Community

60 pages

5 m, 5 w

This is one club where members’ lives are not an open book! Tonight’s meeting of the Queen Anne Murder Mystery Book Club takes a dark twist when a threatening telephone call sets the group on edge. Suddenly all the lights go out and gentle Nellie is murdered. But who is the killer…and why? Do those eerie masks mounted on the wall or that unusual hanging mobile mean anything special? And then a rock with a message attached is thrown against the house jolting everyone even further. Inspector McAdoo follows the clues but soon another murder takes place. Accusati...

68 pages

3 m, 1 w, 5 flex; total of 9 with doubling, 42 w/o doubling

Ever forced to wait and wait…and wait? Want to scream at nonsensical bureaucracy? Then you’ll sympathize with Mr. Poosch who, after he accidentally leaves his well-made coat in the country to the North, finds tremendous hurdles when he attempts to get it back. First, he cannot obtain the right paperwork to travel, and then, when he finally arrives, it is Sunday and the country is closed on Sundays. A homeless man finds the coat and finds his luck turns around while wearing it. Meanwhile, poor Mr. Poosch finds himself broke, hungry, and laboring in the street....

51 pages

5 m, 5 w

Gideon Culpepper opens the Last Chance Inn and the guests pour in immediately! Dashing Horace Prickley agrees to help poor flower-peddler Flossie McDurdle become a lady, so she can win her heart’s true love, the spineless but wealthy Theodore Vanderthistle. Teddy’s scheming mother, Vedalia, has other plans though. She sends for Posey Lee Perriwinkle, a beautiful Southern belle who arrives via Pony Express as a mail-order bride. Unfortunately, Posey falls for Gideon instead. Meanwhile Horace finds that he is falling for Flossie and facing the dilemma of helpin...

17 pages

2 m, 8 w (doubling possible) 1 b, 1 g, and carolers

This turn-of-the-century Christmas is going to be a white one for bachelor Robert Kelley: white because his white lie has caught up with him! His boss, who only hires family men, wants to meet Robert's wife and kids. Robert decides to rent a family but has to disqualify several zany applicants. He is desperate until he spies sweet Mary O'Riley selling fruit. This one-act play is lighthearted, easy-to-stage and includes suggestions for favorite carols as well as one new song.

48 pages

4 m, 3 w, 2 flexible, 10 or more zombies

The premise is simple: A group of students dig up a corpse as a prank but the dead get upset and rise from the grave, trapping the students inside the mausoleum. Which character has the power to stop the Zombie menace? The audience gets the opportunity to band together in groups to solve the mystery. This part of the play is called the Clue Quest and happens during the intermission. Clue Characters (Zombies) are scattered around the building at strategic locations to give clues the audience groups. All the clues lead to the identity of the character with the ...

43 pages

5 m, 6 w, 3 flexible parts

Villainous Bernard Blackburn is in debt up to his dark moustache, but he plans to wed innocent Polly Goodson to remedy that! She believes she is penniless, but actually her late father's insurance policy is very valuable. Blackburn is somewhat daunted when he meets Polly's eccentric family and disapproving maid, but he easily gets her boyfriend, John Trueheart, out of the picture by convincing him to go off to make his fortune before asking Polly for her hand in marriage. Luckily, Trueheart finds his fortune in a diamond mine and in a final blackout scene, ev...

70 pages

7 m, 8 w

Maura Milton applies for a bookkeeper's job at the home of one Tyrone Bartholomew. However, she soon finds out there isn't ONE Tyrone Bartholomew but many. The spry old actor flies from one character to another whenever dealing with the outside world - and that world seems to involve secret codes, hiding people, dodging gangsters with guns, and harboring a wild-eyed lady with an ax. Naturally, Maura starts to question her career choice. By the time the police turn out not to be the real police, Tyrone seems to be the only sane one around! Audiences will be ke...

24 pages

3 m, 3 w, 6 flexible

Tomorrow is opening night at The Grand Old Theatre and Mastermime, a notorious criminal who distracts audiences with entrancing mime routines and then disappears with their valuables, has defaced the theatre marquee and is terrorizing the stagehands. Will hard-boiled detective Stanton Ovation and his earnest sidekick Deputy Hammet Upp capture this mute but expressive villain before he steals self-absorbed celebrity actress Ima Starr’s diamonds? Or is there more to this case than it seems? Ima’s talkative assistant Roberta, who was a forensic scientist before ...

63 pages

2 m, 4 w

Nola goes back to her parents' home after a disagreement with her boyfriend, Quincy, to sort through her problems in peace and quiet. What she finds instead is a circus of confusion. Her mother is dealing with repairs and redecoration of the house; her father refuses to help and escapes to work; and an energetic neighbor helps watch over Aunt Maggie, their somewhat vague relative who recently moved in after possibly poisoning her own cat ... and her late husband. Between the hidden money that turns up missing and Qunicy's arrival and bout with food (?) poison...