American Playhouse

A literature professor falls for a student, leading to a relationship that is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally fraught, paralleling the Dostoevsky-inspired themes he lectures on.

In 1950s upstate New York, what begins as a trivial hardware store argument over a lit cigar and a non-smoking policy spirals into a bizarre, full-scale feud between neighboring communities. Despite growing tensions—and an eventual suspicious fire—the situation is heavily laced with dark comedy, as well as a Shakesperean-esque romance between the children of the warring sides.

A crippled dwarf is forced to become jester under a tyrannical king, but when the king abuses a beautiful dwarf with whom the jester is in love, the jester plots a terrible revenge.

Feeling insignificant, a housewife witnesses a murder in a parking lot, shoots the killer, and then turns herself in, leading to an interrogation that reveals her inner turmoil.

In 1902, a Gullah family on the Sea Islands off South Carolina decide whether to migrate to the mainland, risking their unique cultural heritage.

Young playwright Ödön von Horváth joins a colony of German artists who fled the Nazis in Los Angeles, observing their struggles and compromises.

A busload of women become stranded in an isolated part of the Canadian countryside. As they await rescue, they reflect on their lives through a mostly ad-libbed script.

An Army cameraman is embedded with a reconnaissance patrol and charts their mission across territory controlled by the North Vietnamese.

Isolated in his apartment, Truman Capote deals with the crisis of his friends turning on him following the publication of an excerpt from Answered Prayers.

Blending humor and tragedy, filmmaker Jan Oxenberg goes on a personal journey to process the aging and death of her grandmother.

Larry, a troubled teen living in the rough Red Hook section of Brooklyn, decides he wants out and turns to crime to fund his escape. But his plan involves scamming the neighborhood's biggest drug kingpin, a heist that's dangerous at best.

Actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith performs a series of 29 different roles related to the Crown Heights riot in 1991. Anonymous and famous figures are portrayed by Smith, expressing pain and anger on the many sides of a conflict involving the Black and Jewish communities over an accident, a crime, and the riots.

Includes production meetings, rehearsals and performances, as well as interviews with New York cast members prior to the May 1993 Broadway opening of 'Millennium Approaches', the first half of the play.

Along the US–Mexico border, a young, shy laborer, after witnessing the tragic slaying of his best friend, is transformed by the spirit of a traveling Mexican carpa (tent theatre troupe).

In the early 1900s, the fictional Catfish Row section of Charleston, South Carolina serves as home to a Black fishing community. Crippled beggar Porgy, who travels via a goat-drawn cart, loves drug-addicted Bess, who lives with stevedore Crown, the local bully.

In 1948 Montreal, on Rosh Hashanah, writer Chaim Kovler is forced to reflect on his religion when asked to be the tenth in a minyan. At the park, he suddenly sees an old friend whom he hasn't seen since they quarrelled when they were at Yeshiva together. Hersh Rasseyner, a rabbi, survived Auschwitz and his faith was strengthened by the ordeal, while Chaim escaped the Nazis, but had lost his faith long before. The two walk, reminisce, and argue passionately about themselves, their actions, their lives, their religion, their old quarrel, and their friendship.

As Christmas at the Messiah Church in Washington D.C. approaches, a young preacher and, later in the day, a mysterious pregnant girl arrive at the church doors looking to begin new lives. Reverend Oliver Crawford is not the judgmental committee's first choice; an unwed father of a teenage son, he is given only two days to prove his worth. Meanwhile, pregnant 16-year-old Katherine has arrived in the area fleeing an abusive home and seeking a grandfather she doesn't know. With the help of local homeless advocate 'Big' Willie Thorton, Crawford attempts to revive the spirit of the church and provide solace to the displaced girl.