Community

23 pages

2 m, 7 w, doubling possible

Adapted Renee Rebman from the story by Edith Wharton. A period piece set in the 1920s, this play provides an opportunity for two old friends, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, to sit in an outdoor cafe in Rome and reminisce about the past. Now both widowed, the women begin to examine their strangely intertwined lives. A dramatic and emotional confrontation reveals a startling secret that is explored through well-staged flashbacks. A twist of fate long buried in the past leads to a surprising ending that will leave their friendship marked and the women changed forev...

40 pages

4 - 5 m, 4 w

Edgar Allan Poe’s famous short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” gets turned upside down in this sequel ... of sorts! Far from the Gothic mood of the original story, this is a broad comedy-mystery with a little bit of the macabre thrown in for fun. Some characters from the original story, as well as a few new ones, are now trapped in a different mansion. They’ve been called together on this dark and stormy night by a mysterious host for a reading by Poe. The guests are unknown to each other, yet there must be a connection because one by one they disapp...

24 pages

3 m, 3 w

Pat White and Pat Gray have come to the local television set of Rise and Shine, a morning news/entertainment show, to tape a public service announcement for their groups' national convention of crocheters, called the Happy Hookers. When an accident knocks the young, ambitious and somewhat egotistical news anchors out of commission just after the show begins, the two elderly Pats are called on as emergency replacements. Laughs abound as they struggle to read the news, discuss their passion for hooking, and deal with the two anchors whose inhibitions have been ...

72 pages

6 m, 6 w

This funny, fast-paced farce begins in 1933, at the end of Prohibition. Benito “Benny” Bellarosa, a New York gangster, is attempting to make good on his promise to become a respectable businessman and join the board of the New York Bank and Trust. Meanwhile, his rebellious daughter Rosalie concocts a plan to free herself from the confines of her room. She leads Benny to believe that she is “in the family way,” hoping he will allow her to leave the house and marry her boyfriend. Unfortunately, Rosalie’s lover disappears and Benny is left with more suitors (and...

48 pages

18 flexible parts, doubling possible

The play takes place during a graveyard shift in a big city police booking room where alleged criminals' mug shots are taken by two cops, a hardened veteran and a rookie on her first night. Some of the "criminals" include an African-American graduate student who infiltrated a meeting of the Klan; a drunken driver who caused a fatal accident; a pistol-packing pizza delivery woman; a husband who helped his dying wife commit suicide; a raving husband obsessed with the talk-show host who has influenced his newly liberated wife; and others. Pathetically, tragicall...

22 pages

Flexible cast of 14

Smedley S. Snerd, a typical nerd hero, is the star student of Miss Fossil's geology class. He's got a big crush on Marybelle Moosenheimer, the heroine, star cheerleader, and member of the Locks, a group which values their beautiful hair. Other peer groups include the Rocks, who are into "heavy metal"; the Jocks, who are athletically inclined; and the Rolls, a gang of hoodlums led by the infamous macho villain, Mr. G. But brain outwits brawn as Smedley uses his marbles to trip up Mr. G and his gang, win Marybelle's hand, and explain to Miss Fossil the real ori...

64 pages

5 m, 4 w, 6 children

Inspired by the short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving. Whatever became of that pale, lanky school teacher Icabod Crane after a Headless Horseman threw a pumpkin at him? Ichabod is either really angry at the way he was treated or he's dead. Or, because this is Sleepy Hollow, he may be both! This Agatha Christie-like adaptation is set in the present. The first act is a faithful retelling of the story by Washington Irving with a contemporary Ichabod living in secluded Sleepy Hollow that has not changed in three hundred years. Still consi...

58 pages

3 m, 6 w, 3 flexible parts

The Culpeppers open the doors to the Last Chance Inn once again in this hilarious sequel to "Last Chance Inn, Calamity Gulch." Ma's just as harried, Pa's just as cantankerous, and Horace Prickley is just as villainous! This time he plots to woo and wed the woeful Widder Black and take control of her fortune. It seems, however, that Horace may have to share the money with the Widder's noble nephew, Peter Loveless...if the young man finds a bride before the week is out. Enter two likely prospects - Pansy Perriwinkle (the most annoyingly sweet heroine ever to gr...

80 pages

11 m (one non-speaking), 9 w

A terrible storm is raging, forcing an odd assortment of characters to seek shelter at Moss Manor, a broken-down old inn run by Mother Moss. As fate would have it, this is the night Mrs. Moss' son, Pete, returns from the service to marry his sweetheart, Terri Cloth. Terri's uncle is violently opposed and comes to the inn to demand the marriage not take place. At the height of the storm, the lights go out and someone is murdered! Who is the victim? And if the victim is supposed to be dead, how come the guests keep finding the body in different places? Who is t...