One-Acts

16 pages

2 m, 2 w, 6 flexible

If humor is the best medicine, get ready to feel great! Slade, new to the hospital housekeeping staff, has just been given his cleaning duties in a patient's room when a lovely nurse mistakes him for a new doctor. She thinks his bumbling is just a little professional humor and even calls in student nurses to watch him administer a suppository. After blowing up a rubber glove like a balloon and conning all the nurses into exercising the patient's limbs while singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," the poor patient finally crawls from bed just to escape. Lots of vis...

14 pages

2 m, 1 w

A messenger of the Devil is sent to destroy the world but when he reaches Earth, he encounters a girl with ideas and problems of her own. Then we find out that the girl has been sent by ... you know who! One easy set.

21 pages

3 m, 3 w, 3 flexible

What fun jogging can be! Think of all the people you can meet! Here's a spoof on America's biggest health habit. Jill and Nathan have stopped jogging for a moment for him to gasp for breath. Soon Jill is off again with a spring in her step while Nathan tries to recoup on the park bench. Before long Ralph appears, who, in between his panting and wheezing from running, is vicariously plotting the demise of his physician who ordered him to start exercising. Edna, sobbing and exhausted from her half block run, makes her appearance, and soon other runners, happy a...

49 pages

4 m, 4 w, 1 flex

Failing the literature test, students Brandon, Abbey, Tyler, Hannah, Steve, Kristen, Nick and Lily decide to impress their teacher by performing "Great Expectations." Will Mrs. Eliot go for it, especially after being told by Tyler that he’d rather be at the dentist? With only eight actors, the students dash from one role to another trying to re-enact major scenes to show off their knowledge of the great work. When the plot gets too complicated for the classroom, the students stop and just explain it in their own hilarious terms. And when the action gets to be...

38 pages

4 m, 8 w

Otto and Spider are trying to crack a safe in what seems to be a mansion. However, they have inadvertently stumbled into an exclusive girls school. The headmistress mistakes them for a visiting professor and newly-hired stable hand. The girls have a plot of their own. They've invited a TV hero to the school - without permission. The action is lively, especially when the headmistress hands Otto the combination to the safe and an envelope containing a thousand dollars.

32 pages

3 m, 3 w

"All you have to do is look in his eyes and you can see the wheels turning a million miles a minute. Problem is, not too many people take the time to look for his eyes, past his arms and legs. Sometimes, even me." These are Danny Osgood's thoughts concerning his brother, David,who is entering mainstream high school despite his physical handicaps. When Danny is mistakenly given the credit for David's poetry, friends and family are forced to realize that they, too, need to look past the handicap to the young man within. A poignant, powerful award-winning play.

18 pages

3 m, 3 w

Distraught at the lack of any stimuli, an old man’s five senses are concerned that he’s dying, which means the end for them as well. As a final tribute, Sight, Hearing, Touch, Smell and Taste reminisce about poignant moments they remember from the man’s life. They are joined by Intuition, who senses that the man is not necessarily dying of old age and suggests that they all recount the last stimulus they remember in the hopes that they can figure out what happened. As they put it all together, they realize what has occurred and try to help him…and themselves....

42 pages

Approx. 9 m, 6 w, 3 flexible, extras which can be audience members

With graduation fast approaching, two groups of students of Bellefonte High confront each other in an attempt to influence the next year’s curriculum of the school. With recollections of past bullying, revealed secret lives, hinted-at romances, and numerous quotations from Shakespeare’s most famous plays, these teenagers set up a mock trial to decide if Shakespeare should be studied next year. Like current day Montagues and Capulets, the students do plenty of verbal fencing -- with a little Romeo and Juliet romance thrown in -- to ultimately decide if the Bar...

36 pages

1 m, 11 w

A hilarious calisthenics session, funny prayers to the Goddess of Softball, and a mimed ball game that's as exciting as any real one provide the comedy in this poignant one-act. Al's Pizza Pounders haven't won a game all season and it doesn't help when Dabney is taunted about her "secret," that her father is in prison. An unlikely friendship keeps Dabney from quitting and helps the team win the final game.

23 pages

3 m, 4 w

Join Michelle, Bonnie, and Jake as they bumble through getting the high school yearbook together. As senior editor, Michelle wants "her" book to be perfect. Unfortunately, Bonnie, the copy editor, can't spell, and Jake, the photographer, is a little too laid back for deadlines. A core group of four actors portray every organization from the French club to the pep squad as they come to have their pictures taken. The fast-paced photo sessions and accompanying "captions" earn an A on the laugh scale. See how Bonnie and Jake finally create a "yearbroke" too funny...

44 pages

4 m, 3 w

Two married couples pool their resources to buy a diner in the middle of the desert. Excited and enthusiastic at first, they come to realize their dream isn’t turning out to be the success they wanted. Unable to afford to fix the diner’s broken sign or pave the dusty parking lot, the hoped-for customers continue to drive by without stopping. Inside the diner, with failing equipment and dwindling funds, the two couples discover they can’t even sell the building for a portion of what they paid for it. They are about to give up in desperation when a handsome, ch...

28 pages

4 m, 4 w

The room is a refuge, a rather undefined space with no pressure from the outside world. But how long do you need to feel safe before stepping out? Each character must make that decision himself: Ben, the abused child; Cherelle, acerbic but filled with apathy; Tony, who hides his shortcoming with a smart mouth; Sandi, whose pushiness covers low self-esteem; Jon, who has a real edge of menace, and others. An intriguing drama with no set requirements.

36 pages

With doubling: 2 m, 4 w.

Before putting "Through the Looking Glass" down on paper in 1860s, Lewis Carroll told a colleague’s young daughter, Alice Liddell (the real Alice in the books), the story of talking chess pieces. The novel, of course, was a sequel to his earlier one, "Alice in Wonderland." This play is set in the early 1920s as a now elderly Alice Liddell reflects on the telling of the story. Faithful to Carroll’s expression of childhood fears of growing up, this adaptation keeps the Victorian charm and merriment by maintaining Carroll’s scenes intact. The audience is transpo...

41 pages

With doubling: 4 m, 4 w

Set in and around a 1965 Ford Mustang, the play is made up of five scenes, each a decade apart. Each scene depicts events in the lives of people who own, drive, or come in contact with the classic car. Actors portray parents, young children, punks, spoiled brats, criminals, policemen, and winners and losers of all varieties. Throughout its existence the Mustang encounters newlyweds, birth, death, a devastating flood, destruction and restoration. From the first scene when Nicholas, a teen much too poor to ever own such a car, to the last where his grandchildre...

46 pages

4 m, 3 w

Reality TV has discovered one of the most daunting, desolate, and demanding terrains on planet Earth: America's public schools. Six students from Desert Wasteland High School, sporting various backgrounds and personalities, have been selected for "Senior Year Survivor." Who will be left standing after the slew of competitions and challenges? From homecoming, SAT's, college applications and class rings, to announcements, prom and yearbook, these senior students are braving the whole gauntlet leading up to graduation! The audience gets to participate as judges,...