8284 shows
Clear filtersSet in Detroit in 2008, the play follows the workers of an automotive factory, known as the skeleton crew, led by Faye, currently experiencing homelessness. As a longtime employee and union representative who has spent 29 years on the line, she currently works alongside Dez and Shanita. When factory supervisor Reggie reveals that the factory is set to close, Faye must choose between protecting her own stability and standing in solidarity with her fellow workers.
An older woman’s relationship with a young surfer is opposed by her sister, placing the woman between desire, confusion and betrayal.
In 1938, Captain Joris Kuiper takes 146 Jewish refugees aboard his Dutch merchant ship. As ports refuse them entry and his crew grows desperate, Kuiper rejects smuggling them ashore and devises a plan to scuttle the ship during a yacht regatta so rescuers must take them in as distressed mariners.
Regent Skirgaila struggles to hold Lithuania's lands amid conflict with Poland and the Teutonic Order and pressure to Christianize. He forcibly marries Ona Duonutė to retain Lida, while the monk-knight Keller's attempted escape ends in sacrifice and Skirgaila's moral decline.
Marin Držić's Croatian adaptation of Plautus's Aulularia, retitled Skup and set in Dubrovnik.
At a railway settlement on the Nullarbor Plain, the arrival of a Jewish immigrant leads to his falling in love with a married woman.
East London school teacher Kyra Hollis is visited by Edward Sergeant and, later on the same night, his father Tom Sergeant. Kyra had been living with the Sergeant family years earlier but left after her affair with Tom was discovered by Tom's wife, who has since died. Edward now accuses Kyra of having left him as well, as he saw her as a big sister, and he demands to know why she left his life. Shortly thereafter, Tom, a wealthy restaurateur, with real-life references to Terence Conran, appears unheralded and for no apparent reason. Kyra's less-than-glamorous lifestyle leads him to poke fun at her to the point of insult, accusing her of self-punishment. After Kyra cooks a spaghetti dinner (which the actress cooks on stage), the talk turns to their relationship. It becomes clear that their chances to be rekindled rest on whether one of them can change preconceived notions of the other.
In Chicago, a group of people try to save an historic skyscraper from demolition; their lives converge on its rooftop amid memory, fantasy and a deepening mystery.
The three teachers at an isolated girls’ school vow to abstain from sex in protest against male dominance and abuse. Their competing motives and interpretations of the pledge create new power struggles, distract them from teaching, and leave the school without pupils.
In Liverpool nightclub The Palace, characters arrive expecting a night of fun and flirtation, but each has a different reason for being there. Their stories shift from comedy toward pathos, with problems resolved through a series of short vignettes.
At a modern slaughterhouse where work grows more dangerous as pay and benefits shrink, workers encounter Cod, a strange man urging them to act. The two-act drama moves nonlinearly through time as labor pressures disrupt relationships and Cod's conflict with the Sausage Man threatens the group.
At McGregor Plantation, a southern cotton plantation in pre-Civil War Virginia, the song "Work" by Rihanna plays in the overseer cottage. Kaneisha, a slave, begins to twerk to the song when Jim, a white slave owner, walks in holding a whip. Jim is repeatedly uncomfortable when Kaneisha calls him "Master," but berates her for not cleaning the room better and throws a cantaloupe on the ground and tells Kaneisha to eat it. As Kaneisha eats the cantaloupe, she begins to dance again, which confuses and arouses Jim. When she asks to be called a "nasty, lazy negress," he instead proceeds to perform cunnilingus. Phillip replies that he is unsure. Gary has Dustin lick Gary's boot clean; this causes Gary to orgasm. He starts crying and cannot be comforted by Dustin. They are on Day Four of the therapy, which focuses on fantasy play. Dustin begins by noting that Gary came, which he could not do before, but Gary counters that Dustin was uncomfortable in making his whiteness hyper-visible. Alana enjoyed the release of the fantasy and asks Phillip if he enjoyed it too, noting that he got an erection when he had trouble before. Jim begins to initiate foreplay and the music rises while Kaneisha continues that the relationship went downhill three years ago, when she stopped feeling sexual pleasure because she began to see him as foreign and frightening. She saw Jim's whiteness and power, and that he also has "the virus", because though he is not American, he benefits from being white while being unaware of the privilege that whiteness gives him. She says that Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy and the fantasy play gave her a sense of peace because she feels the elders watching her again; the elders do not care that she is with "a demon / who thinks he’s a saint", but simply want the two of them to know he is a demon.
In Algiers, American captives and their allies plan escapes from the dey's palace and the household of Ben Hassan. Rebecca resists pressure to become his wife, while Olivia offers herself to spare the others; a slave uprising ultimately frees the prisoners, and Frederic rejects replacing one form of enslavement with another.
A theatrical reinterpretation of the Orpheus myth that combines geopolitical themes, Slavic ritual, and science-fiction elements.
The action begins in Moscow in March 1985 as Mikhail Gorbachev succeeds Konstantin Chernenko as general secretary of the Communist Party. Katherina is a feisty lesbian security guard at a Soviet archive facility that holds the brains of the USSR's late leaders. After getting her the job at the facility, Popolitipov (Jones), an apparatchik, attempts to woo her. Unfortunately for Popolitipov, she has already fallen for the oncologist Bonfila (Schulz), a descendant of one of the fathers of the revolution. Serge is a Bolshevik whose obsession with the future has deadly results. Vodya is a young girl that is dying from nuclear waste poisoning. She appears as both an apparition during a man's inebriated state and again in 1992 in Siberia but this time alive and mute. It is there in Siberia where Katherina and Bonfila confront the fallout and human misery caused by nuclear waste.
In a London boarding house for theatrical performers, a Romanian ventriloquist and student of black magic leaves his doll to his wife; after a series of accidents, she suspects the doll is responsible.
An immersive retelling of Macbeth unfolds through a cinematic film-noir world. Audiences move through the performance environment and follow the action at their own pace, encountering Shakespeare’s tragedy through physical storytelling rather than a conventional seated production.
The play is set in the Wiltshire manor house of Andrew Wyke, an immensely successful mystery writer. Wyke's home reflects his obsession with the inventions and deceptions of fiction and his fascination with games and game-playing. He lures his wife's lover Milo Tindle to the house and persuades him to stage a robbery of her jewellery. This proposal sets off a chain of events that leaves the audience trying to decipher where Wyke's imagination ends and reality begins. Shaffer said the play was partially inspired by one of his friends, composer Stephen Sondheim, whose intense interest in game-playing is mirrored by the character of Wyke, and by mystery writer John Dickson Carr, whose stories featured complex plots and seemingly "impossible" crimes.
The play interweaves survivors’ accounts of domestic violence on Native lands with a dramatized campaign to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. It follows Department of Justice employee Terri Henry and reservation police officer Dennis as jurisdictional limits obstruct protection for survivors and advocates work to secure federal legislation.
The play dramatizes the Dorak affair, following archaeologist James Mellaart after allegations that he stole or fabricated a valuable collection of Neolithic artifacts. It focuses on Turkish press efforts to recover the treasure and expose alleged corruption in Western archaeology.
Sly Fox is a comedic play by Larry Gelbart, based on Ben Jonson's Volpone (The Fox), updating the setting from Renaissance Venice to 19th century San Francisco, and changing the tone from satire to farce. The play revolves around the character of the very wealthy Foxwell J. Sly, and his indentured servant Simon Able. Sly has the town duped into believing that he is dying, and four citizens vie for his inheritance. Jethro Crouch is willing to will away his son’s inheritance to Sly on the promise that he receives Sly’s money after Sly has died; Abner Truckle solicits his wife to Sly under the impression that it will sway Sly to name him as his heir; Lawyer Craven defends the dignity of Sly in court after the Captain discovers him molesting Mrs. Truckle, for the same promise of riches; Merrilee Fancy, the most popular harlot in the bay town, finds herself in the family way and hopes to marry Sly for his wealth. None of them realize the trick, and even Able, Sly’s closest confidant and student, is unable to outfox the master of deception. It premiered on Broadway December 14, 1976 at the Broadhurst Theatre. Directed by Arthur Penn, the play featured George C. Scott, Bob Dishy, Hector Elizondo, Jack Gilford, Gretchen Wyler, and Sandra Seacat. Scott was succeeded by Robert Preston. According to his biography at tcm.com, Jackie Gleason was touring in the lead role of Sly Fox in 1978 when he suffered a heart attack and had to permanently leave the show, undergoing a triple bypass. The play was revived on April 1, 2004 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, again directed by Arthur Penn, featuring Richard Dreyfuss, Bob Dishy, Eric Stoltz, René Auberjonois, Professor Irwin Corey, Elizabeth Berkley, Rachel York, Peter Scolari, and Bronson Pinchot.
A motley group gathers in a seedy Southern California coastal bar: a troubled beautician and her lover, an alcoholic doctor, a short-order cook, the bartender, a washed-up screenwriter and a young traveler. Their individual confessional monologues form a kaleidoscopic portrait without a single dramatic arc.
Three former high-school friends gather after hours at Frank's remote repair shop for reasons only Frank seems to know. When Chad, a connected college athlete, arrives, the meeting ignites a long-simmering animosity.
Hortense seeks a new life beyond rural Jamaica, Gilbert dreams of becoming a lawyer, and Queenie wants to escape her Lincolnshire roots; their intertwined stories connect Jamaica and Britain against the history of empire, migration and racism.
Small Miracle is a 1934 play by Norman Krasna, presented on Broadway with Joseph Calleia in the featured role. Directed by George Abbott with a single setting designed by Boris Aronson, the three-act melodrama opened September 26, 1934, at the John Golden Theatre, New York. It continued at the 48th Street Theatre November 11, 1934 – January 5, 1935. On February 7, 1935, the play began a run at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, with Calleia, Joseph King and Robert Middlemass reprising their Broadway roles. It was Krasna's second play, written in the evenings while he was working as a Columbia Pictures contract writer during the day. He adapted the play for the Paramount Pictures film Four Hours to Kill! (1935).
Small Mouth Sounds is a dramatic absurdist stage play written by American playwright Bess Wohl. The play tells the story of six adults who run away from their hectic inner city life to a silent retreat in upstate New York. They then have to make peace with the silence of their own minds while trying to find ways to connect without words. The play is unique in that there is very little dialogue and requires the actors to express their emotions and feelings physically rather than verbally.
Smilin' Through is a 1919 play by Jane Cowl and Jane Murfin, written under a pseudonym, Allan Langdon Martin. Cowl also starred in the play in a double role and co-directed it with Priestly Morrison. Smilin' Through was produced by The Selwyns and opened at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway on December 30, 1919. It included in the cast Orme Caldara as Kenneth and Jeremiah Wayne, Henry Stephenson as John Carteret and Ethelbert D. Hales as Dr. Owen Harding. Scenic design was by Joseph Urban. The play was a popular hit and ran for 175 performances. It also played for a long run on the road, and was one of Jane Cowl's greatest commercial successes. The story is a sentimental romantic tale of a young Irish woman, Kathleen Dungannon. Her romantic attachment to Kenneth Wayne is opposed by her adopted father John Carteret, who bears the painful memory of his thwarted love for her aunt, Moonyean Clare. Moonyean visits John as a ghost. The roles of Kathleen and Moonyean were both played by Jane Cowl. The popular story was first filmed in 1922 by First National Pictures, and was later remade twice by MGM, in 1932 and 1941. In 1932, it was also made into an unsuccessful Broadway operetta, Through the Years, with music by Vincent Youmans. The title song of the operetta, however, became a hit. Smilin' Through is also the title of a 1919 ballad with lyrics and music by Arthur A. Penn. The creation of the song and play were independent but intertwined. According to Isidore Witmark in his history of the Witmark and Sons publishing house, Cowl's play was partially rewritten after the song was published, based upon the imagery of the lyrics. Both the title and the music of the song were incorporated into the play when it was completed and produced.
After years farming in Rhodesia, Thomas Freeman returns to his sister Rose's fashionable London home intending to find a wife. He discovers the parlourmaid Smith has more merit than the idle social set; after rejecting unsuitable matches, they agree to marry.
At a BDSM party in a New York apartment, college student Julie and aspiring artist John form a connection that develops into a disturbing struggle over power, consent, and sexual assault. Davies gives Julie a voice and survival that differ from Strindberg's Julie.
Smoky Cell is a thriller play by the British writer Edgar Wallace first staged in 1930. In America a group of detectives hunt down a notorious racketeer. It ran for 103 performances at Wyndham's Theatre in the West End from 16 December 1930 to 14 March 1931. The original cast included Finlay Currie, Percy Parsons, Charles Farrell, Harold Huth, Roy Emerton and James Carew, and was directed by Carol Reed. It marked Canadian actor Alexander Knox's London stage debut. It was an inspired by a visit Wallace had recently made to the United States, which also led him to write his even more successful play On the Spot the same year. In 1935, following Wallace's death, his former assistant Robert Curtis wrote a novel of the same title based on the play.
After returning to the family home, Annabel meets Alice, the former nurse to her late father, who claims her sister Miriam hastened his death and demands money. As the sisters confront their past and Alice’s blackmail, staged hauntings and a murder scheme turn the garden into the setting for a dark family thriller.
A theatrical anthology of short scenes and monologues inspired by Lee Friedlander's photograph of tourists at Mount Rushmore. The playwrights approach the monument from comic to tragic angles, probing patriotism, democracy, and the stories that frame a historical image.
During a record blizzard in a Vermont town, fifteen teenagers search for Eva, a mysterious girl who emerges from a snowbank. Through journal entries and encounters, their conflicting stories turn the search into a mystery that helps outcast Frida find acceptance.
A stage adaptation of the Brothers Grimm stories, centered on Princess Snow White and featuring Queen Brangomar, Prince Florimond, and the seven dwarfs.
A young man waits five years to marry his absent fiancée, rejecting a typist’s love. When his fiancée chooses another man and the typist asks him to wait again, his search for love unfolds through dreamlike encounters with time and death.
In drag as Mia Dolan, performer Fowlie presents her character's account of childhood in Boulder City, failed theater studies, and attempts to build an acting career in Los Angeles, ending with a solo dance after her boyfriend fails to appear.
A wealthy American shoe manufacturer who dislikes the English arrives in London and discovers that his son plans to marry the daughter of British aristocrats.
Three years after Visiting Mr. Green, Ross has become the elderly widower’s close friend and helps care for him with his nurse boyfriend. Their routine is disrupted by the arrival of Mr. Green’s granddaughter.
A handful of survivors in an abandoned building face a zombie apocalypse.
Manhattan gallery owners Barbara and David take in her eccentric mother after her sister leaves to help their daughter. The couple introduce her to nonagenarian artist Maurice Koenig, who offers to paint her portrait and brings unexpected happiness to her later life.
An illiterate millionaire tries to introduce his son into London society, while society works to repel the newcomer. Set in Victorian literary and theatrical bohemia, the comedy drama uses realistic dialogue, behavior and domestic detail to expose social pretensions.
In a satirical account of Socrates' trial, the philosopher is framed by the priest Anitus and a small group of corrupt Athenian officials. Voltaire portrays Socrates as a moral monotheist persecuted by religious authority, with his wife Xantippe and adopted children among the characters.
A three-act drama follows Socrates from a comic portrayal of his influence on Strepsiades and his son, through his trial for impiety and corrupting youth, to his refusal to escape before execution. Audience members may serve as jurors and vote.
An angel declares that Sodom will be destroyed unless its people can demonstrate one example of true love. Lia and Jean are put forward as the best evidence, but their fidelity erodes; divine judgment condemns the cities and humanity for failing to prove that a happy couple exists.
In a five-act satirical closet drama, King Bolloxinion authorizes sodomy in Sodom, and erotic disorder spreads through the court. The Queen dies of venereal disease; as demons and fire appear, the King resolves to retire and die with his favorite, Pockenello.
Kris Kelvin arrives at a space station cut off from Earth, where an unfamiliar planet is bringing memories to life. The crew confronts figures from their past, including Kelvin’s dead lover, while trying to understand the intelligence beneath them.
The play alleges that Winston Churchill condoned the 1943 death of Polish prime minister Władysław Sikorski in order to appease Stalin, and also examines Churchill’s support for the bombing of German cities.
Solomon Kaus, a Jewish inventor in seventeenth-century Paris, succeeds in building a water-powered machine but becomes the target of intrigues. He is driven insane and dies after his invention brings him before Cardinal Richelieu and into imprisonment.
Before his wedding, a man known as Guy visits four former girlfriends whom he mistreated, revisiting their relationships and the harm he caused.
Private detective Tom visits Angela, a sex worker he believes can expose the truth behind a wrongful conviction. Their former intimacy and her shifting identities complicate his search for evidence.
Interwoven stories spanning eight decades portray gay men in the United States, framed by a contemporary gay wedding. Episodes move among a 1932 Harlem nightclub, the 1969 Stonewall uprising, an AIDS hospital, an internet chat room and a piano bar.
Betty tries to tell Frank she is pregnant, but he is distracted by the prospect of fame as a magician. As guests arrive for dinner, crossed messages and DIY mishaps turn their home into a scene of escalating confusion.
During an evening church service, Reverend Eddie and his assistant Brother Lawrence address the audience as their congregation. The comedy mixes conspiracy theories, vaudeville humor, pop culture, and absurd events.
Somebody Knows is a 1932 mystery play by the British writer John Van Druten about an entertainer who is accused of strangling a prostitute. Following a court case there is not enough evidence to convict him, leaving the audience unsure of his actual guilt. It was staged at St Martin's Theatre in the West End, running for 43 performances between 12 May and 18 June 1932. The cast included Frank Lawton, Lawrence Hanray, Enid Stamp-Taylor and Cathleen Nesbitt. It was comparatively unsuccessful at a time when many of Van Druten's work's were enjoying commercial success. He attributed this to the fact that audiences expected a standard whodunnit while he was interested in developing a character study.
A long-married couple struggles with the distance between who they are and who they hoped to become. Encounters beyond their familiar relationship bring questions of intimacy, identity, and change into focus.
A couple visits the remote seaside house they bought to be alone together. The previous owner appears and seeks a closer relationship with the woman, prompting jealousy and latent paranoia in her partner; the house retains signs of its former inhabitants.
Someone Waiting is a 1953 thriller play by the British writer Emlyn Williams. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool before transferring to the Globe Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 156 performances between 25 November 1953 and 10 April 1954. The cast included Williams himself as well as Gabrielle Brune, Adrianne Allen, Gladys Henson, Campbell Cotts and John Stratton. It appeared at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway in February 1956 with Leo G. Carroll, Jessie Royce Landis and Norah Howard in the cast, but this lasted for only 15 shows. In 1957 it was adapted into the film Time Without Pity directed by Joseph Losey. In 1965 the play was staged by the Edinburgh Gateway Company, directed by Victor Carin.
Someone Who'll Watch over Me is a play written by Irish dramatist Frank McGuinness. The play focuses on the trials and tribulations of an Irishman, an Englishman and an American (Edward, Michael, and Adam) who are kidnapped and held hostage by unseen Arabs in Lebanon. As the three men strive for survival they also strive to overcome their personal and nationalistic differences. Related to this is each individual's own attempt to maintain sanity under the watchful eye of both captors and supposed comrades. At times the dramatic dialogue reaches a level of Beckettian absurdity, as even the audience is unable to draw a distinction between the characters' insanity and humour. We are made witness and accomplice to a humour based on something apparently ghastly, the loss of rationality.
A three-act comedy thriller turns on double-crosses, stolen jewels and murders both staged and real. Concealed hiding places and sliding panels keep characters entangled in escalating threats and deception.
The play is based on a 1957 novel by Mark Harris and deals with the experiences of an idealistic young soldier in a Georgia-based Army training camp during World War II and the Army captain who, by hospitalizing him, saves him from the war.
Set on the Provincetown wharfs, the autobiographical drama follows young playwright August as he grapples with unrequited love for another man.
A blocked playwright believes he can write only with his mother present. He asks his wife to impersonate her, then auditions and hires another woman to take the role.
A theatrical retelling of the last days of Jesus, depicting him as a vulnerable, self-doubting man confronting his nature and impending execution.
Three single, successful working women in Mumbai share a life of solidarity and freedom, but decades after aligning themselves with the women's movement they withdraw into private lives and embrace conventional marriage and family roles.
The two-act play takes place at the house of Aristobulo "Aris" Rivas on the outskirts of Madrid. Aris is separated from his wife and has a few children from assorted women, plus a pet crocodile in his bathroom. He has no money, and has invested his last few coins in a raffle ticket. Despite this all, he still believes it'll all work out.
Warned that childbirth may kill her, a young woman imagines the lives of two sons she might raise. Their childhood, love affairs and eventual involvement in war confront her with both the joys and losses that motherhood could bring.
Three female investigative reporters examine the New South Wales Labor government of the 1980s in Williamson’s satirical comedy.
Brothers Joseph Douaihy (29 years old) and Charles Douaihy (18 years old), who live in a run-down area of Nazareth, Pennsylvania, are left alone after their father dies of a heart attack two weeks after a car accident. That accident was caused by a prank by the local football star, Vin, who is sent to a juvenile detention center as punishment. Their family has emigrated from Lebanon and is distantly related to Kahlil Gibran. The brothers are forced to not only take care of themselves but care for their aging uncle, Bill. Joseph, who has mysterious pains, goes to work for Gloria, a book-packager, to get health insurance. Gloria tries to convince Joseph to write a book about his family, thinking this will return her to success in the publishing world. Joseph, who is gay, starts a romance with a reporter named Timothy. The play ends at Vin's trial which is reported on by Timothy. The Douaihy family has chosen to not try to stop Vin from playing football. Which is followed by Vin’s apology and him reciting Gibran’s Prayer to Saint Rafka. The court goes into recess and Timothy asks for photos from the family, where he is then lambasted by Joseph for trying to exploit them. An open mic portion begins and Gloria unexpectedly appears giving an emotional speech empathizing with the Douahiy family, and saying she feels as if she was a part of their family. Gloria then asks Joseph to drive her home in which she yells “Take a fucking taxi!” at her. A video of Joseph yelling at Gloria then goes viral leading to Gloria securing a book deal. The play uses the device of projections with "a title inspired by the chapter headings in Gibran’s The Prophet."
A Restoration verse tragedy based on the story of the Carthaginian noblewoman Sophonisba.
Sophonisba is a 1730 verse drama tragedy by the British writer James Thomson. The play is written in blank verse. It is based on the story of the Carthaginian noblewoman Sophonisba who committed suicide rather than be paraded in a Roman triumph at the end of the Second Punic War. The story has been made into a number of plays including Nathaniel Lee's restoration tragedy Sophonisba and Voltaire's later Sophonisbe. The original Drury Lane cast included Robert Wilks as Masinissa, John Mills as Syphax, Charles Williams as Scipio, John Roberts as Narva, Roger Bridgewater as Laelius and Anne Oldfield as Sophonisba.
During the Second Punic War, Sophonisbe, married to King Syphax of Numidia, is sought by her former fiancé Massinissa after he defeats and kills Syphax. Scipio orders her sent to Rome; Massinissa responds by killing Sophonisbe and then himself.
After poet Dawid Olivier's funeral in a South African town, his wife Allison and former servant and lover Marta recall their shared past. Their daughter Rebecca, whom Dawid hoped to reconcile with before his death, is left with unresolved anger and grief.
After a breakup, Stephen begins an affair with Christine, the girlfriend of his friend William, while trying to escape loneliness. Their relationship strains the friendship, and Stephen's path repeatedly crosses with Howard, a troubled former classmate whose life also changes.
Sorry You've Been Troubled is a mystery play by the British-American writer Walter Hackett. It premiered at His Majesty's Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 157 performances between 24 September 1929 and 1 February 1930. The original cast included Harold Huth, Hugh Wakefield, Anthony Holles, George Woodbridge, Diana Wynyard, Joan Marion, Marion Lorne and Kathleen Kelly.
A wealthy man must tell his family that he has a secret daughter. The family conflict raises questions of responsibility toward Indigenous communities and fear of losing inherited entitlement.
In a 1950s park, a poet challenges a 99-year-old woman gathering cigarette butts. As she recounts her youth as the beautiful Ono no Komachi, the present gives way to a ballroom in the past; the poet falls in love with her transformed beauty and dies, while she returns to the park and denies any knowledge of his body.
Set in Melbourne and New York, best-selling expatriate author Katie Best engineers a revenge scheme to bring down her most craven critic, Danny O'Loughlin.
A paired bill of two one-act plays: The House of Sleeping Beauties follows a narrator investigating the brothel that inspired a novella, while The Sound of a Voice is a ghost story inspired by Japanese films and folk tales.
Set in 1962 at a public school resembling David Hare’s own school, South Downs is a commissioned response to Terence Rattigan’s The Browning Version, written for the centenary of Rattigan’s birth.
On the Pacific island of Samolo, liberal Governor George Shotter and his wife Sandra navigate a conflict between British rule and independence. When Sandra's attempt to influence independence advocate Hali Alani turns into an encounter at his beach house, a political blackmail scheme follows; Hali ultimately shields her, and the factions reconcile.
Six women—three Black and three white—grow from childhood friends into adulthood amid racial conflict in Alabama. Black sisters Naomi and Ruth face different challenges from their white friends, while biracial Wanda-Sue is caught between their worlds.
In a 1964 Greenwich Village club, pianist Cosmé McMoon recalls his partnership with Florence Foster Jenkins, whose famously inaccurate singing drew a devoted following and culminated in a 1944 Carnegie Hall recital.
Cherokee lawyer Sarah Ridge Polson seeks to restore Cherokee Nation sovereignty and jurisdiction while confronting the legacy of her Ridge ancestors, who signed the Treaty of New Echota before Cherokee removal. The play moves between the 1830s and the present, connecting that history to Polson's work helping Native women facing sexual harassment.
In this political satire, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sends Kerala youth Cheerani Ravi back in time to kill Hitler. Seduced by power and Eva Braun, Ravi abandons the mission, assumes Hitler's identity, and becomes still more brutal.
A wealthy widower adopts a young man and opposes his marriage to a singer after learning of her illegitimate birth. He later discovers she is his daughter and that the woman he once believed faithless had remained true.
A group of young supermarket employees rehearses a play written by their store's security guard for a local competition. The embedded Mikado - The Sequel imitates Gilbert and Sullivan's opera and martial-arts films.
Spanish Love is a three-act play by Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart, who adapted an earlier Spanish play, María del Carmen by Josep Feliu i Codina. Producers Lincoln Wagenhals and Collin Kemper staged it at the Maxine Elliott Theatre on Broadway, where it opened on August 17, 1920. Although critics had reservations about the play, the production was a success, running for over 300 performances. However, the play's success was overshadowed by the tremendous popularity of The Bat, another collaboration between Hopwood and Rinehart that opened on Broadway the following week. The story focuses on Javier and Pencho, two young Spanish men who are contending for the love of Maria del Carmen. Pencho is arrested after he injures Javier in a fight. Maria agrees to marry Javier to stop the prosecution of Pencho, but Javier dies before the wedding.
Teenage Jake hides from bullies on a tower-block roof and writes fantasy stories. When the others arrive, his story draws them into its imaginary world, where they abandon their bullying roles and agree to meet weekly to tell stories together.
Presented through site-specific, audience-roaming vignettes spanning 1925 to 1935, the play reconstructs events around Frank Spano's murder and the hurried trial of his confessed killer, leaving audiences to assess who committed the crime and why.
At a 1919 unveiling of Edwin Booth's statue, the play stages the Booth brothers as ghosts and imagines whether John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln because of the Civil War or intense sibling rivalry. Their father Junius Brutus Booth's legacy shaped Edwin's disciplined acting career and John Wilkes's impatience for fame.
This immersive play follows von Buhler's investigation into the 1920 death of Ziegfeld Follies star Olive Thomas, staging several narrative paths through Paris cabaret and hotel settings. Audiences move among rooms representing the Follies, Cabaret du Néant, Ziegfeld's office, and the Ritz; the production combines drama with music, dance, burlesque, and aerial acts.
Two couples’ attempted infidelities begin a web of intersecting lives. A disappearance connects strangers through coincidences and concealed histories, exposing how distrust and longing shape their accounts of one another.
Speculation is a 1795 comedy play by the British writer Frederick Reynolds. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 7 November 1795. The original cast included William Thomas Lewis as Tanjore, John Quick as Alderman Arable, Joseph Shepherd Munden as Project, John Fawcett as Jack Arable, James Middleton as Captain Arable, William Claremont as Sir Fred Faintly, Charles Farley as Vickery, Mary Ann Davenport as Lady Project and Tryphosa Jane Wallis as Emmeline. The Irish premiere took place at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin on 22 February 1796.
Three misfit teenagers—a school-paper reporter, a gay student solicited online by the drama teacher, and an aspiring actress—join forces to expose the teacher’s predation. They stage a musical version of The Crucible involving time travel and Abraham Lincoln as part of their effort.
A stage portrayal of twins June and Jennifer Gibbons, based on Marjorie Wallace's book The Silent Twins.
Mrs Ashfield is at the market when she is approached by a handsome young nobleman who gives her a letter to deliver to her husband. When Mr Ashfield reads it, he finds that it is from his daughter Susan, and he is astonished to learn that their former servant-girl, the middle-aged woman Nelly, has just married Sir Abel Handy. The gardener Mr Evergreen arrives to tell them that his master, Sir Philip Blandford, has just returned from twenty years abroad to have his daughter marry the son of Sir Abel Handy, Robert. Mr Ashfield starts for Sir Philip's castle to receive Sir Abel and his son. Sir Abel arrives, encumbered by his inventions, and unrolls a plan of the castle, which his son will receive from Sir Philip as a dowry. Mr Ashfield points out the many problems with the tumbledown place, but the enterprising Sir Abel is untroubled, and mentions that he plans to further local agriculture by holding a ploughing match, so that his jack-of-all-trades son Robert can demonstrate his father's newly invented plough. Robert turns up, and his father asks him why he did not meet him in London. Robert says that he did not wish to disturb him on his honeymoon. He then playfully spars with Mr Ashfield. Two strangers, Morrington and Gerald, confer in a grove. The ploughman Henry, who is following them, overhears the sentence "The infant certainly died with its mother" which he has reason to think refers to himself: he has no knowledge of his own ancestry. He asks Mr Evergreen about this, but the gardener responds that he is sworn to silence, and warns him to avoid Sir Philip forever after. Robert Handy soliloquizes about his dilemma: whether to marry Miss Blandford (for money) or Susan Ashfield (for love). He encounters Mrs Ashfield, who is making lace, and wishing to demonstrate his skill at all tasks he sits down to show her the "Mechlin method", causing Sir Abel much embarrassment when he arrives with Miss Blandford. However, she is not bothered, and they are soon happily absorbed in conversation about London. After a few minutes, Mr Ashfield comes to tell his wife that their daughter has returned home with Lady Handy, and also to warn Sir Abel that his wife has "ordered" him to come too. At the house of the Ashfields, the parents embrace Susan and initially overlook Lady Handy, their former servant. They are puzzled by Nelly's makeup, which Mr Ashfield compares to the paint which he uses to identify his sheep. Susan leaves to prepare a room for Lady Handy. When Robert Handy arrives, his new stepmother curtsies to him and he tries to correct her manner of doing so. Sir Abel hands her a fan and, when she fans herself, Robert again tries to demonstrate the correct manner. She storms off. When Susan comes back into the room, Robert privately hands her a letter. A countryman turns up to tell them that the ploughing contest is about to begin. In the parlour, Mr and Mrs Ashfield discuss the letter they saw Robert give Susan. They are interrupted by Henry, who borrows Mr Ashfield's best plough for the contest, in the hope of meeting Sir Philip; then they see Susan crying as she locks away the letter she has received. In her absence, they unlock the box, but cannot bring themselves to read the letter, and put it back. When they ask her about it, she will only say that Robert had previously declared his love for her, and she was not unmoved, but that the letter was disgraceful to him. The contest is won by Henry, as Robert completely loses control of his horses, and Miss Blandford takes Henry's hand for the dance. Inside the castle, Mr Evergreen tells Sir Philip that Henry has agreed never to meet him. But when Sir Philip's daughter talks about the ploughing contest, she accidentally lets slip the fact that she is in love with someone other than Robert and, on meeting him, Sir Philip realizes that it is Henry. He demands Henry leave immediately and never return. Sir Philip tells his daughter some of the story of his past. As a young man on the Continent, he gambled all his possessions away to a masked man named Morrington; he began a new life, marrying a woman of humble birth, but the day after their wedding they received an anonymous packet containing ten thousand pounds. Twenty years later, his wife died, and his daughter received an offer of marriage from Sir Abel; when he returned to England he was surprised to discover that no-one claims his castle, and he wonders whether Morrington has died without claiming it, or simply awaits his return for the sake of inflicting a greater humiliation. Sir Philip meets Mr Ashfield and promises to forgive a 150-pound debt if he will turn out Henry. Mr Ashfield refuses. Morrington and Gerald turn up at the Ashfields' house and present a bond worth one thousand pounds to Henry, asking him to take it to Sir Philip to settle Mr Ashfield's debts, and accept the rest of its value for himself. But when Henry does so, he learns that Morrington was the man who ruined Sir Philip and he tears up the bond in Sir Philip's presence. The old man exclaims "Blandford" and Henry guesses that it is his original surname. Sir Philip says that he will say nothing more, ever, unless Henry leaves immediately. After Henry's departure, Robert comes and tells Sir Philip that his father is busy renovating the east wing of the castle. Sir Philip panics and demands that they leave immediately. He shows Robert a portrait of his brother, and confesses that he stabbed him twenty years before on discovering him kissing his fiancée: this was why he had fled to the Continent. Robert immediately goes to Susan Ashfield and asks for her hand in marriage. Sir Abel is astonished, but then Gerald approaches him and asks if he will pay five thousand pounds to be rid of his own tempestuous wife. Gerald, it turns out, was Lady Handy's first husband, whom she thought dead after his disappearance twenty years ago. Sir Abel accidentally sets fire to the castle during a science experiment. Henry rescues Miss Blandford, then rushes back to the ruins to search the east wing, where he finds a knife and a bloody cloth. He confronts Sir Philip, who confesses that Henry's father was the brother he thinks he murdered. At this point, Morrington enters the scene and uncovers his face to Sir Philip. "Morrington" is in fact Sir Philip's brother, who survived the attempt on his life, and revenged himself at the card table, only to be filled with remorse ever after.
Hollywood producer Bobby Gould and associate Charlie Fox hope to secure a film project, while Gould bets that he can seduce his secretary Karen. Karen urges him to back a challenging book adaptation, but Fox later exposes her own ambition, and Gould returns to the commercially safe project.
At a rented country house, imaginative Clarissa Hailsham-Brown finds a body and tries to protect her stepdaughter by hiding it and arranging a false alibi. A police investigation and a series of discoveries expose the real killer and a drug-dealing scheme.
At a mostly white Vermont college, Dean Sarah Daniels’ handling of a Puerto Rican student’s scholarship and racist notes received by a Black student expose the administration’s uncertainty about racism and Sarah’s own biases.
After entering a world of spirits, a young girl named Chihiro must find a way to save her parents and return home. This stage adaptation is based on Hayao Miyazaki's film.
A live spoof of slasher films, the show sends thirteen horror-movie stereotypes—a jock, a virgin, a class jerk, a bimbo and a nerd among them—into a series of gruesomely inventive deaths. White-painted scenery and costumes make the staged blood stand out.
The play explores the extraordinary life of Ira Frederick Aldridge (1807—1867), the first African American actor to achieve international success as a Shakespearean tragedian. The narrative spans from Aldridge's upbringing in New York City, the racial prejudice that prompted him to emigrate to England in 1824, and his ultimate rise to fame as he toured across Great Britain and continental Europe; earning critical acclaim and high honors for his powerful portrayals of Othello, Aaron the Moor, Macbeth, Shylock, and King Lear.
As civil war closes in, four women wait in a state residence for a dictator: his wife, her friend, a Western photojournalist and a translator. Repeated scenes shift perspective as their secrets emerge and the journalist discovers the translator is unreliable.
A Connecticut chicken farmer sets out to learn about the rich.
Schoolmaster Howarth invites shy French student Donald to his home for exam cramming over a weekend, unsettling his pregnant wife Joanna. Howarth's intense enthusiasm and plans involving his wife lead to domestic tensions and a farcical encounter with police.
Spokesong is set in two time periods. The first time period is 1970s Belfast, which focuses on the character of Frank who runs a bicycle shop founded long ago by his dead grandparents. This time period has a central love triangle between Frank, his girlfriend (the schoolteacher Daisy), and his half-brother (the leftist journalist Julian). Frank believes that the problems of the world he lives in are all connected to the automobile and that if man would return to exclusively using the bicycle to travel the world would be a better place. The second time period takes place 80 years in the past and is focused on Frank's grandparents, Francis and Kitty, while they are young. The Trick Cyclist floats between both time periods and acts as a master of ceremonies.
During the Easter Vigil, a narrator and Gabriel announce Christ the bridegroom. The foolish virgins, having spilled their lamp oil, plead with the wise and then the merchants for help; when Christ arrives, he sends them away and demons take them to Hell.
A dramatic monologue spoken by Spoonface, a seven-year-old autistic girl dying of cancer. The stage version adapts Lee Hall's 1997 radio play.
At a rural Irish fair, gossip and a hearing impairment distort a report until villagers falsely believe a murder occurred and an innocent man is arrested. Lady Gregory’s comedy uses dramatic irony to satirize gossip and the assumptions of both villagers and English magistrate.
In a repressive provincial town, adolescents struggle with puberty and sexuality while adults withhold basic knowledge and enforce severe discipline. Their discoveries lead to abuse, pregnancy, suicide, and punishment, as Wedekind challenges the culture that shapes their lives.
Anya Reiss relocates Wedekind’s drama to contemporary teenage life, following adolescents whose sexual curiosity and confusion collide with adult repression.
Spring Cleaning is a 1923 comedy play by the British writer Frederick Lonsdale. A man becomes convinced his wife is about to have an affair, and in order to shock her he hires a prostitute to come and live in their house. It premiered at the Eltinge Theatre in New York City on 9 November 1923 and at St Martin's Theatre in the West End on 19 January 1925. In 1932 the play was adapted into a British film Women Who Play directed by Arthur Rosson and starring Mary Newcomb, Benita Hume and George Barraud. The film generally followed the play with certain changes, largely due to censorship issues such as the prostitute being replaced by an actress.
Penniless divorcee Tiny Fox-Collier brings her son Tony to Ireland to marry him to the eldest daughter of her former flame Sir Richard Furze. Tiny is already in love with a stable hand, Tony falls for the younger daughter, and Tiny rekindles her relationship with Sir Richard.
In a small Mississippi town during the Great Depression, Heavenly Critchfield resists her family's pressure to marry wealthy Arthur Shannon and considers leaving with Dick Miles. Her and Arthur's entanglement with the troubled local girl Hertha ends in Hertha's death and leaves Heavenly alone.
In Bolton, patriarch Rafe Crompton tries to maintain authority as his children grow up and challenge the household's rules. The play follows the family as those tensions shift through generational change.
A stage adaptation of three Zora Neale Hurston stories: “Sweat,” “Story in Harlem Slang,” and “The Gilded Six Bits.”
In a Surrey household, thirteen-year-old Delilah becomes infatuated with Daniel, her parents’ twenty-one-year-old lodger, while her parents Nick and Vicky struggle with an affair and the collapse of their marriage. After Daniel reciprocates Delilah’s advances, the family confronts the consequences as she turns thirteen.
Squire Oldsapp is a 1678 comedy play by the English writer Thomas D'Urfey. Staged by the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theatre in London, the original cast included Thomas Betterton as Welfore, William Smith as Henry, John Crosby as Lovell, James Nokes as Squire Oldsapp, Anthony Leigh as Sir Frederick Banter, Samuel Sandford as Colonel Buff, Cave Underhill as Pimpo, Emily Price as Christina and Elizabeth Currer as Madame Tricklove.
Squire Trelooby is a 1704 farce by the writers William Congreve, John Vanbrugh and William Walsh. All were members of the Kit-Cat Club, and another member, Samuel Garth, wrote a prologue. The farce was inspired by the French play Monsieur de Pourceaugnac by Molière. In 1734 James Ralph wrote The Cornish Squire, a reworking of the play which was staged at the Drury Lane Theatre. It was considered a great success, and was followed by another version The Brave Irishman by Thomas Sheridan at Dublin's Smock Alley Theatre in 1744.
Hack writer Arthur has spent fifteen years on the opening line of a story about a man and a squirrel. His young secretary and collaborator Edmond develops competing scenarios, while their cleaning lady offers ideas that also descend into banality.
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