Literature Tragedy

Written in 1898, Arthur Conan Doyle's classic tale of high adventure portrays an alarmist era of imperial sovereignty, invasive foreign policy, and religious extremism, positing the naivety of a group of Anglo-American holiday-makers against the unbending convictions of Middle Eastern banditti. Among others, a young American ingenue, her matronly aunt, a fusty old bachelor, a loving Irish couple, and an opinionated French graduate gather aboard the Korosko.

Pride, justice, and vengeance. Aristocracy and democracy vie for ultimate power over Rome, and each faction violently erupts when Coriolanus takes the political stage. After receiving glorious accolades for taking an enemy city when the plebian soldiers cowered without the gates, the common people find his arrogance and pride offensive. Now, banished from the very city for which he was prepared to lay down his life, he strikes up an unholy alliance with his country's enemies.

David Wilson is called "Pudd'nhead" by the townspeople, who fail to understand his combination of wisdom and eccentricity. He redeems himself by simultaneously solving a murder mystery and a case of transposed identities.

European tourists travel languidly along the Nile River to Abousir, at the southern frontier of Egypt, aboard “a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler,” the Korosko. But Dervish warriors threaten danger and then attack and kidnap the tourists. In this novel, Doyle explores themes of British Imperialism and a defensive European perspective on North Africa; racial paternalism; and debates on interference with other countries’ politics and religions. This wonderful novel was first published in 1898, long before Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.

When peddler John Durbeyfield learns that he may be a descendant of a noble family, he sends his oldest child, Tess, to “claim kin.” Blindly ushered into harm’s way, the strong-willed yet untinctured peasant girl is not prepared for the blighted course her life will take. Nor for those whose destructive desires will determine her fate, and force Tess to make only the most desperate of choices. From her tragic loss of innocence through betrayal and revenge, Tess’s struggle for survival challenged the era’s mores and the cruel indifference shown women in Victorian society.

Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. The tragedy is one of the last two tragedies written by Shakespeare, along with Antony and Cleopatra. Coriolanus is the name given to a Roman general after his military success against various uprisings challenging the government of Rome. Following this success, Coriolanus becomes active in politics and seeks political leadership.

This is a collection of plays written by Jo and Meg March, often discussed and performed in the March family attic by the beloved Little Women as the Pickwick Players. Our cast returns as Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth to perform every role with dramatic flair from damsels in distress to evil villains, and no shortage of mistaken identities and sword fights.

Popular novelist Mark Twain will take you on a mesmerizing mystery story set in the small town of Dawson's Landing, Missouri, during the early 19th century, where you’ll follow the lives of two infants born on the same day. One is the privileged white son of Percy and Augusta Driscoll, while the other is the mixed-race child of their slave, Roxy. In an act of desperation to shield her son from the horrors of slavery, Roxy ingeniously swaps the babies' identities, an act destined to shape the course of their lives.

High school sophomore Adam Zeigler, who lost his father to a sudden accident two years ago, thinks the best way to live life is behind the spotlight. As a member of the theater crew, he believes he's achieved it all when he wins the coveted job of spotlight operator. But that was before a young actress, Summer, appeared in his view. Instantly smitten, Adam is determined to win her over. But to do so, he'll have to defy his best friend and break the golden rule of his school: techies and actors don't mix.

Sins of the past infringe on the events of the present. A young woman unwittingly becomes the center of an immortal struggle, one born of obsession, love, and vengeance. With innocent lives on the line, reality itself may well fracture. And it all comes down to the decisions of a girl hundreds of years in her grave…and her modern incarnation caught up in the Tragedy of Lorna.

Confined to a back brace, tormented by classmates, 17-year-old April Marks hides in her room, reading, writing and no longer believing she can find love. When Jamie Clarke, the handsome new kid at school, shows interest in her, April puts aside her fear of becoming the school joke and risks having her heart broken by going out with him. When their movie-like romance begins it seems that April has found the love she's always longed for and the strength to overcome her disability.

Maddie Neumann died the day she pulled away from her parents' house determined to make her dreams come true. She wasn't the perfect little princess she'd been raised to be, all she wanted to do was rock. Everything Maddie was tucked away in a box to allow for her re-birth as Rain Maxwell; a badass rocker who answered to no one and lived by her own set of rules. Rain's world is shattered with one phone call from her estranged family.

Karl Marx: The Divine Tragedy presents a groundbreaking exploration of Karl Marx’s life, revealing the man not just as a revolutionary thinker, but as a flawed prophet consumed by his own radical vision. Robert Orlando traces Marx's descent through the lens of Dante’s Divine Comedy. unveiling a deeply spiritual and haunting journey through the inferno of Marx’s personal and ideological struggles.

Still reeling from a personal tragedy, investigative journalist Rooker Lindström finds a grim hideaway from the world. It’s the dilapidated cabin on Minnesota’s Deer Lake bequeathed to him by his late father—one of the most notorious serial killers in the state. If the walls of this murder house could talk, they’d scream. Detective Tess Harlow needs something from Rooker only he can provide: a window into the mind of a murderer. A copycat is on the prowl, following in the footsteps of Rooker’s father.

In Verona, Italy, two young people in love defy the demands of their families and pursue their love for one another above societal expectations. Their decisions and pursuit of love send ripples throughout their family and friend circles, causing controversy and consequences. For centuries, the tale of the young star-crossed lovers has been a mainstay of both the literary canon and popular culture. This is one of William Shakespeare’s most known and beloved works with timeless themes and prose.

It's a most unusual story. Father was gone, and Mother was dying from TB. That left Grandmother Anna, who was older than dirt, trying to raise three little girls without two nickels to rub together. It was 1933, in the middle of the depression. We lived in Queens, NY, and let me tell you, times were hard. I was five years old when The Fresh Air Fund’s summer program had an unexpected opening. Those two weeks I spent in Delaware changed my life forever.

"Action" - it's the first word on a film set, and a word that is haunting Dane Orson. But what kind of action can he take if evidence of his father's murder came from a ghost? And what if every institution and wise man in town is protecting the man who did it? In this inventive adaptation of Shakespeare's greatest drama, the prince is now a child of Hollywood, and the villain, one of Movieland's most powerful producers.

King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It tells the tale of a king who bequeaths his power and land to two of his three daughters, after they declare their love for him in an extremely fawning and obsequious manner. His third daughter gets nothing, because she will not flatter him as her sisters had done. When he feels disrespected by the two daughters who now have his wealth and power, he becomes furious to the point of madness. He eventually becomes tenderly reconciled to his third daughter, just before tragedy strikes her and then the king.

Grief buried him. Faith might save him. When Michael Judson’s younger brother dies in a freak shooting, everything unravels—faith, family, and his fragile sense of who he thought he was. What began as a normal afternoon turned into a nightmare, and now Michael stares into the eyes of a brother he couldn’t save… and wonders if he was the one who pulled the trigger. His Eyes is a powerful coming-of-age novel that explores the weight of guilt, the ache of grief, and the flickering light of hope.

Macbeth and his wife show how bad the evil that can possess human souls is. But evil is not all powerful. On the one hand, Macbeth is the gloomiest of the great Shakespeare's tragedies; on the other hand, it's more encouraging than Hamlet, Othello or King Lear. In no other tragedy as in Macbeth the evil is confronted by so many people, and nowhere else they are so active. Shakespeare is the author of the world famous sonnets and plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello, as well as comedies Twelfth Night, A Midsummer's Night Dream, Love's Labour's Lost, etc.