63 pages
7 m, 3 w
Molière’s comic masterpiece centers on the character of the French courtier Alceste and the beautiful young widow Célimène he hopes to marry. But the two have radically different personalities: Alceste is a snob who insists on telling everyone the truth as he sees it, and Célimène’s instinct is to tell people - and particularly attractive men - only what they are dying to hear. So Célimène flirts and gossips with the courtiers who come to her house while Alceste fumes in jealousy. A virtual menagerie of other characters seek to intervene, either to bring the ...
75 pages
1 m, 3 w and flexible extras
Miss Ida Ingram's dying wish was to have her ashes scattered over the Grand Canyon - no small request for the two remaining sisters, Isabelle and Imogene, as they are elderly and have never before ventured out of South Carolina. Into the picture comes a long-lost nephew, Brandon, who agrees to drive his maiden aunts to Arizona to give himself time to think through his own mid-life crisis. Leigh Ann, a young neighbor woman who was practically raised by the elderly triplets, soon catches up and joins them on this incredible trip where they meet everyone from a ...
68 pages
Flexible cast (40+) to a minimum of six (4 m, 2 w)
Beguiled in early childhood by his nursemaid's grim and ghoulish stories, Charles Dickens harbored all through his life a fascination with ghosts, apparitions and chilling coincidence. This play is a collection of eerie tales from the greatest storyteller of all. The stories are a lively mixture of comedy, pathos, and the supernatural and include: "The Signal-man," "The Bagman's Uncle," "The Letter From Afar," "Trial for Murder," "The Queer Chair," "Sisters From Perth," "The Portrait Painter," and "The Lawyer and the Ghost." These stories are perfect as a new...
54 pages
3 m, 5 w, 1 flexible
Janet has come up with the excuse of a party to relieve the tensions between their two trigonometry study groups. During the party the kids play a murder game, pretending that their trigonometry teacher is the victim. The students become edgy because of the parallels between their characters and themselves. All calm is shattered when word comes that their trigonometry teacher actually has been murdered! Everyone has a theory about who killed the teacher. Amidst the finger pointing and scrambling for alibis, "evidence" shows up in bookbags, and friends become ...
63 pages
5 m, 4 w, extras
A Commedia dell'Arte troupe invades a town square on market day and performs a hilarious play. In it, two young men and their servant have come to the town to find love. And they do with two young ladies. But their father, an impoverished man, has plans to marry one to his rich, fat friend, who happens to be the father of one of the young men. The daughter would rather marry the other young man, of course. Meanwhile, a rich, widowed contessa begins to pursue the girls' father. It falls to the faithful servant to arrange all the romances, forcing him to preten...
77 pages
5 m, 5 w
Aunt Ollie has been having a hard time keeping her hotel open and her brother, Earl, isn't much help. Ollie has one hope in keeping her "Home Away from Home" open with investor Judith Pomeroy. Unfortunately, before Judith can get a good look at the place, she accidentally gets a generous dose of Earl's recipe for moonshine. Add one UFO-logist, a psychology major, a fat sheriff and a conniving competitor and this hotel starts looking more and more like a real "home"! Int. set.
64 pages
5 m, 5 w
Gerald and Cristine Dandridge always give a Halloween party for their friends. This year, however, they're having the party at their country house. It's a nice little fixer-upper with all the conveniences and one haunted scarecrow. At least, that's the story that came with the house. The night of the party things barely get under way when someone notices the scarecrow has vanished. And when it finally DOES turn up, it's carrying an axe. Yes, sir, this time it's personal! Int. set.
72 pages
3 m, 3 w, 2 flexible (one non-speaking)
A madman is on the loose and college student Penny, somewhat flighty, has gotten a gun for protection over the objections of her brainy roommate Janice. The objections prove all too true when Penny accidentally shoots her boyfriend, Glen. Granted, his sense of humor often makes people want to shoot him, but this was truly an accident. Fortunately, Janice is a pre-med genius and she is able to use a very unorthodox method to save Glen’s life...kind of. His head at least, but only temporarily. While Glen protests to being stored in the TV cabinet, Penny is conc...
74 pages
5 m, 6 w
"I wasn't expecting anything to happen," intones detective Ace Baxter, "and that's just when anything CAN happen!" And happen it does, as Ace finds himself in a locked room standing in front of the only exit with a murder victim who was shot in the back ... and with Ace's own pistol. Shadows loom large when you're on the lam, as Ace finds out, whether he's disguising himself as a cleaning woman to inspect the scene of the crime, or ducking Sergeant Flint, who's chomping at the bit to clamp the cuffs on Baxter. The Professor helps out when he can, vowing to al...
60 pages
5 m, 5 w
No one could be more meek than poor Henry Jeckyll, scampering to and fro to the whims of both his fiance and his mother. So when he invents a potion to make weak men brave (well, it started out curing seasickness), what better subject to use it on than himself? It not only makes Jeckyll more aggressive, but allows him to grow a lot more hair. After only one treatment of his potion, he soon finds himself dodging the police and explaining just how that horse got in his surgery. Throw in a wise-cracking servant, a whining fiancee, an overbearing mother and a man...
64 pages
5 m, 5 w
"I wish just once we could have a family get-together without somebody getting tied up!" This plaintive request, yelled at the top of her lungs by Aunt Clarise, gives you a pretty good idea of how family reunions go for this particular gang. Peri has taken her husband Graham to the family lake house to finally meet the clan. And Graham was looking forward to it. That is, until he gets overcharged by the taxi service, takes a large swig from the Major's private stock and has a wax apple stuck in his mouth, only to be dislodged by a slap on the head. It's littl...
58 pages
Flexible casting: Minimal 3 m, 3 w.
By beginning the play with the arrival of the merchant and his daughter at the Beast's castle, this adaptation of the familiar fairy tale focuses on the many variations on the theme of love. Once the character referred to as “Beauty”' agrees to stay at the castle, the audience becomes involved in the changing relationship of the two central characters, leading to a bond of love that goes beyond surface appearances -- and that will outlast even death. It's a tale of happiness and sadness, of growing and changing. But in this version Beauty discovers her own co...