"[Our Town] leaves us with a sense of blessing, and the unspoken but palpable command to achieve gratitude in what remains of our days on earth." — The New Yorker

Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the mythical village of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire—an allegorical representation of all life—is an American classic. It is the simple story of a love affair that asks timeless

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Shakespeare's tragic drama about a Roman general tested by rioting, war, rejection-and his own all-consuming anger. Enraged by the withholding of food, the common people of the Roman Republic are rebelling against the elite. In this battle between plebeians and patricians, Caius Marcius has little patience for those he considers beneath him and his family. After his military victory in the city of Corioli, Marcius is given the nickname Coriolanus...

Sir John Falstaff, knowing that Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page control the money in their respective households, decides to seduce them, but they learn of his scheme and resolve to make a fool of him. A comic series of disguises and misadventures follows.

Although one of his lesser known plays, Shakespeare's considerable abilities as a playwright are readily apparent in "Troilus and Cressida." This historical and tragic 'problem play', thought to be inspired by Chaucer, Homer, and some of Shakespeare's history-recording contemporaries, is initially a tale of a man and woman in love during the Trojan War. When Cressida is given to the Greeks in exchange for a prisoner of war, Troilus is determined to...

Loyalty and Heredity-- King Henry VIII covers the period of Henry's reign from shortly after he becomes king to the birth of Elizabeth, who would one day become queen and for whom the play was written. The firing of a cannon during the very first performance of this play caused a fire that burnt the Globe theater to the ground. Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself. We may outrun By violent swiftness that which we run at,...

Algernon pretends to be Jack's troublesome younger brother, in Wilde's satirical assault on nineteenth-century fashions, manners, and morality.

In Jeffrey Archer's First Among Equals, Charles Seymour, second-born son, will never be the earl like his father, but he did inherit his mother's strength-and the will to realize his destiny... Simon Kerslake's father sacrificed everything to make sure his son's dreams come true. Now it is Simon's chance to rise as high as those dreams allow... Ray Gould was born to the back streets but raised with pride-a quality matched by a sharp intellect and...

The King of the Dark Chamber is a symbolic drama exploring themes of faith, power, citizenship, and love. Part meditation on human government, part reflection on humanity's connection to god, Tagore's play is a masterpiece of Indian literature. "My faith is, to go on obeying the King- it does not matter whether he is a real one or a pretender. What do we know of Kings that we should judge them! It is like throwing stones in the dark-you are almost...

"Measure for Measure," while listed among William Shakespeare's comedies, is doubtless among the darkest of his lighter works and remains one of the Bard's most popular plays. When the Duke of Vienna decides to go undercover in his own city, he leaves Angelo, his deputy, in charge and disguises himself as a monk to see how things progress in his absence. Angelo, who purports to be a man of honor and a stickler for the rules, arrests young Claudio...