The PlayFinder™

Winner of the 1981 Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play.

THE STORY: The scene is Hazlehurst, Mississippi, where the three Magrath sisters have gathered to await news of the family patriarch, their grandfather, who is living out his last hours in the local hospital. Lenny, the oldest sister, is unmarried at thirty and facing diminishing marital prospects; Meg, the middle sister, who quickly outgrew Hazlehurst, is back after a failed sin... Read more

Bess Johnson and Macon Hill are mail-order brides who meet while waiting for their husbands to pick them up to start life in a small town in the Wyoming Territory in the 1860s. Bess is a romantic while Macon Hill is exuberant and determined about getting on with a life in the West, one that promises to be full of possibility. The husbands arrive. Bess, expecting Mike Flynn, gets his brother, Jack. Macon's husband is William Curtis, a widower with one eye and a scarred face. Lif... Read more

The story begins in a seedy New Orleans bar where John Polk Richards, a college freshman whose fraternity brothers have paid his way into a bordello as an eighteenth birthday present, is bolstering his courage with liquor. He is approached by Ashbe, a fey young creature who invites him to the littered apartment that she shares with her absent father. As high strung and flaky as John Polk is nervous and tentative, Ashbe initiates him into her secret fantasy life as she tries to ... Read more

CONTROL FREAKS. Sister Willard (a troubled woman who struggles with three personalities: Sister, Spaghetti and Pinkie) returns from jury duty to discover her brother, Carl, has married Betty. Carl and Betty have big plans to open up Furniture World. All they need is Sister's signature on the papers, and the building will be theirs. Paul, the owner of the building, is invited over to sign the papers and have cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Sister decides to "set her cap" for Paul ... Read more

This stunning comic drama, set in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, begins the morning of Teddy Parker's debutante ball, that archetypal phenomenon in Southern culture known as a maiden's "coming out." Teddy's mother, the beautiful and formidable Jen Parker Turner, has willed this event into being. Ostracized from polite society ever since she was accused and—under much speculation and gossip—acquitted of the murder of her wealthy husband, Jen has been looking to Teddy's coming-out gal... Read more

THE STORY: The entire action of the play takes place in Kandall Kingsley's beautiful and mysterious garden. Kandall's youngest daughter, Pandora, is to be wed to Edvard Lunt, a worldly artist twice her age. Kandall does not think the match to be at all suitable. Flora, Pandora's older sister, who is expecting a child at any moment, plots to break off the marriage. Unexpectedly, Sidney Lunt, the groom's son, arrives with a note from his mother in which she vows to throw herself from an att... Read more

Jackson, Mississippi, 1964. When his wife kicks him out, respectable dentist Bill Perch moves into the seedy Jacksonian Motel. There, his downward spiral is punctuated by encounters with his teenage daughter, a gold-digging motel employee, a treacherous bartender, and his now-estranged wife. Revolving around the night of a murder, THE JACKSONIAN brims with suspense and dark humor and unearths the eerie tensions and madness in a town poisoned by racism.... Read more

The West. The 1920s. Mabel’s had a hard few weeks. A dynamite accident at a gold mine has left her wealthy but orphaned; she’s shipped off to a calculating aunt, whose nephew is charged with seducing her to control Mabel’s fortune. This hapless courtship reveals a shared love of silent movies and a plan for greater things. A story of mishaps and moxie, the romance of Hollywood and ultimately a Hollywood-caliber romance. A slapstick comedy from the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwri... Read more

L-PLAY is a fascinating study of style, character and rhythm. The play is written in twelve scenes. Each scene has a unique style and is a mini play in itself. The element that unites these pieces is that each scene title begins with the letter L. The scenes include: "Learner," a young student struggles to gain the affection of his beloved through poetry; "Lunatic," an isolated woman fights going mad, goes mad, and after circling the edge finds redemption; "Leaving," a piece pe... Read more

The place is Pigeon, Louisiana, the time Christmas 1934—at the low point of the American Depression. Reed Hooker, a compulsive gambler, has won a rundown rural dance hall in a poker game, and hopes that it will make his fortune. Assisted by the faithful Turnip and an underaged waif named Cassidy (whom Reed also won at cards and whom he has made pregnant), Reed has christened the place "The Lucky Spot" and is preparing for the grand opening. Cassidy, hoping that Reed will divorc... Read more

The place is the small Mississippi town of Brookhaven, the time a few days before the Fourth of July. Carnelle Scott (known locally as "Miss Hot Tamale") is rehearsing furiously for the Miss Firecracker Contest—hoping that a victory will salvage her tarnished reputation and allow her to leave town in a blaze of glory. The unexpected arrival of her cousin Elain, a former Miss Firecracker winner, (who has walked out on her rich but boring husband and her two small children) compl... Read more

When entrusting the subject of motherhood to such a dazzling collection of celebrated American writers, what results is a joyous, moving, hilarious, and altogether thrilling theatrical event. Utterly unpredictable, MOTHERHOOD OUT LOUD shatters traditional notions about parenthood, unveils its inherent comedy and celebrates the deeply personal truths that span and unite generations.

Visit the MOTHER... Read more

based on the short story by Tennessee Williams

THE STORY: Tom and his sister Roe’s childhood comes to a painful end when Richard Miles, who moves in light, arrives in town with his violin in a case.... Read more

The play takes place in a cottage on the shore of Lake Michigan where devotees of Dash Grey, the charismatic artistic director of Chicago's Red Lantern Theatre, have come to commemorate his death. Jasper Dale (Dash's ex-lover) is in charge of the elaborate proceedings. In a desperate attempt to save the struggling Red Lantern Theatre, Jasper taints the event by including Kate Spoon, a wealthy, talent-free matron, who insists on being regarded as an artist. As the play proceeds,... Read more

A disastrous New Orleans wedding rehearsal dinner is the latest in a series of unfortunate events that befall the Clay brothers in Beth Henley's boisterous and bittersweet new comedy. Daddy's in jail for fraud, Uncle Baites has taken up with a panhandler, and Lafcad's just called off his own wedding. What family doesn't have its ups and downs? Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Crimes of the Heart, Hen... Read more

Two brothers, Boswell and Maxwell, are living in Los Angeles in the year 2052. Knowing he is seriously ill, Boswell seeks to revive his fame as a once acclaimed art philosopher. In his obsession to leave a legacy, a signature, he pushes away the love of a young woman (named William) who is a dedicated worker on the Splat Out Crew. The younger brother, Maxwell, becomes so distraught when his wife, L-Tip, divorces him on video divorce that he calls up the Euthanasia Hot Line and ... Read more

SISTERS OF THE WINTER MADRIGAL. Calaih and Taretta, the orphaned daughters of Joshua the Cow Herder, live together in a hut outside a medieval village. Calaih, a girl with beautiful long red hair, roams the hills with her cow and falls desperately in love with Stephan, the Shoemaker's son. Taretta, the older sister, is a ravishing seductress who is the most sought after prostitute in the land. Fortune changes for the two sisters when the High Lord proclaims he will marry Calaih... Read more

The scene is a small town in Mississippi, where the family of Jamey Foster, a failed poet and would-be historian, who was kicked in the head by a cow while consorting with his mistress in a pasture, have gathered for his wake. The mourners, who include Jamey's estranged wife; her sister and brother and the brother's fey girlfriend; Jamey's upwardly mobile brother and his oppressively doting wife; and an eccentric family friend who raises pigs; all seem to agree on one point: No... Read more