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Recommendations based on The Elephant Manby Bernard Pomerance
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Arsenic and Old Lace
by Joseph Kesselring
Dark comedic tale of two elderly sisters who commit murder out of kindness.
The play is a farcical black comedy revolving around the Brewster family, descended from the, Mayflower, settlers but now composed of maniacs, most of them homicidal. The hero, Mortimer Brewster, is ... (Wikipedia)
Steel Magnolias
by Robert Harling
A group of Southern women bond and support each other through life's joys and tragedies.
Presents the script of a 1988 play about a group of women in Chinquapin, Louisiana, who learn to draw upon their underlying strength and love to meet the challenges of life. ... (Goodreads)
Fiddler on the Roof
by Joseph Stein
A poor Jewish milkman in pre-revolutionary Russia tries to uphold his traditions and marry off his daughters.
The full text and complete lyrics, as well as photographs from the original production. One of the great works of the American musical theatre. It is darling, touching, beautiful, warm, funny and ... (Goodreads)
A Streetcar Named Desire
by Tennessee Williams
A woman's struggle to come to terms with her past and present in a post-war New Orleans.
After the loss of her family home to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from the small town of Laurel, Mississippi , to the New Orleans French Quarter to live with her younger married sister, Stella , ... (Wikipedia)
Doubt, a Parable
by John Patrick Shanley
A priest's moral dilemma as he faces accusations of inappropriate behavior.
The play is set in the fictional St. Nicholas Church School, in the Bronx , during the fall of 1964. It opens with a sermon by Father Flynn, a beloved and progressive parish priest, addressing the ... (Wikipedia)
Wit
by Margaret Edson
A professor's journey of self-discovery as she faces her own mortality.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, and the Oppenheimer Award,Margaret Edson’s ... (Goodreads)
Perestroika
by Tony Kushner
A powerful look at the impact of political upheaval on the lives of ordinary people.
Set in New York City, the play takes place between October 1985 and February 1986. , The play begins with the funeral of Sarah Ironson, an elderly Jewish woman, whose rabbi eulogizes not only her, ... (Wikipedia)
The Odd Couple
by Neil Simon
Two mismatched roommates, one neat and one messy, struggle to coexist in a small New York City apartment.
Comedy / 6m, 2f / Int. This classic comedy opens as a group of the guys assembled for cards in the apartment of divorced Oscar Madison. And if the mess is any indication, it's no wonder that his wife ... (Goodreads)
Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton
Tale of doomed romance set against a harsh New England winter.
The novel is a framed narrative . The framing story concerns an unnamed male narrator spending a winter in Starkfield while in the area on business. He spots a limping, quiet man around the village, ... (Wikipedia)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
by Tennessee Williams
A family struggling to confront hidden resentments and repressions that lurk beneath the surface.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the story of a Southern family in crisis, especially the husband Brick and wife Margaret (usually called Maggie or "Maggie the Cat"), and their interaction with Brick's ... (Wikipedia)
Proof
by David Auburn
A young woman struggles to prove her mathematical genius, while dealing with a troubled past.
The play concerns Catherine, the daughter of Robert, a recently deceased mathematical genius in his fifties and professor at the University of Chicago , and her struggle with mathematical genius and ... (Wikipedia)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
by Edward Albee
A darkly comedic exploration of a troubled couple's tumultuous marriage.
George and Martha engage in dangerous emotional games. George is an associate professor of history and Martha is the daughter of the president of the college where George teaches. After they return ... (Wikipedia)
'night, Mother
by Marsha Norman
A mother and daughter grapple with the consequences of a mother's impending suicide.
',night, Mother, is a taut and fluid drama that addresses different emotions and special relations. By one of America's most talented playwrights, this play won the Dramatists Guild's prestigious ... (Goodreads)
August: Osage County
by Tracy Letts
A darkly comic and dramatic family reunion, exposing dysfunction and tensions.
The action takes place over the course of several weeks in August inside the three-story home of Beverly and Violet Weston outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma . Prologue The play opens with Beverly Weston, a ... (Wikipedia)
Pygmalion / My Fair Lady
by George Bernard Shaw
A phonetics professor transforms a Cockney flower girl into a refined lady, but struggles with the consequences of his experiment.
George Orwell claimed that "The central plot of Shaw's play, Pygmalion , is lifted out of Peregrine Pickle [by Tobias Smollett ], and I believe that no one has ever pointed this out in print, which ... (Wikipedia)
Angels in America
by Tony Kushner
Epic story of America in the midst of the AIDS crisis, exploring themes of identity, loss, and hope.
Set in New York City, the play takes place between October 1985 and February 1986. , The play begins with the funeral of Sarah Ironson, an elderly Jewish woman, whose rabbi eulogizes not only her, ... (Wikipedia)
Inherit the Wind
by Jerome Lawrence
A courtroom drama about a teacher accused of violating a law against teaching evolution.
A meaningful play based on the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, in which a Tennessee teacher was tried for teaching evolution. The accused was a slight, frightened man who'd deliberately broken the law. ... (Goodreads)
West Side Story
by Irving Shulman
A modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1950s New York City, exploring the rivalry between two street gangs and the love between their members.
From the silver screen to the Great White Way—one of the greatest stories of all time.,They came together through love but violence threatened to tear them apart. Maria was young and innocent and had ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Children's Hour
by Lillian Hellman
A lie told by a student leads to the destruction of two women's lives and their school.
This is a serious and adult play about two women who run a school for girls. After a malicious youngster starts a rumour about the two women, the rumour soon turns into a scandal. As the young girl ... (Goodreads)
A Doll's House
by Henrik Ibsen
A woman's struggle to break from societal expectations and find her own identity.
A Doll's House (1879), is a masterpiece of theatrical craft which, for the first time portrayed the tragic hypocrisy of Victorian middle class marriage on the stage. The play ushered in a new social ... (Goodreads)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
by Stephen Sondheim
A vengeful barber and his accomplice bake their victims into pies in 19th century London.
According to legend, Sweeney Todd had his barber shop at number 186 Fleet Street, next door to St. Dunstan's Church, just a few blocks away from the Royal Courts of Justice. On this site, they say, ... (Goodreads)
The Black Stallion
by Walter Farley
A young boy's friendship with a wild horse, overcoming challenges and finding courage.
Published originally in 1941, this book is about a young boy, Alec Ramsay who finds a wild black stallion at a small Arabian port on the Red Sea. Between the black stallion and young boy, a strange ... (Goodreads)
True West
by Sam Shepard
Two estranged brothers reunite and clash over their conflicting lifestyles and aspirations in the American West.
True West is about the sibling rivalry between two estranged brothers who have reconnected. The play begins with brothers Austin and Lee sitting in their mother's house. This is the first time ... (Wikipedia)
National Velvet
by Enid Bagnold
A young girl named Velvet trains a horse to win the Grand National race, defying gender norms and societal expectations.
National Velvet is the story of a 14-year-old girl named Velvet Brown, who trains and rides her horse, named The Piebald, to victory in the Grand National steeplechase . The novel focuses on the ... (Wikipedia)
Hedda Gabler
by Henrik Ibsen
A woman's struggle against societal expectations and a search for freedom.
Hedda, the daughter of an aristocratic and enigmatic general, has just returned to her villa in Kristiania (now Oslo) from her honeymoon. Her husband is George Tesman, a young, aspiring, and reliable ... (Wikipedia)
Long Day's Journey into Night
by Eugene O'Neill
Tragic story of a family's struggles with addiction, emotions and guilt.
Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night is regarded as his finest work. First published by Yale University Press in 1956, it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957 and has since ... (Goodreads)
The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes
by Adrian Conan Doyle
The classic detective stories of the world's greatest sleuth, Sherlock Holmes.
From the son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and one of America's greatest mystery writers, John Dickson Carr, comes twelve riveting tales based on incidents or elements of the unsolved cases of Sherlock ... (Goodreads)
The Pillowman
by Martin McDonagh
A darkly comic tale of a writer accused of murder, testing the limits of storytelling.
Ariel and Tupolski interrogate Katurian in a police room, adopting a good cop/bad cop routine with Ariel happily playing the bad cop. At first Katurian does not know why he is being questioned, and ... (Wikipedia)
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
by Ernest J. Gaines
The life story of a former slave, Jane Pittman, who lived through the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement.
Miss Jane Pittman. She is one of the most unforgettable heroines in American fiction, a woman whose life has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom, dignity, and justice. Ernest J. Gaines’s ... (Goodreads)
2001: A Space Odyssey
by Arthur C. Clarke
An interstellar journey of exploration, confronting humanity's place in the universe.
A mysterious alien civilization uses a tool with the appearance of a large crystalline monolith to investigate worlds across the galaxy and, if possible, to encourage the development of intelligent ... (Wikipedia)
