School

69 pages

with doubling, 7 m, 7 w

Leo Mintz, a one-time big shot Broadway agent, now represents bird acts, roller-skating kids who recite poetry and flea circuses. However, Leo's problems are just starting when a known gangster Louie DeMarco "persuades" Leo to represent his protege with no discernible talent, the lovely Christine. As if this weren't bad enough, Leo promptly falls in love with her. "They should just type up a label which reads 'East River' and slap it on our foreheads!" scowls Liz, the secretary and bouncer for Leo's agency. Then, to throw everyone off the track, Leo stages a ...

34 pages

8 m, 6 w, extras, doubling possible

This re-creation of Robert Louis Stevenson's well-loved action classic will delight audiences of all ages and can easily be taken on tour. Young Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map and the adventure is on. If crossing the ocean is not adventuresome enough, Long John Silver and his band of pirates plan to take over the ship and steal the treasure for themselves. With the help of a castaway named Ben Gunn and a group of islanders, the pirates are defeated in battle and the treasure is recovered by Jim and his friends. About 40 minutes.

45 pages

6 m, 4 w, 8 flexible parts, and a flexible jury (doubling possible)

Mrs. Dafney Dill has been accused of murder and is about to go to trial in a small-town courtroom, complete with a snoozing judge, a good-ol' sheriff, and a jury of confused country folks. As the prosecution presents its case, it doesn't look good for Dafney. Witnesses and evidence mount, and worst of all, the judge is in a hurry to get home to some glazed rhubarb his missus has fixed. It's up to the naive and ill-prepared B.V. DeBriefs, Dafney's court-appointed public defender, to save her. Through the twists and turns of the legal system, justice is finally...

35 pages

2 m, 2 f, 7 either

Portrayed in a fantasy-based courtroom we see ominous “Judgement” begin the Trial of Existence. Every 100 years the “Forces of Chaos” can choose to test humanity and a single candidate is chosen to stand trial. Should this candidate fail, all mankind will cease to exist. While Michael and the “Representatives of Order” see the best in all of us, they must quickly name a candidate and in finding Erin, they put their faith that she is the one to represent us all. The test is 24 hours of challenges in pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. If at a...

57 pages

8 m, 12 w, 1 flex

The Wicked Witch has finally been caught and hauled into the Court of Once Upon a Time to stand trial. She's accused of casting a spell on Sleeping Beauty, attempting to poison Snow White, kidnapping Rapunzel, and trying to eat Hansel. Red Riding Hood heads up the prosecution with the Evil Stepmother of Cinderella fame serving as the defense attorney. The Three Little Pigs act as bailiffs, while Jack the Giant Killer is the guard. The judge? None other than the Fairy Godmother. The Wicked Witch's alleged victims are witnesses for the prosecution, along with t...

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...

25 pages

6 m, 4 w

Edgar Allan Poe is called an American literary genius and here are three of his short stories dramatized for Reader's Theatre. “The Masque of the Red Death" is a fantastic tale of how, after half the people of his country have died, Prince Prospero gathers knights and ladies to his castle and locks the doors to avoid the devastating “red death” disease. In "The Cask of Amontillado" we find that if a man seeks revenge, there are many ways to do it. In "Lionizing" Poe mocks authors who get recognition when they write nothing but trivia and nonsense in flowery a...

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...

20 pages

3 m, 6 w, some doubling possible

Adapted by Philip Lerman From the classic by Euripides. Troy lies in ruins after its defeat by the Grecian army. All the men have been killed, and the women wait to be transported to Greece, as slaves or concubines. Hecuba, Troy’s former queen, learns the disposition of her surviving family from the Grecian soldier Talthybius. In parting scenes with her daughter and with her son's widow, Hecuba’s spirits are lifted by the courage of these young women. After a blunt exchange with Helen, whose illicit romance with Hecuba’s other son Paris led to Troy’s destruct...

64 pages

8 m, 6 w

What happens when two villains in a melodrama meet? The action begins when an English Vicar returns home from doing missionary work in America. Unbeknownst to him, he has brought back a map to a thriving gold mine in California. The Vicar is followed across the pond by the villainous Bart Lovelace and his accomplices who are trying to find the map. Meanwhile, an English villain, Agamore Primrose, has been courting one of the Vicar’s lovely daughters in hopes of gaining a small but handsome inheritance should the Vicar succumb to an untimely accident. During t...

44 pages

7 m, 11 w. Much doubling possible.

The terrible waste of war never seemed more contemporary than in these quintessential tragedies by Euripides set before and after the siege of Troy. Far from being “historical dramas,” they speak to any generation embroiled in conflict. We see up close and firsthand that war is the most pitiful—and most poetic—of human activities. In the first play, "Iphigenia at Aulis," the Grecian army waits to embark on the conquest of Troy. The army’s commander, Agamemnon, has been forced to offer his young daughter, Iphigenia, as a martyr to ensure victory. Valiant effor...

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...