Shows About the Spirit of Community

It takes a village – to put on a show, to raise a child, or to enrich and elevate a group of people. Celebrate the power of community with these plays and musicals about neighbors, friends or family members coming together.

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? How will the “widows” respond as their idyllic town and lifestyle faces attacks? A tasty recipe of hysterical laughs, sexual innuendoes, unsuccessful repressions and delicious discoveries.

26 Pebbles by Eric Ulloa (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama /2w, 4m , Expandable)
On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 26 innocent souls before taking his own life. These innocent deaths, like pebbles thrown into a pond, created ripples and vibrations that were felt far beyond the initial rings. This is the story of those vibrations. Playwright Eric Ulloa conducted interviews with members of the community in Newtown and crafted them into an exploration of gun violence and a small town shaken by a horrific event.

An Enemy of the People (Herzog) by Henrik Ibsen and Amy Herzog (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 7m)
Amy Herzog’s streamlined adaptation of the Ibsen classic is a vibrant and compelling theatrical experience. A small-town doctor considers himself a proud, upstanding member of his close-knit community. When he discovers a catastrophe that risks the lives of everyone in town, he raises the alarm. But he is shaken to his core when those in power, including his own brother, try not only to silence him, but to destroy him. 

Anne & Gilbert, The Musical by Jeff Hochhauser, Bob Johnston and Nancy White (US)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 6w, 8m)
Set in the village of Avonlea and at Redmond College in Halifax, Anne & Gilbert follows Anne’s journey to young adulthood and her romance with her high school academic rival, Gilbert Blythe. Gilbert is in love with Anne, but she seems to be immune to his declarations of love. In the end, Anne realizes what everyone else already knows: that Gilbert is the love of her life.

As You Like It by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 5w, 6m)
Forced from their homes, Orlando, Duke Senior, his daughter Rosalind and niece Celia, escape to the Forest of Arden, a fantastical place of transformation, where all are welcomed and embraced. Lost amidst the trees, the refugees find community and acceptance under the stars.

August Wilson’s Jitney by August Wilson (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 8m)
In the Hill District of Pittsburgh in 1970, a group of Black men struggle to make a living as drivers for a makeshift taxi company. Owner Jim Becker’s son, Clarence, returns from prison just as the cab company faces a critical juncture. Deep animosities and long-held grudges come to the surface, jeopardizing the prospects for the drivers, who include alcoholic Fielding, gossipy, comical Turnbo, and earnest, decent Youngblood. 

Babes in Arms by Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and Douglas Carter Beane (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 4w, 6m)
Rodgers & Hart’s Babes in Arms, with a fresh, witty and relevant script by acclaimed playwright Douglas Carter Beane, is the quintessential “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show” musical, boasting one of the greatest scores ever written. With delightful production numbers and classic Broadway tunes, Babes in Arms tells the story of a plucky group of young artists who want to produce and perform a musical… in a barn! 

Calendar Girls by Tim Firth (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 9w, 4m)
This hit comedy, the fastest-selling play in British theatre history, is based on the true story of 11 elder women who posed nude for a calendar to raise money for the Leukaemia Research Fund. When Annie’s husband John dies, she and best friend Chris resolve to raise money by posing naked for an “alternative” calendar. The news of the women’s charitable venture spreads like wildfire, but Chris and Annie’s friendship is put to the test under the strain of their newfound fame. 

CATS by Andrew Lloyd Webber, T.S. Eliot, Trevor Nunn, and Richard Stilgoe (US)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 7w, 11m +Ensemble)
Set amongst a larger-than-life junkyard playground and alive with purr-fect felines. The Jellicle Cats come out to play on one special night of the year — the night of the Jellicle Ball. One by one they tell their stories for the amusement of Old Deuteronomy, their wise and benevolent leader, who must choose one of the Cats to ascend to The Heaviside Layer and be reborn into a whole new Jellicle life.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie by Dan Gillespie Sells, Tom MacRae, Jonathan Butterell (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 8w, 10m)
Jamie New is sixteen and lives on a council estate in Sheffield. Jamie doesn’t quite fit in. Jamie is terrified about the future. But Jamie is going to be a sensation. Supported by his brilliant, loving mum and surrounded by his friends, Jamie overcomes prejudice, beats the bullies, and steps out of the darkness into the spotlight.

Everything Is Wonderful by Chelsea Marcantel (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 3m)
When an Amish couple’s two sons are killed in a car accident, the family struggles to maintain their faith and cling to their way of life. In an act of unfathomable forgiveness, they take in Eric, the wayward young driver of the car. But Eric’s mistake cracks open the family’s dark history and brings back their eldest daughter, who was excommunicated five years earlier, forcing everyone into a new kind of reckoning. 

Faculty Portrait by Sean David DeMers (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4w, 2m)
A year after a school shooting claimed the life of his wife, Mr. Y finds himself teaching in the same classroom where the tragedy occurred. As he is interviewed for the school yearbook, Mr. Y revisits the true horrors of the shooting with three students tied to the event. As their memories flash back to the shooting and the events leading up to it, their shared guilt is in turns heightened and assuaged until they accept the mistakes of the past. 

Footloose by Tom Snow, Dean Pitchford, Walter Bobbie, Eric Carmen, Sammy Hagar, Kenny Loggins, Jim Steinman (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 7w, 8m +Ensemble)
When Ren and his mother move from Chicago to a small farming town, he is prepared for the inevitable adjustment period at his new high school. But he’s not prepared for the rigorous local edicts, including a ban on dancing instituted by the local preacher, who is determined to exercise control over the town’s youth. The heartfelt story that emerges pits a father longing for the son he lost against a young man aching for the father who walked out on him. To the rockin’ rhythm of its Oscar and Tony-nominated Top Forty score, augmented with dynamic new songs, Footloose celebrates the wisdom of listening to young people while guiding them with a warm heart and open mind.

Giant by Michael John LaChiusa, Sybille Pearson (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 11w, 11m)
Based on the classic novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber, Giant is a new American musical that spans generations in an epic chronicle of the state that’s like no place else on earth: Texas. Amid a turbulent culture of greed, bigotry and money, a powerful cattleman, his new East Coast bride, their family and friends – not to mention their enemies – embrace and confront the joys and sorrows that loom as large as the state they call home.

Greater Tuna by Jaston Williams, Ed Howard and Joe Sears (US)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2m or f)
What do Arles Struvie, Thurston Wheelis, Aunt Pearl, Petey Fisk, Phineas Blye, and Rev. Spikes have in common? In this hilarious send-up of small-town morals and mores, they are all among the upstanding citizens of Tuna, Texas’ third-smallest town. 

HAIR by Gerome Ragni, James Rado, and Galt MacDermot (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 4w, 5m +Ensemble)
This American tribal love rock musical celebrates the Sixties hippie counterculture in all its barefoot, long-haired, bell-bottomed, beaded and fringed glory. As we bask in hits like “Aquarius,” “Good Morning, Starshine,” and “Let the Sun Shine,” we watch as these young adults lean on each other as they grapple with identity, community, responsibility, peace, and what it means to be a young person in a changing, volatile world.

In the Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Quiara Alegría Hudes (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 6w, 6m +Ensemble)
In the Heights tells the universal story of a vibrant community in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood — a place where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. It’s a community on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams, and pressures, where the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions you take with you, and which ones you leave behind.

Into the Breeches! by George Brant (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 6w, 2m)
This surprisingly modern and moving comedy, set during World War II, explores the power of art and community, even in the darkest times. While Oberon Play House’s director and leading men are off at war, the director’s wife sets out to produce an all-female version of Shakespeare’s Henriad. 

Jewish Girlz by Elizabeth Swados (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 14w)
During a weekend retreat sponsored by two female rabbis, the atmosphere in a country log cabin evolves from shyness and contempt into a tell-all session among adolescent Jewish girls from all types of families and backgrounds. Stories and songs transcend stereotypes to find individuality, heart and humor and to touch on sensitive issues such as pressure, self-esteem, the fast pace of this decade and what it means to be a girl – not just a Jewish girl – in modern society.  

Kodachrome by Adam Szymkowicz (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 3f, 2m, Expandable)
Welcome to Colchester, a small town where everybody knows each other and the pace of life allows the pursuit of love to take up as much space as it needs. Our tour guide is Suzanne, the town photographer, who lets us peek into her neighbors’ lives to catch glimpses of romance in all its stages of development. A play about love, nostalgia, the seasons and how we learn to say goodbye.

LMNOP by Paul Loesel and Scott Burkell (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dark Comedy / 6f, 6m, 1 girl, 1 boy)
Chaos arises when letters begin to fall from a town monument and government officials ban them one by one. The community depends on the strength of a determined teenage girl to fight for their freedom of speech. Adapted from Mark Dunn’s 2001 award-winning debut novel, Ella Minnow Pea, this unique musical is part romance, part clever word game, and part adult fable that reminds us how precious our liberties are and how important it is to have the courage to stand up for what we believe.

Manahatta by Mary Kathryn Nagle (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 4m)
A gripping journey from the fur trade of the 1600s to the stock trade of today, Manahatta tells the story of Jane Snake, a brilliant young Native American woman who reconnects with her ancestral homeland, known as Manahatta, when she moves from her home with the Delaware Nation in Anadarko, Oklahoma to New York for a job at a major investment bank in 2008. Jane’s struggle to reconcile her new life with the expectations and traditions of the family she left behind is powerfully interwoven with the heartbreaking history of how the Lenape were forced from their land.  

Middletown by Will Eno (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 6w, 6m)
A deeply moving and funny play exploring the universe of a small American town. As a friendship develops between longtime resident, John Dodge, and new arrival Mary Swanson, the lives of the inhabitants of Middletown intersect in strange and poignant ways in a journey that takes them from the local library to outer space and points between.

Neighbourhood Watch (Ayckbourn) by Alan Ayckbourn (UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 4w, 4m)
Siblings Martin and Hilda Massie help form a neighbourhood watch group to safeguard against trespassers in their Bluebell Hill Development. But after the Massies’ beloved garden gnome Monty is thrown through their window, matters swiftly escalate, complicated by Martin’s burgeoning romance with Amy, wife of Gareth, who was formerly involved with Luther, husband of Magda… What begins as a well-intentioned scheme for a safer community ends in violence and acrimony. 

Our Town by Thornton Wilder (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 7w, 17m)
Set in the small town of Grover’s Corners, the play takes us through three acts: “Daily Life,” “Love and Marriage,” and “Death and Eternity.” Narrated by a stage manager and performed with minimal props and sets, audiences follow the Webb and Gibbs families as their children fall in love, marry, and eventually – in one of the most famous scenes in American theatre – die. A picture of an every day community and the simple but astounding blessing that is life itself.

Popcorn Falls by James Hindman (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2m)
The sleepy town of Popcorn Falls is forced into bankruptcy when a neighboring town threatens to turn them into a sewage treatment plant. Their only hope? Open a theater, of course! Two actors play over twenty roles in a world of farce, love, and desperation, proving once and for all that art can save the world.

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 4w, 6m +Ensemble)
In a Western territory just after the turn of the 20th century, a high-spirited rivalry between local farmers and cowboys provides a colorful background for Curly, a charming cowboy, and Laurey, a feisty farm girl, to play out their love story. Their romantic journey contrasts with the comic exploits of brazen Ado Annie and hapless Will Parker in a musical adventure embracing hope, determination, and the promise of a new land.

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s State Fair by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Tom Briggs and Louis Mattioli (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 7w, 9m, 1 girl +Ensemble)
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s only musical written directly for the screen is also a stage musical that’s had critics raving from coast to coast. Set against the colorful backdrop of an American heartland tradition, State Fair travels with the Frake family as they leave behind the routine of the farm for three days of adventure at the annual Iowa State Fair. 

Sordid Lives by Del Shores (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy / 6w, 6m)
The author of Daddy’s Dyin’ (Who’s Got the Will?) brings you this riotous and irreverent comedy, which was nominated for over 30 awards during its long run in Los Angeles. When Peggy, a good Christian woman, hits her head on the sink and bleeds to death after tripping over her lover’s wooden legs in a motel room, chaos erupts in Winters, Texas. 

Southern Comfort by Julianne Wick David and Dan Collins (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 5w, 6m)
Based on the 2001 Sundance Film Festival documentary, Southern Comfort follows the last year of Robert Eads, a transgender man in Georgia, as he is diagnosed with ovarian cancer. He surrounds himself with his chosen family (who are predominantly transgender) as they share monthly potluck meals. Like any family, they have their own trials and tribulations, but ultimately they all seek acceptance for who they are in their own skin.

The Accrington Pals by Peter Whelan (UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5w, 5m)
In Accrington in 1914, the “Pals” – men from the local volunteer battalion – march high-spiritedly off to the Great War as their wives, sisters and female neighbors remain in town. The men’s ensuing experiences in the trenches contrast against those of the women left behind. Both funny and heartbreaking, this lyrical, absorbing play paints a moving and powerful picture of the changes in civilian life during wartime. 

The Amish Project (Ensemble) by Jessica Dickey (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4w, 3m)
A fictional exploration of the Nickel Mines schoolhouse shooting. One man walked into an Amish schoolhouse and murdered five girls. What happens in its wake is an unforgettable story about the Amish community and the path to forgiveness. Also available in a solo version (US/UK).

The Pitmen Painters by Lee Hall (UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 6m)
In 1934, a group of Ashington miners and a dental mechanic hired a professor from Newcastle University to teach an Art Appreciation evening class. Unable to understand each other, they embarked on one of the most unusual experiments in British art as the pitmen learned to become painters. Within a few years the most avant-garde artists became their friends, their work was taken for prestigious collections, and they were celebrated throughout the British art world; but every day they worked, as before, down the mine. 

The Plough and the Stars by Sean O’Casey (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5w, 10m)
The Plough and the Stars is Sean O’Casey’s third play of the acclaimed Dublin Trilogy. From November 1915 to the Easter Rising of 1916, the lives of ordinary, working-class Dubliners go on, as one of the biggest events in Irish history takes place. 

The Revlon Girl by Neil Anthony Docking (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5w)
Eight months after the Aberfan Disaster of 1966, in which 144 people were killed (116 of them children), a group of bereaved mothers meet weekly above a local hotel to talk, cry and even laugh without feeling guilty. At one of their previous meetings, the women looked at each other and admitted how much they felt they’d let themselves go. Afraid that people will think them frivolous, they’ve secretly arranged for a representative from Revlon to come and give them a talk on beauty tips. 

The Spitfire Grill by James Valcq and Fred Alley (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 4w, 3m)
A feisty parolee follows her dreams, based on a page from an old travel book, to a small town in Wisconsin and finds a place for herself working at Hannah’s Spitfire Grill. The Grill is for sale, but there are no takers for the only eatery in the depressed town, so newcomer Percy convinces Hannah to raffle it off. Entry fees are one hundred dollars and the best essay on why you want the Grill wins. Soon, the mail arrives by the wheelbarrow and things really start cookin’ at the Spitfire Grill.

The SpongeBob Musical by Stephen Hillenburg, Kyle Jarrow, Tina Landau, Yolanda Adams, Steven Tyler & Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Sara Bareilles, Jonathan Coulton, Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, The Flaming Lips, Lady Antebellum, Cyndi Lauper, John Legend, Panic! At the Disco, Plain White T’s, They Might Be Giants, T.I., David Bowie, Tom Kenny, Andy Paley & Tom Kitt (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 16 any gender)
The stakes are higher than ever in this dynamic stage musical, as SpongeBob and all of Bikini Bottom face the total annihilation of their undersea world. Chaos erupts. Lives hang in the balance. And just when all hope seems lost, a most unexpected hero rises up and takes center stage. The power of optimism really can save the world! 

The View UpStairs by Max Vernon (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 2f, 8m)
When Wes, a young fashion designer from 2017, buys an abandoned building in the French Quarter of New Orleans, he finds himself transported to the UpStairs Lounge, a vibrant seventies gay bar. As this forgotten community comes to life, Wes embarks on an exhilarating journey of self-exploration that spans two generations of queer history. The View UpStairs asks what has been gained and lost in the fight for equality, and how the past can help guide all of us through an uncertain future.

Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully by Eddie Robson (UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 3w, 3m)
This delightful stage comedy, adapted from the BBC Radio 4 sitcom, ingeniously combines elements of science fiction and the idyllic charm of rural British life. Katrina Lyons happened to visit her parents in Cresdon Green on the one weekend when aliens invaded the village and put a force-field around it. Trapped in her hometown, Katrina presses on, desperate to save the world – and also to get out of here. 

What to Send Up When It Goes Down by Aleshea Harris (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4f, 4m)
As lines between characters and actors — as well as observers and observed — blur, a dizzying series of vignettes build to a climactic moment in which performance and reality collide, highlighting the absurdity of anti-Blackness in our society. Through facilitation and dialogue, we must decide how to cope, resist, and move forward.

For even more shows to celebrate and share with your community, visit Concord Theatricals in the US or UK.