Lillian Hellman’s dark tale of greed, deceit and betrayal is the story of a family in crisis. Set in the Deep South of 1900 where women have scant options and men seem to hold all the power, Regina Giddens will stop at nothing — even blackmail — to wrest the family business away from her scheming brothers.
Dreams are in short supply on Inishmaan, especially for Billy Claven. So when a Hollywood filmmaker arrives on the neighboring island to make a movie, Billy goes after a part in the film, hoping to escape from the cruelty and bleakness of his life in master storyteller Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic Irish yarn.
When underpaid worker Diana receives an unexpected inheritance, she decides to spend it all and live like a well-born lady for one month. What she learns about love, money, and society itself in this rarely produced 1908 romantic comedy by Cicely Hamilton, British suffragist and friend of George Bernard Shaw, will surprise us all.
A Searing New Adaptation Of A Contemporary Classic About Being Black In America.
The longing for social justice ignites a palpable rage in Richard Wright’s classic novel, Native Son. Set in 1930s Chicago, where opportunities for African American men like Bigger Thomas are elusive, playwright Nambi E. Kelley’s gripping adaptation focuses on the inner workings of the protagonist’s mind as events violently and irrevocably seal his fate.
Don’t miss this encore production of Native Son in Center Theatre Group’s Block Party 2019!
Set against a backdrop of violence and injustice, Bertolt Brecht’s 1944 masterpiece is a play within a play. Farmers debating the best use of their land enact a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a nobly born baby during a bloody revolution and the unconventional judge who determines their fate.
George Bernard Shaw’s masterpiece Heartbreak House (“A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes”) was first produced in 1918, just after the end of WWI. Set in a country manor built in the shape of a ship and helmed by the somewhat mad Captain Shotover, the play maps the journey of ten souls adrift in a rapidly changing world where the old ways are dying and “a soul is a very expensive thing to keep.”
A spoiled rich boy, a working class girl, an illicit weekend…a shocking ending
Carnival time in Naples: disguises, mistaken identity, sword fights, a ton of Restoration wit and a joyful celebration of the female spirit, by the first woman to earn a living as a playwright.
“The poet of the world’s grief.” In what has been called the greatest anti-war play of all time, Euripides presents the pain, suffering, and resilience of the widowed Trojan women, about to become slaves of the Greeks after a brutal 10 years’ war. And all caused by a man’s lust for a beautiful seductress, or was it by the quarreling gods?
Bianca is a young Venetian “from parents great in wealth” who elopes with the poor Leantio, a Florentine. She soon draws the attention of the Duke of Florence, who attempts to woo her with the help of the widow Livia. Meanwhile, Livia’s brother is tormented because he is in love with their niece. In a society where the worst excesses of unbridled desires reign, what will befall them all?
Middleton was a collaborator of Shakespeare’s who wrote in a wide variety of genres and who had his work performed on a greater variety of stages than anyone of the period. Women Beware Women is considered to be one of his masterpieces.
Henry VI, Part 1 was included in the first Folio, but critics aren’t really sure if Shakespeare wrote any of it. Perhaps he did, but perhaps he had major help from Marlowe, Greene, or Peele. You be the judge and see if you can spot what is Shakespeare’s and what is not.
This play was selected by Armin Shimerman as one of a group of three plays that focus on Joan D’Arc or Joan La Puccelle.
Henry also dramatizes the origins of the War of the Roses. One of England’s major civil wars between the Plantagenet houses of York and Lancaster. Tribalism was alive and well even back then.
George Bernard Shaw’s delicious retelling of the Joan of Arc story brims with wit and spirit, but, of course, never shies from revealing the inevitable cruelty which comes when those who rule seek power over truth, dogma over dignity, and the law over a courageous, wild heart.
Written in 1953 as France was recovering from the Nazi occupation of WWII, L’Alouette examines collaboration and resistance – and what constitutes heresy. The divinely inspired warrior Joan of Arc has been imprisoned; the setting is her 15th century trial with flashbacks to her life. Both the English occupiers and Catholic bishops are strongly motivated to condemn her.
All’s Well That Ends Well tells the story of the brilliant, but low-born Helena, who wins the right to marry the high-born Bertram by saving the King’s life. Bertram rejects her, rushing off to war. However, his rejection does not curb Helena’s love, who pursues this battle of hearts even into the heart of battle.
How does a corrupt society transform itself? Does the restoration come from the authority of the state, either in its sanction of license or enforcement of law? Or does it, perhaps, come from the voices of those who have suffered the most? In arguably the most intriguing of his “problem” plays, the Bard explores the moral cost in the seeking of justice and the demand upon the human heart to recognize the power of mercy.
Timon’s compulsive generosity makes him the most popular man in Athens – until his funds run out. Now, embittered by ingratitude, what will happen when his city comes under attack?
Perdita knows something is off in her life and she longs to know what happened to her mother in this update of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. Set along the Sacramento River Delta during the time of the Gold Rush, Along the River, Almost Winter is a journey from betrayal to forgiveness — told from the point of view of a bear.
Gabriela is an Argentine concert cellist living a good life in Chicago with her American husband and adjusting to life as a new mom until a visit from two strangers upends everything. The Abuelas explores the long and devastating repercussions of Argentina’s military dictatorship from 1976-1983, and the heart’s capacity for forgiveness even in the face of the harshest betrayal.
Inspired by the Tower of David Building in Caracas, Venezuela, which was left unfinished and became home to thousands of squatters, Mayor of the 85th Floor is a dystopian tale about a young woman who is one of hundreds of squatters living in the Empire State Building in the near future. This play explores what happens to a city irreparably damaged by storms and financial ruin, and how the people in this environment survive after our government no longer has the resources to take care of its own.
Nineteen year-old Josie Ricks adores her father, Joe Ricks; he’s a great guy. And that’s why she’ll stand with him, along with her mother and brothers, when he announces his candidacy for the Senate. But when Josie’s childhood friend implicates Joe in a compromising sexual encounter, Josie starts to see her father in ways she never did before. Regular Joes is the private, family drama behind a public sex scandal.
Paroled after 33 years, Carlotta yearns for a quiet life of redemption. Never fully recovered from his family’s murder, 33 years ago, Elton seeks justice. The two shall meet.
The lives that inhabit an apartment from 1949 to 2016. A young refugee woman who is finally free to start anew in the United States tries to vanquish the past that haunts her, alongside her father, husband, friends, daughter and granddaughter.
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