44 pages
3 males, 7 females, 1 flexible, extras
Here’s the Cinderella story retold, with a little help from above! Overworked and derided by her stepmother and three stepsisters, kindhearted Cinderella can only dream of attending a ball at the castle. Suddenly her Angel Godmother appears, but she almost blows the whole fairy tale before the Godfather rushes to the rescue on his Zucchini 500. (There’s a shortage of pumpkins!) Prince Eugene dreams of finding an honest girl, but his eccentric fans make a nightmare of his party. His only hope is the sweet young woman who isn’t afraid to state her own thoughts....
87 pages
6 m, 8 w, 4 flexible
Julie, an event planner, has been tasked with organizing a soccer conference at her uncle's run-down hotel. However, no one has registered, so Julie faces being fired. Dan, who has a crush on Julie, asks his sister Effy to pretend to be a world-famous soccer player at the conference to help sell registrations and save Julie's job. Effy is a wannabe actress who looks just like the person she is asked to portray, but she knows less than nothing about soccer. As Dan tries to keep Effy's identity secret, interference from an uptight bellhop, a bitter rich lady, t...
61 pages
4 m, 10 w
When movie mogul Mandrake Masterfiend, producer of the schlockiest horror movies in history, invites some of Hollywood's craziest characters to his birthday party, the evening's a killer--literally. That's because he also invites Rona LaMona, the most vicious gossip columnist in the business who writes weekly under the title "The Poisoned Pen," to stir up the pot a bit. Though the actors, designers, and directors of some of Masterfiend's greatest successes enthusiastically reenact some great scenes from his movies, they suddenly find themselves playing suspec...
62 pages
3 m, 11 w, doubling possible
Ivy McEwin, a college history major, is so intrigued by a photograph of a young woman who lived during the Civil War that she travels to the woman's home, Ravensgate, an old Southern plantation. Ivy hopes to unlock the secrets of the woman's life, but instead meets the woman in death. The current owners, who are trying to restore the house into a bed and breakfast, have already noticed a number of strange things going on: the mournful sounds of a woman weeping at night; the frequent, unrelenting beating of a heart, and the rocking of an empty chair. As ghosts...
47 pages
Large, flexible cast. Approx. 20 actors.
In pageant, verse and fearsome argument the gods on Olympus set the great Perseus myth in motion. When the Oracle tells the human king, Acrisius, that his grandson will kill him, the old miser locks his daughter, Danae, up in a tower guarded by fearsome dogs. Zeus comes to her and devours the dogs and soon Perseus is born. Acrisius locks mother and baby in a chest and sets it afloat on the sea. The gods see the chest safely to the isle of Seriphos where Perseus grows into a local hero. The jealous king sends him on an impossible quest: to bring in the head of...
71 pages
6 m, 13 w
When the owner of a small local television station decides to jump on the bandwagon and produce his own reality show, sparks fly about the million-dollar prize. Harold Fastbuck sees an opportunity to make millions with the TV show, which casts the haughty Tuttletons of Park Avenue, New York, with the down-home Hatter family of Hog Holler, Kentucky. The families think they only have to live together in the Hatter cabin for a month, but unbeknownst to them, they must also endure a series of challenges. Being the lying cheater that he is, Fastbuck intends to mak...
68 pages
7 m, 5 w, and 7 flexible
Deep in the heart of West Virginia, there’s a little hillbilly town called Gizzard, and in that town you’ll find Leroy’s Clip n’ Dip… the world’s first beauty parlor/auto garage. Now, folks in Gizzard aren’t exactly beating the Clip n’ Dip’s door down, so to pass the time, Otis Hooper and his mechanic buddies Crisco, Clyde and Floyd, have started a band called Truck Stop Chili. Clementine (Otis’s sweetheart.) and her beauty parlor pals, Mazola, Darlene and Helga the masseuse, all grit their teeth, cover their ears and tolerate the racket, until the day Hollyw...
60 pages
7 m, 5 w, many supporting roles and extras, doubling possible
The Dumas classic “The Three Musketeers,” set in 17th century France, tells of the adventures of three heroic musketeers who are close comrades. This, sadly, is not a dramatization of that beloved story. Instead it’s a prequel…of sorts. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are in training to become musketeers, and they are bumbling rivals, casting humorously snide remarks to each other and practicing outlandish one-upmanship. When the queen is abducted under their watch, they each try to find a way to save her and save the throne. Their attempts land them in a laughing...
90 pages
Flexible cast of 13 to 40
When Fred is forced to go to the library to do a report, he meets the Book Master, a magical character who introduces him to some of the most popular fictional characters ever created. Before his eyes, sections from several great books are acted out. You can choose whichever 6 to 8 scenes of the 9 included to comprise a full evening's entertainment. Scenes include "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Little Women" (Americana); "Jane Eyre" (Gothic); "Dracula" and "The Monkey's Paw" (horror); "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "A Thousand and One Arabi...
62 pages
4 m, 6 w, 4 flex
“How’d you like to be on television?” This question, posed by future daughter-in-law Anne, takes Loff DuVall by surprise. After all, he and May June had been running the Hampton Court trailer park for more years than either would care to admit. The last thing he’d want now is to be in some reality TV show. In fact, he was hoping he and May June could get away for a while, take a long vacation from the place. He wouldn’t have to listen to Goose Halford’s long stories, such as how his grandpa has a metal plate in his head. “The kids used to catch him asleep and...
48 pages
3-4 m, 3 w, 3 flexible, extras
Electra is a young woman who mourns—and ultimately avenges with the help of her brother Orestes—her father Agamemnon’s murder. The story is based on a lost epic of ancient Greek literature, set in a period between Homer’s Iliad and his Odyssey.
This show explores the psychological costs of resisting evil in a society bent on ignoring or even sustaining that evil. Written in blank verse, the language is conversational despite its formality. Poetry best expresses that ...
46 pages
4 m, 8 w, 2 flexible, extras
Stan is a social pariah. He is beaten up at the school bus stop, never chosen for any team, and ignored every day at lunch. Then Chloe enrolls at the school. Being called names? No problem. She has flippant retorts and happily collects the offensive epithets in a notebook. Someone in her face? Her dad taught her how to physically twist a bully’s arm. Amid her tough, cool exterior, however, she also has compassion. Stan and Chloe become allies and gradually fall in love, and as is often the case with first loves, they feel as if everything good in their world ...
60 pages
8 m, 12 w. (With doubling: 5 m, 9 w)
The blank page. It strikes fear into the hearts of writers everywhere, but not student Jan Clark. She thinks writing a novel is the way to an easy A in English class. After battling constant interruptions of well-meaning friends and family, Jan discovers this assignment may be more than she bargained for. All is not lost. Jan is visited by a demanding Muse, who summons a group of struggling actors to play outrageous literary genre characters. As Jan works to finish her story, the actors complain about the size of their parts, the inane dialogue written for th...
54 pages
5 m, 7 w, optional extras
It is Petrea’s birthday slumber party, but she doesn’t feel like celebrating because she will soon be going away to boarding school. Her girlfriends play a hypnosis game to make her feel better, but are then shocked to find that Petrea really believes she is Peter Pan! When a group of boys arrive to crash the party, everyone becomes involved in a charade of Neverland characters, gender-bending their way through a scene with boys pretending to be mermaids and fairies and girls acting as pirates and the “lost boys.” Only a clever boy, disguised as Wendy, can sn...
58 pages
Large flexible casting
From the first anxious day of high school to the hopefulness of graduation, these scenes recount the good times and bad - the awkwardness and joys of dating, going to the prom and just hangin' out, to the pain of breaking up or having a friend die. We get some glimpses of life from those who are experiencing newfound freedom with wide-eyed wonder. There is a joke that teenagers should "leave home now while you still know everything." But we see these teens also realize that they are nowhere near being complete and have quite a daunting but wonderful road ahea...