The Rainmaker

Anonymous

Set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I, and the Essex Rebellion against her, the story advances the theory that it was in fact Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford who penned Shakespeare's plays.

Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself - The Play

When Madea gets sick, her family comes to her aid. What they don't realize is that they're the ones who need her help. As always, Madea's cockeyed outlook on life saves the day and guarantees side-splitting laughs along the way.

Shimmer

The solo actor in Shimmer tells the story by becoming each character in turn. The play takes place in 1956, in a harsh Midwestern juvenile detention center, where two boys befriend each other.

National Theatre Live: Man and Superman

Academy Award® nominee Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler’s List, Oedipus at the National Theatre) plays Jack Tanner in this exhilarating reinvention of Shaw’s witty, provocative classic. Jack Tanner, celebrated radical thinker and rich bachelor, seems an unlikely choice as guardian to the alluring heiress, Ann. But she takes it in her assured stride and, despite the love of a poet, she decides to marry and tame this dazzling revolutionary. Tanner, appalled by the whiff of domesticity, is tipped off by his chauffeur and flees to Spain, where he is captured by bandits and meets The Devil. An extraordinary dream-debate, heaven versus hell, ensues. Following in hot pursuit, Ann is there when Tanner awakes, as fierce in her certainty as he is in his. A romantic comedy, an epic fairytale, a fiery philosophical debate, Man and Superman asks fundamental questions about how we live.

The Little Minister

In rural 1840's Scotland, Gavin Dishart arrives to become the new "little minister" of Thrums's Auld Licht church. He meets a mysterious young gypsy girl in the dens and to his horror Babbie draws him into her escape from the soldiers after she incites a Luddite riot. But unknown to Gavin, Babbie is more than she seems. And they must overcome her secret, the villagers' fears of her, and worst of all, Gavin's devotion to his mother's sensibilities, before they can openly declare their love.

Shirin

A hundred and fourteen famous Iranian theater and cinema actresses and a French star: mute spectators at a theatrical representation of Khosrow and Shirin, a Persian poem from the twelfth century, put on stage by Kiarostami. The development of the text -- long a favorite in Persia and the Middle East -- remains invisible to the viewer of the film, the whole story is told by the faces of the women watching the show.

National Theatre Live: Everyman

Everyman is successful, popular and riding high when Death comes calling. He is forced to abandon the life he has built and embark on a last, frantic search to recruit a friend, anyone, to speak in his defence. But Death is close behind, and time is running out. One of the great primal, spiritual myths, Everyman asks whether it is only in death that we can understand our lives. A cornerstone of English drama since the 15th century, it now explodes onto the stage in a startling production with words by Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate, and movement by Javier De Frutos.

Century of Birthing

An artist struggles to finish his work while a storyline about a cult plays in his head. As the cult spirals towards a fundamentalism that will destroy the world, the artist decides to destroy his muse to redeem the world.

Les Justes

Today, immense confusion reigns over the quest for the absolute, revolt and fury, violence and its appendages. And many people plunge back in Albert Camus' work to find answers. In the foreword to his play, the philosopher and writer summarizes the intrigue as follows: "In February 1905, in Moscow, a group of terrorists, belonging to the Socialist Revolutionary Party, organized a bomb attack against the Grand Duke Serge, Tsar's uncle ”. The rapper and slammer Abd Al Malik offers with this "musical tragedy" a contemporary staging of "The Just", a complete creation, faithful to the text of Camus, but reinventing a scenic and musical language resolutely inscribed in our time.

National Theatre Live: Barber Shop Chronicles

For generations, African men have gathered in barber shops to discuss the world. These are places where the banter can be barbed and the truth is always telling. Follow along as we leap from a barber shop in Peckham to Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos and Accra over the course of a single day.

The Penthouse

A married man and his young mistress suffer sadistic torture when Tom, Dick and Harry invade their penthouse.

Inferno

The TV-play from the set of Inferno at "Strindbergs Intima Teater", directed by Anna Pettersson and with Siri Hamari in the role of Strindberg, is a lively tale of boundless dreams and frightening fantasies. With the help of magic, music effects and film, Strindberg's portrayal of the creative crisis and the search for new forms. During Strindberg's chaotic time in France and Austria in 1894-1896, his so-called Inferno year, he performed alchemical experiments, tore his hands and suffered hallucinations. In the village where he closes in, he is called the cuckoo. In another country, a little daughter is waiting for her father. This version has been called an "age performance", performing arts that suit all ages. And the finely nuanced and detailed presentation would surely have appealed to the scientist Strindberg.

National Theatre Live: John

Lloyd Newson interviewed more than 50 men asking them frank questions, initially about love and sex. One of those men was John.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

A fading actor best known for his portrayal of a popular superhero attempts to mount a comeback by appearing in a Broadway play. As opening night approaches, his attempts to become more altruistic, rebuild his career, and reconnect with friends and family prove more difficult than expected.

L'Amour fou

A troubled marriage is tested by the couple's involvement in a theatrical production of Racine’s Andromaque.

Convicted

A criminologist investigates the murder of a Broadway producer on an ocean liner.

On purge bébé

Audience

A recording of the legendary production “Audience“ from the Prague Drama Club with Josef Abrhám and Pavel Landovský. In 1975, Václav Havel worked as a labourer in the brewery in Trutnov; he could do nothing else. And it was here that he made perhaps his most successful one-act play, Audience, about the writer Ferdinand Vanek, who is invited by his superior to offer him a deal - a promotion to warehouse keeper, but in return has to inform on himself for StB reports.

Timon of Athens

Timon loves to give parties and objects to friends, but when he cannot pay his creditors, his "friends" refuse to help him, and he becomes a misanthropic hermit.