Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
Plays |
---|
Book type:
Sort by:
View by:
|
By: Charles Lamb | |
---|---|
Mr. H
Mr H is a farce that was first performed at Drury Lane in 1806. The plot is slender and revolves around a single rather feeble joke, but the characters are skilfully drawn and the sharp observations of contemporary fashion do much to divert the listener from the weakness of the central theme. More a comedy of manners rather than a true farce, this short play is best enjoyed as a gentle romp through the eccentricities of the Regency period. |
By: Charles Macklin (1697?-1797) | |
---|---|
The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir | |
Will and No Will or a Bone for the Lawyers
This "Afterpiece" - a short play to follow a main production - was first produced in 1746. It was based on Regnard's five-act comedy le Legetaire Universel (1707), which is itself a composite of Italian comedy with echoes of Molière, moving from scene to scene with little effort at logical consistency or structure but treating each scene autonomously for its own comic value. The rather long Prologue to A WILL AND NO WILL (11 pages of manuscript) makes fun of the convention of the eighteenth century prologues by the familiar dodge of having actors chatting as though they were in the Pit waiting for the actors in the preceding main play to dress for the afterpiece. | |
By: Charles Mair (1838-1927) | |
---|---|
Tecumseh : a Drama |
By: Charles S. Brooks (1878-1934) | |
---|---|
At The Sign of The Greedy Pig
"Sometimes, in a mood of Spanish castles, there flits across my fancy the vision of an ancient city on a hill-top, with lofty battlements thrust upward from the rock and towers that stand on tip-toe…. Our stage is the square of this ancient city, seen dimly in the night.... The time of our play is remote and I choose to think the world is flat, that comets are of evil prophecy and witches still ride on the windy moon...." Published in the same book as "Wappin' Wharf: A Frightful Comedy of Pirates", this story is subtitled "A Frightful Comedy of Beggars"... |
By: Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) | |
---|---|
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, normally known simply as Doctor Faustus, is a play by Christopher Marlowe, based on the Faust story, in which a man sells his soul to the devil for power and knowledge. Doctor Faustus was first published in 1604, eleven years after Marlowe's death and at least twelve years after the first performance of the play. | |
The Jew of Malta
Christopher “Kit” Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564 – 30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. The foremost Elizabethan tragedian before William Shakespeare, he is known for his magnificent blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his own untimely death. The Jew of Malta (1589) is an original story of religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean... | |
Tamburlaine the Great
Tamburlaine the Great is the name of a play in two parts by Christopher Marlowe. It is loosely based on the life of the Central Asian emperor, Timur 'the lame'. Written in 1587 or 1588, the play is a milestone in Elizabethan public drama; it marks a turning away from the clumsy language and loose plotting of the earlier Tudor dramatists, and a new interest in fresh and vivid language, memorable action, and intellectual complexity. Along with Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, it may be considered the first popular success of London's public stage... | |
Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1616 version)
The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus, is a play by Christopher Marlowe, based on the Faust story, in which a man sells his soul to the devil for power and knowledge. Doctor Faustus was first published in 1604, eleven years after Marlowe's death and at least twelve years after the first performance of the play. "No Elizabethan play outside the Shakespeare canon has raised more controversy than Doctor Faustus. There is no agreement concerning the nature of the text and the date of composition... | |
Edward II
Christopher Marlowe's Elizabethan tragedy focuses on the downfall of King Edward II, whose love for his favorite courtier, Piers Gaveston, leads to rebellion. | |
Massacre at Paris |
By: Clements R. (Clements Robert) Markham (1830-1916) | |
---|---|
Apu Ollantay A Drama of the Time of the Incas |
By: Clyde Fitch (1865-1909) | |
---|---|
The Girl with the Green Eyes A Play in Four Acts | |
The Climbers A Play in Four Acts |
By: Constance D'Arcy Mackay (1887?-1966) | |
---|---|
Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People |
By: D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) | |
---|---|
Widowing of Mrs Holroyd
Mrs. Holroyd is married to a loutish miner, who drinks, apparently patronizes prostitutes, and apparently brutalizes her. When a gentlemanly neighbor makes romantic advances to her, she wishes her husband dead. - Summary by Michele Eaton Cast List: Stage Directions: Scarbo Jack: silverquill Clara: Dtcastid Blackmore: MrsHand Mrs Holroyd: EltonTheSnowman Holroyd: alanmapstone Minnie: shreyasethi Grandmother: Availle Manager: ToddHW Rigley: alanmapstone First Bearer: Salvationist Laura: LaurenEmma3 Second Bearer: ChuckW |
By: David Belasco (1853-1931) | |
---|---|
Return of Peter Grimm |
By: Dudley H. (Dudley Howe) Miles (1881-) | |
---|---|
How to Write a Play Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, Labiche, Legouvé, Pailleron, Sardou and Zola |
By: Edmond Rostand (1868-1918) | |
---|---|
L'Aiglon | |
The Romancers A Comedy in Three Acts |
By: Edmund John Eyre (1767-1816) | |
---|---|
Lady of the Lake
At the request of Mr. Siddons, Manager and Patentee of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, the following Performance was composed. I am very sensible that Mr. Scott’s Poem of “The Lady of the Lake” afforded material for a much superior Drama than the one here presented to the public; but as Mr. Siddons, in all his correspondence with me on the subject, urged expedition, I was more attentive to the interest of a Friend than to the fame of an Author; and the whole piece was arranged, written, and copied in the short space of ten days... |
By: Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) | |
---|---|
Aria da Capo | |
The Lamp and the Bell |
By: Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett Dunsany (1878-1957) | |
---|---|
Plays of Near & Far | |
If: a play in four acts |
By: Edward Sheldon (1886-1946) | |
---|---|
Boss
The Boss centers on the relationship between Michael Regan, an Irish-American businessman, and Emily Griswold, an outspoken American girl bent on saving her father's business. Set during a time when unions fought for wages and bosses fought for more stake in their company, the play's relevance strikes at the heart of economic issues and hardships in modern day America. |
By: Edward Young (1683-1765) | |
---|---|
The Revenge A Tragedy |
By: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) | |
---|---|
A Drama of Exile
In writing her ‘Drama of Exile’, Barrett’s subject was ‘the new and strange experience of the fallen humanity, as it went forth from Paradise into the wilderness’. The bizarre, lyrical scenes that follow powerfully describe the grief and guilt of Eve, the sorrowful pride of Lucifer, and the redeeming power of love. |
By: Elizabeth Cary (1585-1639) | |
---|---|
Tragedy of Mariam
The Tragedy of Mariam (1613) is the first original drama written in English by a woman. Elizabeth Cary drew on Jewish histories by Josephus to create a closet drama (written to be read, rather than performed live) about Mariam, the second wife of Herod the Great. At the beginning of the play, Mariam believes that Herod has been killed by Octavius, and struggles with how to respond. On the one hand, she is relieved, as she is angry with Herod for killing her brother and grandfather. On the other, she knows that he loved her, and she feels caught by her sense of duty as his wife. When Herod unexpectedly returns, Mariam must decide what to do. |
By: Emlyn Williams (1905-1987) | |
---|---|
Night Must Fall : a Play in Three Acts |
By: Eugène Brieux (1858-1932) | |
---|---|
Woman on Her Own, False Gods and The Red Robe Three Plays By Brieux |
By: Eugene O'Neill | |
---|---|
Anna Christie
Eugene O'Neill's drama Anna Christie was first produced on Broadway in 1921 and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1922. It focuses on three main characters: Chris Christopherson, a Swedish captain of a coal barge and longtime seaman, his daughter Anna, who has grown up separated from her father on a Minnesota farm, and Mat Burke, an Irish stoker who works on steamships. At the beginning of the play Chris and Anna are reunited after fifteen years apart. Anna comes to live on her father's coal barge, but hides the secret of her past from him. When she meets Mat after an accident in the fog, they almost immediately fall in love - but Anna finds that forging a new future will not be easy. |