Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known popularly by his stage name Molière, is regarded as one of the masters of French comedic drama. When Molière began acting in Paris there were two well-established theatrical companies, those of the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Marais. Joining these theatrical companies would have been impossible for a new member of the acting profession like Molière and thus he performed with traveling troupes of actors in the French...

Drawing room comedy exposing quirks and foibles of Victorian society with plot revolving around amorous pursuits of two men who face social obstacles when they woo young ladies of quality. This play's noted for its witty lines, its clever situations, and its satire on the British nobility and clergy.

All's Well That Ends Well (1607) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. All's Well That Ends Well was likely inspired by the tale of Giletta di Narbona from Boccaccio's Decameron. Unpopular during Shakespeare's lifetime, the play remains one of his least staged works to this day. Despite this, scholars praise All's Well That Ends Well for its moral ambiguity. "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together, our virtues would be proud...

Close friends Valentine and Proteus become rivals for the hand of Silvia, daughter of the Duke of Milan, who has promised her to the foolish coward Thurio. Proteus has Valentine banished, but Silvia escapes to the forest to join him. Proteus follows with Julia, who dotes on him. After a confrontation, the Duke eventually allows Valentine and Silvia to wed, and Proteus marries Julia.

This drama is about love and marriage. But the path to marriage in this play is unusually hazardous. ... To win Portia's hand, Bassanio must put his future at risk in an attempt to choose correctly among three caskets or chests of gold, silver, and lead. If he chooses rightly, he wins, in marriage, the beautiful, intelligent, and supremely resourceful Portia and her great wealth. If he chooses wrongly, he must forever abandon Portia and may never...

Background information about Shakespeare, Elizabethan theater, and the text accompany his play about unrequited love and mistaken identity.

In Neil Simon's darkly funny memoir of his family in 1930's Brooklyn, 14-year-old Eugene is preoccupied by his passion for the Yankees and his lust for his beautiful cousin. Eugene's comic growing pains contrast with the darker issues troubling his family: poverty, illness and the growing Nazi threat to relatives abroad. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Max Casella, Peter Michael Goetz, Valerie Harper, Alexana Lambros, Anna Sophie...

Troilus, a Trojan prince (son of Priam), woos Cressida, another Trojan. They profess their undying love, before Cressida is exchanged for a Trojan prisoner of war. As he attempts to visit her in the Greek camp, Troilus glimpses Diomedes flirting with his beloved Cressida, and decides to avenge her perfidy. The majority of the play revolves around the leaders of the Greek and Trojan forces, Agamemnon and Priam respectively. Agamemnon and his cohorts...

In the new Pelican Shakespeare series, each title is redesigned in an easy-to-read format that preserves the favorite features of the original, including an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare, an introduction to the individual play, and a note on the text used.