The off-Broadway La Mama Experimental Theater Club, founded by Ellen Stewart presents three avant-garde works. The plays: 1. "Pavane," by Jean-Claude van Itallie, examines rituals of modern society. 2. "Fourteen Hundred Thousand," by Sam Shepard, involves a young couple and their in-laws. 3. "The Recluse," by Paul Foster, focuses on a demented old lady in an abandoned hospital.

La Mama Playwrights

Tom O'Horgan

The World of Carl Sandburg

A Comedy of Errors

A production of Tennessee Williams's "Ten Blocks on the Camino Real," a one-act play upon which his full-length play, "Camino Real" was based. This allegorical drama is set in the plaza of a Latin American town, a sinister purgatory where laughing street cleaners cart away the dead. Kilroy, a young American ex-boxer with a failing heart, arrives in this nightmarish place.

Ten Blocks on the Camino Real

Dustin Hoffman stars in Ronald Ribman's critically acclaimed off-Broadway drama and 1965 Obie Award for best play of the season. The story of a kind and good-hearted young landowner in 19th century Russia who, desperate for love and acceptance, sets out to find both, only to discover that if he had never lived at all it would have made no difference to anyone.

The Journey of the Fifth Horse

A comedy-fantasy by Maxwell Anderson, follows the adventures of an inventor who creates a time-machine enabling him to live his life over again.

The Star Wagon

L'Avventura

The first hour of this four-part adaptation of Laurence Housman's drama focuses on Queen Victoria's accession to the throne and her conflict with Lord Melbourne, her Prime Minister and close friend. Melbourne brings up the question of marriage-but the Queen rejects his list of suitable bridegroom

Victoria Regina, Part 1: Spring

"Victoria Regina: Summer," second of four-part adaptation of Lawrence Hous mans' Broadway hit about the life of England's Queen Victoria. Tonight: Prince Albert faces the problem of being married to a reigning monarch.

Victoria Regina, Part 2: Summer

"Victoria Regina: Autumn," third of a four-part adaption of Lawrence Housman's Broadway hit about the life of England's Queen Victoria. In this episode: Prime Minister Disraeli clashes with the Queen.

Victoria Regina, Part 3: Autumn

Victoria Regina, Part 4: Winter

A Norwegian doctor discovers that the source of the town's medicinal waters has become poisonous.

An Enemy of the People

Christopher Fry's verse drama of four prisoners in an imaginary war.

A Sleep of Prisoners

A modern folklore tale about a highly imaginative, fantasy-bound youth and his search for a troll.

Ofoeti

"The Play of Daniel." Filmed at the Cloisters, NYC's Museum of Medieval Art, this 12th-century play dramatizes episodes in the life of the Old Testament hero Daniel. An English narrative by poet W. H. Auden supplements the original Latin and Old French text performed by the New York Pro Musica and the boys choir of New York City's Church of the Transfiguration.

The Play of Daniel

Presented in French with English subtitles, The Theatre de la Mandragore Troupe wore masks and performed the Plautus play about a miser obsessed with his gold.

La Marmite

"The Amorous Flea," is a musical-comedy based on Molière's "School for Wives." The play follows the misadventures of an old man who has raised a young girl, in total ignorance of the ways of the world, so that she will make him a perfect wife. Adapted from the 1964 off-Broadway hit.

The Amorous Flea

William Shakespeare's comic-story of mistaken identity follows the misadventures of two sets of long-lost twins is presented by Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company. Produced by the BBC.

Actors Fritz Weaver and Uta Hagen join the folk-singing Tarriers and Carolyn Hester for this adaptation of "The World of Carl Sandburg," which opened on Broadway in 1960. Sandburg, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, is a poet, historian, novelist and folklorist. Carolyn Hester and the Tarriers perform numbers from Sandburg's "The American Songbag,

Roman Polanski directed this study of a clash between generations. On a weekend outing, two men find themselves pitted against each other in a tense psychological rivalry for the affections of the older man's wife.

Knife in the Water

A retired professor has returned to his estate to live with his beautiful young wife, Yelena. The estate originally belonged to his first wife, now deceased; her mother and brother still live there and manage the farm

Uncle Vanya

In 1890s London, two friends use the same pseudonym ("Ernest") for their on-the-sly activities. Hilarity ensues.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Singer-actress Lotte Lenya offers a tribute to her late composer husband.

The World of Kurt Weill

In 16th-century Spain, pressure is brought on Don Alvaro Dabo to take part in the conquest of the West Indies-but Don Alvaro, an anti-colonialist and religious mystic, resists all arguments. Adapted from the play by contemporary French novelist-playwright Henri de Montherlant.

Master of Santiago

This BBC documentary-drama re-creates the Battle of Culloden (1746)-- the last battle fought on British soil. The final attempt to restore the house of Stuart to the throne of Scotland, England and Ireland culminated in the meeting (at Culloden) of an English army and the Highlander force, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The Battle of Culloden

Playwright-actor-director Peter Ustinov presents a satiric "improvisation on musical themes" with pianist Anthony Hopkins, and British satirists Dudley Moore and Bernard Keefe. Ustinov caricatures typical Russian, American, German and English composers with pen and piano, singing along with the wild musical themes he invents for each composer

Satire

A poetic drama that explores the paradoxes of the master-slave relationship.

The Old Glory: Benito Cereno

A Japanese film that follows the experiences of a psychiatrist who accidentally revives his buried memory of a horrible wartime experience.

Past Intruding

A presentation of George Bernard Shaw's "Misalliance," a farce about love and the misunderstandings between family members. The visitors at the country home of a manufacturer find their lives changed by the sudden appearance of an outspoken Polish aviatrix.

Misalliance

"Sponono," by South African author Alan Paton, incorporates native songs and dances into its narrative-drama form. The story is about a black delinquent's clash with his white reformatory principal.

Sponono

Britain's Sadler's Wells Opera Company performs Offenbach's popular, light opera. According to Greek myth, the poet Orpheus played beautiful music and loved his wife Eurydice so much that. when she died, he went into the infernal regions to reclaim her life. In Offenbach's satiric treatment of the legend, Orpheus is such a bore and his music is so wretched that Eurydice is glad to go to hell. Orpheus, on the other hand, is equally happy to be rid of her.

Orpheus in the Underworld

An orphaned refugee causes unforeseen problems when he comes to live with his bachelor uncle in America. Produced by WQED, Pittsburgh.

A Mother for Janek

A courtroom drama based on the court-martial of 10 HMS Bounty mutineers. The 10 seamen on trial all claim to have taken no part in the mutiny, but they may still be punished: The naval regulations of 1792 state that sailors who do not try to prevent a mutiny share equal guilt with active mutineers. Only one of two verdicts can be handed down: acquit or hang.

Acquit or Hang!

This dramatization of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's master novel explores the conflicting feelings of guilt and superiority in a student who murders two old women and then tries to justify his crime.

Crime and Punishment

"Ballet Gala" features principal dancers from Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet, London's Royal Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet performing excerpts from Swan Lake, Don Quixote and Romeo and Juliet.

Ballet Gala

A Concert on Sacred Music by Duke Ellington, from the Grace Cathedral, seat of the Episcopal Archdiocese of San Francisco.

A Concert of Sacred Music

The first of an eight-part series focusing on life in England during the 1800's. Part 1: A young farmer and his wife face eviction unless they find a way to pay their rent.

The Victorians, Part 1: The Rent Day

An 80-year-old nobleman competes with his son for the hand of a young heiress. This comedy by Dion Boucicault was first produced in 1841.

The Victorians, Part 2: London Assurance

A wealthy businessman persuades a penniless young aristocrat to introduce his son into society.

The Victorians, Part 3: Society

"The Victorians: The Ticket-of-Leave Man," a 19th-century detective story. Released from prison, a young man sets out to find the crook who framed him.

The Victorians, Part 4: The Ticket-of-Leave Man

The Victorians, Part 5: Two Roses

The Victorians, Part 6: Still Waters Run Deep

A gambler who fled to America to escape a murder charge returns to England in search of the real killer.

The Victorians, Part 7: The Silver King

The Victorians, Part 8: Sweet Lavender

NET Playhouse is an American dramatic television anthology series produced by National Educational Television. NET subsequently merged with WNDT Newark, New Jersey to form WNET and was superseded by the Public Broadcasting Service. American television anthology series of wide range of genres, from history and drama, to fantasy, and science fiction. Fiction novels, stories, stage plays, fairytales, and historic events are dramatized in each episode.

La Mama Playwrights

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Season 1 Episodes42

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