School

60 pages

5 m, 9 w

   Clarise and Daphne Montague have just inherited the Center Stage Theatre which their uncle founded years ago. It closed three years earlier but they plan a grand reopening by restaging the first play ever performed there, a funny but cheesy melodrama. The sisters have contracted a famous acting couple for the starring roles while local talent fleshes out the cast.

   The players quickly learn the Center Stage Theatre has a reputation of being haunted by a Phantom. Most folks think it is the ghost of a young actress who ...

68 pages

5 m, 9 w, 4-6 extras, 18-20 roles

Perfect for high school performers, this fresh adaptation sets Jane Austen’s beloved novel in the hallways of Pemberley High School. Elizabeth Bennet is a smart, outspoken cheerleader just trying to survive junior year. But life gets complicated when wealthy transfer student Charles Bingley arrives and instantly falls for Elizabeth’s sister Jane. His pretentious best friend and president of the drama club, William Darcy, seems determined to ruin everyone’s happiness – especially Elizabeth’s.

As Elizabeth navigate...

34 pages

Approximately 20 Actors. Some doubling possible.

A drama class is bringing a cutting of “Romeo and Juliet,” the famous play about star-crossed lovers, to competition. But the truck with their set pieces and props has broken down on the highway, Romeo’s throwing up backstage, and Juliet is adamantly not using a tall stepladder to replace the missing balcony. But the show must go on! This funny, fast-paced ensemble comedy mixes legitimate Shakespeare scenes with controlled chaos, theater inside jokes, and absolutely no respect for the fourth wall. About 30 minutes.

52 pages

Flexible cast of 21 actors, plus extras

It’s Group Project Day at school, and two ambitious students are on a mission to livestream the madness in a new episode of their web series, Surviving School: Tips and Tricks to Make the Grade. While documenting the chaos of group dynamics, they capture the absurdities and frustrations that unfold when personalities clash, deadlines loom, and expectations skyrocket. One group attempts a dramatic interpretive dance, another secretly enlists the help of a high-tech AI robot, a perfectionist engineers the ultimate A+ plan, and one rogue student believe...

67 pages

Large flexible cast of 26-37, extras and doubling (3 m, 1 w, 22-33 flexible)

Bayport High is on the cusp of victory in a cookie-selling contest until their prized “Golden Bar” treats vanish, snatched by rival school Fairview Academy, and stashed in a campus safe. With time ticking, Bayport’s gutsy hall monitor-in-training rallies a crew of students for a daring heist to reclaim their Golden Bars before the delivery deadline strikes. Amidst the chaos, cheerleaders from both schools stage a dance battle, an over-zealous fire marshal patrols the halls, a tyrannical football coach becomes a suspect in the crime, and the owner of the resta...

39 pages

3 m, 6 w, 12+ flexible

Trajectory follows “The Solar Flares,” a middle school rocket team, as they prepare for the annual American Rocketry Contest. Guided by a chorus of Sassy Scientists, the students navigate friendship, family drama, and the high-stakes pressures of building and launching their dream rocket, Sheila! The play is ensemble driven with a flexible cast that blends comedy, drama, and science.

It showcases a wide range of students, with meaningful roles for every actor, and opportuniti...

52 pages

6 m, 10 w, 3 flexible, 2 extras

This murder mystery play set in the 1920s opens on a party in full swing at novelist Scarlett Stringfellow’s chic Manhattan apartment. All of Scarlett’s friends and loved ones--and even a few strangers--are there to celebrate her forthcoming third novel and her impending marriage to Jasper Banks, the son of one of Wall Street’s most notorious businessmen. Like all good murder mysteries, the lights cut out, a gun goes off, and the worst person in the room ends up dead. Enter Detective Charlie Dolan, who has to find the murderer amongst a group who can’t stop a...

40 pages

Cast of 22+ (3 m, 6 w, 3 flexible, ensemble of 8-10)

Influence(rs) follows middle schooler AJ Ryan as she embarks on a surreal guided tour of her own past, led by the creators of Mythical Mayhem, her favorite podcast. With their unique blend of humor and storytelling, the podcasters help her revisit pivotal moments in her past: a new school, a bereavement, and a social media calamity. Along the way, she discovers the power of perspective, forms a bond with her alter-ego AJ2, and begins to understand how her choices influence her path. With relevant contemporary themes, just the right balance o...

14 pages

2 m, 3 w

Time has passed. Della and Jim, the young couple from O. Henry's short story, are now elderly. At their yearly Christmas Eve visit to a simple coffee shop, they encounter a melancholy woman. Touched by her sadness, they tell their story in a flashback scene of their first Christmas together when they each sold their most precious possession to buy the other a present. That experience changed forever their idea of buying expensive Christmas gifts. Instead they exchange the most priceless of all, love.

20 pages

4 m, 2 w

Here is a perfect play to introduce children to the Underground Railroad. Designed as a Reader’s Theatre, "The Silent War" is a story of three slaves – and eight little mice – who escape to freedom along the Underground Railroad. Uncle Amos, Belle, and Buck Henry, all slaves on a Kentucky plantation, didn’t plan to escape until they met Zakary, a Bible salesman and abolitionist. He shows them the way to cross the river into Ohio and from there travel north to other stations. Along the way, the three slaves are helped by other dedicated abolitionists including...

60 pages

Monologue Collection

Here is another monologue collection written by the ever-popular Dan Kehde who, because of his full-time work with teens in theatre, can give an honest voice to their thoughts and emotions. These serious, and at times, humorous monologues tell the stories of more than 20 teens and their struggles to cope with a variety issues. In "Will's Excuse," a student pens his own unique version of the "dog-ate-my-homework" excuse - a classic of which even Shakespeare would be proud! In "Notes From a Best Friend," a student faces feelings of grief and guilt after her bes...

50 pages

Resource Book

The thoughts, hopes, fears, dreams - the important things in the lives of teens - are explored honestly in this collection of 18 monologues. For humor, two of our favorites are "Studs," about trying to don a tux for the first time while running late for the prom, and "Bubbacar," about a teen's first car which is so ugly it should only be driven at night. We can all identify longing for Saturdays after tough school days in "Making It to the Weekend," or laugh at the frustration in "The Proper Way to Wear a School Uniform." In addition to those typical "teen pr...