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Peg O' My Heart
Otterbein University
Peg, a poor Irish girl living in New York, becomes an heiress by the death of her uncle, and is called to England to be reared by an aritocratic aunt. She is like a duck out of water in these surroundings, but she wins her way and also a worthy Englishman named Jerry. An early 20th-century long-running Broadway hit that featured Laurette Taylor in a star-making performance as 'Peg'.
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Dark Victory
Otterbein University
Judith Traherne is a Long Island socialite whose life is spent in frivolous, hedonistic pastimes. She indulges in alcohol and cigarettes, and enjoys horse riding. She experiences dizziness and headaches, and after an uncharacteristic riding accident, she is referred to a specialist, Dr. Frederick Steele. Steele is in the midst of closing his New York City office in preparation of a move to Brattleboro, Vermont, where he plans to devote his time to brain cell research. He reluctantly agrees to see Judith, who is initially antagonistic towards him. She shows signs of short-term memory loss, but dismisses these and other symptoms. Steele convinces her the ailments she is experiencing are serious and potentially life-threatening, and puts his career plans on hold to tend to her. Steele finds that she has an inoperable brain tumor, and predicts she has only a year to live. Shortly after becoming blind, she will die. Judith falls in love with the idealistic doctor, and they enjoy a brief respite in the Vermont countryside before she faces imminent death. She comes to the realization that their relationship has brought meaning to the life she had been leading.
Wikipedia contributors. (2019, July 13). Dark Victory (play). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:15, August 15, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dark_Victory_(play)&oldid=906017893
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Out of the Frying Pan
Otterbein University
Three young men and three young women share an apartment in all innocence; they are would be stage folk and they are doing this for economic security. Their apartment is immediately above that of a Broadway producer who is about to cast a road company. They rehearse the play but how can they get him upstairs to see it? It happens that the producer is an amateur chef and, right in the middle of a culinary concoction, he runs out of flour. He comes upstairs to borrow a cup. At last the kids have him and they aren't going to let him go until he sees some evidence of their ability so they stage a murder. It is so realistic that police swarm into the scene with hilarious results.
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Mr. Pim Passes By
Otterbein University
In A. A. Milne's comic novel, Mr Pim Passes By, chaos prevails when the absent minded Mr Pim calls in to see George Marden, owner of Marden House. George is a fine upstanding citizen and a stickler for doing the right thing. He has a devoted wife, Olivia, and is ward to his somewhat flighty niece, Dinah. Quite innocently, Mr Pim upsets the equilibrium of the Marden household when he casually announces that he’s recently seen an ex-convict from Australia, named Telworthy. This character sounds awfully like Olivia’s first and supposedly deceased husband and if he's really still alive, then Olivia is a bigamist!
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/a-a-milne/mr-pim-passes-by/9781509869602
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
Otterbein University
In one of the most famous of literary love quadrangles, A Midsummer Night’s Dream tells the tale of Hermia, Demetrius, Lysander, and Helena; four misguided lovers whose journey into the woods lands them in even more trouble, as members of the fairy kingdom decide to use them as veritable pawns in their own love games. Against the backdrop of the wedding of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta, and the fiery battle of wills between the Fairy King and Queen, Oberon and Titania, the four lovers are challenged by magic and trickery to finally work out what love is all about.
https://stageagent.com/shows/play/450/a-midsummer-nights-dream
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The Merry Wives of Windsor
Otterbein University
Falstaff decides to fix his financial woe by seducing the wives of two wealthy merchants. The wives find he sent them identical letters and take revenge by playing tricks on Falstaff when he comes calling. With the help of their husbands and friends, the wives play one last trick in the woods to put Falstaff's mischief to an end.
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Each In His Time
Otterbein University
The Commencement play "Each In His Time" written by Evelyn Edwards Bale (Class of 1930) and Dr. Robert Price and produced by Professor J. F. Smith (Class of 1910) was one of the high points in the Centennial celebration. Characters of the early years in Otterbein's life were made to live again and to speak the language of their generations. Especially painted scenery and authentic costumes added much to the settings.
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Papa Is All
Otterbein University
A cheerful comedy about the Pennsylvania Dutch. Papa's an ugly tempered tyrant with religious scruples against conveniences and pleasures of all kinds. Emma, the daughter, is in love with a surveyor who wants to marry her. Son Jake wants to simplify farm life by the installation of machinery. Mama, though resigned to accepting Papa's word, is wistful for the friendly association with neighbors that's part of even the most orthodox Mennonite life. The offspring suspect Papa's scruples are merely a way of keeping them as the farm's forced slave labor. Emma with Mama's connivance steals off to a movie with her surveyor, but Papa finds out and in a rage goes off to shoot the surveyor. The family realizes something must be done about Papa and then the car Papa's in enroute to his shooting is wrecked and Papa happily disappears. How Papa is finally done in unfolds at the end.
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Laura
Otterbein University
When Mark McPherson first falls in love with Laura, he knows he's in love with a phantom—for Laura is dead, and he's in charge of her murder investigation. From her portrait, her letters, her personal effects and from his contacts with the three men who loved her, Mark has created an image of a woman tantalizingly alive and real. When she appears in the midst of a thunderstorm, very much alive after all, it is revealed that Laura's best friend (and rival) was the true victim of the crime. But now, all evidence seems to point to Laura's guilt. Despite his growing love for her—a love which Laura seems to return—Mark is about to pin the crime on her, when the real murderer appears and tries to do away with the girl he meant to kill in the first place—Laura.
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Our Town
Otterbein University
This edition of the play differs only slightly from previous acting editions, yet it presents Our Town as Thornton Wilder wished it to be performed. Described by Edward Albee as “…the greatest American play ever written,” 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 manager and performed with minimal props and sets, audiences follow the Webb and Gibbs families as their children fall in love, marry, and eventually – in one of the most famous scenes in American theatre – die. Thornton Wilder’s final word on how he wanted his play performed is an invaluable addition to the American stage and to the libraries of theatre lovers internationally.
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Deep Are The Roots
Otterbein University
The play tells the story of Brett Charles, a decorated African-American lieutenant in the U.S. Army, who returns to his small hometown in the Deep South at the end of World War II. Brett has been treated like an equal in Europe, with men under his command, and slipping back into the shuffling role of "boy" is not something he's about to do. The liberal-minded Alice Langdon, daughter of a conservative U.S. senator, has been Brett's champion throughout his life, and she has plans for him to go to college in the North. Brett prefers to stay, however, and work to better his community. Alice's younger sister, Genevra (Nevvy for short), who grew up with Brett, is happy that he's remaining, though she doesn't initially understand that it's because she loves him. Brett returns the feeling, but the bond is unarticulated until events force Nevvy and Brett to share their emotions. When Alice realizes the situation, her patronizing façade crumbles, and she joins in her father's already hatched plot to destroy Brett, whose efforts to combat segregation anger the senator. Also important are Alice's beau Howard, a Northern writer, and Brett's mother, Bella, the Langdons' housekeeper.
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/ny-review-deep-roots-53483/
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But Not Goodbye
Otterbein University
The entire action of the play takes place between 7 and 9:30 in the evening of a summer in 1910. Sam Griggs dies in the first act. Immediately Sam's spirit, however, descends to the living room in great anxiety, because Sam has passes on not only leaving his wife and daughter penniless but having misappropriated his son's savings for a speculative venture. Moreover, he has kept his speculation a secret and the real estate investment has been made in the name of his partner. Sam, in the living room, encounters the spirit of his father, who had been killed in a tavern brawl when he was 38. Sam's father urges Sam to leave, because funerals are depressing, and tells him that his family will be all right; but Sam's conscience bothers him so much he must remain until things are straightened out.
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The Fool
Otterbein University
This play made theatrical history. Presented simultaneously by six companies in America and two in England; enthusiastically endorsed by schools and churches, it has been read or witnessed by millions of people, all over the world, and is still on the "required reading" list of colleges and universities. It deals with a young clergyman who resolves to try "What would happen now-a-days to a man who lived like Christ?" Through a series of intensely dramatic incidents, he learns that such a man might lose the world, but would find happiness. The incident of the healing of the little crippled girl, Mary Margaret, through faith, drew tears from many thousands of experienced theater-goers.
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The Butter and Egg Man
Otterbein University
One of the most popular Broadway successes. A delightful satirical comedy about a seemingly simple country boy who came to New York and broke into the play producing game. But the young "butter-and-egg man" is somewhat more astute than he looks, and in the end is instrumental in turning a "flop" into what is known in the game as a "wow." The plot rises to the heights of satirical comedy in the second act where the production is discussed by the cast and backers. The play starts out with a tremendous stride and continues right up to the fall of the last curtain. A sparkling comedy.
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My Man Godfrey
Otterbein University
In the depths of the Depression, Godfrey, a "forgotten man," is rescued from his packing-crate home by ditzy socialite Irene Bullock during the course of a scavenger hunt. Irene offers Godfrey a job as butler to the banking family of Bullocks. Godfrey tolerates their eccentricities, alcoholism and general nuttiness. He cures hangovers, dodges missiles thrown by Irene's jealous sister, Cornelia, and charms matronly Angelica Bullock, who sees pixies every morning. Irene and Molly, the pert Irish maid, both fall in love with Godfrey, but for Irene it's serious—and she's determined to get her man. Falsely accused by Cornelia of stealing the famous Bullock Pearls ("de bullock boils" according to the detective on the case), Godfrey uses the opportunity to recover his personal finances—and, when the Bullocks end up going broke, he rescues them by getting them all (gasp!) jobs in The Dump, a new nightclub Godfrey has built to provide work for his friends and for the Bullocks, too. Finally, Irene weds her man Godfrey, and it all works out in the end. First published as a serial in Liberty magazine, the story was later issued as a hugely successful novel, My Man Godfrey. Author Eric S. Hatch was summoned to Hollywood to write the screenplay for the famous 1936 screwball comedy, with help from Morrie Ryskind. The film starred Carol Lombard and William Powell and the script was nominated for an Academy Award. Godfreyhas endured all these years because it has a serious social theme anchoring a wacky screwball comedy. The theme is simple: a job dignifies and provides purpose in life; without it you're a bum on the one hand or an empty socialite on the other. This theme powers the work but never obtrudes, never sets back the romantic screwball comedy that is My Man Godfrey.
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On Whitman Avenue
Otterbein University
A black family meets strong opposition, and only limited support, when they move into a white neighborhood, in Maxine Wood's play.
http://www.playbill.com/production/on-whitman-avenue-cort-theatre-vault-0000003576
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Twelfth Night
Otterbein University
Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centers on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola (who is disguised as Cesario) falls in love with Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with the Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man. The play expanded on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of the occasion, with plot elements drawn from the short story "Of Apollonius and Silla" by Barnabe Rich, based on a story by Matteo Bandello. The first recorded performance was on 2 February 1602, at Candlemas, the formal end of Christmastide in the year's calendar. The play was not published until its inclusion in the 1623 First Folio.
Twelfth Night. (2017, September 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:28, September 26, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Twelfth_Night&oldid=801627056
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The Winslow Boy
Otterbein University
The action of the play takes place in the Winslow family home in Kensington, London, in the years immediately before the First World War. The fourteen-year-old Ronnie Winslow has been expelled from naval college, accused of the theft of a postal order. The boy remains adamant that he is innocent. Enraged, his father Arthur engages a leading lawyer, Sir Robert Morton, to challenge the Admiralty to prove the charges in court. The play follows Arthur’s attempts to clear his son’s name, even in the face of public opposition and weakening resolve. Each member of the family suffers as the case slowly unfolds, including Ronnie’s suffragette sister Catherine, who sacrifices her own happiness and ambition in the pursuit of justice for her brother.
https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/plays/the-winslow-boy-iid-153919
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John Loves Mary
Otterbein University
John Lawrence, who has been overseas three years, is welcomed home by the charming Mary McKinley. These two are and have been in love with each other. John's life had been saved while he was overseas by his buddy Fred Taylor. Fred returned home a year before John, and John brings him what should be a pleasant surprise—news that he has married Lily, an English girl Fred had fallen in love with and who could not hope to get to America for years unless as the wife of a G.I. John therefore marries her and plans to deliver her to Fred. John hopes to get a quick divorce from Lily and marry Mary. Mary and her family have, of course, no notion what has happened, and John is up against it when Mary and her family insist upon an immediate wedding. Matters are not helped when it is learned that Fred has, meantime, not only married but is an expectant father. John and Fred get in touch with a former officer of their acquaintance and have him pretend to call John for special extra service for six weeks out West. This plan also falls through, and in despair, Mary and her family agree that John has lost interest in his fiancee. Things look hopeless until it turns out that Lily was actually married to the same officer whom the boys have induced.
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The Corn is Green
Otterbein University
Miss Moffat settles in a remote Welsh mining village and starts a school for the local boys, one of whom, Morgan Evans, shows great promise. Miss Moffat determin's to do everything to help Morgan's application for a scholarship to Oxford. But Morgan rebels against help from a woman and falls prey to the flashy charms of Bessie Watty. His chances of success are almost destroyed but Miss Moffat's courageous wisdom and her affection for him win the day and Morgan wins the'scholarship.
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Goodbye, My Fancy
Otterbein University
A Broadway hit about a liberal Congresswoman who returns to her old school as an honorary visitor. Since her wartime experiences in Europe, she has devoted herself to the task of acquainting people with the horrors of war. That is why she has brought a documentary with her to be shown to the young graduates. The movie is considered harsh and improper by the trustees, so she has a fight on her hands. The conflict exposes the university president as a spineless and irresolute figure, instead of the upstanding and outspoken professor with whom Miss Reed thought she had been in love with for so many years. The disenchantment drives her into the arms of a wartime acquaintance who, as a photographer, has come to cover the event.
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The Miser
Otterbein University
Satire and farce blend in the fast-moving plot, as when the miser's hoard is stolen. Asked by the police magistrate whom he suspects, Harpagon replies, “Everybody! I wish you to take into custody the whole town and suburbs” and indicates the theatre audience while doing so. The play also makes fun of certain theatrical conventions, such as the spoken aside addressed to the audience, hitherto ignored by the characters onstage. The characters of L'Avare, however, generally demand to know who exactly is being spoken to.
The Miser. (2017, July 19). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:08, September 26, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Miser&oldid=791333332
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