Daniel S Kehde
Dan Kehde is a playwright, librettist and director who, for the past 15 years, has served as co-founder and managing director for The Contemporary Youth Arts Company of Charleston,WV, an organization dedicated to giving young artists hands-on opportunities to bring new works to the American stage. A nearly unfunded, for-profit theater company, CYAC has produced over 50 new works in the past 15 years including 15 new Scarpelli-Kehde musicals, more than thirty new plays and eight touring social action one-acts. Together with his persevering wife, Penny, Dan continues to work with the young people of CYAC while constantly striving to challenge the ever-changing lists of new actors that come into the company. Dan is currently working on new pieces of musical theater with composer/collaborator Mark Scarpelli, as well as continuing to create and produce three or four new plays of his own each year.
Service for Jeremy Wong
Drama by Daniel S Kehde
69 pages
9 m, 9 w
When Jeremy Wong, a 15-year-old gay student, is savagely beaten and killed by two fellow students, the whole school reels from the blows. Reporters from all over the country descend on the town. Deep divisions among the students emerge as the student council debates whether or not to hold a memorial service. The brutal murder forces each student to search his or her own conscience and beliefs. Some react with denial, some make excuses, some are outraged, and some are frightened. Others respond with courage and caring, while a few start to question and change ...
Gone Tomorrow
Drama by Daniel S Kehde
26 pages
1 m, 5 w, 1 flexible, extras and audience members
Rick, an intelligent ninth grade student athlete, has his first sexual encounter with Amanda, a senior. He has four more relationships before he graduates. By the spring of his senior year, when he tests HIV positive, he has inadvertently exposed more than fifty of his classmates to AIDS. That number has little impact on most audiences until the end of the play when fifty audience members are called to the stage from the names on cards they are handed. When the name on the card is read by the actor playing the doctor, the audience member holding the card shou...
Bridesmaid, The
i-Monologue by Daniel S Kehde
2 pages
By Dan Kehde
What bridesmaid has ever liked the color or style of her dress.much less the hat! This bridesmaid may be forced to wear an awful outfit, but someday she'll get married and get her revenge with the bridesmaids' dresses she picks out!
Coffee With Kiffie
i-Monologue by Daniel S Kehde
3 pages
By Dan Kehde
A teenage girl at a coffee shop tells about the fight for control with her father, a stubborn man quick to anger. She knows what buttons to push to make him react with violence. Then she must lie about the cause of her bruises.
Dances With the Minotaur
Drama by Daniel S Kehde
44 pages
4 m, 4 w, extras
Sam and Billy are two wheelchair-bound kids who have been mainstreamed into a regular high school. Billy is a poet who, under under the pseudonym of "Minotaur" for half man, half beast, exchanges romantic e-mails with Miranda, one of his classmates. Sam is a rebel with devastating wit, who fights against the double standards that excludes them from some activities. When Billy reveals who he is to Miranda, she is stunned at first, but they become friends, and he asks her to the prom. Sam attends with a teacher. But when Sam goes to the chem lab to smoke a ciga...
Electric Preacher
i-Monologue by Daniel S Kehde
9 pages
By Dan Kehde
A young man talks about his good friend Bucky who tried to become a "healer" as well as a preacher at tent revivals. After considerable practice, Bucky learns a trick involving a few wires to get a spark of reaction. Trouble is, one night Bucky steps into a puddle of water and gets a shocking reaction himself!
Girls' Room
Drama by Daniel S Kehde
41 pages
4 w
This powerful drama takes on the subject of date rape. Four girls meet throughout the school year in the girls bathroom, in the mornings when it is off-limits to students. It's their secret refuge where they share stories, tease and argue with each other, but above all, support one another. When one of the girls, a freshman, reveals the name of the guy she is seeing, her sister, a senior, is horrified as he is the boy who raped her in eighth grade. By the end of the school year, they have all grown, learned, and are ready to leave their refuge for good. This play deals with a difficult a...
Important Things in My Life
Resource by Daniel S Kehde
50 pages
Resource Book
The thoughts, hopes, fears, dreams - the important things in the lives of teens - are explored honestly in this collection of 18 monologues. For humor, two of our favorites are "Studs," about trying to don a tux for the first time while running late for the prom, and "Bubbacar," about a teen's first car which is so ugly it should only be driven at night. We can all identify longing for Saturdays after tough school days in "Making It to the Weekend," or laugh at the frustration in "The Proper Way to Wear a School Uniform." In addition to those typical "teen pr...
Jenny's Christmas
i-Monologue by Daniel S Kehde
2 pages
By Dan Kehde
A teenage girl, perhaps now in a group home, reflects on family holidays from her childhood. It was a safe world of which she is no longer a part.
Locker Reaction
i-Monologue by Daniel S Kehde
3 pages
By Dan Kehde
When a friend tries to hold her back from seeing an ex-boyfriend, a teenage girl pushes her--hard--with serious consequences.
Preparer, The
i-Monologue by Daniel S Kehde
5 pages
By Dan Kehde
An older servant directs a younger one in preparing the king's body for burial. After specific procedures and treatments with special oils and herbs, the body is ready. The older servant then tells the younger one how to die peacefully herself as the two servants are finally sealed in the royal tomb to serve their master in the afterlife.
Side That Wins The War
i-Monologue by Daniel S Kehde
5 pages
By Dan Kehde
A Yankee soldier describes his dread before and during a fierce battle against waves of Reb soldiers. The sounds, the sights, and even the smell of battle assault him as he tries to survive while shooting from a small hole in a low rock wall. He wonders what is the difference between bravery and sheer stupidity.