Private Lives


Noël Coward - 1930
    Elyot and Amanda, once married and now honeymooning with new spouses at the same hotel, meet by chance, reignite the old spark and impulsively elope. After days of being reunited, they again find their fiery romance alternating between passions of love and anger. Their aggrieved spouses appear and a roundelay of affiliations ensues as the women first stick together, then apart, and new partnerships are formed.

The English Patient


Michael Ondaatje - 1992
    Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.

The Way of the World


William Congreve - 1700
    With Mirabell? You call my blood into my face with mentioning that traitor. She durst not have the confidence. I sent her to negotiate an affair, in which if I'm detected I'm undone. If that wheedling villain has wrought upon Foible to detect me, I'm ruined. O my dear friend, I'm a wretch of wretches if I'm detected.

Same Time Next Year


Bernard Slade - 1975
    It remains one of the world's most widely produced plays. The plot follows a love affair between two people, Doris and George, married to others, who rendezvous once a year. Twenty-five years of manners and morals are hilariously and touchingly played out by the lovers. "Delicious wit, compassion, a sense of humor and a feel for nostalgia."-The New York Times "Genuinely funny and genuinely romantic."-The New York Post

Children of a Lesser God


Mark Medoff - 1980
    As Sarah says, It is a silence full of sound.

Hamilton: The Revolution


Lin-Manuel Miranda - 2015
    Fusing hip-hop, pop, R&B, and the best traditions of theater, this once-in-a-generation show broadens the sound of Broadway, reveals the storytelling power of rap, and claims our country's origins for a diverse new generation.Hamilton: The Revolution gives readers an unprecedented view of both revolutions, from the only two writers able to provide it. Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, a cultural critic and theater artist who was involved in the project from its earliest stages--"since before this was even a show," according to Miranda--trace its development from an improbable perfor­mance at the White House to its landmark opening night on Broadway six years later. In addition, Miranda has written more than 200 funny, revealing footnotes for his award-winning libretto, the full text of which is published here.Their account features photos by the renowned Frank Ockenfels and veteran Broadway photographer Joan Marcus; exclusive looks at notebooks and emails; interviews with Questlove, Stephen Sond­heim, leading political commentators, and more than 40 people involved with the production; and multiple appearances by Presi­dent Obama himself. The book does more than tell the surprising story of how a Broadway musical became a national phenomenon: It demonstrates that America has always been renewed by the brash upstarts and brilliant outsiders, the men and women who don't throw away their shot.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark


A.J. Hartley - 2014
    Denmark is changing, shaking off its medieval past. War with Norway is on the horizon. And Hamlet - son of the old king, nephew of the new - becomes increasingly entangled in a web of deception - and murder.Struggling to find his place in this strange new order Hamlet tries to rekindle his relationship with Ophelia - the daughter of Elsinore's cunning spy master, a man with plots of his own. Hamlet turns for advice and support to the one person he can trust -- Young Yorick, the slippery, unruly jester, whose father helped Hamlet through a difficult childhood. And all the while the armed forces of Fortinbras, prince of Norway, start to assemble, threatening to bring down Elsinore forever.Beautifully performed by actor Richard Armitage ("Thorin Oakenshield" in the Hobbit films), Hamlet, Prince of Denmark takes Shakespeare's original into unexpected realms, reinventing a story we thought we knew.

H.M.S. Pinafore


W.S. Gilbert - 1878
    Popular from its first performance in 1878, this work contains some of Gilbert's most clever flashes of wit and a number of Sullivan's most charming melodies. Music scholars Carl Simpson and Ephraim Hammett Jones have drawn on original manuscripts and early sources to produce handsome, newly engraved plates closest to Gilbert and Sullivan's original intentions. This authoritative and inexpensive edition is sure to delight Gilbert and Sullivan fans, operetta lovers, musicians, and students.

The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn


Eric Ives - 2004
    This definitive full biography of Anne Boleyn, based on the latest scholarly research, focusses on Anne’s life and legacy and establishes Anne as a figure of considerable importance and influence in her own right.

The Member of the Wedding: The Play


Carson McCullers - 1951
    The Member of the Wedding—which became an award-winning play and a major motion picture—showcases McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and best.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Screenplay


William Goldman - 1968
    Screenplay for the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

The Beguiled


Thomas Cullinan - 1966
    Almost immediately he sets about beguiling the three women and five teenage girls stranded in this outpost of Southern gentility, eliciting their love and fear, pity and infatuation, and pitting them against one another in a bid for his freedom. But as the women are revealed for what they really are, a sense of ominous foreboding closes in on the soldier, and the question becomes: Just who is the beguiled?

This House


James Graham - 2012
    We have History as our guide. In tough times, the British do what we have always done. We muddle through.This House is a timely and relevant political comedy, exploring Westminster and the 1974 hung parliament.In the run-up to the General Election pressure mounts as squabbling whips attempt to attract key regional votes. As it becomes clear the results will be closely balanced, the play tracks the formation, perils and consequences of a coalition government, including the compromises, conflicts and power games all in the interest of gaining control of Parliament.With well-paced, witty and waspish dialogue, This House playfully explores the childish digs and chauvinistic attitudes that riddle political life. Award-winning playwright James Graham combines comedy with comment in this portrayal of the strain between the thinking individual, the pressure to toe the part line and the end goal of winning government.

Bellefleur


Joyce Carol Oates - 1980
    They own vast lands and profitable businesses, they employ their neighbors, and they influence the government. A prolific and eccentric group, they include several millionaires, a mass murderer, a spiritual seeker who climbs into the mountains looking for God, a wealthy noctambulist who dies of a chicken scratch.Bellefleur traces the lives of several generations of this unusual family. At its center is Gideon Bellefleur and his imperious, somewhat psychic, very beautiful wife, Leah, their three children (one with frightening psychic abilities), and the servants and relatives, living and dead, who inhabit the mansion and its environs. Their story offers a profound look at the world's changeableness, time and eternity, space and soul, pride and physicality versus love. Bellefleur is an allegory of caritas versus cupiditas, love and selflessness versus pride and selfishness. It is a novel of change, baffling complexity, mystery.Written with a voluptuousness and startling immediacy that transcends Joyce Carol Oates's early works, Bellefleur is widely regarded as a masterwork—a feat of literary genius.

The Music Man: A Musical Comedy


Hal Leonard Corporation - 1957
    18 vocal selections from the Broadway classic, including: Gary, Indiana * Goodnight, My Someone * Marian the Librarian * Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little/Goodnight Ladies * Seventy Six Trombones * Till There Was You * The Wells Fargo Wagon * Ya Got Trouble * and more.