Community

55 pages

4 m, 3 w

Christmas in West Texas can be pretty drab, especially for three ranch hands who usually just decorate a cactus with painted barbed wire. However, when it looks as if their boss' ranch may be bought out from under them, Smitty, Bubba and Eddie decide they better come up with something and fast! Sara, their boss, has just about given up and is putting up a valiant front for her 9-year old daughter Jordan. "This has to be the best Christmas ever," she says to the boys. With "Santy" landing on the wrong roof, Eddie's duck getting loose, and the three ranch hands...

56 pages

Flexible cast of about 30

This delightful adaptation updates the action to 20th century New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration! It has been edited for time and archaic expressions, but otherwise the language is the same. The through-line is still very evident as Shakespeare's comment on the classes and pastoralism. Included in the oversized script are four original songs, New Orleans jazz style, which use Shakespeare's poems as the lyrics, with the suggestion of a grand finale of "When the Saints Go Marching In." The costumes are modern day but still very much in the style of Shakespeare ...

19 pages

4 m, 3 w

Charles Augustus Milverton is a blackmailer who preys on women who have at times slipped into indiscretions. Thus Lady Eva Blackwell wrote several imprudent letters to a young squire, which Milverton now possesses, and threatens to release them to her future husband if she does not give him 7,000 pounds. Sherlock Holmes, who agrees to represent her, refuses payment. Instead he and Watson resort to obtaining the letters by burglarizing Milverton's home. While doing so, they surreptitiously witness his meeting with a veiled woman whose letters had been sent by ...

67 pages

4 m, 4 w

Margaret Miller is a self-styled "barracuda" literary agent whose new client, Shane Velasco, star of action films, is expected for dinner and contract negotiations. Her routine business meeting becomes a comedy playground when her associate (and ex-husband) Hank shows up with his own client, Madame Guadelupe Montevideo, "world famous" hypnotist. When Margaret insults Guadelupe, she turns her fiery temper and flare for the dramatic on Margaret, hypnotizing her into a shy, five-year-old child. Coping with her growing pains are her roommate Janet, a bored execut...

50 pages

5 m, 9 w, 2 boys, 1 girl, extras

It's frantic in the Albert home. Mom is trying to direct a Christmas pageant that no one wants to be in. Dad, an obstetrician, is hoping he doesn't have to deliver any babies the night of the pageant so that he can attend. David, 12, is trying to avoid Victoria Monroe, the meanest girl in town, who insists she play Mary to his Joseph so that they can hold hands. Molly, 15, is worried and guilty when her dreaded math teacher, Miss Morris, informs her mom just how far Molly and her friends have begun harassing the new girl, Darlene. But some special Christmas m...

52 pages

11 m, 4 w, chorus of indeterminate size and all women

Pocahontas, her father, friends, and others in the Powhatan tribe are forced to face a gravely uncertain future when the English enter their village. Led by Capt. John Smith, the explorers discover that the Natives have been taught English by a survivor from Roanoke, David Barclay. Having married into the tribe, Barclay feels affection for both parties and is set in the middle. As the intrigue, plotting, and ensuing conflicts arise, our sympathies and affinities also switch back and forth between these two very different peoples. This is America’s first cultu...

56 pages

15 m, 6 w, extras

This dramatic comedy tells the story of a Christmas in 1938 in the small town of Comfort Falls: population 603. The cream of society is getting ready for their out-of-doors holiday extravaganza at the town bandstand until they find out that the local church is planning a "competing" program, their annual Christmas Eve pageant, also at the bandstand on the same night! The society set, lead by the Widow Jeffries, and the church drama troupe, defended by her long-suffering son-in-law Mayor Hoshpepper, are joined by a hilarious group of eccentric townspeople, inc...

69 pages

4 m, 3 w

Ray Chambers is a sales executive whose company invests in small businesses to franchise them. His target this time is surly Kirby Muldoon, the owner of Kirby's Pizzeria. Kirby has taken a vacation to a mountaintop lodge to work on his anger management. Ray, with the help of his fiancée Julie and his woman-crazy assistant Tony, schemes to win over Kirby. It’s complicated by Tony's infatuation with Kirby's waitress Lisa and the shrill owner of the lodge, Cyndi, who can't seem to stop shrieking at an unseen handyman. After being turned down the first time, Ray ...

32 pages

4 m, 4 w

Friendships are tried, prejudice revealed, and self-interest is (dare it be said) exposed, in this fast-moving comedy. A small Iowa town must deal with the weighty issue of whether a stone statue violates the morals ordinance. Chorlis Deets, longtime resident of Lamb’s Corner, has a new lawn ornament in honor of his departed wife...a stone statue of Aphrodite...painted pink and “situated” on a swing in his front yard. An emergency meeting of the city council is called to debate the issue and decide whether or not to forcibly remove the statue. As the meeting ...

63 pages

4 m, 10 w, 1 flexible

It's 1841 and Christmas at Moor Manor doesn't promise to be a happy one. The two daughters of the late Lord Fairchild deeply mourn their father's death. Lady Fairchild has invited her old pupil, now Queen Victoria, and her new husband Prince Albert, for Christmas hoping their presence will cheer her daughters. But the girls act even worse than before. On Christmas Eve, as they are about to run away, they bump into five orphans who have been hiding in the house stealing food. Roused by the commotion, Queen Victoria devises a plan for their "punishment." The or...

36 pages

4 m, 4 w

Duke Deadheader, the most rotten rascal on the railroad, plots to relieve the simple but honest stationmaster, Ralph Roundhouse, of the company's construction funds. Aided by his beautiful, but nasty, accomplice, Flora Flagstop, he burns down the lumber mill of our hero, Stanley Studmill, cons Ralph into signing a worthless contract for ties (Ralph thought they were railroad ties), and kidnaps our heroine Rebecca Roundhouse. All appears lost, but Duke has not reckoned with the mysterious Chinese foreman, Gan Dee, nor the ever-reliable Boxcar Betsy and her cou...

63 pages

8 m, 7 w, 1 boy, 1 girl, extras

Jack Thompson's kids are fighting non-stop this Christmas. Yet the season holds wonderful memories for Jack. He relates the story of his family's magical Christmas back in 1965 when life could not be worse. The stage comes alive with Jack, now 13, with his dad about to lose his business. Mom is worried about the two girls they are sheltering from an abusive home. Grandma, newly widowed, has come to live with them while irresponsible Aunt Hilda and her over-pampered son, Little Claude, arrive for an extended visit. Jack's older sister, Corrie, has a boyfriend ...

32 pages

7 m

Jabez Wilson is a pawnbroker whose store is located on Coburg Square next to a bank. He consults Sherlock Holmes about the "League of Red-Headed Men." He had been told by his employee, Vincent Spaulding, that it is a group established by a red-headed American millionaire, now dead, who had left a large amount of money for men with such hair color. Spaulding introduced Wilson to Duncan Ross who is also red-headed and the manager of the operation. All Wilson needed to do to earn the money was to spend four hours a day at an office, copying out the Encyclopedia ...

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...

35 pages

3 m, 1 w, 16 flexible

A small California town is under mandatory evacuation as a huge wild fire threatens its citizens, their homes, and the surrounding forest. Just as the family is about to leave, their unsuspecting dogs Loony and Max are tricked by Prince, the evil cat. Following the cat’s sinister advice, the sweet but gullible dogs disappear to avoid the vet and to find the barbecue sausages, leaving the family no choice but to drive off without them. During their big adventure to find their family again, the dogs journey through the forest where they encounter pushy raccoons...