Gather Around, It’s Time to Cook! Shows About Cooking

Cooking and sharing a delicious meal with your friends and family is an experience sure fill to your heart as much as your stomach. These soulful shows involve preparing and sharing a meal at home, in a restaurant or even an unusual location like a bomb shelter, or center a favorite dish like soups and sweets. Wash your hands and get cooking (or eating)!

APPETIZERS (Short Shows)

Bake Off by Sheri Wilner (US/UK)
(Short Play, Comedy / 1w, 2m)
Last year, the largest cash prize in Bake Off history was awarded to a man; this year, one female contestant will make sure that the male entrants get their just desserts. An original and laugh-out-loud satirical battle of the sexes.

Baked Goods by Charlie Cohen, Christyn Budzyna and Helen Park (US/UK)
(Short Musical, Comedy / 2w, 1m)
Gertie may be the worst girl scout the troop has ever seen: She ate all the girl scout cookies she was supposed to sell. When her troop-leader mother gives her the ultimatum of selling 100 boxes to continue her girl scout membership, Gertie does her best to rise to the occasion, with a little help from a new friend.

Holy Broth by Quiara Alegría Hudes (US/UK)
(Short Play, Drama / 3w, 1 any gender)
Ashley, a Puerto Rican girl from Philly, is getting a D in Spanish, and at home everything’s lost in translation. Her mother’s attention is always elsewhere, and her grandma just sits in the dark and watches Spanish soap operas. With the help of an old soup recipe and some family history, can Ashley create a new language with her grandma?

Italian Rum Cake by Jules Tasca (US)
(Short Play, Comedy / 3w, 7m)
The wives of rival mob bosses enter their rum cakes in a baking contest. The judge, a local politician, is in hot water. Threatened by both sides, he decides to award the prize to a marble cake, and the mob families unite to hunt him down.

Peace, Love and Cupcakes: The Musical by Rick Hip-Flores (US/UK)
(Short Musical, Comedy / 5w, 1m plus ensemble)
Kylie Carson has a big problem: she’s different, and different isn’t necessarily a good thing in 7th grade. To sweeten up her image – and find a place where she belongs – Kylie starts a cupcake club. Based on the bestselling children’s book series, this musical celebrates kid power, friendship and standing up for yourself.

Risen from the Dough by France-Luce Benson (US)
(Short Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w)
In a small, rustic bakery located in the heart of “Little Haiti” in Miami, FL, two Haitian-American sisters grapple with grief, identity and the complicated realities of immigrant life. Previously hit with several code violations, they prepare for the Miami Dade Health Department’s next inspection, and find themselves speeding toward an explosive culture collision.

The Fortune Cookie by Tuan Phan (US/UK)
(Short Play, Comedy / 3w, 4m, 1 any gender adult)
A philosophical argument about fortune cookies leads a university student to flights of farcical fantasy in this comedy by Vietnamese American playwright Tuan Phan.

The Long Christmas Dinner by Thornton Wilder (US)
(Short Play, Dramatic Comedy / 7w, 5m)
Spanning nine decades, this short play showcases the lives of several generations of the Bayard family. Wilder breaks the boundaries of time as we measure it, and invites us to partake of  “one long, happy Christmas dinner” – past, present and future. As generations appear, have children, wither and depart, only the audience appreciates what changes and what remains the same.

MAIN COURSES (Full-Length Shows)

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche by Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood (US/UK) 
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 5w) 
It’s 1956, and The Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein are having their annual quiche breakfast. As the assembled “widows” await the announcement of the society’s prize-winning quiche, the atomic bomb sirens sound! Has the Communist threat come to pass? 5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche is a tasty recipe of hysterical laughs, sexual innuendoes, unsuccessful repressions and delicious discoveries.

A Crock of Schnitzel by Barbara Pease Weber (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 3w, 2m)
A Crock of Schnitzel is a comedy for everyone who, at one time or another, has overindulged in a cornucopia of culinary decadence resulting in night terrors and a whopper of a bellyache. A newlywed couple experiences out-of-this-world chaos and mishaps. It all starts with a wedding gift: an unusual defect antique cuckoo clock from the husband’s aunt-in-law.

A Taste of Things to Come by Debra Barsha and Hollye Levin (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 4w)
A laugh-out-loud, fabulously fun romp that celebrates the friendship of four very different women from middle America in the 1950s and ’60s. An all-female cast and band bring a saucy zest – and some serious food for thought about sociopolitical changes spanning the era – to this exciting new musical comedy featuring an original score reflecting the chart-topping songs of the period.

Birthday Candles by Noah Haidle (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 3m)
Ernestine Ashworth spends her 17th birthday agonizing over her insignificance in the universe. Soon enough, it’s her 18th birthday. Even sooner, her 41st. Her 70th. Her 101st. Five generations, an infinity of dreams and one cake baked over a century. This poignant and funny play takes its audience through the highlights, heartbreaks and extraordinary moments that make up one woman’s ordinary life.

Blackberry Winter by Steve Yockey (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 1m)
Years of success, meticulous planning, and an eye for detail have in no way prepared Vivienne Avery for her mother’s slide into the grip of dementia. Initially hiding behind insomnia-fueled baking and a polite smile, stories about her mother leave Vivienne’s inner turmoil quietly laid bare in a juxtaposition of stories, theatrical gestures and a children’s story-esque Alzheimer’s “creation myth.”

Fat Ham by James Ijames (US/UK) 
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 3w, 4m) 
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames reinvents Shakespeare’s masterpiece with his new drama, a delectable comic tragedy. Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid, already grappling with some serious questions of identity, when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. It feels like a familiar story to Juicy, well-versed in Hamlet’s woes. What’s different is Juicy himself, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man trying to break the cycles of trauma and violence in service of his own liberation. From an uproarious family barbecue emerges a compelling examination of love and loss, pain and joy.

Grand Concourse by Heidi Schreck (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 2m)
Having dedicated her life to religious service, Shelley runs a Bronx soup kitchen with unsentimental efficiency, but her brisk nature masks an unsettling fear that her efforts are meaningless. With keen humor and startling compassion, this play navigates the mystery of faith, the limits of forgiveness, and the pursuit of something resembling joy.

Hello/Goodbye by Peter Souter (UK)
(Full-Length Play / 2w, 2m)
It’s a new year. And Juliet – young, smart and sassy — has got herself a fresh start in a new flat. But there’s also a problem: amidst the boxes, a strange guy is also moving in – and he won’t leave. He says the agency has messed up and her flat is actually his flat. As if that’s not enough, the real problem is that, well, he’s rather gorgeous… This chic comedy – featuring deviled egg sandwiches – is a modern metropolitan guide to falling in (and out) of love.

Letters From Max by Sarah Ruhl, based on a correspondence with Max Ritvo (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 1m)
“Why do you love soup so much? Is it because soup is the food that most allows your mouth to approximate silence?” In this heartwarming and heartbreaking theatrical adaptation of Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo’s 2018 epistolary book, Letters from Max: A Poet, a Teacher, a Friendship, there’s an entire scene dedicated to soup – and the option to serve it to your audience at intermission. This intimate, poetic play explores the relationship between Sarah and her former student Max as he faces terminal illness with humor, lyricism and candor.

Mashed Potatoes and Davey by Megan Orr (US) 
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2w, 2m, 5 girls, 5 boys) 
This year, in a stroke of good will, Mr. Masterson invites bus kid Davey Bryant over for Thanksgiving dinner. The Masterson kids are appalled; Davey, the biggest bully the kids at Faith Baptist Church have ever seen, is coming to eat at their house!

Mrs Beeton Says… by Eamonn O’Dwyer and Helen Watts (UK)
(Full-Length Musical / 5w, 3m)
A charming and vibrant musical examining the life and legacy of this extraordinary woman: A spirited journalist, a tireless entrepreneur and if not a perfect homemaker, then certainly a queen of organization. In a world where a woman could not vote, own a house or even ride a bicycle, Mrs. Beeton’s book, which later became synonymous with culinary expertise and domestic bliss, gave the women of England something they desperately wanted: a bit of control.

Nigel Slater’s Toast by Henry Filloux-Bennett and Nigel Slater (UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 3m)
Based on the British Book Awards Biography of the Year, Toast is the story of Nigel Slater’s childhood, told through the tastes and smells he grew up with. From making the perfect sherry trifle to waging a war over cakes and from the pressured playground politics of sweets to the rigid rules of restaurant dining, this is a story of love, loss and… toast.

Sancocho by Christin Eve Cato (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w)
Simmering between two Puerto Rican sisters is a family tension that finally comes to a boil. Forced to confront the reality of their father’s rapidly declining health, Renata and Caridad clash over cultural divides unearth old wounds and reveal long-buried secrets. As sancocho bubbles on the stove, will the two sisters reconcile their past resentments to face their uncertain futures… together?

Seared by Theresa Rebeck (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1w, 3m)
This sizzling contemporary comedy, set in the kitchen of a boutique Brooklyn restaurant, wrestles hilariously with the conflict between art and commerce. Brilliant, hot-headed chef Harry scores a mention in a food magazine with his signature scallops, and his business partner Mike finally sees profits within reach. The only problem is Harry refuses to recreate his masterpiece for the masses. Mix in a shrewd restaurant consultant and a waiter with dreams of his own, and it all goes to hell in this hilarious and insightful new play that asks us to consider where art ends and commerce begins.

Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell (US/UK) 
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1w) 
As an ordinary English housewife prepares chips and egg for dinner, she ruminates on her life and tells the wall about her husband, her children, her past and an invitation from a girlfriend to join her on holiday in Greece to search for romance and adventure. She escapes to Greece, has an “adventure” with a local fisherman and decides to stay.

Skylight by David Hare (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 2m)
Spaghetti is made onstage in this drama by David Hare. Kyra is surprised to see the son of her former lover at her apartment in a London slum. He hopes she will reconcile with his distraught, now widowed, father. Tom, a restless, self-made restaurant and hotel tycoon, arrives later that evening, unaware of his son’s visit. Kyra, who was his invaluable business associate and a close family friend until his wife discovered their affair, has since found a vocation teaching underprivileged children. Is the gap between them unbridgeable, or can they resurrect their relationship?

STEW by Zora Howard (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4w)
Mama is up early to prepare an important meal and, even with her family on hand to help, time is running short. Tensions simmer with three generations of Tucker women under one roof, but things come to a boil as the violence hovering around the periphery of their lives begins to intrude upon the sanctity of Mama’s kitchen.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street by C.G. Bond (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Melodrama / 3w, 8m)
Bond’s adaptation of the classic melodrama about a murderous barber and his partner, who repurposes the victims’ bodies into her meat pies, positions Sweeney as a wronged man seeking vengeance against his oppressors. The hit play served as inspiration for the hugely successful Broadway musical.

Table Manners by Alan Ayckbourn (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 3w, 3m)
Annie has arranged to spend an illicit weekend with her sister’s husband and for this reason, suitably disguised, has asked her elder brother and his wife to look after their widowed mother and the house. As it happens, the seduction, thought or planned, by each of the six characters never takes place either. Part of The Norman Conquests trilogy (US/UK).

The Cake by Bekah Brunstetter (US/UK) 
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 3w, 1m) 
In Bekah Brunstetter’s touching and topical dramatic comedy, a vivacious, conservative North Carolina baker named Della faces a crisis of conscience when Jen – whom she loves like a daughter – asks her to bake a cake for Jen’s lesbian wedding.

The Great Christmas Cookie Bake-Off by Rick Hip-Flores (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 7w, 8m) 
In this musical, the time-honored tradition of Christmas cookies combines with phenomenon of reality baking competitions for a holiday musical spectacular. Through a personality-filled score, eight young cookie chefs vie for first prize at the Cookie Coliseum, where feelings of intense rivalry grow into generosity and forgiveness as all involved learn what really makes for a winning Christmas recipe.

The Kitchen Witches by Caroline Smith (US)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2w, 2m)
Isobel Lomax and Dolly Biddle are two “mature” cable-access cooking show hostesses who have hated each other for 30 years, ever since Larry Biddle dated one and married the other. When circumstances put them together on a TV show called The Kitchen Witches, the insults are flung harder than the food! Dolly’s long-suffering TV-producer son, Stephen, tries to keep them on track, but as long as Dolly’s dressing room is one inch closer to the set than Isobel’s, it’s a losing battle, and the show becomes a ratings smash as Dolly and Isobel top both Martha Stewart and Jerry Springer!

The Spitfire Grill by James Valcq, Fred Alley & Lee David Zlotoff (US/UK)  
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 4w, 3m) 
Based on the hit 1996 film, The Spitfire Grill is a heartwarming and inspirational musical tale of redemption, perseverance and family. A troubled young parolee yearning for a fresh start follows her dreams to Wisconsin, based on a page from an old travel book, only to find a small town with a gritty heart aching with longing and regret. Unexpectedly discovering the healing power of community while working at a restaurant called the Spitfire Grill, Percy reawakens the entire town’s capacity for rebirth, forgiveness and hope. Set to a melodic folk-inspired score, The Spitfire Grill is a joyous celebration of human kindness.

For more scrumptious plays and musicals, visit Concord Theatricals in the US or UK.