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Clear filtersBellamira is an 1818 historical tragedy by the Irish writer Richard Lalor Sheil. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 22 April 1818. The original cast included Elizabeth O'Neill as Bellamira, William Macready as Amurath, Charles Kemble as Manfredi, Charles Mayne Young as Montalto, Daniel Terry as Salerno, Charles Connor as Kaled, and Thomas Comer as Gonzaga. Sheil dedicated the play to the Whig politician Lord Holland.
Bellamira, a bankrupt merchant's daughter turned courtesan, manipulates her wealthy keeper and male admirers. A plot involving an alleged eunuch's assault of Isabella exposes the play's satire of a profit-seeking, hypocritical society.
In a gothic comedy set in Scotland in 1899, amateur scientist Pearl MacIsaac investigates a family secret after her father's death, amid turn-of-the-century debates about evolution, medicine, and eugenics.
A fragmentary tragedy of Bellerophon’s challenge to the gods, including his fall from Pegasus.
The play follows a young American ex-pat couple living in the up-and-coming Belleville neighbourhood of Paris. Abby is an actor-turned-yoga-instructor, while Zack is doing AIDS research with Doctors Without Borders, but their life abroad is filled with conflict. Belleville examines a marriage fraying at the seams and coming undone with unflinching honesty and truth.
After a failed political campaign in Britain, Kayode returns to his Nigerian hometown to visit his mother and encounters Kunle, a young reform-minded politician. As Kayode tries to enter local politics, his wife and friend clash over heritage and belonging, while the corrupt chief targets Kunle and leaves him gravely injured.
A live stage adaptation of Lew Wallace’s novel, presented as a large-scale arena spectacle with a sea battle, gladiatorial combat and the chariot race.
Ben Nazir, the Saracen is an 1827 historical tragedy by the Irish writer Thomas Colley Grattan. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London on 21 May 1827. The original cast included Edmund Kean as Ben Nazir, Henry John Wallack as Charles Martel, John Cooper as Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine, Alexander Pope as Clotaire, Thomas Archer as Mervan, Henry Southwell as Velid, Thomas Comer as Army officer, Benjamin Webster as a Slave, Harriet Smithson as Bathilda and Sarah West as Emerance. Kean was eager for a new play for his relaunch himself on the London stage after being forced to make a tour of America in the wake of the scandal of his affair with Constance Cox. He turned down Alfred the Great by James Sheridan Knowles and selected Ben Nazir, although its reception was disastrous.
A six-act theatrical adaptation of Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, closely following the novel and built around spectacular staging, including a live-horse chariot race on treadmills against a rotating backdrop.
In Holt, Colorado, hardware-store owner Dad Lewis is dying of cancer and reckons with his life and strained ties to his children. Nearby, eight-year-old Alice, whose mother died of cancer, is being raised by her grandmother and gradually welcomed by women in the community. A renegade minister reassigned to Holt also faces trouble in his family; the storylines converge as the townspeople form new bonds of family.
Benefactors is a 1984 play by Michael Frayn. It is set in the 1960s and concerns an idealistic architect David and his wife Jane and their relationship with the cynical Colin and his wife Sheila. David is attempting to build some new homes to replace the slum housing of Basuto Road and is gradually forced by circumstances into building skyscrapers despite his initial aversion to these. This is set against the backdrop of 1960s new housing projects. Sheila becomes his secretary but it is unclear if she is helping him or the other way around. As the title of the play suggests it is about helping people and explores some of the difficulties inherent in this or in being helped.
A Bengal tiger lives in Baghdad Zoo. He tells the audience that most of the animals have fled to "freedom" because of the Iraq invasion, only to be shot dead by soldiers. That night, United States soldiers come to guard the zoo. Two soldiers are stationed in front of the tiger's den. One soldier, Tom, teases the tiger with food. The tiger, driven by fear and hunger, bites off Tom's hand. Kev, another soldier, shoots the tiger, mortally wounding him. The tiger slowly dies. Kev finds himself haunted by the ghost of the tiger, who wanders about Baghdad. Due to an outburst while searching an Iraqi's home, Kev is sent to the hospital. Kev has seen the tiger's ghost and in turn people think he is going crazy. Back in Baghdad with a prosthetic hand, Tom pays a visit to Kev, less out of compassion for a broken-minded buddy than for a more practical purpose. It is revealed that the gold-plated gun Tom was showing Kev when the tiger bit Tom's hand off was taken from the palace of the late Uday Hussein, the son of overthrown Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Tom contacted Kev after he got his hand fixed because he wants the gold gun back. He can start a new life in the United States by selling not only the gold-plated gun, but also a solid gold toilet seat that was also Uday Hussein's. However, during Kev's episode in the home in Iraq when he saw the tiger's ghost, Kev dropped the gun and it fell into the hands of Uday's former gardener, Musa. Musa is also working as a translator for the United States soldiers. Musa is visited repeatedly by Uday's ghost. This is why Kev can't give Tom the gold gun back even if he wanted to. Kev continues to see the tiger's ghost and he believes that the tiger is haunting him because of his previous actions. Kev tries to cut off his own hand to give to the tiger, believing this action will make the tiger's ghost go away. Instead, Kev ends up killing himself while trying to cut his hand off. He then ends up haunting Tom throughout the rest of the story. The rest of the play goes on with the ghosts of the dead characters haunting and talking to the characters who are still alive.
On Gojō Bridge, the warrior monk Benkei confronts the young Yoshitsune, who defeats him. Their encounter forges a lasting bond, and Benkei becomes Yoshitsune's retainer.
In 1930s Germany, gay man Max and his partner are arrested after the Night of the Long Knives and sent to Dachau, where Max struggles to survive persecution and confront his identity.
After Vespasian's death, Titus is expected to marry Bérénice, queen of Palestine. Facing Roman opposition to the match, he chooses his duty as emperor over love and sends Antiochus to tell her; Bérénice rejects both men's offers and leaves Rome.
A young American is transported to London during the American Revolution, where he meets his ancestors.
A 55-minute monologue on Berlin and its history.
A group of young men in a Western town trade boasts about romance while Beau invents an ideal woman named Bernardine. Eager to impress his friends, the awkward Wormy pursues an older woman.
Bertram; or The Castle of St. Aldobrand is an 1816 Gothic tragedy by the Irish writer Charles Maturin, his first and most successful play. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London on 9 May 1816. The original cast included Edmund Kean as Bertram, Alexander Pope as St Aldobrand, Charles Holland as Prior of St Anselm, John Powell as Monk, Thomas Cooke as Robber, Margaret Somerville as Imogine and Susan Boyce as Clotilda. The prologue was written by John Hobhouse. The 1827 opera Il pirata composed by Vincenzo Bellini uses a libretto by Felice Romani inspired by Maturin's work. A contemporary discussion of the play is found in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Biographia Literaria.
During Tunisia’s uprising, a forensic pathologist is ordered to absolve the government of responsibility for Mohamed Bouazizi’s death. His examination becomes a confrontation with his own conscience and the country’s uncertain future.
The family running a run-down pension must deal with Prosper's estranged brother dying at their dinner table and leaving a large inheritance. Their plans are disrupted when his pregnant widow arrives, prompting Prosper to call for the traditional birth-celebration snack beschuit met muisjes.
On holiday at a shabby seaside boarding house, Wilf Pearson placates the grasping landlady, calms a quarrelling honeymoon couple, and tries to stop his daughter Sally from eloping with a philandering married actor performing at the pier.
It's a character study of a neurotic woman disrupting her friend's romance by falsely claiming to have a lesbian relationship with her.
The play features a fictionalised retelling of the 1968 ABC TV debates between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal, which take place during the Republican and Democratic Party conventions. Graham was inspired by a documentary film on the subject by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon. The play also contains other celebrities from the time such as David Brinkley, Andy Warhol, James Baldwin, and Aretha Franklin. They are used to set context and reflect the theme of how TV debates emerged in this period and have developed.
A poor family accepts money to marry Upato, a young daughter, to a wealthy old man; after she returns to her parents, a village council insists she must live with her husband, and her mother blames her father.
The years between 1968 and 1977 occur in reverse order; scenes within years 1977 and 1973 move forward. 1977 Scene One: Pub. 1977. Spring. Emma and Jerry meet for the first time in two years. For seven years they had an affair and a secret flat, and Jerry says no one else knew. Now Emma is having an affair with Casey, an author whose agent is Jerry and whose publisher is Robert, Emma's husband. Emma says she found out last night that Robert has betrayed her with other women for years, and admits she revealed her affair with Jerry. Scene Two: Jerry's House. Later the same day. Jerry meets Robert to talk about the affair. Robert reveals that in fact he learned about it four years ago. Since then their friendship has continued, albeit without playing squash. 1975 Scene Three: Flat. 1975. Winter. It is the end of Jerry and Emma's affair. They rarely meet, and Emma's hopes that the flat would be a different kind of home are unfulfilled. They agree to give it up. 1974 Scene Four: Robert and Emma's House. Living room. 1974. Autumn. Jerry visits Robert and Emma at home. He reveals that Casey has left his wife and is living nearby. Jerry and Robert plan to play squash, but Jerry reveals that first he is visiting New York with Casey. 1973 Scene Five: Hotel Room. 1973. Summer. Robert and Emma are on holiday, intending to visit Torcello tomorrow. Emma is reading a book by Spinks, another author whose agent is Jerry. Robert says he refused to publish it because there is not much more to say about betrayal. Robert has discovered that Emma has received a private letter from Jerry. Emma admits they are having an affair. Scene Six: Flat. 1973. Summer. Emma has returned from the holiday with Robert in Venice. She has bought a tablecloth for the flat. Jerry reveals that despite the affair he continues to lunch with Robert. Scene Seven: Restaurant. 1973. Summer. Robert gets drunk over lunch with Jerry. He says he hates modern novels, and that he went to Torcello on his own and read Yeats. 1971 Scene Eight: Flat. 1971. Summer. Emma wants to know whether Jerry's wife suspects his affair, and announces that while Jerry was in America she became pregnant with Robert's child. 1968 Scene Nine: Robert and Emma's House. Bedroom. 1968. Winter. During a party Jerry surprises Emma in her bedroom and declares his love for her. He tells Robert he is his oldest friend as well as his best man.
A group-devised feminist performance satirizing stereotypical ocker characters, it grew from women's responses to working in the male-dominated Australian Performing Group and challenged social expectations represented in a 1951 children's reader.
Betty seeks a peaceful beach-house vacation, but her housemates include a serial killer, a flasher, and other alarming guests. A mysterious laugh track turns the stay into a grotesque spectacle, culminating in a trial staged by the voices behind it.
After Ross O’Carroll-Kelly and his family become victims of a tiger kidnapping, they must prevent their wealthy Dublin suburb of Foxrock from being replaced by Sandyford East.
Retired New York police officer Walter “Pops” Washington lives in a rent-controlled Riverside Drive apartment with his newly released son, Junior, Junior's girlfriend and a recovering addict. While facing possible eviction, Pops pursues a discrimination suit over having been accidentally shot by another officer.
Climatologist and government adviser Daniel loses a lifetime of research in a flood. When Fiona tells him they are about to start a family, he must choose between what he can predict and what he cannot.
During parent-teacher interviews, Marion confronts her son's third-grade teacher Teresa after discovering that Teresa is having an affair with her husband Curtis. Teresa has grown close to the boy and suspects he may have serious ADD, sharpening the conflict between the women.
This Cornish religious drama combines three legends: Meriasek refuses marriage to pursue the priesthood and becomes a miracle-working hermit; Saint Sylvester heals Constantine and helps establish Christianity; and a mother takes the Christ Child from a statue of Mary until her captive son is returned.
This fragmentary Cornish saint's play begins with Kea's miracles and conflict with the tyrant Teudar, then turns to Arthur's wars against Rome and Mordred. The surviving text breaks off during the final conflict. The work may have been intended for performance over two days.
This farcical comedy focuses on Prudence and Bruce, two Manhattanites who are seeking stable romantic relationships with the help of their psychiatrists, each of whom suggests their patient place a personal ad in the newspaper. Bruce is a highly emotional bisexual who tends to cry easily, a trait Prudence sees as a weakness. Their first meeting proves to be disastrous and the two report back to their respective therapists—libidinous Stuart, who once seduced Prudence, and eccentric Charlotte, who stumbles over the simplest of words, who references the play Equus as a good source of advice, and who interacts with her patients with the help of a stuffed Snoopy doll. Clearly the two therapists are more troubled than their patients. Charlotte suggests a revised ad, which once again attracts Prudence, but this time Prudence and Bruce manage to get past their initial loathing and discover they actually like each other. Complications ensue when Bruce's jealous live-in lover Bob decides to assert himself and do everything possible to maintain his status quo.
A satirical revue of sketches and musical pieces that mocks contemporary events, British authority and Shakespeare. Its material includes Peter Cook's caricature of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and music by Dudley Moore.
Act I Robert Mayo is sitting on the fence line of his family's farm, contemplating the horizon. He has dreamed of leaving the farm and travelling so he wouldn't live in one place. The next morning, Robert will sail with his maternal uncle, Captain Dick Scott, on the Sunda to visit the foreign places he has only dreamed and read about. Robert's elder brother, Andrew, wants to stay on the farm and keep working on it. Andrew is engaged to Ruth Atkins, a woman Robert has been in love with. On the eve of Robert's departure, he confesses his feelings to Ruth and she reveals that she also loves him and had only agreed to marry Andrew out of the mistaken belief Robert doesn't love her back. Robert decides to stay on the farm and marry Ruth. Upset over losing Ruth to Robert, Andrew hastily chooses to join his uncle. The family patriarch, James Mayo, persuades Andrew to stay. But Andrew still leaves with Captain Scott yet harbors no ill will to Robert. Act II Two years after his oldest son left to travel the world, Mr. Mayo dies. When another year passes, life on the Mayo family's farm has deteriorated due to Robert lacking the farming skills his brother has. Robert's mother, Kate Mayo, says Robert cannot help the deterioration, but his mother-in-law, Mrs. Atkins, retorts that all his hard work has yielded nothing. In the three years, Ruth discovers that all that charmed her about her husband no longer holds the same allure and their daughter, Mary, is as irritable and sickly as he was in his own youth. Ruth insists to Robert that she should have seen his "true self" and killed herself before they had married. This revelation embitters Robert and he continues to let the farm deteriorate. The Mayo family hopes for Andrew's homecoming. Having finished his three-year apprenticeship on the Sunda, Andrew wants to help, but has lost his money on ill-advised land speculation and must travel to Argentina to recoup his losses. He promises to return and restore the farm to its former glory. Ruth pleads with Andrew to stay, but he leaves on the first available ship to South America. Act III Five years pass by, and both Mrs. Mayo and Mary have died. The farm has been ruined and Robert himself is seriously ill from tuberculosis. Andrew returns poor again due to illegitimate trading and he brings a doctor to Robert, but the disease has become terminal. Now a broken man, Robert drags himself to the fence line one last time so he can observe the horizon and imagine the travels he would never experience.
Four people travel separately toward the Broad Arrow Café ten years after the Port Arthur massacre: a boy with an imaginary friend, a teenager whose father was killed, a bereaved young mother, and an elderly café worker who witnessed the attack. Their stories and flashbacks overlap as they confront grief and traumatic memory; the older man recounts the massacre and the teenager learns what happened to her father.
A monk transfers his soul into a courtesan’s body to teach his hedonistic disciple a lesson. When the messenger of death discovers he took the wrong soul, he places the courtesan’s soul in the monk’s body, producing a series of comic confusions until the souls are switched back.
In the final days of Nepal's first prime minister, Bhimsen Thapa, political conspiracies by courtiers bring his imprisonment and struggles. The eight-act historical play follows his fall.
A nonrealistic drama about the 1984 Bhopal disaster, staged with live music, a minimalist set and a chorus.
A domestic moral dilemma culminates in a wife murdering her husband.
A Danish skrako play blending acting, rap and stand-up, Biblen retells episodes including Cain and Abel, Noah’s Ark, Moses and the Ten Commandments, and the Last Supper as satire of the Bible, the Church of Denmark and Danish attitudes toward religion.
In Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, the family of Don Luis and their neighbors endure wartime daily life. Luisito’s postponed wish for a bicycle becomes a symbol of the childhood and carefree summer the war takes from him.
In the kingdom of Indrapura, Bidasari loves Prince Jamil while the sultana Lilagretha tries to eliminate rebels and, after hearing an oracle, plots Bidasari's death because she threatens her power.
Five older women who were former schoolmates gather to sew a project for their old school.
Bidesiya leaves his village for work in Calcutta and marries there, while his wife Pyari Sundari waits at home. A traveller carries her message to him; Bidesiya returns, followed by his second wife Saloni, whom Pyari eventually accepts.
Bipolar Leo and his more mature friend Ricky are aspiring screenwriters. Leo’s obsession with Al Pacino turns into a delusion that shapes their plans and friendship; after Leo leaves a mental institution, the men confront how their lives have changed, and bodyguard Frank Rose Jr. mirrors Leo’s fantasy world.
The action takes place in the sleepy factory office of the fictitious Chunkibix Ltd. The office is run by the domineering and pompous Mr Price-Hargreaves, whose assistant, the shy and downtrodden Mr Bloome, is under his thumb and generally treated badly. This continues until a flasher and stalker chases a young woman across Wandsworth Common (changed to a prominent local park when the show toured); Bloome is accused of being the flasher by the victim and a police detective. Surprisingly (and distinctly dubiously by any standards of modern morality), the female workers in the office, to whom Bloome had previously been all but invisible, suddenly find him sexually interesting, and almost a hero figure. Their flirtatious attentions have the effect of bolstering Bloome's ego; he quickly grows in confidence and stature, finally answering back to Price-Hargreaves, and even suggesting revolutionary improvements that greatly increase sales, thus drawing the attention of Chunkibix company owner, Lady Chesapeake. So satisfying is Bloome's transformation and newly found confidence that when the young victim discovers she had made a mistake in identifying him incorrectly as her assailant, Bloome becomes increasingly desperate to keep her quiet.
William Baker, a former professor disgraced by a student scandal, works in a minor publishing post and remains at the center of a demanding circle of friends. When a young author offers him a senior job in Geneva, his friends react to the prospect of his leaving, and William reveals the truth behind his fall from academia.
Fifty brides flee to an Italian manor to avoid marrying their fifty cousins. As the wedding day approaches, the group confronts gender politics, love and domestic violence; the modern adaptation recasts Aeschylus’s suppliants as refugees, with the grooms pursuing them by helicopter.
Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus examine the belongings people inherit and the memories attached to them. Personal stories and improvisation explore grief, family, and the difficulty of deciding what to keep.
A satire on Sydney high society, centered on wealthy lawyer Ritchie Bosanquet, socialite Meg Bosanquet, and trade union leader Terry Legge.
Across three generations from 1922 to 1933, the Mason family in Chicago faces racism, economic hardship, and conflicting visions of the future. Victor turns to Garveyism and plans to move to Africa, his son Lester supports communist revolution, and others remain committed to the American Dream.
In this ten-scene station drama, Lotte travels through Germany seeking human connection, but the people she meets remain enclosed in their own worlds. The play’s scenes are presented out of order.
A dramatization of Swami Vivekananda's life, unfolding through flashbacks during a conversation between him as an adult and as a child. Episodes trace his path from Narendranath through his meeting with Ramakrishna, travels in the West, relationship with Sister Nivedita, and work in India, while exposing human doubts and conflicts between religion and politics.
A biographical play about William Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, and their wives Lois and Anne, who created Al-Anon.
Act I (Morning room of the Manor House. Afternoon in August 1915.) Rev. Liptrott and his sister visit the Manor House. Miss Liptrott chides Rose for missing a Bible Study meeting. Penelope Moon keeps the Liptrotts company while waiting for Betty to appear. She lets slip that Betty is only a grass widow. Miss Liptrott seizes on this as a way of prying Col. Preedy loose from the Manor House. She tells him that Betty's husband is still alive, so his presence at the Manor House is inappropriate. The Colonel was unaware of this, as also was Mr. McFarlane. He had hopes of recouping Betty's overdrafts from her husband's life insurance. Betty wants Col. Preedy to stay, for Penelope's sake. She sends a telegram to herself, announcing the death of Peter Taradine in Africa. But as she accepts the condolences of Col. Preedy, his adjutant, Capt. Rymill appears: it is her husband Peter, who enlisted in Egypt under a false name. Betty faints. (Curtain) Act II (Same as Act I. The next morning at nine o'clock.) Peter and Penelope greet Col. Preedy and Betty at breakfast. Betty ducks out when Rose announces Rev. Liptrott, who has come to offer a memorial service. Preedy, who is wearing a mourning band, suggests Peter don one as well. Betty and Peter, alone at last, exchange recriminations. Peter asks why she waited until now to declare him dead. Betty mistakes Peter's admiration for Penelope, and later cautions Pen about him, without revealing his true identity. When Peter tries to telephone the Orderly Room, he finds the line is dead, cut off for non-payment. Penelope and he go off to the Post Office. Mrs. Brace remonstrates with Betty about the suppliers complaints of overdue payments. Preedy finds Betty crying afterwards, for her loss as he thinks. Penelope hears the Colonel consoling Betty, and snubs his suggestion of a walk. Penelope says that Peter went into the Post Office and was there a long time. Peter scolds Penelope for rejecting the Colonel's overtures. Peter explains to Betty why he enlisted under a false name. As he starts to go, he puts on a mourning armband, which Betty tears off. "Idiot", she says, as the telephone suddenly rings. (Curtain) Act III (Same as Act I. Three days later, after dinner.) Betty learns that Peter told Penelope days ago he is married, but not to whom. Penelope tells Betty that she has trouble thinking of men as friends; to her, Peter is just that, a friend. Col. Preedy has received a telegram from the War Office. He and Capt. Rymill will be deploying overseas in two days. Rev. Liptrott calls, bringing a volume of Meditations for Betty. He and Peter engage in a discussion of love, women and marriage, with the Reverend asserting that a dose of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus will make Betty more amenable to a religious life. Peter is startled when the Reverend declares extravagance is Betty's main virtue: she spends freely in giving love. When Peter demurs, he suggests "experience is the thief of wisdom". Peter lies to Col. Preedy, saying Betty expects him to propose to Penelope. Peter then sends Penelope outside to join the Colonel. Betty suggests a divorce, but Peter dismisses the idea. He explains there is no evidence for divoce, and he prefers reconciliation. They embrace, startling Penelope, who goes off with her new fiancé, the Colonel. As they kiss, Betty tells Peter that she has been so lonely... (Curtain)
A pure-hearted sailor is falsely accused of mutiny by the envious Master-at-Arms Claggart. Unable to speak in his defense because of a stutter, Billy strikes and accidentally kills Claggart; Captain Vere and the officers recognize the lack of murderous intent but condemn him under naval law.
Biloxi Blues is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon. It portrays the conflict of Sergeant Merwin J. Toomey and Arnold Epstein, one of many privates enlisted in the military stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi, seen through the eyes of Eugene Jerome, one of the other soldiers. This play is the second chapter in what is known as his Eugene trilogy, following Brighton Beach Memoirs and preceding Broadway Bound. The play won the Tony Award for Best Play, and Barry Miller won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as Arnold Epstein.
In 1615–16 Warwickshire, an aging Shakespeare accepts protection for his own land in exchange for silence as wealthy landowners enclose common fields and displace local families. As his household and the affected peasants confront the consequences, the play examines money, political responsibility and the artist’s complicity.
Portrait painter Marion Froude agrees to write her biography for a weekly magazine, bringing former lovers into the spotlight: a Tennessee senatorial candidate fears political and marital fallout, while a fading Hollywood star hopes the memoir will revive his career. Her affair with the editor further complicates the project.
A one-act play built from testimonies of Bangladeshi Birangona women who survived rape and torture during the 1971 Liberation War, giving their experiences voice from their own perspective.
Stephen Wraysford’s affair with his host’s wife Isabelle in prewar France changes both their lives. Returning to the same region as a soldier on the Somme, he draws on his memories of their love while facing the losses of war.
An experimental biographical drama depicting the eventful life of Swami Vivekananda.
Inspired by Rabindranath Tagore's poem, the drama places a wounded soldier and a Maoist together in a forest, where each claims to be the brave man. Its contemporary West Bengal setting and self-critical appearance by director Kaushik Sen frame a political satire.
During their young son's birthday celebration, Sandy and Bill Apple dote on their unruly child and insist that parenthood gives life meaning. Their guests, Mia and Jeffrey Freed, are accomplished anthropologists who have chosen not to have children, prompting a comic and increasingly fraught clash over motherhood and family.
Ernestine Ashworth recreates the same birthday cake each year as she ages from 17 to 101 without any external signs of aging. The actress playing Ashworth is on stage for the entire show. It is 90 minutes long, with no intermission.
Six young Ashkenazi Jewish Americans meet on a Birthright trip in 2006. The play follows their lives and relationships across 2016 and 2024, as they approach forty.
After a vital operation prevents Helen from having a child, her sister Claudia agrees to be a surrogate. Years later, when Claudia and her husband cannot conceive, she confronts the fact that the child she gave to Helen may be her only chance at motherhood.
Two beggars, Salim and Javed, overhear a cook's plan to deliver biryani and haleem to a Nawab. Javed impersonates the delivery boy, and the pair eat the food before the cook catches them.
A reworking of Tagore's play in which the king believes the goddess Kali rejects animal sacrifice, while the priest sees the king as trying to control the goddess. Suman Mukhopadhyay interprets sacrifice across several levels.
Rowena moves with her widowed father to a new country town and school. Though she can hear, she is mute, and must navigate friendship, disability, and fitting in while her father embarrasses her in public.
A docudrama about the grounding of British Airways Flight 149 at Kuwait International Airport during Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
On the eve of her son’s society wedding, respected Alicia Christie steals a black chiffon nightdress from a department store. The gesture becomes a cry for help from a woman driven to crisis by the accumulating demands of her divided family.
In a museum annex during World War II, children rehearse a pageant whose simultaneous fragments combine an 1840 voting struggle, Constance and Roy's wedding, and a ship carrying Black emigrants to Liberia; the scenes culminate in violence against the characters and the children portraying them.
Scientist Sir Claud Amory discovers that his formula for a new explosive has been stolen and gathers his household while awaiting Hercule Poirot. Amory is found dead after the lights go out, and Poirot investigates the poisoned coffee, a duplicate safe key, and a blackmail scheme linked to an international spy’s daughter. The suspects’ efforts to protect one another and conceal the formula complicate the case until Poirot exposes the thief and murderer.
Young sculptor Brindsley Miller and his fiancée have borrowed a neighbor's antiques to impress a wealthy art collector. A power failure leaves the characters unable to see one another, while the stage lighting reverses their apparent darkness; unexpected arrivals and mistaken identities expose the theft and Brindsley's secrets, escalating the evening into chaos.
The work is set on Fire Island and features a range of LGBTQ+ themes including poppers, group sex, and sexual rejection. A parallel theme is writer's block. It features a range of characters inspired by queer figures, including Gary Fisher, Michael Johnson, Kathy Acker, Yukio Mishima, and Samuel Delany. Harris played Fisher, reading from his published works, with the four other figures as muses or advisors to the character. Cultural references in the work make reference to social media culture on Twitter in the early 2010s, as well as the "Twitter gay" trope. The piece uses physical comedy and humour alongside serious dialogue, free verse, choral speaking, dance, and tableaux vivants.
A young woman challenges the low expectations placed on her and pursues her dream of becoming a dancer, amid a family drama.
A one-act farce about a very bad day in the life of an old-time radio detective show.
After a young woman is murdered, suspicion falls on married Peter, who has disappeared after spending weekends with her. His wife tries to shield him as police investigate, leaving the question of his guilt unresolved.
Aging Black artist Alexander seeks work that is politically and artistically meaningful while commercially successful, while his son J.D. pursues bold, unconventional art. Their competing visions shape this poetic, absurdist family drama.
A Black man raised by a wealthy white family returns home after prison for shooting his half-brother, reopening a conflict within the family.
After slave trader Haley pressures the Shelbys to pay their debts, Eliza and George flee with Eliza’s son Harry. In this adaptation, the enslaved people organize their own escape, with Tom joining them; their struggle allegorically evokes the oppression of Chinese migrants in the United States.
Setting: Magnolia College, a Black college in the Deep South, not long after World War I (c. 1919/1920) Andrew Morgan, the president of Magnolia College, is bitter over the racial oppression in the United States, but is hopeful that by educating highly skilled black workers he can improve the lives and future opportunities available to his African-American students through peaceful means. In contrast, Andrew's brother-in-law, David Lewis, is an angry young black poet and teacher of literature at Magnolia College who is convinced that only a violent uprising could persuade American society to change. David has recently returned from France where he served during World War I and where the progressive freedoms of French society allowed him to openly have a relationship with a white woman, Luella Verne, who was a fellow American serving in France as a nurse. Luella is the daughter of Senator Verne, and she visits Magnolia College with her father when he comes at the invitation of President Morgan who hopes to win Senator Verne's support. Senator Verne is unaware of Luella's past relationship with David, and is upset when she initiates contact with David. Simultaneously, Senator Verne makes advances of his own on Andrew Morgan's wife and David's sister Phyllis who is also African-American, demonstrating the senator's hypocrisy when it comes to interracial relationships. Luella convinces David to go with her to a cabin in some woods nearby and they are spotted by some white students. Rumor spreads among the white community that David has made unwanted sexual advances on Luella, even though it is Luella and not David who is the initiator of their rekindled relationship. As the rumors spread, they become more exaggerated and David is falsely accused of raping Luella. A white mob forms with the intent of murdering David on the day of Magnolia College's graduation ceremony. While the ceremony is taking place and President Morgan is giving a speech about racial equality, David is isolated and cornered by a white mob who lynches him.
A cross-cultural relationship develops between a Māori woman and an Aboriginal man, bringing together their communities and families.
Russian conscripts are briefed for their role in the Soviet–Afghan War in a sequence moving from 1987 back to 1981.
Based on interviews with former soldiers, the play portrays Black Watch soldiers serving in Iraq in 2004 amid the controversy over their deployment and the regiment's impending amalgamation. It stages war, memory, and political debate through theatrical framing and live music.
After sailor William returns from the Napoleonic Wars, he finds his wife Susan struggling with debt and harassment by her crooked landlord uncle. A smuggler offers to pay her debts in exchange for Susan, and William is sentenced to hang after striking his captain, but the truth about his naval discharge saves him.
At his workplace, 55-year-old Ray Brooks is shocked to be visited by a young woman, 27-year-old Una Spencer. Fifteen years earlier, Ray had sexually assaulted Una for three months when Una was twelve and Ray was forty; subsequently, Ray had been jailed for three years for statutory rape. Ultimately, they ran off together, and, while Ray was taking time to compose himself after realising what he had just done, he left her alone in a motel room. She got worried and left to find him, which led to both of them frantically searching for one another and raising suspicions within the small coastal town where they were staying. Eventually, a couple out walking their dog took Una in and called the police after learning why she was there. Ray was then arrested and imprisoned. Upon his release, he managed to establish a reasonably successful new life under another name, but Una recognised him in a photograph and tracked him down. Ray takes Una to the office break room, where the two engage in a long and difficult confrontation involving Una's continuing struggles to understand and come to terms with the abuse and her intensely conflicting emotions, which pivot between anger, curiosity, confusion, and even a persistent attachment to Ray, whom Una loved and she believed that he loved her. The fearful Ray, who is himself trying to forget the past and the potential feelings he had for Una, parries her demanding questions and descriptions of her feelings and experiences, all the while uncertain of her intentions.
Blackmail is a 1928 thriller play by the British writer Charles Bennett. The plot is about an artist's model in Chelsea who kills an artist when he attempts to assault her. It ran for 38 performances at the Globe Theatre in London's West End. Directed by Raymond Massey, it was the playwright's first West End production. It was chosen by the impresario Albert H. Woods as a vehicle for the American star Tallulah Bankhead. It was shortest British run Bankhead had been in. It was initially considered a disappointment and Woods never staged the play on Broadway. However, over the following decade it became a popular work on tour in Britain and Ireland.
In a working-class Australian beach suburb, Jared faces a choice between telling the truth about his friend Ricko’s role in a teenage girl’s rape and murder, or protecting him through loyalty to his mates.
A monologue based on the life of poet William Blake, incorporating poetry from Songs of Innocence and Experience.
To save her lover from execution, Blanche Heriot clings to the clapper of the curfew bell to delay its toll until a pardon can arrive.
In a Leeds hotel room, journalist Ian tries to seduce Cate, and a soldier arrives as the city is engulfed in war. The soldier rapes and blinds Ian, then dies by suicide; Cate returns with a rescued baby that dies, while Ian starves, eats the body, and ultimately dies.
At Wrigley Field, a group of Chicago Cubs fans watch a summer game, banter, eat and drink, and place wagers that grow increasingly important.
Bleak Expectations is a comedy play by Mark Evans based on his BBC Radio 4 series of the same name.
A Dublin labourer feigns injury to pursue compensation, then turns slum property owner. The final act brings him before a mortuary-board meeting as his returning brother-in-law confronts the consequences of eviction and institutional neglect.
Blind Alley is a 1926 play by the British author Dorothy Brandon. It is a drama about an unhappily married woman who begins to develop feelings for an actor. It premiered at the Pleasure Gardens Theatre in Folkestone, as had her previous hit play The Outsider, before transferring to the Playhouse Theatre in London's West End. However, it was considerably less successful than her earlier works and ran for only thirteen performances. The cast included Elissa Landi, Sam Livesey and Annie Esmond.
The Blind Bargain is an 1804 comedy play by the British writer Frederick Reynolds. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 24 October 1804. The original cast included John Fawcett as Sir Andrew Analyse, Charles Farley as Jack Analyse, William Thomas Lewis as Tourly, Charles Kemble as Villars, William Blanchard as Doctor Pliable, John Emery as Giles Woodbine, Maria Gibbs as Mrs Villars and Mary Ann Davenport as Miss Gurnet. Its Irish premiere was at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin on 1 December 1804.
Four supermarket workers fixate on the public image of a famous singer. Their fantasy of celebrity happiness collides with a disturbing reality, exposing the stories people construct to escape everyday cruelty.
Novelist Charles Condomine's séance summons the ghost of his first wife, Elvira, who tries to disrupt his marriage to his second wife Ruth. After Ruth also dies and returns as a ghost, medium Madame Arcati works to banish both spirits.
Blondie White is a 1937 mystery play by British writer Jeffrey Dell and Bernard Merivale. A murder mystery, it was inspired by an earlier play by Hungarian writer Ladislas Fodor. A famous crime novelist helps Scotland Yard to solve the murder of a nightclub performer, Blondie White. After premiering at the Manchester Opera House, it transferred to Globe Theatre in London's West End. The cast included Basil Sydney, Basil Radford, Joan Marion, and Elliott Mason. It was directed by Harold French.
In apartheid-era South Africa, two half-brothers, Morris and Zachariah, live together despite their different skin tones. When Zachariah's white pen-pal plans a visit, they arrange for Morris to impersonate him; the role-play exposes the racial hierarchy that shapes their relationship.
A psychological murder mystery draws on the Lizzie Borden case and speculation about whether she killed her father and stepmother; in Pollock’s play, her friend the Actress appears to be her lover and accomplice.
On a tropical Western Australian Christmas, a family gathers around patriarch Willy in a play described as an Australian retelling of The Tempest.
On the day of her wedding, the Bride elopes with Leonardo, a former lover whose family is bound to the Groom’s family by a history of violence. The Groom pursues them into the forest, where he and Leonardo kill each other; the Bride returns to face the bereaved Mother.
CIA operative Jim Warnock works with British and Pakistani intelligence officials to supply weapons to Afghan factions fighting the Soviet occupation. Over a decade, political compromises and shifting alliances—including support for Islamist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar—reshape his relationships with Soviet counterpart Gromov, MI6 officer Simon Craig, and Afghan contact Abdullah.
In Madrid, Spanish bullfighter Juan Gallardo is betrayed by both the woman he loves and his ardent, bloodthirsty fans.
A drama based on the Jena Six case, addressing the incident’s racial injustice in Louisiana. Its title echoes “Strange Fruit,” the song about lynching in the American South.
An alien vampire, Phoebe Zeitgeist, observes humanity at a cocktail party and learns to speak from its guests. In three sections, the guests introduce themselves, speak with Phoebe individually, and hear her repeat their self-justifying phrases.
A comedy about a supply sergeant at a Southern U.S. Army post, written by two brothers who had served in the Army together.
A play about Percy Bysshe Shelley and his circle—Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Claire Clairmont—framed by utopian themes and the revolutionary spirit of its protagonists. Brenton focuses on the group rather than on Shelley alone.
Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry is a 2005 dramatisation by English journalist Richard Norton-Taylor of four years of evidence of the Saville Inquiry, distilled into two hours of stage performance by Tricycle Theatre in London.
Two skinheads take a weekend job to blow open a safe in Liverpool, but botch the attempt and accidentally kill a dog with gelignite. A guard is also murdered by a girlfriend who spouts Laingian ideas.
Three gay men—two partners and a man they meet through an online dating site—confront commitment, immaturity, relationships and sexual identity. What first appears to be a light comedy takes a darker turn in its second act.
Blue Comet is a comedy play by the British writer Eden Phillpotts. The plot revolves around the differing reactions of the characters when the earth is threatened by an incoming comet. It premiered at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in September 1926. The following year it enjoyed a run of thirty seven performances at the Royal Court Theatre in London's West End between 23 February and 26 March 1927. The original London cast included Paul Cavanagh, Eliot Makeham, Clarence Blakiston, Edward Chapman, Minnie Rayner, Cecily Byrne and Dorothy Black. It was not well received in The Drama, saying it had little subtlety or art and "the author is so bent on manufacturing obvious and crude witticisms, whether relevant to the theme or not, that nothing resembling a serious idea is ever allowed to come to birth."
A drama about teenagers Arthur and Janet facing an unintended pregnancy. The stage version ends with Janet having an abortion; afterward, she and Arthur discuss it and settle their feelings.
This two-part work pairs Heart’s Desire, in which a family repeatedly revises the scene of a daughter’s return from Australia, with Blue Kettle, in which Derek falsely tells several women that he is their adopted son. In Blue Kettle, words increasingly give way to “blue” and “kettle,” as the characters struggle to communicate.
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