Blithe Spirit

A smash comedy hit on London and Broadway stages, this much-revived classic from the playwright of Private Lives offers wit, conflict and big laughs as a fussy, cantankerous novelist  finds himself haunted by the ghost of his late first wife.

Brief Encounter

A heart-wrenching, inventive new stage adaptation of Noël Coward’s timeless love story.

Design for Living

"Coward's cleverest play...Coward's technique has never been more dizzy or more deft." - The New York Times

Present Laughter

Coward's richly comic play about world-weary dilettante Garry Essendine, published to coincide with the National Theatre's production, which opened September 2007.

High Spirits

The musical adaptation of Blithe Spirit, this “Improbable Musical Comedy” concerns a widowed gentleman who, upon remarrying, finds himself haunted by the spirit of his strong-willed first wife.

Private Lives

In Noël Coward’s sophisticated comedy classic, exes Elyot and Amanda, now honeymooning with new spouses, meet by chance in a French hotel and reignite their former passion – and enmity.

Still Life (Coward)

This deeply touching romance was the basis for the hit film Brief Encounter. After meeting and falling in love in a suburban rail station, Dr. Harvey and Laura meet weekly before realizing they must part forever.

This Happy Breed

"If proof were needed of Noël Coward's versatility, we have it now." - Theatre World

This Happy Breed covers twenty years in the life of the Frank and Ethel Bibbons and their children, from the end of World War I to the beginning of World War II. On one level the story is the chronicle of a middle class family. They haven't …

Waiting in the Wings

"Should rejoice those of us who still have hearts." - London News Chronicle

Coward's tribute to theatre is set in a retirement home for actresses, all former stars. Jealousies abound, especially between Lotta and another who was also married to her former husband. A tragedy brings them to their senses and a new solarium brin…

A Song at Twilight

"Coward at his zenith." - London Daily Express

This bittersweet comedy is the story of a cosmopolitan author caught in his declining years between two women, one being his wife of convenience for twenty years, the other, one of his former loves. 

After the Ball

This concert version of the Noël Coward musical based on Oscar Wilde's classic play premiered at the Covent Garden Festival and the Chicago Humanities Festival to honor Noël Coward in his Centenary Year. The young Lady Windermere discovers that her husband has been seeing Mrs. Erlynne...

After the Ball (original)

In 1899 London, the upper crust gather at Lord and Lady Windermere's London house for a spectacular ball. Lady Windermere at first ignores the gossip that she has a rival for her husband's affections, an older woman called Mrs Erlynne, but she eventually confronts Lord Windermere with the accusation. He admits that he has been paying money to Mrs Erlynne but denies that he has had an affair with her and refuses to say more. In fact, Mrs Erlynne is Lady Windermere's mother, whom her daughter believes to be dead, and Lord Windermere is paying her money to keep her from revealing the relationship.

Bitter Sweet

Everything that wealthy London society had to offer a properly brought-up girl lay at the feet of little Sarah Millick in 1875; but she fell so desperately in love with her handsome young singing master that she threw it all away in order to be with him.

Cavalcade

Contained in Noel Coward Collected Plays: Three, with Design For Living, Conversation Piece and Tonight at 8.30 Part 1 (Hands Across the Sea, Still Life and Fumed Oak)

Come into the Garden, Maud (Coward)

"A drama of profound depth and significance." - London Daily Express

Performed with Shadows of the Evening in London with Coward, Lilli Palmer and Irene Worth, this view of the haute monde is tempered by having the man and wife Americans this time. She is a social climber, while he is a rich cornhusker who couldn't ca…

Cowardy Custard

"More densely packed with entertainment than any that has hit town for a long while." - Daily Mail , London

"A whole ravishing feast ... never ceases to amaze." - Evening Standard, London

Early Mourning

Also called Sorry You've Been Troubled

Easy Virtue

"Stingingly funny lines." - London Broadcasting

"A shining jewel. ... A brilliant, searing attack on narrow minded morals and hypocrisy." - Today

Contained in the volume Coward Plays 1 with Hay Fever, The Vortex and Fallen Angels.

Fallen Angels

Noël Coward’s sublime comedy of manners, in which two married women consider dallying with the same former lover, is a champagne cocktail of wit and charm.

Family Album (Coward)

Just back from their father's funeral, the Featherway children cannot pull long faces nor feign regret.

Fumed Oak

One of the "Tonight At 8:30" series, produced in London and New York. In the middle class drawing room of amiable and hard working Henry Gow passes most of the family life surrounding his harridan wife Doris, his brat daughter Elise, and his complaining mother in law Mrs. Rockett.

Hands Across the Sea

One of the "Tonight At 8:30" series produced in London and New York. Lady Gilpin (Piggie) is so busy with social duties and gossip that she has no time for coherent thinking.

Hay Fever

"An evening of intoxicating escape." - The New York Times

"Light, luminous, and charming, and hilariously funny." - The New York Post

Home Chat

I am shirking off the chains that have shackled me for so long - I have suddenly come to realise that I am a woman - a living, passionate, pulsating woman - it never occurred to me before.

I'll Leave It to You

Left a widow with five grown up children, Mrs. Dermot turns to brother Dan for help. Uncle Dan arrives to find an idle family ready to live on his money. He announces that he is doomed to die in three years and that he will leave his money to the member of the family who has made good by then. Each …

Look After Lulu

A farce based on Occupe-toi d'Amelie by Georges Feydeau. A woman of the night is "entrusted" to a friend by her lover, when he goes into the army.

Mild Oats

Contained in Coward Revue Sketches

Noel and Gertie: An Entertainment Devised by Sheridan Morley with ...

Noel and Gertie is an entertainment for two actors and a pianist from Sheridan Morley, the writer, theatre critic and broadcaster who was also the biographer of both Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrance. '

Nude with Violin

Brilliant painter Paul Sorodin dies; indecently close to death's heels come Sorodin's relatives, his business manager and others who, their grief not entirely untinged with greed, anxiously await the reading of the will. Sebastian, valet and companion extraordinary to Sorodin, steps in with some jol…

Peace in Our Time (Coward)

"A bona fide theatrical event, which must not be missed by devotees of Coward and should not be missed by theatergoers, rabid or casual." -NoHoArtsDistrict

Post-Mortem

A one-act play in eight scenes, written in 1930 by Coward after he saw, and was moved by, Journey's End by R.C. Sherriff.

Red Peppers

One of the Tonight At 8:30 series produced in London and New York.

Relative Values

The classic comedy of manners.

Semi Monde

Written in 1926, this play, originally titled Ritz Bar, offers a satirical take on the comings, goings and occasional collisions of elegant guest staying at an expensive hotel in Paris. It weaves storylines filled with clandestine affairs and betrayals into its decadent atmosphere. …

Shadow Play

One of the "Tonight At 8:30" series produced in London and New York. Victoria has just returned from the theatre where she saw a romantic musical. She quells a headache with three Anytal tablets just before her husband enters and announces divorce plans. Victoria, head buzzing, attempts to understan…

Shadows of the Evening

Linda, George's mistress and Anne, his estranged wife decide to settle their animosities for George's sake as he has now only a few months t…

South Sea Bubble

The governor of the South Seas island of Samolo, Sir George Shotter, favours self-government for the island, but is opposed by an old-Etonian local grandee, Hali Alani.

Star Chamber (Tonight at 8.30)

A meeting takes place of the management comittee of a theatrical charity, the "Garrick Haven Fund", to benefit a retirement home for destitute actresses. Contained in Tonight at 8.30.

Star Quality

In his wickedly funny final play, Noel Coward takes us behind the scenes of a new West End production. Conjuring up an authentic backstage world of talent and treachery, Coward creates a gallery of unforgettable characters including a temperamental leading lady, ruthless director, jaded old troupers…

The Astonished Heart

One of the "Tonight at 8:30" series produced in London and New York. In psychiatrist Christian Faber's drawing room sits his weeping wife and his sad assistants, waiting for the siren Leonora. In four flashbacks the story emerges: Leonora, a girlhood chum, visited Christian's wife and was introduced…

The Better Half

A recently discovered play written two years before The Vortex, prior to Coward becoming famous. It was in a season of Grand Guignol plays s…

The Marquise

When a Count and a Duke, having been close friends since their youth, want their respective children to marry each other, the young couple concerned, Adrienne and Miguel, are not happy with this arrangement, for, although fond of each other, they both love someone else.

The Vortex

In The Vortex, Coward explores the darker side of the Cocktail Party set. Emotional blackmail, drug abuse and shattered relationships are minutely observed in this disturbing, early piece from a playwright whose sharp eye was more usually turned towards towards the light.

The Young Idea

A modern social remedy of character and situation, successfully produced at the Savoy Theatre, London.…

This Was A Man

“I loathe this age and everything to do with it. Men of my sort are the products of over-civilisation. All the red-blooded honest-to-God emotions have been squeezed out of us.”

 

Travelling Light

Ways and Means

In a bedroom in Mrs. Lloyd Ransome's fabulous villa on the Cote d'Azur are heiress Stella Cartwright and her husband, a gambler. They are plagued by debts and their prolonged stay at the villa is becoming embarrassing when a scandalous chauffeur attempts to rob them and ends up saving their honor.

We Were Dancing

One of the Tonight At 8:30 series produced in London and New York. Single Karl and married Louise spend the night dancing and plan to run away together, but the next morning they realize how little they know about each other.