Drama

Elmwood Playhouse our own version of true story telling, iInspired by NP's The Moth Radio Hour.

Inspired by NPR's The Moth Radio Hour, Elmwood Playhouse presents our own version of this national treasure.

A gifted boy sets out to find a dog's killer with an adventure in self discovery

A fresh new take on this classic play about love, family, and community

A picture of modern romance, questioning commitment, love, and faith

An engaging drama about race, freedom of speech, and religion

The classic cynical play of family greed and revenge

A thriller about family bonds and how far one will go to protect them.

Arthur Miller's classic drama about the loss of identity and changes in society.

An American treasure of family relationships, marriage, and mortality.

A powerful drama based on the award-winning novel by Ernest J. Gaines.

A shocking new version of the Stevenson classic horror tale.

A drama about the cost one woman pays when she dares to have it all.

In a plantation house, a family celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of Big Daddy, as they sentimentally dub him. The mood is somber, despite the festivities, because a number of evils poison the [...]

A college student, Carol, drops by her professor’s office in an effort to gain his help to do better in class. John, the professor, in the midst of buying a house to celebrate his [...]

A modern classic about one woman’s struggle to come to terms with her past – brutally separated from her German Jewish parents at the age of 9 and brought to England with the promise [...]

The play is set in the dining room of a typical well-to-do household, the place where the family assembled daily for breakfast and dinner and for any and all special occasions. The action is [...]

The second half of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic. “Angels in America, Perestroika” steers the characters introduced in “Millennium Approaches” from the [...]

Wealthy middle-aged couple, Agnes and Tobias have their complacency shattered when Harry and Edna, longtime friends appear at their doorstep. Claiming an encroaching, nameless “fear” [...]

In Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, set in 1980s New York City, a gay man is abandoned by his lover when he contracts the AIDS virus, and a closeted Mormon lawyer’s [...]

A sinister con man, Roat, and two ex-convicts, Mike and Carlino, are about to meet their match. They have traced the location of a mysterious doll, which they are much interested in, to the [...]

David Mamet’s scalding comedy is about small-time, cutthroat real esate salesmen trying to grind out a living by pushing plots of land on reluctant buyers in a never-ending scramble for [...]

Sibling rivalry, adultery and dungeons – Lion in Winter, by James Goldman, is a modern day classic.  Comedic in tone, dramatic in action – the play tells the story of the Plantagenet family who [...]

This unusual drama by a premiere contemporary dramatist focuses on Miss Helen, an old Boer woman who lives alone in the South African boondocks where she creates odd concrete sculptures which she [...]

An American doctor and an Irish journalist are being held captive by terrorists in Beirut. They exercise and they argue, supportive in their mutual determination to survive. They are joined by an [...]

The plot revolves around the comfortable relationship between widower Harry and his gay son Jeff and their individual searches for the right mate. Harry unconditionally loves his Rugby-playing [...]

Inspired by a true story, the play follows the trail of a young black con man, Paul, who insinuates himself into the lives of a wealthy New York couple, Ouisa and Flan Kittredge, claiming he [...]

Bessie lives in Florida where she cares for her pain-ridden aunt and ailing father, Marvin, who is confined to his bed and unable to speak. When Bessie is diagnosed with leukemia, her only hope [...]

This extraordinary play is the story of five unmarried sisters eking out their lives in a small village in Ireland in l936. We meet them at the time of the festival of Lughnasa, which celebrates [...]

The setting is a walk-up apartment on Manhattan’s West Side where, as the curtain rises, Frankie (a waitress) and Johnny (a short-order cook who works in the same restaurant) are discovered [...]

At Peter and Rita’s wedding, a mysterious old man insists on kissing the bride. While honeymooning, Peter gradually realizes that the woman by his side is not his wife. The wedding kiss [...]

A history-making play as Joe, a successful businessman and pillar of society whose chickens come home to roost in the form of Lou, a deranged Vietnam War buddy. During their confrontation, Joe [...]

Inherit the Wind is a fictional version of the 1925 Scopes Trial. Scopes was convicted for teaching evolution to a high school class. In Tennessee, state law prohibited teaching evolution. The [...]

Summoned to a covent, Dr. Martha Livingstone, a court-appointed psychiatrist, is charged with assessing the sanity of a novice accused of murdering her newborn. Miriam Ruth, the Mother Superior, [...]

The time is the mid ’70s, the place a city in upstate New York. John, a playwright, returns to his family’s house, bringing with him a new play which he has written about them. His [...]

Mrs. Savage has been left ten million dollars by her husband and wants to make the best use of it, in spite of her grown-up stepchildren’s efforts to get their hands on it. Knowing that the [...]

In Waiting for Godot, two wandering tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait by a lonely tree, to meet up with Mr. Godot, an enigmatic figure in a world where time, place and memory are blurred and [...]

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, [...]

The characters come to life with an almost frightening fidelity; it is doubtful if any work in the theatre has ever been written with such first-person authority. The proceedings take place in [...]

Martin Cramer lives in an expensive high rise on Manhattan’s upper east side. He likes to play Debussy on his balcony at one a.m. Sally Cramer, played on Broadway by Marlo Thomas, is his [...]

Set in 1953 and traveling to 1985, this lovely and poignant memory play unfolds through the eyes of Clifford, the only son of Gene, a jazz trumpet player, and Terry, an alcoholic mother. [...]

A wildly funny, surprising and devastating tale of survival as seen through the lens of a troubling relationship between a young girl and an older man. HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE is the story of a [...]

A young married man spends many evenings with a rich old woman. When she is found murdered, the naive young man is the chief suspect. The testimony of his wife is expected to result in an [...]

The Jackson are a nice middle aged English couple. Their best friends are their Canadian neighbors, the Krogers. All is blissful in their world until a detective from Scotland Yard asks to use [...]

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 [...]

Dr. Prentice, a psychiatric doctor in an exclusive, private clinic, is attempting to interview (and seduce) an attractive would-be secretary, Geraldine. Unwttingly surprised by his wife, he hides [...]

Gardner and Fanny Church are preparing to move out of their Beacon Hill house to their summer cottage on Cape Cod. Gardner, once a famous poet, now is retired. He slips in and out of senility as [...]

Stephen is a headstrong, impetuous, irrepressible romantic unable not to be in love. One of his models is Goethe’s tragic hero Werther, but as a young, contemporary New Yorker he’s [...]

Eteocles has been given a proper burial, but Creon, Antigone’s uncle who has inherited the throne, has issued a royal edict banning the burial of Polyneices, who he believes was a [...]

The play portrays the visit of an elderly professor and his glamorous, much younger second wife, Yelena, to the rural estate that supports their urban lifestyle. Two friends—Vanya, brother of the [...]

A nuclear accident has occurred in a remote section of New Mexico. Two couples travelling through the area must stop and seek shelter. They find shelter at a small Catholic mission ministering to [...]

Regina Giddens and her ruthless clan, including her sister-in-law Birdie, clash in often brutal ways in an effort to strike the deal of their lives.

The play focuses on the disturbed Tate family as they struggle for control of the rundown family farm in a futile search for freedom, security, and ultimately meaning in their lives.

A play about family dynamics, the price of furniture and the price of one's decisions.

When one young woman innocently impersonates another long-time deceased young woman whom she resembles, she finds herself inescapably trapped within the role.

A courtroom drama, suspense, and psychological drama — and explores sexual abuse issues, family and social power dynamics, and aspects of the criminal court system.

It's the 21st birthday celebration of Francis Geminiani. In attendance are his divorced blue collar father Fran and Fran's widowed girlfriend Lucille, next-door neighbor Bunny Weinberger and her [...]

Paul is a Peace Corps dropout, and Susan is in freefall when they meet on a beach in Bali. Later, in Boston, they live together and then marry. Separating briefly, then reconciling in a New York [...]

Ten strangers are summoned to a remote island. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal and a secret that will seal their fate.

A simple love story of a somewhat puritanical Southern girl and an unpuritanical young doctor.

This drama tells the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses.

In a middle class country estate in England a successful merchant lives with his dotty wife, daughter and son. The daughter's fiancé is visiting them when the fiancé's father, an aristocrat, [...]

Willy Loman, returns to his New York home after a failed business trip. Driven by hopes of success, for himself and his two sons, Loman and his wife confront the American Dream in Arthur Miller’s [...]

So virtuous is Tartuffe that every form of pleasure is an abomination to him. Orgon, a rich merchant, is completely duped by the ruse and watches approvingly as the cunning Tartuffe "reforms" his [...]

A young nun has died under mysterious circumstances in a remote parish in northern Michigan, and her superior, Father Rivard, has been charged with her murder.

Troy Maxson, a former star of the Negro baseball leagues who now works as a garbage man in 1957 Pittsburgh. Excluded as a black man from the major leagues during his prime, Troy’s [...]

The story follows the small town of Grover’s Corners through three acts: “Daily Life,” “Love and Marriage,” and “Death and Eternity.” Narrated by a stage [...]

The play is an early expression of the burgeoning 1960s counterculture, expressing discontent with American consumerism and involvement in the Vietnam War.

Goldman is living the American Dream. Israeli agents have tracked him down as a Nazi officer who tortured Jews during Hitler’s reign of terror.

The setting of the play is the stylish Manhattan apartment of Rose Weiss, the time 1946. Although born in Poland, Rose, now in her 20s, came to the United States with her father, Mordechai, at [...]

Evy Meara, is a popular singer who has hit the skids. After a short stay in rehab, her best friend age-defying Toby, her daughter Polly, and Jimmy Perry, a gay actor try to help her adjust to [...]

Set on Chicago’s South Side, the plot revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, [...]

When a gorgeous drifter Hal arrives in a small Kansas town, no one is prepared.

Set in the lobby of the Hotel Baltimore, the play focuses on the residents of the decaying property who are faced with eviction when the structure is condemned.

The play reveals to the very depths the character of Blanche du Bois, a woman whose life has been undermined by her romantic illusions, which lead her to reject—so far as possible—the realities [...]

An aristocratic Russian family tries to hold on in challenging economic times, hoping to preserve a way of life amidst the inevitable pressures of “progress.”

The play depicts the events leading up to the planned execution of an 18-year-old IRA member in a Belfast jail, accused of killing an Ulster policeman.

In a plantation house, a family celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of their "Big Daddy"

A piece about addiction and the resulting dysfunction of the family, Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical play Long Day’s Journey into Night is regarded as his finest work. First [...]

Based on the Greek tragedy of Antigone, who tried to bury her brother's corpse against the diktat of her uncle, Creon.

Artie Shaugnessy is a songwriter with visions of glory. Toiling by day as a zookeeper, he suffers in seedy lounges by night, plying his wares at piano bars in Queens, New York.

This adaptation is an action-packed, blood-soaked retelling of Bram Stoker's classic tale of horror.