And No More Shall We Part
After decades of a loving marriage, Pam’s illness forces her to make a decision that will change both her and Don’s lives. Together they struggle, with humor and pain, to begin saying goodbye.
Plays
8284 shows
Clear filtersAnd Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens ...
Candy Delaney, a successful interior decorator and landlord who is transgender, navigates his private life.
And Then There Were None
Eight guests arrive at an isolated island mansion, where a gramophone recording accuses them of past crimes and they begin dying one by one. Christie’s stage version changes the novel’s ending: two characters are innocent, survive the ordeal and reunite.
And Then They Came for Me
A multimedia ensemble work combining recorded interviews with Anne Frank's friends and survivors Ed Silverberg and Eva Schloss with live actors recreating scenes from their lives. It joins oral history, drama and remembrance.
And Things That Go Bump in the Night
In a vaguely apocalyptic future, a family confined to its basement turns on one another through suspicion, threats and cruel games. When idealistic visitor Clarence arrives, they try to destroy his hope, while the irritable grandfather remembers a less fearful past.
And This Was Odd
And This Was Odd is a 1951 comedy play by the British writer Kenneth Horne. It was a reworking of an earlier play Wasn't It Odd that had first been staged at the Intimate Theatre in Palmers Green in 1940. It involves an elderly lady who uncovers her family's secrets while supposedly ill in bed. It ran for 54 performances at the Criterion Theatre in London's West End. The cast included Raymond Huntley, Peter Hammond, Avice Landone, Mary Jerrold and Mignon O'Doherty. It was directed by John Clements.
And Yet They Paused
A Mississippi church congregation waits for Congress to pass an anti-lynching bill while learning that Joe Daniels has been accused of murder. They witness his lynching; news of the killing finally moves a senator to insist that the bill pass.
And a Nightingale Sang
During World War II in Newcastle, Helen Stott’s family muddles through home-front life. Her younger sister Joyce vacillates over marrying Eric before he is posted abroad, while Helen hides her own romantic frustration and the elders pursue their diversions; the family mistakes a kettle whistle for an air raid.
And the Big Men Fly
To rescue his failing football team, coach J.J. Forbes and assistant Wally recruit the powerful but reluctant Achilles Jones from the country. They manipulate his rivalry with neighbors to keep him playing, until he learns of their lies and chooses to return to the farm after the team forces a drawn grand final.
And the Soul Shall Dance
On neighboring farms in Depression-era California, the Murata family meets Oka’s newly arrived daughter Kiyoko and the troubled Emiko, who longs to return to Japan. As the Japanese American families navigate poverty, racism and immigration restrictions, Masako witnesses Oka’s abuse of Emiko and the adults’ differing hopes for life in America; Emiko’s dancing to a nostalgic song exposes the force of homesickness and longing.
Anda
During the Eichmann trial, prosecutor Nohi Carmi argues over whether Auschwitz survivor Anda Freund should testify. Political officials seek to suppress her testimony because of her and her family’s political history, while Carmi’s colleagues debate the prosecution’s ethical duty to hear survivors’ stories.
Andha Yug
On the final day of the Mahabharata war, survivors on both sides blame one another for the devastation. Ashwatthama unleashes the Brahmastra in revenge, while Krishna stands as the play's moral center; the tragedy ends with Krishna's death.
Andher Nagri
A Mahant warns two disciples to avoid a city where everything costs the same and virtue and vice receive equal treatment. One disciple stays for the cheap food and is caught in a chain of absurd blame after a goat dies beneath a merchant's collapsed wall. The king's attempt to find someone to execute for the death ultimately leads him to order his own hanging, satirizing autocratic rule and incompetent justice.
Andorra
Andri, raised as the Jewish son of a teacher in a town steeped in prejudice, is gradually misled about his parentage. When the neighboring Blacks invade, the townspeople’s complicity leads to his death and the family’s ruin.
Andria
Pamphilus loves Glycerium, who is pregnant with his child, but his father Simo is arranging his marriage to Philumena. The cunning slave Davus schemes to stop the wedding, yet his plan backfires and leaves Pamphilus in danger of betraying Glycerium and his friend Charinus. When Crito arrives and reveals that Glycerium is the daughter of Chremes's lost brother, Chremes consents to her marriage with Pamphilus and Philumena is free to marry Charinus.
Androboros
In a hidden room beneath the governor's mansion, a secret society plots to seize the colony. Its members are duped into disguises as they attempt to seduce the governor and kidnap him, exposing the conspirators and driving them from town.
Androcles and the Lion
The Christian tailor Androcles removes a thorn from a lion's paw. Later condemned to die in the Colosseum with other Christians, he is reunited with the lion, who recognizes and spares him; Androcles then persuades the animal to spare the emperor, who ends the persecution.
Andromacha
This lost Roman tragedy follows Andromache after the Trojan War. Surviving fragments include her lament over Troy’s destruction and fragments concerning the deaths of Astyanax and possibly Polyxena; the fragments cannot be arranged into a complete plot.
Andromache
Andromache, enslaved after the Trojan War, takes sanctuary with her son Molossus when her master's wife Hermione and Menelaus threaten them. Peleus saves them; Orestes takes Hermione and arranges Neoptolemus's death, while Thetis reveals the survivors' futures.
Andromana, or The Merchant’s Wife
Andromana, the Prince of Iberia’s commoner lover, becomes queen and stepmother when the king marries her after her husband’s death. After the prince rejects continuing their affair, she engineers his imprisonment and death, then kills the king, his friend, and herself.
Andromaque
Orestes seeks to recover Andromaque's son Astyanax, while hoping Hermione will leave Pyrrhus and return with him. Hermione longs for Pyrrhus, who desires Andromaque. Andromaque agrees to marry Pyrrhus to save her son but plans to die afterward; Pyrrhus is killed by Orestes' men, Hermione takes her own life and Orestes goes mad.
Andromeda
Chained to a rock as a sacrifice to appease Poseidon, Andromeda laments her fate to the responding echo. Perseus arrives after defeating Medusa, falls in love with her and defeats the sea monster; after further conflict with her father, the story likely ends with Athena announcing their marriage and future as constellations.
Andromède
In this verse tragedy, Andromeda is chosen as a sacrifice to the sea monster Cetus. Perseus kills the monster, while Phineus plots against him with Juno's aid; in the final act the characters ascend to heaven and become gods. The original staging used elaborate machinery and special effects.
André
Dunlap's fictionalized tragedy presents the American debate over whether to spare or hang British officer Major John André, with the decision's human and political consequences at its center.
Andy Warhol's Pork
Based on Warhol’s recorded conversations with people in his circle, the play presents B. Marlowe, a voyeuristic Warhol stand-in, and an abrasive group of associates including Amanda Pork and drag performer Vulva. Their gossip, sexual exploits, and scandalous behavior are staged in a setting combining Marlowe’s studio, Pork’s bedroom, and Max’s Kansas City.
Anfitriões
A one-act Portuguese auto reworks the Amphitryon myth by adding a comic character and emphasizing that love can affect even immortal gods. It uses Portuguese redondilha menor and switches to Castilian in the slave Sósia's speech.
Angel City
Playwright Rabbit Brown is recruited by two Hollywood producers to rescue their eight-million-dollar film and save them from bankruptcy. One producer's green rash, a metaphor for greed, eventually spreads to Rabbit as well.
Angela's Kitchen
Paul Capsis tells the story of his grandmother Angela, who left Malta with her five children in 1948 to make a new life in Sydney, alongside his own return to Malta to reconnect with his family past. Beginning at a kitchen table, the autobiographical piece unfolds into a family history and tribute to Angela.
Angelo, Tyrant of Padua
A historical drama about Angelo, the podestà of Padua, set in northern Italy.
Angels Fall
After a nuclear accident in New Mexico, two couples shelter at a Catholic mission while awaiting news. The group includes a disillusioned professor, his younger wife, a wealthy widow and her younger lover, alongside a priest and his Native American foster son, whose plans for their lives are suspended as they wait to learn whether the crisis will be resolved.
Angels in America
Set in New York City, the play takes place between October 1985 and February 1986. The first part begins at a funeral, where an elderly rabbi eulogizes the deceased woman's entire generation of immigrants who risked their lives to build a community in the United States. Soon after, the deceased's grandson, Louis Ironson, learns that his lover Prior Walter, the last member of an old stock American family, has AIDS. As Prior's illness progresses, Louis becomes unable to cope, and he abandons Prior during a health episode that lands him in the hospital. Prior is given emotional support by their friend Belize, a hospital nurse and ex-drag queen, who separately also deals with Louis's self-castigating guilt and myriad excuses for leaving Prior. Joe Pitt, a Mormon Republican clerk in the same judge's office where Louis holds a word-processing job, is offered a position in Washington, D.C. by his mentor, the McCarthyist lawyer and power broker Roy Cohn. Joe hesitates to accept due to his agoraphobic, Valium-addicted wife Harper, who refuses to relocate. Feeling adrift and undesired by Joe, Harper retreats into drug-fueled escapist fantasies, including a dream where she crosses paths with Prior even though the two of them have never met in the real world. She confronts Joe about his deeply-closeted homosexuality, which he views as a sin. Torn by pressure from Roy and a burgeoning infatuation with Louis, Joe drunkenly comes out to his conservative mother Hannah, who reacts by changing the subject and hanging up the phone. Concerned for her son, she sells her house in Salt Lake City and travels to New York. After Joe confesses his homosexuality to a drug-addled Harper and leaves her, she flees their apartment and wanders the streets of Brooklyn, believing she is in Antarctica. Joe sets out to look for her, but follows Louis to Central Park, where they tentatively begin an affair. Meanwhile, Roy Cohn discovers that he has advanced AIDS and is dying. Defiantly refusing to publicly admit he is gay or has AIDS, Roy instead declares he has liver cancer. Facing disbarment for misappropriating money from a client, Roy is determined to beat the case so he can die a lawyer in good standing, and he attempts to position Joe in the Department of Justice to ensure the case is quashed. When Harper disappears and Joe refuses his offer, Roy flies into a rage and collapses in pain. As he awaits transport to the hospital, he is haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, whom he prosecuted in her trial for espionage, and who was executed after Roy illegally lobbied the judge for the death penalty. Prior begins to experience intense dreams and visions as his health worsens. He hears the voice of an angel telling him to prepare for her arrival, a flaming book erupts from the floor during a medical check-up, and he receives visits from the ghosts of two ancestral Prior Walters, informing him that he is a divine prophet. Prior does not know if these visitations are hallucinations caused by an emotional breakdown or if they are real. At the end of Part One, a glorious winged Angel crashes through Prior's bedroom ceiling, addresses him as "Prophet", and proclaims that "the Great Work" has begun. The second part begins with a speech given by the world's oldest living Bolshevik, Aleksii Antedilluvianovich Prelapsarianov, addressing a crowd in Moscow in December 1985. He condemns the reforms proposed by Mikhail Gorbachev, decrying the notion of progress without political theory and declaring that the only way forward is to not move. At the funeral of a friend, a shaken Prior relates his encounter with the Angel to Belize. After revealing the presence of a mystical book underneath the tile in Prior's kitchen, the Angel reveals to him that Heaven is a beautiful city that resembles San Francisco, and God, described as a great flaming Aleph, created the universe through copulation with His angels, who are all-knowing but unable to create or change on their own. God, bored with the angels, made mankind with the power to change and create. The progress of mankind on Earth caused Heaven to suffer earthquake-like tremors and physically deteriorate. Finally, on the day of the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, God abandoned Heaven. The Angel brings Prior a message for mankind—"stop moving!"—in the belief that if man ceases to progress, Heaven will be restored. Since the night of his vision, his health has once again started to decline. Belize believes that Prior is projecting his own fears of abandonment and death into an elaborate hallucination, but Prior suspects that his illness is the prophecy taking physical form and that the only way the Angel can force him to deliver her message is for him to die. Roy lands at the hospital in the care of Belize, where his condition rapidly declines. He manages to use his political clout to acquire a private stash of the experimental drug AZT at the expense of withholding the drug from participants in a drug trial. Alone in the hospital and fighting disbarment, Roy finds himself increasingly isolated, with only Belize, who despises him, and the ghost of Ethel for company. Prior goes to a Mormon visitors center to research angels, where he meets Hannah, who is volunteering there and taking care of Harper, who has slowly returned to reality but is now deeply depressed. Harper and Prior share a spark of recognition from their earlier shared dream, and witness a vision of Joe and Louis together. Louis is aghast to learn that Joe is a practicing Mormon and, regretting his actions and resistant to the intensity of Joe's infatuation, begins to withdraw from Joe. He begs Prior's forgiveness, which Prior angrily refuses, and Prior, who knows about Louis's affair with Joe from his vision, becomes deeply hurt that Louis is attempting to move on. Joe visits Roy, who is near death, and receives a final paternal blessing from his mentor. However, when Joe confesses he has left Harper for a man, Roy rejects him in a violent reaction of fear and rage, ordering him to return to his wife and cover up his indiscretion. Joe returns to Harper, and they have an unsatisfying sexual encounter, which prompts Harper to realize their marriage is over. Prior, accompanied by Belize, jealously confronts a confused Joe at work, but the encounter descends into chaos when Belize recognizes Joe as Roy's protegé. Belize informs Louis about Joe's connection with Roy, whom Louis despises. Louis, as a result, researches Joe's legal history and confronts him over a series of hypocritical and homophobic decisions Joe himself wrote. The confrontation turns violent, and Joe punches Louis in the face, ending their affair. Ethel Rosenberg watches Roy suffer and decline before delivering the final blow as he lies dying: He has been disbarred after all. Delirious, Roy seems to mistake Ethel for his mother, begging her to comfort him, and Ethel sings a Yiddish lullaby as Roy appears to pass away. However, with a sudden burst of energy, he reveals that he has tricked her, viciously declaring that he has "finally [made] Ethel Rosenberg sing". He then suffers a stroke and dies. After Roy's death, Belize forces Louis to visit Roy's hospital room, where they steal his stash of AZT for Prior. Belize asks Louis to recite the Kaddish for Roy. Unseen by the living, Ethel guides Louis through the prayer, symbolically forgiving Roy before she departs for the hereafter. After his confrontation with Joe, Prior begins following him obsessively, neglecting his health. He collapses from pneumonia after following Joe to the Mormon center, and Hannah rushes him back to the hospital. Prior tells her about his vision and is surprised when Hannah accepts this, based on her belief in angelic revelations within Latter-day Saint theology. At the hospital, the Angel reappears, enraged that Prior has rejected her message. Prior, on Hannah's advice, wrestles the Angel, who relents and opens a ladder into Heaven. Prior climbs into Heaven and tells the council of Angels that he refuses to deliver their message, as without progress, humanity will perish, and he begs them for more Life, no matter how horrible the prospect might be. He returns to his hospital bed, where he awakens from his vision with his fever broken and his health beginning to recover. He makes amends with Louis but refuses to take him back. Meanwhile, Harper departs New York for San Francisco, leaving Joe alone. The play concludes in 1990, five years later. Prior and Louis are still separated, but Louis, along with Belize, remains close in order to support and care for Prior, and Hannah has found a new perspective on her rigid beliefs, forging a friendship with the three gay men. Prior, Louis, Belize, and Hannah gather before the angel statue in Bethesda Fountain, discussing the fall of the Soviet Union and what the future holds. Prior talks of the legend of the Pool of Bethesda, where the sick were healed. Prior delivers the play's final lines directly to the audience, blessing them and affirming his intentions to live on and telling them that "the Great Work" shall continue. The initial print editions of the play include two scenes in Perestroika that were frequently deleted from productions. With the publication of the "Revised and Complete Edition" in 2013, Kushner elected to follow "the verdict of twenty-two years of production history" and placed them in the play's appendix. The former Act Five, Scene 6, where Prior runs into Rabbi Isidor Chemelwetz and Sarah Ironson, Louis' grandmother, as they play cards in the streets of Heaven. A scene taking place between Act Five Scene 7 and 8, where a deceased Roy Cohn in the afterlife offers to represent God in a paternity suit filed by the angels.
Angels in America: Millennium Approaches
In 1980s New York, the AIDS crisis draws together a gay couple, a conflicted Mormon family, and lawyer Roy Cohn. Personal betrayals and political fears culminate in an extraordinary visitation.
Angels in America: Perestroika
Prior Walter confronts an angel’s demand that humanity stop moving forward. Around him, lovers, friends, and political enemies struggle with illness, abandonment, faith, and the possibility of change.
Angels in Love
Angels in Love is a 1953 comedy play by the British writer Hugh Mills. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool. It later transferred to the Savoy Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 203 performances between 11 February and 17 August 1954. The West End cast featured Peter Hammond, Barbara Kelly, Peter Reynolds, Kynaston Reeves, Henry Kendall, Christopher Morahan, Myles Rudge and Maxine Audley. It portrays the life of the now grown-up Little Lord Fauntleroy.
Angélique
The play begins as a young female slave arrives in Montreal from Madiere, Portugal. She is purchased by François Poulin de Franchville for his wife, Thérèse de Couagne, who attests she does not want a slave. Thérèse and François name her Marie-Josèphe Angélique after their dead child. François forces Angélique to have sex with him. At the encouragement of Ignace, Angélique is paired with César, another slave, for breeding. She gives birth to several children, though it is unclear if they are César's or François'. Meanwhile, Angélique begins a romantic relationship with Claude, a white indentured servant. François dies and Thérèse makes plans to sell Angèlique. Angélique, discovering she is about to be sold, plans to run away to America with Claude. While the two are leaving, a fire breaks out. It is never made clear who set it. On their journey to America, Claude abandons Angèlique, who is later apprehended on suspicion of starting the fire. She is tortured into confessing to starting the fire and is subsequently executed.
Animal Farm
Farm animals overthrow their human owner and attempt to build an equal society. As the pigs consolidate control, the revolution becomes a new system of exploitation in this stage adaptation of George Orwell's political fable.
Animal Magnetism
Animal Magnetism is a 1788 comedy play by the English writer Elizabeth Inchbald. A three-act farce, it premiered as an afterpiece at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 22 May 1788. The original cast included John Quick as Doctor, William Blanchard as La Fleur, William Macready the Elder as Marquis De Lancey, Mary Wells as Constance and Isabella Mattocks as Lisette. The Irish premiere took place at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin on 8 November 1788.
Anna Christie
Anna Christie is the story of a former prostitute who falls in love, but runs into difficulty in turning her life around. The first act takes place in a bar owned by Johnny the Priest and tended by Larry. Coal-barge captain Old Chris receives a letter from his daughter, a young woman he has not seen since he lived in Sweden with his family and she was five years old. They meet at the bar and she agrees to go to the coal barge with him. The barge crew rescues Mat Burke and four other men who survived a shipwreck in an open boat. Anna and Mat don't get along at first, but quickly fall in love. A confrontation on the barge among Anna, Chris and Mat. Mat wants to marry Anna, Chris does not want her to marry a sailor, and Anna doesn't want either of them to think they can control her. She tells them the truth about her past: She was raped while living with her mother's relatives on a Minnesota farm, worked briefly as a nurse's aide, then became a prostitute. Mat reacts angrily, and he and Chris leave. Mat and Chris return. Anna forgives Chris for not being part of her childhood. After a dramatic confrontation, Anna promises to abandon prostitution and Mat forgives her. Chris agrees to their marriage. Chris and Mat have both signed to work aboard a ship that is leaving for South Africa the next day. They promise to return to Anna after the voyage.
Anna Liisa
Anna Liisa’s hidden past returns when the farmhand Mikko, with whom she had a child years earlier, comes back and threatens to expose that she killed the baby. As she prepares to marry Johannes, she confesses publicly, receives absolution from the village parson, and accepts imprisonment and social disgrace.
Anna Lucasta
A girl making her way through life as a prostitute seeks forgiveness from her family. The Lucastas, working-class people in a coal mining town, are selfish people whose daughter, Anna, has left home to lead what they consider a "life of shame" in the city. Rudolf, the son of a friend, comes to visit them on the suggestion of his father. He has several hundred dollars in his pocket and is eager to marry. The family decides that the youth is a hick, but there is a chance to marry off Anna "respectably". However, Rudolf turns out to be rather attractive and has graduated from an agriculture college. When Anna returns home, she is fascinated by him and the two fall in love, though she is still in love with her sailor boyfriend Danny. Anna gradually awakens to find out what it means to be treated by a kind young man. For Anna is not a degenerate, but a high spirited girl driven from home by her father's puritanical cruelty. Without telling Rudolf about her past, she agrees to marry him. But on her wedding day, Danny shows up. Anna, believing that a life with Rudolf is impossible, returns to her old haunts in the city. Rudolf realizes he loves Anna more deeply, and sets out to find her. He makes her realize his love for her and they go off together.
Anna in the Tropics
The play is set in Ybor City, a section of Tampa and the center of the cigar industry. When Cuban immigrants brought the cigar-making industry to Florida in the 20th century, they carried with them another tradition. As the workers toiled away in the factory hand rolling each cigar, the lector, historically well-dressed and well-spoken, would read to them. It was the lector who informed, organized and entertained the workers until the 1930s, when the rollers and the readers were replaced by mechanization. In the play, the lector reads Anna Karenina, sparking the characters' lives and relationships to spin out of control.
Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress
In a fictional country after revolution, General Strammfest hesitates between the unstable provisional government and counter-revolution. Grand Duchess Annajanska, who supports the uprising, confronts him and urges liberation from the old regime; she reveals she is the mysterious officer blamed for eloping with her.
Anne Blake
Anne Blake is an 1852 melodrama by the British writer John Westland Marston. It premiered at the Princess's Theatre in London on 28 October 1852. The original cast included Charles Kean as Thorold, Walter Lacy as Llaniston, Ellen Kean as Anne Blake. The same year it appeared at the Broadway Theatre in New York.
Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn’s ghost frames two interwoven histories: her struggle at Henry VIII’s court to advance Protestant ideas through Tyndale’s Bible, and James I’s 1603 efforts to settle religious disputes through the authorized Bible translation. The play follows Anne’s rise, marriage, fall and execution, then returns to James’s encounter with her ghost.
Anne Pedersdotter
In fictionalized Bergen, Anne Pedersdotter develops an irresistible desire for her stepson Martin, a young theologian. Their passion appears bewitched, and Anne is ultimately convicted as a witch; the play’s plot is expressly described as not based on the historical facts.
Anne and Emmett
In a fictional afterlife, Anne Frank and Emmett Till meet and compare their lives and deaths as young victims of racial persecution.
Anne of Green Gables
An imaginative orphan finds a home at Green Gables in Kat Sandler’s stage adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel.
Anne of the Thousand Days
Anne Boleyn’s relationship with Henry VIII leads to marriage, accusations of adultery and her execution.
Annibal
Hannibal takes refuge with Prusias in Nicomedia, where a promise that he will marry Laodice is challenged by Roman ambassador Flaminius, who also desires her. Marivaux uses the Roman's abuse of political power for private ends to expose imperial hypocrisy.
Anniversary Waltz
The Walters are celebrating their fifteenth wedding anniversary. Alice's parents are due for an evening get together, so she supervises Okkie and Debbie's choice of attire and Millie's preparation for the gathering. Harry and Sam deliver and install a TV set, a gift from Mr. Gans. Knowing Bud's violent dislike of television, everyone is a bit apprehensive. Bud arrives home with his business partner Chris Steelman, and Janice Revere, a new friend of Chris. All three are a bit merry with drink. Janice, who has married well and often, admires Alice's ability to pick a good partner on the first try. Chris and Janice leave, while Bud notices the TV and explodes. Alice calms him, asking his indulgence for that evening. He relents, just as Alice's parents arrive. Mrs. Gans is shocked when Debbie uses the word "prostitute" in response to Mr. Gans telling her what a "vamp" was. As the evening progresses, Bud, warmed with affection for Alice and primed with champagne, carelessly lets slip that he and Alice had premarital relations. The kids and Millie overhear the admission, and the resulting outrage from the grandparents. As Bud justifies it to his in-laws, they grow huffy and storm out of the apartment. Bud angrily kicks the TV, wrecking it. Alice is distraught over Bud's slip and the resulting fight with her parents. She locks herself into the bedroom. Bud then breaks the door and lock trying to enter. The next morning a handyman brings in a new door and lock for the bedroom. Bud and Alice reconcile, but Alice says Debbie asked if they were going to get divorced. Later, Janice shows up at the Walters apartment alone, to talk with Alice, who has gone out. Millie reluctantly admits her, and Janice sees the handyman repairing the door. Alice returns, and Janice is enlightened that even good marriages have their storms. Harry and Sam return to the apartment with another new TV, this one a gift from Chris. Okkie persuades Bud to watch a little television while they are relaxing. Bud likes the commercials, but then a program called Juvenile Jury comes on the set. They are all stunned to see Debbie on the program as a guest. She tells the moderator that her parents had a quarrel, they resent her trying to help heal the breach, and she's worried they may get divorced. Bud and Okkie are in an uproar. As a punctuation to the brouhaha, Bud kicks in the second TV set. As Millie sweeps up shattered remains, Debbie returns home to an ominous welcome from her father. Debbie is contrite, realizing she has gone too far. Alice whisks Debbie away while Bud fumes alone, until Chris shows up. Seeing the broken TV, he and Bud begin to quarrel. Bud finally leaves the apartment, with Chris following, trying to calm him down. Four days later, Alice and the kids breakfast alone; Bud has stayed away. Okkie assures Alice that Bud is simply cooling off. Chris arrives at the apartment to intervene for Bud, who is waiting outside the apartment. Bud apologizes for staying away, and asks forgiveness, but he had to get his head straight. Alice forgives him and further informs him she's expecting. They embrace and play ends.
Another Antigone
Judy Miller, a Jewish college senior, submits an updated anti-nuclear play about Antigone instead of the assigned paper. Her refusal to yield brings her into conflict with Professor Henry Harper, while she stages the work on campus and challenges his decision through the university grievance process.
Another Country
At an English public school in the early 1930s, Guy Bennett and Marxist Tommy Judd respond to a pupil’s suicide and the institution’s hypocrisy. As the boys maneuver within the school’s hierarchy, persecution of Bennett and Judd’s compromises expose how class, sexuality, and appearances shape their lives.
Another Part of the Forest
Set in the fictional town of Bowden, Alabama, in June 1880, the plot focuses on the wealthy, ruthless, and innately evil Hubbard family and their rise to prominence. Patriarch Marcus Hubbard was born into poverty and toiled at menial labor while teaching himself Greek philosophy and the basics of business acumen. He ultimately made his fortune by exploiting his fellow Southerners during the American Civil War. He treats his good-hearted but slightly eccentric Bible-quoting wife Lavinia in a way designed to undermine both her self-confidence and sense of reality; she is no help to her children and wants nothing more than to join a religious retreat so she can expiate her sins. Shrewd, amoral elder son Benjamin is plotting to usurp his father's power and steal his money, and the younger Oscar lusts for "cooch dancer" (as she's described by Regina) Laurette Sincee rather than penniless neighbor Birdie Bagtry, who desperately is looking for a loan on her family's valuable land, a situation Benjamin hopes to exploit. Regina is the sexually active daughter who wants to live in Chicago with Birdie's cousin, former Confederate officer John Bagtry, a move discouraged by her father, who has a disturbingly unnatural closeness to the girl. The only people in the household with any sense of morality are the servants, Coralee and Jacob.
Anowa
Based on a traditional Ghanaian tale, Anowa rejects the suitors chosen by her parents and marries the stranger Kofi Ako, who becomes a wealthy slave trader. Their childlessness and conflict over slavery strain the marriage; an old man and woman intermittently serve as a chorus, commenting on events. The play ends with Kofi’s suicide and Anowa drowning herself.
Anselma
Anselma, also known as The Princess Andrea, is a play in six acts. It is an 1885 English-language adaptation of Victorien Sardou's 1873 French-language play Andréa which was created by Leander Richardson for the Austrian actress Antonie Janisch (1848–1920), known on the stage as Madame Janisch. The play became a source of contention in the Judiciary of New York with several legal battles between the producers of Anselma and the actress Agnes Ethel arguing over the rights to Sardou's play.
Anthos
A lost Athenian tragedy whose plot was entirely invented by its poet rather than drawn from myth or history, an unusual conception in fifth-century Greek tragedy. No plot details survive; stories later suggested as its subject remain conjectural.
Antigona Furiosa
Gambaro recasts Antigone as a dissociated figure reliving her defiance of Creon while two men mock and reenact the story around her. Their performance implicates the spectators in the punishment of dissent and evokes Argentina’s government terror and disappearances.
Antigone
After Creon forbids the burial of Polynices, Antigone defies his decree to honor her brother with funeral rites. Creon condemns her, and his refusal to heed warnings from his son Haemon and the prophet Tiresias leads to the deaths of Antigone, Haemon, and Creon's wife Eurydice.
Antigone
In this lost tragedy, Antigone and Haemon’s participation in the burial of Polynices appears to lead to a different ending from Sophocles’ version: the pair marry and have a son, Maeon. The surviving fragments provide little plot detail, and scholars dispute how much can be reconstructed, including whether Dionysus intervened to save them.
Antigone
Antigone’s refusal to obey Creon confronts his pragmatic acceptance of political power in Anouilh’s reworking of the ancient story.
Antigone
Brecht reframes Sophocles’ tragedy through a modern opening in which two sisters shelter their deserter brother before he is lynched, paralleling this death with Polynices’ fate. Creon is presented as a Nazi-style dictator.
Antiochus
Antiochus is a 1721 tragedy by the British writer John Mottley. The play is set in Ancient Greece, revolving round the relationship between Stratonice of Syria and Seleucus I Nicator and his son Antiochus I Soter, the leaders of the Seleucid Empire. The original Lincoln's Inn Fields cast included James Quin as Selecus, Lacy Ryan as Antiochus, John Egleton as Arsaces, Richard Diggs as Cleartes, Anthony Boheme as Nicanor, Elizabeth Spiller as Semandra and Anna Maria Seymour as Stratonice.
Antiochus the Great
Antiochus the Great is a 1701 tragedy by the English writer Jane Wiseman. It is also known by the longer title of Antiochus the Great, or, The Fatal Relapse. It is based on the life of Antiochus the Great, the Greek ruler of Ancient Syria. The original Lincoln's Inn Fields cast included George Powell as Antiochus the Great, John Bowman as Artenor, John Corey as Seleuchus, Barton Booth as Ormandes, George Pack as Philotas, Elizabeth Barry as Leodice, Elizabeth Bowman as Berenice, and Mary Porter as Child.
Antonio
Antonio, or the Soldier's Return is an 1800 historical tragedy by the British writer William Godwin. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 13 December 1800. The cast included John Philip Kemble as Antonio, Sarah Siddons as Helena, William Barrymore as Don Gusman, Richard Wroughton as Don Pedro, Charles Kemble as Don Henry, William Powell as Don Diego. Both the audience and critical reaction were negative. Seven years later another of Godwin's plays Faulkener was staged at the same theatre.
Antonio and Mellida
Antonio disguises himself as an Amazon to reach Mellida, daughter of his father's rival, Duke Piero. Their attempts to escape and marry are repeatedly disrupted by discoveries and new disguises; after Antonio stages his death, the fathers reconcile and the lovers are finally wed. A comic subplot follows Mellida's cousin and her many suitors.
Antonio's Revenge
After Duke Piero poisons Andrugio and accuses his daughter Mellida of infidelity, Antonio hears his father's ghost demand revenge. Antonio kills Piero's son, disguises himself as a fool, and helps stage a conspiracy that culminates in Piero's murder at a wedding feast. Antonio survives but refuses the dukedom, vowing to live in mourning for Mellida.
Antony and Cleopatra
After a love affair draws Roman triumvir Mark Antony between Alexandria and Rome, he and Cleopatra lose a war against Octavius Caesar. Antony dies after Cleopatra's false report of her death; captured and facing a Roman triumph, Cleopatra takes her own life.
António José, ou O Poeta e a Inquisição
A historical tragedy based on the final days of the Luso-Brazilian Jewish playwright António José da Silva, who was executed by the Portuguese Inquisition.
Any Number Can Die
In a three-act spoof of classic murder mysteries, guests gather at Raven’s Head, a mansion on a deserted island off North Carolina. An old detective investigates amid a midnight will reading, secret passages, and suspicious house staff.
Any Wednesday
A married man’s mistress approaches her thirtieth birthday and reflects unhappily on the future of their relationship; the romantic comedy turns on whether love will find a way.
Any Woman
A marital farce centered on divorce.
Anyone for Denis?
A political farce based on John Wells's Dear Bill columns, set at Chequers and parodying the relationship between Denis and Margaret Thatcher. The play uses topical jokes and the conventions of broad farce to satirize the prime minister and her husband.
Anything for a Quiet Life
In a Jacobean city comedy of marriage, money and deception, a merchant and two households are drawn into schemes involving an adulterous bargain, a false theft, a threatened land sale and staged betrayals, before the plots are exposed and the couples reconcile.
Anzor
Sandro Shanshiashvili's Georgian reworking of Armoured Train 14–69 relocates the action to Dagestan and gives it Georgian and Lezghin characters. The hero is Chechen Anzor Cherbbizh, and the changed ending has Zaira dance a lezginka to select who will sacrifice himself to stop the armoured train.
Aoi no Ue
Lady Aoi lies gravely ill and is represented onstage by a folded robe. A shamaness summons the living spirit of Lady Rokujo, Genji’s jealous former lover, whose resentment turns to an attack on Aoi; a mountain priest’s prayers finally drive the spirit away.
Aoto Zōshi Hana no Nishiki-e
A band of five thieves uses disguises and schemes around a stolen incense burner. Benten Kozō disguises himself as a young woman to rob a cloth shop, where a family revelation changes the thieves’ fate; the five later reveal their identities in riverbank monologues, and Kozō dies seeking to atone for his crimes.
Aphrodite against Artemis
In Troezen, Queen Phaedra attempts to seduce her stepson Hippolytus, who rejects her after realizing who she is. She dies by suicide and leaves a note accusing him of rape; when Theseus returns and calls on Poseidon to kill his son, Artemis vindicates Hippolytus, while Aphrodite honors Phaedra’s embrace of desire.
Apollo 13: Mission Control
An interactive theatrical recreation of the Apollo 13 mission from Mission Control’s perspective. Audience members operate working consoles and telephones, interact with performers, and hear the astronauts through headsets as scenes play across a mission-control room and a command module.
Appearance Is Against Them
Appearance Is Against Them is a 1785 comedy play by the British writer Elizabeth Inchbald. A farce, it premiered as an afterpiece at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 22 October 1785. The original cast included John Quick as Mr Walsmley, John Palmer as Lord Lighthead, James Thompson as Thompson, William Swords as Lighthead's Servant, John Edwin as Humphry, Lydia Webb as Lady Mary Magipie, Mary Morton as Miss Angle and Sarah Maria Wilson as Fish. The Irish premiere took place at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin on 4 February 1786.
Appius and Virginia
In ancient Rome, Appius Claudius uses his political power to pursue Virginia and conspires to have her declared a slave. When the rigged trial condemns her, her father Virginius kills her rather than surrender her to Appius; the people then turn against the corrupt rulers.
Appius and Virginia
Appius and Virginia is a 1709 tragedy by the British writer John Dennis. It was a distinct reworking by Dennis of an older play of the same title by John Webster. It was not a particular success on its debut. It became best known for Dennis' use of an innovative new technique to imitate the sound of thunder. When Dennis' play was taken off and a revival of Macbeth put on, he was angered when he attended a performance and discovered they were using his thunder machine, reportedly exclaiming "they will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder". This gave rise to the expression "stealing thunder". The original Drury Lane cast included Barton Booth as Appius, Theophilus Keene as Claudius, Thomas Betterton as Virginius, Robert Wilks as Icilius, Benjamin Husband as Valerius, Thomas Smith as Numitorious, Jane Rogers as Virginia, Frances Maria Knight as Cornelia.
Apples in Winter
Miriam prepares an apple pie for her son’s final meal before his execution. As she bakes, she traces their life together and confronts his crime, her memories and the limits of a mother’s love.
Appointment with Death
During a tour in Palestine, a family lives under the control of the tyrannical Mrs Boynton, whose death becomes the mystery. In Christie’s stage version, Mrs Boynton dies by suicide and leaves red herrings to keep her family suspicious of one another; unlike the novel, Lady Westholme is not the killer.
Appropriate
In 2011, the unnamed patriarch of the Lafayette family has recently died. He leaves the family home in Southeastern Arkansas, an old plantation, to his three children: the overworked elder daughter Toni, the tactless middle brother Bo, and the estranged brother Franz. Toni has been made executor of the will, and Franz has not been seen or heard from in a decade. The play opens as Franz and his eccentric fiancée River, from Portland, arrive at the house and enter through a window. Toni has been at the house preparing for an estate sale and auction of their father's old belongings with her troubled teenage son Rhys. Initially apprehensive of Franz's sudden arrival, she reluctantly allows the couple to stay at the house. The next day, Bo and his wife Rachel arrive with their children: 13 year-old daughter Cassidy and the much younger son Ainsley. As the group reconnect, unexpected items begin to be unpacked from boxes, such as jars containing body parts, but they are disregarded as being antiques from a prior owner. However, Ainsley is mistakenly given a photo album containing graphic imagery of lynchings, evoking panic from Rachel, who forbids Cassidy from viewing them. The adults deliberate why the album would be there, as the siblings did not believe their father to be racist. Rachel, however, finds this plausible: she is Jewish, and at several points in her relationship with the father, he disrespected or ignored her. Toni dismisses her accusation of the father's antisemitism. In the ensuing argument, Toni sarcastically refers to Rachel as both a "Shylock" and a "kike", leading Rachel to storm out. Toni defends her actions as maintaining the sanctity of their father's name. Meanwhile, Bo reminds the group that they also inherited $500,000 worth of debt that the auction needs to pay off. He suspects that it won't because the land and belongings have a low value. Angry that the reunion seems only to capitalize on their father's death, Toni drives away. That night, Cassidy comes downstairs to see River meditating on the photo album. She shows the younger girl the images. Cassidy is unsure how to feel about the pictures, but is quick to say that they could be sold on the internet at a decent price to collectors, due to their apparent historical value. Toni returns to the house drunk, and instructs Cassidy to place the pictures in her car. After Cassidy goes out, River attempts to connect with Toni and reveals that she is pregnant with Franz's child, to the latter's chagrin. During their discussion, Cassidy sneaks back in with the photos and hides. Rhys, on whom Cassidy has a crush, arrives to sleep on the downstairs couch. Cassidy and Rhys later view the pictures together after Toni and River leave, and Rhys keeps them as Cassidy returns to bed. Franz comes downstairs as Rhys attempts to masturbate, but the uncle only sees the lynching photos. He awkwardly begins to explain why they're important to view. The next morning, the family prepares to welcome prospective buyers, but Toni has canceled the auction out of spite. Bo reveals that his research has revealed that the album could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, so that it doesn't matter if the auction is held after all. However, nobody is able to locate the images. Franz shows up wet and covered in mud after swimming in a local lake. He reveals that in an attempt to redeem himself to the family, he "baptized" himself in a nearby lake, bringing the photos with him and ruining them. Bo's ire enables Cassidy to reveal that she had been the one who invited Franz to the house (via Facebook) and not estate lawyers as previously thought. Rachel's concern with this illicit friendship turns to fury as Toni reveals that Franz had been estranged due to a prior drug addiction that led to Rhys entering rehab, and Franz's statutory rape of a 12 year-old girl who became pregnant. River flees in disgust and a full brawl begins among the family. Just as things quell, Ainsley, who had been playfully running around with various artifacts all weekend, arrives in the room wearing a Klan hood he found in the patriarch's bedroom, to everyone's horror. The next morning, Rachel is hurriedly leaving with Bo, and Franz claims to be working on mending his relationship with River. Toni declares that she is effectively dead to her relatives, and their selfishness in their relationships with her and the estate are not worth salvaging. After everyone leaves, the house begins to fall apart over years of disrepair.
Apurva Avsar
A biographical play follows Jain philosopher and mystic Shrimad Rajchandra from his childhood in a remote Gujarati village through his renunciation of worldly pleasures, while reflecting on Jainism's influence on Indian culture and heritage.
Araminta Arrives
Araminta Arrives is a 1921 play by the British writer Dorothy Brandon. It is an historical romantic comedy, set in 1887, about a young woman going to live with her aunt in London and becoming involved in a series of entanglements with men. The play was adapted from J.C. Snaith's 1908 novel, Araminta. It premiered at the Winter Gardens Theatre in New Brighton before transferring for a West End run at the Comedy Theatre that lasted for 39 performances. The cast included Eileen Beldon in the title role, along with Herbert Bunston, Louise Hampton and Lady Tree.
Arborophilia
An elderly real-estate mogul is vexed when one daughter dates a Republican and the other falls in love with a poplar tree, which she is determined to cut down.
Arcades
A pastoral masque honors Alice Spencer, Countess Dowager of Derby, as a queen of a metaphorical Arcadia. Guided by the spirit Genius, songs and personified figures praise her stature and virtue, turning the usual welcoming masque into a celebration centered on its guest.
Arcadia
In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics, nature, and physics well ahead of her time. She studies with her tutor Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron (an unseen guest in the house). In the present, writer Hannah Jarvis and literature professor Bernard Nightingale converge on the house: she is investigating a hermit who once lived on the grounds; he is researching a mysterious chapter in the life of Byron. As their studies unfold – with the help of Valentine Coverly, a post-graduate student in mathematical biology – the truth about what happened in Thomasina's time is gradually revealed. The play opens on 10 April 1809, in a garden-front room of the house. Septimus Hodge is trying to distract 13-year-old Thomasina from her curiosity about "carnal embrace" by challenging her to prove Fermat's Last Theorem; he also wants to focus on reading the poem "The Couch of Eros" by Ezra Chater, who with his wife is a guest at the house. Thomasina starts asking why jam mixed in rice pudding can never be unstirred, which leads her to the topic of determinism and to a nascent theory of chaotic shapes in nature. This is interrupted by Chater himself, who is angry that his wife was caught in the aforementioned "carnal embrace" with Septimus; he has come to demand a duel. Septimus tries to defuse the situation by heaping praise on Chater's "The Couch of Eros". The tactic works, because Chater does not know it was Septimus who had savaged an earlier work of his, "The Maid of Turkey". Landscape architect Richard Noakes enters, shortly accompanied by Captain Brice and Lady Croom; the three discuss proposed modifications to the Arcadian style gardens, while Thomasina sketches an imaginary hermit on Noakes' technical drawing of the garden. The present day. Hannah Jarvis is researching the house, the garden, and specifically the hermit, for a study of hermits and the Romantic imagination. Bernard Nightingale enters with Chloe Coverly; she conceals the professor's identity from Hannah, as Nightingale had given Hannah's last book a poor review. Chloe's brother, Valentine, is gathering data on the population biology of the grouse in the surrounding grounds, using the house's "game books". When Chloe accidentally reveals Bernard's identity, Hannah reacts angrily; but she agrees to share her research material. This enables him to propose the theory that one of the 1809 inhabitants, Ezra Chater, was killed by Lord Byron in a duel. Bernard notes that records of Chater the poet disappeared after 1809, and the only other Chater of record is a botanist. The 19th century. Septimus is tutoring Thomasina, this time in translating Latin. Again their focus diverts, this time to the destruction of the Alexandrian Library, which upsets Thomasina. She mourns the loss of the knowledge stored there, and Septimus responds that all that was lost will eventually turn up again. They are interrupted by Chater, who succeeds in challenging Septimus to a duel, having learned (from Lord Byron off-stage) that Septimus wrote the damning review of his work. The present. Hannah rediscovers Thomasina's primer containing her ideas on iteration and chaos theory; this recalls Septimus' assertion that what was lost is eventually rediscovered. Valentine reacts with interest to the notes, as his own research centres on similar concepts. Bernard gives Hannah, Valentine, and Chloe a preview of his lecture theorising that Lord Byron shot and killed Chater in a duel. When Hannah and Valentine challenge his logic, Bernard launches into a diatribe about the irrelevance of science, then departs for his lecture (and a promotional media appearance) in London. Hannah begins to suspect that the hermit of Sidley Park – who was reportedly obsessed with algebraic computations about the heat death of the universe, the theory suggested in Thomasina's diagram – could have been Septimus. Returning to 1809, we learn that the duel never occurred. Instead, the Chater couple left for the West Indies with Captain Brice. Chater served as the expedition's botanist and his wife Charity was the captain's secret paramour. Lord Byron has also left the country. Septimus has gone rabbit hunting for Thomasina, who favours rabbit pie; he returns to find Lady Croom searching for him. She has found two letters, a love letter addressed to her, and another to Thomasina about rice pudding, both written by Septimus in case he died in a duel. She invites Septimus to an amorous rendezvous. Both 1812 and the present, the actions running concurrently. Some present-day characters are in fancy dress for a party, so that both casts appear similarly attired. After reading a newspaper report on the Byron murder theory, Chloe talks about determinism with Valentine, echoing the discussion between Septimus and Thomasina. Chloe, however, believes that sex is the force that disrupts the universe's ordered plan. Valentine, using his computer to extrapolate Thomasina's ideas, relates them to the later developed concept of entropy. He wonders whether Thomasina or Septimus was the genius behind the theories. Hannah and Valentine mention that Thomasina died in a fire on the eve of her seventeenth birthday. Meanwhile, Thomasina asks Septimus to teach her to dance, to prepare for her forthcoming 17th birthday party. Lady Croom enters, complaining to Noakes about the noise of his steam engine; Thomasina notes that the machine obeys the laws of entropy (which have not yet been formalized), which describe the universe as winding down. In the present, Bernard arrives and is met by Hannah, who has found a diary entry detailing the facts of Chater's death – this discovery totally discredits Bernard's theory and vindicates Lord Byron's reputation. While Septimus awaits appropriate music for Thomasina's dance lesson, he examines the sketch she made to illustrate the irreversibility of heat; his action mirrors that of Hannah and Valentine, who pondered the same diagram. Bernard is caught in a compromising position with Chloe, and is asked to depart. Eventually a waltz starts, and Septimus dances with Thomasina, revealing that their relationship is increasingly complicated by hints of romance. Gus (Valentine and Chloe's younger brother, who has been silent for the entire play) hands another of Thomasina's drawings to a surprised Hannah. It depicts Septimus and the tortoise, confirming her suspicion that the hermit, who had a tortoise called Plautus, was Septimus. After Thomasina's tragic death, he apparently became a hermit. Accepting her challenge to the laws of the universe as propounded by Newton, he worked for the rest of his life to apply "honest English algebra" to the question of the universe's future.
Archangels Don't Play Pinball
A group of young Milanese men stage a fake marriage between their friend Lofty and a woman pretending to be an Albanian princess. In his attempt to obtain identity papers, Lofty is transformed into a dog and passes through a series of comic adventures before waking from the dream. The pinball image evokes mechanization and conspicuous consumption.
Archduke
A group of teenage revolutionaries, including Gavrilo Princip, are swept up in a scheme to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Archelaus
Exiled by his brothers, Archelaus reaches King Cisseus and helps defend him. When Cisseus plots against him instead of honoring his promise, Archelaus turns the plot back on the king, escapes to Macedonia and founds Aegae, guided by a goat and an oracle.
Arden of Faversham
Alice Arden and her lover Mosby plot to murder her husband Thomas. After several failed attempts, hired killers carry out the murder, and the conspirators are discovered and punished.
Ardèle
An ageing general convenes his family to condemn his hunchbacked sister Ardèle's romance with a tutor. Behind her locked bedroom door, the unseen couple become a target of the family's hypocritical, self-interested advice and scandalized judgment.
Are You a Mason?
Frank Perry pretends to have joined the Freemasons to satisfy his wife and explain his late nights. His father-in-law has used the same excuse for years, and each fears exposure when the family expects them to recognize one another as lodge brothers.
Aren't We All?
The Hon Willie Tatham is at a dance at his own house, hosted by Lady Frinton. He is surprised by the return of his wife Margot from a long trip to Egypt. She catches the lonely Willie with Kitty Lake just at the moment when the former actress gives him a consoling kiss. There is a serious row, and Margot adopts the tone of a deeply injured wife. Fortunately for Willie, his widowed father, Lord Grenham, who has a roving eye and wide worldly experience, finds a young Australian, John Willcocks, who had a flirtation with Margot in Egypt more romantic and possibly more passionate than a casual kiss at a jazz supper party. Margot has fled Egypt to avoid further temptation. Grenham arranges for Willcocks, who has come to London in search of her, to have a chance of rekindling the Egyptian romance. Willocks proves a gentleman and abandons his pursuit. Mutual forgiveness is the result. Meanwhile, Lady Frinton manoeuvres to lure Lord Grenham into a marriage. Margot, irritated by Grenham's efforts regarding Willcocks, assists in this by placing an announcement of Grenham's engagement to Frinton in The Times. This is all observed closely by the vicar, Lynton, and his wife, who is Grenham's sister. The Lyntons learn something, however, from Grenham's flexible attitude toward life. With the young couple reconciled and Lady Frinton triumphant, the vicar reproaches Grenham for calling him "a bloody old fool". Grenham responds by putting his arm round the vicar's shoulders and says, "But aren't we all, old friend?".
Arias with a Twist
The play opens with a musical band of four marionettes, each playing an instrument; piano, drums, trumpet, and bass. After a brief song, the audience is introduced to Joey Arias. Arias has been kidnapped by aliens and is subjected to probing while she performs a version of Kashmir by Led Zeppelin. When the aliens are finished with the intrusion, they eject her from their spaceship and she crash lands in a jungle, presumably on earth. She follows her landing with Jungle of Eden, an original song by the Propellerheads' Alex Gifford. Alone and hungry, Arias searches for food only to find a mushroom that causes her to hallucinate. During the hallucination sequence, psychedelic imagery is projected onto a scrim at the front of the stage while Arias sings a Beatles medley comprising Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Within You, Without You. The scene shifts to an undisclosed location where objects float through the air accompanied by Arias's monologue on her sugar daddy. She is then sent to Hell, where she performs a musical number and some suggestive activities with two giant anatomically correct male devil puppets. Arias sings the Eric Carmen song All By Myself and is confronted by her doppelganger in puppet form who inspires her to return to New York City. This prompts another original Alex Gifford song, Lately. When Arias returns to New York, she arrives just in time to perform in a show with the aforementioned puppet band where she sings the Lambert, Hendricks & Ross song, Twisted, the Bill Carey and Carl T. Fischer song, You've Changed, and Ziegfeld Follies song, You've Gotta Pull Strings. The production ends in a Busby Berkeley-esque finalé, which includes mirrors and kaleidoscopic video images of Arias's face.
Aristo
A biographical drama about Aristotle Onassis’s life after he meets Jacqueline Kennedy, based on material from Peter Evans’s book Nemesis.
Arizona
In Arizona Territory before the Spanish–American War, a cavalryman is accused of stealing books that conceal a key to an office. The play also follows an officer’s wife, a father who rejects responsibility for his child, and a vaquero’s love for the daughter of a German cavalry sergeant.
Arkivet för orealiserbara drömmar och visioner
The play assembles unconnected scenes from discarded Bergman film ideas, story drafts, and screenplays, including an erotic comedy, a cannibal play, an opera libretto, and scenes set inside a womb.
Arlequin Mahomet
Fleeing debtors in a flying machine, Arlequin encounters a Persian prince whose beloved is being forced to marry the Tartar Kam. Mistaken for Mohammed, he helps the princess and prince marry, then weds her servant.
Arlequin poli par l'amour
A fairy tries to make Arlequin love her, but he falls for Silvia, a shepherdess. With help from the fairy’s servant Trivelin, the pair outwit the fairy and plan to marry.
Arlequin roi de Serendib
After being marooned on Serendib, Pierrot and Mezzetin disguise themselves as women and become priestesses, while Arlequin is crowned king. He discovers that the islanders sacrifice their kings, and the three escape to Paris before he can be killed.
Armoured Train 14–69
During the Russian Civil War in eastern Siberia, peasant farmer Nikolai Vershinin leads partisans seeking to capture ammunition from a counter-revolutionary armoured train. In an episodic four-act structure, the play follows Vershinin's shift from political indifference to Bolshevik commitment.
Arms and the Man
During the Serbo-Bulgarian War, idealistic Raina shelters Swiss mercenary Captain Bluntschli, whose practical view of warfare unsettles her romantic ideals. When he returns, Raina's engagement to Sergius breaks down, and she and Bluntschli choose each other.
Arrah-na-Pogue
After the 1798 Rising, Arrah protects her foster brother Beamish, a fugitive rebel, while her husband Shaun is arrested in his place; pardons and a daring prison escape resolve the danger.
Arsenic and Old Lace
The play is a farcical black comedy revolving around the Brewster family, descended from Mayflower settlers but now composed of maniacs, many of them homicidal. Act 1 Two elderly sisters, Abby and Martha Brewster, live in the old family home in Brooklyn. Their father was a doctor who made a fortune selling patent medicine, and their nephew Teddy, who lives with them, believes he is President Theodore Roosevelt, much to the consternation of the neighbours. Teddy's brother Mortimer, a theatre-hating drama critic, is seeing Elaine, daughter of the minister who lives next door. The other Brewster brother, Jonathan, left home years ago and has not been heard from since. Mortimer proposes to Elaine, much to the delight of his aunts, but is worried he'll inherit the family madness. After Elaine leaves, Mortimer is shocked to discover a dead body hidden in the window seat. He's even more horrified when his aunts glibly confess to killing the man. They've taken to murdering lonely old men by poisoning them with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch" of cyanide. They've killed a dozen men. Teddy digs graves for them in the cellar, convinced he's digging locks for the Panama Canal and that the dead men all died of yellow fever. Mortimer is horrified, especially when he narrowly prevents them from poisoning another man. He breaks off his engagement without explanation. Later, Jonathan returns to the home, having escaped from prison in Indiana. He's accompanied by an alcoholic accomplice, Dr. Herman Einstein (a character based on real-life gangland surgeon Joseph Moran), who has performed plastic surgery on him to conceal his identity, and now looks like horror-film actor Boris Karloff (a self-referential joke — the part was originally played on Broadway by Karloff). They're looking for a hideout and a place to dispose of their own murder victim. Act 2 Mortimer and the aunts are not pleased to see Jonathan, but reluctantly agree to let him spend the night. Jonathan and Dr. Einstein plan to turn Grandfather Brewster's old lab into an illicit plastic surgery clinic for criminals who want to hide their identities. Mortimer and the aunts try to hide their body from the intruders, while Jonathan and Dr. Einstein try to bury their body in the cellar. They're interrupted by Elaine, who wants to know why Mortimer broke off the engagement, and local police officer O'Hara, who wants Mortimer to help him write a play. Mortimer threatens to tell O'Hara about Jonathan's murder victim, but Jonathan, who is alerted to the corpse in the cellar by Dr. Einstein, threatens Mortimer in kind. After getting rid of Elaine and O'Hara, the aunts tell Jonathan about their own murders. Jonathan is angry that the aunts have killed the same number of people as he has, and is determined to beat them. Act 3 Jonathan plans to kill Mortimer and Teddy, though Dr. Einstein is reluctant. The criminals tie up Mortimer, but are interrupted by O'Hara, who returns to work on the play and is oblivious to Mortimer's predicament. Elaine returns and rescues Mortimer. The police, led by surly Lt. Rooney, raid the house and recognize Jonathan as a fugitive. Jonathan, Teddy, and the aunts insist that there are thirteen bodies in the cellar, but the police think they are all crazy. Lt. Rooney orders Teddy to be committed to a sanitarium. The aunts refuse to abandon Teddy and insist they be committed as well. They leave the house to Mortimer, but confess that he is actually the illegitimate son of their old cook, and therefore not a Brewster by blood. This delights Mortimer, who feels he can now marry Elaine. Dr. Einstein glibly walks out the front door, unnoticed by the police. Jonathan is arrested and taken away, but taunts the aunts that he's still killed as many people as they have. The play ends with the aunts offering the superintendent of the sanitarium a nice glass of elderberry wine.
Art and Nature
Art and Nature is a 1738 comedy play by the British writer James Miller. The play received a rough reception from what Miller described a "faction" in the Drury Lane audience, and its run was not extended beyond a single night. He described its subsequent publication as an attempt to vindicate himself. The original Drury Lane cast included Benjamin Griffin as Sir Simon Dupe, William Mills as Truemore, James Quin as Outside, Theophilus Cibber as Julio, Joe Miller as Jeffrey, Richard Winstone as Constable, Margaret Mills as Flaminia and Kitty Clive as Violetta.
Arthur and the Acetone
In Shaw’s imagined account of the Balfour Declaration, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour needs acetone for the war effort. Chemist Chaim Weizmann agrees to help if Balfour gives him Jerusalem, and Shaw concludes with a warning about the declaration’s consequences.
Artist Descending a Staircase
When artist Donner falls down the stairs, roommates Martello and Beauchamp suspect murder and accuse each other. Flashbacks trace the three artists’ past interactions with blind Sophie, while Beauchamp examines a recording of the fatal fall; the mystery remains unresolved.
Artémire
In Larissa after Alexander the Great's death, Artémire, the virtuous wife of usurper Cassandre, loves the rightful claimant Philotas. Cassandre persecutes her, but his unexpected death saves her.
As Bees in Honey Drown
A glamorous con artist persuades young New York writer Evan Wyler to follow her and write a screenplay about her life, promising fame and fortune. After she drains his credit card and disappears, Evan joins her other victims in exposing her schemes through his own writing.
As Comadres
Beth Beast, a feminist leader, calls a congress at her home to teach women to claim a dominant role in society. Her neighbor Amelia joins the discussion, bringing her husband Almeida, whose entrenched machismo disrupts the gathering.
As Is
As Is portrays the effect that AIDS, a relatively new epidemic in the 1980s, has on a group of friends living in New York City. It was one of the early plays, and subsequent TV movies, depicting how the epidemic was affecting gay Americans. As Is opened shortly before Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart. This play depicts a gay couple, Saul and Richard, who open the play, and their separation. Rich's firm decision to separate is reversed when he returns to Saul after contracting AIDS from his new lover. Seeking emotional support, Rich shows how people with AIDS were treated by the American family, doctors, and friends. Their impersonal and detached attitudes lead Rich to recognize the importance of the partner for the person with AIDS. The play begins, and ends, with a monologue by a middle-aged, female hospice worker, describing her new patient, Richard. In the second scene, Saul, one of the two main characters, states that he is Jewish while arguing about possessions with Richard, who makes an antisemitic remark and reveals he has AIDS during their ongoing breakup.
As It Is In Heaven
As It Is In Heaven is a play by playwright/actor/director Arlene Hutton. It premiered at 78th Street Theater Lab, followed by performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at the Off-Broadway Arclight Theatre in New York City, where it ran from January 11 to February 5, 2002. The title comes from the Shaker song "The Saviour's Universal Prayer (Our Father Who Art in Heaven)", a Shaker rendition of the Lord's Prayer. The play is published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
As Long as They're Happy
As Long as They're Happy is a comedy play by the British writer Vernon Sylvaine which was first staged in 1953. A successful hit, it ran at the Garrick Theatre in the West End for 370 performances between July 1953 and May 1954. Veteran entertainer Jack Buchanan directed and starred as a stockbroker trying to cope with the extravagant behaviour of his daughters. Other members of the cast included Dorothy Dickson, Nigel Green, David Hutcheson and Stephen Hancock.
As You Are
As You Are is a 1939 comedy play by Hugh Mills and Wells Root. It premiered at Richmond Theatre under the title Stay Just As You Are during the early months of the Second World War. It then transferred to London's West End where it ran for 74 performances from 12 January 1940 to 16 March 1940, initially at the Aldwych Theatre before moving to the Whitehall Theatre. The West End cast included Diana Churchill, Morland Graham, Edward Chapman, Hugh Dempster, Elliott Mason, Muriel George, O.B. Clarence, Vincent Holman, Charles Mortimer and Joan Hickson. A review in the New Statesman considered that despite its complicated plot, the play had many of the "right ingredients" for a successful comedy.
As You Find It
As You Find It is a 1703 comedy play by the English writer Charles Boyle, later Earl of Orrery. His grandfather Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery had also been a playwright. In style it is much closer to traditional Restoration comedy, than the developing trend for Sentimental comedy. Staged at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London, the cast featured John Verbruggen as Hartley, Thomas Doggett as Sir Abel Single, Thomas Betterton as Bevil, George Pack as Jack Single, George Powell as Ledger, John Bowman as Sir Pert, Anne Bracegirdle as Orinda, Elizabeth Bowman as Mrs Hartley, Elizabeth Barry as Eugenia and Elinor Leigh as Chloris.
As You Like It
After Rosalind is banished from court, she and Celia flee to the Forest of Arden in disguise. There Rosalind encounters Orlando, while the exiled court and several intertwined relationships move toward reconciliation and multiple marriages.
As the Crow Flies
An African-American maid working in a Chinese home in Los Angeles leads a double life.
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