83 pages
3 m and 7 w (With optional extended ending: 7 m and 8 w)
Penny Ramsey is a young woman who, like all of us, has different sides to her personality. They are personified in the story by comically stereotypical characters, collectively known as the Egos. The five Egos make up her decision-making process, which gets a lot more complicated when Penny overhears only one side of her boyfriend Matt’s phone conversation and believes he has betrayed her. It’s a stressful time for Penny, made even more confusing by the introduction of a potential new suitor named Rick and the nosy involvement of Penny’s mother (and Matt’s bo...
28 pages
4 m, 5 w, 1 flexible, possible extras
It’s five days before the premiere of the non-musical version of Les Misérables, and high school drama director, Chris, has actors who are still on script, cast members absent from rehearsal, a sick stage manager, an unbuilt set and only twelve dollars left in the budget. Oh, and the principal is bringing the superintendent on opening night to see if funding for the drama program for the district should be cut. It’s a director’s nightmare, but Chris tells the cast and crew about a pocket watch from her great-grandfather that is known to help turn everything a...
32 pages
Flexible casting
Here's a delicious trio of short plays about the theatre.
In "Must the Show Go On?" (3 m, 1 w) everything goes wrong on opening night. The four actors persevere despite a drunk in the tech booth, a "costume failure," a prop gun that doesn't fire and a sneezing corpse!
In "Can't You See We're Acting?" (2 m, 3 w) three older people create havoc from their front-row seats as they unwrap pieces of hard candy, snor...
39 pages
3 m, 2 w, 2 flexible
The leaders of a small rural church are ecstatic when told the church may receive $6 million. Longtime church member Chance McDermott has passed away and left his fortune (unknown to anyone who knew him) to the congregation. But, there is one interesting caveat: they must care for his three prized hogs…immediately! So they arrange to bring the hogs to the church property and temporarily care for them in the fenced playground. That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask for $6 million, except that the church’s most influential -- and pretentious -- member, Pearl June ...
31 pages
2 m, 2 w, 5 flexible
Leaping llamas! "The Fourth Wall," a play within a play, begins as a murder mystery, but the murder victim won't keel over. The playwright forgot to give the characters names, and a rude audience member keeps interrupting the show. Even the ending of the play stinks! Everyone is supposed to die and then the character Death is supposed to do an interpretive dance. Thankfully, the audience's agony is cut short halfway through when the actors break character because Death accidentally kills the Host and then leaves the set to move his car. Without Death, how can...
72 pages
5 m, 4 w, 1 girl, 1 male voice-over
KOLD Radio is located in a corner of Carl and Lena's Place for Beer in a small Minnesota town near the Canadian border. Lars Knudsen is the host of a radio show called "Crappie Talk," devoted entirely to ice fishing for crappies. Because it is a somewhat narrow subject, Lars has no listeners, so he loses his only advertiser, Ole's Bait Mart and Deer Petting Farm. Martha Bjorklund, Lars' unrequited love interest, hosts "Book Beat." She has all the listeners, and all the advertisers. Lars has issues with Martha ever since she beat him in the 50-yard dash in 6th...