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Clear filtersIn a dramatic episode from the Mahabharata, Krishna serves as emissary between the Pandavas and Kauravas to avert war. Duryodhana and Arjuna seek his aid; Krishna offers his army to one side and his own noncombatant service to the other, and Arjuna chooses him as charioteer.
St Helena: a play in twelve scenes is a play by the English author R. C. Sherriff (notable as the author of the First World War drama Journey's End) and Jeanne de Casalis (who also researched it). It deals with the exile of Napoleon I on Saint Helena. In a production by Henry Cass, it premiered at the Old Vic on 4 February 1936 to poor reviews, but was rescued by a letter to The Times by Winston Churchill, calling it "a remarkable play" and "a work of art of a very high order"; though a West End transfer also proved unsuccessful.
Lieutenant O’Connor loves Lauretta, whose father forbids their match. With help from Dr Rosy, O’Connor disguises himself as the family’s servant and later a German quack, tricking the father into consenting to the marriage.
During a midsummer feast, Anne and other young people encounter the folklore and a magical flower that restores forgotten memories. The revelation of Anne's bond with Birk and her father's recovered will overturn her stepmother's inheritance scheme and bring the intended couples together.
A small theatrical company tours Hamlet while its actors’ backstage conflicts begin to mirror Shakespeare’s tragedy. The play combines backstage farce, a play within a play, and a murder mystery.
Stage Door is a 1936 stage play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman about a group of struggling actresses who room at the Footlights Club, a fictitious theatrical boardinghouse in New York City modeled after the real-life Rehearsal Club. The three-act comedy opened on Broadway on October 22, 1936, at the Music Box Theatre and ran for 169 performances. The play was adapted into the 1937 film of the same name, and was also adapted for television.
A Liverpool working-class comedy set around a bride's and groom's bachelor parties at the same disco, where the bride's ex-boyfriend's arrival prompts competing pressures over whether she should leave with him.
At a Liverpool disco, a bride and groom hold separate bachelor parties without knowing they are at the same venue. The bride's former boyfriend arrives, setting off conflict among the wedding party as they try to decide whether she should leave with him.
Staircase is a two-character play by Charles Dyer about an ageing gay couple who own a barber shop in the East End of London. One of them is a part-time actor about to go on trial for propositioning a police officer. The action takes place over the course of one night as they discuss their loving but often volatile past together and possible future without each other. Dyer began writing the play in the summer of 1963, while another of his plays, Rattle of a Simple Man, was enjoying a long West End run. He named his two characters Charles Dyer (after himself) and Harry C Leeds, which is an anagram of his name. The play was premiered on 2 November 1966 at London's Aldwych Theatre. Produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, it was directed by Peter Hall and starred Paul Scofield and Patrick Magee. The Broadway production, directed by Barry Morse, opened on 10 January 1968 at the Biltmore Theatre, where it played for 12 previews and 61 performances. It starred Eli Wallach and Milo O'Shea. O'Shea was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. In June 2021, Two’s Company revived the play at Southwark Playhouse, London. Reviewing it for Everything Theatre, Darren Luke Mawdsley called it "the perfect reminder that the freedoms enjoyed today can never be taken for granted". The play was profiled in William Goldman's book The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway.
An idealistic protagonist confronts the mechanized routine of office work. Williams reshapes material from his earlier stories into an optimistic work combining romance, fantasy, a play-within-a-play, and scenes by a lake.
After being sexually assaulted as a child, David Holthouse discovers decades later that the perpetrator lives nearby and considers confronting him through a plan for revenge.
On a Bavarian farm, the mistreated and intellectually disabled Beppi finds kindness in the much older laborer Sepp, who seduces her and becomes her self-appointed protector. When her parents discover the affair and she becomes pregnant, they debate forcing an abortion as labor begins.
During a severe drought, selector George Painter grows suspicious of his wife Mary and farmhand Jim Jackson. The strain of bush life and the couple's rising tensions build until thunder and rain break the drought.
The play explores the complicated life of British painter Stanley Spencer, who was played by Antony Sher in the play's London and Broadway debuts. Spencer was a twentieth-century painter whose work attempted to combine the sexual with the divine in contemporary English settings. His paintings frequently showed biblical scenes taking place in ordinary English villages, particularly Cookham, and often depicted or used figures inspired by his friends, relatives and lovers. Spencer married two different women; he left his first wife, Hilda Carline, an artist who put her ambition aside to make a home for him, to marry Patricia Preece, a defiantly unconventional lesbian who made her reputation as an artist by passing off the works of her lover, Dorothy Hepworth, as her own, and who was incapable of loving him. Much of the play revolves around his passionate attachment to both women.
At a charity committee meeting for a home for destitute actresses, a secretary tries to secure approval for necessary building repairs while self-involved performers turn the discussion toward their own fundraising ideas and fail to attend to his figures. After the chairwoman promises a donation and rushes away, the meeting dissolves without formally closing, leaving her dog behind.
Brooks Atkinson, writing for The New York Times, gave this description of the play: Somewhere in the northwest side of Chicago in the Polish district live the Dzieszienewskis, the mother being an immigrant, the children being assimilated Americans and ambitious. She is an unprincipled strumpet whose blood boils in the Spring. Taking America as they have learned it from notorious Americans, her children are versatile nincompoops. One son is a melancholy baseball player in the Texas League, another is studying to be a cheap politician, a third is president of the Killers Club in the State penitentiary, and the daughter is a chorus girl who dreams of Hollywood. The plot of the play revolves around the imprisoned son, who has escaped for a weekend in order to see his family, and incidentally, to kill the Polish politician who set him up eight years earlier. He plans on returning to prison before he is known to be missing.
In a chaotic future after a galactic dictator's fall, Captain Galatia 9 and her crew are sent to protect Glorianna, a leader whose survival could help establish a just society. Glorianna has been kidnapped by Galatia's nemesis Verloona Ti, and the rival crews' struggle may decide the universe's future.
Set in a Black Atlanta apartment building in the 1950s, the play follows intersecting lives as its characters navigate personal ambition, generational conflict, violence, intellect and survival under racial segregation.
Framed by Lunacharsky addressing young Communists, the drama follows Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and their allies from exile before the 1917 Revolution through the Civil War and Lenin's death. Their clashes over war, repression, and party power culminate in Stalin's succession.
In 1946, several friends gather in the house of James Conover in Washington, DC. James is about 60; with him are Spike MacManus, a long-time political reporter and Grant Matthews, in his 40s, a businessman and Katherine (Kay) Thorndike, late 30s. The Republicans have chosen Grant Matthews to run for President. Grant is estranged from his wife Mary, and he has become romantically involved with Kay Thorndike, a newspaper publisher. According to journalist-playwright Sidney Blumenthal "The play's events... allude to Wendell Willkie, the utility company head who became the surprise Republican candidate for president in 1940. 'This is a play about a businessman who is a dark-horse candidate.' " According to Gerald Bordman, "Many critics and playgoers saw more than a touch of the late Wendell Willkie in Matthews".
After his father’s death, think-tank founder Kwaku Mackenzie drinks as media interest fades and his staff fracture. He favors a young Oxford scholar over his grieving son, then publicly champions division within the Black community in a bid to regain influence, with shattering consequences.
This melodrama centers on Rusakov, a merchant modeled on a real acquaintance of Ostrovsky. It examines how even seemingly mild domestic tyranny can strip a person of individuality and judgment, with destructive consequences.
Steambath is the second play by American author Bruce Jay Friedman. It was first performed Off-Broadway at the Truck and Warehouse Theater where it opened on June 30, 1970, closing on October 18, 1970, after 128 performances. This play presents the afterlife as a steam bath, in which recently deceased souls (who may not in every case realize that they are dead) continue to obsess about the same petty concerns that obsessed them in their lives. Ultimately, they are cast into another room offstage, which is represented by a dark void, by God, the steam bath's Puerto Rican attendant, with the help of his assistant Gottlieb. The new arrival Tandy at first refuses to accept what's happened, and when he finally does he pleads to be allowed to return to his life. Steambath was controversial when first produced for its obscene language (which was softened for its television version), its satirical take on religion, and some brief nudity. Friedman claims to have been inspired to write the play in part because of a "bad experience with the food at a Chinese restaurant" that had him contemplating mortality.
Steaming is a 1981 play written by English playwright Nell Dunn first staged at Theatre Royal, Stratford East, in London. It won the 1981 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy (at the time known as the Society of West End Theatre Award for Best New Comedy). The play opened on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on 12 December 1983, running for 65 performances and ten previews. The cast included Judith Ivey, Pauline Flanagan, Lisa Jane Persky, Linda Thorson, and Margaret Whitton. Reviewing the production in The New York Times, Frank Rich praised Ivey's performance, and wrote "Though in no way an accomplished play, Steaming is still lightly enjoyable when it isn't preaching. The talk is often amusing and seemingly authentic... The American Steaming contains far more nudity than the London version, but it's handled un-self-consciously and adds verisimilitude where once there was prurient coyness." During 2010, Jally Entertainment toured Australia with the play, starring Val Lehman (best known for her role in TV serial Prisoner) and Alli Pope.
John Henry’s contest with a steam-powered hammer becomes an inquiry into the cost of labor and the making of folklore. The play connects his legend with the exploitation of prisoners.
The entire play takes place in the late 1980s, at Truvy's in-home beauty parlor in the fictional northwestern Louisiana parish of Chinquapin, where a group of women regularly gather. Act 1, Scene 1 Truvy Jones hires a young new stylist, Annelle Dupuy, who won't talk much about herself. Truvy and Annelle do the hair of Shelby Eatenton, a young nurse who is to be married that day, and her mother, M'Lynn Eatenton, a mental health counselor. They are joined by Clairee Belcher, the widow of the town's former mayor, and local grouch Ouiser Boudreaux. Shelby and M'Lynn bicker over the wedding preparations. Shelby, who has Type 1 diabetes, talks of how disappointed she is that she should not have children due to her health, and that she and her husband, Jackson, plan to adopt. Ouiser rails against M'Lynn's husband, Drum, and their disputes over their property line. Annelle breaks down and admits that her common law husband has abandoned her, taking most of her possessions. Truvy offers to rent out her garage apartment, as her twin sons will soon be leaving home. Act 1, Scene 2 It's Christmastime, and Shelby returns home for a visit. She informs M'Lynn that she is pregnant. M'Lynn can't bring herself to be joyful as she knows a pregnancy could be devastating to Shelby's health. She accuses Shelby of ignoring her doctor's advice and Jackson of caring more about having a son than his wife's well-being. Shelby insists everything will be fine. Meanwhile, Clairee has purchased the local radio station; Annelle, after a brief period as a party girl, has started attending church and making gaudy arts and crafts; and Shelby attempts to set Ouiser up with Owen Jenkins, an old flame. Act 2, Scene 1 Shelby's son, Jackson Jr., was born three months premature, but is thriving. Clairee relates how her brother has become estranged from her nephew after he came out as gay. Ouiser is seeing Owen, but insists that they are only friends. Annelle has become a fundamentalist Christian, much to the consternation of her new boyfriend, Sammy DeSoto. Shelby and M'Lynn, to the horror of the other ladies, relate how the stress of pregnancy has caused Shelby's kidneys to shut down and she is now on dialysis. M'Lynn will be donating a kidney to her daughter the next day. Act 2, Scene 2 The organ transplant failed and Shelby fell into a coma during reparative surgery. M'Lynn relates how they were forced to disconnect Shelby's life support, and how Jackson and Drum couldn't stand to be in the room as she passed, even though 'men are supposed to be made of steel.' M'Lynn becomes furious at Annelle’s religious explanation. She breaks down screaming and crying for her daughter, wishing she had something to hit. Clairee grabs Ouiser, instructing M'Lynn to 'slap her!' This causes everyone to start laughing and breaks the tension. Annelle, who is pregnant, asks permission to name her child Shelby.
After eight years apart, Stella and Fernando reunite, but Fernando's abandoned wife Cecilia and their daughter Lucie arrive as well. The 1776 version ends with the three adults agreeing to live together; Goethe's later 1806 tragic revision ends with Fernando's suicide and Stella's death.
The play concerns eight individuals from disparate backgrounds and with differing motivations who attend the same weekly tap dancing class in a dingy North London church hall. Despite the students at first treating the classes as social occasions, and showing little co-ordination, they later develop a level of skill and cohesiveness. The dance routines are the background for the focus of the play, the relationship and interaction of different people.
In 2005, Harold returns to his father's old house and recounts the history of their fraught life together. Through flashbacks, Albert's interference leads to Harold's accidental killing of him; later, as ghosts, father and son reconcile and resume their quarrels.
In 1976, a famous British-American rock band composed of drummer Simon, married couple bassist Reg and keyboardist/vocalist Holly, and longtime partners guitarist/vocalist Peter and vocalist/tambourinist Diana are in the early stages of recording their next album in a recording studio in Sausalito, California. They are assisted by two sound engineers, Grover and Charlie. Despite the significant - and scarcely precedented - studio support, the members' individual conflicts coupled with mounting tensions among the group, and eventually the engineers, causes the recording process to take around a year.
Stevie Smith's life is told in direct address, dialogue, flashbacks and narration by a friend called The Man. The play focuses on her relationship with her aunt, past romances and late fame, as she escapes a dull suburban life through poetry.
In Tiryns, Stheneboea’s advances are rejected by Bellerophon, whom she falsely accuses to her husband Proetus. Sent to kill the Chimera, Bellerophon survives, returns, feigns love to learn of another plot, then takes Stheneboea on Pegasus and throws her to her death before confessing to Proetus.
Two sisters refuse their father's demand that they remarry while their husbands are away at sea. When the brothers return wealthy, the family reunites; meanwhile their slave Stichus celebrates his homecoming with a feast, dancing and his companions.
The show takes place at the LeVay Home, in Edgartown, as it is a point of contention where the family resides. The family was the first black family on the island, and the show deals with race, class, and gender politics.
Blind Vietnam veteran David cannot reconcile himself with his battlefield actions and returns to a family that cannot accept his disability or understand his experience. The play parodies the idealized Nelson family of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as prejudice and self-hatred surface beneath their facade.
Constantinople, a dead newborn who speaks from the stage, tries to reach his grieving mother Morgan through Dolores, a pregnant teenager who does not want to keep her child, and Elena, the midwife who delivered him; the women negotiate loss, responsibility, and their futures before mother and son part without hearing one another.
Across a year of chance encounters at a railway-station refreshment room, married housewife Laura Jesson and married physician Alec Harvey begin a secret love affair. Guilt and impending separation end their relationship; their parting is interrupted by a talkative friend, and Laura remains behind at the station.
The first act takes place on a winter morning in 1967, after Hector’s burial, as Phil and Spanky reminisce about their factory days; Spanky is now a rock star and married to Lucille. The second act is set five years later, after Phil’s mother has been buried, with Lucille now married to Phil.
When Bruce agrees to sell the Warren family farm, his sister Hester resists leaving their father’s house. During their conflict, Ruth and Bruce go out into a snowstorm and die.
Pregnant Abby and Stuart try to repair their troubled relationship, but the play’s nonlinear structure reveals the consequences of a later tragedy behind their attempts to piece their shared history together.
Through five Aboriginal characters, the play depicts forced separation from family and the search for safety and belonging across different lives and generations. Its nonlinear scenes shift among childhood, adulthood and memory.
The drama is set in a rural town in County Kerry, Ireland, that is overrun by a Hollywood film crew. The play centres around two friends, Charlie Conlon and Jake Quinn, employed as extras on the film. Charlie has aspirations to get his script made into a movie. Jake has recently returned from New York and is mesmerised, along with everyone else, by the star of the movie, Caroline. Caroline is a famous, beautiful American movie star that fails to ever successfully conquer the Irish accent. Caroline and the other American crew members do not attempt to accurately portray the town and people and only care about finishing the movie on time. Most of the locals are initially excited at the opportunity to be a part of a major film and distracted by the novelty. However, as the film continues they begin to feel abused and the glamour begins to wear off. After a night in the pub, a local teenager, Sean Harkin, is humiliated by Caroline and thrown out into the street for trying to socialise with her. The first act ends when Sean commits suicide by drowning himself with stones in his pockets. The second act continues the story with the town devastated by the loss. Jake begins to blame himself for not reaching out to the boy and Charlie tries to console him and let him not lose hope. Conflict arises when the film crew is hesitant about letting the extras have a break for Sean's funeral. It becomes even more apparent to the town that the film crew has their own agenda and no concern for the people. Jake and Charlie decide to rewrite Charlie's script and make it about Sean's story instead. They present their idea to the American director who in turn tells them the story is not romantic or commercial enough.
After Sara and Callie share their first kiss while walking through New York’s West Village, an angry bystander attacks them. Sara is gravely injured and falls into a coma; Callie and Sara’s former boyfriend Peter try to help her recover. Told in alternating scenes before and after the assault, the play traces the women’s relationship and the people around them.
A narrator with traces of the author looks back at the Nazi era, contrasting a Slovenian family in Carinthia that collaborates with the Germans with another that resists them.
In a mixed-media performance, Hugh Hughes weaves the story of his father's death together with the death of a rabbit he once cared for, using the linked accounts to explore mortality, perspective and storytelling. He also addresses and interacts with audience members.
Strafford is an 1837 tragedy by the British writer Robert Browning. It portrays the downfall and execution of Lord Strafford, the advisor to Charles I shortly before the English Civil War. The play was first staged at the Covent Garden Theatre in London's West End. The original cast included William Macready as Strafford, William Harries Tilbury as Lord Savile, John Vandenhoff as John Pym, George John Bennett as Denzil Hollis, John Langford Pritchard as Benjamin Rudyard and Helena Faucit as Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle. It was one of the last plays to premiere in the pre-Victorian era when William IV was still on the throne.
Lewis and his wife Morgan are trying to start a family in a cramped flat when his former university friend Waldorf returns after years of travelling. Waldorf’s carefree life unsettles Lewis, and after their new acquaintance Steph challenges their assumptions about sex, the two men agree to make a gay porn film together. The dare tests their friendship, marriage and ideas about sexual identity.
Across the 1920s to the 1960s, Robert Moses uses political influence to build parks, bridges and expressways in New York. As residents organize against his later schemes, the play examines his power and the competing visions of the city.
During the Christmas holidays, three brothers return to their Midwestern family home to keep their widowed father company. Their discussion turns to Matt, the oldest, who has moved back in with their father and appears to lack ambition despite insisting he is content.
The setting is the parlor of Senator Cromwell's mansion on Nob Hill, San Francisco, during October 1896. The storyline takes place amidst the election campaign for that year, in which William McKinley was elected president. Act I Scene 1 (Afternoon of a sunny October day.) The residents of the Senator's mansion, the Cromwells, the Hamptons, and the two servants, appear one-by-one to introduce the audience to their personalities. Lillian says Vincent has asked her to ride on a tandem bicycle with him. The Senator forbids it unless a chaperone is there. When Mrs. Gimble and Mrs. Worley arrive, the Senator mistakes them for suffragettes and rails at them. But they have come because Addie is a leader in their anti-suffrage group. Vincent also visits, as the household scurries about awaiting Matthew's return from Washington, D.C. to campaign. When Matthew does appear, he brings a surprise: his wife of two weeks, the famous suffragette, Clarissa Blynn. (Curtain) Act I Scene 2 (The following Sunday morning.) Ling stops Lillian from pedaling off to distribute fliers for a suffrage meeting. Her parents are horrified at the bloomers she wears, given to her by Clarissa. "Bifurcated abominations" bellows the senator, who blames Matt for not controlling his wife. Clarissa upsets Addie by revealing her anti-suffrage group is partly funded by a liquor ring and the Barbary Coast brothels, who fear being shut down if women could vote. Julia is less surprised, and Clarissa asks why she does not support suffrage? (Curtain) Act II Scene 1 (Tuesday afternoon.) Mrs. Gimble, Mrs. Worley, and Addie hold a meeting of their anti-suffrage group in the parlor, which Julia also attends. They are surprised when another woman comes to join them: a Mrs. Sparker. A businesswoman of sorts, the other women are flummoxed as they gradually begin to comprehend the nature of her industry. Big Tillie, as her gals call her, is opposed to suffrage for practical economic reasons. As she explains, Addie and her friends grow more dismayed with their new ally, while Julia is almost amused. After the meeting breaks up, Addie and Julia are ready to switch sides, but fear their husbands' wrath. Clarissa tells them about the old Greek play Lysistrata, and suggests a modern revival right there in the Senator's home. (Curtain) Act II Scene 2 (Some hours later.) Gifford and Matthew commiserate with each other over the unpredictability of female behavior down through the ages. Addie attempts to entice Gifford in order to refuse him, but eventually finds it more effective to withhold his racing news and cocktails. Julia, wiser from the start, serves up the Senator a meager supper of unappetizing plainness, "for his health". Lillian, given an adulterated version of the strategy, torments Vincent, while Matthew gets the full carrot-and-stick approach from Clarissa. The situation comes to a crisis when the bumbling Mayor Tibbett pays a call and inadvertently lets slip the Senator's unwitting financial involvement in the Barbary Coast businesses. (Curtain) Act III (Still later.) (Curtain)
In a small Georgia town, a Black woman becomes pregnant by a white boy; the drama also includes the lynching of a Black man. The production places racial violence and interracial relationships at the center of its stage story.
The plot centers on Nina Leeds, the daughter of a classics professor at a college in New England, who is devastated when her adored fiancé is killed in World War I, before they have a chance to consummate their passion. Ignoring the unconditional love of the novelist Charles Marsden, Nina embarks on a series of sordid affairs before determining to marry an amiable fool, Sam Evans. While Nina is pregnant with Sam's child, she learns a horrifying secret known only to Sam's mother: insanity runs in the Evans family and could be inherited by any child of Sam's. Realizing that a child is essential to her own and to Sam's happiness, Nina decides on a "scientific" solution. She will abort Sam's child and conceive a child with the physician Ned Darrell, letting Sam believe that it is his. The plan backfires when Nina and Ned's intimacy leads to their falling passionately in love. Twenty years later, Sam and Nina's son Gordon Evans is approaching manhood, with only Nina and Ned aware of the boy's true parentage. In the final act, Sam dies of a stroke without learning the truth. This leaves Nina free to marry Ned Darrell, but she declines, choosing instead to marry the long-suffering Charlie Marsden, who proclaims that he now has "all the luck at last." The meaning of the title is suggested by the aging Nina in a speech near the end of the play: "Our lives are merely strange dark interludes in the electrical display of God the Father!"
In 1943, the United States holds secret experiments involving the USS Eldridge, hoping to use a force field to turn the ship invisible and undetectable to the Germans. However, the ship is instead transported to the Abyss, where most of the crew are killed by strange humanoid creatures. In 1959, the Creel family – consisting of Victor, his wife Virginia, and their children: older son, Henry, and younger daughter, Alice – move to a new home in Hawkins, Indiana. Henry is tormented, mentally disturbed and in possession of remarkable psychokinetic abilities. Henry struggles to make friends upon joining Hawkins High School; despite that, he quickly forms a connection with Patty Newby, daughter of the school principal. Patty convinces Henry that his powers are not evil, and that he should be able to control them and use them for good. Henry creates a "vision" for Patty, where she can express herself through song while being supported by everyone around her. They form a romantic bond, meeting each other every day after school, and eventually kiss. Meanwhile, Joyce Maldonado attempts to put on a school production of Dark of the Moon. While in the attic alone, Henry is overcome by the influence of a shadowy presence – his mind enters what he calls "the battlefield", from where he proceeds to kill several animals, including Claudia Yount's cat Prancer. Henry becomes haunted by visions of a humanoid monster; he is terrified that he will be made to kill Patty. Following this, Patty's adoptive brother Bob teams up with Joyce and her friend James Hopper Jr. to investigate the animal killings. Patty convinces Henry to use his powers to track down her biological mother. As he does this, and while inside the void, he loses control and is once again visited by the monster. This frightens Patty, and when her father walks in and witnesses the scene, he is attacked and almost killed (by Henry controlled by the presence). Patty is able to encourage Henry to fight back by telling him that she believes he is good and that she loves him. Henry responds that he loves her too and is able to end the situation, but not before Patty's father is blinded and seriously injured. Mr. Newby is sent to the hospital, and Henry's mother Virginia sends Henry to Dr. Martin Brenner. It is revealed that she was supplied with drugs by Brenner; under the influence of these drugs, Virginia told Brenner everything about her son. When Mr. Newby wakes up, he tells Patty that Henry saved him from the monster. Mr. Newby draws a picture of the shadowy entity on a piece of paper and gives it to his daughter: it's the Mind Flayer. Brenner takes Henry to Hawkins National Laboratory, where the two discuss the past: It is explained that Brenner's father was the captain and sole survivor of the USS Eldridge experiment, who returned to the normal world with significant injuries and a unique blood type; the elder Brenner later revealed the truth about these events on his deathbed. Dr. Brenner later established the Nevada Experiment, an attempt to reproduce what had happened to the Eldridge. One of Brenner's fellow scientists defected and became a spy for the Soviet Union and stole key technology and transported it to a Nevada cave. At this time, a very young Henry and the Creels lived nearby, in Rachel, Nevada. While exploring the Nevadan caves and playing with a spyglass, Henry stumbled across the stolen technology when it unexpectedly activated, transporting him and the defecting scientist to Abyss. In Abyss, Henry was exposed to the influence of the shadowy entity. Though Henry returned home after 12 hours, he now possessed a unique blood type and had a changed personality. Brenner was later able to track Henry down thanks to Henry dropping his spyglass in the caves. Henry, using a sensory deprivation chamber, shows Brenner a humanoid creature through the Void. Brenner sees this creature displayed on a screen, and Henry convulses. Brenner then tries to force Henry to kill a prisoner, but Henry breaks down and ends up stabbing two guards. After this, Henry tells Brenner that he can let him go. Brenner understands that the boy is devoted to someone and therefore cannot kill; later Brenner realizes that this person is Patty and vows to find and kill her. Henry returns home, but senses that his family is not happy about his return. Using his powers, he reads his mother's thoughts and understands that she wants to send him back to Brenner. Henry gives in to the shadowy entity's influence; while possessed, he kills Virginia and Alice before falling unconscious, with Victor also falling unconscious. Awakening in dazed confusion some hours later, Henry walks to Hawkins High School to save Patty from Brenner, where the performance of Dark of the Moon is about to begin. Atop the stage rafters, Henry reunites with Patty only to be interrupted by Brenner, who appears on the other side of the stage. Brenner says that Patty is his weakness, and Patty tells Henry not to listen to him. As Henry struggles for control, he informs Patty that he managed to find her birth mother, a singer at the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas. Feeling overwhelmed, the shadowy entity once again takes control of Henry, and Henry throws Patty off the rafters, seemingly killing her. Brenner takes Henry back to Hawkins Lab, Patty is taken to the hospital, and Victor Creel is accused of the murder of Virginia and Alice based on Joyce, Bob, and Jim's assumptions about the animal killings. In 1963, Joyce and Jim bid farewell to each other as the latter is shipped off to fight in Vietnam. Some years later, an older Henry is back at Hawkins Lab and is restrained. Using the Void, Henry discovers that Patty survived her fall and was discharged from the hospital, though now needing to walk with a cane. Henry observes her in Las Vegas, where she meets her mother backstage after a performance at the Stardust. Patty and her mother recognize each other and embrace. Brenner informs Henry that the blood transfusions administered to the test subjects have been successful, with Brenner freeing Henry from his restraints as a reward. In the Rainbow Room, Henry is introduced to Eleven, one of the children. Lightning flashes and the silhouette of Vecna appears on the back wall.
Shane flees his family in Goulburn for Sydney’s Kings Cross and tries to build a surrogate family. His attachment to a city lover becomes entangled with his fear of his brother, while the older Peter, facing his mother’s imminent death, becomes a maternal protector to Shane.
Christine visits British Malaya to see her fiancé, then suffers a breakdown after hearing of atrocities committed by British forces during the Malayan Emergency. Set entirely in his house, the play unfolds through conversations and shared accounts.
Strangers on a Train is a play written by Craig Warner and is based on the 1950 novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. The show made its West End and world premiere at the Gielgud Theatre on 19 November 2013, following previews from 2 November.
Strathmore is an 1849 historical tragedy by the British writer John Westland Marston. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in London on 20 June 1849. The original cast included Charles Kean as Halbert Strathmore, Henry Hughes as Sir Rupert Lorn, Henry Howe as Bycefield, John Baldwin Buckstone as Roland, Ellen Kean as Katharine Lorn and Fanny Fitzwilliam as Janet. It is set during The Killing Time amidst repression of the Scottish Covenanter religious movement in the seventeenth century.
A group of characters with little in common unite around a cause. Their journey play examines how seemingly harmless people can be drawn, in particular social and historical circumstances, into extreme beliefs and violent action.
Strawhead is a play by American writers Norman Mailer and Richard Hannum about Marilyn Monroe. The play is an adaptation of Mailer's 1980 book Of Women and Their Elegance, an imagined memoir told in Monroe's voice. Strawhead takes place in New York City during the last few days of Monroe's life in August 1962. During this period, she is alone with her memories, most of which revolve around her time living in New York City. The play is primarily composed of a collection of imagined interviews, that never took place, between Monroe and Mailer during Monroe's last hours. The play made its off-Broadway debut in January 1986, with Mailer's wife Norris Church in the cast and his daughter Kate Mailer in the role of Monroe.
The last in his Vietnam War trilogy that began with The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Sticks and Bones, it focuses on the interactions and personal conflicts of a group of soldiers preparing to ship out to fight in the Vietnam War in 1965. Among them are middle class African American Roger, upper class Manhattanite Richie, who is struggling with his sexual orientation, conservative Wisconsin country boy Billy, and fearful loose cannon Carlyle, a streetwise Black man. In charge of their barracks are abrasive alcoholic Sgt. Cokes, who already has served overseas, and aggressive Sgt. Rooney, who is anxious to get into combat.
Street Scene is a 1929 American play by Elmer Rice. It opened January 10, 1929, at the Playhouse Theatre in New York City. After a total of 601 performances on Broadway, the production toured the United States and ran for six months in London. The action of the play takes place entirely on the front stoop of a New York City brownstone and in the adjacent street in the early part of the 20th century. It studies the complex daily lives of the people living in the building (and surrounding neighborhood) and the sense of despair that hovers over their interactions. Street Scene received the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Saikat, a second-generation Bangladeshi English boy, navigates school in Birmingham and trips to Bangladesh while caught between family expectations and competing cultural identities, trying to understand where he belongs.
After her fiancé abandons her in a speakeasy for accepting an Italian opera singer’s attention, a young woman spends the night in the singer’s upstairs apartment. His attempted seduction turns into an unexpectedly tender comedy of manners, and she later breaks with her fiancé.
During a prolonged factory strike, trade-union representatives and company directors clash over demands and the workers’ hardship. Company chairman John Anthony and strike leader David Roberts refuse to yield, while their families and the board are drawn into the dispute.
Act I (The Columbia dorm room of Frank and Dick. Afternoon.) Ralph Thorne meets Frank Skinner at the empty room. Thorne has bet $3000 with Skinner that Columbia will lose the upcoming game. He based the bet on Strongheart being sidelined due to injury, but now Strongheart has recovered enough to play. Thorne assures Skinner the bet will hold, because he will pass Columbia's signals to the opposing coach, Farley. Skinner asks why Dick Livingston bet $3000 on Columbia to win. Thorne explains it was because he had beaten Dick in poker for that amount, then suggested the bet as a way to recoup his losses before his father found out. Thorne liked the same girl as Dick, and wanted to nobble his rival. Skinner hightails it when Dick, Frank Nelson, and other students come back to the room to prepare for entertaining. Billy tells Reade he needs to keep his class notes a little longer. Strongheart arrives, to be mockingly salaamed by the others as their great chief. Strongheart is undisturbed; he knows this is the boys' way of compensating for their secret admiration of his academic and athletic prowess. Dorothy Nelson, Mollie Livingston, and their friends arrive for afternoon tea. With Mrs. Nelson to chaperone and remedy the amateur attempt to make tea, the get together is a success. Meanwhile, Thorne has switched the list of signals Dick wrote out with his own copy. Excited to meet the exotic Strongheart at last, Maud Weston flusteredly asks him how he likes America. Strongheart replies that his people like it just fine. (Curtain) Act II (Columbia football team's locker room at the Polo Grounds. Two days later.) At halftime in the big game, the Columbia players straggle into the locker room, having failed to score. Their coach Buckley encourages and excoriates them, pitching his speech to the team as a whole, while tailoring asides to individual players. At Strongheart's suggestion he blisters the freshman Ross. Strongheart knows that righteous anger will stimulate Ross to inspired effort. Their conference is interrupted by Farley's entrance, holding the list of signals he was given anonymously. Farley wants a fair game, so he has brought the list to Buckley. Strongheart sees the list is in Dick's handwriting, but he himself is accused of the treachery by Thorne. Frank as captain decides to bench him for the second half. Strongheart stays in the locker room with Tommy Nash, who has been injured. He looks out the window to follow the game, describing it for Nash, until at last his triumphantly exclaims "We win! We Win!". (Curtain) Act III (The library of the Nelson family home. Evening of the same day.) At a formal victory celebration, the boys dance with the girls in the Nelson's ballroom, while the library serves for more clandestine rendezvous. Molly advises a worried Dorothy to marry Strongheart if he asks, and don't let his race stop her. Dick asks Frank's permission to propose to his sister Dorothy, since their father is dead. Frank readily gives it. Billy accuses Molly of having sent the signals list he gave her to Farley. Strongheart clears up that misconception, but Molly will not accept Bill's apology yet. Strongheart asks Dorothy for the next dance, but explains they will have to sit it out, since the government won't allow him to dance. Strongheart tells Dorothy of his love for her, and she asks him to come back tomorrow for her answer. Strongheart confronts Thorne over the signals list, but is distracted by his asserting Frank and Dick will deny him a chance with Dorothy. Thorne is right; Frank and Dick are incensed when Strongheart says he has proposed to Dorothy. The call him a traitor, and Dick further accuses him of betraying the team. Even when Strongheart reveals the list is in Dick's handwriting, Dick says he stole it. When Dorothy chides her brother for discourtesy, he holds her back as Strongheart leaves their house, saying he will return for her answer tomorrow. (Curtain) Act IV (Same as Act III. Afternoon of the next day.) Billy and Molly make up and he proposes. The team has gathered and Strongheart proves that Thorne sent the list to Farley, then prevents the others from attacking him. Thorne exits, ostracized from the team. The other team members congratulate Strongheart then go with Frank to have some dinner, but Dick hangs back. He apologizes to Strongheart for his harsh words of last night, but says they cannot be friends. Even so, they shake hands. Billy returns to hear Strongheart softly say "And I thought I was one of them". The Butler now announces a visitor to see Strongheart. Black Eagle has come from the West: Strongheart's father has died, and his people now require him to return home. As they have paid for his post-graduate work, he feels obligated to obey their wishes. He informs Black Eagle that he may be bringing Dorothy as his wife, but is startled when the elder reacts as negatively as Frank and Dick. Black Eagle is angry that Soangataha would choose a woman not of his own people for a wife. He says how can you ask a white woman to live as we do? Dorothy has overheard his words. She proclaims her love for Strongheart and will go with him, but he realizes he cannot ask this of her. They agree to part, despite their love. Left alone, Strongheart raises his hands overhead and prays for help from the Great Spirit of his people, saying he is alone in a desert. (Curtain)
An experimental dramatic poem abstracting plot into structure and archetypal characters, designed to address existential pain and fate associated with Euripides.
An experimental dramatic poem abstracting plot into structure and archetypal characters, designed to foreground the austerity associated with Aeschylus.
An experimental dramatic poem abstracting plot into structure and archetypal characters, designed to address the ironic and psychological elements associated with Sophocles.
A stage adaptation of Terry Trueman's young adult novel about Shawn McDaniel, a fourteen-year-old with severe cerebral palsy whose inner life is unknown to those around him. The story centers on his family's response to his condition and his fear that his father may try to end his life.
Three fathers send their sons to university: Philomates attends lectures, while Acolastus and Acrates drink and gamble. Acrates is injured in a brawl, and Acolastus impregnates the innkeeper’s daughter and must marry her. The five-act comedy presents temptations of student life.
A documentary-style history play follows the political and diplomatic events leading to the 2003 Iraq War, mixing verbatim speeches and meetings with imagined private conversations. An ensemble portrays more than 40 public figures across events from George W. Bush’s election in 2000 through the war’s aftermath in 2004.
Stunning is a dramatic stage play written by American playwright David Adjmi. The play tells the story of sixteen-year-old Lily, who lives in a Syrian-Jewish community in Brooklyn with her much older husband. Her worldview changes after an unlikely friendship with her African-American maid.
In a contemporary reimagining of The Seagull, struggling playwright Con stages a new work at his mother's country home as tangled attractions link his aspiring-actress girlfriend Nina, his actress mother Emma and novelist Trig. After Nina leaves with Trig, Con and their friends confront grief, art and the ending of the play itself.
At Joe McCarthy High, Jim and Judy pursue one another while their queer friends Neechee and Kimberly fall in love with them; the teenagers' pursuit of conformity deepens their alienation.
Wild, a young man traveling to America with two friends, meets Jenny Caroline at an inn and hides that he is the son of her family's enemy. The arrival of Captain Boyet, whose father and family are bound up in an old feud, sets off duels and revelations before reconciliation allows the couples to pair off. The play's impassioned individualism helped give its name to the Sturm und Drang movement.
A ceremonial allegorical drama honoring Saint Wenceslaus and Bohemia. It opens with a dispute between Prince Václav and the Prince of Kouřim, resolved by Václav through wisdom rather than force; the three-act work chiefly praises religious devotion and fortitude.
A group of aimless twenty-somethings in their New Jersey hometown spend the night together after the return of Pony, a former classmate who has become a successful musician. His visit strips away their excuses and exposes the dead-end quality of their lives.
A solitary urban wanderer delivers songs, stories, and spoken-word reflections drawn from encounters around Toronto. Biblical imagery and popular culture intersect in a portrait of isolation, belief, and the search for human connection.
In 1928 young Sol Ginsberg joins a Madison Avenue advertising agency. Formerly a radical idealist his philosophy changes to money as being the culmination of the American Dream. He starts to compromise his former ideals to advance his career, risking losing the faith of his childhood sweetheart and in himself.
Such Things Are is a 1787 comedy play by the British writer and former actress Elizabeth Inchbald. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 10 February 1787. The original Covent Garden cast included William Farren as Sultan, John Quick as Sir Luke Tremor, William Thomas Lewis as Mr Twineall, Alexander Pope as Mr Haswell, Joseph George Holman as Elvirus, William Macready as Mr Meanright, James Fearon as Zedan, James Thompson as First Keeper, William Cubitt as Second Keeper, Isabella Mattocks as Lady Tremor. The Irish premiere took place at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin on 16 April 1787.
A contemporary retelling of Romeo and Juliet follows two teenagers from rival families in a small British town. Six actors improvised from a prepared story grid, presenting the story through Twitter posts and supporting online media.
In a run-down 1980s London boxing gym, trainer Charlie develops two young Black boxers, Leon and Troy. Troy rebels, moves to the United States and returns with a manipulative manager; meanwhile Charlie's racism forces Leon to choose between boxing and a relationship with Charlie's daughter. Their paths finally meet in the ring.
In 1936, in the Garden District of New Orleans, Mrs. Violet Venable, an elderly socialite widow from a prominent local family, has invited a doctor to her home. She talks nostalgically about her son Sebastian, a poet who died under mysterious circumstances on the fictional island of Cabeza de Lobo, not (as it is sometimes assumed) in South America, by referring to Catharine's return "from Europe" aboard the Berengaria, an Atlantic liner. During the course of their conversation, she offers to make a generous donation to support the doctor's psychiatric research if he will perform a lobotomy on Catharine, her niece, who has been confined to St. Mary, a private mental institution, at her expense since returning to America. Mrs. Venable is eager to "make her peaceful" once and for all by erasing her memories of Sebastian's violent death and his homosexuality; Mrs. Venable is especially adamant that Catharine stop talking about the latter, in order to preserve her late son's reputation. Catharine arrives, followed by her mother and brother. They are also eager to suppress her version of events, since Mrs. Venable is threatening to keep Sebastian's will in probate until she is satisfied, something Catharine's family can't afford to challenge. But the doctor injects Catharine with a truth serum and she proceeds to give a scandalous account of Sebastian's moral dissolution and the events leading up to his death, how he used her to procure young men for his sexual exploitation, and how he was set upon, mutilated, and partially devoured by a mob of starving children in the street. Mrs. Venable lunges at Catharine but is prevented from striking her with her cane. She is taken off stage, screaming "cut this hideous story from her brain!" Far from being convinced of Catharine's insanity, however, the doctor concludes the play by stating he believes her story could be true.
Student Sasha befriends Val, a wealthy man whose gifts and apparent generosity conceal a past as a gangster and pimp. Her sister Chloe and Val's nemesis Ashley warn her, but Sasha's self-delusion allows the relationship to grow until a crisis forces her to acknowledge the danger and end it.
A jōruri and kabuki historical drama follows Sugawara no Michizane, renamed Kan Shōjō, after a rival’s false treason accusation leads to his exile. His loyal retainers protect his family and resist the schemer Fujiwara no Shihei, making sacrifices to preserve the minister’s line and honor.
In an enigmatic one-act, two detectives investigate a possible suicide at the home of jazz musician Niles, whose body is represented by a chalk outline with its face and fingerprints removed. The investigation overlaps with silent, ritualized actions between Niles and Paulette; the detectives ultimately arrest Niles for faking his suicide, while two musicians produce discordant music.
A trilogy set in a luxury Swiss hotel suite, where British, American, and German guests encounter the same Italian waiter across A Song at Twilight and the double bill of Shadows of the Evening and Come Into the Garden, Maud.
In Yoshiwara, Sukeroku provokes people to draw their swords in search of the blade belonging to his father's killer. The pursuit reveals the identity of his enemy and the brothers' connection to the vendetta.
A three-act comedy based on the story Garrick Médecin. Rather than portray David Garrick historically, the play takes the then-contemporary Shakespearean actor Barry Sullivan as its subject, renaming him George.
A mother searches eastern Japan for her kidnapped son. At the Sumida River, a ferryman tells her of a child’s death and the memorial prayers being held for him. Recognizing her son’s story, she joins the prayers and briefly sees his ghost.
Summer Brave is a play by William Inge, a revision of his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1953 play Picnic. Set in Independence, Kansas, a small town in Kansas in the early 1950s, it focuses on Hal Carter, an attractive young stranger who drifts into town just before the annual Labor Day celebration and sets off a chain of events that prompts various residents to reflect on the present and contemplate an unpromising future.
After a nuclear world war, Britain has reverted to a barter-based rural society. An elderly man and his family receive American, Soviet, and Indian visitors who plan an industrial plant using local chalk, but the visitors become captivated by the peaceful community and abandon the project.
Summer and Smoke is set in Glorious Hill, Mississippi, from the "turn of the century through 1916", and centers on Alma Winemiller, a highly strung, unmarried minister's daughter, and the spiritual romance that nearly blossoms between her and John Buchanan Jr., a young doctor who grew up next door. She, ineffably refined, identifies with the Gothic cathedral, "reaching up to something beyond attainment"; her name, as Williams makes clear during the play, means "soul" in Spanish; by contrast Buchanan, a doctor and sensualist, defies her with the soulless anatomy chart. By the play's end, Buchanan and Alma have traded places philosophically. She has been transformed. She throws herself at him, saying "she doesn't exist any more, she died last summer — suffocated in smoke from something on fire inside her". But he has changed, he is engaged to marry a respectable, younger girl, and as he tries to convince Alma that their relationship was indeed a "spiritual bond", she realizes that it is too late to rescue it. In the final scene, Alma accosts a young traveling salesman in the park and follows him to enjoy the entertainment at Moon Lake Casino.
Sensitive teenager Donald Fenway feels trapped by his self-absorbed Southern mother and his shoe-company executive father, who wants him to abandon college plans for menial work.
In a Melbourne housing estate in 1962, fourteen-year-old Lewis uses fantasies of alien invasion to make sense of adolescence and the changes around him. His father’s return and his friend Dulcie’s secret unsettle the family, while Lewis’s memories frame a three-act coming-of-age story about identity, sexuality, prejudice and change.
After seventeen summers working as sugar-cane cutters, Roo and Barney return to Melbourne for their annual layover with Olive and Nancy. With Nancy married and a strained friendship, financial troubles and a new suitor reshaping the group, Roo asks Olive to settle down; she rejects marriage, and the men leave before the season can continue.
The aging personification of Summer summons the officers of his realm to account before making his will. Personified seasons and figures from pastoral and court life frame a morality-play allegory with satire, song and spectacle, bridging the interlude and masque traditions.
Summer, 1976 is a Broadway play written by David Auburn. The story follows two women living in Ohio who become unlikely friends over playdates with their respective young daughters during the summer of 1976, the American Bicentennial. It began previews at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on April 4, 2023, with an opening date set for April 25.
A portrait of Russia’s bourgeois summer residents, the play depicts a society at leisure while social changes gather around it. Its ensemble of characters inhabits a world reminiscent of Chekhov’s.
Summertime is a comedy play by the British writer Louis N. Parker. It ran for 52 performances at the Royalty Theatre in London's West End between 30 October and 13 December 1919. The original cast included Fay Compton, C. Aubrey Smith, Cyril Raymond, Arthur Pusey, Mary Brough and Madge Stuart. Compton plays an Australian woman visiting Devon who manages to arrange four different marriages. One review criticised the "stagey and artificial" Devon depicted in the play, comparing it unfavourably to the portrayals of the county in the works of Eden Phillpotts.
A play for voices follows people of varied ethnic and social backgrounds in a South London community as their lives intersect and sometimes come into conflict. Inspired by Under Milk Wood and by de Bernières’s years living above a shop in Earlsfield.
A young woman from Albany visits her brother in New York, determined to protect her virtue. After an encounter on a crowded bus, a small lie about her new friend grows into a tangle involving her fiancé, brother and friend.
In a Florida island saloon beside a hospital for convalescent air-force crews, battle-stressed fliers and the women connected to them face psychiatric treatment and troubled relationships. The two-act drama unfolds through intersecting vignettes about the effects of war and the men's lives before service.
In Shanghai, Chen Bailu—a student who became a courtesan—lives in a luxury hotel supported by a wealthy banker. People from bankers and clerks to students, workers, prostitutes and underworld figures revolve around her. When her benefactor faces bankruptcy, Chen takes her own life; the play depicts a society marked by exploitation and suffering.
The play starred Ralph Bellamy as Roosevelt. Others in the cast included Henry Jones as Louis Howe, Mary Fickett as Eleanor Roosevelt; Anne Seymour as Sara Delano Roosevelt and, in his Broadway debut, James Earl Jones. Bellamy repeated his role in the film version of the play. Campobello Island was Roosevelt's summer home in New Brunswick, Canada. Early scenes in the play's actions take place there, where we see Roosevelt afflicted with paralysis of his legs, before the play's story shifts to Roosevelt's home in New York City, where he struggles to overcome the paralysis. The play ends with the 1924 Democratic National Convention speech, which catapulted him back into politics after an absence of several years. The Scenic and Lighting Design were by Ralph Alswang; the costumes by Virginia Volland.
In Odessa’s Jewish quarter, mob boss Benya Krik confronts his philandering father Mendel, whose affair and threat to disinherit his family provoke his sons to violence. The family arranges a dowry for Dvoira and an abortion for Mendel’s pregnant mistress, then celebrates her engagement as if order has been restored.
A grotesque black comedy about Pope Celestine V’s brief reign, revisiting motifs from Peter Barnes’s earlier plays.
A kabuki adaptation of One Piece’s Paramount War saga follows Luffy’s attempt to rescue his sworn brother Ace from execution, joining Whitebeard’s battle against the Navy at Marineford.
The play focuses on the relationship between despondent Arthur Przybyszewski, a former 1960s radical who owns a rundown donut shop in Chicago's Uptown, and Franco, his energetic but troubled young African American assistant, who wants to update the establishment with lively music and healthy menu options. Dialogue scenes are separated by soliloquies in which Arthur discusses his past and reminisces about the city as it was in his younger years.
After twenty years together, Sam and Tusker take a road trip following Tusker’s diagnosis of early-onset dementia. They revisit loved ones and shared memories while confronting the changes ahead in their relationship.
A satirical drama about Captain James Cook's visit to Tahiti.
In a café, Bill and Betty's conversation repeatedly restarts whenever one responds negatively and a bell rings. Through successive attempts, they revise their views and become compatible companions.
Three members of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry travel from Cornwall’s mines to the fields of Flanders, where South African troops teach them to surf.
A tragedy loosely based on the life of the Parthian general Surena, who defeated the Romans at Carrhae.
Suspect is a 1937 mystery thriller play by the British authors Edward Percy and Reginald Denham, written under the pen name Rex Judd. It ran at the St Martin's Theatre in London's West End for 84 performances between 16 February and 1 May 1937. The West End cast included Peter Murray-Hill, Campbell Gullan, David Horne, Mary Morris, Jean Cadell and Doris Lytton. It is a murder mystery set at a country house in Cornwall. It first appeared on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre in 1940. It was adapted several times for television. In 1939 it was adapted by the BBC for a television film of the same title and featuring a number of the original cast. Further BBC television films followed in 1946 and 1958. In addition a 1952 episode of the American show Broadway Television Theatre was based on the play.
Suspense is a 1930 play by the Irish writer Patrick MacGill. Set during the First World War it focuses on a small group of soldiers who are aware that the Germans are building a mine under their trench and have to sit waiting for the enemy to detonate it. It ran for 64 performances at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End. The cast included Robert Douglas, Roland Culver and Gordon Harker. It was produced by Reginald Denham. The same year it was adapted into a film Suspense directed by Walter Summers and starring Cyril McLaglen, Jack Raine and Hay Petrie.
In the surviving first-act scenes, poet Falk asks the young Svanhild to serve as his muse for a summer of eroticism and poetry; she refuses his increasingly disturbing advances. The unfinished comedy explores love as an inspiration for poetry and marriage as an end to creativity.
Two sisters, the dominant Constance and frail Amy, live in a derelict house in the Australian bush; Amy's son Christian returns after disappearing as a teenager. Seymour conceived the nightmare drama amid fears that radioactivity could produce mutations, as a warning about science creating monsters that destroy themselves.
A short drama about an elderly actor, extending Chekhov’s interest in theatrical life.
The play portrays a meeting between a parole officer and two ex-convicts, and three women who were childhood friends and had worked in the same factory. in Reading, Pennsylvania. There are a group of friends that work for the steel factory, named Tracey, Cynthia and Jessie. Tracey is a middle-aged white woman. She loves to hang out at the bar with her friends and she has a gruff kind of humor. She cannot stand the way Reading has been changing over the years. Her friend Cynthia is a black woman who also loves to hang out with her friends at the bar and is a hardworking woman in the factory. She is on and off with her husband, Brucie, who is addicted to drugs. During the play, Cynthia applies and is hired for a managing job at the plant which causes tension. Jessie, another worker at the factory, is not so happy with how her life has turned out and has a problem with alcohol abuse. This is shown in many of the bar scenes. Stan, the bartender, used to work at the plant, but he was injured in a factory accident. Oscar, the busboy at the bar, is Colombian and is not acknowledged often by the patrons. Some characters use xenophobic slurs towards Latinos and show him that he isn't welcome in the Olstead factory. Jason is a white man who is Tracey's son. His best friend is Chris, Cynthia’s son. They both work at the factory and worry that they will be laid off. They both are arrested for assault and are released eight years later. Nottage shifts in time, switching scenes and showing events of eight years earlier. Variety quotes the bartender, Stan, as warning the other characters that "You could wake up tomorrow and all your jobs are in Mexico", to which the characters respond with lethargy and disbelief. Variety described Nottage as going into "the heart of working-class America". Reviews of the play have described the characters as representing blue-collar workers who voted in Donald Trump as president. The play also examines the disintegration of a friendship, after two of the women – one white, one black – apply for the same management job. The latter character gets the position, but soon the company moves jobs to Mexico. The trade union goes on strike, and company management locks out the workers. The management/worker division begins to separate the friends, and racial tensions separate them further.
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