Broadway Theatre Archive

On a Connecticut farm, James Mayo's two sons both love Ruth Atkins. Robert, the younger son, is sickly and dreams of escaping to a romantic life somewhere "beyond the horizon." Andy is hard-working and steadfast and loves his brother deeply. When Ruth reveals that she loves Robert and not, as everyone believed, Andy, Robert's plans to go to sea with his uncle are disrupted. He decides to stay at home and marry Ruth, while Andy, unwilling to remain close at hand as his brother marries the girl he loves, takes Robert's place on the voyage. This turn of events leads to heartache and tragedy for everyone involved.

Anton Chekhov's play "The Seagull" is brought to life in this acclaimed 1975 production directed by John Desmond. Seeking to reform the theater, Konstantin (Frank Langella) has written an experimental play with the lead to be acted by his beloved, Nina (Blythe Danner). He arranges the first performance to take place at a country estate, but the presence of his self-absorbed mother (Lee Grant) and her novelist lover disrupts the production.

Tandy, Merideth and assorted others unexpectedly wake up in a steambath with no easy exit. After spending some time there, it becomes clear that the steambath is a sort of Afterlife, where indifferent souls come to tell their stories to God who happens to be the attendant picking up the towels.

The powerful tales of seven diverse African-American women are woven together in this 1982 performance of Ntozake Shange's Obie Award-winning landmark play. A breakthrough portrayal of black women's experiences in America, the story combines music, poetry and dance to celebrate their unique culture while painting a poignant portrait of their terrible struggles.

A rehearsal is disrupted when six figures mysteriously appear on the stage, claiming to be fictional characters from an unfinished play searching for an author to tell their tragic story. An adaptation of the classic Luigi Pirandello play, updated to take place in a 1970s television studio.

Truck driver Johnny Horton and cigarette girl Eadie elope after a hasty romance, but after the wedding, the couple realizes they don't know each other very well. Soon Johnny's overbearing mother becomes the third wheel in their marriage, threatening its fragile existence.

A 1974 PBS production of Jean Anouilh's 1944 play "Antigone" adapted from the original Sophocles.

A television adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play about the Hubbards, a rich Southern family of greedy, ruthless individuals.

San Francisco's prize-winning American Conservatory Theater's rowdy commedia dell'arte production incorporates slapstick, pratfall and earthy humor into William Shakespeare's comedy about the two unmarried daughters of a wealthy Italian merchant. While daughter Bianca is genteel and popular, daughter Kate is foul-tempered and strong-willed. No one dares to marry Kate, until Petruchio arrives in Padua and tries his hand at courtship.

Meryl Streep stars as Alice in this production of Elizabeth Swados' musical, which was adapted from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Based on the acclaimed New York Shakespeare Festival production by Joseph Papp, Alice at the Palace follows Alice's surreal adventures with The Mad Hatter, The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts, and The Cheshire Cat, among many others.

An affluent suburban couple's empty and gin-fueled lives are observed through the eyes of their neglected, eight-year old daughter.

Adapted from Arthur Miller's play, film focuses on a group of Frenchmen who are detained at Vichy, the capital of France while under Nazi occupation, and "investigated" under suspicion of secretly being Jewish.

This Pirates of Penzance is primarily a historical document, part of the Broadway Theater Archive television series. It presents, with some inevitable, tiny technical shortcomings, a live 1980 performance in Central Park, not the 1983 movie of the same name that also starred Linda Ronstadt and Kevin Kline. Those who remember that film, which had the benefit of retakes and editing, a lavish production budget, and the spaciousness of a Hollywood studio, may find this video less polished. On its own terms, it is nonetheless thoroughly enjoyable.

The Last of Mrs. Lincoln depicts the final seventeen years of Mary Todd Lincoln's life, following her husband's assassination.

Cash Bentley and his wife Louise lead an average upper-middle-class life in suburbia, with a nice home and two fine children. But Cash grows increasingly unsettled in his life, yearning for the glories of his athletic youth and watching them fade further in the distance with accumulating age. Louise worries about him as his difficulties with mid-life pull him further away from happiness and comfort with his family.

In a sun-dappled garden in provincial Russia in 1905, some factory owners and their wives discuss the unrest among the workers. Rather than submit to a strike, they decide to close down the factory. When an owner is slain in a scuffle with a workman, the ensuing investigation uncovers the socialist fervor that is sweeping the countryside.

A fictitious but powerful look at the dawn of the nuclear age, this stage performance follows several government scientists as they develop the atomic bomb, grapple with the morality of their work, and confront major problems with their superiors. Written by award-winning playwright Loring Mandel, this riveting production stars Stacy Keach, Alice Drummond, Lois Smith, Clifton James and Verna Bloom.

Set in a Norwegian hamlet, an idealistic physician discovers that the town's hot springs are contaminated. But with the community relying on the spa for tourist dollars, his warning to the powers-that-be falls on deaf ears.

A humble and long-suffering New York waiter finally turns the tables on a regular, insufferable customer who delights in pestering him about the service. Based on the playwright’s personal experiences as a waiter at a resort in the Catskill Mountains.

Dramatist Luigi Pirandello's mordant comedy of manners tells the tale of upper-crust Italians Silia Gala and her sneering spouse, Leone, who finds his impassivity tested when he has to duel his wife's frustrated paramour.