Balmy evenings in rural Maryland are fraught with danger, and seductions can happen anywhere from a river bank to the front seat of a car, where a young self-conscious girl is learning to drive. To Li'l Bit, the radio is the most important part of the car, but the pop music of the 50's can never quite drown out the harrowing images in her mind.

There is now no doubt that not only is Waiting for Godot the outstanding play of the 20th century, but it is also Samuel Beckett's masterpiece. Yet it is both a popular text to be studied at school and an enigma. The scene is a country road. There is a solitary tree. It is evening. Two tramp-like figures, Vladimir and Estragon, exchange words. Pull off boots. Munch a root vegetable. Two other curious characters enter. And a boy. Time passes. It is all strange yet familiar.

The complicated relationship between the poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell is revealed in nearly 30 years' worth of correspondence. Taken from their exchange of letters, Dear Elizabeth is a study in friendship, intimacy, and the power of words.

Starring Mark Ruffalo, Josh Hamilton and Missy Yager, the original cast was reunited for this exclusive L.A. Theatre Works performance of This is Our Youth. In 1982, on Manhattan's Upper West Side, three pot-smoking teenagers are resoundingly rejecting the 1960s ideals of their affluent parents. In hilarious and bittersweet detail, This is Our Youth follows 48 turbulent hours in the lives of three very lost souls at the dawn of the Reagan Era.

During a winter storm a busload of weary travelers are forced to shack up at a roadside diner until morning. Inge was renowned for his in-depth character studies, Bus Stop is no exception and offers a warm play about the intersecting lives of eight ordinary people.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Sam Shepard's classic comedy is a story of estranged brothers Austin and Lee. Shepard compares and contrasts the reality of the two brothers by forcing them to come to terms with each other, with themselves, and with family.

Austin is a distinguished Bostonian with a WASP pedigree, an unbeatable squash game, and a frightening secret. After he meets up with his old flame Ruth, they begin a comic and painful voyage of self-discovery.

Clifford Odets’ masterpiece, starring Mark Ruffalo, Jane Kaczmarek, Richard Kind, and Ben Gazzara, brings to life the struggles of a working-class family aspiring to the promise of the American Dream. Even as they endure the country’s worst economic nightmare, three generations of an immigrant family are crowded into a Bronx tenement, fiercely determined to stay afloat, no matter what the cost.

Adapted by David Mamet from a translation by Vlada Chernornirdik. In this classic of Chekhov’s canon, an overbearing professor pays a visit to his country estate, where Sonya and Vanya, his daughter and former brother-in-law, have slaved to maintain his wealth. But Vanya is enchanted by the professor’s new wife, while Sonya has fallen for the town’s melancholy doctor. Includes a conversation with Rosamund Bartlett, author of Chekhov: Scenes from a Life.

A whirlwind courtship. A storybook wedding. A kiss for the bride. And suddenly everything changes. When Peter and Rita's brand-new marriage is strained by a magical twist of fate, true love will never mean quite the same thing again.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast recording, featuring members of the original Steppenwolf Theatre and Broadway productions: Tara Lynne Barr, Shannon Cochran, Deanna Dunagan (Tony Award®, Best Leading Actress), Kimberly Guerrero, Francis Guinan, Scott Jaeck, Ron Livingston, Robert Maffia, Mariann Mayberry, Rondi Reed (Tony Award®, Best Featured Actress), and David Warshofsky. Directed by Bart DeLorenzo. Recorded by L.A. Thetare Works before a live audience.

Veteran journalist Joseph Alsop thrived in his role as the right-hand man for Washington’s political elite, influencing both policy and public opinion with his inflammatory columns. But as the political certainties of the post-war era began to chip away in the late 1960s, so did Alsop’s authority, both on the page and in his own life. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast production.

Poker buddies Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison suddenly find themselves bachelors again and innocently decide to share an apartment. In this classic comedy by America's most prolific and successful playwright, these two wildly mismatched roommates bring down the house when they try to live together in one eight-room New York City apartment. Performed by a full cast starring Nathan Lane, David Paymer, Dan Castellaneta, Yeardley Smith, and more!

Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.

L.A. Theatre Works presents Five Short Stories by Women: A quintet of tales from some of America’s most distinguished female authors.