2025
Anne of the Thousand Days by
This beautiful presentation of the story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is played against the well-known historical background of the court of Henry. A grand drama of love, deceit and murder, Anne of the Thousand Days brings these most famous of Tudor characters to vivid life.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, stage adaptation by Richard Greenberg
Photo by Nathan Johnson, 2013 Broadway production
Based on Truman Capote’s classic novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s tells the story of a young Southern-born writer, known to us only as Fred, who becomes infatuated with his Upper East Side neighbor: the beguiling, effervescent beauty Miss Holiday Golightly. As Holly pulls Fred into her world of spontaneous parties and luxury, he finds himself increasingly fascinated with this captivating woman.
The Wisdom of Eve by
Photo by Blain Clausen, 2024 Whitefire Theatre production
Adapted from the story by Mary Orr, on which the film All About Eve and the hit musical Applause were based. An engrossing and revealing “inside” story of life in New York’s theatre world, told in terms of an unscrupulous ingenue’s rise to Broadway stardom. When we first meet Eve Harrington, she is standing in the rain by the stage door of the theatre in which the renowned Margo Crane is starring in her latest long-run hit. Waiting for a glimpse of her professed idol, she accosts Karen Roberts, Margo’s good friend and the wife of the playwright, Lloyd Roberts, and inveigles an invitation to meet the great actress herself. The meeting leads to unexpected opportunity as Margo, struck with Eve’s “sincerity,” takes her on as a personal secretary. Before long Eve has done such a fine job of straightening out the clutter of Margo’s personal affairs that Margo, while she had always jealously resisted the engagement of an understudy for her own role, allows Eve to have the assignment. Then Eve begins to move ahead in earnest, her true character emerging as she lies, cheats and blackmails her way to Broadway stardom—and then a Hollywood career—leaving the wreckage of her friends’ trust behind her. As the play ends there are rumors that Eve has found a new “friend,” this time a movie tycoon, so it appears that perhaps we have not, for the moment, heard all there is to tell about Eve.
Steel Magnolias by
The action is set in Truvy’s beauty salon in Chinquapin, Louisiana, where all the ladies who are “anybody” come to have their hair done. Helped by her eager new assistant, Annelle (who is not sure whether or not she is still married), the outspoken, wise-cracking Truvy dispenses shampoos and free advice to the town’s rich curmudgeon, Ouiser, (“I’m not crazy, I’ve just been in a bad mood for forty years”); an eccentric millionaire, Miss Clairee, who has a raging sweet tooth; and the local social leader, M’Lynn, whose daughter, Shelby (the prettiest girl in town), is about to marry a “good ole boy.” Filled with hilarious repartee and not a few acerbic but humorously revealing verbal collisions, the play moves toward tragedy when, in the second act, the spunky Shelby (who is a diabetic) risks pregnancy and forfeits her life. The sudden realization of their mortality affects the others, but also draws on the underlying strength—and love—which give the play, and its characters, the special quality to make them truly touching, funny and marvelously amiable company in good times and bad.
Harvey by
Photo by Sara Krulwich, 2012 Broadway production
Winner of the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Elwood P. Dowd insists on including his friend Harvey in all of his sister Veta’s social gatherings. Trouble is, Harvey is an imaginary six-and-a-half-foot-tall rabbit. To avoid future embarassment for her family—and especially for her daughter, Myrtle Mae—Veta decides to have Elwood committed to a sanitarium. At the sanitarium, a frantic Veta explains to the staff that her years of living with Elwood’s hallucination have caused her to see Harvey also, and so the doctors mistakenly commit her instead of her mild-mannered brother. The truth comes out, however; Veta is freed, and the search is on for Elwood, who eventually arrives at the sanitarium of his own volition, looking for Harvey. But it seems that Elwood and his invisible companion have had a strange influence on more than one of the doctors. Only at the end does Veta realize that maybe Harvey isn’t so bad after all.
The Wizard of Oz, adapted by Erin Detrick
Photo of John Fraissinet, 2020 New Jersey Stage production
When Dorothy drops into the Land of Oz, only one thing is certain: she’s got to find a way back to Kansas. A funny and fast-paced journey down the yellow brick road ensues, as Dorothy and her new friends travel to the fabled Emerald City to meet the Great Oz. When Oz demands a steep price for sending her home, a perilous new adventure begins. Full of ensemble possibilities, this imaginative adaptation captures the heart of L. Frank Baum’s classic tale.
Terms of Endearment adapted for the stage by Dan Gordon
Photo by Carol Rosegg, 2016 Off-Broadway production
Winner of the 1983 Academy Awards® for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium, Best Actress & Best Supporting Actor
Challenges in life and love test the resilience of a mother-daughter relationship in Dan Gordon’s adaptation of Terms of Endearment, based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry and James L. Brooks’s screenplay of the Oscar-winning film. Though Emma is often exasperated by her highly-opinionated mother, Aurora, they talk every day about their problems, from Aurora finding unexpected love even as she becomes a reluctant grandmother, to Emma’s struggle in her troubled marriage. But when they need one another most, will they be able to find courage in each other? This funny and touching story captures the delicate, sometimes fractured bonds between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, and lovers, both old and new.
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner by Todd Kreidler
Photo by Dan Norman, 2018 Guthrie Theater production
A progressive white couple’s proud liberal sensibilities are put to the test when their daughter brings her black fiance home to meet them in this fresh and relevant stage adaptation of the iconic film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Blindsided by their daughter’s whirlwind romance and fearful for her future, Matt and Christina Drayton quickly come to realize the difference between supporting a mixed-race couple in your newspaper and welcoming one into your family–especially in 1967. But they’re surprised to find they aren’t the only ones with concerns about the match, and it’s not long before a multi-family clash of racial and generational difference sweeps across the Draytons’ idyllic San Francisco terrace. At the end of the day, will the love between young Joanna and John prevail? With humor and insight, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner begins a conversation sure to continue at dinner tables long after the curtain comes down.
2024
All Quiet on the Western Front by
Photo by Jim Bush
Winner of the 1930 Academy Awards® for Best Picture & Best Director
based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque
In October 1918, a month before the end of World War I, Paul Bäumer is shot and killed by a sniper on the western front. He is the last of his classmates to fall in a war that will destroy many in his generation and disillusion those who remain. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT chronicles Paul’s observations of life and death in the mud of the trenches and the impossibility of returning to civilian life after living in hell. Paul, Müller, Kat, and Kropp are all brought briefly to life in this adaptation of one of the great anti-war classics of the twentieth century.
You Can’t Take It with You by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
Photo by Sara Krulwich, 2014 Broadway production
Winner of the 1939 Academy Awards® for Best Pictures & Best Director
Winner of the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The family of Martin Vanderhof lives “just around the corner from Columbia University—but don’t go looking for it.” Grandpa, as Martin is more commonly known, is the paterfamilias of a large and extended family: His daughter, Penny, who fancies herself a romance novelist; her husband, Paul, an amateur fireworks expert; their daughter, Alice, an attractive and loving girl who is still embarrassed by her family’s eccentricities—which include a xylophone player/leftist leaflet printer, an untalented ballerina, a couple on relief, and a ballet master exiled from Soviet Russia. When Alice falls for her boss, Tony, a handsome scion of Wall Street, she fears that their two families—so unlike in manner, politics, and finances—will never come together. During a disastrous dinner party, Alice’s worst fears are confirmed. Her prospective in-laws are humiliated in a party game, fireworks explode in the basement, and the house is raided by the FBI. Frustrated and upset, Alice intends to run away to the country, until Grandpa and Co.—playing the role of Cupid—manage not only to bring the happy couple together, but to set Tony’s father straight about the true priorities in life. After all, why be obsessed by money? You can’t take it with you.
Rebecca by
Winner of the 1941 Academy Awards® for Best Picture & Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
The play unfolds the story of Rebecca, Maxim de Winter’s first wife, whom the audience never meets. The action takes place in the living room of Maxim’s estate, Manderley, where he brings his second wife, a sincere young girl. The new Mrs. de Winter, knowing nothing of Rebecca, strives to penetrate the mystery of the impalpable presence of her husband’s first wife and assume her rightful position as mistress of Manderley. There is, however, the sinister Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca’s housekeeper, who refuses to allow the new Mrs. de Winter to take the place of Rebecca. It is Mrs. Danvers who induces Mrs. de Winter to wear at a fancy dress ball the costume Rebecca had worn the year before. But the sight of her in Rebecca’s costume arouses painful thoughts in Maxim, and he turns on her in a towering rage. His wife, utterly bewildered, decides she can no longer cope with the mystery that surrounds Rebecca, and since she loves Maxim she is completely perplexed. A climax is reached by the discovery of Rebecca’s body in the sea, where she had been supposedly drowned. The bride becomes a pillar of strength for her husband, who reveals the tragic story of his first marriage and admits the love he has for his bride, a love he never felt for Rebecca. The drama rises to a climax, involving a police investigation and attempted blackmail, but because Maxim and his wife face the future with confidence the drama ends on a note of triumph.
All the King’s Men by
Winner of the 1949 Academy Awards® for Best Picture, Best Actor & Best Supporting Actress
As told by Brooks Atkinson: “Eliminate the story of Huey Long, which Mr. Warren says is not what he is trying to interpret. He is anatomizing the career with nothing but purity in his heart. Discovering that he is being used by a cynical machine, [Willie] adopts their methods, and presently, he is in control of the state. By resorting to corrupt methods he accomplishes things for the people that were only abstract ideals when he was campaigning honestly. As a portrait of politics, this is effective and provocative.” NOTE: A revised version of this work, adapted for the stage by Adrian Hall and including incidental music, is also available for amateur production.
Around the World in Eighty Days adapted by John Hildreth
Winner of the 1956 Academy Awards® for Best Picture, Best Screenplay – Adapted, Best Cinematography – Color, Best Film Editing & Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
In 1872, on a gentleman’s wager, Phileas Fogg and his French manservant Passepartout attempt to traverse the globe in just eighty days. The two encounter strange new countries, colorful (and at times hostile) characters, and even love. A faithful, swift adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel.
Terms of Endearment adapted for the stage by Dan Gordon
Photo by Carol Rosegg, 2016 Off-Broadway production
Winner of the 1983 Academy Awards® for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium, Best Actress & Best Supporting Actor
Challenges in life and love test the resilience of a mother-daughter relationship in Dan Gordon’s adaptation of Terms of Endearment, based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry and James L. Brooks’s screenplay of the Oscar-winning film. Though Emma is often exasperated by her highly-opinionated mother, Aurora, they talk every day about their problems, from Aurora finding unexpected love even as she becomes a reluctant grandmother, to Emma’s struggle in her troubled marriage. But when they need one another most, will they be able to find courage in each other? This funny and touching story captures the delicate, sometimes fractured bonds between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, and lovers, both old and new.
Driving Miss Daisy by
Photo by Jeff Busby, 2013 Australian Production
Winner of the 1989 Academy Awards® for Best Picture, Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium, Best Actress & Best Makeup
Winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The place is the Deep South, the time 1948, just prior to the civil rights movement. Having recently demolished another car, Daisy Werthan, a rich, sharp-tongued Jewish widow of seventy-two, is informed by her son, Boolie, that henceforth she must rely on the services of a chauffeur. The person he hires for the job is a thoughtful, unemployed black man, Hoke, whom Miss Daisy immediately regards with disdain and who, in turn, is not impressed with his employer’s patronizing tone and, he believes, her latent prejudice. But, in a series of absorbing scenes spanning twenty-five years, the two, despite their mutual differences, grow ever closer to, and more dependent on, each other, until, eventually, they become almost a couple. Slowly and steadily the dignified, good-natured Hoke breaks down the stern defenses of the ornery old lady, as she teaches him to read and write and, in a gesture of good will and shared concern, invites him to join her at a banquet in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. As the play ends Hoke has a final visit with Miss Daisy, now ninety-seven and confined to a nursing home, and while it is evident that a vestige of her fierce independence and sense of position still remain, it is also movingly clear that they have both come to realize they have more in common than they ever believed possible—and that times and circumstances would ever allow them to publicly admit.
