In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)
by Sarah Ruhl
A provocative, funny, touching, and marvelously entertaining story set in the 1880s at the dawn of the age of electricity, when a young doctor invents a new clinical device to treat female hysteria -- the vibrator. The only woman whose problem is not helped by the doctor is his own wife, who longs to connect with him but not electrically. Nominated for three 2010 Tony Awards.​​​
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Killer Joe
by Tracy Letts
The first play by Tracy Letts, who went on to win the 2008 Pulitzer Prize (for August: Osage County), is set in a Texas trailer park. When hit man Joe Cooper is hired by the dissolute Smith family to murder the matriarch for insurance money, he takes the family’s innocent daughter as a retainer against his final payoff, which sets in motion a bloody aftermath as the “hit man” meets his match.​​​
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How I Learned to Drive
by Paula Vogel
Winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Paula Vogel’s groundbreaking and controversial play tells the story of Lil’ Bit, a young girl who grows up in a complex and sexually abusive relationship with her uncle, following her from adolescence through college years and into adulthood. Although Lil’ Bit and her uncle care deeply for one another, the years of manipulation and sexual confusion eventually drive them apart and wreak havoc on both of their psyches.​​​
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Uncle Vanya
By Anton Chekhov and Adapted by Andrew Upton
First produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre, Uncle Vanya portrays a society on the brink of change and an uncertain political climate – it was a revolutionary play for its time, written twenty years before the Russian Revolution. Most startlingly, to a modern audience, Uncle Vanya (with a beautifully touching new adaptation by Andrew Upton) offers a timely commentary about the world we inhabit right now.​​​
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Sweat
by Lynn Nottage
Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Sweat tells the story of a group of friends who have spent their lives sharing drinks, secrets, and laughs while working together on the factory floor. But when layoffs and picket lines chip away at their trust, the friends find themselves pitted against each other in a heart-wrenching fight to stay afloat. Sweat gives voice to some of the aches and frustrations that animate a nation unmoored by job displacement, thwarted dreams and self-medication.​​​
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COSTA MESA PLAYHOUSE
EST 1965