8284 shows
Clear filtersBased on a 1975 court case, the drama depicts the manslaughter trial of Dr. Winston Gerrard, a fictionalized physician accused after performing an abortion. A passive defendant faces an aggressive prosecutor, with defense counsel between them; testimony from witnesses is presented without the play taking a side.
In a Himalayan village, the poet Kalidas loves Mallika but leaves for royal service in Ujjayini. He returns famous and married to Priyangumanjari, avoids Mallika, and later comes back after abandoning court life to find her impoverished; their final meeting reveals the personal cost of his ambition and absence.
In a country house, Devlin interrogates Rebecca about an abusive lover and her disturbing recollections. Her fragmented monologues evoke violence, a factory, disappearing sirens and a woman separated from her baby on a train platform. Devlin increasingly reenacts the threatening lover’s behavior, while Rebecca’s memories blur with the experiences of women facing persecution and deportation.
Professor Vidyanand reforms rebellious student Lalya, who becomes a police officer. After criminally connected politician Dharmappa frames Vidyanand for embezzlement, prison turns the principled teacher into a revenge-seeking criminal. Lalya is tasked with arresting his former mentor; Vidyanand’s capture by his beloved student becomes his atonement.
Mohini urges King Vichitrasen to perform an Ashvamedha sacrifice, ostensibly to make him sovereign, while privately desiring the ritual's encounter with its horse. When the exhausted horse returns after a year, she rejects it and dies by suicide, leaving the king and the returning soldiers in crisis.
Demaenetus helps his son Argyrippus obtain money to be with the prostitute Philaenium, using two slaves' impersonation and trickery to obtain payment for donkeys. The money comes with the condition that Demaenetus also gets a night with Philaenium, but the plan is exposed to his wife Artemona.
Praxagora disguises herself and organizes Athenian women to take over the assembly. Once in power, they abolish private property and establish communal living, while rules requiring men to sleep first with older women lead to comic conflicts over a young couple.
In the office of mogul Daniel Weisinger, assistants Nick and Nora absorb insults and escalating demands while competing for advancement and managing the fallout from his behavior. After Heather is fired for attending her uncle’s funeral and Nora quits, the assistants’ loyalty and ambitions unravel; Nora briefly returns before Nick puts Daniel on hold and runs after her. The final scene has Jenny destroy the office in a furious tap dance.
After butcher Michele scars Assunta in a jealous attack, he is arrested and imprisoned. Assunta begins an affair with a court official, unaware he has a family; when Michele is released and learns the truth, he kills the official, and Assunta takes the blame.
A drama about euthanasia and the struggle to decide whether to end one's life, inspired by David Williamson's experiences with the health system after his heart condition.
A stage continuation of the Mrs Dale's Diary story, featuring Dr Dale and other characters from the radio serial. The touring show did not include the radio cast as an ensemble.
The two-part play places Homelife before The Zoo Story. In the first act, Peter and his wife Ann explore their marriage before Peter leaves to read in Central Park; the second act is Albee's earlier one-act play.
A once-successful actress retreats to her childhood home in Mississippi and fantasizes about reviving her career.
Ruth Maitland, a young Black woman from rural Jamaica, travels to Kingston for work as a stenographer. Her white British employer seduces her and she becomes pregnant; she later returns to rural Jamaica, where a longtime admirer proposes to her.
Two young lovers face a doomed relationship amid a bartered-bride arrangement, middle-class prejudice, family interests and political rivalry between a liberal and a conservative opponent.
At a dried-up well guarded by a hawk-like woman, the hero Cuchulain seeks waters said to grant immortality. An old man who has waited there for fifty years warns him away; when the guardian dances and the waters rise, Cuchulain misses them and pursues the warrior women she summons.
Disguised as priests while fleeing to Mutsu, Yoshitsune and his followers are stopped by a suspicious guard. Benkei recites a forged temple-subscription list to secure their passage. The Noh play stages their escape through a tense encounter at the barrier.
When young gay impersonator Juicy spends the electricity money on his self-centered boyfriend Onyx, his older sibling Kiwi, who runs a beauty salon, tries to recover it before the power is cut. Kiwi uses salon supplies to challenge Onyx as the family conflict exposes emotional abuse, toxic masculinity, and conditional love.
Athalie, queen of Judah, has abandoned Israelite religion and believes she has destroyed the royal family, but the high priest Joad and his wife have secretly raised the surviving child Joash. As Athalie encounters the child and seeks control of him, the priests reveal his royal identity and restore him to the throne; Joad executes Athalie.
Scenes from Greek tragedies trace the violence within the House of Atreus: Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia, Clytemnestra’s revenge, and the retaliatory killing by Orestes and Electra. The sequence follows Orestes through his pursuit by the Furies to his eventual reunion with Iphigenia.
Years after the Genpei War, monk Renshō visits the site where he killed the young warrior Atsumori to pray for his release. Atsumori first appears disguised as a grass cutter, then returns as a ghost to recount his death in dance; Renshō refuses to reenact the killing, and the spirit asks him to pray for its release.
In Attila’s camp in Noricum, the Hun king weighs a political marriage to either Ildione or Honorie while his advisers Ardaric and Valamir are in love with the princesses. He chooses Ildione, but dies of a hemorrhage before their wedding, leaving the other characters hopeful for a brighter future.
Set in Montreal, the play examines war's effects on soldiers and civilians through a traumatized young veteran, a pacifist musician, a psychologist treating veterans while coping with compassion fatigue, and a filmmaker seeking to turn the soldier's experience into a film.
In a metatheatrical comedy, the characters watch the audience and expect it to perform; the playwright is also seated among the spectators, whose habits become the joke.
The action takes place over the course of several weeks in August inside the three-story home of Beverly and Violet Weston outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma. The play opens with Beverly Weston, a once-famous poet, interviewing Johnna, a young Cheyenne woman, for a position as live-in cook and caregiver for his wife Violet, who is being treated for mouth cancer due to heavy cigarette use for most of her life. Violet is a heavy drinker addicted to several different kinds of prescription drugs and exhibits paranoia and mood swings. Beverly, who freely admits that he is an alcoholic, lightly converses about Violet's current problems, most of which Beverly concedes are the result of personal demons too powerful to be cured by drugs. Violet enters the scene clearly affected by her drugs. After an incoherent and combative argument with Beverly, Violet returns upstairs. Beverly hires Johnna, lends her a book of T.S. Eliot's poetry, and continues to drink. Several weeks later. Beverly Weston has not been seen for five days. Several family members have gathered in the house to provide support for Violet including her daughter Ivy, her sister Mattie Fae and Mattie Fae's husband Charlie. When Violet is not making calls attempting to track down her husband or popping pills, she spends the time sniping at her family, particularly Ivy, whom she criticizes for her mode of dress and lack of a romantic life. The news comes that Beverly's boat is missing, furthering the fear that he has died by suicide. Ivy's older sister Barbara arrives from Boulder, Colorado, with her husband Bill and 14-year-old daughter Jean. Barbara has not visited her mother in several years, and has mixed feelings about returning to the house because of the confrontational nature of their relationship. They fall into an argument almost immediately, during which Violet accuses her of abandoning her family and breaking her father's heart. Later in the evening, Jean bonds with Johnna after the older woman allows her to smoke some marijuana in her room. She confides to Johnna that her parents are separated and are attempting to hide the fact from the family. Bill and Barbara argue over the cause of their separation as they make a bed out of the fold-out sofa in the living room: Bill is sleeping with a much younger woman, one of his students at the university where he teaches. At five AM, the local sheriff, Deon Gilbeau (Barbara's high school boyfriend) rings the doorbell and breaks the news that Beverly has been found drowned. Barbara goes to identify the body as Violet comes downstairs in a drug-addled fog. The act ends with her spiraling into confusion. Several days later. The family has come from Beverly's funeral. Violet spends a quiet moment alone in Beverly's office, bitterly reproaching him for leaving her, and takes some more pills. Before the memorial dinner prepared for the family by Johnna, several family arguments and scenes arise. Ivy and Barbara's sister Karen has flown in from Florida with her new fiancé and can talk about nothing except her wedding plans, distressing Barbara. During an argument with her mother and Mattie Fae, Ivy unwittingly confesses that she is seeing someone romantically but refuses to say whom. Mattie Fae and Charlie's son Little Charles has overslept and missed the funeral. His father is sympathetic but Mattie Fae is, as usual, rude to and critical of her son. Karen's fiancé Steve discovers that Jean is a pot-smoker and offers to share his stash with her, lewdly flirting with the teenaged girl. In a private moment, it is revealed that Ivy's lover is actually Little Charles, her first cousin. Dinner is served, and Violet begins insulting and needling all of her family members. After inappropriately discussing Beverly's will at the table, she cruelly exposes Barbara and Bill's separation. When Barbara starts to fight back, Violet tauntingly reveals the full extent of her addiction, and the tensions develop into a violent confrontation, culminating in Barbara physically attacking her mother. After family members separate them, Barbara takes control of the situation, ordering that the family raid the house to discover all of Violet's hiding places for her pills. Several hours later things have calmed down, but the pain of the dinner confrontation has not gone away. Barbara reports that Violet's doctor thinks she has brain damage, and the three sisters share a drink in their father's study, discussing their mother. Ivy reveals that she and Little Charles are planning to run away to New York, and refuses to acknowledge the need for someone to take care of Violet. She reveals that it was Violet, not Beverly, who was heartbroken when Barbara left Oklahoma. Violet enters, now more coherent and off her drugs but no less incorrigible, is resigned to dealing with her demise on her own terms. She discusses a depressing story from her childhood with her daughters. In a private moment, Barbara and Violet apologize to each other, but it is uncertain how long the peace will last. Mattie Fae observes a tender moment between Little Charles and Ivy, and begins taunting him again when the ever-patient Charlie finally loses his temper with his wife, berating her for her cruelty to her own son and promising her that unless she can find a way to be kind to Little Charles, he is going to leave her. The lecture is accidentally overheard by Barbara, who confirms when pressed that Little Charles and Ivy are lovers. She is shocked when Mattie Fae reveals that Little Charles is not just Ivy's first cousin but also her half-brother, the result of a long-ago affair between Mattie Fae and Beverly. Mattie Fae refuses to tell Ivy or Little Charles the truth, leaving it up to Barbara, who knows that the news will destroy Ivy, to find a way to end the incestuous affair. Later that night, Steve and Jean share a joint, and before long, Steve attempts to molest Jean. Johnna walks in on the scene and attacks Steve with a skillet; the noise brings Jean's parents and Karen to the scene. An ugly argument follows when Jean defensively lashes out at her parents with hurtful comments about her father's affair, and Barbara slaps her. Karen leaves with Steve, choosing to lie to herself and mistakenly blaming Jean for what happened. Bill elects to return to Boulder with Jean and admits, when Barbara confronts him, that he is not going to come back to her. He leaves as Barbara tells him she loves him. Two weeks pass. Barbara, now drinking heavily, offers Johnna a chance to quit and leave the toxic environment of the Weston house, but she chooses to stay. Sheriff Gilbeau drops by the house with the news that Beverly had stayed at a motel shortly before he died by suicide. He and Barbara nearly share a tender moment, but she is too emotionally exhausted and drunk to consummate it. Several days later, Ivy has dinner with Barbara and Violet. Ivy attempts to tell her mother, over Barbara's objections, of her plans with Little Charles but Violet suddenly confesses that she already knows that Little Charles is Beverly's son. Ivy recoils in shock and horror, rebuffing Barbara's attempts to comfort her, and says that she will never tell him and leaves for New York anyway. Before she goes, Ivy angrily accuses Barbara of turning into Violet, stunning Barbara. Violet calmly reveals that she has deliberately destroyed Ivy and Charles' affair, which she knew of the entire time. Barbara and her mother have one last angry confrontation during which Violet blames Barbara for her father's suicide. Violet also reveals his suicide might have been preventable since she knew which motel he stayed in the night he left the house, but did nothing to help him until after she removed money from the couple's joint safe deposit box. Barbara, realizing that her mother has slipped beyond her help, leaves the house. Violet breaks down and is left only with Johnna, who ends the play with a quotation from a T.S. Eliot poem: "This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends."
During the First World War, Lord Augustus Highcastle boasts about the seriousness of the war while leaving a list of British gun emplacements unattended. A female spy flatters him, switches the document for a fake and reports her success to the War Office, leaving Augustus to realize he has been duped.
Miserly Euclio guards a pot of gold while trying to arrange his pregnant daughter Phaedria's marriage. His wealthy neighbor Megadorus proposes to her; Lyconides confesses to having made her pregnant, and a slave steals the gold. The surviving manuscript breaks off before the conclusion.
Joannes Burmeister's Neo-Latin reworking of Plautus's comedy, recast as a biblical drama featuring Achan and Rahab from the Book of Joshua.
During court-ordered visitation, Stewart tries to reconnect with his children while his nervous new wife Mona is present. Their mother Gloria arrives drunk, and Aunt Bam steps in to manage the volatile family reunion.
The ill, reclusive Lemon recounts a childhood shaped by her charismatic Aunt Dan’s stories and ruthless realpolitik. Dan’s later experience of illness briefly changes her outlook, while Lemon concludes that compassion is a comforting fiction and violence is necessary.
Aunt Edwina is a 1959 comedy play by the British writer William Douglas Home. It premiered at Devonshire Park Theatre in Eastbourne, before beginning a run of 101 performances in London between 3 November 1959 and 6 February 1960.The production was staged initially at the Fortune Theatre in the West End before transferring to the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. The London cast included Henry Kendall, Margaretta Scott, Cyril Raymond (later replaced by Geoffrey Lumsden), Nicholas Selby, Peter Cellier and Hilary Tindall.
Auntie Mame is a comedic stage play written by American playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. The play was adapted from the novel of the same name first published in 1955 by Patrick Dennis. The play was a critical and commercial success, and was nominated for five Tony Awards, running for 639 performances.
Aurelio and Miranda is a 1798 play by the British writer James Boaden, inspired by Matthew Gregory Lewis 1796 novel The Monk. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 29 December 1798. The original cast included John Philip Kemble as Aurelio, Sarah Siddons as Miranda, William Barrymore as Raymond, Charles Kemble as Lorenzo, John Bannister as Christoval, Walter Maddocks as Hilario, Ralph Wewitzer as Pedro, Jane Powell as Agnes, Charlotte Tidswell as St. Agatha, Maria Bland as Zingarella, Sarah Sparks as Leonella and Elizabeth Heard as Antonia.
A rhymed-verse Restoration drama loosely based on the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, his brother Murad Baksh and their father Shah Jahan.
A count, duke, king, emperor, bishop, archbishop, and pope face judgment and are condemned to the Ship of Hell for sinful lives and oppression of the poor.
In an allegorical port, the Angel and Devil judge deceased passengers who argue over which boat they deserve. Most are sent to Hell for their worldly sins; four crusading knights reach Heaven, while a humble fool remains in the port.
Deceased souls seek passage onto the Angel's ship. Only a young boy boards the Ship of Heaven, the gambler goes to Hell, and the remaining characters must stay in Purgatory to atone.
A northeastern Brazilian comedy shaped by cordel literature and Catholic tradition. Framed as a pantomime by a clown-host, its characters include the scheming friends João Grilo and Chicó and a final judgment in which Jesus and Our Lady of Aparecida hear the characters’ cases.
Postal worker Eloi’s sexuality is repressed by his rigidly moralistic mother. He intercepts a lewd photograph sent between a university student and an antique dealer, then visits the student to warn him about sending such material.
Seven short vignettes, each for two people and set entirely in a car's front seat, explore the relationships of people sharing a journey. The original five segments—Bench Seat, Long Division, Road Trip, Autobahn, and Merge—were later joined by All Apologies and Funny.
A man entering the autumn of his life is unaware that his wife is unfaithful and is also gradually losing his sight. The domestic drama follows how his physical blindness and ignorance of the affair intersect.
A schoolteacher on holiday in the Tyrol falls in love with the married owner of the hotel where she is staying.
Late in her life, Ava Gardner invites journalist Peter Evans to help write her memoir. Their conversations revisit her Hollywood career, marriages, and private disappointments, becoming a contest over intimacy, trust, and who controls the story of a famous life.
In Rome, an American man arrives to retrieve his father’s body after a road accident and meets an English woman there to retrieve her mother’s body from the same accident. He learns that the two dead parents had been lovers.
Recent graduate Princeton moves to a rundown New York neighborhood and searches for a purpose while forming relationships with his neighbors, including puppet characters and human residents. The musical parodies children's educational television while its young adult characters confront work, money, racism, sexuality, pornography, and uncertain futures.
Awake and Sing! is a drama play written by American playwright Clifford Odets. The play was initially produced by The Group Theatre in 1935.
Three families holiday on the coast over Christmas 1968. Their experiences of grief, class, racism, family conflict, and illness converge; a young boy with leukaemia and a grieving mother perform a symbolic piece about freedom and letting go.
A five-act tragedy set in Trondheim Cathedral under Haakon Herdebred: cousins Axel and Valborg love one another, but a scheming monk prevents their marriage despite a papal dispensation.
At a convent, Sara refuses to take religious vows and escapes. She later meets Axël in his castle while both seek hidden treasure; after they fall in love, they reject the ordinary life they expect the world to offer and die by suicide together.
An old gardener falls in love with the Imperial Consort, who challenges him to beat a drum made of soundless twill. Realizing he has been mocked, he drowns himself and returns as a ghost to torment her.
György Spiró reworks Molière's Tartuffe for the political conditions of Communist Hungary.
A drunken, dissolute poet rejects bourgeois convention, wanders through the countryside and leaves sexual and violent destruction behind him. After seducing Johanna, abandoning Sophie and murdering Ekart, Baal dies alone while hunted by police.
The play was colored by the then recent passage of the Volstead Act, which lent possession of alcohol an illicit air, and mention of drinking a clandestine glamor. Act I (The library at the Archibald's country house. An afternoon late in May.) Bab's school has shut due to an outbreak of measeles, so she has returned home. A family crisis has occurred over Leila inviting Clinton Beresford, whom her father detests, for the weekend. Carter Brooks and James Archibald are dragged to a tea party with Mrs. Archibald and Leila. While they're gone, Jane Raleigh comes over. Bab opens her suitcase to show Jane a play she wrote at school, but it turns out to be filled with men's clothing and a whisky bottle. Bab realizes she mixed up suitcases with a young man on the train. William brings that young man, holding Bab's suitcase, into the library. He turns out to be Beresford. Bab is incensed when her mother nixes attendance at a party for Beresford. Bab decides to invent a lover named Harold Valentine, to display her maturity, and enlists Eddie Perkins' help in carrying out the deception. (Curtain) Act II (Scene 1:Same as Act I. The next day.) Bab returns home from a store with a postcard photo of a handsome young man. She inscribes the photo as if he had given it to her, and "hides" it in the library. She then writes a letter to "Harold Valentine", including a love poem, and addresses the envelope. She asks Hannah to mail it, knowing the maid will instead give it to her mother. Flowers arrive for Bab from "H" (sent by Eddie). Mrs. Archibald confronts Bab with the missive and burns the letter. She threatens to pack Bab off to Great Aunt Veronica. Carter finds the photo and recognizes the image; he quickly tumbles to Bab's scheme. He intercepts a second letter in which Bab suggests marriage with "Harold", intending to put more pressure on her mother. (Three Minute Curtain) (Scene 2:Same as Act I. That night at 11pm.) Jane and Eddie are surprised to see Bab at the party, wearing Leila's old evening frock. Eddie, trying to act grownup in front of the girls, smokes a cigar and becomes ill. Carter arrives with a new guest: the young man in the photo! Carter tells an astonished Bab he has brought "Harold" just for her, but will tell everyone else he is Guy Grosvenor. Harold invites Bab to dance, pretending they are close, while she denies knowing him. Mr. Archibald, tipped off by Carter, puts his arm around "Harold" and pronounces him a fine young man, fit for joining a good family. Guy then asks to speak alone with Mr. Archibald, as if he were planning to ask for Bab's hand. Thoroughly alarmed, Bab realizes she must get back the letter. (Curtain) Act III (Bachelor's Quarters in the Archibald Boathouse. Just before midnight.) Beresford, having retired to his guest quarters, is surprised to find an armed burglar in his room. Bab, wearing a shabby old cap and coat of her father, has come looking for the letter. She hadn't realized Guy and Beresford shared a room. After a talk, Bab learns Beresford has a contract from the British Government to award to Mr. Archibald's company, but didn't want to seem like he was trying to buy Leila. He helps Bab search Guy's things; the letter is found and destroyed. But Carter and Guy turn up, a bit snockered, and insist on Beresford joining them in a drink. Bab, hiding in a closet, hears the details of Carter's plan. Guy has called it off, afraid Bab might commit suicide if pushed any further. Suddenly there is a gunshot from the closet, shocking the three men. Pulled into the room, Bab is unhurt. She had sneezed, causing her to jerk the trigger. Her parents and Leila, alarmed by the gunshot, rush into the boathouse. Bab sneezes again; she has the measeles. (Curtain) Act IV (Same as Act III. An afternoon, three weeks later.) Recovered from the measeles, Bab has been confined to the family property for her sins. She is determined on another scheme, Leila's elopement. A carefully worded message brings Beresford with the British Government contract options he holds. Bab briefs him on bringing a motorboat to the dock when he sees a signal flag go to half-mast. Jane and Eddie are to lower the flag when Leila enters the boathouse. But Bab's father comes in after Leila, whom Bab hastily conceals behind the door. Bab maneuvers her father so he no longer can see the doorway; Leila slips out unseen as the motorboat horn sounds. Mrs. Archibald now strolls in, guessing what happened. Bab mollifies her father with the contract options signed over to his company by Beresford. Carter comes to say goodbye; he is on his way to Poland, to help with its post-war reconstruction. Bab finally learns Carter loves her, but now must wait for his return. (Curtain)
In a three-act tragicomedy, autocratic ruler Valida Vrana governs the totalitarian state of Ritonia; the play addresses women’s reproductive rights.
A Bengali adaptation of The Father that recasts the Captain as a college teacher researching astrophysics, while retaining the conflict between him and his wife over their daughter.
The married Babio secretly desires his stepdaughter Viola while his servant Fodius has an affair with Babio’s wife Petula. When Babio catches them, Fodius tricks and castrates him; Babio then leaves the household for a monastery.
Goldilocks, Baby Bear, the three pigs, and Hansel and Gretel cross paths with a wolf who is also a witch; Goldilocks and Baby Bear help the children escape and build a shared brick house, while the wolf and witch ultimately destroy each other.
After months of bickering, newlyweds Zoie and Alfred Hardy live apart over their disagreement about having children. Zoie follows her friend Aggie's advice to procure a baby and claim it as theirs to lure Alfred home, but the baby's mother changes her mind just before his return, prompting a frantic search for another child.
Two parents who are completely unprepared for parenthood bring home their newborn baby. The two cannot seem to name the baby. John thinks the baby is a boy, but Helen says the doctors said they could decide later. When the baby cries, the two cannot quite decide what to do. To their rescue comes Nanny – who enters their apartment as if by magic, and is full of abrupt shifts of mood, first cooing at the baby soothingly, then screaming at it. In subsequent scenes, John and Nanny have an affair, Helen takes baby and leaves, only to come back a moment later rain-soaked and unhappy. By the time the baby is a toddler, Daisy has finally been named. At this age Daisy has a penchant for running in front of buses and for lying, depressed, in piles of laundry. The audience hears an alarming essay Daisy has written in school, and the principal, the terrifying Miss Willoughby, is oblivious to the essay’s cry for help, and instead gleefully awards it an "A" for style. Years later, Daisy enters dressed as a girl, but obviously a young man. The audience follows his years of therapy, where he alternates between feelings of depression and anger, and is unable to complete his freshman essay on Gulliver’s Travels despite having been in college for five years. In a scene reminiscent of the beginning of the play, Daisy (who has since chosen a new name) and his young bride fondly regard their own baby, determined not to repeat their parents' calamitous mistakes.
A terminally ill teenager falls in love with a young former addict while her family struggles with her approaching death and the uncontrollable force of love and life.
Two sisters named Bacchis are courtesans in Athens. Mnesilochus and Pistoclerus each fall for one sister, while the clever slave Chrysalus deceives Mnesilochus's father into providing money; the comedy ends with the sisters charming the two fathers as well.
During a Bacchic carnival in a small German town in 1523, a village idiot is declared king for a week and becomes rational, preaching love and freedom. He is sentenced to burn at the stake.
Two government agents confine young Arab American Khaled to his apartment and intensify their questioning, treating ordinary belongings as potential evidence. His girlfriend had reported him as suspicious after recent attacks, and the interrogation reflects the fear and suspicion facing Arab Americans after 9/11.
Shaw's five-play cycle follows humanity from Eden through 31,920 AD. Across successive eras, characters grapple with mortality, politics and the possibility that longer lifespans will allow people to mature enough to govern themselves; the final play imagines humanity evolving beyond bodily life.
Background is a 1950 play by the British writer Warren Chetham-Strode. It examines the effect on the children of a married couple going through a divorce. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Brighton before transferring to the Westminster Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 84 performances between 17 May and 29 June 1950. The original West End cast included Colin Douglas, Andre Morell, Lily Kann and Valerie White. It was directed by Norman Marshall.
Wheel-chaired marriage counselor Dr. Jason Pepper treats his patients in a country club setting complete with a clay tennis court and freely flowing cocktails. Roy and April Pitt arrive as the play opens; they are recently married movie stars who are already seeking couples therapy because of their frequent bickering. Anal-retentive Harry Scupp has been at Dunelawn for three months, and on this day his wife Dolly decides to drive up to encourage him to come home. Hiram and Francis are old friends of questionable sexuality who have been at Dunelawn since it opened years ago, content to stay indefinitely courtesy of Francis' family fortune. Meanwhile, manservant Otto mixes the drinks, carries luggage, and keeps the grounds. Over the course of the play the various couples meet, interact, argue, and even wrestle, with Dr. Pepper encouraging them to do whatever feels good. Very little has changed by the end of the day, except that Harry has decided to return home while Dolly is going to check in. A day in a rehab centre that deals with various "bad habits". The three patients that are introduced through the dialogue are an alcoholic, a drag queen and a perverted sadistic deluded man. Doctor Toynbee, the man in charge of the centre, is described throughout as a great man, a saint, revered by everyone in his presence. The doctor has developed a “serum” that is meant to help get rid of his patients' flaws and worries. However, it lasts momentarily and the effects don't seem to eliminate any amount of the patients’ previous bad habits as a sign of gradual elimination of their bad habits. The play takes place over the course of a sunny afternoon at the centre. Bruno, a worker who helps out Ruth Benson and Becky Hedges, the nurses, and tends to the garden, brings the patients out one by one, where the nurses are giving patients serum, some sun and some fresh air. As he goes back and forth, he “leers” at Hedges, attempting to seduce her. As they wait for Bruno to bring along the next patient, we learn about the two nurses, their own bad habits, past lives, regrets and their striving for reformation. We learn of the trigger for their quest: men; at least in Ruth Benson's case, one man: Hugh Gumbs.
After their grandfather’s death, cousins fight over a treasured piece of religious jewelry he hid during the Holocaust. Their dispute also exposes conflict over faith, cultural assimilation, and the validity of their romances.
Interconnected episodes follow women living through war in eastern Ukraine. Encounters shaped by desire, fear, and survival reveal how conflict transforms intimate relationships and everyday moral choices.
Badger's Green is a 1930 British comedy play written by R.C. Sheriff. A company has ambitious plans to redevelop the quiet, picturesque village of Badger's Green. The inhabitants mount a resistance campaign and it is eventually decided to settle the future of the village by playing a cricket match. The play originally opened in June 1930 at London's Prince of Wales Theatre, where it ran for only 35 performances. It has however, been adapted for the screen three times: a 1934 version starring Valerie Hobson, a 1938 version starring Maurice Denham and a 1949 version starring Garry Marsh. It was also adapted for television twice: a now-lost 1938 version on BBC television and a 1958 version as part of ITV Television Playhouse, also lost.
Three Iraqi expatriates return to Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and confront the consequences of returning home after exile.
During a family’s Navratri gathering, the street performer Sadaa is mistaken for actor Prashant Damle and welcomed into the Mujumdar home, where relatives plan competing versions of their traditional show. The arrival of the real Damle and Sadaa’s bharud expose the family’s old injustice toward a performer.
A driver, helper and seventeen passengers travel by mini-bus toward Baikuntha, or paradise. As the bus moves through imaginary places, a series of events unfolds among those aboard.
In the Ottoman court, grand vizier Acomat plans to exploit Sultan Murad’s absence and promote Bajazet. Bajazet loves Atalide but feigns affection for Roxane to gain power; when Roxane discovers the truth and learns Murad has prevailed, she orders Bajazet’s death, is herself assassinated, and Atalide takes her own life.
During a hot Montreal summer, three families and a neighbourhood delivery boy sit on balconies in Pointe-Saint-Charles while a politician's broadcast truck airs campaign promises in English and French. The play examines working-class neighbourhood life and the social and linguistic tensions of the Montreal community.
Bali confronts Ravana and humiliates him in a Kathakali drama centered on heroic valor. The conflict culminates in Ravana’s defeat by the vanara king.
A Catalan hagiographic spoken dance dramatizing merchant Josep Nin's rescue of a crucifix from an Algerian merchant. A narrator introduces the legend, actors reenact it, and a closing speech by the devil solicits funds from the audience.
After a raspberry-picking contest, Balladyna murders her sister Alina to win Prince Kirkor’s hand. She rises to power through further crimes, kills her lover and seizes the Polish throne, then is forced to judge the murders she committed; divine punishment ends her reign.
Three adopted sisters, Pauline, Petrova and Posy, grow up in a fossil-filled London house with their guardian Sylvia, Nana and a group of lodgers. As each pursues her own ambitions, the sisters struggle to build their futures and keep their family together.
Two men live in a single room and discuss an imaginary Irish town called Ballyturk. A third man arrives and says one must leave; after the decision, the departing man is replaced by a seven-year-old girl.
Set over three days in a New York café frequented by addicts, prostitutes and thieves, the play follows dealer Joe and newcomer Darlene as they try to imagine a different life. Joe is killed just as he considers leaving drug dealing, and the characters' repeated opening dialogue suggests their lives are trapped in a cycle.
In an alternate-history Britain ruled by a communist revolution, a commune of writers lives in poor conditions at Balmoral. Their uneasy routine is disrupted when a Russian capitalist journalist arrives to interview a missing author.
Jelinek’s protest play addresses the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and depicts physical and sexual violence.
A young man's paternity leaves each of two principal characters worried that he may be the father.
Retainer Asayama Tetsuzan plots to seize power by stealing one of ten heirloom plates and framing Okiku. He tortures and kills her after she refuses to become his lover or help murder the heir; her ghost rises from the well to count the plates while Tetsuzan remains unmoved.
In Edo in 1655, Aoyama and servant Okiku have promised to marry, but a proposed marriage to another woman tests their commitment. Okiku breaks an heirloom plate to test Aoyama's intentions; after her death he sees her ghost as beautiful and kills himself to join her.
In a jail cell, high-school shooter Josh is tormented by apparitions of five classmates he killed. The chorus of five actors also voices rumors and the darkness surrounding him. The play was inspired by the Thurston High School shooting and was intended for performance by young people.
A fast-paced Parisian farce of the 1890s built around extramarital affairs, clandestine assignations, slammed doors and shifting rooms.
Two businessmen recount prostitution rings in Thailand before one confesses he has contracted AIDS; the conversation is interrupted by the story of the Thai prostitute who transmitted the disease.
A Bengali stage adaptation of Satyajit Ray's science-fiction story about schoolteacher Banku Babu and an alien visitor.
A theatrical portrait of Australian football legend Ron Barassi, tracing the figure’s place in the history and character of the game.
Clyde Fitch's four-act Civil War drama centers on Barbara Frietchie, adapting the heroine of Whittier's poem while weaving in a fictionalized love story based on Fitch's grandparents. The production sought historical realism and experimented with confined acting spaces.
In the provincial town of Verkhopolye, railroad engineers arrive claiming to bring civilization but reproduce a new kind of barbarism. Their arrival disrupts the old order and contributes to Nadezhda Monakhova's suicide, official Drobyazgin's departure over embezzlement, and Grisha's alcoholism.
Corie and Paul Bratter are a newlywed couple. For their first home, they live in an apartment on the top floor of a brownstone in New York City. Corie is optimistic about their future together, while Paul, the more anxious and grounded half of the couple, worries about the various flaws in the apartment, such as a hole in the skylight, their leaky closet, and the lack of a bathtub. Shortly after moving in, Corie attempts to set her mother up with their eccentric neighbor Mr. Velasco. During the course of four days, the couple learns to live together while facing the usual daily ups-and-downs. Corie wants Paul to become more easy-going: for example, to run "barefoot in the park".
Algie Packer has been in prison for seven years for committing bank robbery and it is the day of his release. There is only one problem; his mother Emmie and his sister-in-law Chrissie have spent the proceeds of the robbery on luxury items, like around the world cruises and blue Ferraris. What follows is a comedy of errors as the Packer family try to cover their tracks and go on the run, involving a lawyer, the street hit-man and a pair of maracas.
Set in Germany during Hitler's rise to power, the drama follows an engineer, author, artist, and journalist debating whether to remain neutral as a battle rages in their town and they are forced to choose sides.
As John Barrymore rehearses an imagined revival of Richard III shortly before his death, a stage manager prompts him through memories of his career and personal decline, including his alcoholism.
At the London fair, Justice Overdo, the countryman Cokes, the Littlewits, and their companions are swept into pickpocketing, disguise, quarrels, and a puppet show. After their schemes are exposed, Overdo forgives them and invites the company to supper.
A multimedia verbatim theatre work about the effects of war on veterans, families and communities, following a young Marine and his wife through spoken text, live music, photographs and filmed interviews.
A theatrical collection of three dark monologue plays about characters from Mormon backgrounds confronting acts of violence and their rationalizations.
A humorous, suspenseful adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles condenses more than forty roles into five actors, with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as its two principal roles.
After Dick Grayson’s acrobat parents are murdered, he is taken in by Bruce Wayne and Alfred. Batman reveals his identity to Grayson and trains him to seek justice rather than revenge as Gotham’s villains unite against them, with the Joker’s plan to unleash Arkham inmates setting up their final confrontation.
An outdoor historical drama about the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe and its surrounding events, condensing a five-year period into a two-hour performance. Its characters include William Henry Harrison, Tecumseh, their families and soldiers on both sides.
After a devastating war, victorious Yudishtira must become king while grieving its cost. He and the former king Dritarashtra confront their responsibility for the destruction and seek a way to live with its aftermath.
In Batumi in 1901–1902, Stalin organizes workers, formulates demands about long hours, fines, and dismissals, and leads demonstrations after the arrest of labor leaders. The play follows his arrest and the Tsar’s decision to exile him, using the episode to portray revolutionary and state authorities.
At his New Jersey mansion in 1953, painter Rudolf Bauer struggles with the urge to paint after a contract gave Solomon Guggenheim rights to all his work. His wife Louise invites his former lover Hilla Rebay, who helped secure the contract, in a desperate attempt to make him paint again.
An experimental play denouncing violence against women.
In 1970s Chicago, 13-year-old Tracy Fong faces school bullies, social expectations, and conflict with her mother. The ghost of Bruce Lee appears as her mentor, teaching her about strength and the power of water.
In 1964, nineteen-year-old Mary is sent to a religious mother-and-baby home after her pregnancy is discovered. She and the other young women form friendships as they face childbirth and adoption; after Mary gives birth and loses her daughter Lucy to adoption, she leaves the child her teddy bear.
An irascible Scotsman named John and an uptight English woman named Maude, both in their late fifties, are unexpectedly brought together on a journey of a lifetime.
Across one day in the 1950s, a circle of friends modeled on Jack Kerouac and fellow Beat writers explore friendship, tension and karma through their conversations and encounters.
A monologue play drawing on David Hare’s experience of catching COVID-19.
Austin Fryers’s prequel to Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, centered on Beata, the character whose suicide precedes Ibsen’s play.
Harry and Nan's strained marriage is further tested when their adult son Isaac says he has fallen in love with a child and wants to return home. His parents struggle between love for him and horror at his actions, then reach a disturbing compromise.
On a South London council estate, teenager Jamie falls for his classmate Ste, who seeks refuge at Jamie's home from an abusive father. As they begin a relationship, school bullying, neighborhood gossip, and family tensions come to a head; Jamie's mother Sandra ultimately accepts the boys' relationship.
South Pacific missionary Abelard and his wife Mabel are at the center of a play that endorses the minister’s life while challenging his Victorian prudery.
Beauty in Distress is a 1698 tragedy by the English writer Peter Anthony Motteux. The original Lincoln's Inn Fields cast included Thomas Betterton as Don Vincentio, John Verbruggen as Ricardo, Edward Kynaston as Duke Ferdinand, John Hodgson as Fabiano, Elizabeth Barry as Laura, Anne Bracegirdle as Placentia and Henrietta Moore as Morella.
After ten years apart, a painter’s daughter tries to rebuild her relationship with him; as they reconnect, they fall for the same person. A ghostly Federico García Lorca helps the father confront his sexuality and his role as a parent.
Albert Gonsalves's alcoholism and gambling impoverish his family. Though his wife Gertrude foresees the damage and remains devoted to him, Albert's vices and gambling companions culminate in the death of his young son and a tragic family crisis.
An after-dinner game of Monopoly between two couples turns into a succession of quarrels and tantrums that threatens their friendships.
A historical play inspired by the 1170 murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket by agents of King Henry II.
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