Subject: Plays, Playscripts | Page #2
-
The Christmas Dinner Shepherd Knapp
The Christmas Dinner is an 18-page play about Christmas. It is intended, not only for acting, but also for reading. What sort of a Christmas play do the boys and girls like, and in what sort do we like to see them take part? It should be a play, surely, in which the dialogue is simple and natural, not stilted and... read more »
-
The Circle W. Somerset Maugham
The Circle is set in the fashionable drawing room of Aston-Adey, the Champion-Cheneys’ house in Dorset. Maugham's plot, which may be unfamiliar, contains two triangles, each of a husband, wife, and lover. The first of these includes Clive, a cuckolded husband, Lady Kitty, his ex-wife, and Lord Porteous, her second... read more »
-
The City Heiress Aphra Behn
A comedy of manners which caused offence for its immorality at the time of it's first performance. Though it conforms to the general rules of Restoration comedy, it also keeps Behn's own highly Royalist political point of view. The play concerns the 'seditious Knight', Sir Timothy Treat-all, and his nephew Tom... read more »
-
The Glimpse of Reality George Bernard Shaw
Performing this Playlet for the first by the Glasgow Clarion Players. The piece was immediately announced in the London Press as Mr. Shaw's latest, the successor to 'Saint Joan.' An error: it was written in an idle moment as a star turn for Mr. Harley Granville-Barker, was mislaid and forgotten by its author until... read more »
-
The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy of manners set in Victorian England. Algernon lives in London and says he has a sick friend in the country. He uses visits to his imaginary friend to get out of things. His best friend, Ernest, is also Jack and is doing the exact same thing. Misunderstandings abound in... read more »
-
The Inspector General Nikolai Gogol
Although it may read to modern audiences like a hilarious slapstick comedy, The Inspector-General is actually much more than that. Famed Russian writer Nikolai Gogol intended it to be a veiled but pointed satire of the ineptitude, corruption, and greed that exemplified the Russian bureaucracy in the nineteenth... read more »
-
The Lady from the Sea Henrik Ibsen
When the lighthouse keeper's daughter Ellida meets the widower Dr Wangel, she tries to put her long-lost first love far behind her and begin a new life as a wife and stepmother. But the tide is turning, an English ship is coming down the fjord, and the undercurrents threaten to drag a whole family beneath the... read more »
-
The Lucky Chance Aphra Behn
This is above all, an indictment of arranged marriages. Young Leticia Bredwell has been purchased as a bride for the revoltingly foppish old Sir Feeble Fainwood. Feeble's friend, Sir Cautious Fulbank, also bought himself a bride, Julia, who-like Leticia, is in love with another younger, poorer man. The women and... read more »
-
The Master Builder Henrik Ibsen
One of the Norwegian playwright's most mysterious, symbolic, and lyrical dramas explores the life of architect Halvard Solness, once ruthlessly ambitious, but who, in his later years, not only feels threatened by the younger generation but also fears the decay of his own creativity. A tragic end for one of the most... read more »
-
The Millionairess George Bernard Shaw
The Millionairess is a play written in 1936 by George Bernard Shaw. It tells the story of Epifania, a spoilt heiress, and her search for a suitor. Shaw wrote the play expressly for Edith Evans, who rejected the role, calling it too icy. read more »
-
The Romancers Edmond Rostand
This 1894 comedy in three-acts was translated by Barrett Clark. Edmond Rostand later became famous with his writing of Cyrano de Bergerac. The Romancers is best produced with the late 18th century in mind and customs from the Louis XVI period. This light-hearted romance is about two young lovers discovering that... read more »
-
The Roundheads Aphra Behn
Mrs. Behn has (quite legitimately) made considerable departures from strict historical fact and the sequence of events for her dramatic purposes. Lambert and Fleetwood are scheming for the supreme power, and both intrigue with Lord Wariston, the chairman of the Committee of Safety, for his good word and... read more »
-
The Rover Aphra Behn
Now considered Behn's most famous and most accomplished play, The Rover is in many ways firmly in the tradition of Restoration drama; Willmore, the title character, is a rake and a libertine, and the comedy feeds on sexual innuendo, intrigue and wit. But the laughter that the play insights has a biting edge to it... read more »
-
The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles George Bernard Shaw
The emigration office at a tropical port in the British Empire. The office is an annex of the harbor and customs sheds on one side and of the railway station on the other. Placards direct passengers TO THE CUSTOMS and TO THE TRAINS through the open doors right and left respectively. The emigration officer, an... read more »
-
The Six of Calais George Bernard Shaw
The Six of Calais is an acting piece and nothing else. As it happened, it was so well acted that in the eighteenth century all the talk would have been about Siddons as Philippa. But the company got no thanks except from the audience: the critics were prostrated with shock, damn their eyes! I have had to improve... read more »
-
The Tyrant Rafael Sabatini
Adapted from Sabatini's long story, The Lust of Conquest, which appeared in the collection The Justice of the Duke. Like Sabatini's other work on Cesare Borgia this is a defense of the man who would serve as Macchiavelli's model for The Prince. The Tyrant is very evidently the work of a writer more familiar with the... read more »
-
The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd D. H. Lawrence
This play by the English writer D. H. Lawrence is the dramatised version of the author s short story Odour of Chrysanthemums. An entertaining play that is thoroughly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of all Lawrence lovers. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before... read more »
-
The Younger Brother Aphra Behn
Mirtilla, the Amorous Jilt, who had once been attached to George Marteen, the Younger Brother, married for a convenience the clownish Sir Morgan Blunder. Prince Frederick, who had seen and fallen in love with her during a religious ceremony in a Ghent convent, follows her to England. They meet accidentally and she... read more »
-
Too True to be Good George Bernard Shaw
A bedroom in a suburban villa in one of the richest cities in England. A sea beach in a mountainous country. Too True to Be Good is a comedy written by playwright George Bernard Shaw at the age of 76. First staged at the Guild Theatre, New York, followed in the same year by a production in Malvern, Worcestershire... read more »
-
Under Milk Wood Dylan Thomas
During one night the audience are invited to witness the dreams of various people in the Welsh seaside town of Llaregyb including, amongst others, Captain Cat, Mister Waldo & Reverend Eli Jenkins. At day break the town awakes and the audience follow the townspeople going about their business until night falls again... read more »
-
Up the Chimney Shepherd Knapp
One of a series of plays set at Christmas time intended for young boys and girls. It is intended, not only for acting, but also for reading. What sort of a Christmas play do the boys and girls like, and in what sort do we like to see them take part? It should be a play, surely, in which the dialogue is simple and... read more »
-
Village Wooing George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw combined ironic wit with weighty commentary on a variety of social issues, advocating for the working class, whom he felt was badly exploited. In Village Wooing Shaw portrays the relationship of a domineering woman with a man whom they are pursuing in marriage. Will she be happy with her conquest? read more »
-
What Every Woman Knows J. M. Barrie
Married by special agreement to John Shand, Maggie Wylie proves to be a highly effective voice for her politician husband. One of the author's most realistic and important theatrical works — graced with flashes of sly humor and dramatic irony — entertainingly develops the theme that behind every successful man... read more »
-
When We Dead Awaken Henrik Ibsen
Ibsen's last work concludes the series of autobiographical dramas begun with The Master Builder which deal with the aging rebel, despairing of life and racked with guilt, who experiences an ambiguous victory at the moment of death. Plays for Performance Series. read more »
- Next Page →