Broadway Theatre Archive

Donald Moffat stars in Moliere's classic comedy about lovable scoundrel Tartuffe, who befriends the wealthy Orgon and then attempts to seduce both his new friend's wife and daughter in this TV presentation from the Broadway Theatre Archive. Tartuffe pretends to be a pious man whose faith convinces Orgon and his family to succumb to his influence, but he's undone when his womanizing ways make it clear that his piety is a charade.

A Danish prince and university student avenges his father's murder by his uncle, who stole the crown and married his mother.

Oscar Wilde's five years at hard labor in Reading Gaol where he was imprisoned for being a sodomite.

A dramatization of the 1865 war-crimes trial of Henry Wirz, commandant of the notorious Confederate POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia.

Norman Lloyd directed this televised production of Jean Renoir's World War II-era play. Taking place backstage at a theatrical performance in Nazi-occupied France, Carola is a tale of passion and intrigue that involves a beautiful stage actress and her emotional and psychological struggles over a Nazi officer, whom she is entangled in an affair with, and a Resistance leader whom she is hiding. Featuring Leslie Caron as Carola, the play also stars Mel Ferrer, Albert Paulsen, Michael Sacks, Carmen Zapata, and Anthony Zerbe.

An aging Southern Belle complicates life for her ambitious son and crippled daughter because of her own warped views of what life should be.

This charming musical comedy, set in turn-of-the-century Paris and based on George Feydeau's classic romp, "Tailleur Pour Dames," turns on a case of mistaken identity, chance meetings and deceptions big and small. Starring Charlotte Rae and Max Wright, this performance was taped in front of a live audience in New York, and was originally broadcast in 1974 as part of the Broadway Theater Archive's efforts to bring stage productions to television.

Real-life couple Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson star in this 1971 television adaptation of Murray Schisgal's moving play, in which married law student Paul Cunningham takes a job as a typist for an ad agency, where he meets lonely spinster Sylvia. Through a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, the story of their relationship and developing romance unfolds. Emmy Award winner Glenn Jordan directs this volume from the Broadway Theater Archive.

While at an impromptu reunion lunch, five women reminisce and relive their college days at Mount Holyoke, and weigh their goals and aspirations against their lives.

Set in ancient Japan, Rashomon follows the aftermath of a bandit’s attack on a warrior and his wife, as the bandit, the wife, the husband, and a woodcutter each offer different versions of what happened. Directed for "Play of the Week" by Sidney Lumet, the production uses the story’s shifting testimonies to examine truth, self-image, violence, and moral uncertainty.

In this rousing satire a native upstate New York clerk comes to 1920s Manhattan with dreams of making in big on Tin Pan Alley.

Truck driver Johnny Horton and cigarette girl Eadie elope after a hasty romance, but after the wedding, the couple realizes they don't know each other very well. Soon Johnny's overbearing mother becomes the third wheel in their marriage, threatening its fragile existence.

This 1977 drama by Phillip Hayes Dean, deals with the sad division between what a man hopes for and what he achieves. In the title role, Dick Anthony Williams portrays a naïve, ambitious, recklessly optimistic man who is not understood by those closest to him and who finds himself in difficulty because of his unrealistic hopes.

Willy Loman is an over-the-hill salesman who faces a personal turning point when he loses his job and attempts to make peace with his family: Willy's long-suffering wife Linda, and Biff and Happy, his troubled sons and his life.

As a young child, Frederic had been apprenticed to a pirate by mistake when he should have been apprenticed to a pilot. Now, having reached his 21st year, Frederic's indentures are at last over and he happily leaves the service of the pirates. When Frederic meets the beautiful Mabel, one of the many daughters (or wards in Chancery) of Major-General Stanley, they fall in love and decide to marry. However, complications arise when the pirates decide to marry the rest of the Major-General's daughters, themselves - and Frederic's birthdate turns out to be not all it seems. Filmed live from Central Park prior to the production's transition to Broadway.

From the elaborate Broadway revival of the 1932 Eva Le Gallienne/Florida Friebus production comes a whimsical retelling of the Lewis Carroll classic.

The Bergers, a blue-collar Jewish family living in an overstuffed tenement and undone by the Depression, struggle through hard times and dream of a better future in this 1972 production of Clifford Odets' pungent play. Personalities and politics clash as Odets' mélange of characters try to survive on pennies a day. Walter Matthau plays cynical World War I amputee Moe Axelrod, and Leo Fuchs portrays the family's iron-willed leftist grandfather.

Theodore Hickman, a hardware salesman, makes semi-annual visits to Harry Hope's 1910-era waterfront bar for his periodical drinking binges. But on this visit he has decided to try to save the bar's patrons from their "lying pipe dreams."

William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning play revolves around the denizens of a San Francisco bar in 1939. Lonely, lovelorn, weary or cynical, the characters drift in and out of the bar and each other's lives, giving voice to Saroyan's philosophies as they randomly comment about the impending world war, the beauty of art, and traditional notions of good and evil. At least one of the relationships stands a chance of enduring: a brawny innocent named Tom is falling in love with a vulnerable young prostitute named Kitty. Saroyan himself is heard reciting the play's prologue.

David Storey's adaptation of his award winning play for the BBC's Play for Today series.