Explore Plays

Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, The Piano Lesson follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the family piano. The play focuses on the arguments between a brother and a sister who have different ideas on what to do with the piano. The brother, Boy Willie, is a sharecropper who wants to sell the piano to buy the land (Sutter's land) where his ancestors toiled as slaves. The sister, Berniece, remains emphatic about keeping the piano, which shows the carved faces of their great-grandfather's wife and son during the days of their enslavement.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago is a play written by David Mamet that examines the sex lives of two men and two women in the 1970s. The play is filled with profanity and regional jargon that reflects the working-class language of Chicago. The characters' relationships become hindered by the caustic nature of their words, as much of the dialogue includes insults and arguments. The play presents "intimate relationships [as] minefields of buried fears and misunderstandings".

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice is a 1992 play written by English dramatist Jim Cartwright. Sam Mendes directed stars Jane Horrocks and Alison Steadman at the Royal National Theatre before transferring to the Aldwych Theatre in London's West End.

The Triumph of Love (French: Le Triomphe de l'amour) is a three-act French comic play play by Pierre de Marivaux. It was first performed by the Theatre Italien in Paris on 12 March 1732.

The play deals with the ways family members survive a major loss, and includes comedy as well as drama.

Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy (German: Faust. Eine Tragödie or Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil) is the first part of Goethe's Faust. It was first published in 1808.

The play's action takes place primarily in Loudun, France in 1634 and revolves around a secular priest Urbain Grandier, whose adamant public opposition to Cardinal Richelieu's ongoing centralization of the French government makes him a hot political target. When charges of witchcraft are brought against the priest, both church and state move swiftly to destroy him. The investigation, subsequent trial and eventual execution quickly take on a ludicrous carnival-like atmosphere with crazed nuns, dubious medical procedures, ecclesiastical torture and outrageous public exorcisms, all depicted with considerable onstage realism.

Harmond Wilkes, an Ivy League-educated man who has inherited a real estate agency from his father, his ambitious wife Mame, and his friend Roosevelt Hicks want to redevelop the Hill District in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The project, called the Bedford Hills Redevelopment Project, includes two high-rise apartment buildings and high-end chain stores like Starbucks, Whole Foods, and Barnes & Noble. Harmond is also about to declare his candidacy to be Pittsburgh's first black mayor. Roosevelt has just been named a vice-president of Mellon Bank and has been tapped by a Bernie Smith to help him acquire a local radio station at less than market value, which is possible through a minority tax incentive.

In the Presidential convention in Summer 1960 in Philadelphia an ethical man running for the Presidential nomination runs against a "unscrupulous" man. Joseph Cantwell is a "bigot and a charlatan", while William Russell is the liberal candidate, "likable, forceful and humorous".

Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play is a fictionalization of his life that follows the broad outlines of it.

Faust: The Second Part of the Tragedy (German: Faust. Der Tragodie zweiter Teil), is the second part of Goethe's Faust. It was published in 1832, the year of Goethe's death. Because of its complexity in form and content, it is usually not read in German schools, although the first part commonly is. It can be seen as one of the most difficult works of World literature, requiring an extensive knowledge of Greek mythology. Only part of Faust I is directly related to the legend of Johann Faust, which dates to at latest the beginning of the 16th century (thus preceding Marlowe's play). The "Gretchen" subplot, although now the most widely known episode of the Faust legend, was of Goethe's own invention. In Faust II, the legend (at least in a version of the 18th century, which came to Goethe's attention) already contained Faust's marriage with Helen and an encounter with an Emperor. But certainly Goethe deals with the legendary material very freely in both parts.

The Iceman Cometh is set in Harry Hope's decidedly downmarket Greenwich Village saloon and rooming house, in 1912. The patrons, who are all men except for three women who are prostitutes, are all dead-end alcoholics who spend every possible moment seeking oblivion in each others' company and trying to con or wheedle free drinks from Harry and the bartenders. They drift without purpose from day to day, coming fully to life only during the semi-annual visits of the salesman Theodore Hickman, known to them as Hickey. When Hickey finishes a tour of his business territory, which is apparently a wide expanse of the East Coast, he typically turns up at the saloon and starts the party. As the play opens, the regulars are expecting Hickey to turn up in time for Harry's birthday party. The first act introduces the various characters and shows them bickering amongst each other, showing just how drunk and delusional they are, all the while waiting for the arrival of Hickey.

Orgon's family is up in arms because Orgon and his mother have fallen under the influence of Tartuffe, a pious fraud (and a vagrant prior to Orgon's help). Tartuffe pretends to be pious and to speak with divine authority, and Orgon and his mother no longer take any action without first consulting him. One could even say Orgon has a single-minded obsession with Tartuffe, as clearly demonstrated in Act I, Scene 5.. Tartuffe's antics do not fool the rest of the family or their friends; they detest him. The stakes are raised when Orgon announces that he will marry Tartuffe to his daughter Mariane (already engaged to Valere). Mariane is, of course, very upset at this news and the rest of the family realizes how deeply Tartuffe has embedded himself into the family. In an effort to show Orgon how awful Tartuffe really is, the family devises a plan to trap Tartuffe into confessing to Elmire his desire for her. As a pious man and a guest, he should have no such feelings for the lady of the house, and the family hopes that after such a confession, Orgon will throw Tartuffe out of the house. Indeed, Tartuffe does try to seduce Elmire, but their interview is interrupted when Orgon's son, Damis, who has been eavesdropping, is no longer able to control his boiling indignation and jumps out of his hiding place to denounce Tartuffe.