School

76 pages

8 m, 14 w, chorus

The students of Hilltop High are excited! They're going to put on a musical of "Romeo and Juliet." However, the director, Miss Peggy Donahue, pressed into service by a principal eager to please his superindendent, is horrified. Twenty years before, when she was a student at Hilltop, she starred in a disastrous production of Shakespeare's "Scottish Play," and she believes the curse lingers on. Sure enough, everthing that can go wrong, does. The set for the balcony scene collapses, Juliet breaks her leg, her replacement develops laryngitis, and the semi-deaf co...

47 pages

Flexible cast of 9 m, 10 w, extras (or as few as 3 m, 3 w)

The early history of flight, alcoholism, the pressure of fame, dreams failed and fulfilled, and the never-ending need for courage are the themes of this play. It’s 1932 and Amelia Earhart is on her first great flight: a solo across the Atlantic. Her tiny cockpit becomes filled with specters of memory as she relives fragments of her life, fragments which challenge her right to fame and her ability as a pilot. Scenes flow seamlessly as she interacts with her family, including her alcoholic father, with other flyers, and finally with millionaire publisher George...

14 pages

2 m, 2 w

John and Sharon begin talking about breaking up except unseen voices feed them lines of opposite intentions. They look around for the intruders. Two people emerge claiming to be the writer and director of this scene. They declare that John and Sharon are ruining this script, which was carefully prepared especially for them! About 20 minutes. 

74 pages

14 m, 10 w, 4 flexible, extras

Rick Burgess and coworkers, Joe and Samantha, are on an outward-bound training weekend, organized by their boss, Rick's father, when they become hopelessly lost in the forest. Through the fog they finally stumble upon a remote little village, Ashdown-Lee. But the villagers are dressed as peasants and wary of the intruders. Ingrid, the mayor's daughter, however, is attracted to Rick and invites the trio to stay. They soon discover that the magical village appears only one day every fifty years. To the villagers it is the next day, but to the rest of the world ...

22 pages

2 m, 3 w

As his teenaged daughter readies for her first date, George Masters must decide whether to act like a father with great wisdom...or allow his imagination to run completely amok. Is his daughter's boyfriend a wild surfer dude, a tough biker hood or even a nose-in-the-air intellectual? Each fantasy sequence between George and the boyfriend is funnier and more disastrous than the last. Even the level-headed mom and cute younger sister get added to the mayhem. Great fun and great roles, especially for the one actor playing all three boyfriends.

72 pages

From 14 to 26 speaking roles, extras. (5 m, 5 w, 4 flex)

Inspired by the life and works of Rudyard Kipling. Celebrated author Rudyard Kipling is shocked after receiving news that his only son John is missing in action in WW I. Kipling bottles his grief, throwing his focus on a new book. Suddenly he’s interrupted by a mysterious little girl named Priyam. Charmed by her innocence, he shares his famous story “The Jungle Book” with her. As the tale of Mowgli springs to life, Kipling’s own memories of how John became a soldier start to intertwine. As truth blends into fiction, Rudyard’s memories shift to nightmares. He ...

44 pages

4 m, 3 w

Two married couples pool their resources to buy a diner in the middle of the desert. Excited and enthusiastic at first, they come to realize their dream isn’t turning out to be the success they wanted. Unable to afford to fix the diner’s broken sign or pave the dusty parking lot, the hoped-for customers continue to drive by without stopping. Inside the diner, with failing equipment and dwindling funds, the two couples discover they can’t even sell the building for a portion of what they paid for it. They are about to give up in desperation when a handsome, ch...

26 pages

4 m, 5 w

"Conform!" is an absurdist farce which takes place in a park where three men in boxes comment on humanity and the passersby who frequent their territory. They urge one and all to conform to the constraints of society, but in the end it is they who must practice what they preach. Through the use of stereotype, cliché and controversial comments, the characters humorously expose their flaws and allow the audience to laugh at some of their own shortcomings. One of three plays highlighted at the Florida State Thespian Conference in 2007 where one judge described i...

75 pages

10 m, 13 w, 3 flexible

Julie Fair is one of the brightest girls in high school but is too plain to be noticed by any guys. Her mother is an attractive woman but isn't smart enough to run her husband's import business since he vanished a year ago on an expedition. Mother and daughter are as different as two people can be, so you can imagine the impact when a strange African artifact causes them to switch bodies! They decide to keep their secret to themselves while trying to figure out how to get things back to normal, but it's not that easy. "Mother" is being blackmailed by a man in...

47 pages

19-33 or more. (6 m, 6 w, 7 flexible, much doubling possible.)

Team Justice, a team of four incredibly obnoxious superheroes, must overcome a group of supervillains who have ingratiated themselves with the city council of Littleton. The villains have taken over the city by entangling its superheroes in a nightmare of tickets, citations, and bureaucratic red tape. The only way to repeal the supervillains’ nefarious legislation is for the arrogant, socially incompetent superheroes to somehow convince enough random citizens to sign a petition…without using their superpowers, which are now illegal. They must do this before t...

70 pages

5 m, 5 w, extras

It is the summer of 1969 -- Vietnam, drugs, and a "Helter Skelter" killing spree. In a world seemingly out of control, five young friends struggle desperately with personal demons. Kyle tries to keep a dead man's promise; Chance is being driven closer to a deadly encounter; Kelly fights to hold together her disintegrating family; Angie tries to escape from her world of silence; and Dylan is terrorized by his dead grandmother. The children turn to a mysterious gravedigger who teaches them how to live. One of the most moving plays you'll ever present. Exterior ...

31 pages

From 5 - 13 actors.

Speed dating is a great way for singles to meet other people. Each "date" only lasts a few minutes, and if it doesn't work out, you can hope the next one will be better. For Cindy, those minutes feel like an eternity as she is subjected to a seemingly endless parade of jerks and losers. First there’s Marcus, whose questions seem more like an interrogation; then Trevor, whose career motivation extends only to getting the next new video game. Third is Scissor, an artistic man with an inflated sense of ego, followed by Ernest, a socially awkward guy who thinks s...

71 pages

7 m, 7 w, and extras (doubling possible)

Here's a hilarious melodrama spoof whose oddball characters seemingly ad lib their way through the wildest plot ever to come down the pike. Lovely, innocent Constance Purdy is about to lose her home to that villain-about-town, Wiley Schlink. Will hero Monroe Mannerly ride to the rescue in time? Will her long-lost prospector father show up and save the day? These questions aren't really answered because we're laughing too hard at the sheriff who has a mortgage on her own jail, a medicine man who ends up in a dress, and a saloon-smashing suffragette whose ax wo...

23 pages

4 w

A one-act play about cyber-bullying. For two weeks Amy’s life has been unbearable. An intimate conversation she had online with a boy she likes has been shared so many times that she is now the laughingstock of the school. To make matters worse, she has been receiving threatening text messages, and her family has been plagued by a series of anonymous phone calls which have been intimidating and offensive. The play opens as Amy sits alone in a classroom. She is soon joined unexpectedly by Kara, who is apparently looking for a prom committee meeting. However, w...

30 pages

18 Characters

The internet makes everything easier, whether it’s staying connected with old friends, shopping, or breaking up with your significant other. But just because online breakups are easier doesn’t mean they’re a good idea. As seen in these eleven vignettes, the results can be awkward, unpredictable, and hilarious.