School

29 pages

4 m, 5 w

George and Dana each had such high hopes for their high school popularity and love life back when they were in junior high. But the reality is they now have their lunch stolen every day and are subjected to catty comments by the sports jocks and cheerleaders. Laugh and cheer as George and Dana's daydreams for wild success come alive as they imagine themselves as successful business people, Nobel Prize-winning scientists, famous actors and authors, and secret CIA operatives foiling hijacking attempts. Meanwhile, their tormentors' biggest achievement is to memo...

56 pages

4 m, 1 w, 5 flexible, plus extras

As the title implies, this fast-paced, lighthearted adaptation takes a few liberties with the original text and focuses on one adventurous day in the life of fiction’s most unfortunate fellow. Here, Quasimodo is meant to be adored, not feared, while his villainous master Frollo sports a bad toupee. The handsome war hero Phoebus is easily outwitted (and charmed) by the feisty gypsy Esmeralda, and the city is patrolled by the 15th century’s version of the Keystone Kops. Nothing and no one is taken too seriously. But beneath the humor is a timeless moral core wi...

63 pages

5 m, 7 w

It's WWII and on the Hoosier homefront, the Rev. Peter Farenkamp and his family try to do their part, especially the oldest son, David, who volunteers as a junior air raid warden. Soon the close-knit family lets Rita and Louise Baxter live with them so the two V-Girls can work at the nearby defense plant. A call from Louise's fiance, leaving for active duty in Europe, sparks in David a defiant determination to join the Army on his upcoming eighteenth birthday. But Peter, who has seen war up close, tries to stop him. Father and son clash in a powerful scene as...

72 pages

6 m, 5 w

Early morning July 1, 1863. Gettysburg, Pa. As thousands of troops from both North and South amass for what will become one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, five teenagers from several local farms escape to the safety of the surrounding hills. There's the level-headed Eliza and her little sister, Justine, who's strong-willed; Georgina, whose mother has sheared her hair to make her look like a boy; and Rachel and Jeremiah, a brother and sister from a wealthier family. As they witness the horrors of battle over the next three days, the teens are force...

54 pages

3 m, 5 w, 1 flexible

Janet has come up with the excuse of a party to relieve the tensions between their two trigonometry study groups. During the party the kids play a murder game, pretending that their trigonometry teacher is the victim. The students become edgy because of the parallels between their characters and themselves. All calm is shattered when word comes that their trigonometry teacher actually has been murdered! Everyone has a theory about who killed the teacher. Amidst the finger pointing and scrambling for alibis, "evidence" shows up in bookbags, and friends become ...

62 pages

8 m, 4 w, extras

It's a time of big cars, guys in fedoras and dames who are as quick with a wisecrack as they are with a gun. Into this world walks Nick Addams, Private Eye. All Nick has to do is find out who's framing him for the murder of the husband of the beautiful woman who hired him to help her in the first place. (Got that?) Throw in a bunch of killers hired to rub out a gumshoe named Nick Adams (one D, no relation), a girl Friday who keeps saving Nick's neck (against her better judgment), and an underworld kingpin who might just have something to do with all this.

68 pages

6 m, 5 w

WHAM! The Masked Wonder leaps into the room and fights off four or five henchmen without even wrinkling his cape and then...? Then the Hollywood writers of the Majestic Film Studios have to figure out what he does next. Pop, Tiger Lil, Stu, Howard and Dena are stuck until they meet the latest addition to their writer's stable. "Like any of us are writers," says Howard, "or stable." As the new kid on the team, Freddie has a lot to prove, mostly to his overbearing mother. Does he give up and leave with Mom? No chance! Especially not with Dena around! These two ...

23 pages

2 m, 7 w, doubling possible

Adapted Renee Rebman from the story by Edith Wharton. A period piece set in the 1920s, this play provides an opportunity for two old friends, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, to sit in an outdoor cafe in Rome and reminisce about the past. Now both widowed, the women begin to examine their strangely intertwined lives. A dramatic and emotional confrontation reveals a startling secret that is explored through well-staged flashbacks. A twist of fate long buried in the past leads to a surprising ending that will leave their friendship marked and the women changed forev...

52 pages

7 m, 2 w

The Robinson family is on a journey overseas to begin a new life. After a harrowing storm, their tall-masted ship sinks, and they are shipwrecked on a deserted island. Mother and Father and their three children, Fritz, Ernest and Franz, are now forced to truly begin a new life: a struggle for survival. Salvaging what they can, the innovative family constructs a tree house in which to live. They embark on daily scavenging treks to recover what food, weapons, and other supplies have washed ashore the uninhabited island...or is it? Soon, strange things begin to ...

63 pages

7 m, 3 w

Molière’s comic masterpiece centers on the character of the French courtier Alceste and the beautiful young widow Célimène he hopes to marry. But the two have radically different personalities: Alceste is a snob who insists on telling everyone the truth as he sees it, and Célimène’s instinct is to tell people - and particularly attractive men - only what they are dying to hear. So Célimène flirts and gossips with the courtiers who come to her house while Alceste fumes in jealousy. A virtual menagerie of other characters seek to intervene, either to bring the ...

19 pages

11 parts, approx. 6 m, 5 w

Seven teens are brought to police headquarters to tell what they know of their friend's deadly encounter with drugs and alcohol at a party the night before. Through police questioning and the attorney's defense, we find that while no one gave Julia Dark the drugs, no one stopped her from using them either. Some of the "friends" include the cheerleader, the smart aleck, the football player, the president of the student council, and others. The teens know all about the dangers of drugs, but they don't understand the responsibilities of friendship. A compelling ...

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...

62 pages

5 m, 6 w

Five teenage girls get so upset with their boyfriends' ways that they form a support group, Good Girls with Bad Boyfriends. Tracy doesn't like the way Paul dresses, Katie wants Tony to be a steady boyfriend, Natalie is tired of Ralph's acting like a wild animal, Donna is fed up with jokes from Jerry at her expense, and Barbara wants to keep Frankie from flirting with every girl around. The girls go to some real extremes to change behaviors. But hey, these guys do not change - or embarrass - easily! A hilarious play that effectively captures the awkward pleasu...

65 pages

5 m, 5 w

Helga Frankenstein figures the best way to get rid of all those nasty stories about the family castle and her relatives is to turn the place into a tourist resort. And her very first guests are vacationing Americans Chandler and Lindsey Page. Lindsey just loves the place but Chandler keeps seeing all sorts of odd things, such as some of Junior Frankenstein's "experiments." And the old ranch has just everything: werewolves, mad scientists, sooth-saying gypsies and the usual angry mob of villagers who storm the castle from time to time, just to break up the mon...

66 pages

Flexible cast of 6 to 34

Here's a comedy that takes the audience backstage to witness the worst high school auditions EVER where anything that can go wrong, does go wrong! An overzealous assistant director and a slacker stage manager, along with a wacky group of wannabe actors, are left to cast their senior show themselves. The student assistant director has big aspirations, so big in fact they are convinced the show’s success could be their golden ticket to college...and maybe even Broadway! What follows is a rollicking show full of accidental auditions, movie and pop culture hits r...

68 pages

4 m, 6 w

"I've had trouble breaking into a house before but this is the first time I've had problems breaking OUT again!" So moans Merle to his partner, Howie. These two minor-league burglars have really met their match this time, it seems. They decided on a house only to find, after managing to get into the place, that it's up for sale and before they can leave, Conrad and Glenda, prospective buyers, show up. Merle figures they have two choices - either pretend to be real estate agents or beat it, making the buyers suspect them and call in the police. Merle begins to...

65 pages

4 m, 5 w, 1 boy

Lillie Scones is a sweet retired nanny who runs a boarding house with one resident and "a cat the size of the Louisiana Purchase." Her two friends, Jocelyn and Carmella, help to pass the time by listening to music and gossiping. Then Stuart, an old charge of hers, rents a room. Lillie is tickled to have him around again, not knowing he is planning on robbing the bank on the corner. Stuart's mind may not be totally on the bank job, however, when he meets Betty. However, when Stuart finds out that Betty is about to graduate from an academy on the very night the...

40 pages

8 m, 10 w, 4 flexible (doubling possible)

Max and Katie are lost at a spooky campsite in the middle of the woods. Fortunately, Counselor Ned, a cheerful, but rather strange, camp counselor is there to help them out until the other campers and counselors find them. To pass the time, Counselor Ned suggests they all take turns telling scary stories, a "campfire tradition as old as time." As they take turns telling their tales, the stories come to life onstage! The story of "Taily-Po," an American folklore classic, reveals an old man living in the woods with his sarcastic dog… "The Backseat Driver" gives...

72 pages

3 m, 5 w

When Uncle George invites his whole family up for a weekend of fun at his rustic cabin, he actually wants them together so he can read his will. But between the bequeathing and his rambling stories, George drops the bomb that somewhere on the property is a suitcase holding four hundred and eighty thousand dollars! What follows is a hilarious farce of pettiness, slander, and greed. The relatives end up wrestling each other, falling down the stairs, and getting stuck in the furniture. "Yep, we're gonna have lots of fun!" says George as he's seen carrying a shov...

62 pages

4 m, 5 to 6 w, 2 extras

London. On a rainy evening in 1913, linguist Henry Higgins has a fateful encounter with an impertinent Cockney flower seller. When the girl shows up at  his laboratory the following day, the haughty and impulsive Higgins makes a bold wager with a colleague: employing his mastery of language he will transform Eliza Doolittle from a rough street urchin into an aristocratic lady in just six months’ time. And so begins Eliza's halting metamorphosis … but what will become of the poor girl once this “experiment” is over?

George Bernard Shaw's classic h...

32 pages

Flexible cast from 10 - 24 actors.

This play opens when a woman who is collecting mountain folktales asks the Gentry family to tell her one. But they do better than that! They act out for her the story of "Jack and the King's Girl." When a Princess has a "witchin'" put on her, Jack decides to save her and collect the reward. It isn't an easy task, especially when he has to sleep over in a haunted house. Along the way he makes some friends who have special skills, however, and ultimately they help him meet every challenge the old witch throws at him. Of course Jack saves the Princess! The widel...

68 pages

4 m, 5 w

This zany comedy, in the spirit of Kaufman and Hart, centers on Doc, an eccentric old man whose house caters to all sorts of characters. Now a retired judge, he spends his days “enjoying life.” When he’s not flying around the countryside in his balloon or fishing in a nearby dry riverbed, he works on his books of nonsense. This prompts his daughter, Charlotte, to decide he’s lost his marbles. So, conspiring with a sly lawyer, she plans to not only become his guardian but also sell his house and property. Throw in a psychologist on her first case, love sick te...

76 pages

7 w, 3 m

This poignantly-drawn play chronicles the life-changing events of the March family during a turbulent period of the Civil War. Marmee, the loving mother, and Hannah, the loyal housekeeper, steer the family through troubled waters while Father is away ministering. The four March daughters include Meg, the oldest who's determined to acquire the finer things in life; Jo, tomboyish yet passionate about her writing; Beth, a quiet musician; and Amy, the youngest, an artist who tends to put on airs. Their joys, sorrows, loves and losses are played against the backdr...

28 pages

Widely flexible from 4-20 actors

A young, hungry writer in Hollywood finally has his chance to pitch his original ideas for movies, television shows, and commercials to a major producer. The writer’s ideas come to life on stage as he tries to sell one -- just one -- of his many wacky ideas. Consider (and laugh) as the writer presents previews of a big-budget movie entitled “Thumb Wars”; a reality show about mailmen called “Going Postal”; a game show with the revolting title “Guess What I Just Ate for Dinner”; and even a commercial for a new sports drink called “H2MayO: The First Drinkable Ma...

26 pages

8 characters: 1 m, 5 w, 2 flexible

It’s Marcus’ first day on the job at The Twilight Cone, an unusual ice cream shop owned by his Great-Aunt Diane. Marcus has already been trained on the milkshake machine and scooping ice cream when suddenly his eccentric aunt needs to run to the store. She reluctantly decides to let him open the shop but makes him promise not to serve any flavor but vanilla. When five young women come in to the shop, Marcus’ promise is quickly forgotten. Little does he know that each unique milkshake flavor causes an unusual reaction. The Narrator, unnoticed by all, enters an...

60 pages

Minimum 4 m, 2 w, 2 flexible, 2 offscreen voices. Maximum 15 m, 13 w, 2 flexible, 3 offscreen voices.

Join this hilarious family as they struggle to endure being stuck at home – together! Why is the WiFi out, and will their old-school solutions work when all the needed cords are missing from the junk drawer? Will the family secure two-ply rolls of toilet paper in trade negotiations with Grandma? Wait… what has each of them been using? How many family game nights can teens endure? How are the pets holding up? What foods (or beverages!) are critical enough to make a special run to the grocery store? How do first dates and book clubs work while social distancing...

28 pages

5 m, 5 w, some doubling possible

Welcome to "Avoiding the Pitfalls of High School Dating," a seminar for high school students who have trouble going on dates. Your hosts for the evening are Lucky Daye and Starry Knight, two people who have invested their entire life savings into creating this simple system of five "never-fail" rules for dating success. Lenny and Matilda, two outcasts, have been brought in to demonstrate the system by going on a series of speed-dates to bring the five simple rules to life. Through a series of humorous and humiliating scenes and hilarious one-liners, we will s...

59 pages

3 m, 5 w

Everyone seemed to hate Derek Moore, so no one is surprised when the smooth-talking actor is found dead in the middle of a dress rehearsal. Archie Lewis, a well-intentioned but goofy detective who happens to be in the theater, offers to solve the case, but things turn out to be more complicated than he had anticipated. Why does the female stagehand, Ed, talk only in lines from classical literature and popular songs? Why does the laconic Francis keep covering for the unsmiling Jessica? Is there more to naive Terri than devotion to Derek? Do Maria's wisecracks ...

60 pages

5 m, 3 w

The Webbs, a wealthy and eccentric family, are in the midst of preparing for oldest brother Alex's wedding when Donald Webb, a long-lost brother given up for adoption years ago, shows up. Not wanting to split the Webb family fortune with yet another heir, greedy sister Rhonda schemes to oust Donald from his new-found family. What follows is a hilarious, dizzying parade of quick entrances and exits as the off-beat characters vie for their place in the family. Additional characters include a dimwitted lawyer, Alex's sweet-as-sugar fiancee with a few surprises o...

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...