School

77 pages

4 m, 5 w, 2 flexible parts

Lt. Kenneth Paris must discover who poisoned TV actress Linda Parker during the final dress rehearsal of the play in which she was to star. But this play has as many laughs as it does suspects! When the actors and crew repeat their backstage movements at the same time as the "on-stage" actors perform the very melodramatic "Kisses to Die For," the whole play turns into a farcical three-ring circus! Almost everyone had good reason to want to kill Linda, but which one had the opportunity? With so much action on stage, it won't be easy to tell. Paris enlists the ...

75 pages

Large, flexible cast

Six separate stories of the macabre will test your goosebump factor. In "Effigy," members of a high school football team learn a gruesome lesson when school spirit is carried too far. In "Voices in the Attic," a sleepy father tries in vain to assure his kids that the sounds they keep hearing are only in their imagination. But can the boys' imaginations make an attic stair creak or turn a doorknob? In "Night-Screamers," why do the children who live in the ancient apartment complex on the edge of town have so many nightmares? One tale makes use of sign language...

42 pages

7 m, 6 w, and 3 men from audience

The Fool family has found gold on their homestead and now the whole county has been drawing gold diggers - including two outlaws, the evil Wiley Slithers and Dr. What, a hopeless kleptomaniac. Slithers devises a plan to get rid of Ma and Pa Fool and son Ura so he can marry the lovely daughter, Ima. However, she is stronger than a horse and refuses to marry any man until he can beat her in arm wrestling. Not only that, but Slithers and Dr. What must also outsmart the guy Ima has her heart set on, the handsome milkman, Sam Lactose. Local loonies complicate the ...

72 pages

3 m, 9 w

The Peaceful Glen Memorial Players are about to mount a new production, but this time, it's a fight for their lives. It's not just the usual hand-to-hand combat between board members Duncan and Hope for the last donut. This time the company is about to lose their building. According to the late Archibald Donnelly's will, they could keep the building as long as they do "quality productions." Oh, they have tried, in their own left-field way, to do the classics. "Isn't it true," family heir Blair Beesley asks, "that you did 'Twelve Angry Men' with five actors an...

35 pages

3 m, 3 w, 5 flexible parts

An undercover policeman is sitting on a park bench impersonating an old woman in the hopes of catching a purse snatcher red-handed. To his surprise, there is more than one purse snatcher, or so he thinks. Passersby, including a jogger escaping a vicious dog, a harried business woman, a male model and others, become victims of wacky experiences leading to more than one suspect being handcuffed to the park bench. On top of that, three mental patients have gone missing from the hospital located close to the park, and the old lady the undercover cop was impersona...

50 pages

6 m, 6 w

Miss Duncan, the Stratford High School drama teacher, has always wanted to direct "Hamlet," but from the very start her production is doomed. The lead actor is a prima dona who exasperates his peers. The other actors are either jealous that they weren't cast in different roles, or clueless. On opening night the costumes still haven't arrived, the makeup is lost, and the actor who is to play Horatio calls from the hospital just before his emergency appendectomy. A member of the cast has a cousin who is a professional actor who recently performed in "Hamlet." W...

52 pages

2 m, 2 w, 10 flexible, optional washboard band and townspeople

The little Western town of Possum Trot has been under a gypsy spell for two hundred years, a spell that turned the whole village into nincompoops who are so clueless they sweep with the wrong end of a broom and put themselves in jail. They've never been smart enough to progress with the rest of the world. Seymour Justice, the guilty gypsy's great-grandson (seven generations later), wants to break the spell once and for all. His perseverance pays off when he and his best friend, Edmund, finally stumble upon the lost village. The secret to breaking the spell is...

29 pages

3 m, 8 w, 2 flexible

Tech week. It’s sort of like trying to hit a homerun with a tennis racket. This tech week is especially challenging because the techies chose the play, Cats from Mars. Broken props and hyper-caffeinated techies are only some of the problems. The other human factors in this play, called actors, introduce chaos: the newbie breaks the laser gun (affectionately named Katniss), the prima donna badmouths the costumes, and the alpha male lead destroys the fog machine in between spates of directing advice. Meanwhile, the director desperately tries to hold the product...

69 pages

6 m, 5 w

Two young innkeepers, Alex and Rolly, are struggling to make a success of a once-elegant hostelry in the Hamptons, but it's tough, especially with the owner Lucinda Pickle breathing down their necks. Of course it doesn't help that the hotel's permanent resident, Mrs. Prescott, collects pet mice; that the hotel chef, Cookie, is given to bursting into tears and resigning; and that a petty criminal, Willis the pickpocket, is looking for a place to hide out. When Hollywood horror movie producer Julian K. Silverblatt checks in with his vain bodyguard and his sneez...

73 pages

4 m, 4 w, 3 flexible, numerous extras

Young, gifted opera singer Christine Daae has just filled in for La Carlotta, the reigning prima donna, to a stupendous ovation at the Paris Opera. Christine has been tutored by an instructor whom she thinks of as the "Angel of Music." She convinces him to let her see his hidden world, for she realizes he is the feared "Opera Ghost," though he tells her his real name is Erik. Reluctantly, he takes her to his lair where she sees the wonder of a world that totally revolves around music. Curious, she pulls off the mask he wears and sees the hideous visage beneat...

20 pages

5 flexible parts

Three students have been hired to take care of Mr. Patterson's purebred dog for the weekend at his estate while he is out of town. The kids, a bumbling lot at best, stick the dog in the yard so they can watch a game on TV and have the stuffy butler serve them lots of snacks. But when they hear about a dog run over down the street and can't see Mr. Patterson's dog in the yard anywhere, they start to worry. At that moment, Mr. Patterson calls to say he's coming home early. The pandemonium that follows makes this a play of non-stop laughter.

64 pages

5 m, 5 w

"I wish just once we could have a family get-together without somebody getting tied up!" This plaintive request, yelled at the top of her lungs by Aunt Clarise, gives you a pretty good idea of how family reunions go for this particular gang. Peri has taken her husband Graham to the family lake house to finally meet the clan. And Graham was looking forward to it. That is, until he gets overcharged by the taxi service, takes a large swig from the Major's private stock and has a wax apple stuck in his mouth, only to be dislodged by a slap on the head. It's littl...

54 pages

11 m, 11 w, 2 flexible, 8 boys, 6 girls.

This faithful yet unique adaptation of the Charles Dickens' holiday story begins in "another world" where Tiny Tim appears. More than just an employee's crippled son, he is a symbol of Scrooge's own infirmity. Scrooge's deceased business partner, Marley, is granted permission to return to Earth with a small but powerful army of holiday spirits on his adventure to convert the covetous old sinner into a Yuletide saint. The most popular scenes of the novel are dramatized, but especially powerful is the future scene of Bob Cratchit's gut-wrenching loss of his bel...

63 pages

6 m, 7 w

See the butler and maid help the Cummings pack. See the butler and maid escort the Cummings out the door. See the butler and maid turn to each other and embrace because they are actually two aspiring actors, Billy and Wendy, who now have the Cummings estate to themselves! One week of acting rich! Unfortunately for them, they won't be alone and they aren't the only ones acting. For all kinds of weird and hilarious reasons, the neighbor is posing as a cleaning lady; the Cummings' daughter is acting like a family friend; the jewel thief is acting like a long-los...

67 pages

Widely flexible cast (5 -14 m, 9 - 31 w)

Horror movies can be lots of fun! Join producer C.C. Bellows as he meets five directors whose movie pitches come alive onstage. Of course, C.C. knows that audiences only really like what they’ve seen before, so each of the directors has tweaked a famous horror film. “The Calamityville Horror” tells the story of a family who move into a house that’s haunted by circus animals. In “Saturday the 14th,” a group of college kids hope to find the famous ghost, Jacob Voorbees, a hockey player who fell through thin ice. In “The Extortionist,” a young girl is possessed ...