The Play of the Week
Season 1
This syndicated anthology series staged a different play every week covering all genres, dramas, comedies, musicals, fantasies, mysteries, et al, utilizing some of the best talent appearing on Broadway.
Where to Watch Season 1
35 Episodes
- The Power and the GloryE2
The Power and the GloryThe last priest is on the run. During an anti-clerical purge in one of the southern states of Mexico, he is hunted like a hare. Too human for heroism, too humble for martyrdom, the little worldly ""whisky priest"" is nevertheless impelled towards his squalid Calvary as much by his own compassion for humanity as by the efforts of his pursuers. - Back to Back -- The Dock Brief & What Shall We Tell Caroline?E4
Back to Back -- The Dock Brief & What Shall We Tell Caroline?The Dock Brief = A seedy broken down barrister attempts to defend innocuous murderer who is acquitted due to defence incompetence. What Shall We Tell Caroline? = Parent's resolve to teach their eighteen year old daughter the facts of life - despite their own ignorance. - A Month in the CountryE5
A Month in the CountryThe tale of a bored wife living in the Russian countryside who falls in love with her little boy?s handsome new tutor-just like all of the other women in the household. The wife?s chief rival turns out to be her seventeen year-old ward giving viewers a wonderful portrait of two different women in love. - The White SteedE7
The White SteedThe alchemist Irish Priest, Father Shaughnessy, is an intolerant moralist who temporarily replaces Canon Matt Lavelle, whose legs have been paralyzed by a stroke. Father Shaughnessy forms a vigilance committee to stamp out sin, which in his view includes drinking, courting, and interfaith marriages. Through his committee he breaks up the engagement of schoolmaster Denis Dillon to a Protestant girl and discharges librarian Nora Fintry because she has been seen with a man. Denis is intimidated, but Nora is determined to fight the priest. She and Denis fall in love, and through her Denis finds the strength to stand up to the priest. Inspector Toomey, who has tried to protect the secular rights of those oppressed by the vigilance committee, threatens to arrest the priest, and a mob gathers to prevent him from doing so. Then Canon Lavelle appears, miraculously walking. He calms his parishioners, sends them home, and rebukes Father Shaughnessy for his hot-headedness and ""spiritual snobbery."" - The World of Sholom AleichemE10
The World of Sholom AleichemFamed Yiddish storyteller Sholom Aleichem as he tells three tales: ""A Tale of Chelm,"" about a bookseller who tries to buy a goat in a town of fools; ""Bontche Schweig,"" a tale of a poor man whose heavenly arrival coaxes tears from the angels; and ""The High School,"" about a couple's attempts to send their son to a nonreligious school. - Thieves CarnivalE11
Thieves CarnivalTwo attractive young girls reside in a palatial home, when their residence is invaded by three affectionate thieves, a romance unexpectedly develops between one of the girls and the youngest thief. Being too honest for his own good, he cannot in good conscience accept her love, and instead turns back with a vengeance to his criminal life ... but she happens to be swiftier and wilier than he is! - The Cherry OrchardE12
The Cherry OrchardMme. Ranevskaya is brought home to her Russian estate after having fled to France amidst family tragedy. Returning home in 1900 after the liberation of the Serfs, nothing seems to have changed. The mansion has been impeccably kept up and the trees in the cherry orchard are in romantic bloom. The reality, however, soon sets in: The family fortune has been squandered. Lyubov holds out for a miracle to save her home, her past, and her beloved orchard. When wealthy friend Lopakhin, who grew up as a servant on the property, recommends selling and developing the orchard land in order to save the property, he is met with fierce opposition from the family. With the mortgage date drawing nearer, Lyubov's hopes become as empty as the leafless wintry appearance of the trees in the orchard. - Juno and the PaycockE17
Juno and the PaycockCaptain Boyle is ""Captain"" by virtue of a single trip made as a seaman on a collier bound from London to Liverpool. He is usually known to his neighbors, however, as the ""paycock"" on account of his strutting, consequential gait. He and his crony, Joxer, spend most of their time drinking in ""pubs"" or playing cards in the Boyle flat, where Joxer flatters him to his face and steals from him behind his back. Boyle has nicknamed his wife ""Juno"" because she ""was born and christened in June. I met her in June; we were married in June and Johnny was born in June."" Throughout all the trouble and turmoil, Captain and his crony remain blissfully drunk and obtuse to their problems. - Don Juan in HellE19
Don Juan in HellThe Devil is at a loss to explain why anyone would want to be in that ""most angelically dull place,"" heaven. The Statue, who has been there, agrees, comparing heaven to a classical music concert: Most people don't really appreciate it--they just think they ought to, he says. The hero who is being pursued by a determined woman falls asleep in the mountains of Spain and dreams himself as the legendary lover Don Juan, who is locked in a sprawling debate with three other denizens of Darkness: the Devil who has more charm and wit than fire and brimstone, a Soldier once felled by Don Juan in an earthly duel, and that man's daughter, Ana, whom Don Juan had seduced. - A Very Special BabyE20
A Very Special BabyJoey Casale is 34 years old, the youngest of a family of six children; except for a brief period of glory during the War, he has stayed at home all his life, never held a steady job, and lived on the allowance his father has given him. His father is a self-made man, generous with all his children, outwardly very fond of Joey and of Anna, the eldest daughter who lives at home and keeps house for her father and brother. The two older sons are successful professional men, and his father teases Joey about his lack of achievement. - Climate of EdenE21
Climate of EdenA family of missionaries live in the jungles of British Guiana, where they have worked out an unconventional philosophy of life based on a practical compromise with civilization. Religion and morality are tempered with humour and tolerance. To this happy household comes Gregory Hawke, a young man who suffers from various complexes and neuroses. He joins the family, hoping that their simple way of life will cure him. He falls in love with one of the daughters and ultimately takes her with him after his recovery. - The Rope DancersE23
The Rope DancersMargaret his oppressive, overbearing and quarrelsome wife has failed to come to terms with her guilt-ridden past. She makes life hell for her aspiring writer husband James Hyland and her daughter Lizzie is pale from being kept home and away from school and friends. In trying to cope with her mother's tempestuous outbursts, she succumbs to an incurable nervous disorder. - The Master BuilderE24
The Master BuilderHalvard Solness is a well known builder, a master builder, who has driven many of his rivals out of business in the course of his long career. He is currently building a house for himself and his wife, Aline, to be a home to properly replace Aline's family house which burnt down some years ago killing his twin baby sons. - A Palm Tree in a Rose GardenE26
A Palm Tree in a Rose GardenRose Frobisher once won a beauty contest and on the strength of that came to Hollywood. After years of frustration she settled down to keep an apartment-rooming house which she called the Rose Garden. For a while she pinned her hopes on her daughter, but Lila was not interested in getting into the movies so Rose turned to a succession of roomers, young, beautiful and all with a burning desire to be a movie star. - The EnchantedE27
The EnchantedA small French town is thrown off its equilibrium by a drowning and subsequent reports of a haunting ghost. A young schoolteacher, Isabel, is enchanted by the spirit and visits him nightly. An officious inspector comes from Paris to disprove this affront to rational society -- death is bones and worms, she argues -- and to return the town to order. - The Girls in Room 509E28
The Girls in Room 509Two eccentric ladies, staunch Republicans who cling to the glories of the past, have created a series of elaborate devices to shut the present out of their lives. They've retreated to a hotel apartment at the beginning of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. Now their armor is due for a dent when one of them gets a yen to have a man around the house. - Mary StuartE33
Mary StuartThe tale of two queens separated by historic identity but joined in their dramatic isolation' Observer. Mary Queen of Scots has been held prisoner for nineteen years by her cousin, Elizabeth I, who has condemned her to death, but is reluctant to be seen to carry out the sentence. Leicester, Elizabeth's favourite and Mary's ex-lover, engineers a meeting of the two Queens - an encounter which never took place in historical fact - from which Mary emerges triumphant but doomed. - The Grand TourE34
The Grand TourNell Valentine is a no longer young, school teacher, who for the first time in her sheltered life falls desperately in love during the course of a summer tour through Europe. Nell has planned this trip as a climax to long years of hope and preparation. But Ray Brinton, who has fallen in love with her and hopes to marry her, must tell her that not only he is already married but he is a fugitive from justice, having stolen money from his own bank. Nell is ready to marry him in spite of everything, until Ray's wife appears on the scene and shows she is still deeply attached to him. - The House of Bernarda AlbaE35
The House of Bernarda AlbaBernarda Alba is a widow, and her five daughters are incarcerated in mourning along with her. One by one they make a bid for freedom, with tragic consequences. Lorca's tale depicts the repression of women within Catholic Spain in the years before the war.
