On the darkest night of the year—December 21, 1865—a humble Victorian shop becomes the unlikely setting for a thrilling adventure. At its center is the real-life hat of Charles Dickens, once used to carry water to train wreck victims. When two thieves plot to steal the hat, young Kit embarks on an unforgettable journey to stop their scheme and rescue her father from debtors’ prison.
Set in the heart of 19th-century London, MR. DICKENS’ HAT is a witty and heartfelt play-with-songs that blends Dickensian storytelling with playful theatricality. Featuring nine original “Victorian carols” and a diverse cast of colorful characters, it offers a suspenseful, sentimental, and joy-filled tale perfect for winter programming. Not a Christmas show per se—but rich with the warmth, wonder, and generosity audiences seek each December.
Indiana Jones meets Around the World in 80 Days in this fantastical romcom! Dylan likes his safe life, working at an insurance company and living with his wheelchair-bound aunt. Then he meets Chris, a young woman of boundless energy, who’s convinced magic is real and the last of it may be found at the world’s most remote places, the Poles of Inaccessibility. Fate intervenes and Dylan must circle the globe with Chris on an epic journey of discovery, comedy, danger, and love.
New York City, 1959. Fading vaudeville comic Chick Sherman, along with his long-suffering agent, tries to revive his career with a role in an avant-garde off-Broadway play. While his grown daughter searches for answers from her absentee showbiz father, a lifetime of private and professional struggles rise to the surface, cracking the polished public persona of the world’s favorite former “funny man.”
During the Chinese Exclusion Act, Harry Chin, a Chinese national, entered the U.S. by buying forged documentation. Like other “Paper Sons,” Harry lived the rest of his life keeping secrets—even from his daughter. Told through the eyes of a middle-aged Chin, THE PAPER DREAMS OF HARRY CHIN reveals the complicated loves and regrets of this Chinese immigrant. Through dreamlike leaps of time and space and with the powerful assistance of ghosts, the story of the Chin family reveals the personal and political repercussions of making groups of people “illegal”.
Ten years after a vicious, and ultimately tragic, high school football hazing in the small Texas Panhandle town of Calhoun, a social media frenzy rips open old wounds, pitting brother against brother and pulling those involved back together, whether they like it or not. When truths are exposed, things finally begin to make sense, allowing some to heal, while others would rather keep buried what has long been buried.
At a church-sponsored halfway house in Western North Carolina, the arrival of a charismatic high-school English teacher shakes up the household dynamic, leading to new friendships, routines, and intrigues. As romantic rivalries and racial tensions escalate, the house’s residents and two founders—a taciturn, broad-minded minister and an idealistic social worker—must confront their own failings and the limits of their mission.
It’s the day before Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, and her son, the playboy Prince of Wales, arrives at 221B Baker Street pursued by Anarchist assassins. The greatest chef in the world, Auguste Escoffier, also arrives, his career about to be shattered by blackmail and scandal. This action-filled tale of royal debauchery, priceless gems, and gourmet food will provide Dr. Watson with the material for Sherlock Holmes’ most bizarre and tastiest case.
A lively and heartfelt play with music about holding on to what truly matters. Set at Riverdale Manor, a cozy retirement community in the Bronx, our senior friends share their thoughts on love, loss, and new beginnings later in life—wondering if a broken heart can really be the end, if divorce is worth it after decades together, and when the right moment is to enjoy intimacy again. A talent show (with the promise of cake for dessert) becomes the backdrop for a series of poignant and humorous vignettes celebrating the sweetness, freedom, and discovery of these years.
Saying “I do” was the easy part – this hilarious commentary on commitment is every bride’s worst nightmare. Disaster after disaster follows her down the aisle, from brutally honest boozy speeches to a totally incompetent wedding planner and friends too preoccupied to help with the wreckage around them. A wildly funny play about love, relationship, expectations, and the courage it takes to find what truly makes us happy.
THE VAGRANT TRILOGY consists of three plays: The Hour of Feeling, The Vagrant, and Urge for Going. In part one, The Hour of Feeling, (1967) we meet Adham, a hot young scholar back from university in Cairo, readying himself to go to London to give a talk. He marries a girl from the village and takes her with him, and when war breaks out at home, the two near-strangers must decide what to do. The second play in the trilogy, The Vagrant, finds Adham and Abir nearly 20 years later (1982), divorced, him teaching at a humble college in London. Adham’s hopes for professorship are tested when both “homes”—England and Palestine—flare up with political violence, and the compartmentalization he’s built around himself in order to survive starts to crumble. The third play, Urge for Going, finds a completely different Adham and Abir, representing a different fork in the road taken back in 1967. We see them in a modern-day refugee camp in Lebanon, with a daughter (Jamila) determined to break out of the endless stasis of her family’s life.
