• My Account
  • Quick Order
  • Cart
  • Checkout
 
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Clients

 
  • Home
  • The Plays
    • The Plays
    • Not Yet Published
    • Newly Published
    • Bestsellers
    • Classics
    • Collections
    • Bundles
    • Catalog
  • Performance Rights
    • Restrictions
    • Payments
    • Performance Rights
    • Upcoming Productions
  • Authors
  • FAQs
    • FAQs
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Wholesale Customers
    • Desk Copies
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
Menu
  • Home
  • The Plays
    • The Plays
    • Not Yet Published
    • Newly Published
    • Bestsellers
    • Classics
    • Collections
    • Bundles
    • Catalog
  • Performance Rights
    • Restrictions
    • Payments
    • Performance Rights
    • Upcoming Productions
  • Authors
  • FAQs
    • FAQs
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Wholesale Customers
    • Desk Copies
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
 

  • Home
  • The Plays
    • The Plays
    • Not Yet Published
    • Newly Published
    • Bestsellers
    • Classics
    • Collections
    • Bundles
    • Catalog
  • Performance Rights
    • Restrictions
    • Payments
    • Performance Rights
    • Upcoming Productions
  • Authors
  • FAQs
    • FAQs
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Wholesale Customers
    • Desk Copies
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
 
  • Home
  • >
  • The Plays
  • >
  • Hydriotaphia or The Death of Doctor Browne
    Cover design by Cynthia Krupat
    Woodcut by Hans Holbien the Younger

    Hydriotaphia or The Death of Doctor Browne

    Tony Kushner

    This play is included in the collection:
    • Death & Taxes: Hydriotaphia & Other Plays

    Performance Rights

    Play Description

    An epic farce about death and primitive capital accumulation, HYDRIOTAPHIA chronicles the final hours of Sir Thomas Browne, an English physician and writer known for his attempts to reconcile Christian values with scientific knowledge.

    Production Info

    Cast: 14 total (8 female, 6 male)
    Full Length Comedy (about 180 minutes)
    Single Set
    Period Costumes
    Categories: Full Length in Collection, The Plays Tags: 17th Century
    • Reviews
    • About the Author(s)
    • About the Book
    • Special Notes

    Press Quotes

    “… [HYDRIOTAPHIA] shows off its author’s dazzling intellect, wit and ambition to richly enjoyable effect … Subtitled ‘An Epic Farce About Death and Primitive Capital in Five Scenes,’ the play flourishes Kushner’s trademark ability to mix up wildly diverse tonalities and ideas — bawdy humor, theological and class warfare debate, fourth-wall-breaking, dizzying monologues, fantasy and domestic intrigue all whirl like a juggler’s pins.” —Dennis Harvey, Variety

    Author(s)

    • Tony Kushner

      Born in New York City in 1956, and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Tony Kushner is best known for his two-part epic, ANGELS IN AMERICA: A GAY FANTASIA ON NATIONAL THEMES. His other plays include A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY, SLAVS!, HYDROTAPHIA, HOMEBODY/KABUL, and CAROLINE, OR CHANGE, the musical for which he wrote book and lyrics, with music by composer Jeanine Tesori. Kushner has translated and adapted Pierre Corneille's THE ILLUSION, S.Y. Ansky's THE DYBBUK, Bertolt Brecht's THE GOOD PERSON OF SEZUAN and MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, and the English-language libretto for the children's opera BRUNDIBÁR by Hans Krasa. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols' film of Angels in America and Steven Spielberg's Munich. In 2012 he wrote the screenplay for Spielberg's movie Lincoln. His screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award, and won the New York Film Critics Circle Award, Boston Society of Film Critics Award, Chicago Film Critics Award, and several others. His books include But the Giraffe: A Curtain Raising and Brundibar: The Libretto, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon. His recent work includes a collection of one-act plays entitled TINY KUSHNER, and THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL'S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES. In addition, a revival of ANGELS IN AMERICA ran Off-Broadway at the Signature Theater and won the Lucille Lortel Award in 2011 for Outstanding Revival. Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Arts Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, a Spirit of Justice Award from the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, a Cultural Achievement Award from The National Foundation for Jewish Culture, a Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement, and the 2012 National Medal of Arts, among many others. CAROLINE, OR CHANGE, produced at the National Theatre of Great Britain, received the EVENING STANDARD Award, the London Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Olivier Award for Best Musical. In September 2008, Tony Kushner became the first recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, the largest theater award in the US. He is the subject of a documentary film, Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner, made by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.

    Book Information

    Publisher TCG
    Publication Date 12/1/1998
    Pages 360
    ISBN 9781559361569

    Special Notes

    If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:

    HYDRIOTAPHIA OR THE DEATH OF DOCTOR BROWN received its first production
    at HOME for Contemporary Theater and Art, produced by Heath & Light Co, Inc in June 1987

    The play was produced by the Graduate Acting Program of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in April 1997

    The play received a co-production by the Alley Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theater in 1998

    In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:

    Hydriotaphia or The Death of Doctor Browne is produced
    by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
    www.broadwayplaypub.com

    Related Plays

    $11.95–$15.00
    Tartuffe
    Molière, adapted by Constance Congdon from a literal prose translation by Virginia Scott
    $11.95–$15.00

    Play Description

    Constance Congdon’s witty verse adaptation of Molière’s timeless classic, in which a religious conman infiltrates the household of a gullible man and his exasperated family, has lent itself to productions set in modern-day Texas, New Orleans, and even The Sopranos’ New Jersey.

    Production Info

    Cast: 12 total (5 female, 7 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 110 minutes)
    Single Set
    Contemporary Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    The Miser
    Molière, adapted by Virginia Scott
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    Harpagon thinks that his children are costing him too much money and must be married off. He has found an old man who won’t demand a dowry for his daughter, Elise, and a rich widow for his son, Cleante. Unfortunately Elise is already in love with Harpagon’s servant, and his son is in love with the penniless Mariane, whom Harpagon has already decided to take as his own wife.

    Production Info

    Cast: 13 total (4 female, 9 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 105 minutes)
    Multiple Sets
    Period Costumes
    $11.95–$15.00
    The Imaginary Invalid
    Molière, adapted by Constance Congdon, based on a new translation by Dan Smith
    $11.95–$15.00

    Play Description

    Love is funny. Love is trickery. Love is … smelly? It's certainly a merry-go-round of misplaced desires and hidden agendas in Constance Congdon's fresh and hilarious new take on Molière's skewering of a health-care crisis from an entirely different century. To quell his growing pile of medical bills, Monsieur Argan, a chronic hypochondriac, will go to any length to marry his daughter off to a doctor. Of course, his daughter has other ideas. A narcotic cocktail of romantic triangles, double entendres, and mistaken identities ensues, promising to leave you gasping, giggling, and possibly … in stitches.

    Production Info

    Cast: 9 total (3 female, 6 male)
    Full Length Comedy (about 110 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $11.95–$15.00
    The Hypochondriac
    Molière, translated by Martin Sorrell
    $11.95–$15.00

    Play Description

    First produced in 1673 and Molière's final play, THE HYPOCHONDRIAC is a scathingly funny lampoon on both hypochondria and the “quack” medical profession. Argan is a perfectly healthy, wealthy gentleman, convinced that he is seriously ill. So obsessed is he with medicinal tinkerings and tonics that he is blind to the goings on in his own household. However, his most efficacious cure will not appear in a bottle or a bedpan but in his sharp-tongued servant, who has a cunning plan to reveal the truth and open her master's eyes.

    Production Info

    Cast: 12 total (4 female, 8 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 160 minutes)
    Single Set
    Period Costumes
    $11.95
    The Imaginary Invalid
    Molière, translated by Richard Nelson, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
    $11.95

    Play Description

    Molière’s classic comic masterpiece is here brilliantly translated by renowned translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonksy (two-time winner of the PEN/Book-of-the-Month-Club Translation Prize) and playwright/director Richard Nelson (Tony Award, Oliver Award).

     

    “He’s an impertinent one, your Molière, with his comedies … Damn it to hell, if I were the doctors, I’d take revenge for his impudence! And if he was sick, I’d let him die unattended. Whatever he might say or do, I wouldn’t prescribe the least little bleeding, the least little enema for him, and I’d say to him: ‘Croak! Croak!'” —ACT THREE

     

    While playing Argan, Molière collapsed during the fourth performance of THE IMAGINARY INVALID and died shortly after on 17 February 1673.

    Production Info

    Cast: 12 total (4 female, 8 male)
    Full Length Comedy (about 120 minutes)
    Multiple Sets
    Period Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    The Living
    Anthony Clarvoe
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    In 1665 the plague brought London to its knees. THE LIVING concerns Londoners who have remained in the city as they struggle to find meaning in the midst of such a catastrophic epidemic.

    Production Info

    Cast: 10 total (2 female, 8 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    Celadine
    Charles Evered
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    The often hilarious, bawdy, and adventuresome story of Celadine, coffeehouse proprietor, writer, and sometime spy, during the reign of Charles II in London.

    Production Info

    Cast: 5 total (2 female, 3 male)
    Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    The Misanthrope
    Molière, adapted by Constance Congdon
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    In this delightful comedy about the French aristocracy, told with Molière’s signature wit, the atmosphere is frivolous, the morals are loose, the egos are larger than life and everyone is looking for love. Constance Congdon’s adaptation of this intelligent satire is both provocative and funny.

    Production Info

    Cast: 10 total (3 female, 7 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
    Multiple Sets
    Period Costumes
    $11.95
    Molière or The Cabal of Hypocrites
    Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Richard Nelson, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
    $11.95

    Play Description

    One of the world’s great plays about censorship and the oppression of artists is now newly translated by the renowned translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonksy (winner of two PEN/Book-of-the-Month Translation Awards) and the playwright/director Richard Nelson (Tony Award, Olivier Award).

     

    Premiered on February 16, 1936 at the Moscow Art Theater, MOLIÈRE OR THE CABAL OF HYPOCRITES was banned after seven performances.

     

    “Put yourselves in our place, ladies and gentlemen … the performance is over.” —ACT FOUR

    Production Info

    Cast: 12 total (6 female, 6 male)
    Full Length Drama (about 85 minutes)
    Multiple Sets
    Period Costumes
    $15.00–$15.95
    The Pests
    Molière, translated and slightly abridged and adapted by Felicia Londré
    $15.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    Molière’s deliciously trifling comedy in a garden setting won the favor of the Sun King in 1661 and set his course to become the most-produced comic writer in the history of theatre. This neglected classic marked Molière’s first mingling of sparkling verse dialogue and dance numbers. While written for a courtly audience, the play dared to mock recognizable personalities and their obnoxious eccentricities. For modern audiences, the human foibles still look familiar and very funny. Desperately in love with the coquettish Orphise, Eraste tries to maintain his aristocratic composure as one obnoxious person after another interrupts his pursuit. Can he appreciate Lysandre’s self-taught, self-proclaimed genius as a singer and dancer? Will he defy the king’s ban on dueling to serve as second for a friend who took offense at another’s unfortunate word choice? Can he follow the card player’s compulsion to recount every move? Or the hunter’s venting about horse and hounds? How can he politely put a stop to the scholar’s torrent of verbiage? Or the financial wheeler-dealer’s spiel? Will Orphise let him explain about the two women smothering him with their theorizing about lovers? In counterpoint to the swatting of pests, three dance interludes allow the company’s creativity to go wild. And there’s a fight scene. Of course, Eraste gets the girl in the end.

    Production Info

    Cast: 15 total (4 female, 11 male, 2 nonspeaking parts)
    Full Length Comedy (about 85 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes
    $0.00–$15.95
    Too Many Crucibles
    Matt Lyle
    $0.00–$15.95

    Play Description

    In 1692, as the Salem Witch Trials rage in nearby Salem, the residents of Peabody, Massachusetts are going through their own crucible, and they are just, like, really sick of crucibles. The surprising election of the boorish lout Dunning Kruger to be the local reverend has thrown the town into turmoil and pitted the townsfolk against each other like never before in the history of the New World, and that’s saying something because the history of the New World is really messed up. Ezekiel Farmer and his wife Verity must reconcile their differences (she voted for Kruger, he for the more experienced female challenger, Goody Constant Bending) and somehow find a way to resist the ugly tide that threatens them all. TOO MANY CRUCIBLES is an extremely unsanctioned companion piece to Miller’s classic THE CRUCIBLE that proves some witch hunts turn up witches.

    Production Info

    Cast: 8 total (4 female, 4 male, doubling, flexible casting, up to 37 actors)
    Full Length Comedy (about 100 minutes)
    Minimal Set Requirements
    Period Costumes

    Contact Info

    BROADWAY PLAY PUBLISHING INC

    148 W 80th St, NY, NY 10024

    Working Days: Monday – Friday

    Working Hours: 8 am – 6 pm EST

    Phone: 212­-772-­8334

    Email: info@broadwayplaypub.com

    Website: www.broadwayplaypub.com

    Company Info

    • About Us
    • Shipping Info
    • Refund Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Submissions
    • Contact Us

    Pages

    • Home
    • The Plays
    • Performance Rights
    • Authors
    • FAQs
    • Blog

    Newsletter Sign Up

    • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
    © Broadway Play Publishing Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

    ‹ › ×