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.

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  Waiting For Destiny

i-Monologue by Daniel S Kehde

3 pages

By Dan Kehde


A young man waits by a romantic spot at the river for Janice, a young woman he's recently seen and instantly fallen in love with. He thinks it was destiny that they were at the jazz club at the same time. He wonders and hopes, even though he's never called her, will destiny bring them together now at the river?

  You Don't Know Us...and Other Monologues for Teen Voices

Resource by Daniel S Kehde

67 pages

Monologue Collection


Monologues are traditionally used for auditions and classroom work, but they are an overlooked form of performance art, epsecially for teenagers. This collection brings this usually standard genre into the performance spotlight. Like other collections by Dan Kehde, this one was developed and performed in what has now become an annual, and ever more popular, event at the playwright's theatre. Funny, hard-hitting, and poignant, these are honest portraits of young Americans searching for freedom, love and self-worth in the labyrinth of adolescence. Titles includ...

  Your Homework Ate What? and Other Monologues

Resource by Daniel S Kehde

54 pages

Monologue Collection


Here's a nifty companion piece to "1400 Boxes of Jello." It's a passel of 25 monologues about pre-teen and adolescent fears and fantasies. Full of clever humor, they reveal the passions and dreams, worries and doubts of students as they fret about grades, dating, drugs, peer group pressure, identity questions, and, of course, the future. From the amusing dismay of "My Teacher's an Alien," to the serious self-doubts of "Maybe I'm Gay," to the hilarious title piece, these confessions all reveal the concerns and confusions of today's young people.

  Coal Camp Madonna - A Christmas Story

Drama by Daniel S Kehde

62 pages

4 m, 5 w, extras


It's winter in a poor coal mining town in the early 1900s. When a foundling baby girl appears on the doorsteps of the company store, Annie, the possessive wife of the proprietor, takes a shine to her. But Arly, who works at the store and makes Christmas presents for all the kids in town, learns that Francine is the real mother. Francine loves the baby, but is too poor to raise her with her other daughter. A cave-in at the mine sows tragedy among the miners and their families and complicates matters further. Francine, who has lost her husband in the disaster, ...