American Playhouse

John Cheever's comedy of a supposedly kidnapped five-year-old boy. At first, the police aren't interested until a ransom note is discovered. Then the town goes into action to support the finding of Toby.

Hot-tempered Greek immigrant Andreas arrives in 1915 America, and finds work on a railroad. However, after giving his corrupt foreman Mekakis a savage beating, Andreas flees and makes his way west.

In 19th-century Texas, soldier Juan Nepomuceno Seguin fought at the Alamo and became a highly respected politician to insure better living conditions for his people. Frustration arose when American ranchers move into the flatlands bringing prejudice and bigotry against the Mexican populations.

The Antrobus family and their housekeeper Lilly Sabina face various global disasters, including a new ice age, a great flood, and a devastating war.

A young Depression-era reporter is assigned to write his newspaper's advice column on the insistence of his mocking editor. Unhappy in the demeaning assignment, he begins to take an interest in one of the readers sending letters.

Isaiah Stern is a wealthy, but dying, toy manufacturer. Once more, Stern has gathered his grown sons to revise his will. Three of the four are used to these idiosyncratic changes, and have come to accept them: however, the fourth, a married psychologist, is heavily in debt and doesn't like his thin share, which sparks a confrontation. The remaining sons are a bachelor who runs the family store, an indecisive sort who still lives at home, and Daddy's favorite, a closet homosexual.

Aspiring writer Nathan Zuckerman visits the secluded home of his literary idol, E.I. Lonoff. While there, Zuckerman becomes entangled in the author's complex domestic life and becomes captivated by a mysterious young woman.

A slave switches her light-skinned baby with her master's baby. The child grows up raised by whites.

Estranged brothers, screenwriter Austin and drifter Lee, clash while staying at their mother's house in suburban Southern California, leading to a chaotic role reversal that explores themes of identity, family, and the American Dream.

It's just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in California. As people begin coping with the devastating aftermath of the attacks — many suffer radiation poisoning — the Wetherly family tries to survive.

Flag Purdy, a 'man of many principles', must learn the hard lesson of compromisation in order to keep his wife and children. The 'final straw' comes when the family bring a Christmas tree into his house.

A free Black man from New York is tricked, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in the South, where he endures twelve years of brutal servitude before finding a way to contact his family and secure his freedom.

A young boy is ridiculed by his schoolmates for his eccentric behavior and assertions that he can fly. Little do they know...

In 1952, two polar opposites at Northwestern University are assigned to the same dorm room.

A convict serving five years writes stories under the name 'O. Henry'. He encounters a convicted safecracker and is inspired to write the story of Jimmy Valentine, a man invincible in the art of cracking safes.

Two families, related by friendship and love, face up to the consequences of greed and avarice in the post-war years. Love and death play equal roles in determining the outcome of events.

In 1905, at the prestigious Lawrenceville School, chief prankster William 'Hickey' Hicks comes up with a scheme to make his shy, unpopular roommate a legend.

William Wallace searches for his pregnant wife, Hazel, who has withdrawn from him, using a net in the Pearl River during the vernal equinox, a ritualistic search that delves into the mysteries of relationships and the feminine.

Spanning decades, Nina Leeds, deeply traumatized by the death of her fiancé during World War I, is unable to move past the unconsummated relationship, she embarks on a turbulent journey across different roles in her life (daughter, wife, mistress, and mother).

Spanning decades, Nina Leeds, deeply traumatized by the death of her fiancé during World War I, is unable to move past the unconsummated relationship, she embarks on a turbulent journey across different roles in her life (daughter, wife, mistress, and mother).

Spanning decades, Nina Leeds, deeply traumatized by the death of her fiancé during World War I, is unable to move past the unconsummated relationship, she embarks on a turbulent journey across different roles in her life (daughter, wife, mistress, and mother).

Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall.

Rebellious young literary editor Elizabeth Leopold clashes with her wealthy, snobbish mother over her life choices, including her job and a leftist boyfriend, as her mother tries to arrange a more 'suitable' marriage for her.

After her father is injured, a teenager and an alcoholic employee struggle to save their financially troubled farm in 1954 Montana.

Three friends who bonded over their radical beliefs in the 1930s reunite after becoming estranged over a book one of them wrote.

After his mother's suicide, Wallace Kirkman struggles in his relationships with the women in his life.

After his mother dies and father goes to fight in World War II, a young boy moves in with his aunt and uncle in the countryside. Lonely, he starts believing he has super powers. Then a 'dead' man shows up.

In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.

An American couple, Kenneth and Barbara Hoyle, reflect on their lives as players in international business, set in hotel rooms in Morocco, the Virgin Islands, and Oaxaca, Mexico.

Mary Ann Singleton, a naïve young secretary from the mid-west, tumbles head first into the colorful world of San Francisco, where carefree chaos revolves around the funky old apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane.

Two diametrically opposite brothers set off on a journey to reunite with their estranged father but when their motorcycle breaks down while passing through a small town, they become entangled in local life.

A look at the life of Delbert Ward, a member of a family of four elderly brothers, working as semi-literate farmers and living together in isolation from the rest of society until his brother William's death.

In Victorian England, wealthy patriarch Sir Harald Alabaster invites an impoverished biologist, William Adamson, into his home. There, William tries to continue his work, but is distracted by Alabaster's seductive daughter, Eugenia. William and Eugenia begin a torrid romance, but as the couple become closer, the young scientist begins to realize that dark, disturbing things are happening behind the closed doors of the Alabaster manor.

Claudia Shear's one-woman, off-Broadway show weaves her true misadventures through 64 different jobs and searches for an identity beyond mere job description.

Paul Fierlinger concentrates his considerable talents as an animator to recount through fragmented memories, vivid recollections, and the occasional evocative photograph his life as the rebellious son of Jan Fierlinger, Czechoslovakian career politician.