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Woman of No Importance

Oscar Wilde
A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre. It is a testimony of Wilde's wit and his brand of dark comedy. It looks in particular at English upper class society and has been reproduced on stages in Europe and North America since his death in 1900.
Awakening of Spring, The

Wedekind, Frank
The Awakening of Spring is the German dramatist Frank Wedekind's first major play and a seminal work in the modern history of theatre. It is the source material for the contemporary rock musical Spring Awakening. The play criticises the sexually-oppressive culture of fin de siècle Germany and offers a vivid dramatisation of the erotic fantasies that it breeds. Due to the nature of its content, the play has often been banned.
Manfred

Byron, George Gordon, Lord
Manfred is a dramatic poem in three acts by Lord Byron, and possibly a self confessional work. A noble, Manfred, is haunted by the memory of some unspeakable crime. In seeking for forgetfulness and oblivion, he wanders between his castle and the mountains. He has several encounters with the people who try to assist him, as well as spirits that rule nature and human destiny. The poem explores themes of morality, religion, guilt and the human condition.
Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts

Maurice Maeterlinck
The Blue Bird is a 1908 play by Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck. On the night of Christmas a boy and a girl, Tyltil and Mytil, are visited by Fairy Berilyuna. Fairy's granddaughter is sick and can only be saved by the Blue Bird. Thanks to the Fairy's magic gift children have the opportunity to see the soul of things. Inanimate objects Clocks, Fire, Water, Bread, Sugar, Milk transformed into beings with their own character. Together, they set off on a dangerous journey for the fabulous Blue Bird. The play is inspired with the deep idea of the author "be brave enough to see the hidden."
Every Man In His Humour

Ben Jonson
Knowell, an old man - rumor says Shakespeare originally played this part - tries to spy upon the doings of his potentially wayward son. Meanwhile, Kitely, a merchant, worries so much about being cuckolded by his wife that perhaps it has to happen. All this while a swarm of other interesting characters surround them.
Rover (Part One)

Aphra Behn
The Rover, or The Banish'd Cavaliers, is a play in two parts written by the English author Aphra Behn. The first part features multiple plot lines, dealing with the amorous adventures of a group of Englishmen in Naples at Carnival time. The "rover" of the play's title is Willmore, a rakish naval captain, who falls in love with a young woman named Hellena, who has set out to experience love before her brother sends her to a convent. Complications arise when Angellica Bianca, a famous courtesan, falls in love with Willmore and swears revenge on him for his betrayal. Meanwhile, Hellena's sister Florinda attempts to marry her true love, Colonel Belvile, rather than the man her brother has selected. The third major plot of the play deals with the provincial Blunt, who becomes convinced that a girl has fallen in love with him but is humiliated when she turns out to be a prostitute and a thief.
Prometheus Bound (Buckley Translation)

Aeschylus
"Prometheus Bound" is the only complete tragedy of the Prometheia trilogy, traditionally assumed to be the work of Aeschylus. Jupiter has turned against Prometheus for protecting mankind and has ordered him to be chained to a rock. But Prometheus is comforted by his knowledge of a way to bring about the downfall of Jupiter.
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Iphigenia in Aulis

Euripides
Iphigenia in Aulis is the last extant work of the playwright Euripides. The Greek fleet is waiting at Aulis, Boeotia, with its ships ready to sail for Troy, but it is unable to depart due to a strange lack of wind. After consulting the seer Calchas, the Greek leaders learn that this is no mere meteorological abnormality but rather the will of the goddess Artemis, who is withholding the winds because Agamemnon has caused her offense. Calchas informs the general that in order to appease the goddess, he must sacrifice his eldest daughter, Iphigenia. Agamemnon, in spite of his horror, must consider this seriously because his assembled troops, who have been waiting on the beach and are increasingly restless, may rebel if their bloodlust is not satisfied. He sends a message to his wife, Clytemnestra, telling her to send Iphigenia to Aulis on the pretext that the girl is to be married to the Greek warrior Achilles before he sets off to fight.
Seven Against Thebes

Aeschylus
In this, the only extant tragedy from Aeschylus' trilogy about the House of Oedipus, Thebes is under siege from Polynices, a former prince of Thebes. After King Oedipus left his city and cursed the princes, Polynices and his brother, Eteocles, decided to rule alternately, switching at the end of every year. However, at the end of his year as king, Eteocles refused to turn power over to his brother and exiled him, fulfilling his father's curse that the two brothers could not rule peacefully. In the action of the play, Polynices and a group of Argive soldiers are attacking Thebes so that he can take his place as ruler. Eteocles must combat both the foreign forces outside the walls and the crazed, frightened women within. Note: The ending of this play is suspect. The lines Antigone and Ismene's entrance to the end may have been added later, either after Sophocles' Theban plays became popular or in the Middle Ages.
Oresteia

Aeschylus
The Oresteia is a trilogy by Aeschylus, one of the foremost playwrights of ancient Greece. It encompasses three plays: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Furies. It tells the tragic tale of the House of Atreus, whose inhabitants have been cursed and are doomed to play out their bloody, vengeful destinies. At the beginning of the first part, the Trojan War has ended and the Greek general, Agamemnon, is returning victorious to his wife Clytemnestra. Yet she finds it difficult to forgive his sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia, who was killed to ensure the Greek fleet fair winds in their voyage to Troy. Her desire for vengeance, and its dire consequences, instigates the action of these poetic tragedies.
Cymbeline

William Shakespeare
Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare's late romances, which (like The Tempest and The Winter's Tale) combines comedy and tragedy. Imogen, the daughter of King Cymbeline of Britain, angers her father when she marries Posthumus, a worthy but penniless gentleman. The King banishes Posthumus, who goes to Rome, where he falls prey to the machinations of Iachimo, who tries to convince him that Imogen will be unfaithful. Meanwhile, the Queen (Imogen's stepmother) plots against her stepdaughter by trying to plan a match between Imogen and her worthless son Cloten.
Pandora's Box

Frank Wedekind
Pandora's Box (1904) (Die Büchse der Pandora) is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the second part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays (the first is Earth Spirit [1895]), both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed". G. W. Pabst directed a silent film version (Pandora's Box), which was loosely based on the play, in 1929. Both plays together also formed the basis for the opera Lulu by Alban Berg in 1935 (premiered posthumously in 1937). In the original manuscript, dating from 1894, the 'Lulu' drama was in five acts and subtitled 'A Monster Tragedy'. Wedekind subsequently divided the work into two plays: Earth Spirit (German: Erdgeist, first printed in 1895) and Pandora's Box (German: Die Büchse der Pandora). It is now customary in theatre performances to run the two plays together, in abridged form, under the title Lulu. Wedekind is known to have taken his inspiration from at least two sources: the pantomime Lulu by Félicien Champsaur, which he saw in Paris in the early 1890s, and the sex murders of Jack the Ripper in London in 1888. The premiere of Pandora's Box, a restricted performance due to difficulties with the censor, took place in Nuremberg on 1 February 1904. The 1905 Viennese premiere, again restricted, was instigated by the satirist Karl Kraus. In Vienna Lulu was played by Tilly Newes, later to become Wedekind's wife, with the part of Jack the Ripper played by Wedekind himself.
King Lear (version 2)

William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king. It has been widely adapted for the stage and motion pictures, and the role of Lear has been coveted and played by many of the world's most accomplished actors. The play was written between 1603 and 1606 and later revised. Shakespeare's earlier version, The True Chronicle of the History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters, was published in quarto in 1608. The Tragedy of King Lear, a more theatrical version, was included in the 1623 First Folio. Modern editors usually conflate the two, though some insist that each version has its individual integrity that should be preserved. After the Restoration, the play was often revised with a happy ending for audiences who disliked its dark and depressing tone, but since the 19th century Shakespeare's original version has been regarded as one of his supreme achievements. The tragedy is particularly noted for its probing observations on the nature of human suffering and kinship. George Bernard Shaw wrote, "No man will ever write a better tragedy than Lear".
Rosmersholm

Henrik Ibsen
Rosmersholm is a play written in 1886 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In the estimation of many critics the piece is Ibsen's masterwork, only equalled by The Wild Duck of 1884. As expressed by the protagonist, Rosmer, the theme of the play is social and political change, in which the traditional ruling classes relinquish their right to impose their ideals on the rest of society, but the action is entirely personal, resting on the conduct of the immoral, or amoral, "free thinking" heroine, Rebecca, who sets herself to undermine Rosmer's religious and political beliefs because of his influential position in the community. Rebecca has abandoned not only Christianity but, unlike Rosmer, she has abandoned the whole ethical system of Christianity as well. Possibly she may be taken as Ibsen's answer to the question of whether or not Christian ethics can be expected to survive the death of the Christian religion.
Every Man Out of His Humour

Ben Jonson
Every Man Out of His Humour followed Jonson's play Every Man In His Humour. "This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire — as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy — there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes.... What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency."
Henry V

William Shakespeare
After the turmoil and uncertainty of Henry IV a new era appears to dawn for England with the accession of the eponymous Henry V. In this sunny pageant Chorus guides us along Henry's glittering carpet ride of success as the new king completes his transformation from rebellious wastrel to a truly regal potentate. Of course, there is an underlying feeling that the good times won't last, and this is all the more reason to enjoy the Indian summer before the protracted and bitter fall of the house of Lancaster.
Andria: or, The Fair Andrian

Terence
Pamphilus wants to marry a woman different than his father has chosen for him. Add in paternal scheming, death bed promises, shipwreck, and other complications, and comedy ensues.
Hecyra: The Mother-In-Law

Terence
Terence's six plays are comedies written while he was a slave to a Roman senator. NOTE: the main plot elements in Hecyra are quite unacceptable today: Pamphilus has just married a woman he does not recognize that he had earlier raped in a drunken fit; nor does she recognize him. His mistress Bacchis is upset with the marriage and rejects him. He then wanders off, returning only in time to discover his wife with a new child that can't possibly be his. It takes both Mother and Mother-in-Law, and Bacchis, to bring a happy ending out of this confusion.
Eunuchus: The Eunuch

Terence
Another of the plays by Terence translated from the Latin by Riley. "A certain citizen of Athens had a daughter named Pamphila, and a son called Chremes. The former was stolen while an infant, and sold to a Rhodian merchant, who having made a present of her to a Courtesan of Rhodes, she brought her up with her own daughter Thais, who was somewhat older." (From Translator summary)

Hmmm, so kidnapping and slavery to start off; then there will be eunuchs and rape before the play ends. And it is a comedy?! Ah, well, it was 200BC. Times and opinions (thank goodness) have changed at least a bit since then.
Heautontimorumenos; the Self-Tormentor

Terence
Terence's six plays are comedies written while he was a slave to a Roman senator. In this one, a severe father compels his son Clinia, in love with Antiphila, to go abroad to the wars; and repenting of what has been done, torments himself in mind.
Beaux Stratagem

George Farquhar
Two gentlemen of broken fortune, disguised as master and servant, and thinking that a good dowry split both ways would solve their problems; some cludgy highwaymen and their confederates; foxy inn-keeper and saucy daughter; a country home with a drunken squire and his long suffering wife, medicine-practicing Lady, and beautiful daughter. What could possibly go wrong?
Misalliance

George Bernard Shaw
Misalliance, a 1910 play by George Bernard Shaw, is an ironic examination of the romantic entanglements of a varied group of people gathered at a wealthy man's country home on a summer weekend. Most of the romantic interest centers on the host's daughter, Hypatia Tarleton, a typical Shaw heroine who exemplifies his lifelong theory that in courtship, women are the relentless pursuers and men the apprehensively pursued. Hypatia is the daughter of newly-wealthy John Tarleton who made his fortune in the unglamorous but lucrative underwear business. She is fed up with the stuffy conventions that surround her and with the hyperactive talk of the men in her life. Hypatia is engaged to Bentley Summerhays, an intellectually bright but emotionally underdeveloped aristocrat. Hypatia is restless with her engagement as the play starts, even as it is revealed she has also had a proposal of engagement from her betrothed's father, Lord Summerhays. She longs for some adventure to drop out of the sky, and it does: an aircraft crashes through the roof of the conservatory. The plane's passengers, a handsome young pilot and a Polish acrobat, shake up the house party considerably.
Recruiting Officer

George Farquhar
The author was himself a recruiting officer, and possibly gathered all the materials for this play on the very spot where he has placed his scene—Shrewsbury. He has dedicated the piece "to all friends round the Wrekin," and has thanked the inhabitants of the town for that cheerful hospitality, which made, he adds, "the recruiting service, to some men the greatest fatigue on earth, to me the greatest pleasure in the world."
The life of Farquhar was full of adventures.—As a student, he was expelled from the college of Dublin, for adventuring profane wit upon a sacred theme, given to him by his tutor for his exercise. As an actor, he forsook the stage in grief and horror, on having unknowingly made use of a real sword, instead of a counterfeit one, by which he wounded a brother performer, with whom he had to fence in a tragedy, nearly to the loss of his life.
As a dramatic writer, Farquhar was eminently successful; and in his military capacity, he was ever honoured and beloved—whether fighting with a great army in Flanders, or recruiting with a small party in Shropshire.
Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades

Florence Holbrook
Despite the title's bland sounding name, this book is a charming collection of 16 plays for children. These little plays—well-known stories done into dialogue—were written for children who like to imagine themselves living with their favorite characters in forest, in palace, or in fairyland. Included are Cinderella, Robin Hood, William Tell, Hansel and Gretel and many more.
Vera; or the Nihilists

Oscar Wilde
Vera; or, The Nihilists is a play by Oscar Wilde. It is a melodramatic tragedy set in Russia and is loosely based on the story of Vera Zasulich. It was the first play that Wilde wrote. It was produced in the United Kingdom in 1880, and in New York in 1882, but it was not a success and folded in both cities. It is nowadays rarely revived.
Reign of King Edward the Third

William Shakespeare
The Reign of King Edward the Third is an Elizabethan play printed anonymously in 1596. It has frequently been claimed that it was at least partly written by William Shakespeare, a view that Shakespeare scholars have increasingly endorsed. The rest of the play was probably written by Thomas Kyd. The play contains many gibes at Scotland and the Scottish people, which has led some critics to think that it is the work that incited George Nicolson, Queen Elizabeth's agent in Edinburgh, to protest against the portrayal of Scots on the London stage in a 1598 letter to William Cecil, Lord Burghley. This would explain why the play was not included in the First Folio of Shakespeare's works, which was published after the Scottish King James had succeeded to the English throne in 1603.

The plot of the play consists of two distinct parts. The first is centred on the Countess of Salisbury (the wife of the Earl of Salisbury), who, beset by rampaging Scots, is rescued by King Edward III, who then proceeds to woo her himself. In an attempted bluff, the Countess vows to take the life of her husband if Edward will take the life of his wife. However, when she sees that Edward finds the plan morally acceptable, she ultimately threatens to take her own life if he does not stop his pursuit. Finally, Edward expresses great shame, admits his fault and acquiesces.In the second part of the play, in several scenes reminiscent of Henry V, Edward joins his army in France, fighting a war to claim the French throne. The play switches between the French and English camps, where the apparent hopelessness of the English campaign is contrasted with the arrogance of the French. Much of the action is focused on young Edward, the Black Prince, who broods on the morality of war before achieving victory against seemingly insurmountable odds.
Earth Spirit

Frank Wedekind
Earth Spirit (1895) (Erdgeist) is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the first part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays (the second is Pandora's Box [1904]), both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed". Together with Pandora's Box, Wedekind's play formed the basis for the silent film Pandora's Box (1929) starring Louise Brooks and the opera Lulu by Alban Berg in 1935 (premiered posthumously in 1937). The eponymous "earth spirit" of this play is Lulu, who Wedekind described as a woman "created to stir up great disaster." Indeed, she is a purely sexual creature who scandalizes the community and drives men to ruin. The play has attracted a wide range of interpretations, from those who see it as misogynistic to those who claim Wedekind as a harbinger of women’s liberation.
Sir Thomas More

Anthony Munday
Sir Thomas More is a collaborative Elizabethan play by Anthony Munday and others depicting the life and death of Thomas More. It survives only in a single manuscript, now owned by the British Library. The manuscript is notable because three pages of it are considered to be in the hand of William Shakespeare and for the light it sheds on the collaborative nature of Elizabethan drama and the theatrical censorship of the era. The play dramatizes events in More's life, both real and legendary, in an episodic manner in 17 scenes, unified only by the rise and fall of More's fortunes.
Torch-Bearers

George Kelly
"The cold, historical fact is that at about 9:15 o’clock on the evening of August 29th, 1922, five or six hundred average New Yorkers, two or three hundred friends of the management, and about fifty sophisticated first-nighters were in grave danger of rolling off their seats in hysteria because of The Torch-Bearers."How can you resist a play with a review like that?
Cabinet Minister

Arthur Wing Pinero
Mr. Pinero holds that farce should treat of probable people placed in possible circumstances, but regarded from a point of view which exaggerates their sentiments and magnifies their foibles. In this light it is permitted to this class of play, not only to deal with ridiculous incongruities of incident and character, but to satirise society, and to wring laughter from those possible distresses of life which might trace their origin to fallacies of feeling and extravagances of motive.
Funeral: or Grief A-La-Mode

Richard Steele
The Funeral: or, Grief à-la-Mode, a Comedy, was written in the summer of 1701, and given to Christopher Rich, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in October. Soon afterwards it was acted, and it was published by Jacob Tonson between December 18 and 20, with the date 1702 on the title-page. The music to the songs, by William Croft, appeared between December 16 and 18. [] The play was revived occasionally in most of the years between 1703 and 1734, and from time to time during the following half-century, the last date, apparently, being April 17, 1799. The plot is entirely original
Tender Husband: or The Accomplished Fools

Richard Steele
"The Tender Husband is, as a whole, very amusing; but unfortunately a second plot—alluded to in the title—is woven into the story which gives to the play its interest; and as this account of the manner in which the "tender husband" tries the faithfulness of a foolish wife by means of his mistress, disguised as a man, is unwholesome in tone and unnatural, it spoils what would otherwise be an excellent farcical comedy, and at the same time has no real connection with the rest of the play." (G.A.Aitkin from 1894) See if you agree.
Lying Lover: or, The Ladies' Friendship

Richard Steele
"The spark of this play is introduced with as much agility and life as he brought with him from France, and as much humour as I could bestow upon him in England. But he uses the advantages of a learned education, a ready fancy, and a liberal fortune, without the circumspection and good sense which should always attend the pleasures of a gentleman; that is to say, a reasonable creature. Thus he makes false love, gets drunk, and kills his man; but in the fifth Act awakes from his debauch, with the compunction and remorse which is suitable to a man's finding himself in a gaol for the death of his friend, without his knowing why. (From Preface)
Conscious Lovers

Richard Steele
As early as 1720 Steele spoke in the Theatre of "a friend of mine" who was lately preparing a comedy according to the just laws of the stage, and had introduced a scene in which the first character bore unprovoked wrong, denied a duel, and still appeared a man of honour and courage. This was clearly an allusion to the play eventually to be published as The Conscious Lovers.
Psyche

Molière
This is a very different Moliere, not the usual satire of everyday life. It is instead a classical tale based on the ancient story of Psyche and Cupid, and was performed for Louis XIV with ballet interludes to music by Jean-Baptiste Lully (which we do not include here) in 1671.
Stories From The Operas

Gladys Davidson
"Owing to the appreciation which has been accorded to my three series of "Stories from the Operas," it has been decided to re-issue the collection in one volume, and to include in this additional stories of new and popular operas recently produced in England.

The plan of the work, as before, is to present all the incidents of each libretto in the clear, readable form of a short story; and it is hoped that the combined volume will continue to prove of interest, not only to opera-goers but to all lovers of dramatic tales. The three volumes have been entirely reset and re-collated in a manner which it is hoped will make them easier for reference."
Widowing of Mrs Holroyd

D. H. Lawrence
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.
One-Act Play Collection 012

Various
Here are 10 One Act Plays for your enjoyment. They range from a 1659 farce by Moliere to a 1896 play by Fuller with early LGBT content; a Gilbert play without Sullivan's music, and many other short gems to make you laugh, cry, think, or all three. NOTE: Although the plays here were all published before 1923 and hence are in the Public Domain in the U.S., Pinski, McFadden, and Wilde died in 1959, 1961, and 1953 respectively and their plays may not yet be in the Public Domain in some countries.
Constant Couple

George Farquhar
George Farquhar, the author of this comedy, was the son of a clergyman in the north of Ireland. He was born in the year 1678, discovered an early taste for literature, and wrote poetic stanzas at ten years of age. In 1694 he was sent to Trinity College, Dublin, and there made such progress in his studies as to acquire considerable reputation. But he was volatile and poor—the first misfortune led him to expense; the second, to devise means how to support his extravagance.

In the year 1700 he brought out this comedy of "The Constant Couple; or, A Trip to the Jubilee." It was then the Jubilee year at Rome, and the author took advantage of that occurrence to render the title of his drama popular; for which cause alone it must be supposed he made any thing in his play refer to that festival, as no one material point is in any shape connected with it.
"Mind The Paint" Girl

Arthur Wing Pinero
Another Pinero play from the early 1900s. With a social message about the effects of stardom on the star as well as those that love them. "I’m afraid there’s one thing finer than winning the woman you love and, when you’ve won her, being prepared to go through fire and water for her." "What’s that?" "Having the courage to give her up"
Henry VI, Part 2

William Shakespeare
Henry VI, Part 2 or The Second Part of Henry the Sixth (often written as 2 Henry VI) is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591, and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas 1 Henry VI deals primarily with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, and 3 Henry VI deals with the horrors of that conflict, 2 Henry VI focuses on the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, the death of his trusted adviser Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, the rise of the Duke of York and the inevitability of armed conflict. As such, the play culminates with the opening battle of the War, the First Battle of St Albans. Henry VI may be viewed as a study in insurrection, which moves from the private and personal jostlings in the court in Part 1 to outright civil war in Part 3. In Part 2 the discord between prominent state officials, notably Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, spreads to the common people, fomenting an abortive rebellion, lead by the rascally Kentishman, Jack Cade. With the death of Humphrey, the period of regency for the naive Henry effectively comes to an end, and the unworldly monarch is helplessly exposed to the interminable strife between the factions of the houses of York and of Lancaster. The structure of the play differs from the other two parts in that there is a central rustic idyll (Act 4), populated by clownish characters, which recalls the idyllic centrepieces of comedies like A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It. The plays with the effective deposition of Henry, who is later re-installed as king in Part 3 by the influential Earl of Warwick. Henry VI, Part 2 has the largest cast of all Shakespeare's plays, and is seen by many critics as the best of the Henry VI trilogy.
Henry VI, Part 1

William Shakespeare
Henry VI, Part 1 or The First Part of Henry the Sixth (often written as 1 Henry VI) is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1591, and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas 2 Henry VI deals with the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, and the inevitability of armed conflict, and 3 Henry VI deals with the horrors of that conflict, 1 Henry VI deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, as the English political system is torn apart by personal squabbles and petty jealousy.
Magnificent Lovers

Molière
"The King [Louis XIV], who will have nothing but what is magnificent in all he undertakes, wished to give his court an entertainment which should comprise all that the stage can furnish. To facilitate the execution of so vast an idea, and to link together so many different things, his Majesty chose for the subject two rival princes, who, in the lovely vale of Tempe, where the Pythian Games were to be celebrated, vie with each other in fêting a young princess and her mother with all imaginable gallantries."
Henry VI, Part 3

William Shakespeare
Henry VI, Part 3 or The Third Part of Henry the Sixt (often written as 3 Henry VI) is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591, and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas 1 Henry VI deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, and 2 Henry VI focuses on the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, and the inevitability of armed conflict, 3 Henry VI deals primarily with the horrors of that conflict, as the once ordered nation is thrown into chaos and barbarism as families break down and moral codes are subverted in the pursuit of revenge and power.

Among Shakespeare's history plays Henry VI Part 3 and Richard II contain the only intances in which a living monarch is displaced. However, unlike Richard who fell because of his misunderstanding of the limits of his sovereignty, the demise of Henry was due to his total incapacity to exercise his sovereign power. The inability of the king to deal with the brutal realities of regal life is dramatically displayed in Act 2 Scene 5 where Henry witnesses the agonies of the father who has killed his son and the son who has killed his father, and sadly acknowledges that this civil strife has been caused by the King's ineptitude. The crowning indignity comes in Act 3 Scene 1 where the king in hiding is easily detected and trapped by two rustics who triumphantly prepare to lead him before the man who has deposed him, Edward IV. Henry's death comes at the hands of the brother of Edward, the vicious and rampantly ambitious Richard, who later rises to the heights of supreme tyranny in Richard III. After Henry's son and heir, Edward, is murdered, also by the future Richard III, and Henry's most influential supporter, the Earl of Warwick, dies, the House of Lancaster lies in ruins.

Henry VI, Part 3 features the longest soliloquy in all of Shakespeare (3.2.124-195), and has more battle scenes (four on stage, one reported) than any other of Shakespeare's plays.
Will and No Will or a Bone for the Lawyers

Charles Macklin
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.
Dandy Dick

Arthur Wing Pinero
“Dandy Dick” was the third of the farces which Mr. Pinero wrote for the old Court Theatre—a series of plays which, besides giving playgoers a fresh source of laughter, and the English stage a new order of comic play, brought plentiful prosperity to the joint management of Mr. Arthur Cecil and the late Mr. John Clayton.
If I Had a Father

George MacDonald
Arthur Gervaise, a London sculptor, learns too late of his love for a woman, while his absentee father secretly tries to serve and help him. Meanwhile, an old country man searches frantically for his daughter, whose disappearance he suspects Arthur has something to do with. These two fathers' devotion to their adult children causes those around them to reevaluate and elevate their own ideas of fatherhood.
Squire

Arthur Wing Pinero
"Then take a word of advice—cut yourself adrift from Squire Kate's apron strings. (Gilbert turns away) When my father, John Verity, died, and left his girl alone in the world, you helped me out of debt and difficulty; but all the skill on earth can never squeeze more than bread and butter out of this dear broken-down old place. (she rises) So go away where there's a world for you, a world to work in and a world to live in. (she holds out her hand to him) Thank you for the past."
Magistrate

Arthur Wing Pinero
The success of “The Magistrate” was immediate, and the Court Theatre was crowded night after night for more than a year, the play being presented over 300 times. So prosperous was the run that there was no cessation during the Summer holiday season. This success, however, was not confined to London, for three companies were soon carrying the play triumphantly over the English provinces, while in September 1885 Mr. Pinero went to New York to produce his work.

How can you resist a comedy whose acts are labeled Act 1: The Family Skeleton; Act 2: It Leaves Its Cupboard; and Act 3: It Crumbles?
Henry VIII

William Shakespeare
This is Shakespeare's dutiful trubute to one of the most imposing and terrifying rulers in European history. The kingdom trembles as the giant monarch storms through his midlife crisis, disposing of the faithful Katharine of Aragon and starting a new life and, the king hopes, a line of succession with the captivating young Anne Bullen. Unlike his predecessors, Henry has no doubt about the security of his tenure on the throne, and dominates the royal court with absolute authority. The play has a surprising modern flavour: there is even a set of "Royal watchers" - the three gossipy gentlemen!
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