Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust I

True West

February 1984 •English

A screenwriter gets conned out of selling a script to a Hollywood producer by his brother, who pitches his own idea for a movie. This video recording of the 1982 Steppenwolf Theatre Company production was later broadcast by PBS.

Der Hauptmann von Köpenick

September 1997 •German

High School Musical

January 2006 •English

A popular high school athlete and an academically gifted girl get roles in the school musical and develop a friendship that threatens East High's social order.

The Best of Aldo Giovanni e Giacomo

December 2016 •Italian

The Gin Game

April 1981 •English

Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey, two elderly residents at a nursing home for senior citizens, strike up an acquaintance. Neither seems to have any other friends, and they start to enjoy each other's company. Weller offers to teach Fonsia how to play gin rummy, and they begin playing a series of games that Fonsia always wins. Weller's inability to win a single hand becomes increasingly frustrating to him, while Fonsia becomes increasingly confident. While playing their games of gin, they engage in lengthy conversations about their families and their lives in the outside world. Gradually, each conversation becomes a battle, much like the ongoing gin games, as each player tries to expose the other's weaknesses, to belittle the other's life, and to humiliate the other thoroughly.

The Marriage of Figaro

December 1961 •French

Comedy in five acts by Beaumarchais, filmed by Marcel Bluwal in studio and on location. The cast, in accordance with Marcel Bluwal's wishes, is in keeping with the age and character of the characters, to give it rhythm. At once "a comic baroque play, a bourgeois drama, a chansonnier's number, a social satire, a farce and a very pretty love story" according to Marcel Bluwal, it can also be summed up, according to Beaumarchais, as "the most bantering of intrigues".

The Glass Menagerie

December 1966 •English

An aging Southern Belle makes life horrible for her ambitious son and crippled daughter because of her dreams of what life should be.

The Phantom of the Opera

June 1991 •English

A comedy musical stage version of the Phantom of the Opera, filmed live on-stage during a performance in Florida.

La Cerisaie

January 1982 •French

Rattlesnake in a Cooler

January 1982 •English

A one act play about a young doctor who ditches his safe middle-class existence to become a cowboy out West. His cowboy fantasy eventually breaks down.

Christmas Encore

December 2017 •English

A struggling actress is cast in her last off (off) Broadway show - a modern take on “A Christmas Carol” - before giving up her dream and moving home. Instead, she finds romance with her director and a renewed passion for her craft and the city. But when the historic theater loses its lease and the show is set to fold, she and her cast mates are need of a Christmas miracle.

Derren Brown: Infamous

September 2014 •English

Multi award-winning psychological illusionist Derren Brown returns in the recording of his acclaimed live show ‘Infamous’. Featuring Derren at his baffling best with the excitement of a live theatre audience, Infamous includes amazing, provocative, jaw dropping demonstrations of his incredible skills of magic, suggestion, showmanship and misdirection in a must-watch roller coaster of emotions.

Le Médecin malgré lui

August 1973 •French

The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil

June 1974 •English

In their songs, comedy and exuberant music, a travelling theatre company give a fiercely polemic account of Scottish history, from the aftermath of Culloden to the oil boom. Their production before a live audience is intercut with filmed reconstructions of the Highland Clearances and the Victorian obsession with hunting stags.

Kiss Me, Kate

November 1958 •English

Broadcast live on the Hallmark Hall of Fame series on NBC, a pair of divorced actors are brought together to participate in a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, the couple seem to act a great deal like the characters they play, and they must work together when mistaken identities get them mixed up with the mafia.

Iphigénie

July 1968 •French

On the shores of Aulis, the Greeks prepare to attack Troy. But their ships are unable to set sail because the gods are holding back the winds necessary for departure. Agamemnon consults the oracle. The solution is tragic. To appease the goddess Artemis, whom he had offended, he must sacrifice his own daughter.

Christmas at the Cupiello Household

December 1977 •Italian

Luca Cupiello, like every Christmas, prepares the crib, amid the disinterest of his wife Concetta and his son Tommasino. Ninuccia, the other daughter, writes a letter to her husband in which she communicates that she leaves him for her lover. The letter happens in the hands of Luca who hands it over to his son-in-law, who thus learns of his wife's betrayal. During lunch on Christmas Eve, the two rivals, who were confronted by Luca's carelessness, clash violently.

Tío Vania

March 1969 •Spanish

La Seconde Surprise de l'amour

December 2008 •French

Kiss Me, Petruchio

January 1981 •English

A documentary about the 1978 stage production of The Taming of the Shrew by the New York City Shakespeare company at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. Includes scenes from the production, interviews with Meryl Streep (Kate) and Raul Julia (Petruchio) as well as an introduction by producer Joseph Papp and audience commentary.