8284 shows
Clear filtersAt the wedding of Protestant Morrie McAdam and Catholic Reen Delaney, their two families try to maintain decorum as drink, insults, and fights unleash comic chaos. The audience is treated as wedding guests, served food and drink, and drawn into the action.
Paige Janssen invites friends to dinner to celebrate the publication of her husband Lars's book. Unusual courses and an unexpected guest bring surprising revelations and eventually death.
During an apparently innocent dinner at the Oldofredi home on the night Italy wins the 1982 World Cup, the guests engage in a parallel game of coups, betrayals, revelations and ambiguity.
Dinner at Eight is a 1932 American play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. The plot deals with the Jordan family, who are planning a society dinner, and what they, as well as various friends and acquaintances—all of whom have their own problems and ambitions—do as they prepare for the event. The film adaptation Dinner at Eight followed, and Mentone Productions released a spoof, Supper at Six. Several revivals, a made-for-TV movie, and an opera followed.
During a dinner at Gabe and Karen's home, their longtime friend Beth reveals that she is divorcing Tom after his infidelity. A flashback to the couples' introduction and subsequent scenes show how the breakup makes Gabe and Karen question their own marriage and friendships.
A young musician, Dinny, accidentally gains control of the world by playing his trumpet to three witches. After time leaps forward a century, the witches trick him into surrendering the world in exchange for making his beloved Amy perfect; the seven deadly sins kill her, and the cycle returns to its beginning with Dinny and Amy imagining their future child.
The Performance Group’s environmental adaptation of The Bacchae deconstructs Euripides’ text with performer-devised material and draws spectators into the action, using a flexible shared space and participatory ritual staging.
Among English officers and diplomats, the theft of an official dispatch entangles a marriage in suspicion and espionage. The husband’s brother takes a central role in uncovering the intrigue, while the Russian spy Countess Zicka becomes a more sympathetic figure as the deception is exposed.
In August 1944, Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling meets German general Dietrich von Choltitz in his Paris hotel suite to persuade him not to carry out Hitler’s order to destroy the city; their tense, largely dialogic cat-and-mouse conversation imagines the encounter.
An independent filmmaker begins his first big-budget Canadian movie with money, stars, and a clear artistic vision. As the production falls apart, the compromises of mainstream filmmaking become increasingly difficult to ignore.
Dirty Blonde is a play by Claudia Shear. The play ran Off-Broadway and on Broadway in 2000. It involves two fans of Mae West who discover their shared passion for her, and for each other.
Set in fictional Illyria near the end of World War II, the play follows young Communist Hugo Barine, ordered to assassinate party leader Hoederer for negotiating a coalition. Told largely in flashback, it examines whether Hugo's act was driven by political conviction or personal jealousy.
In Dirty Linen, a parliamentary committee investigates a tabloid sex scandal while its members try to hide their own affairs with their secretary, the woman behind the accusations. New-Found-Land interrupts the play with a short exchange between two Home Office officials debating an American’s naturalization; the committee later returns to finish its report.
The political relationship between Israel and Palestine is allegorically staged as a turbulent sexual and sadomasochistic relationship between a man and a woman, refereed by an armed American cowboy and his British sidekick.
Shop-walker James Milligan is suspected when a jewel disappears, and a corrupt house detective plants it on him. Milligan, junior employee Evie Wynne and several colleagues stage a fake burglary to lure the real jewel thieves back into the shop, exposing the gang and clearing Milligan.
At Brisket Place, naïve army captain Llewellyn Prime is manipulated into proposing to Blandina Wigmore, who accepts. Mrs. Jasper, one of the original plotters, repents and frees Prime from the engagement before accepting his proposal; Blandina meanwhile accepts Percy Trafford and later regrets it.
Lawyer Amir Kapoor, who has distanced himself from his Muslim upbringing, hosts a dinner with his wife, a colleague, and her husband. A discussion of religion and politics exposes conflicts over identity, ambition, and belonging, with consequences for Amir’s marriage and career.
In a fictionalized 1875, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli seeks financing to buy the Suez Canal shares and secure Britain's route to India while outmaneuvering Russian spies. He also tries to bring young Clarissa and Charles together and reunite with his ailing wife, Lady Beaconsfield. The play invents characters and incidents around the historical transaction.
Distress'd Innocence; Or, The Princess Of Persia is a 1690 tragedy by the English writer Elkanah Settle. It was first performed by the United Company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. Incidental music was composed for the play by Henry Purcell. The original cast included John Bowman as Isdigerdes, William Mountfort as Hormidas, George Powell as Theodosius, John Hodgson as Audas, George Bright as Cleontes, Edward Kynaston as Otrantes, Samuel Sandford as Rugildas, John Freeman and John Verbruggen as Persian Magi, Elizabeth Barry as Orundana, Anne Bracegirdle as Cleomira and Katherine Corey as Doranthe.
Young Wyn Hayward becomes infatuated with Rayetta Muir, an actress who treats their Italian holiday affair as brief. When she rejects him in London, his fixation grows; after she turns him away, he strangles her. He confesses to his surgeon father, who gives him poison to avoid the legal consequences.
Dividing the Estate is a play by Horton Foote. The play premiered at the McCarter Theatre in 1989 and Off-Broadway in 2007, winning the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play.
Set in Port Kembla against the economic rationalism of the 1980s, this Australian play places its drama in the industrial community’s changing economic climate.
Cyprienne seeks to leave her husband Des Prunelles for Adhemar after a mistaken belief that divorce has become legal. Des Prunelles feigns an affair, making Cyprienne jealous and leading the couple to reconcile.
In a post-apocalyptic Stockholm overgrown by jungle, wolves find an abandoned human baby, Mowgli. When Shere Khan demands the child, Akela calls a council and Mowgli is accepted into the pack after Baloo and Bagheera speak for him. The production recasts the animals as contemporary social groups.
In a post-apocalyptic world, bounty hunter Rick Deckard is assigned to kill escaped androids while wrestling with the distinction between human and machine. The novel’s plot centers on his hunt, the androids’ attempts to survive, and his growing uncertainty about empathy and identity.
Do You Come Here Often? is a 1997 play written by Sean Foley and Hamish McColl of the two-person theatre company, The Right Size.
A performance begins with mock lectures about the fictional polymath Jára Cimrman before turning to four Czech winter swimmers on a comic expedition to the North Pole. Their journey is beset by melancholy, hunger, a mistaken penguin encounter, and a frozen explorer who revives after serving as part of a supposed cryogenic experiment. The expedition's triumph is kept secret so Austria will not receive credit.
Catherine returns home after her father suffers a heart attack. Their confrontation summons memories of her childhood and her mother’s unhappiness, forcing both to revisit the family history they have understood differently.
Historical Yiddish drama in rhymed couplets about the Jews of Palermo, centered on a doctor whose calm demeanor conceals power he has vowed to use only if all else fails.
The scholar Faustus turns from conventional learning to necromancy and makes a pact with Lucifer through Mephistopheles, trading his soul for twenty-four years of power. He uses magic for spectacle and mischief, repeatedly considers repentance, but fails to turn back before the devils claim him at the end of the term.
Psychiatrist Dr. Ichirō Irabu encounters three patients: aspiring actress Hiromi Yasukawa, who fears stalkers; timid office worker Tetsuya Taguchi, who has priapism; and young yakuza leader Seiji Ino, who fears spiky objects. The linked stories adapt material from Hideo Okuda’s collections In the Pool and Flying Trapeze.
The ambitious Dr. Knock arrives in a rural village, Saint-Maurice, to step into Dr. Parpalaid's footsteps as the local physician. Unfortunately, most of the villagers are in good health. He therefore decides to make everybody believe they are actually far sicker than they actually are... The magazine Esperanto summarized the play in 1932 as being about an old-fashioned doctor and a very modern doctor, both tricking each other, with the modern doctor Knock winning.
During the First World War, Jack Twigg abandons his Oxford scholarship to enlist. After serving in the Battle of Loos and suffering a facial injury, he is treated at Harold Gillies’s hospital, where Gillies’s comic alter ego Dr Scroggy tries to lift patients’ spirits; Twigg ultimately returns to the Western Front.
Showman Vorgenson uses a Minimiser to summon monsters and tries to lure the Doctor into his travelling show. When he accidentally draws Winston Churchill from the past and threatens a temporal paradox, the Doctor intervenes; the Daleks later reveal they inspired the device and attempt to trap the Doctor before the Cybermen and Daleks battle on stage.
A series of murders draws an editor of the New York Ledger and his reporter into a mystery filled with concealed passages, secret panels and sudden alarms.
Samuel Dodsworth sells his share in an automobile company and travels to Europe with his wife Fran, who grows dissatisfied with him and pursues other men. When she says she will leave him for a European royal, Sam reconnects with Edith Cortright, but breaks off their relationship before realizing how much he loves her.
The story is a racially charged drama about teen drug addicts at a rehabilitation center, located on an island in a river bordering a large industrial city. An English teacher tries to make a difference in his students' lives. He encounters barriers in trying to do this—the same barriers created by the system that hinders the addicts' development and keeps them coming back. One addict, Bickham, is a tough white teenager who searched for his father and found him working in a seedy barber shop. Upon meeting his son, the barber shows him a dirty photograph. Contrasting Bickham is Conrad, an African-American addict. Conrad wants to recover and marry his love Linda. During the play, his character leaves the rehabilitation group to live with his sister, who is also an addict. Aside from the students, there are only four characters in the rehabilitation center – a teacher, a psychiatrist, a policeman, and the center's principal.
Dog Day Afternoon is a play by American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, based on the 1975 film of the same name directed by Sidney Lumet.
CB and CB's sister have a funeral for their dog, who recently contracted rabies and was put down after killing "a little yellow bird" and nearly biting CB. The funeral ends in failure as they argue over who should say a prayer for him. After the funeral, CB approaches Van and asks him what happens to humans when they die. He answers that they get reincarnated. When CB asks Matt the same question, Beethoven walks by and Matt calls him a fag. At lunch, Marcy and Tricia tell their friends about an upcoming party at Marcy's house. Later on, CB goes to Beethoven's practice room to listen to his piano playing, but ends up monologuing over his dead dog. An irritated Beethoven tells CB about how he cannot go through his day without someone bullying him in some sort, including CB himself. CB claims that he never meant any harm, but Beethoven counters that people "messing around" with him is just a front for harassment and violence. CB makes a truce with Beethoven and invites him to the party to re-establish their friendship. They share a kiss. Beethoven arrives at the party to everyone's surprise. Matt insults Beethoven again, but CB comes to Beethoven's defense and kisses him, this time in front of everyone. After abruptly leaving the party with CB, Beethoven demands an explanation for what happened. CB explains he revealed his feelings not out of obligation to Beethoven, but because he truly wanted to do so. The morning after, Matt, Tricia, and Marcy all wake up together, half-naked and wondering what happened between them the night before. CB goes to visit Van's sister, who was institutionalized for setting the Little Red-Haired Girl's hair on fire. CB tells her the whole story, also revealing to her that he and Beethoven had sex after the party. A few days later, Matt, Tricia, Marcy, and Van eat lunch together and are all stunned at what happened at the party. Matt vows to make Beethoven pay for "fucking with [his] best friend's head." Meanwhile, CB and Beethoven argue over whether or not they should be in a relationship. CB leaves disappointed but hopeful for the future between them. Matt then enters and threatens Beethoven to stay away from CB. Beethoven refuses, calls him by his old nickname, Pig-Pen, and implies he knows Matt's "secret": that Matt has repressed homosexual feelings for CB. This angers Matt, who slams the piano top over Beethoven's hands, breaking them. During class later on, CB's friends take turns sharing fond memories of Beethoven, who had committed suicide (Matt, meanwhile, was suspended from school for a week). However, knowing they all bullied Beethoven, CB berates them for pretending that they actually cared about him. CB receives a letter from his pen pal. In the letter, he tells CB that he must keep strong, even in rough times. It also mentions a boy "who plays piano just like [CB's] friend" that moved in near the pen pal, that "he's had a tough life, but things are better for him, now," and that he found a dog who likes to sing along to the piano (like CB's dog did, alluding that Beethoven is now caring for CB's dog in the afterlife). The letter is signed "CS", an allusion to Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz.
Soldier Will and medic Jack move through trenches and bunkers in different wars as the play links them into one unending conflict. A semi-pacifist joins them amid shifting battlefields and an impossible rain of cats, dogs, and other animals.
Schoolchildren rehearse Hamlet in English, which they treat as a foreign language, while the actors otherwise speak Dogg, a language made of familiar English words with different meanings.
A paired bill: Dogg's Hamlet turns ordinary English words into a language with different meanings as schoolchildren rehearse Hamlet; Cahoot's Macbeth stages a shortened Macbeth under scrutiny by a secret-police officer, using the pair's coded language as artistic dissent.
In wartime Buncrana, Dolly West runs her family household while three foreign visitors—a former lover serving with the British, and two American soldiers—arrive at her mother’s invitation. Their presence brings the war and its disputes over Irish neutrality into the kitchen, where the West family confronts loyalty, jealousy, sexual identity and love.
Politician Bill Pulvar and his wife Judy confront the fallout from a sex scandal, in a comic drama examining gender issues and marriage.
Prince Carlos loves Elisabeth of Valois, his former fiancée and now his stepmother, while his friend the Marquis of Posa urges him to support liberty in the Netherlands. Court intrigue and Philip II's growing suspicion end with Posa's sacrifice and Carlos's delivery to the Inquisition.
Don Carlos, Prince of Spain is a 1676 tragedy by the English writer Thomas Otway. It portrays the relationship between Philip II of Spain and his son and heir Don Carlos. The play is based on the novel by Abbe de Saint-Réal. It was staged by the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theatre. The cast featured Thomas Betterton as Philip II, William Smith as Don Carlos, Henry Harris as Don John, John Crosby as Marquis of Posa, Matthew Medbourne as Rui Gomez, Henry Norris as an Officer of the Guards, Mary Lee as the Queen of Spain, and Anne Shadwell as the Duchess of Eboli.
Betrayed by Martin, who plans to marry the wealthier Ines, Dona Juana disguises herself as a man in green breeches. Her pursuit produces rival claimants to the name Don Gil.
The libertine Don Juan seduces and abandons women, evades the consequences of his actions, and rejects repeated warnings to repent; the statue of a man he killed ultimately brings him to a supernatural judgment.
Tolstoy recasts Don Juan as a Romantic seeker of ideal love, which links the human soul to higher realms, rather than as a mere philanderer. The drama is dedicated to Mozart and E. T. A. Hoffmann and includes Faustian and Goethean influences.
Brecht’s version follows the notorious womanizer Don Juan and his servant Sganarelle through much of Molière’s comic plot, recast with an anti-aristocratic emphasis.
Set in late 1918, the play follows Don Juan's disorientation on returning from the First World War as a celebrated hero, his love for a woman who died in the war, and his death at her grave.
After betting that he can seduce more women and kill more men than his rival, Don Juan abducts Doña Inés and kills her father and his rival. Five years later, he returns to find Inés dead and his own time nearly gone. Her spirit offers her soul for his; he repents, and they are redeemed together.
Don Juan in Soho is a play by the British playwright Patrick Marber after Molière (see Dom Juan).
In Rome, Don Juan pursues Donna Anna and kills her father and fiancé. The magician Faust abducts Anna after bargaining with the Devil for power, but when she resists him, he kills her; Don Juan continues his conquests and is ultimately dragged to Hell for refusing to repent.
Forty years after Don’s Party, Don and his old friends gather at his home on Australian federal election night in 2010. As election results come in, the now older group compares the turns their lives have taken and mixes politics, strong personalities, and alcohol.
Don Pedro is a tragic play by the British writer Richard Cumberland. It was first staged at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in London on 23 July 1796. The original cast included James Aickin as Count Valdesoto, Charles Kemble as Henrique, John Palmer as Pedro De Rascifiria, John Bannister as Basco de Robeldondo, Richard Suett as Nicolas Sassenigo, Thomas Caulfield as Tayo, George Wathen as Roca, Robert Palmer as Cerbero and Elizabeth Kemble as Celestina, Sarah Harlowe as Mariguita, Maria Kemble as Cattania and Elizabeth Hopkins as Benedicta. The epilogue was written by George Colman the Younger.
Blanche has been forced to marry King Peter, although she is really in love with his brother Henry. The king mistreats her and spends much of his time with his mistress Maria de Padilla. Maria schemes with her Jewish ally Raban to bring about the Queen's death, while Peter and Henry do battle with each other.
At the medieval Castilian court, Don Pèdre and his half-brother Transtamare contend for the throne and Léonore's hand. With Church backing and French military aid, Transtamare defeats and murders Pèdre, takes the throne, and drives Léonore to choose death rather than marry him.
Don Sebastian, King Of Portugal is a 1689 tragedy by the English writer John Dryden. It is based on the reign of King Sebastian of Portugal leading up to his defeat and death at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578. An Elizabethan play The Battle of Alcazar also portrays the events. It was first staged by the United Company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The original cast included Joseph Williams as Don Sebastian, Edward Kynaston as Muley Moluch, Thomas Betterton as Dorax, Samuel Sandford as Benducar, Cave Underhill as Mufti, William Mountfort as Don Antonio, John Bowman as Don Alvarez, Anthony Leigh as Mustapha, Elizabeth Barry as Almeyda, Susanna Mountfort as Morayma and Elinor Leigh as Johayma. It was published in 1690 and dedicated to the politician the Earl of Leicester.
During a newspaper night shift in Pune, editor Milind Bhagwat prepares to name the builders responsible for a fatal collapse. A former lover working for the firm asks him to suppress its name, testing his professional principles against their personal history.
During the 1969 Australian federal election, schoolteacher Don hosts friends to celebrate an expected Labor victory. As the results disappoint, drinking and increasingly ugly exchanges expose the guests' frustrated ambitions and relationships.
Bernard plans a weekend with his mistress while his wife Jacqueline is away, but Jacqueline stays home and Bernard’s friend Robert arrives. A caterer, a mistress, and a series of mistaken identities and cover stories entangle the couples until the caterer’s husband appears.
In an unnamed European country behind the Iron Curtain, the American Ambassador must leave the embassy for business. In his absence he places his incompetent son Axel Magee in charge. Almost immediately the embassy is thrust into a crisis as the Hollanders, an American family of tourists, come rushing in on the run from the Communist police. Walter Hollander, the father, had accidentally sneaked into a high security area and taken pictures, causing the communists to believe that the family are spies. Axel digs the hole deeper and the embassy is surrounded, leaving the Hollanders trapped. The parents, Walter and Marion, act buffoonishly and make business at the embassy difficult, especially after Walter insults a high-class Sultan. The family's adult daughter Susan bonds with Axel, causing him to develop feelings for her even though she is engaged. After the incident with the Sultan, Axel's father demotes him and elevates his favor-seeking assistant Kilroy in charge instead. Kilroy almost immediately fixes the problem and arranges an exchange for a communist spy in jail in America. The communist police head Krojack still believes that the Hollanders are spies and confronts Walter. Walter, assuming that he is free, jokingly admits that he is. Kilroy then announces that the exchange has been called off, as the spy has committed suicide. Krojack plans to increase the hostilities against the embassy. Susan, having recently announced her engagement has been called off, kisses Axel to Walter's horror. Though there are now riots outside the embassy, Walter is much more concerned with Axel's and Susan's relationship. Axel and Susan come up with a plan to escape by using a party in the Sultan's honor as a cover while Father Drobney, a priest who has been hiding in a small room in the embassy for six years, works out the details. Walter is given a gun for the escape and accidentally shoots and wounds Kilroy. During the party Walter and Marion go through several problems, mainly due to a number of revelations or near-revelations of their own secret identities. Upon finally making it out, Walter accidentally shoots someone again—it proves to be Axel's own father. The escape appears to have failed till Axel discovers that the Sultan and his wife are still in the house, severely hungover from the night before. Disguising Walter and Marion as the couple, they plan to continue with the original escape. As for Susan, Axel plans to give her diplomatic immunity as the wife of a diplomat: himself. Walter and Marion escape as Father Drobney marries Axel and Susan.
Career-focused couple Akshay and Pranoti have agreed to remain child-free for five years, but when Pranoti is diagnosed with PCOD, they try to identify and reduce the stress in their lives amid marriage and extended-family tensions.
Donkeys' Years is a play by English playwright Michael Frayn that premiered at the Globe Theatre, London, in 1976. The play is a West End farce, a genre that Frayn parodied five years later in his play within a play "Nothing On" from Noises Off. The play featured Penelope Keith, who subsequently won the 1976 Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance.
Artist Noel Gale’s wife Leila becomes involved with Captain Harding while Noel is away. After returning, Noel offers to leave so the two can be together, but Harding refuses the sacrifice and Leila reconsiders; the play frames their conflict through the contrast between yielding “doormats” and assertive “boots.”
Poor Jewish tailor Shimele Soroker from a small town in the Russian Empire wins a 200,000-ruble jackpot.
Double Dan is a 1927 comedy crime play by the British writer Edgar Wallace. It is inspired by the 1924 novel Double Dan by Wallace. The plot concerns high finance and a criminal who is a master of disguise. It ran for nine performances at the Savoy Theatre in the West End having premiered at the Opera House Theatre in Blackpool. The cast included Alfred Drayton, Peter Haddon, Reginald Bach and Josephine Wilson.
Henriquez rapes Violante and pursues Leonora while his brother Julio is away, betraying both women and his friendship with Julio. Roderick later brings the four together and engineers a confrontation that leads to Julio and Leonora's reunion and Henriquez's attempt to marry Violante in repentance.
The play is set in the fictional St. Nicholas Church School, in the Bronx, during the fall of 1964. It opens with a sermon by Father Flynn, a beloved and progressive parish priest, addressing the importance of uncertainty: "Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty." The school's principal, Sister Aloysius, a rigidly conservative nun who is vowed to her order, the Sisters of Charity, insists upon constant vigilance. During a meeting with a younger nun, Sister James, Aloysius reveals a deep mistrust toward her students, her fellow teachers, and society in general. Naïve and impressionable, James is easily upset by Aloysius's severe manner and harsh criticism. Aloysius and Flynn are put into direct conflict when she learns from James that the priest had a one-to-one meeting with Donald Muller, St. Nicholas's first African-American student. Mysterious circumstances lead her to believe that sexual misconduct occurred. In a private meeting, purportedly regarding the Christmas pageant, Aloysius, in the presence of James, openly confronts Flynn with her suspicions. He angrily denies wrongdoing by insisting that he was disciplining Donald for drinking altar wine and claims to have been protecting the boy from harsher punishment. James is relieved by the explanation. Flynn's next sermon is on the evils of gossip. Aloysius, dissatisfied with Flynn's story, meets with Donald's mother, Mrs. Muller. Despite Aloysius's attempts to shock her, Mrs. Muller says she supports her son's relationship with Flynn. She ignores Aloysius's accusations. Before departing, she hints that Donald may be "that way", which may cause her husband to be beating him. Flynn eventually threatens to remove Aloysius from her position if she does not back down. Aloysius informs him that she phoned the last parish to which he was assigned and that she discovered a history of past infringements. After declaring his innocence, the priest begins to plead with her, but she blackmails him and demands that he resign immediately, or she will publicly disgrace him with his history. Disgusted, she leaves the office. Flynn calls the bishop to apply for a transfer, and is subsequently promoted to pastor of a nearby parochial school. After hearing the news, Aloysius reveals to Sister James that the decisive phone call to Flynn's previous parish was a fabrication and that she has no evidence of past wrongdoing. As a result, Aloysius is left with ambiguous doubt, and the audience is left to wonder if the doubt is in either herself or the Church. With no proof of Father Flynn's guilt or innocence, the audience is left with its own doubt.
Lady Randolph reveals that her infant son by Douglas was lost after being sent away. Raised as Young Norval by a shepherd, he returns and wins distinction, but jealous Glenalvon deceives Lord Randolph into killing him. Lady Randolph takes her life, while the conspirators are exposed.
Down Came a Blackbird is a 1953 comedy play by the British writer Peter Blackmore. It was first staged at Q Theatre in London before transferring to the West End where it ran for 53 performances at the Savoy Theatre between 22 December 1953 and 6 February 1954. Directed by Henry Kendall the cast included Peter Arne, Viola Keats, John Loder and Betty Paul. The title is taken from a line in the traditional nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence. It takes place entirely in the garden room of the Egyptian villa of Sir Clive Dawson.
A group of First World War soldiers desert and hide in Mülheim while waiting for a revolution. Their survival depends on the individualistic Johann Fatzer, whose impulses conflict with the discipline and solidarity represented by Keuner; the fragmented action ends with the group dead.
Four men convicted of sex offenses live together in a group home in downstate Illinois. A former student visits Fred to confront him about abuse, while changing restrictions threaten the residents' routines and a parole violation deepens the conflict; a later confrontation ends in violence and a death.
An actor and his wife travel together, and the play explores their relationship.
Rosita falls in love with a man who leaves for South America and promises to return. She waits, then learns he has married someone else. The play follows her youth, maturity, and loss of hope across three periods in Granada.
In this alternate history, six-year-old Adolf Hitler meets Sigmund Freud for therapy in Vienna. The stage version follows their imagined relationship across three decades, from Hitler’s childhood through his rise to power.
A comic theatrical cartoon satirizing crew cuts and king-sized culture.
A fantasy retelling of the Gilbert and Sullivan story, superimposing characters and images from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland onto familiar figures from the Savoy Operas.
A solo semi-biographical performance narrates the life of Anandibai Joshi, India's first woman physician, while addressing women's status and freedom in contemporary Indian society.
Young physician James Tennyson returns to Vermont to work with his mentor, Dr. Cook, and discovers that the respected doctor has been poisoning patients he considers unworthy. When Tennyson confronts him, Cook tries to poison his protégé, setting off a struggle to the death.
In the first act, a group of friends (including Sir Danvers Carew's daughter Agnes, attorney Gabriel Utterson, and Dr. and Mrs. Lanyon) meet at Sir Danvers' home. Dr. Lanyon brings word that Agnes' fiancé, Dr. Henry Jekyll, will be late to the gathering. He then repeats a second-hand story about a man named Hyde, who injured a child in a collision on the street. The story upsets Utterson because Jekyll recently made a new will that gives his estate to a mysterious friend named Edward Hyde. Jekyll arrives; Utterson confronts him about the will, but Jekyll refuses to consider changing it. Jekyll tells Agnes that they should end their engagement because of sins he has committed but will not explain. Agnes refuses to accept this and tells Jekyll she loves him. He relents, saying that she will help him control himself, and leaves. Sir Danvers joins his daughter, and they talk about their time in Mangalore, India. When Hyde suddenly enters, Sir Danvers tells Agnes to leave the room. The men argue, and Hyde strangles Sir Danvers. In the second act, Hyde fears that he will be arrested for the murder. He gives money to his landlady, Rebecca, to tell visitors that he is not home. Inspector Newcome from Scotland Yard offers Rebecca more money to turn Hyde in, which she promises to do. Hyde flees to Jekyll's laboratory, where Utterson is waiting to confront the doctor about his will; he insults Utterson and leaves. Rebecca, who has followed Hyde, arrives and tells Utterson that Hyde murdered Sir Danvers. In the play's original version, the act ends with Jekyll returning to his laboratory. In later versions (revised after its premiere), the second act contains an additional scene in which Jekyll returns home; his friends think he is protecting Hyde. Agnes, who saw Hyde before her father was murdered, wants Jekyll to accompany her to provide the police with a description, and is distraught when he refuses. In the third act, Jekyll's servant, Poole, gives Dr. Lanyon a powder and liquid with instructions from Jekyll to give them to a person who will request them. While he waits, Lanyon speaks with Newcome, Rebecca, Agnes and Mrs. Lanyon. After the others leave, Hyde arrives for the powder and liquid. After arguing with Lanyon, he mixes them into a potion and drinks it; he immediately transforms into Jekyll. In the final act, Jekyll has begun to change into Hyde without using the potion. Although he still needs it to change back, he has exhausted his supply. Dr. Lanyon tries to help Jekyll re-create the formula, but they are unable to find an ingredient. Jekyll asks Lanyon to bring Agnes to him, but Jekyll turns into Hyde before Lanyon returns. Utterson and Newcome arrive to arrest Hyde; knowing he can no longer transform back into Jekyll, Hyde commits suicide by taking poison.
In Bandmann and McKinney’s adaptation, Dr. Jekyll’s transformations into Hyde intersect with a romantic relationship with Sybil and comic-relief scenes; Hyde murders her father, vicar Howell, before Jekyll’s identity is exposed.
A respected London doctor develops a potion that transforms him into the criminal Edward Hyde. After Hyde murders a vicar and Jekyll runs out of the potion's ingredients, he is trapped in Hyde's form and dies by suicide.
Dr. Strangelove (or Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove) is a comedy play based on the 1964 film of the same name by Stanley Kubrick, adapted for the stage by Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley.
Dracula is a stage play written by the Irish actor and playwright Hamilton Deane in 1924, then revised by the American writer John L. Balderston in 1927. It was the first authorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. After touring in England, the original version of the play appeared at London's Little Theatre in July 1927, where it was seen by the American producer Horace Liveright. Liveright asked Balderston to revise the play for a Broadway production that opened at the Fulton Theatre in October 1927. This production starred Bela Lugosi in his first major English-speaking role. In the revised story, Abraham Van Helsing investigates the mysterious illness of a young woman, Lucy Seward, with the help of her father and fiancé. He discovers she is the victim of Count Dracula, a powerful vampire who is feeding on her blood. The men follow one of Dracula's servants to the vampire's hiding place, where they kill him with a stake to the heart. The revised version of the play went on a national tour of the United States and replaced the original version in London. It influenced many subsequent adaptations, including the popular 1931 film adaptation starring Lugosi. A 1977 Broadway revival featured art designs by Edward Gorey and starred Frank Langella. It won the Tony Award for Best Revival and led to another film version, also starring Langella.
At Dr. Seward’s sanatorium, Van Helsing investigates the mysterious illness of Lucy Seward, whose fiancé John Harker and father help him. He discovers that Count Dracula is feeding on Lucy and can remain in England by sleeping in boxes of Transylvanian earth. After Dracula attacks the investigators and escapes through a chimney, they follow Renfield through a hidden passage to his coffin and destroy him with a stake.
A six-actor stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, dramatizing the Transylvanian Count’s arrival in England.
Dietz rearranges Stoker’s story, presenting Jonathan Harker’s stay in Dracula’s Transylvanian castle through flashbacks. Dracula travels to England and preys on Lucy and Mina; Van Helsing, Seward and Harker confront the vampire, while Mina’s infection draws the group back to Dracula’s castle for a final struggle.
Four characters aboard a yacht quarantined off the West Indies discuss life in this two-part quartet.
Nine-year-old Moon Shadow travels from China to San Francisco to join his father Wind Rider, who works in a family laundry and dreams of becoming worthy to return as a dragon. They face poverty, prejudice and the 1906 earthquake while Moon Shadow supports his father’s ambition.
A pageant-like historical drama celebrating Francis Drake's career, especially his role in England's defeat of the Spanish Armada.
A repertory company arrives in the sleepy Irish seaside town of Inish and stages plays by Chekhov, Ibsen, and Strindberg. Their success stirs unexpected passions and criminal behavior among the townspeople, while the company’s hosts grow irritated by its affected manners; the ensuing disturbances ultimately bring down the government and drive the actors out.
A ceremonial play for Senusret I's coronation or Sed festival, preserved with illustrations that arrange scenes in sequence and depict the king repeatedly in the role of Horus.
A patriotic pageant presented at the Carnegie Institute; it was later combined with a Red Cross pageant for a national fundraising tour.
In 1947, British lawyer Cyril Radcliffe, unfamiliar with India, is tasked with drawing the boundary through Punjab. As he struggles with the assignment, pressures and conflicts mount around the commission’s decisions.
In late-1860s Silesia, drayman Wilhelm Henschel promises his dying wife he will not marry their servant Hanne. After her death he breaks the vow and marries Hanne, whose out-of-wedlock daughter joins the household. As townspeople spread suspicions about Hanne and Henschel’s marriage, guilt and despair overtake him.
Georgie Allerton wakes one morning to hear on her bedside radio a promotion for a personal advice program. Ignoring her mother's calls to get moving, Georgie imagines herself on the radio program, clutching her bedside lamp like a microphone while she reveals her love for her brother-in-law to millions. Her fantasy punctured by her mother's intervention, Georgie joins her parents at the breakfast table. There she reveals that the Mermaid Bookshop has lost less money this month than ever before. Her father William announces he's going to Washington D.C. to plead before the Supreme Court for another impecunious client. Lucy, sneezing from a cold, despairs about both their businesses and that of her hapless son-in-law Jim, who reads manuscripts for thirty dollars a week. Jim had rejected a manuscript called Always Opal that later became a runaway hit. Georgie jumps to Jim's defense, since he has recommended her own manuscript to his publisher. Her sister Miriam comes in the kitchen and reveals she is pregnant and fed up with her husband. Georgie goes into another fantasy where she lies in a hospital delivery room with twin newborns, while the doctor and nurse (looking a lot like her parents) and Jim Lucas praise her courage. Later at the bookstore, her colleague Claire Blakely agrees that without any copies of Always Opal the store will never prosper. The store's location is poor, and a better one will cost them $10,000, money they don't have. Georgie reverts to daydreaming her way out of this dilemma. Her reverie of financial success is interrupted by a stranger named Clark Redfield, who sells her some review copies of books. He doesn't need them since he never reads the books he reviews for his newspaper. Clark angers Georgie by telling her to stop dreaming and live life. Jim Lucas then pops into the shop to let her know that Miriam and he are divorcing. Georgie next has a lunch date with George Hand at the Canard Rouge. He wants her to go to Mexico with him. She launches into another fantasy where she gives in to him, then is abandoned in Mexico to become a streetwalker in which Clark figures as a villain. As the afternoon goes by, Clark's presence in her daydreams changes from bad guy to good, while Jim Lucas gradually disappears. Clark returns to the bookstore to take Georgie to dinner at Emilio's, a modest "spaghetti and red ink joint", where he has to snap her back to reality from another daydream. They go to see The Merchant of Venice; an usher seats George Hand and an expensively-gowned young lady next to them. As the play proceeds, Georgie imagines herself volunteering to take over the role of Portia when the star falters. She delivers the quality of mercy speech but the dream breaks when she sees Clark grinning at her from the audience. She and Clark wake up a Justice of the Peace at 2 am for a quick marriage ceremony, with a mutual promise that she can keep dreaming but will try to do so less often.
Young couple Dana and Paul buy an apartment in Bondi but struggle with their mortgage and troublesome neighbors. Williamson says the play draws on the difficulty his adult children faced in entering the property market.
At a graveyard before a funeral, a husband and wife talk, and the man's parents join them.
Charcoal burner Makak, imprisoned after destroying goods in a market, recounts a vision of a white woman who urges him to return to Africa. His dream unfolds through a jail, market, forest, and imagined African court, as he becomes a healer and then a conquering king before rejecting the apparition and returning to his home on Monkey Mountain with a reconciled sense of identity.
In dreamlike sequences, Emmett Till's spirit confronts people from his life, including his mother and the men who murdered him. Tamara, a contemporary girl who steps from the audience into the action, challenges the characters' assumptions and disrupts Emmett's dream.
In a rental-clothing shop, lovers Michigan and Deeluxe move through a lesbian noir of gender play, erotic fantasy, and shifting identity; Deeluxe's right arm becomes the character Little Peter, and even death functions as another costume.
1948 Atlanta, Georgia. A crash is heard, and Daisy Werthan, age 72, is in her living room, with her son Boolie, age 40. She has crashed her car, and Boolie insists that she have a driver. Boolie is in his office and interviews Hoke Coleburn who is a black man of around 60. He is unemployed. Over the next 25 years Hoke drives "Miss Daisy". They are initially wary of each other, and Hoke puts up with the somewhat crotchety Miss Daisy with dignity. She teaches Hoke to read when she learns that he cannot, which comes naturally to her, having been a teacher. Over the years, they form a bond. In the final scene, Miss Daisy is in a nursing home for increasing memory loss, but is lucid enough to tell Hoke, who has come to visit her, that he is her best friend.
A self-confident, manipulative Bavarian peasant boy tries to outwit the watchful parents of a village girl.
This non-linear play follows five teenagers and their online and offline relationships through a collection of short stories linked by a shared message. Playwright Suzie Miller and director John Sheedy developed the material after interviewing more than 500 Western Australian teenagers.
In a European café, the naïve Pea becomes fixated on a woman in a newspaper photograph. After she rejects him, he sinks into despair, while Roe tries to comfort him and recognizes that he is drowning in pain.
Charlie Conrad, famous for being a failure, is a B-list celebrity whose career collapses after a reporter exposes an embarrassing incident. As his wife, agent and solicitor navigate the scandal, Charlie slips from publicity into obscurity while others turn the episode to their own advantage.
An epic drama commissioned for the opening session of the West Indies Federation’s Federal Parliament, mounted outdoors in Port of Spain with actors and personnel from across the Caribbean as part of a regional arts festival celebrating the new federation.
After four years as a prisoner of war in Africa, Andreas Kragler returns to Berlin to find his former fiancée Anna engaged to war profiteer Friedrich Murk. Anna leaves Murk and searches for Andreas amid the Spartacist uprising; they reunite as the play exposes class conflict and the returning soldier's sense of betrayal.
An interactive theatrical journey through South Africa uses drumming, gumboot and Zulu dancing, and song. Audience members receive djembes and play and sing along with the performers.
Two men, Sam and Jack, conduct an elliptical, fragmented dialogue as homosexual lovers. Sam represents the United States government and its advocacy of hegemony and intervention; Jack begins as an enthusiastic follower but grows disillusioned. Their intimate relationship stages a critique of American power, especially since the Vietnam War.
Drunk Shakespeare is an off-Broadway play created by Scott Griffin and David Hudson currently performing in New York City, Chicago, Washington D.C., Phoenix, and Houston. It premiered at Quinn's Bar and Grill in March 2014. As of Jan 2019, there have been over 2000 performances. It received a New York Times Critic's Pick saying "it seems inevitable that all performing will soon be done either plastered or stoned". Drunk Shakespeare follows a trend of drinking and performing popularized by the Comedy Central series Drunk History. In 2023, the actors, stage managers, bartenders, and servers unionized as Drunk Shakespeare United.
Set in the fictional Wasaychigan Hill reserve in Northern Ontario, the play follows seven men and their plans, fears and fantasies about women. Nanabush, a shape-shifting trickster, enacts their phobias and exposes misogynistic attitudes as each man's story connects to the community's wider life.
On Christmas Eve, John, an employee at a Dublin funeral home, recounts how drinking damaged his life and family. His estranged adult daughter arrives to tell him that her mother is dying.
Aspiring DJ Jason reconnects with his homeless, heroin-addicted brother Daniel over a weekend in Dublin. Jason repeatedly encounters a double who has his phone, and time loops back at the end as he seems to relive the day. The stage production used physical performance, sparse scenery and lighting to mark shifts in space and time.
Ducks and Drakes is a 1941 comedy play by the Irish writer Molly Keane. The plot revolves around the wives of three brothers, all living on a farm while their husbands are away due to the war. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Bath before transferring to the West End. It ran for 23 performances at the Apollo Theatre, directed by John Gielgud, with a cast that included Judy Campbell, Ronald Squire, Nora Swinburne, Kathleen Harrison, Mary Jerrold and Lilian Braithwaite.
A farce parodying Siegfried and Roy's Las Vegas act, substituting performing ducks for tigers.
When the Christian sisters Agape, Chionia and Irena refuse to renounce their faith, Governor Dulcitius attempts to assault them but mistakenly embraces kitchen pots and pans. The emperor then assigns their punishment to Count Sisinnius, who has the elder sisters burned and orders Irena's execution.
The humor of the play is lost in the summary, for it consists of Dulcy speaking in bromides while her brother Bill offers dry counterpoint. Gordon Smith is contemplating joining a combine Forbes is proposing, yielding his factory in exchange for 16% of the shares in the new firm. Smith has invited Forbes to spend the weekend to discuss business, while Bill Parker has invited himself to his sister's house. Act I (The Smith's living room, in Westchester County, New York. Friday afternoon.) Bill Parker is there when Gordon Smith comes in from his commute. Henry informs them Dulcy is at a social event. They warily discuss Dulcy's new reform project: Henry. Tom Sterrett has arrived to see Mr. Forbes, while Van Dyck and Leach join the living room party, each having been invited by Dulcy. Sterrett and Leach are both interested in Angela Forbes, with Mr. Forbes taking Sterrett's part and Dulcy in favor of Leach. Angela disdains Sterrett for his preoccupation with business. Dulcy traps Forbes into agreeing to play golf with Van Dyck the next morning, and into riding horseback in the afternoon. She also tells Forbes that her husband has many business interests to manage, hoping to get him to increase his offer of 16%. However, Forbes reacts by telling Gordon his offer was predicated on a full-time commitment to the combine, and so may be lowered. Gordon tries to remonstrate with Dulcy about mixing in his business affairs, but as she sits in his lap can only admit how much he adores her. Dulcy then encouarges Leach to take Angela around the garden, while setting Van Dyck at Mrs. Forbes, since she writes scenarios and he owns film interests. She traps Forbes, Gordon, and Sterrett into playing bridge with her, after displaying an inadequate knowledge of the game. (Curtain) Act II (Same, Friday evening, after dinner.) Forbes is delighted when Dulcy suggests he play billiards with Gordon, only to find she has misplaced the balls. Forbes is increasingly uncomfortable about Van Dyck and Mrs. Forbes, while Sterrett has given up on getting Angela alone. Bill plays the piano in a desultory manner, until Dulcy shoos him away in favor of Van Dyck. She then encourages Leach to talk about his latest work. Leach begins to recite his scenario for Sin, accompanied by Van Dyck on piano. (Three second curtain, to signal passage of thirty minutes.) Leach finishes his scenario recitation as Forbes fumes over his pursuit of Angela. Van Dyck suggests to Gordon that he provide financing to save and expand Gordon's business. Thus encouraged, Gordon tells Forbes he'll reject the combine offer. Dulcy encourages Leach and Angela to elope, and recruits Mrs. Forbes to bring Angela's luggage to the car. Bill offers to drive the couple to a minister, confounding Leach who was hoping to avoid formalities, while Angela is amused. Blair Patterson is brought in by Henry. Patterson informs an aghast Gordon that Van Dyck is really his cousin Hoarce Patterson, who has a mild eccentricity for impersonating the millionaire Van Dyck. (Curtain) Act III (Same, Saturday morning.) Dulcy is subdued, as Gordon gently scolds her for interfering with business. She tearfully promises to try harder but immediately jumps in to offer Forbes a car so he can leave. Dulcy accidentally implicates Mrs. Forbes in the elopement, souring Mr. Forbes, who dreads having a "celluoid son-in-law". Gordon is surprised that Forbes still believes in the Van Dyck offer. Forbes knows Blair Patterson represents the Van Dyck interests, but does not realize Hoarce Patterson is not Van Dyck. Patterson tries to hustle Hoarce away, but is unable to stop him offering to finance Sterrett in his own ad agency. Overhearing this, Forbes is more convinced than ever of the genuine nature of Van Dyck's proposition to Gordon. Meanwhile, Angela and Bill come in; they are now married, Leech having been decoyed out of the car and abandoned on the road just after they left last night. Forbes is so relieved, he offers Gordon 25% of the new combine shares to turn down Van Dyck. Gordon and Dulcy are reconciled. (Curtain)
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