One-Act Plays

36 pages

10 m, 4 w, 1 flex, 1 boy, some doubling possible

Challenger: To Touch the Face of God tells the powerful story of the Challenger disaster of 1986. It dramatizes the stories of the seven individuals who tragically lost their lives in this event, while also drawing attention to the controversial circumstances which led to one of NASA’s blackest days. Although some of the scenes depicted are fictional dramatizations, many of the sentences are the actual words used by the astronauts themselves. Scenes and settings flow seamlessly together with only lighting to distinguish them. The result is a hard-hitting and ...

36 pages

7 m, 7 w, 2 flexible, extras and doubling possible

Katie and Max Grimm are tired of having to listen to their mom’s bedtime stories about fluffy hamsters and magic smiles. When they tell her they've outgrown them, she asks for one more chance to tell the best bedtime story ever. Their dad, who loves to write zombie fan fiction, overhears and wants in on the challenge to tell the "King of Bedtime Stories"! Katie and Max have some tricks up their sleeves, however, since telling their own scary stories at summer camp. Zombie bunnies! Evil scientists! Gloomy gamma rays! Post-apocalyptic survivalists! One thing is...

36 pages

2 m, 5 w, 3 flexible

"Four of a Kind" has been a hit show for years and the four girls on the show have grown up in front of a television audience. Unbeknownst to them until recently, they have been woefully underpaid by industry standards and are getting only a portion of what their "on-air" father makes.  When the studio refuses to re-negotiate, the girls take matters into their own hands during their live season finale! While holding all of the cards, the four girls re-negotiate their contract during commercial breaks at the threat of very serious plot repercussions! Approxima...

27 pages

3 m, 4 w

When Chris, a high school student, isn't able to attend the funeral of his best friend, James, he decides to hold a farewell party at the gravesite. Attending the party with Chris are six of James' closest friends: Katherine, an intelligent but "ditzy" girl; Sarah, the new kid at school; Betty and Larry, soon to be married; Lisa, James' ex-girlfriend; and Tillman, the class brain. The group quickly discovers that they don't know each other very well - James was the common bond between them. As the play progresses, each person reveals what he meant to them. To...

34 pages

3 m, 2 w, 1 puppet.

Y’all know of Pecos Bill, the first Texas cowboy! He was raised by coyotes, made the first lasso out of a rattlesnake, broke a cyclone down to a gentle breeze, tamed the longhorn cattle and almost married Slewfoot Sue, who caught his attention by riding a giant catfish. Unfortunately, this Pecos Bill is a little confused. Ya see, the setting is in the present at a performance of “Pecos Bill's Wild West Show,” patterned after the Wild West shows of the late 19th century. But Bill and the other performers still live in the past. They believe everyone comes to t...

33 pages

4 m, 4 w, 6 flexible, doubling possible

Charleston, South Carolina, sometime after the Civil War. A poor woman borrows a diamond necklace from a wealthy friend to wear at a party. She hopes that this outing will change the circumstances of her life and fortune, and that the other guests will see that she and her husband really belong within the ranks of the upper classes. But things go awry, and she loses the necklace. Pride will not allow her to tell her friend of the loss. Instead, she has another necklace made to match the one that was lost, and she and her husband spend the next 12 years paying...

39 pages

6 m, 11 w, 1 flexible

Babysitter Ariel Watson is watching the 13-year-old triplet daughters of a famous scientist and his wife. What Ariel does not know is that the triplets have a time-traveling device in their bedroom, which brings copies of themselves out of a parallel universe. Soon there are nine girls in the house and then twelve. Ariel does not believe what is happening, until the visitors begin telling her, a piece at a time, that her future self has had a terrible “thumb accident.” By the end of the story Ariel is frantic to get to the future and stop herself, much to the...

25 pages

1 m, 1 w

Trying to start over after a recent tragic loss, Nicholas has just moved to a new school. He is socially awkward and just needs a friend, so he reaches out to the girl in the corner, who silently writes in her journal. Slowly, they begin to build a friendship. Though it takes time to open up about it, a school shooting has taken the lives of each of their siblings. But when the girl, Ali, reveals her last name, Nicholas realizes her brother was the shooter. This play does not have easy answers but explores the anger and loss in the aftermath of a shooting and...

33 pages

Ensemble of 10 (5 m, 5 w), 40+ roles with no doubling

On the eve of the 1954 closing of Ellis Island, two teenagers, an Italian-American and an Irish-American, sneak inside the main building to see it for themselves. They meet an older man, now a janitor after serving as an inspector on the island since the early 1900s. The teens are drawn into his stories from the past and his memories come alive with an ensemble of people from all nationalities and backgrounds. Some of the immigrants are already famous, some will become famous and many, many others are “famous” only within their own families. But they all shar...