Special Collections

Synopsis:
A pair of feuding modern-day stepsisters wake up at the Akron Women's Rights Convention of 1851, and find themselves on a whirlwind journey through US history. As they face the challenges of each time with fascinating suffragists, abolitionists, and freedom fighters like Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells, the young women must decide what they really believe and what kind of world they want to stand...

Synopsis:
The story of Joseph Merrick (a.k.a. The Elephant Man) comes to life in this highly theatrical retelling featuring an ensemble of performers that share the role of Merrick. Whether on a bare stage or with an elaborate set, this adaptable play shines the spotlight on the vivid inner life of Joseph Merrick, and his relationship with the good Dr. Treves. This classic story of the ultimate outcast feel...

Synopsis:
It's time for tales of terror to see their day onstage. From horrifying creatures, to long-buried secrets, to the dark visions in your own mirror, nightmares await in Ten(ish): Horror, an anthology of short plays by some of the most exciting playwrights working today.   Ten(ish): Horror is edited by Brendan Conheady and features the following short plays:   Trust...

Synopsis:
In 1950s Ireland, family means everything. So when Eveline Donnelly abandons her dream of a university education to care for her widowed father, it seems only right and natural. But as she watches her younger sister prepare to leave home, a visit from her mother's ghost makes Evie begin to ask, "When is it my turn?"

Synopsis:
When Eleanor stumbles upon a hidden diary, she unlocks a family secret - and finds that danger lives closer to home than she possibly could have imagined. An ensemble of trapped spirits crack open the door between generations in a theatrical adaptation that wraps the classic psychological horror story The Yellow Wallpaper in a Hitchcockian thriller.   

Synopsis:
Based on the remarkable true story of Heinz Geiringer -- neighbor and friend of Anne Frank -- we follow the story of a young artist and loving brother living in unconscionable circumstances. A trained musician at only 15 and now forced to live in hiding and silence, Heintz turns to painting and poetry to express his everyday terror but hope of the future. Through Heinz's inspired paintings, nostal...

Synopsis:
The populations of two high schools are thrown into disarray after a careless social media post leads to real life tragedy. Some of the students are jolted into fear as they reckon with how deep and wide their vulnerabilities have become in our hyper-connected world, while others wrestle with their culpability in the incident. Meanwhile those most affected seek a path toward justice, but how far w...

Synopsis:
While wandering Worcester, England in 1943, a teenage boy happened upon the skeleton of an unidentified woman inside the trunk of a large tree. An investigation commenced to determine who the woman was and how she died, but it raised more questions than it answered. Was she a spy? Was she a prostitute? Had she been part of an occult ritual? Theories abounded, but no definitive answers emerged. The...

Synopsis:
We begin on the Titanic. An ideal setting for a murder mystery, don't you think? First class. The game afoot: a mystery that must be solved before the ship goes down... And then, something starts to shift... We are actually backstage at a Broadway show based on a Titanic. And one of the actors ends up dead. It's a noir. And then the perception of reality starts to shift again...A traditional locke...

Synopsis:
An episodic look at the heroic deeds of young women during the Revolutionary War that would be long forgotten if not for oral history. Had these women not been so brave and cunning, would the war have ended the same way? There is Sybil Ludington's overnight ride to gather the militia, Kate, an African Princess, forced into slavery, who saved her master from the British and more. Students and audie...