment from Julie and Eva for denying them money. Lord Andrew, sincere about Eva, gives up his title to show his commitment to staying in America. Dr. Delameter, however, proves to be a mere fortune-hunter. Adam is working at the headquarters of King Rubber Company while serving in loco parentis. When Dr. Delameter suggests a scheme to get rid of Lord Andrew by faking a bankruptcy, Adam turns the tables by saying it has really happened. Dr. Delameter, convinced of the disaster, now awkwardly backs out of the running for Eva. Adam burgles the old safe so the girls' will not try to sell their jewels. (Quick curtain) (Scene 2:Same as Act I. One hour later.) Adam now plays a touching scene for the family. He tells them that James King has gone bankrupt, and they must immediately relocate to the New Jersey farm where King grew up, so the Long Island home can be sold. He pleads with them not to mention the ruin in their letters to King, and insures the office also co-operates. Surprisingly, Andrew (no longer a Lord) decides to go with the family; it appears he has more money than they realized. (Curtain) Act III (The King farm, near Newark, New Jersey. Thanksgiving Day, three months later.) The family rallies to the working farm life, with Eva, Corinthia, and Julie managing the apple trees, chickens and eggs, and beehive honey, for sale to local markets. Uncle Horace becomes a life insurance salesman, Andrew has started a livery business, while Clinton sells neckties at a local store. Aunt Abby has married a wealthy old man and moved away. Adam gets covert assistance from Corthinia, who though she herself likes him, decides to help win Eva from Andrew. King, returning from the Amazon, is surprised at the family's productivity and embrace of the work ethic, but horrified when he hears of the supposed ruin. Adam confesses it was merely a trick. Andrew tells Adam and Eva they are in love with one another, and gracefully withdraws as they embrace and kiss. (Curtain)
In a future Leningrad devastated by chemical warfare, newlyweds Eva and Adam, a scientist and three other survivors retreat into the wilderness after most of the population dies.
In a villa’s sun porch in the Alps-Maritimes, Ariadne visits D. H. Lawrence for advice after an encounter with a man on a boat. Lawrence and his wife Frieda are the other characters.
A historical tragedy centered on Adelaide, set in twelfth-century Chinon during the reign of Henry II.
Adelaide is an 1814 tragedy by the Irish writer Richard Lalor Sheil. It premiered at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin on 19 February 1814. The Dublin cast included Elizabeth O'Neill in the title role and Charles Connor as Count Luneburg. On 23 May 1816 it appeared for the first time in London's West End at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. The first London cast featured Elizabeth O'Neill reprising her Dublin role as Adelaide, Charles Mayne Young as Count St. Evermont, Charles Kemble as Count Lunenburg, William Abbot as Albert, Charles Murray as Godfrey, Daniel Egerton as Colbert, Sarah Egerton as Madame St. Evermont and Maria Foote as Julia. It takes place in Germany amidst emigres who have fled from the French Revolution.
Set during the eighth-century conflict between Franks and Lombards, Manzoni's tragedy follows Adelchi, son of King Desiderius, torn between his father's ambition and his own desire for peace. Charlemagne's invasion leads to the fall of the Lombard cities, the death of Adelchi's sister Ermengarda and Adelchi's mortal wounding.
Adelgitha is a tragedy by the British writer Matthew Lewis. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 30 April 1807 having originally been published the year before. The cast included Henry Siddons, Robert William Elliston, George Frederick Cooke and Jane Powell while the incidental music was composed by Michael Kelly. It was one in a run of Gothic plays Lewis produced following the success of The Castle Spectre. The play is set in Otranto around 1080 which was ruled over by Robert Guiscard following the Norman conquest of southern Italy. It appeared again at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in 1817 where the cast included William Macready as the Emperor of Byzantium, Charles Mayne Young as the Prince of Apulia, Elizabeth O'Neill as Adelgitha, Sarah Booth as Imma and Maria Foote as Claudia. In May 1817 it appeared at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin.
Adelmorn, the Outlaw is an 1801 play by the British writer Matthew Lewis. The overture and incidental music was composed by Michael Kelly. It was first staged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. The manager Richard Brinsley Sheridan chose the play ahead of the author's historical tragedy Alfonso, King of Castile, because he hoped it would enjoy the same success as his melodramatic hit The Castle Spectre. The original cast included Charles Kemble as Adelmorn, William Barrymore as Father Cyprian, Richard Suett as Hugo, John Bannister as Lodowick, Marie Therese Du Camp as Herman, Dorothea Jordan as Innogen and Rosemond Mountain as Orilla.
Brothers Demea and Micio disagree about how to raise Demea's sons: Demea is strict with Ctesipho while Micio permissively raises Aeschinus. The sons' romances and deceptions bring the fathers into conflict, until Demea adopts Micio's generosity to teach him a lesson and both sons choose Demea's guidance.
A tragedy based on the life of Adherbal, king of Numidia from 118 to 112 BCE.
Admirals All is a 1934 adventure comedy play by the British writers Ian Hay and Stephen King-Hall about a film star who becomes mixed up with the Royal Navy and Chinese pirates. It premiered at the Kings Theatre, Southsea in the naval town of Portsmouth before transferring to the West End. It ran for 192 performances at the Shaftesbury Theatre and then the Cambridge Theatre between 6 August 1934 and 19 January 1935. It marked the West End debut of Hollywood film actress Laura La Plante, then in London making films for Warner Brothers at Teddington Studios. The cast also included Diana Beaumont, Jack Hobbs, Frederick Burtwell, Geoffrey Sumner and Aubrey Mather.
A solo actor portrays Hitler in the Führerbunker in 1945. The first half reviews Hitler’s political ideas through quotations from Mein Kampf; the second connects his “poisoned utopias” and warped logic to prejudices and destructive ideologies in modern society.
Rumsu, a Hyderabadi father with several children, struggles to support his family and repay small debts to friends and acquaintances. His wife Bipasha presses him about their household needs, while his comic replies lead to the play’s message favoring family planning and a smaller family.
A two-hander about Leigh, a white Catholic single mother who works in local government, and Angel, a Black man who has attended college and prison and now deals drugs in Islington.
A tragic play portraying the life of the eighteenth-century French actress Adrienne Lecouvreur and the mystery surrounding her death.
Adventure Story is a 1949, play by the English dramatist Terence Rattigan. The play tells the story of Alexander the Great and his conquests. In this play Rattigan portrays the historical Alexander faithfully, at the same time revealing that his life was what it was because he was the kind of person who very well might have wept because nothing remained to conquer. The play focuses on the transformation of Alexander after his conquest of Persia from a military adventurist to an uncompromising despot with grand vision of a world empire which estranges him from his erstwhile friends. Driven by a deep-felt insecurity, he has to kill people close to him including even the father figure Cleitus. He tries to justify his actions in the name of his dreams of the world empire, but is haunted by loneliness in the end The play holds a deeper significance, that the conquests of Alexander were actually trials to find himself and achieve spiritual enlightenment, through becoming a god (see Theosis). The play ends with a nihilistic tone, that Alexander was to die and fade after all, his last words in the play are 'Who is to succeed me to the throne of Asia? Who shall I condemn to death?'
A terminally ill young woman bargains with Death for time to find an ideal love. A stranger offers her the love she longs for, but what he offers proves to be dreams rather than reality.
Adventures in Madrid or The Adventures in Madrid is a 1706 comedy by the English writer Mary Pix. It was her final staged work. It premiered at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket. The original cast featured John Freeman as Gomez, Barton Booth as Gaylord, Benjamin Husband as Bellmour, William Bowen as Gusman, John Corey as Don Philip, George Pack as Jo, William Fieldhouse as Pedro, Anne Bracegirdle as Laura, Elizabeth Barry as Clarinda, Elizabeth Bowman as Emelia and Margaret Bicknell as Lisset.
The tyrannical vizier Mirza Habib oppresses people beyond his home but humiliates himself before the khan, while his household’s women deceive and humiliate him. Palace and family intrigues intersect with Nisa-khanum’s love for the khan’s nephew, Teimur-aga.
During the Bódog family’s younger son’s birthday gathering, everyone remains absorbed in television and overlooks ordinary family troubles and the miraculous acts of their mysterious lodger, Emberfi, who is visited by twelve followers.
Fourteen-year-old Aetu loves Atiba, but her father forces her to marry the influential Oke, who kills Atiba and rapes her. With a priest’s help, Aetu curses Oke’s household; after Oke dies, she is transferred among his kinsmen, and the play follows the consequences of her acts of vengeance and her eventual death.
A schoolteacher agrees to marry a wealthy senator to conceal his affair with another politician’s wife. Her unexpected gifts as a hostess and political strategist complicate the arrangement.
In an orchard in England’s Black Country, two young men and a tramp arrive looking for fruit-picking work. As the day unfolds, violence and bloodshed emerge from the men’s encounters, in a play that links the harvest to an older pagan idea of crops nourished by human blood.
After the successes of Aida and Requiem, Verdi retires to the country. His friends Ricordi and Faccio try to draw him back into composition, persuading him to work with young librettist Arrigo Boito on Otello. The drama incorporates excerpts from Verdi and other operas.
After All is a 1929 play by the British writer John Van Druten. After a West End run at the Apollo Theatre it transferred to Broadway in 1931.
After a homeless man murders Ashley, her husband Alden and son Justin become public figures through Alden’s grief memoir and a television producer’s crime show. Justin exposes the family’s performance of grief by sabotaging a screening, while his own relationships and Ashley’s ghost complicate the aftermath.
A London melodrama featuring a bound character on railroad tracks as an approaching train threatens.
After Dark is a thriller play by the British writer Joseph Jefferson Farjeon. After premiering at the Pier Theatre in Eastbourne it transferred to the West End for a run of 56 performance, initially at the Garrick Theatre before moving to the Comedy Theatre. The original cast included Horace Hodges, Donald Calthrop and Malcolm Keen.
A tender-hearted account of relationships and behaviour in a suburban pub bistro on a Friday night.
After Romeo and Juliet's deaths, the Capulets and Montagues have agreed to a truce, but rivalry persists. Juliet's cousin Rosaline mourns Romeo, seeks leadership as Princess of Cats, and falls into a fraught romance with Benvolio; an election to succeed Tybalt ends without resolving the family's future.
In a waiting room between life and death, strangers must revisit their lives and choose one memory to keep for eternity.
A policeman sees a family arranged in a bizarre Magritte-like tableau and calls an inspector. As the family explains the scene, the inspector invents a crime, and the absurd tableau is gradually revealed through the family’s everyday mishaps and misunderstandings.
Marber relocates Strindberg’s Miss Julie to an English country house in July 1945, on the night of Labour’s election victory. The action centers on Miss Julie and two servants, John and Christine, in the house’s kitchen.
A biographical drama about novelist Jean Rhys, drawing on her troubled life and her novel Wide Sargasso Sea.
Stephen returns home, reluctantly, to his mother's deathbed. As he and his sister revisit family photographs and childhood memories, they uncover conflicting versions of their parents' unhappy marriage.
David and Joan Scott-Fowler were 'bright young things' of the 1920s, whose ambition is to treat everything as trivial and to live lives of pure sensation. They always maintained that they married for amusement and not for love. However, Helen Banner, a serious young woman, has fallen in love with David and is determined to change his lifestyle, free him from Joan, stop him from drinking and re-awaken the serious historian in him. Unfortunately, Joan does indeed love David very deeply and is trapped by her posture of carelessness. At a party they are holding, Joan is bruised by the clash between private agony and public joy and she kills herself. The characters are shattered by the revelation and even though David and Helen plan to get away from this life, the play ends with a clear sign that David will continue as he did.
Louise wakes in an underground fallout shelter after a nuclear attack. Mark says he rescued her, but as they remain isolated he tries to control her, and their psychological struggle escalates.
Inside Quentin's mind, the New York intellectual reexamines his life and relationships, including his marriage to Maggie and his love for Holga, as he decides whether to marry again. The play turns on guilt, self-judgment, and the contrast between Quentin's public and private life.
A comic three-part play follows lonely people navigating flirtation and dance, dating and emotional connection, and an evening between two couples disrupted by a phone call.
Two centuries after a massive rainfall, survivors meet in a university lecture hall. The Hampstead staging cast the audience as students in that lecture hall, drawing them into the action.
Michael Frayn’s play traces Austrian theatre director Max Reinhardt’s life and career from his work to revive the Salzburg Festival in 1920 through his death in New York in 1943.
Earl L'Estrange marries Claire Glyon, a peasant girl, but grows disillusioned and believes she has drowned. Twenty years later, he falls in love with a reclusive artist who is Claire, alive and acclaimed; she and her friend expose his past failure to value her.
In 1920s Moscow, Sonya from Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya meets Andrey from Three Sisters. Their conversation brings together characters shaped by disappointment and emotional loss in the aftermath of the earlier plays.
A documentary play built from the traumatic recollections of members of Newcastle Workers' Club, which was destroyed in the 1989 earthquake.
Afterwards is a 1933 mystery play by the British-American writer Walter Hackett revolving around a psychic medium. It enjoyed a West End run of 208 performances at the Whitehall Theatre between 7 November 1933 and 12 June 1934. The original London cast included Gordon Harker, Henry Daniell, Ronald Shiner, Jeanne Stuart and Marion Lorne.
After the Trojan War, King Agamemnon returns to Argos, where Clytemnestra has plotted to kill him in revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia and to take power with her lover Aegisthus. She persuades Agamemnon to enter the palace over costly robes, then kills him and Cassandra; Aegisthus joins her in claiming rule.
After Agamemnon returns from Troy, Clytemnestra plots with her lover Aegisthus to kill him, driven by revenge for Iphigenia's sacrifice and jealousy over the captive Cassandra. Cassandra foresees the murder, while Electra helps Orestes escape.
Agamemnon is a 1738 tragedy by the British writer James Thomson. It is based on the story of Agamemnon from Greek Mythology. The original Drury Lane cast included James Quin as Agamemnon, William Milward as Egistus, Theophilus Cibber as Melisander, William Havard as Talthybius, Mary Porter as Clytemnestra, Sussanah Arne as Cassandra, Anne Brett as Electra and Thomas Wright as Arcas. The prologue was written by Thomson's friend David Mallet, with Thomson returning the favour by adding a prologue to Mallet's Mustapha the following year.
After peace between Syracuse and Carthage requires prisoners to be released, Carthaginian soldier Ydasan seeks his captive daughter Ydace. The tyrant Agathocle's sons both desire her: Polycrate undermines the agreement, while Argide protects her, kills his brother in a fight, and persuades Agathocle to restore the republic.
Agis, A Tragedy is a blank verse tragedy by the Scottish dramatist John Home. It was his first play, but has been greatly overshadowed, by his second (and once famous) play Douglas. It is a classical drama, based on the life of Agis, king of Sparta and is founded on Plutarch's narrative. After writing the play in Scotland in 1747, Home took it to London, and submitted it to David Garrick for representation at Drury Lane, but it was rejected as unsuitable for the stage.
In an ahistorical Persia, Aglaura and Prince Thersames love one another, but the King also desires her. Court intrigues and mistaken identity lead to a tragic ending in the original version; Suckling also supplied an alternative tragicomic ending.
Agnes de Castro is a 1696 tragedy by the English writer Catharine Trotter. Based on the novel of the same title by Jean-Baptiste de Brilhac, it was first staged by John Rich's company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The original Drury Lane cast included Thomas Simpson as King, George Powell as Prince, John Verbruggen as Alvaro, Colley Cibber as Lorenzo, John Mills as Pedro, Jane Rogers as Agnes de Castro, Mary Kent as Bianca and Frances Maria Knight as Elvira. The prologue was written by William Wycherley. The published version was dedicated to the Duke of Dorset.
Agnes of God is a 1979 play by American playwright John Pielmeier which tells the story of a novice nun who gives birth but does not believe she has. After the child is found dead, a psychiatrist and the mother superior of the convent clash during the resulting investigation. The title is a pun on the Latin phrase Agnus Dei ("lamb of God").
After her divorce from a bankrupt husband, Agnete Lindemann survives by stealing from friends and arranging false collections. She falls in love with Rikard Berg, the lawyer who handled her divorce, and confesses her past dishonesty in hopes of beginning a truthful life with him. He cannot accept her confession, so she leaves to work as a housekeeper for a cousin in Nordfjord.
After a fire destroys a monastery library and its books, the resident monks and nuns confront the loss of their spiritual center. Purnima, a nun constrained by the monastery's gender roles, ultimately leaves to work among people affected by the civil war.
At Ephesus, Sparta's King Agésilas navigates Lysander's political plot and competing marriage alliances involving Lysander's daughters, the rulers Cotys and Spitridate, and Mandane. Agésilas pardons Lysander and consents to the marriages while securing his own political position.
Ah, Wilderness! is a comedy play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on October 2, 1933. It differs from a typical O'Neill play in its happy ending for the central character, and depiction of a happy family in turn-of-the-century America. It is O'Neill's only well-known comedy. The play was successful in its first Broadway production and the touring production that followed. It has since become a staple of community repertory.
In an early twentieth-century Tsarist Russian village, children fight for their rights and education, challenging adults’ abuses and indifference and leading them toward a better path.
On November 4, 2008, Pastor Freeman performs a funeral service for "Righttocomplain", claiming that with the election of Barack Obama, the African-American community will no longer face hardships. However, the congregation's joyous celebration is undercut by the years that follow as they witness events such as the Flint water crisis and the deaths of unarmed Black Americans at the hands of police. A Black drag queen flight agent, Peaches, prepares a boarding gate at the airport while giving instructions over the phone to her friend Ladarius. As the play continues, it is revealed the flight is the last one in a program of government subsidized one-way tickets to Africa for all Black people who want it. The play frequently cuts back to Peaches at the gate, checking in various passengers and offering counsel to those who are hesitant. She also prepares Miss Bag, a suitcase she claims holds "our entire story as a people in this country" and encourages passengers to drop their stories in the bag so they may bring it to Africa. She also warns that all black people who elect not to board the flight will be subjected to "extreme racial transmogrification" by "The Powers That Be": they will be turned into white people. The rest of the play consists of vignettes showing the lives of black people in different settings, and how news of the flight affects them. In the first vignette, a black couple Damien and Trisha wait for her number to be called at an abortion clinic; Damien is actually a ghost after being killed in an act of police brutality, and Trisha sees the abortion as the only way to keep their child safe from both death and the spectacle of being a symbol of police brutality. The second vignette depicts the filming of The Real Baby Mamas of the South-Side, a reality show focused on stereotypical black women; brief moments where the camera stops rolling reveal the artificial nature of the show, as well as tensions among the cast due to the presence of "Rachonda" (Rachel), a self-proclaimed "transracial" black woman who is the only one who keeps up the stereotype when the camera are not rolling. In the third segment, a rich black family ignore the notice about the last flight, only to be confronted by the arrival of Black, the human personification of their family's "blackness", locked away in the basement by the family's deceased patriarch forty years prior when he became rich. In the last vignette, three inmates at a women's prison, along with one of the officers, prepare to be released so that they may board the planes while dealing with their complex feelings of what their new "freedom" entails. In the final scene, Peaches finishes getting all the passengers on the plane, but just as she is ready to board herself, she discovers she is unable to move Miss Bag. She tries to get it to move, protesting that leaving it behind means leaving behind all of African-American culture and history. Due to her efforts, the last plane leaves without her. Realizing that Miss Bag has disappeared, Peaches angrily protests to The Powers That Be to "give it back" as her drag is violently removed until she is left as a man. Before he is subjected to extreme racial transmogrification, he makes one last attempt to rally black solidarity to get back Miss Bag and thus reclaim African-American identity, but is met with silence—for there are no more Black people left.
Airline Highway takes place in the parking lot of The Hummingbird Motel, off the titular highway near New Orleans, where the residents have gathered to celebrate the life of Miss Ruby, an iconic burlesque queen who has been a mother figure to them all. Miss Ruby's life is nearing its end, and she requests that her funeral takes place while she is still alive. As the Mardi Gras-esque celebration continues into the night, the stories of the residents, their pain and disappointments unfold.
Two women are imprisoned in a mental asylum in the 1920s for having children outside marriage and are released in the 1970s.
A woman travels to Kyushu to reunite with the Dazaifu high priest she once loved. His jealous wife forges a rejection letter, prompting the woman to drown herself; the priest’s prayers bring the deity Tenman-Tenjin, who revives her.
The fragmentary tragedy probably dramatized the Trojan War story of Ethiopian prince Memnon, who killed Antilochus before being killed by Achilles. The surviving plot is almost entirely unknown.
After Achilles’ armor is awarded to Odysseus, Ajax attempts to kill him and the Greek commanders. Athena’s delusion makes Ajax slaughter livestock instead; when he regains his senses, shame leads him to suicide. The play then follows the dispute over his burial, which Odysseus resolves by persuading the commanders to honor Ajax in death.
Agatha Christie's play follows Pharaoh Akhnaton's religious reforms and political decline. As he elevates Ra and suppresses the old cult of Amon, unrest, famine and rebellion grow. Horemheb, Meriptah and Nezzemut plot his overthrow; Nefertiti is deceived into poisoning Akhnaton, and the epilogue announces the restoration of Amon's religion.
Betrothed as a child to the deity Iyieke, Olanma later marries a prince and takes on traditionally male duties. When her family neglects Iyieke’s worship, Olanma resists the deity’s demand that she return as his wife, and her daughter ultimately sacrifices herself to protect the family.
Set against economic hardship in 1970s Egypt, the play follows two poor lifelong friends. Masoud marries a wealthy woman drawn to his uncomplicated life, while he hopes to leave poverty behind in her family’s palace; their contrasting backgrounds and attitudes to marriage drive the comedy.
In a Jordanian family, the children and their mother challenge a controlling father for greater freedoms; his brother's return from Canada prompts a satirical explanation of local political life and privatization.
In an unnamed Arab dictatorship, cinema extra Zeinhom is repeatedly unemployed but resembles the ruler. After officials notice the resemblance while the dictator is dying, they recruit Zeinhom as a double; when the ruler dies, they install him as a compliant figurehead. Zeinhom is thrust from insecure work into the palace's rivalries and must navigate pressure from competing power centers while trying to govern.
A stage dramatization of the Aladdin story from One Thousand and One Nights.
A retired butcher, Alaba, offers a vantage point for satire on Nigerian politics; the play also explores human relationships with the environment and environmental justice.
Alasco is an 1824 tragedy by Martin Archer Shee, the Irish painter and future President of the Royal Academy. While best known for his artworks Archer Shee also wrote poetry, two novels and this play. It was intended to be staged at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London, but objections by the censor George Colman to the play's subject matter led to the Lord Chamberlain, the Scottish peer the Duke of Montrose to refuse it a license. Montrose and Colman were wary of any plays they regarded as touching on any revolutionary themes. Archer Shee published the work with a lengthy preface defending the play, and it was performed at the unlicensed Surrey Theatre south of the River Thames in April 1824.
A one-person portrait of Albert Einstein that presents him as scientist and human being, including his hopes of becoming a violinist, intellectual curiosity, pacifism, flight from antisemitism and later dismay at nuclear weapons.
A biographical drama about Nazi architect Albert Speer's life, drawing on Gitta Sereny's account of his relationship with the truth.
At 70, Albertine lives in a retirement home and encounters her younger selves at ages 30, 40, 50, and 60 as she reflects on her life. Her sister Madeleine is the only other character.
Albina, Countess Raimond is a 1779 verse drama tragedy by the British playwright Hannah Cowley. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in London 31 July 1779. The original cast included Howard Usher as King Henry, West Digges as Westmoreland, William Wyatt Dimond as Edward, James Aickin as Egbert, Robert Palmer as Oswald, John Gardner as Steward and Katherine Sherry as Albina. She dedicated the play to the politician Lord Harrowby.
In this Tudor political interlude, allegorical figures Injury and Division accuse English authorities of administering law and justice unfairly. They plot to deepen discord by sending false or inflammatory messages to other characters.
A fraudulent astrologer and his thieves exploit Pandulfo’s desire to marry a young woman by promising to turn a farmer into her absent father. The real father returns, the impersonation and theft unravel, and the young people redirect the planned marriages toward themselves.
King Admetus is spared death only if another takes his place. His wife Alcestis agrees to die for him; after her death, their guest Heracles confronts Death and returns her to the palace, veiled, where Admetus recognizes her.
Alcibiades is a 1675 tragedy by the English writer Thomas Otway, based on the life of the Athenian statesman and general Alcibiades. Staged by the Duke's Company, it premiered at the Dorset Garden Theatre in London with a cast that featured Thomas Betterton as Alcibiades, Matthew Medbourne as Agis, Samuel Sandford as Tissaphernes, John Crosby as Patroclus, Henry Harris as Theramnes, Thomas Gillow as Polyndus, Mary Lee as Deidamia, Mary Betterton as Timandra and Elizabeth Barry as Draxilla. Alcibiades is a verse play is written in heroic couplets, that is rhymed verse in iambic pentameter, which was championed by John Dryden at the time. While Otway originally wrote in rhymed tragedies, he eventually settled on writing in blank (unrhymed) verse in iambic pentameter, the better to imitate Shakespeare. Alcibiades draws inspiration from Plutarch's Parallel Lives. The story centers around the historical character of Alcibiades during his exile to Sparta, and his seduction of the Spartan Queen.
In the surviving plot summary, Alcmaeon leaves his children Tisiphone and Amphilochus to be raised in Corinth. Queen Merope sells Tisiphone into slavery; Alcmaeon unknowingly buys her and returns to Corinth, where he reunites with Amphilochus and Tisiphone's identity is revealed. The ancient tragedy is lost, and its plot is reconstructed from a later summary and fragments.
This lost tragedy follows the mythic hero Alcmaeon in Psophis; the surviving account says its story is believed to have incorporated his death.
After ominous dreams, Queen Hecuba’s infant Paris is exposed on Mount Ida and raised by a herdsman. Years later, Paris wins games held in his honor despite being treated as a slave; when Prince Deiphobus plots against him, Cassandra and the herdsman reveal his identity and Hecuba is reunited with her son.
As Natalia Pushkina's relationship with Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès develops, the play follows the circumstances around the poet's death and portrays a conspiracy by the authorities against him; Pushkin himself remains offstage.
A blank-verse dramatic poem about Alexander the Great and his war against the Persians.
Alexander the Great and the Indian princess Cleofile love one another, but intrigues involving her brother Taxilus and his ally Porus complicate their relationship. The five-act verse tragedy is based largely on a surviving work by Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus.
Alfie is a 1963 stage play written by Bill Naughton. Developed from a radio drama, the original London production starred John Neville, and the Broadway transfer starred Terence Stamp.
Alfonso, King of Castile is a historical tragedy by the English writer Matthew Lewis. It was published in November 1801, and was first staged at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden the following year. It is set during the reign of Alfonso XI of Castile during the fourteenth century. The original Covent Garden cast included Charles Murray as Alfonso, George Frederick Cooke as Orsino, Henry Johnston as Caesario, Charles Klanert as Marco, John Whitfield as Melchior, William Claremont as Gomez, George Davenport as Ricardo, John Waddy as Father Brazil, Nannette Johnston as Amelrosa and Harriett Litchfield as Otillia.
Alfred is a 1778 tragedy by the British writer John Home. His final play it was not as well-received as his earlier efforts and he retired from playwriting. The original Covent Garden cast included William Thomas Lewis as Alfred, Thomas Hull as Edwin, John Whitfield as Earl of Surrey, Francis Aickin as Hinguar, Ann Street Barry as Ethelswida. The epilogue was written by David Garrick.
Alfred the Great is an 1831 historical play by the Irish writer James Sheridan Knowles. It portrays the life of the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred the Great. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. The title role was played by William Macready, a frequent collaborator of Knowles. Other members of the cast included Charles Mayne Young as Edric, John Cooper as Guthrum, James Vining as Oddune, Henry John Wallack as Oswith, Mary Warner as Elswith and Thomas Cooke as Kenric. The published version was dedicated to the reigning monarch William IV.
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