8284 shows
Clear filtersAfter studying in Copenhagen, Rasmus Berg returns to rural Denmark insisting on his Latinized name, Erasmus Montanus, and arguing with his family and neighbors through displays of academic logic. His refusal to deny that the Earth is round jeopardizes his engagement to Lisbet, until the townspeople trick him into military service and he recants to escape it.
In Memphis, King Filogonos has his daughter Erofili raised alongside Panaretos, an orphan of royal descent who becomes a general. They secretly marry, but when Filogonos arranges another match for Erofili, he orders Panaretos killed. Erofili dies after receiving his severed head, heart, and hands; the chorus of maids then kills the king.
A one-person comedy show combines stand-up and musical numbers with audience suggestions and absurd streams of consciousness.
Errors Excepted is an 1807 comedy play by the British writer Thomas Dibdin. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in London on 13 August 1807. The original cast included Charles Mayne Young as Frank Woodland, John Fawcett as Commodore Convoy, Charles Mathews as Lawyer Verdict, John Waddy as Mr Grumley, William Chapman as Old Mannerly, Vincent De Camp as Young Mannerly, Mr. Carles as Gabriel Invioice, John Liston as Richard, Harriett Litchfield as Sylvia, Jane Powell as Betty Barnes, Sarah Liston as Mrs Hall and Maria Gibbs as Fanny Freeman.
At the Soady deer camp during World War II, 18-year-old Albert Jr. brings his new bride, Big Betty Balou, to meet his father and grandfather during his final hunting season before joining the U.S. Army. The arrival challenges the camp’s male-only traditions and tests whether Betty will be accepted into the family.
Escapade is a 1952 play by the British writer Roger MacDougall. After premiering at the Theatre Royal, Brighton in December 1952 it transferred to the West End where it ran for 447 performances between 20 January 1953 and 20 February 1954, initially at St James's Theatre and then at the Strand Theatre. The original cast featured Phyllis Calvert, Nigel Patrick, Hugh Griffith, Michael Aldridge, Ernest Clark, Edith Sharpe and Patricia Marmont.
Former army captain Matt Denant is imprisoned for manslaughter after striking a plainclothes detective who dies while Denant protects a prostitute. He escapes from Dartmoor and meets people who either help or obstruct him, in a sequence of episodes examining class and social attitudes in 1920s Britain.
Escape Me Never is a 1934 play written by Margaret Kennedy based upon her 1930 novel The Fool of the Family. Set in pre World War I Europe, it tells the story of two brothers (Caryl and Sebastian Durbok) who are composers, share a flat, and are both in love with two women—an heiress and a young innocent. The original West End run of the play at the Apollo Theatre starred Elisabeth Bergner for whom the play was written. Bergner, in her Broadway debut, starred also in the play's 1935 production at the Shubert Theatre.
A troubled, eccentric family tries to hold together amid violence, poverty and the dangerous world of police and thieves. As family members face criminal entanglements and fraught relationships, their effort to survive becomes a darkly comic struggle for dignity and connection.
Four older women talk over afternoon tea in a garden while Mrs Jarrett’s monologues open onto visions of catastrophe. Everyday conversation, personal disquiet, and imagined global disasters overlap in Churchill’s dark comedy.
Escort is a 1942 play by the British writer Patrick Hastings. It is a wartime spy thriller about sabotage on a Royal Navy ship. It ran for 24 performances at the West End Lyric Theatre between 18 August and 5 September 1942. The cast included Thorley Walters, Michael Shepley, John Stuart and Barry Morse. It was produced by Basil Dean. It was praised by The Spectator, which had recently panned Terence Rattigan's much more successful Flare Path, as "the best and most convincing spy play" to date.
The crown prince of Sicily is abducted by his cousin and sold to the king of Damascus. Raised by the king’s daughter Damiët, he discovers his origin, returns to Sicily and is recognized by his mother; he becomes king, marries Damiët, and the treacherous cousin is hanged.
This two-part, four-act Passion play presents Jesus's public life in its morning section and his passion, death and resurrection in its afternoon section. The current version consists of 35 scenes and is staged by generations of local amateur performers.
When Mamá Cora's daughter-in-law asks her siblings to take their elderly mother for a while, the family argues over responsibility. After Mamá Cora disappears and a body is mistaken for hers, the remorseful relatives prepare a funeral amid old resentments—until she reappears.
Espionage is a 1935 play by the British-American writer Walter Hackett. It is a thriller set on the Orient Express, written as a vehicle for Hackett's wife Marion Lorne. It revolves around a plot to assassinate a munitions tycoon. It ran for 171 performances at the Apollo Theatre in London's West End between 15 October 1935 and 14 March 1936. As well as Lorne the cast included Jeanne Stuart, Edwin Styles, Eric Maturin and Frank Cellier.
A three-act biblical drama based on the Book of Esther, composed for the education and performance of young noblewomen at Saint-Cyr and presented in a liturgical mode.
The discovery of an unpublished manuscript draws scholars, writers, and publishers into a dispute over a literary masterpiece. Stories across different periods complicate the boundaries between authorship, appropriation, and historical truth.
At an isolated Antarctic weather station, two observers and an illiterate, paranoid roustabout are trapped together after a drunken incident prevents them joining the relief ship. The roustabout kills one observer and tries to dominate the other.
Eugénie has secretly married the Earl of Clarendon and is pregnant, but he deceives her about his planned marriage to another woman. After learning that their wedding was fraudulent, her family confronts him; he later admits his actions, and Eugénie chooses to marry him.
Courtesan Thais tries to return Pamphila, kidnapped as a child, to her Athenian family. Phaedria's brother Chaerea disguises himself as a eunuch to enter Thais's house and sexually assaults Pamphila; the truth emerges, Pamphila is recognized as freeborn, and Chaerea offers to marry her as the households reconcile.
The play is set at the Eureka Day School in Berkeley, California, during several meetings between parents and administrators concerning requirements for vaccination after an outbreak of mumps in the student body.
A 75-minute theatrical collage of words and images draws on Miroslav Krleža’s essay: an actor recites his words, a dancer embodies the arguments, and Laibach performs radically reimagined European national anthems.
Eurydice is a 1731 tragedy by the Scottish writer David Mallet. It is one of a number of plays and operas to be based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice from Greek Mythology. The original Drury Lane cast included Mary Porter as Eurydice, Elizabeth Butler as Melissa, Roger Bridgewater as Leonidas, William Mills as Medon, Thomas Hallam as Polydore, John Mills as Periander and John Corey as Ariston. The prologue was written by Aaron Hill and spoken by Robert Wilks.
In a 1930s troupe of travelling performers, Eurydice and the violinist Orphée fall in love and flee together. After her death, a mysterious man offers Orphée a chance to reunite with her if he resists looking into her eyes; his doubts about her past destroy the reunion, and the lovers meet again only after his own death.
After dying on her wedding day, Eurydice enters the underworld with no memory and reunites with her father, who teaches her language and their shared past. Orpheus descends to retrieve her, but when Eurydice calls to him and he looks back, she dies again and chooses forgetfulness.
Evadne is an 1819 historical tragedy by the Irish writer Richard Lalor Sheil. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 10 February 1819. The original cast included Elizabeth O'Neill as Evadne, William Macready as Ludovico, William Abbot as the King of Naples, Charles Mayne Young as Colonna, Charles Kemble as Vicentio, Charles Connor as Spalatro and Harriet Faucit as Olivia. Sheil dedicated the published play to his fellow Irish writer Thomas Moore.
A frustrated writer creates four ordinary characters, then struggles to distinguish them from the protagonist Indrajit, who resists the repetitive middle-class life and social conventions that make him ordinary. Across three acts and years, Indrajit's search for meaning circles back to an unresolved question about why people live as they do; the writer cannot give him a decisive ending.
Best-selling novelist Diana Breed Latimer visits a New England women’s college to research an exposé of the students’ romantic lives. The three-act satire was completed by its authors but never produced or published.
Evensong is a 1932 British play by the writers Beverley Nichols and Edward Knoblock. It is based on the novel of the same name by Nichols, based on the life of opera singer Nellie Melba. It ran for 213 performances at London's Queen's Theatre between 30 June and 31 December 1932. The cast included Edith Evans, Henry Wilcoxon and Wilfrid Lawson. Ernest Irving worked as the film's musical director. The following year it transferred to the Selwyn Theatre on Broadway for a run of 15 performances. Along with the original novel, the play provided inspiration for the 1934 film version directed by Victor Saville and starring Evelyn Laye.
Ever Since Paradise is a 1946 comedy play by the British writer J.B. Priestley. It premiered at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield in August 1946. The following June it transferred to the New Theatre in London's West End where it ran for 165 performances. The cast included Jane Carr, Joy Shelton, Roger Livesey, Ursula Jeans and Dennis Arundell.
Every Brilliant Thing opens with the unnamed "Narrator" at age seven who, when their mother attempts suicide, begins a list of things worth living for. As the play proceeds, the list lengthens, through Narrator's college years, marriage, and a bout of depression. Before each performance, the actor playing Narrator casts audience members. Daniel Radcliffe, who performed the play's Broadway premiere (2026), described two levels of audience engagement. During the first, "a light lift", some audience members are handed a card with a number and text. When Narrator calls out a number, the member with that card shouts the name of the corresponding list entry—for example, rollercoasters, Super Mario, or people falling over. The second level, "the heavy lifts," involves five people playing "very significant roles...They are people that do not know that they will be doing that when they come into the theater that night. And I have to try and suss out who I would like to use and then if they would like to be used. Generally speaking, people are fairly amenable to it, but we do get some absolute hard nos from people sometimes." Radcliffe would tell participants that they do not have to be funny or clever, though those would be a bonus. The only thing they should do is be kind. "And if you're kind, the show flies." A key audience role is Mrs. Patterson, a school guidance counselor. The woman playing her removes her sock to use as a sock puppet as a way of communicating with the young Narrator, then returns at the end to soothe the now despondent adult. These character roles, played ad lib, unfold differently at each performance.
Alexander Ivanov, a Soviet dissident, is confined to a mental hospital until he admits that his political statements arose from an illness. He shares a cell with a genuinely disturbed patient who imagines he commands a symphony orchestra, while Alexander's son is pressured at school to accept the false diagnosis.
A father spies on his son, a jealous merchant suspects his wife, and a cast of London eccentrics bring their disputes before a magistrate who exposes their follies and deceptions.
A satirical comedy and conceptual sequel to Jonson's Every Man in His Humour, it mocks social pretension and fashionable folly through characters including the socially ambitious country bumpkin Sogliardo and the foppish Fastidious Brisk.
The story is kept largely the same as Everyman with a few exceptions. Fellowship, Kindred, Goods, Discretion, Five Wits, and Knowledge are renamed Friendship, Kinship, Stuff, Mind, Five Senses, and Understanding respectively. Additionally, the scene where Everyman whips himself for Confession is changed to a scene where they are instructed by the drill sergeant-like character of Love to strip naked and scream "I have no control". Furthermore, instead of Good Deeds following Everyman/Everybody to the grave, that role is filled by Love. The story is also interspersed with pre-recorded voiceover scenes done fully in the dark, depicting four of Everybody's friends comforting them on their deathbed and through a misunderstanding eventually turns into a discussion about racism.
In Casablanca, American bar owner Rick Blaine serves a café frequented by Europeans, military personnel and refugees. He ultimately helps a Czech resistance fighter escape with the woman Rick loves; the play's original conception was anti-Nazi and pro-French Resistance.
Everybody Mistaken is a 1716 comedy play by the British writer William Taverner. The title is also written as Every Body Mistaken. A farce, it is a reworking of The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. It premiered at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London on 10 March 1716, and was followed as an afterpiece by the masque Presumptuous Love, also by Taverner. It opened the same night as Joseph Addison's The Drummer debuted at the rival Drury Lane Theatre.
Summoned by Death to account for his life, Everyman seeks companions among Fellowship, Kindred, Cousin, and Goods, but each abandons him. Knowledge guides him to Confession, and Good Deeds ultimately accompanies him to judgment and salvation, while his other virtues leave him at the grave.
Everyman is a modern play produced by Charles Frohman and directed by Ben Greet that is based on the medieval morality play of the same name. The modern play was first performed in 1901 on tour in Britain. It opened in the United States in 1902 on Broadway, where it ran for 75 performances, followed by tours over the next several years that included four Broadway revivals.
Everyone Has His Fault is a 1793 comedy play by the British writer Elizabeth Inchbald. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 29 January 1793. The original cast included William Farren as Lord Norland, William Thomas Lewis as Sir Robert Ramble, John Quick as Mr Solus, Joseph Shepherd Munden as Mister Harmony, John Fawcett as Mr Placid, Alexander Pope as Mr Irwin, James Thompson as Porter, Jane Pope as Lady Eleanor Irwin, Isabella Mattocks as Mrs Placid, Mrs Webb as Mrs Spinster and Harriet Pye Esten as Miss Wooburn. The Irish premiere took place at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin on 17 July 1793.
A middle-aged physics teacher tries to reverse time using relativity in order to save her dying father.
Jenny and Bernard Acton want more comfort and status than their suburban income allows. When brothel-keeper Leonie Pimosz offers Jenny a profitable new occupation, the couple discover how widely their neighbours share the same compromise.
In Albee's version, suburban couple Richard and Jenny struggle to keep up with their neighbors. After a madam visits, Jenny becomes a part-time prostitute; Albee's adaptation changes aspects of the original plot, including character names.
Emily Mann’s ensemble docudrama stages the trial of Dan White for assassinating San Francisco mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. Reconstructing testimony through transcripts, reportage and interviews, it puts the trial itself on trial as a miscarriage of justice.
Writer Richard Rowan returns to Ireland from Rome with Bertha, his partner and the mother of their son. Their old friends Robert Hand and Beatrice Justice complicate the couples’ relationships; the play sustains uncertainty about what happened between Hand and Bertha while Rowan and Bertha confront jealousy, freedom, and trust.
King Bérenger I learns that he and his crumbling kingdom are dying. As his first wife and the Doctor force him to face his death while his second wife tries to shield him, the characters disappear one by one until he accepts the end.
Dot, a light-skinned Black woman, prepares to leave her shared flat for a date with the mysterious Exit Mann, provoking an angry confrontation with Buddy. Exit appears as Death, and Dot dies; the play's symbolic encounter explores colorism, sexism and the illusion of escape from racial oppression.
In a Glasgow nightclub, Nigerian toilet attendant Tolu is pressured by her manager to encourage women to expose themselves in a bathroom with a one-way mirror, while male customers watch. She must choose between harming the women and protecting herself.
After Marjorie turns the would-be rapist who attacked her in her home into a captive, her roommates debate whether to call police and whether he can be convicted. His knowledge of the women's lives turns them against one another.
FOB is a 1980 Obie Award-winning play by American playwright David Henry Hwang. His first play, it depicts the contrasts and conflicts between established Asian Americans and "fresh off the boat" (FOB) newcomer immigrants.
In a one-person comic parody and tribute to Friends, Gunther recounts the events of all ten seasons from the lovelorn coffee-shop worker's perspective.
A two-character poetic and conceptual dialogue with Samuel Beckett's drama, described as a postmodern patchwork that reworks elements of Beckett's plays into a distinct theatrical work.
Thai garment workers are lured to Los Angeles and held in a confined underground sewing shop to pay debts to traffickers. The play interweaves their experience with the investigation by an immigration officer and labor authorities, whose raid frees the workers and arrests the trafficking ring.
When her husband takes her money, successful Manhattan publicist Undine is forced to return to her former life in Brooklyn and confront her working-class relatives.
A farce about East/West cultural stereotypes, Face Value examines how racial and cultural assumptions shape identity and theatrical representation.
After a sacked construction worker rams his former boss's car, a community convener brings the worker, his boss, their families, and coworkers together to discuss the harm and circumstances behind the incident instead of sending the case directly to court.
Ten years after leaving their Sheffield flat, estranged spouses Dave and Joanna meet again when she visits wanting a baby. Their reunion becomes a vicious argument and encounter as they reveal the secrets behind their separation and confront debt and family pressures.
A stage adaptation of Edward Dyson’s factory-worker stories, reshaped around a murder plot among low-life characters.
In parallel plots, William the Conqueror disguises himself to court a Danish princess while her sister falls for him, and miller's daughter Em pretends to be blind and deaf to avoid two suitors as she pursues the faithless Manvile. The plots converge when Em's true noble identity is revealed and her virtue helps reconcile William to his marriage.
Friends Laura Bartlett and Jack Wheeler enjoy going out partying, but their respective spouses, Billy Bartlett and Blanche Wheeler, do not. One evening when Laura and Jack are out together, Billy and Blanche decide to try partying themselves. The inexperienced drinkers mix a cocktail so potent that they pass out together after just one drink, leading their spouses to think they are having an affair. Blanche returns the next day to apologize, but Laura has already decided to leave Billy and is having the furniture removed. The misunderstanding is resolved by Tessie, the Barletts' maid.
As Beverly prepares a birthday celebration for her mother, tensions rise among her African-American family. White characters comment on race while the family repeats the action, and the play's layered structure culminates in Keisha addressing the audience about who gets to tell Black stories.
Two homeless fifteen-year-olds meet in a derelict community centre. Kirsty is grieving her mother and resents her father’s engagement; through shared storytelling, she and Gideon confront their fears and hopes.
The play consists of four parts, with a monologue making up each part. The monologues are given, in order, by Hardy himself; his wife, Grace; his manager, Teddy, and finally Hardy again. The monologues tell the story of Hardy, including an incident in a Welsh village in which he cures ten people. Teddy's monologue reveals that Grace dies by suicide, while Hardy ponders whether his gift is real or not. In Hardy’s second monologue, it is suggested that he is beaten to death for his failure to heal a cripple. He says that he knows he will not be able to heal him and, going to face death, he feels a sense of homecoming. From Teddy’s preceding monologue it is made explicit however, that Hardy is actually killed.
Across generations, the Piper family confronts secrets and loss, from Cape Breton through the First World War and New York's jazz scene. Years later, a daughter travels to New York seeking answers about her family.
Julia and Jane, whose former lover Maurice is expected to visit, debate whether they can resist him and prepare to leave their homes. They drink and quarrel while waiting; when Maurice finally arrives the next morning, he invites both women upstairs, leaving their husbands to panic.
The play features a love triangle between three characters.
A Brechtian political play opposing nuclear energy and mining. It casts corporations as characters and dramatizes episodes involving uranium mining, including the swindling of governments, a 1961 court martial, and the Ranger Uranium Mine inquiry.
False Appearances is a 1789 comedy play by the British politician and general Henry Seymour Conway, inspired by the 1740 French play Trompeurs Dehors by Louis de Boissy. It appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London on 20 April 1789. The Irish premiere took place at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin on 13 July 1789 The original Drury Lane cast included John Philip Kemble as Marquis, Richard Wroughton as Baron, William Parsons as Governor, John Bannister as Abbé, Robert Palmer as Robert, Elizabeth Farren as Countess, Anna Maria Crouch as Lucile, Priscilla Kemble as Caelia and Jane Pope as Lisette. The epilogue was written by John Burgoyne.
False Colours is a 1793 comedy play by the British writer Edward Morris. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in London on 3 April 1793. The original cast included Richard Suett as Lord Visage, Thomas King as Sir Paul Panick, Richard Wroughton as Sir Harry Cecil, William Barrymore as Captain Montague, John Bannister as Grotesque, Robert Palmer as Subtle, Ralph Wewitzer as Tony, Walter Maddocks as Alfred, Jane Pope as Lady Panick, Elizabeth Farren as Constance, Charlotte Goodall as Harriet and Elizabeth Heard as Lucy.
Lord Windworth and Lady Betty Lambton are in love, but Betty is too shy and delicate to admit it, feeling rejected. Winworth seeks Miss Marchmont, and she only accepts him because she believes that Betty agrees.
False Impressions is a 1797 melodramatic comedy play by the British playwright Richard Cumberland. It was first staged at the Covent Garden Theatre in November 1797. Much of the plot resembles Cumberland's 1795 novel Henry. Algernon has to pretend to be a servant to restore his good name. The original cast included John Quick as Scud, Joseph George Holman as Algernon, Joseph Shepherd Munden as Simon Single, Charles Murray as Sir Oliver Monrath, John Whitfield as Earling, James Thompson as Frank, Julia Betterton as Emily Fitzallan, Margaret Knight as Jenny Scud and Mary Ann Davenport as Mrs Buckram.
Rejected by Henry V, Falstaff is recruited into a conspiracy to kill the king. His resentment and hopes of marrying for money lead him to weigh betrayal against a possible return to royal favor.
Falstaff and his companions scheme for money and marriage, while Nym's deception leads to a series of mistaken identities and swapped partners before Falstaff's wedding feast.
As a Zimbabwean-American family prepares for eldest daughter Tendi’s wedding, she and her white fiancé ask to include the Roora bride-price ceremony, to be facilitated by Tendi’s aunt Anne. Tendi’s mother resists, exposing conflicts over cultural inheritance and identity.
A Victorian family gathers after the funeral of its father. As they reminisce, Lavinia reveals he was cruel and mean, and that she and the butler burned his final will, which would have deprived the family of its inheritance. They celebrate their reprieve by dancing together.
A Second City sketch revue moves through short comic scenes, including local political satire, a therapy sketch, hockey fans, an interactive music-video parody and political comedy involving children and Charlton Heston.
A Los Angeles Chinese-American family across three generations confronts the clash between Eastern and Western cultural values, religion and family life.
On a retiring judge’s seventieth birthday, his eldest daughter shelters an asylum seeker from border patrol, setting off conflict within the family.
A mother, son and dead father are heard through interlocking monologues and letters they write to one another. The son has moved to the city; the mother appears never to receive his letters and asks why he does not answer, while telling him his father has died. Their failed communication deepens the work's absurdity.
Two months after Marius leaves without news, Fanny discovers she is pregnant by him. Panisse, who had asked her to marry him, accepts her and the child; when Marius later returns wanting them back, Fanny’s arguments and the family’s love lead him to return to sea.
The framing story has Fanny stage her own play anonymously for her father and theatre critics. Within it, two respectable families discover that their children have been jailed for rowdy behavior; the encounter upends their social conventions and romantic plans.
Three clowns embody war, art and love while narrating the romance of Hans, a piano player who lost his hearing in war, and Marie, a dancer who lost her sight. Their play-within-a-play carries the story in a warm, lyrical style.
As a child, Joan discovers her uncle secretly transporting injured people. Years later, she designs hats for prisoners in a society that turns executions into public spectacle; eventually, she fears that every part of nature may be at war.
In 1950s Japan, a young American naval officer seeks adventure before returning home. The drama follows Americans stationed abroad and their personal relationships.
Biology student Nikolai Kolesov falls in love with Tanya, daughter of his university's rector. Her father offers to advance Kolesov's academic career if he gives up his feelings for her, testing his priorities.
Six short plays, five dialogues and a monologue, imagine successive future societies shaped by Shaw’s utopian ideas, including poison gas warfare, social testing and state power, food-free life, artificial reproduction and disembodied intellectual beings.
In Vurgun's reworking, Shirin loves both Khosrov and Farhad, and kills herself over Farhad's body after he dies because of false news about his beloved. Khosrov is presented as Shirin's predatory enemy rather than Farhad's rival, while Shirin is an active, independent figure.
King Philip V of Spain suffers insomnia and depression. Queen Isabella brings the castrato Farinelli to court, hoping his singing will ease the king's illness; music and the unusual split between Farinelli as actor and singer reshape the court and their relationships.
A political drama loosely based on Howard Dean's 2004 presidential primary campaign, examining ambition, the pursuit of power, and its personal costs.
Inês rejects the dull farmer Pêro Marques in pursuit of a clever, prosperous husband, and marries the squire Brás da Mata, who soon tyrannizes and confines her. After Brás dies, she marries Pêro and takes a lover, with her new husband carrying her to meet him in the final scene. The play satirizes social ambition and marriage.
May Buchanan travels west across gold-rush Canada in pursuit of independence. Two men who want to reclaim her follow, turning the journey into a conflict over desire, ownership, and the cost of freedom.
Fashionable Friends is an 1802 comedy play by the British author Mary Berry, although she initially claimed it to have been written by her friend Horace Walpole and found amongst his possessions after his death. It appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 22 April 1802. The Drury Lane cast included Thomas King as Sir Valentine Vapour, Charles Kemble as Sir Dudley Dorimant, William Barrymore as Mr. Lovell, Richard Suett as Doctor Syrop, Walter Maddocks as Music Master, Ralph Wewitzer as Lapierre, Maria Theresa Kemble as Lady Selina Vapour, Jane Pope as Mrs. Racket, Dorothea Jordan as Miss Racket, Sarah Harlowe as Trimming and Charlotte Tidswell as Lappet. The prologue was written by William Robert Spencer. The title is also written as The Fashionable Friends.
Fashionable Levities is a 1785 comedy play by the Irish writer Leonard MacNally. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 7 April 1785. The original cast included William Thomas Lewis as Welford, John Quick as Sir Buzzard Savage, Richard Wroughton as Captain Douglas, Ralph Wewitzer as Colonel Staff, John Edwin as Nicholas, John Henderson as Mr Ordeal, Margaret Martyr as Clara, Sarah Maria Wilson as Grace and Mrs Webb as Honour. MacNally dedicated the play to the Anglo-Irish aristocrat the Countess of Salisbury. The Dublin premiere took place at the Crow Street Theatre on 5 April 1786.
Juicy, a young gay black man, is confronted by the ghost of his father during a cookout, who demands that Juicy avenge his murder. Juicy, already familiar with Hamlet's plight, tries to break the cycles of trauma and violence.
In a large city, professional businessman Tom meets overweight librarian Helen in a crowded restaurant at lunch. Tom is taken with Helen's brash acceptance of how people see her and her in-your-face honesty, and they begin dating. After a few weeks, Carter, Tom's best friend at work, suspects that Tom has a new girlfriend. He badgers Tom for details, finally raising the matter in front of Jeannie, a woman from accounting whom Tom had been seeing casually for a while. Jeannie becomes distraught, and Tom admits that he is "sort of" seeing this new woman. Carter continues his inquiries and, when Tom says he is busy that night, suspects that Tom is going on a date despite his protests that he is going to a business dinner with people from the Chicago branch office. That evening, Carter goes to a restaurant that he knows Tom likes and sees Tom and Helen together. Carter introduces himself to Helen and, when she excuses herself, he berates her as a "fat pig", assuming that Tom would never date anyone like her and that she is in fact from the Chicago office. Jeannie learns about "the fat cow from Chicago" from gossip with Carter, and later discovers that Chicago hadn't sent anyone for meetings. She confronts Tom, demanding to know where they stand. Tom replies that he is romantically uninterested in her and will remain so, and admits that he was not at a business dinner. Jeannie slaps Tom, hurt that he would pick an obese woman over her. Carter apologizes to Tom for his rudeness about Helen, but, after pestering Tom for a picture, shows it to everyone in the office who laugh at the "fat pig" Tom is dating. Carter tries to convince Tom that he should "stick to his kind". Meanwhile, Tom and Helen fall deeper in love. Helen informs Tom that she has been offered a better job in another city but does not want to leave him. She asks if she can meet his friends; when he hesitates, she believes that he is ashamed of her weight. Later, Tom takes Helen to his company's beach barbecue, where they become secluded with everyone else making jokes and ridiculing Helen's weight behind her back. Seeing Tom embarrassed and ostracized, Helen gives him an ultimatum: to accept her and defend her to his friends or end their relationship. Tom replies that he cannot handle it and that she should take the other job. They walk away from each other, brokenhearted.
On a Hungarian estate on the Puszta, idealistic young student George Peredy is captivated by Mathilde Fay, a sophisticated married woman stranded at his family’s house. When she denies the affair and turns back to her husband, George confronts the disillusionment of his first romance.
Fatal Attraction is a 2014 play adapted from his original screenplay by James Dearden. It is based on the 1987 film Fatal Attraction, and it opened in London's West End at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on 25 March 2014, following previews from 8 March.
This parody reworks the 1987 film as a camp tragedy, following its basic plot while a chorus comments on the action through language from Greek tragedy. The chorus’s formal commentary satirizes the film’s fear of a successful businesswoman and its celebration of conventional family values.
Fatal Curiosity is a 1737 verse drama tragedy by the British writer George Lillo. It is also known by the alternative title Guilt Its Own Punishment. The original cast included Thomas Davies and Charlotte Charke. Implicitly, the work attacks the government and Imperial strategy of Robert Walpole, who had then been prime minister for over a decade. It was shown with Henry Fielding's The Historical Register as an afterpiece. Soon afterwards Walpole brought forward a Licensing Act 1737 to clamp down on theatrical criticism of the government.
Fatal Extravagance is a 1721 tragedy by the British writer Aaron Hill. It was presented by another writer Joseph Mitchell, a friend of Hill, at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London. The original cast included James Quin as Bellmour, Anthony Boheme as Courtney, John Ogden as Bargrave and Anna Maria Seymour as Louisa. It was printed with the slightly longer title The Fatal Extravagance. Hill was inspired by the recent South Sea Bubble where speculative investment had led to a massive crash, ruining backers of the company. In the play this takes the former a out-of-control gambler who ends up killing a creditor and planning to commit suicide. In 1793 a version of the play retitled The Prodigal by Francis Godolphin Waldron was staged at the Haymarket Theatre, with a happy ending added.
Fatal Love; Or, The Forc'd Inconstancy is a 1680 tragedy by the English writer Elkanah Settle. It was first staged by the King's Company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. The original cast members are unknown. Producer at the time of the Popish Plot scare and the Exclusion Crisis, it was notably anti-Catholic similar to Settle's other tragedy of the same year The Female Prelate.
During the American Civil War, an enslaved man named Hero must decide whether to accompany his owner into Confederate service in exchange for a promise of freedom. Three connected plays follow the decision, the war, and his return home.
A priest hears a murderer's confession while an innocent man is condemned. To save the innocent without breaking the seal of confession, the priest accuses himself of the crime.
Father's Day is a 1971 play written by Oliver Hailey. The play is a "dark comedy" that follows three divorced women who reside in the same apartment building, exploring their post-divorce lives and their relationships with their ex-husbands. Despite its short run, the production received nominations for Best Actress in a Play (Seldes) and Best Scenic Design (Jo Mielziner) at the 25th Tony Awards. While the original Broadway production of Father's Day was panned by critics, Hailey continued to revise the show with subsequent revivals outside of Broadway that received more positive reviews.
In mid-nineteenth-century Russia, anarchic medical student Bazarov visits his friend Arkady’s family estate. His contempt for the family’s complacency conflicts with his own emotions, and his actions have tragic consequences.
Faulkener (also sometimes spelt as Faulkner) is an 1807 historical tragedy by the British writer William Godwin. The play premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 16 December 1807. The cast included Robert Elliston as Faulkener, Henry Siddons as Stanley, Harriet Siddons as Lauretta, Jack Palmer as Benedetto, William Powell as Orsini and Jane Powell as Arabella.
In an improvised interactive comedy, characters based on the Fawlty Towers television sitcom serve audience members a three-course meal.
In Part One, the scholar Faust makes a wager with Mephistopheles and pursues Gretchen, whose family is destroyed and who is imprisoned after killing her child. In Part Two, Faust undertakes new adventures across social, political and classical worlds, ultimately striving toward redemption.
The Lord wagers that Mephistopheles cannot lead the striving scholar Faust astray. Mephistopheles offers Faust worldly pleasures in exchange for his soul if Faust ever wishes a moment to last. Faust's pursuit of Gretchen brings seduction, her mother's death through a sleeping potion, her brother's death, and Gretchen's imprisonment after infanticide. Faust tries to free her, but she refuses to flee; a heavenly voice announces her salvation.
In this dramatic continuation, Faust encounters Helen of Troy, seeks power over nature and the sea, and later dies after developing reclaimed land. The closing scenes follow his soul’s ascent through the intercession of heavenly figures.
Faustina, wife of Marcus Aurelius, falls in love with gladiator Galba, who is killed in a ritual ceremony intended to ease her jealousy. The collapsing scenery represents Roman civilization's fall, and Faustina's closing address challenges the audience for failing to intervene.
After critics dismiss his latest work, a married young scientist and philosopher makes a demonic bargain with an eccentric party entertainer called Magus.
Fawlty Towers: The Play is a comedy play by John Cleese based on his television sitcom of the same name that he co-wrote with Connie Booth. The play adapted three episodes of the television series, forming one storyline; "The Hotel Inspectors", "Communication Problems" and "The Germans".
Fazio is a tragedy by the British writer Henry Hart Milman. It was first published in 1815. An unauthorised adaptation was performed at the Surrey Theatre under the title The Italian Wife. Another unauthorised version was performed at the Theatre Royal, Bath. In 1818 Milman granted permission for the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden to stage the play. It premiered there on 5 February 1818. It starred Charles Kemble as Giraldi Fazio, Elizabeth O'Neill as Bianca, Daniel Egerton as the Duke of Florence, Charles Mathews as Gonsalvo, William Blanchard as Bartolo, Harriet Faucit as Aldabella and Charles Connor as Falsetto. A first Dublin performance took place at the Crow Street Theatre on 6 April 1818. Fanny Kemble later played Bianca in Britain and America, where she appeared at the Park Theatre in 1832. It was revived on both sides of the Atlantic over the following decades.
On a lonely moor during a storm, a husband overwhelmed by fear hears a cry across the moor; his wife, whom he loves, tries to comfort him.
Three New Jersey locals—a plumber, a professor and a teenager—confront one another after a girl disappears in the woods.
Harry argues with his wife Olivia over moving to a gated community for their family's safety. Their son Alex has been dreaming about a headless soldier, and the couple's disagreement opens into a wider examination of fear and insecurity in modern life.
A cycle of short plays depicts Nazi Germany through scenes of poverty, surveillance, antisemitism, coercion and fear. Families, workers, prisoners, judges and officials reveal how everyday relationships and institutions are distorted by the regime; the epic-theatre production makes that behavior and the cycle's anti-Nazi argument explicit.
A modern retelling of the story of Tereus, Procne and Philomela from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Feeding the Dragon is an autobiographical one-woman play in which Sharon Washington recounts her childhood growing up in an apartment inside the St. Agnes branch of the New York Public Library. Framed as “a modern fairy tale about the little girl who lived in a library,” the play follows Washington’s experiences as an only child surrounded by books and family. As a young girl, Washington spends her days and nights exploring the library before and after opening hours, treating it as her personal playground. She develops a love of reading and storytelling, nurtured by both her grandmother and her unrestricted access to literature. Her father works as the library’s custodian, responsible for maintaining the facility and tending to the coal furnace in the basement, which she imagines as a “dragon that must be fed.” The play is structured by a series of episodic memories from childhood, including interactions with Washington’s parents, grandparents, and friends, as well as moments of play, discovery, and creativity within the library, As she grows older, the tone of her story shifts to reveal more complex family dynamics, specifically her father’s struggle with alcoholism. Washington’s story then expands beyond the library, visiting relatives in Queens, and traveling with her father to the American South, where she begins to understand broader social realities, including systemic racism and intergenerational trauma. The play concludes by returning to the metaphor of the “dragon,” which comes to represent both the literal furnace in the library, as well as the personal struggles and triumphs of Washington’s family. Through storytelling, Washington reflects on themes of memory, forgiveness, and the formative power literature as “the little girl in the library.”
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