Melodramas and Westerns

35 pages

14 parts. (with doubling 2 m, 1 w, 3 flexible)

Yazoo! Get ready for one tall tale of adventure as Sheriff Cyclone Malone must protect his town, Yazoo Junction, from evil pirates! The pirate captain, along with two bumbling crewmen, has somehow managed to build a submarine – with torpedoes! – and is sailing on the river outside of town. Cyclone’s gonna need help to deal with this problem. The sweet schoolmarm (and Cyclone’s gal) Cozy Dumond tries to get a message to the neighboring sheriff, but she is tricked by the disreputable Violent Lavender, captured and tied to the submarine’s periscope. Cyclone and ...

42 pages

7 m, 6 w, and 3 men from audience

The Fool family has found gold on their homestead and now the whole county has been drawing gold diggers - including two outlaws, the evil Wiley Slithers and Dr. What, a hopeless kleptomaniac. Slithers devises a plan to get rid of Ma and Pa Fool and son Ura so he can marry the lovely daughter, Ima. However, she is stronger than a horse and refuses to marry any man until he can beat her in arm wrestling. Not only that, but Slithers and Dr. What must also outsmart the guy Ima has her heart set on, the handsome milkman, Sam Lactose. Local loonies complicate the ...

71 pages

7 m, 7 w, and extras (doubling possible)

Here's a hilarious melodrama spoof whose oddball characters seemingly ad lib their way through the wildest plot ever to come down the pike. Lovely, innocent Constance Purdy is about to lose her home to that villain-about-town, Wiley Schlink. Will hero Monroe Mannerly ride to the rescue in time? Will her long-lost prospector father show up and save the day? These questions aren't really answered because we're laughing too hard at the sheriff who has a mortgage on her own jail, a medicine man who ends up in a dress, and a saloon-smashing suffragette whose ax wo...

20 pages

5 m, 5 w

Sally Sweet (Buffalo Bill Chip's girl) controls the water for the whole valley where Baron von Broccoli owns most of the land. Now the Baron has a dream to change the eating habits of America - from sugar-frosted broccoli flakes to brocale, an alcoholic drink. He needs more land and LOTS of water. Therein lies the plot. Enter Caesar Salad, a hired killer; Tom O'Hawk, an Irish-Indian; and the BLOBS (Broccoli Lovers Of Broken Stump).

28 pages

4 m, 4 w

In order to save his darling Lily Lackamoney from the clutches of the rapscallion J. Tamarack Gargle, the hero, Balderdash Trustworthy, goes to the city to find the necessary money. Gargle, determined to have the fair damsel, employs the dirty work of Maxine Mascara to throw Balderdash into the river. However, just as the preacher is pronouncing Lily and Gargle man and wife, Balderdash enters in a blaze of glory! One act.

43 pages

5 m, 6 w, 3 flexible parts

Villainous Bernard Blackburn is in debt up to his dark moustache, but he plans to wed innocent Polly Goodson to remedy that! She believes she is penniless, but actually her late father's insurance policy is very valuable. Blackburn is somewhat daunted when he meets Polly's eccentric family and disapproving maid, but he easily gets her boyfriend, John Trueheart, out of the picture by convincing him to go off to make his fortune before asking Polly for her hand in marriage. Luckily, Trueheart finds his fortune in a diamond mine and in a final blackout scene, ev...

41 pages

3 m, 4 w, or all men

Back by popular demand! All the beloved characters are present - the large awkward, wig-wearing heroine, Little Nell; tall, slinky mustachioed villain, Carlton Bainbridge; and the affable, lovable, but-oh-so-slow hero, Hector Skyscraper. Revolving around the heavy plot of "Marry-me-or-I'll-foreclose," you'll want to cry with the heroine, hiss the villain and applaud the hero. This play's a favorite with community groups. One hour (can be lengthened or shortened).

54 pages

4 m, 6 w

Faced with losing the Last Chance Inn once again, Ma and Pa Culpepper turn to glamorous Sahara Hartburn. Sahara pays off their loan with money from a "well-heeled admirer" and promptly takes over the inn. Transformed into the Hartburn Hotel, the place becomes a residence for young ladies with a "no men allowed upstairs" policy. Sahara schemes to find a scandal that will give her new venture some publicity, and finds it when the new schoolteacher, Polly Sincere, is paid a visit by her dapper and devoted boyfriend, Jasper Jones - in her room! To escape, Jasper ...

58 pages

3 m, 6 w, 3 flexible parts

The Culpeppers open the doors to the Last Chance Inn once again in this hilarious sequel to "Last Chance Inn, Calamity Gulch." Ma's just as harried, Pa's just as cantankerous, and Horace Prickley is just as villainous! This time he plots to woo and wed the woeful Widder Black and take control of her fortune. It seems, however, that Horace may have to share the money with the Widder's noble nephew, Peter Loveless...if the young man finds a bride before the week is out. Enter two likely prospects - Pansy Perriwinkle (the most annoyingly sweet heroine ever to gr...

55 pages

4 m, 6 w

Ivory Keyes, the sharp-tongued, shoot-from-the-hip piano player from the "Calamity Gulch" trilogy, is back in her own brand-new adventure. When Ivory learns that her uncle, Lord Ebony Keyes, has died, she and Sheriff Prettyfoot travel to England to claim the inheritance. The family solicitor, Basil Q. Wainscoting, Esquire, plots to keep the estate to himself by proving Ivory to be "unvirtuous." His plans are foiled when his handsome nephew, Heathcliff, a poet, falls instead for pretty secretary, Paisley Fairfax. Before too long, a storm is raging outside and ...

63 pages

5 m, 4 w, 3 extras

1920s Hollywood is the setting of this melodrama. Sneakypete Underhand, a villainous doctor, and his henchwoman, nurse Heide Bedpann, are hired to work at a silent movie studio, where Sneakypete quickly hatches a plot to kidnap a top star, Verily Speakwell. Little do they know that when talking pictures arrive, the actress has such a horrible voice her career will be doomed! Sneakypete ends up disguised as a harem dancer to fool the director, Alfred Hitchkick, and the co-stars, including Manly Jawline, a dim movie hero, and Peerless Sneer, the ham actor who p...

55 pages

2 m, 9 w, 10 flex. Possible extras and doubling.

It’s the year 1890 in Saddlesore City. The Carson Hotel is a fun place to hang your hat and jist have a good ole time with friends and neighbors - playin' cards, dancin', laughin',singin', gossipin' and…drinkin' sassafras root beer by the gallons! Well, that's the way it used to be when Charles was alive but now it's just a sorry-eyed, sad-faced, ghost of a place where even the spiders are bored out of their minds! Widow Henrietta has become overwhelmed with both the duties of hotelin' and tryin' to raise Liza and Skeeter. Her once happy attitude has now turn...

68 pages

11 m, 12 w, 3 flexible

Soapy Smith, a real outlaw of the West at the turn of the last century, has stolen the deed to Captain Billy's Skagway Saloon and is holding it for ransom. The price? Marriage to Miss Molly May, the daughter of Billy's late partner. The beautiful Miss Molly, in love with Titus Trueheart, the local hero, refuses until the unlikely day Soapy can clean up the town. Soapy asks his Seattle "associate," Venus von Trapp, to haul up a shipment of brides to help civilize the town. But when they turn out to be pickpockets and thieves, Soapy demands that Molly teach the...

57 pages

5 m, 4 w, 3 flexible, 5-7 kids or adults dressed as kids

At Jim Dandy's Dandy Dude Ranch for Children, nasty city kids learn good manners and improve their self-images. The Dandy ladies, including the lovely young Melody Dandy, are running the ranch while Jim Dandy is serving an undeserved prison sentence. Trouble is, the ranch is close to the future railroad line and villain Rash von Sphincter is determined to have it. Rash tricks the gals into letting him manage the ranch, turning all the dude children into brats, ruining the ranch's reputation, and (hopefully) forcing Mrs. Dandy to sell. All is saved when our he...

70 pages

Minimum cast of 13 with doubling: 6 m, 6 w, 1 flex

Dusty Junction is in big trouble! The roaming outlaw Ugly Monroe is terrorizing the citizens. First he shoots stable owner Joe and steals his boots; next he shoots the sheriff and steals his badge; and then he shoots the doc and steals his stethoscope. As the loyal community struggles to hold itself together, timid Deputy Shawn needs to step up and prove he is not Deputy Nancy-boy! He is bolstered by Marlene, the kindly saloon owner; Mindy Sue, his fiery sweetheart; and even Bobby Joe, the cute little boy…er, girl…well, child. The final straw breaks when Ugly...