Showing results by narrator "Mark Sullivan" in All Categories

Shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria, Viola assumes the role of a male page to Duke Orsino. The Duke sends Viola, now disguised as ‘Cesario’ to press his suit with the beautiful Olivia–who promptly falls in love with Cesario. Confusion reigns until the truth is untangled and true love triumphs.

For a curious boy like Jess Hall, growing up in Marshall means trouble when your mother catches you spying on grown-ups. Adventurous and precocious, Jess is enormously protective of his older brother, Christopher, a mute whom everyone calls Stump. Though their mother has warned them not to snoop, Stump can't help sneaking a look at something he's not supposed to - an act that will have catastrophic repercussions, shattering both his world and Jess's. It's a wrenching event that thrusts Jess into an adulthood for which he's not prepared.

After Vladimir Lenin’s death, Stalin orders two Jewish scientists to preserve Lenin’s body for all time. If they succeed, the rewards will be considerable. If not, it’s the gulag - or worse. Based on real events, Vern Theissen’s nimble dark comedy exposes the absurdities of Soviet life under Stalin.

A group of politically correct teachers are tasked with creating a Thanksgiving play for their students. They hire a Native American actor to lend authenticity to the proceedings. When it turns out she’s ethnically ambiguous the teachers are left to navigate the resulting pitfalls in this rich satire. Includes a conversation with playwright Larissa FastHorse. 

In April of 2010, British Petroleum gave orders to speed up production on its colossal drilling rig, the Deepwater Horizon. Despite the objections of many on the rig, safety measures were ignored or overlooked. On April 20th, the Deepwater Horizon exploded. Eleven men paid the ultimate price and countless thousands who call the Gulf Coast home found their lives irrevocably altered. 

In this classic farce, a young man pretends to be a war hero to impress a pretty girl. As his lies progress, so do his troubles - with hilarious results. Playwright Pierre Corneille’s comedy of manners is considered a groundbreaking work that influenced contemporaries such as the young Molière. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast production, starring Tara Lynne Barr, Janine Barris, Sue Cremin, Danny Mann, Christopher Neame, John Sloan, Mark Sullivan, and Matthew Wolf Includes a conversation about Corneille and French drama with Larry F. Norman of the University of Chicago.

Tensions run high as Caleb de Leon, a young Jewish Confederate soldier, celebrates Passover with his family's newly freed slaves in the de Leons' crumbling antebellum mansion. This gripping drama explores a little-known aspect of the Civil War, unearthing dark family secrets on the way to a shocking climax.

In response to a string of gold thefts in a Mother Lode mine, Quincannon goes undercover as a newly hired miner to identify and capture the men responsible. Meanwhile, Sabina finds herself not only making plans for her and Quincannon’s wedding, but also investigating both an audacious real estate scam and an abusive young man’s villainous secret.

One of the world’s wealthiest men has died in a plane crash. The insurance company representing the airline assigns math genius Mitch Bloom to the case to minimize their payout - but Mitch finds himself facing a formidable opponent in Ida Watkins, a small-town actuary who challenges his ideas about the value of a human life. Includes an interview with playwright Kenneth Lin.

Based on the true story of renowned social psychologist Stanley Milgram, Please Continue recounts the infamous obedience experiments at Yale in the 1960s. In that study, participants were asked to administer strong electric shocks to a subject who gave the wrong answer to a question, not knowing that the shocks were fake, and they were the real subject of the study. The play examines how the experiments gave insight into the nature of authoritarianism and individual morality.

Are we stuck with our memories–or can we fix them? Pia is a neuroscientist whose research focuses on changing the way we process traumatic experiences. Will Pia’s emotionally distant mother–who survived the Khmer Rouge in 1970’s Cambodia–benefit from her daughter’s work? Or are some things just too terrible to remember?