African
Black Caps And Red Feathers ; And, Ancestral Earth : Two Plays (online)
The common denominator in both plays is communal grudge against irresponsible leadership and its fallouts of indiscriminate victimization that allow for the anticipation of a new or renewed consciousness.
Blood Knot and Other Plays (online)
These three Port Elizabeth plays, which established South African playwright Athol Fugard's international reputation more than twenty years ago, examine with passion and grace close family relationships strained almost unendurably by the harshest of economic and political conditions.
Green Cross of Kafira (online)
The third play in a trilogy from Francis Imbuga. The play criticizes the land-grabbing practices of the political elite in Africa that result in ecological disaster, which the play presents as being at once a spiritual and a material problem.
Heart of Stone (online)
Religious fanaticism, violence, Nigeria
The King's Wages (online)
Containing hints of political satire, The King’s Wages is a play that seeks to unmask the wicked absurdity of getting power at all costs. It tells the story of a man called Tutu who wants to be king and murders his own brother in pursuit of his plan.
The Last Hope (online)
Rainforests of Cameroon drama
Leopard Watch (online)
In beautifully constructed verse, JK Bannavti's Leopard Watch tells the story of a Fon [a people of West Africa] who out of greed and veiled impiety devastates the land over which he rules.
The Lock On My Lips (online)
Explores gender and identity through an African woman who defies patriarchal power by buying land in her own name.
Missing : A Play (online)
Post-apartheid era-South African drama
My Children! My Africa! (online)
The search for a means to an end to apartheid erupts into conflict between a black township youth and his 'old-fashioned' black teacher.
Sorrows And Rejoicings (online)
Short play published in 2001 by Athol Fugard, set in post-apartheid South Africa.
Suddenly The Storm: A Play (online)
South African drama; smoldering dark comedy
The Swamps (online)
Political allegory set in Cameroon
Thorns And Roses: A Play (online)
Menkan Mbunda. ...”the story of a single-parent home where a mother dedicates her life to her loving but vulnerable single daughter. As its title suggests, the play employs the allegorical archetype to colour the stage with characters and issues of immediate relevance.”
Tin Bucket Drum : A Play (online)
Neil Coppen. Allegorical tale of oppression and liberation in South Africa.
Titabet & The Takumbeng : A Play (online)
Deals with the upheaval after the elections in 1992 in Cameroon.
Ulwembu : A Play (online)
Ulwembu explores the effects of addiction not only on those who suffer from it but on communities, families and the police, both those who try to control the murderous trade and those who benefit from it. Using a process they have dubbed Empatheatre, The Big Brotherhood, Neil Coppen, Dylan McGarry and Mpume Mtombeni, aim to share 'people's reallife stories, with the intention to inspire and develop a greater empathy and kindness in spaces where there is conflict or injustice'. Ulwembu is the dramatic result of their efforts.
When Clerics Kill : Drama (online)
Nigerian drama about standing up to violence to preserve freedom.
Beckett, Samuel
Chekhov, Anton
Comedy/Satire
The Alchemist : A Play (online)
A British comedy surrounding the plague. First performed in 1610, still produced in recent years.
Brooklyn Boy : A Play (online)
Donald Margulies, Comedy/Drama, Relationships, Midlife crisis
Chinglish : A Play (online)
An American businessman desperate to launch a new enterprise in China.
The Flu Season and Other Plays (online)
Will Eno, 2004, American drama, a reluctant love story.
Hot Water (online)
Roger Hall's great gift for creating a setting in which a diverse group of characters are drawn together is rarely better displayed than in this play. Irresistibly funny and satirical.
Jeppe of The Hill and Other Comedies by Ludvig Holberg (online)
The political tinker -- Jean de France -- Jeppe of the hill -- Erasmus Montanus -- Ulysses von Ithacia -- The Christmas party -- Pernille's brief experience as a lady -- The burial of Danish comedy
Kaufman & Co. : Broadway Comedies (Hardin Valley PS3521.A727 A6 2004)
A collection of some of the better known plays of George S. Kaufman from the 1920s and 1930s.
Mr. Burns and Other Plays (online)
Dark comedy; post-apocalyptic, future exploration of an episode of The Simpsons.
Other Desert Cities : A Play in Two Acts (Hardin Valley PS3552.A393 O84 2011)
Dark comedy. Premiered on Broadway in 2011. Tells the story of a family with differing political views hiding a deeply buried family secret.
Raised In Captivity (online)
Written in 1995. Dark comedy, Family relationships...guilt, redemption and self-punishment.
She Stoops To Conquer : Or The Mistakes of A Night, A Comedy (online)
Oliver Goldsmith. First performed in London in 1773, and one of a few plays from the 18th century to have retained its appeal and is regularly performed.
Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness : Essays, A Play, Two Poems and A Prayer (online)
Tony Kushner. The play Slavs!, a “comic, mordant and marvelously provocative” look at the crumbling of the Soviet Union (SF Chronicle).
The Way of The World (online)
Premiered in England in 1700, considered one of the best Restoration comedies written. Follows two lovers, their quest to marry, and the myriad characters and relationships which stand in their way.
Drama
The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume II (online)
"This volume collects 17 plays from the author's three-minute and five-minute plays for five actors series..."
Count Filippo or, The Unequal Marriage (online)
“The play is founded upon the old problem of an unnatural and ill-omened union between youth and age.” (Google books)
Doubt : A Parable (online)
2004 play set in a Catholic school in the Bronx in the fall of 1964.
Fiametta : A Previously Unpublished Play (online)
A five act play by Irish poet and playwright, Eva Gore-Booth. 20th century English drama.
Foreplay : Hannah Arendt, The Two Adornos, and Walter Benjamin : A Play (online)
Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno. The drama explores the author's deeply human and psychologically intriguing private lives.
Grenadine (online)
Male friendship drama
How I Learned To Drive (online)
“Vogel's widely celebrated masterpiece... winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Obie and Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Play, and other honors. Known for its dark subject matter, the play examines the effects of child abuse on identity and the discovery of strength through trauma."
Kyotopolis : A Play in Two Acts (online)
Darkly comic, Canadian otherworldly drama about the struggle of aborigional people in Canada.
Prayer For My Enemy : A Play (online)
Prayer for my enemy: a play. American drama - A dysfunctional family scarred by alcoholism, disease, loss and repressed emotions.
Proof : A Play (Hardin Valley PS3551.U28 P7 2001)
2000 play by the American playwright David Auburn. Drama about the daughter of a deceased University professor; portrays her struggles with mental illness and mathematical genius.
French
Greek and Roman Myth
Historical
Brecht in L.A. : A Play (online)
Bertolt Brecht, autobiographical - life in L.A. in the 1940s.
The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Hardin Valley PT2603.R397 .K3913 1999)
Bertolt Brecht. A retelling of the tale of King Soloman and a child claimed by two mothers that is set in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia at the end of World War II.
The Columnist : A Play (Hardin Valley PS3551.U28 C65 2012)
Play by Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner David Auburn about Joseph Alsop, a syndicated news columnist, whose influence over American presidents and foreign policy stretched across four decades.
Cyrano de Bergerac : A Play in Five Acts (online)
French romance written in 1897, fictionalization of the real Cyrano de Bergerac.
Florentine Drama For Convent and Festival : Seven Sacred Plays (online)
Italian playwright Antonia Pulci (1452-1501) plays focusing on the concerns of women.
Girls For Sale : A Play From Colonial India = Kanyasulkam (online)
First staged in 1892, the South Indian play Girls for Sale (Kanyasulkam) is considered the greatest modern work of Telugu literature and the first major drama written in an Indian language that critiqued British colonialism's effects on Indian society. Filled with humor, biting social commentary, parody, and masquerade, the plot revolves around a clever courtesan, a young widow, and a very old man who wants to buy as his wife a very young girl.
God of Vengeance (online)
Debuted in 1907. Shocking at the time for its open depictions of prostitution and sexuality in a Polish, Jewish community.
Inherit the Wind (Hardin Valley PS3523.A934 I6 2003)
By Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, 1955. Explores the McCarthy trials through a fictional portrayal of the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial.
Life Is A Dream (online)
Spanish language drama from the mid-17th century about free will and fate.
Miss Julie and Other Plays (online)
August Strindberg was one of the most extreme and most influential theatrical innovators of the late 19th century. The five plays translated here are those upon which Strindberg's international reputation as a dramatist principally rests.
Mrs. Packard (online)
Historical drama recounting the story of Elizabeth Packard who in 1861 was forced into an insane asylum for not agreeing with her husband’s religious beliefs.
Ponteach, or The Savages of America : A Tragedy (online)
1760s drama. Takes on questions of nationalism, religion, race, cultural identity, gender, and sexuality -- the play offers a unique perspective on the Rebellion and on the emergence of Canadian and American identities.
These Shining Lives (Hardin Valley PS3613.A767 T44 2010)
Premiered in 2008. Based on a true story from the 1920s of the dangers women faced in a watch factory using radium paint and the negligence of the company where they worked.
Horror/Suspense
Belleville (Hardin Valley PS3608.E79 B45 2014)
American drama, Relationships, Thriller. Abby and Zack, young American newlyweds, have abandoned a comfortable postgraduate life in the states for Belleville, a bustling, bohemian, multicultural Parisian neighborhood. But as secrets both minor and monumental are revealed, their fraught relationship begins to unravel. Belleville examines the limits of trust and dependency in a world where love can turn pathological and our most intimate relationships may not be what they seem.
Ibsen, Henrik
Miscellaneous/Collections
The Anarchist: A Play (online)
David Mamet. Two-person play premiering in 2012 featuring the interrogation of a female domestic terrorist.
Ashes to Ashes and Other Plays (Hardin Valley PR6066.I53 A9 2008)
Harold Pinter, considered one of the most influential British playwrights of his time, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.
The Assembled Parties (online)
Richard Greenburg. Follows a Jewish family in New York from the 1980s through the new millennium, premiered on Broadway in 2013.
The Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays (online)
Paula Vogel’s plays have been described as both funny and heartbreaking; Explore issues ranging from domestic violence, the AIDS epidemic, and the nontraditional family.
Beth Henley : Collected Plays (Hardin Valley PS3558.E4962 A6 2000)
Modern Southern Gothic with a bit of wild comedy, some theatrical poetry, a pinch of pessimism, and lots of warm geniality thrown in. v. 1. 1980-1989. Crimes of the heart -- Am I blue -- The wake of Jamey Foster -- The Miss Firecracker contest -- The lucky spot -- The debutante ball -- v. 2. 1990-1999. Abundance -- Signature -- Control freaks -- Revelers -- L-play -- Impossible marriage.
The Book of Grace (online)
“Described by Suzan-Lori Parks as a companion piece to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog, this fierce and intimate three-person drama premiered in 2010 at New York’s Public Theater.”
Complete Poems and Plays: T.S. Eliot (Hardin Valley PS3509 .L43 1952)
T. S. Eliot. Includes the plays Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party.
Complete Poems and Plays: T.S. Eliot (Magnolia PS3509 .L43 1952)
T. S. Eliot. Includes the plays Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party.
Eight Men Speak : A Political Play (online)
Oscar Ryan. Canadian play written in 1933. Banned for its communist themes.
Four Plays: Eugene Ionesco (Hardin Valley PQ2617.O6 A23 1958)
Eugene Ionesco. The Bald Soprano -- The Lesson -- Jack or The Submission -- The Chairs. Theater of the absurd genre.
Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein : A One Character Play (Hardin Valley PS3562.A726 G4 1980b)
One-woman play in which Gertrude Stein reminisces about her childhood, education, expatriation, relationship with Alice B. Toklas, and her numerous acquaintances in the arts. 2 acts, 1 woman, 1 interior.
The God of Gods : A Canadian Play (online)
Carroll Aikens.1919, North American Indians.
Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. Parts One and Two (Hardin Valley Popular Fiction ; Alphabetical by Author)
Takes up the Harry Potter story 19 years after the last book ends. As an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and a father, Harry Potter struggles with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs while his youngest son, Albus, finds the weight of the family legacy difficult to bear.
Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. Parts One and Two (Strawberry Plains Popular Fiction ; Alphabetical by Author)
Takes up the Harry Potter story 19 years after the last book ends. As an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and a father, Harry Potter struggles with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs while his youngest son, Albus, finds the weight of the family legacy difficult to bear.
Ishmael Reed : The Plays (Hardin Valley PS3568.E365 A6 2009)
African American Drama. Mother Hubbard -- Savage wilds -- Hubba city -- The preacher and the rapper -- The C above C above high C -- Body parts.
Joyce : Poems and A Play (Hardin Valley PR6019.O9 A6 2014)
Exiles, the only existing play by James Joyce, written after he left Ireland. “Exiles engages Joycean themes of envy and jealousy, freedom and love, men and women, and the complicated relationship between an artist and his homeland"--
Lend Me a Tenor : And Other Plays (Hardin Valley PS3562.U295 L46 2010)
Ken Ludwig. Lend me a tenor -- Moon over Buffalo -- Leading ladies -- Shakespeare in Hollywood.
Lovelock's Dream Run (online)
Sets the well-known events of Jack Lovelock's Berlin Olympics in parallel with a conservative boarding school in New Zealand today.
Manikin Plays : Two Contemporary Plays (online)
Reflections on the political and social issues of contemporary Indian society.
Mary Page Marlowe: TCG Edition (online)
Tracy Letts. An intimate snapshot of a simple life, providing an enlightening examination of a complicated human mind. Follows the title character as played by six actresses and one doll.
Our Town, A Play in Three Acts (Hardin Valley PS3545.I345 O9 1960)
Thornton Wilder. Set at the turn of the 20th century, Our Town reveals the ordinary lives of the people in the small town of Grover's Corners, U.S.A.
Passion Play (online)
American drama, Magical realism. The passion of Christ in 3 acts staged in 3 different eras.
Plays: J.R. Planché (Hardin Valley PR5187.P2 A6 1986)
J. R. Planché, 19th century British dramatist. The vampire -- The Garrick fever -- Beauty and the beast -- Fortunio and his seven gifted servants -- The golden fleece -- The camp at the Olympic -- The discreete princess.
The Plays: Edward Albee (Hardin Valley PS3551.L25 A19)
Edward Albee. Everything in the garden -- Malcolm -- The ballad of the sad cafe.
Plays: Katori Hall (Hardin Valley PS3608.A54727 A6 2011)
Katori Hall. African-American Drama. Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr. 3 plays : Hoodoo Love; Saturday Night/Sunday Morning; Hurt Village.
Plays For Actresses (Hardin Valley PS627.W66 P58 1997)
Eric Lane. A diverse collection of all-female cast plays.
Plays One: Marina Carr (Hardin Valley PR6053.A6944 A6 1999)
This collection of plays from Marina Carr presents a variety of themes, articulating deep-seated woes and resentments, exposing the sexism of language and religious imagery, in these original dramatic works. Includes: Low in the dark -- The mai -- Portia Coughlan -- By the bog of cats--
Plays One: Brian Friel (Hardin Valley PR6056.R54 A6 1996)
A collection of six plays by the Irish playwright, Brian Friel.
Plays Two: Marina Carr (Hardin Valley PR6053.A6944 A19 2009)
A second volume of plays by Marina Carr, including: On Raftery's hill -- Ariel -- Woman and scarecrow -- The Cordelia dream -- Marble.
Plays Two: Brian Friel (Hardin Valley PR6056.R5 A6 1999)
More plays by Brian Friel, including, Dancing at Lughnasa -- Father and sons -- Making history -- Wonderful Tennessee -- Molly Sweeney.
Poland’s Angry Romantic : Two Poems and a Play by Juliusz Slowacki (online)
One of Poland's most important writers, but his poetry and plays are little known in the West. This book includes his popular play 'Balladina.'
The Political Plays of Langston Hughes (online)
Scottsboro, Limited : a one-act play -- An American documentary play : Harvest -- Harvest -- Politics and social commentary : Angelo Herndon Jones -- Angelo Herndon Jones : a one-act play of Negro life -- A collaboration of jazz, poetry and blues : De Organizer -- De Organizer : a blues opera in one act -- Conclusion : Hughes' lost legacy.
The Robbers (online)
Schiller, Friedrich. German 18th century melodrama.
Selected Plays: Tom Swift (online)
Tom Swift (Irish playwright). Dr Ledbetter's experiment -- Drive-by -- Lizzie Lavelle and the vanishing of Emlyclough -- The nose -- Power point -- Swampoodle.
Susan Glaspell : The Complete Plays (Hardin Valley PS3513 .L35 2010)
American Pulitzer prizewinning playwright, includes one-act and longer plays. Suppressed desires -- Trifles -- Close the book -- The people -- The outside -- Woman's honor -- Tickless time -- Bernice -- Free laughter -- Chains of dew -- Inheritors -- The verge -- The comic artist -- Alison's house -- Springs eternal.
Travesties : A Play (Hardin Valley PR6069.T6 T7 1975)
Tom Stoppard. Comedy. "An extravaganza of political history, literary pastiche, and Wildean parody, introducing Dadaist Tristan Tzara, and Lenin and his wife".
Two Sisters and A Piano and Other Plays (Hardin Valley PS3603.R895 T962 2007)
Nilo Cruz. This volume includes Two Sisters and a Piano, Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams, A Bicycle Country, Lorca in a Green Dress, and the one-act play, Capricho.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? : A Play (Hardin Valley PS3501.L178 W5 1983)
Edward Albee. Tony Award winning play about reality and illusions, examines the complex marriage of a middle-aged couple.
Wit : A Play (Hardin Valley PS3555.D4845 W58 1999)
Margaret Edson. Pulitzer prize winning play. Tells the story of a University English professor dying from stage IV cancer.
Miller, Arthur
Arthur Miller's Collected Plays : With an Introduction (Hardin Valley PS3525.I5156 A19 1957)
[volume 1] All my sons -- Death of a salesman -- The crucible -- A memory of two Mondays -- A view from the bridge -- [volume 2] The misfits -- After the fall -- Incident at Vichy -- The price -- The creation of the world and other business -- Playing for time
Collected Plays, 1944-1961 (Blount PS3525.I5156 A6 2006)
The man who had all the luck (1944) -- All my sons (1947) -- Death of a salesman (1949) -- An enemy of the people (adaptation, 1950) -- The crucible (1953) -- A memory of two Mondays (1955) -- A view from the bridge (one-act version, 1955) -- A view from the bridge (two-act version, 1956) -- The misfits (1961)
Collected Plays, 1964-1982 (Blount PS3525.I5156 A6 2012)
From the publisher: After the Fall (1964), his much-anticipated return to the theater after an eight-year hiatus...opened a window on the playwright's marriage to the late Marilyn Monroe. Incident at Vichy (1964) dramatizes the round-up of Jews in Vichy France in a vivid single act. The Price (1968), a Broadway hit, follows two brothers, a successful surgeon and a struggling policeman, as they figure out how to dispose of their dead father's belongings. The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972) and Up from Paradise (1974) treat characteristically grand themes in uncharacteristically comedic and musical forms. The American Clock (1974) is a "vaudeville" about the Depression years, while The Archbishop's Ceiling (1977), set in a room in Soviet-era Prague that may or may not be bugged, is a meditation on trust and betrayal. The tele-play Playing for Time (1980) tells the story of the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. Here, too, are several shorter one-act plays and sketches-among them The Reason Why (1970), published for the first time-along with a selection of Miller's introductions and other writings about his plays.
Collected Plays 1987-2004 : With Stage and Radio Plays of The 1930s & 40s (Hardin Valley PS3525.I5156 A6 2015)
I can't remember anything (1987) -- Clara (1987) -- Golden years (1941/1987) -- Almost everybody wins (1984/1990) -- Ride down Mt. Morgan (1991) -- Last Yankee (1993) -- Broken glass (1994) -- Ryan interview, or How it was around here (1995) -- Mr. Peters' connections (1998) -- Resurrection blues (2002) -- Finishing the picture (2004) -- Grass still grows (1939) -- Half-bridge (1942) -- Captain Paul (1941) -- Buffalo Bill disremembers (1941) -- Battle of the ovens (1942) -- Thunder from the mountains (1942) -- Glider doctor (1944) -- Mare Island and back (1945)
The Crucible : A Play in Four Acts (Blount PS3525.I5156 C7 1995)
Arthur Miller. 1953 tragedy, dramatization/partially fictionalized version of the Salem witch trials.
Death Of A Salesman (Hardin Valley PS3525.I5156 D438 1996)
Arthur Miller. Tragedy. Won 1949 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award.
O'Neill, Eugene
Relationships/Romance
Angels in America : A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (Hardin Valley PS3561.U778 A85 2013)
Tony Kushner. LGBTQ issues. "...awarded two Tony Awards for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama."
Betrayal (Hardin Valley PR6066.I53 B4 1978)
Harold Pinter. Love triangle drama, an affair revealed in reverse chronology.
Boleros For The Disenchanted and Other Plays (Hardin Valley PS3568.I8294 B65 2012)
Jose Rivera award winning writer. Boleros for the disenchanted -- Brainpeople -- Pablo and Andrew at the altar of words -- Adoration of the old woman.
Driving Miss Daisy : A Play (online)
Alfred Uhry. American drama about the relationship between an elderly Southern Jewish woman and her African American chauffer.
Exits and Entrances (online)
Athol Fugard. About the relationship between a young playwright and an aging actor.
In The Wake (online)
Lisa Kron. Women journalists, mothers and daughters, lesbians
M. Butterfly (Hardin Valley PS3558.W83 M2 1988)
David Henry Hwang. Premiered in 1988 and won the Tony award for best play. Relationship drama based on the true story of French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a Peking opera singer, entertwined with the plot of the opera, Madame Butterfly.
Picnic (Hardin Valley PS3517.N265 P5 1983)
William Inge. Relationships, romance. Set in a 1950s Kansas town.
The Brother/Sister Plays (online)
Tarell Alvin McCraney. LGBTQ issues, Includes 3 plays : In the Red and Brown Water, The Brothers Size, and Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet.
Time Stands Still : A Play (online)
Donald Margulies. Premiered 2009, about changing relationships and social issues. Nominated for two Tony awards.
Shakespeare
Shaw, George Bernard
Shepard, Sam
Wilde, Oscar
Williams, Tennessee
Wilson, August
