8284 shows
Clear filtersPizarro 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)
An Englishman arrives in Australia and works on a rural Queensland station.
Ollie searches for her missing sister in Manchester and finds that every lead points to Pomona, an abandoned concrete island at the city's center.
A court masque in which costumed satyrs, nereids, fauns and naiads alternately sing Latin verses honoring Mary and Prince James through offerings from rustic gods. The entertainment concludes with characters representing the Orkney Islands.
At Yale during the college’s transition to coeducation, feminist transfer student Claire Hazard wants to join the all-male Whiffenpoofs a cappella group, whose members resist admitting a woman.
The show follows a famous actor under treatment in a mental institution who wonders: did he really kill the actor playing Polonius as he was playing Hamlet, or was it only an illusion?
Popcorn is a 1998 play by English author Ben Elton adapted from his novel of the same title.
Porgy, a disabled Black beggar in Charleston's Catfish Row, tries to rescue Bess, the woman he loves, from Crown, her violent possessive lover, and Sportin' Life, a drug dealer.
Three interwoven monologues portray Kevin, a boy leaving home for the first time; Dermot, a man who begins a job he is unqualified for after being chosen by mistake; and Joe, a widower pensioner who receives a mysterious package. Their stories turn on possibilities that might have happened but did not.
A spinster living in poverty is consumed by memories of a former lover.
A dramatic portrait of Queen Victoria’s life based on her letters.
Ten members of the fictional Riot Club, an exclusive Oxford dining club, hold a drunken dinner in a country pub. As the evening's bullying escalates, they wreck the room and seriously injure the landlord. They agree to blame one member, Alistair, and use their future influence to protect him; weeks later, an MP helps weaken the charge against him.
A Bengali stage adaptation of Animal Farm, the drama uses satire to criticize the communist regime in West Bengal.
Detectives investigate the murder of George Barber and the theft of his brain, while George experiences parallel versions of his life with Joyce. The play ultimately suggests these alternate worlds are discontinuous dreams generated by his brain, raising questions about consciousness, science, and identity.
A broad rural comedy about farmer Dad McQuade’s attempt to sell Possum Paddock to cover his debts. The story’s adaptation follows Hugh Bracken, who pays the debts and discovers a railway will make the paddock valuable.
In 2015, graduate student Dexter discovers a politically explosive play by the otherwise ordinary playwright A. R. Gurney and urges professor Alice to stage it before the government destroys the script. In 2027, the now-married pair describe how their nationwide performances of the lost play transformed society, while the work’s staged seminar also satirizes modern incivility, religion and political life.
Emily Madison provides accommodations for tourists in her rambling old ancestral home on the Boston Post Road in Connecticut. Her sister May and unemployed brother-in-law George live with her. George is obsessed with short-wave radio, tuning in to police calls and foreign stations. Emily's only boarder is Rev. Cartwright, an itinerant preacher who comes and goes. When a young traveling couple, Bill and Celia, stop by to look for a room, Cartwright discourages them. May and George are unable to counter his influence, and the couple departs for a motel with more amenities. Jeeby, a strongly-built taciturn teenager, once more delivers an incomplete and mixed-up assortment of clean laundry, to Emily's consternation. A limousine pulls up to the house, and Dr. Spender enters seeking a room for his patient, a young woman who has been taken ill while travelling. He and Nurse Martin take the Girl to a room, while the chauffeur Matt brings in her luggage. Dr. Spender confides that the Girl is the unmarried daughter of a prominent Episcopalian bishop, hence they don't want to reveal her name. Later that night noises from the girl's room seem to indicate she is giving birth, and soon a baby's cries are heard in the living room. Dr. Spender and Matt depart, leaving Nurse Martin to care for the baby. The infant remains in the room with the Girl, and only an occasional cry is heard from it during the next week. Dr. Spender and Matt return, bringing more things for the baby. The Girl is pronounced well-enough to leave the room, while Emily, May, and George finally get to see the baby boy. The Girl seems restless and uninterested in her infant. She tries to get music from George's radio but it only produces static. Later, George is able to tune into a police call about the recent kidnapping of a baby. Emily, holding a baby doll that Nurse Martin used to calm the infant, suddenly realizes the noise it makes is the same that they have been hearing the past week. The Girl, bored and rebellious, wants to leave. Rev. Cartwright and Dr. Spender, who seem to know each other, warn her against trying to travel so soon. While Nurse Martin holds the baby, the Girl leaves the house, clearly frightened, followed by Matt, while Spender and Cartwright watch. State Trooper Virgil Beamis and his partner Jay visit the Madison mansion, looking for information about the kidnapping. Beamis is suspicious of Cartwright, who looks familiar to him. Since the Girl is gone, Emily claims the baby is hers, which causes amusement to Beamis, on account of her age and unmarried state. The troopers depart, and soon neighbors start dropping in to try and see if the rumors about Emily's baby are true. Mrs. Canby comes calling to borrow corn starch, but really to snoop. May eventually pushes her out, but not before she sees a baby bottle. George, tuning in another police radio call, hears the body of a young woman who was beaten to death has been found on the Post Road. By now, Emily, George, and May realize they are captive in their own home. Emily outwits the kidnappers by hiding the real baby in the washbasket with the dirty laundry with a note for the police. Jeeby takes the basket away, while Emily and May fool the kidnappers by using their own decoy baby doll to make them think its still in its room. The police arrive and arrest the crooks, and the real baby is restored to its parents.
A British soldier mortally wounded in 1917 imagines how his family and acquaintances will respond when the war ends. As a ghost in 1930, he sees that the survivors have learned little from the war; a fellow veteran exposes their indifference, then kills himself. The final scene returns to the trenches as the soldier dies.
In 2029, Ross O'Carroll-Kelly is asked to sell his childhood home in Sallynoggin. With his wife serving as Taoiseach and his triplet sons playing in a school cup team, the sale stirs old memories.
A realistic drama based on real events about a femme fatale bent on self-destruction through a frenzy of erotic excess; the play is structured in six tableaux.
In 1901, sculptor Gustav Vigeland is commissioned to create the last official portrait of Henrik Ibsen. The irascible playwright and sculptor clash over Ibsen's legacy and likeness during a series of sittings.
Potash and Perlmutter is a three-act play written by Montague Glass and Charles Klein, based on earlier short stories written by Glass. Producer Albert H. Woods staged it on Broadway, where it opened at the George M. Cohan Theatre on August 16, 1913. The play is a comedy featuring the characters Abe Potash and Mawruss Perlmutter, who are business partners in the garment industry. The play was a hit and ran for 441 performances on Broadway. A production in London's West End opened on April 14, 1914, at the Queen's Theatre starring Augustus Yorke and Robert Leonard. By the fall of 1914, Woods had eight road companies presenting the show on tour. According to George S. Kaufman, the success of the play was due to the largely-uncredited staging by Hugh Ford. Kaufman, then a drama critic for the New-York Tribune said of Ford: "He did more than stage it; he built it. So valuable were his services, in fact, that he is said to have been paid a royalty upon the play". The play was adapted as a 1923 movie, also called Potash and Perlmutter. Woods produced several theatrical sequels, including Abe and Mawruss (1915), Business Before Pleasure (1917), His Honor: Abe Potash (1919), Partners Again (1922), and Potash and Perlmutter, Detectives (1926), all written by Glass with various co-authors.
Two performers attempt to compress all seven Harry Potter books into a short theatrical parody. Rapid character changes, improvised exchanges, and an audience game of Quidditch turn the familiar adventures into a comic race through the series.
In 19th-century Aix-en-Provence, a faithful wife is betrayed and driven toward suicide. Giraudoux relocates the Roman Lucretia legend to southern France.
At Christmastide, a poor apprentice stands against the pride and status-seeking of a wealthy merchant household. The merchant’s wayward brother, whose kindness survives his dissolute life, helps awaken him to humility and the value of Russian folk traditions.
A Federal Theatre Project Living Newspaper play presenting ideas in support of New Deal and Works Progress Administration policies, with incidental music.
A drama with comedy and innuendo set at the court of Louis XIV, exploring court intrigue and the events and ideas that led him to take full control of government.
In the East End Cliff, the younger son of a shopkeeper, murders his pregnant girlfriend. His family members attempt to shield him from the law for varying reasons.
On a night train from Chicago to Duluth, a storyteller recounts a murder with supernatural undertones to a listener while two other passengers play gin. The gin player suspects cheating, and a violent altercation brings the separate pairs together.
An ascetic who rejects nature as an obstacle to wisdom helps an orphaned girl; her death teaches him that wisdom comes through recognizing humanity’s place in nature’s cycles, not through renunciation.
A Fleet Street satire on the British newspaper industry of the Thatcher era, following media power and journalism through a fictional white South African press baron modeled in part on Rupert Murdoch.
In a nondenominational room at a British university, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim students have assigned days for prayer. Conflict grows when Jewish students seek more time, leaving Muslim students without their regular Friday slot, while the Christians try to stay out of the dispute.
In 2016, an American student Molly decides to visit her family in France to find her roots and tries to connect with her distant cousin Marcelle. Marcelle's son is the victim of an anti-Semitic attack, causing Marcelle's husband Charles who immigrated from Algeria to decide to move to Israel. This earns the dismay of Marcelle's brother Patrick, as Marine Le Pen's rise in mainstream French politics continues. The play's second story explores how Marcelle and Patrick's great-grandparents suffered loss during the Holocaust in the 1940s.
A woman rebuilds her life after an abusive relationship. Encounters with therapists, friends and support groups explore the practical obstacles, difficult choices and unexpected connections involved in moving forward.
After losing her job, English law graduate Joey visits her estranged father George in New York on Christmas Eve. She falls for Sam, a lively young man she meets on a rooftop, then discovers that he is her father’s caregiver as George’s ability to care for himself declines.
Two men argue over whether a figure is 20 million or higher; the dispute gradually reveals that they are discussing body counts.
A historical drama presenting an episode from the life of composer Richard Wagner.
Peter is a self-conscious employee at a publishing firm who attends a party. There he meets Rita, a seemingly carefree part-time bartender who hopes to be a graphic designer. The two realize a mutual attraction and begin dating. Over time, Rita reveals her fears about the world, and her hesitancy to invest in joy or dreams when she expects bad things are more likely to happen than good. Despite this, she falls in love with Peter and agrees to marry him. Some time later, the two marry. At their wedding reception, they encounter an unknown Old Man who was passing by and wanted to wish the couple good luck. The Old Man asks to kiss the bride before he leaves and Rita agrees, charmed. As they kiss, Rita and the Old Man magically exchange bodies. Confused and disoriented, Rita wanders away, now inhabiting an elderly male form, while "Rita" and Peter embark on a honeymoon in Jamaica. During the trip, Peter is confused by his wife's new personality and inability to remember basic details of her own life. When they return home, "Rita" seems back to her old self and kisses Peter. After the kiss, Peter realizes this isn't his wife and concludes the impostor read Rita's diary to better masquerade as her. Panicked, he demands her return then leaves the apartment. At the bar where Rita worked, Peter sees the Old Man from the wedding reception. They talk and Peter realizes this is the real Rita, who has been living as the Old Man (whose name is Julius). They hope to make another body swap, but discover the Old Man has fled to stay with Rita's parents the Boyles, telling them the marriage is in turmoil and separation is needed. Peter meets Leah, Julius's daughter, and learns the Old Man is a retired widower who has terminal cancer, with maybe a year left to live. As they consider what to do, Peter and Rita live together as a couple again. Rita now appreciates life more deeply, while Peter realizes he loves her despite the shell she inhabits changing how they relate physically. Peter and Rita finally confront Julius, but the Old Man himself isn't sure how to cause the body swap. He came upon their wedding by chance and envied the bride's youth due to his fear of dying. Rita realizes that during their kiss, she had felt envy for the Old Man as well, wishing she could be someone who had already survived into old age despite any obstacles. As the two realize they no longer have the fears they felt that day, Rita and Julius exchange souls again. Julius takes his leave as Rita and Peter reunite.
In 1960 Hamburg, Pete Best shares a room with George Harrison and Paul McCartney as the Beatles play to dwindling audiences at the Indra Club. Paul’s provocative performance attracts a crowd, while George’s arrest over the curfew and an older German woman’s memories of the Nazi past bring the young musicians’ choices into sharper focus.
A comedy that begins as a period piece before shifting into topical, variety-style humor.
Over several days, successful and self-absorbed actor Garry Essendine juggles admirers who try to seduce him, his estranged wife, his employees and a young playwright as he prepares to tour Africa.
During a fictional 1912 suffrage crisis, a disguised Prime Minister and a military general face competing arguments from pro- and anti-suffrage women, while escalating comic disputes force the government to reconsider women's rights.
Pressure is a 2014 play written by David Haig, based on true events that took place during World War II. It centres on the true story of James Stagg and the weather forecasts that determined the date of the D-Day landings as part of Operation Overlord. The personal and military stresses of Stagg, the tensions between the teams with different weather forecasts for the date of the proposed D-Day, and the events of the 72 hours leading up to D-Day are explored throughout the play. It premiered at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh in May 2014, and had its West End premiere at the Ambassadors Theatre in June 2018. The play had its North American premiere at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto in January 2023.
Peake’s stage adaptation adds Frankenstein’s servant Fritz and gives the scientist a community of friends and family. Frankenstein’s creation, a mute Creature, escapes the laboratory; after a series of encounters, Frankenstein shoots it, triggering an avalanche that kills them both.
Simon Bent's biographical play dramatizes the life of playwright Joe Orton, with Orton's lover Kenneth Halliwell also central to the West End production.
Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) is a play by Isobel McArthur, with songs, based on Jane Austen's novel. The play is designed for a cast of five or six women, After an initial production in Scotland in 2018 and a tour in 2019–20, it opened in the West End in 2021 and toured again in 2022–23. The production won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play.
Pride's Crossing is a play by Tina Howe. It received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play and was a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play focuses on 90-year-old Mabel Tidings Bigelow, who as a young woman was the first female to swim the English Channel from England to France. In her introduction to the play, Howe wrote, "For some time now I've wanted to write about the passion of old ladies."
Tessa is a barrister who specializes in defending men accused of sexual assault. After she is sexually assaulted, her confidence in the legal system and its demands for clear evidence from complainants is transformed.
The play tells the story of Kenneth, a 30-something African-American suburban bookstore worker in a fictional suburb of Rochester, New York with an imaginary friend who embarks on a journey of self-discovery. After being laid off from his long-time job, he applies for a job as a teller at Primary Trust Bank.
In a future Britain governed by a Prime Resident and political allies who seek to return citizens to their birth countries, two lovers face possible separation. Conspiracy theorists and religious fundamentalists orbit the political conflict, while the Grief Eaters provide comic interruptions.
A one-performer memoir monologue in which an older Primo Levi looks back on his imprisonment in Auschwitz, adapted from If This Is a Man.
An ensemble of queer and trans performers imagine a future world where Prince George of Cambridge is a gay man. In the process, they interrogate the ways in which power and colonisation play upon their lives and sexualities. The play features a series of fictional, direct-address monologues written by the playwright for the members of the ensemble, and a final monologue based on the real-life experiences of actress N'yomi Allure Stewart.
Hamlet investigates his father's death as his mother marries the new king. Ravi Jain's reworking uses English and American Sign Language to retell the tragedy through a Deaf Horatio and reconsider who can tell this familiar story.
A court masque produced by Anne of Denmark to welcome her son, Prince Henry, during the royal family's stay at Winchester amid London's plague outbreak.
Karl von Ahrmien is an impoverished German prince. He has agreed to marry Daphne Lowell, an older woman that he believes has a large fortune. However, he falls in love with her beautiful, widowed daughter-in-law, Florence Lowell. To escape his promised marriage, Karl fakes his own death, then pretends to be his own "foster brother", who happens to look identical to the prince. In this guise he takes a job as a courier working for Florence. She discovers his true identity, but keeps her knowledge a secret so he will remain in her service. Karl then discovers that the Lowells' supposed fortune is actually the property of one of Karl's own relatives who has died, and it is Karl's inheritance. With all of their secrets revealed, Florence and Karl agree to marry and share the fortune.
Princess Maleine is imprisoned after her father’s dispute with the family of her betrothed, Prince Hjalmar, and escapes after war kills her family. Disguised as a servant in Hjalmar’s household, she finds him promised to another princess; Queen Anne plots her death, and Hjalmar kills Anne before taking his own life.
A stage portrait of Oscar-winning cinematographer Jack Cardiff and his life in film.
Inspired by Edward Snowden’s surveillance revelations, the play examines how governments and corporations use personal information people share and what that means for security.
Matthew and Lisa rehearse a play when the British director Adrian begins an affair with Lisa. Their marriage and the affair are retold in shifting layers of performance, fantasy and therapy, repeatedly making the audience question which events are real. Adrian’s wife Cory appears as a private investigator and may enact Matthew’s imagined revenge; the play’s structure turns deceit back on its characters and audience.
Six people’s private anxieties intersect across 54 quick-cut scenes. Nicola struggles with her disengaged fiancé Dan; estate agent Stewart and his sister Imogen conceal their loneliness; and Charlotte’s work caring for Ambrose’s abusive father draws her into their lives. Their attempts at intimacy and reinvention end in uneasy separation and consolation.
Act 1 Following a brief courtship, Elyot and Sibyl are honeymooning at a hotel in Deauville, France, although her curiosity about his first marriage is not helping his romantic mood. In the adjoining suite Amanda and Victor are starting their new life together, although he cannot stop thinking of the cruelty Amanda's ex-husband displayed towards her. Elyot and Amanda, following a volatile three-year-long marriage, have been divorced for five years, but they now discover that they are sharing a terrace while on their honeymoons with their new and younger spouses. Elyot and Amanda separately beg their new spouses to leave the hotel with them immediately, but both new spouses refuse to cooperate and each storms off to dine alone. Realising they still love each other and regretting having divorced, Elyot and Amanda abandon their spouses and run off to Amanda's flat in Paris. Act 2 After dinner at the Paris flat several days later, Elyot and Amanda use their code word "Solomon Isaacs", soon abbreviated to "Sollocks", to stop their arguments from getting out of hand. They kiss passionately, but the harmony cannot last: whilst Elyot and Amanda cannot live without each other, neither can they live together. They argue violently and try to outwit each other, just as they had done during their stormy marriage. Their ongoing argument escalates to a point of fury, as Amanda breaks a record over Elyot's head and he retaliates by slapping her face. They seem trapped in a repeating cycle of love and hate, consumed by their private passions and jealousies. At the height of their biggest fight, Sibyl and Victor walk in. Act 3 The next morning Amanda tries to sneak away early but is surprised to find Sibyl and Victor there. As they talk, Elyot enters, and he and Amanda start bickering again. It has been decided that neither of the new spouses will grant a divorce for a year, to give Amanda and Elyot time to confirm if this is really what they want. As tempers rise, Sibyl and Victor begin to bicker with each other, defending their respective spouses. Amanda and Elyot realise that Sibyl and Victor are as suited to each other as they are, forgive each other and sneak out, leaving the younger two together. As Elyot and Amanda tiptoe out, Victor and Sibyl have reached the point of mutual violence.
A one-man dramatic monologue follows Thomas “Tommo” Peaceful, a young rural English soldier whose memories of family life and the First World War count down to an execution. In Reade’s stage version, Tommo, rather than his brother Charlie, is shot by firing squad.
An Australian family is divided by the Vietnam War. Hopgood said he wrote from the Australian point of view to examine the national character under stress amid morally unclear issues.
The play is set around the activities and exploits of the fictional Song and Dance Unit South East Asia (SADUSEA), a British military concert party stationed in Singapore and Malaya in the late 1940s during the Malayan Emergency.
A Sanskrit court drama centred on King Udayana and Priyadarśikā, a princess living incognito as an attendant to his queen.
Isa, an orphaned Congolese refugee and former child soldier settled in Brisbane, confronts his past as he prepares to compete for a national boxing title.
Processional: A Jazz Symphony of American Life (1925) is a four-act modernist comedy by the American playwright John Howard Lawson. It was first produced by the Theatre Guild at the Garrick Theatre in New York, opening on January 12, 1925 in a two-month run. Philip Moeller directed while Mordecai Gorelik designed the sets and costumes. Lee Strasberg played the minor role of First Soldier in the production; Sanford Meisner, too, played a minor part. It was revived by the Federal Theatre Project in 1937, at Maxine Elliott's Theatre.
Cut off from his family’s wealth, Edmund returns home and meets a stranger connected to the household. Their arrival exposes contradictions in the family’s ideas about belonging, privilege, and forgiveness.
A group of twenty-somethings in Sault Ste. Marie spend their days drinking in a bar while awaiting the outcome of a friend's murder trial, confronting why people stay in or leave their hometown.
Jewish physician Professor Bernhardi bars a priest from giving last rites to a dying patient, hoping to spare her fear. The ensuing public outcry and trial expose antisemitism and conflicts over religion, professional duty, and Austrian-Jewish identity.
Before the May 1932 elections, in Mamlock's clinic. The personnel and patients in the clinic discuss the political situation. Ruof and Hellpach support Adolf Hitler, while Hirsch and Seidel believe his rise to power will lead to war. Mamlock arrives and forbids conversation about politics in the institute. 28 February 1933. Mamlock's house. Rolf claims the Nazis staged the Reichstag fire; after a heated argument with his father, who disapproves of his political stance, Rolf must move out of the residence. Simon arrives and announces that the SA are searching the clinic for 'non-Aryan' doctors. The government decrees that all communists, pacifists, Jews and other opponents of the new regime will be banned from practicing medicine and holding other offices. Ruoff declares she will not be willing to work under a Jew; Hellpach leaves the clinic to join the SS. April 1933. Mamlock's house. Mamlock is not allowed to enter his clinic by law, while his daughter Ruth is attacked at school. Ruth and Ellen realize that their early, idealistic support of the Nazis was misguided. When Mamlock attempts to talk with Hellpach, who now runs the institute, he encounters a group of SA men who molest him. He returns home a broken man, carrying a Yellow badge. The next day, in the clinic. A new government decree lifts the working ban from all veterans of the First World War. Mamlock and Hirsch return to the clinic. There, Hellpach announces that all 'non-Aryans' who are not subject to the decree will be dismissed. Simon loses his work. Mamlock is revolted by this, and demands justice. He organizes a petition in which he calls upon the government to treat all citizens equally. Hellpach is enraged, and demands from all other personnel to sign an affidavit according to which Mamlock is guilty of various crimes. Mamlock is shocked to see that they all agree to do so – except Ruoff, who rejects her Nazi convictions. He realizes that his friends have abandoned him. Exasperated and despaired, Mamlock tells Inge that she and his son should fight for a better future. Then, he commits suicide.
A tragedy on a mythological subject, written in the dramatic structure of Aeschylean tragedy and in obscure, archaic language.
Prometheus is chained to a mountain by Zeus's agents for giving fire and knowledge to humanity. He recounts his defiance to the Oceanids and Io, foretells events that threaten Zeus, and is cast into the earth after refusing to reveal his secret.
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