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Collective Dating

(11/30/-0001)

Collection, Comedy 4m, 3f Simple Settings Collective Dating is a wacky collection of romantic comedies based on the world of dating. From cavemen to the Internet, from an uptight, upright dating service to one that knows no bounds, Collective Dating is a wild ride of fun. The plays were written with ease of production in mind. They can be performed in any combination in one evening with a cast of four men and three women or with full casts for each play, allowing for large group performances ...

Cockeyed

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy 3m, 1w Unit Set Phil, an average nice guy, is madly in love with the beautiful Sophia. The only problem is that she

Clothes Encounters

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy, Farce 3m, 2f Interior When Alan Masters, a real estate broker, shows a property to Betty Parker, she is inadvertently soaked by a misdirected shower requiring her to disrobe. Unbeknownst to Alan, his wife, Kathy, also a broker, arrives to show the property to Betty's husband, Ralph, who also falls victim to the goofy shower. Betty and Ralph, scantily clad in the homeowners' clothing, must be kept out of each other's way by the artful, ridiculous machinations of Alan and Kathy. The far...

Cleo's Cafe

(11/30/-0001)

Children's play 2m, 4f Int. Cleo's Cafe fascinates the very young with puppetry and robots while delighting older children and adults with a comical, intelligent, contemporary plot. When Cleo wants to buy and manage the cafe where she works and tries to convince Pierre to be her partner, an excitable chef who flies into tantrums over lost recipes and gives musical French lessons, Pierre reluctantly agrees with one condition-- Cleo must regain the customers lost by the former manager. A puppet...

Class Dismissed

(11/30/-0001)

Dramatic Comedy/13m, 12f, extras/A 19 year old high school graduate wrote this wonderful play about an English teacher who is frustrated with his students' lackadaisical approach to their education and takes severe measures: he holds his toughest students hostage in his classroom. They are an egocentric jock, the obnoxious class clown, the sensitive male and female intellectuals and the flippant prom queen. The lesson they learn is not about English but about life.

Circus Animals' Desertion

(11/30/-0001)

Full Length, Comic Drama 3 m, 4 f Unit set Set in the early 1940's, this funny play tells the eerie story of frustrating, neurotic and irresponsible but resilient and strangely appealing Becky Armitage. This young lady leaves a trail of chaos but always manages to land on her feet. Because her mother died when she was born, she was raised by aunts who do not know what to do with her. Nobody will tell her who her father is. When the DeFlores carnival comes to town, she is seduced in the hall o...

Cindy Ella's Going To The Ball, The

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy 4 m., 7 f. plus extras. Ints. This hilarious takeoff on Cinderella is set in a contemporary high school at prom time. Cindy Ella's stepsisters, Prissy and Missy, are hoping that Joe Prince will dance with them, while her stepmother hopes to find husband number three among the teachers chaperoning. Big Mama arrives in a puff of smoke to make sure that Cindy gets to the prom and hooks up with dreamboat Joe Prince. But is he really her Prince Charming? This comedy by the author of Reunio...

Cinderella Waltz

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy 4m, 5f Single Set Rosey Snow is trapped in a fairy tale world that is by turns funny and a little frightening, with her stepsisters Goneril and Regan, her demented stepmother, her lecherous father, a bewildered Prince, a fairy godmother who sings salty old sailor songs, a troll and a possibly homicidal village idiot. This play investigates the archetypal origins of the world's most popular fairy tale, contrasting the familiar and charming Perrault version with the darker, more ancient...

Cinderella Meets the Wolfman

(11/30/-0001)

Musical Book by Tim Kelly. Music and Lyrics by Jack Sharkey. 9m, 14f (doubling possible), optional chorus. Cinderella encounters a Prince who has inherited "The Charming Curse" and becomes a wolf every full moon. Igor, hired by King and Queen Charming to keep an eye on their son, a movie star who's come to attend the royal wedding (which will occur if Prince Charming can take a bride without devouring her), and a gypsy who can get a fortune for a genuine stuffed werewolf (she's got a silver b...

Cincinnati and Other Plays

(11/30/-0001)

Drama 1f A lectern on a bare stage This complex and terrifying play is about a woman who has embraced the illusion of central position she believes she is the center of the universe, that when she moves from one location it is disassembled by evil demons and reassembled elsewhere, and that the universe exists simply to torment her, distract her from the true nature of things, and give her as much pain as possible. Powerful, funny, disturbing and disorienting, this play stretches one actress t...

Chronicles

(11/30/-0001)

Full Length, Comic Drama 4 m, 5 f Unit set In 1920 the Pendragons gather for the first time in years at the crumbling family mansion in Ohio where Matt Armitage lies dying. As his daughter Dorothy, who can neither hear nor speak, provides a running commentary which is heard only by the audience, her wild sister Jessie chases their half brother John Rose from room to room and tries to fathom what betrayal is behind her father's refusal to speak to her mother. Uncle David, an eccentric poet, is...

Christmas Spirit, The

(11/30/-0001)

Full Length, Comedy 5 m, 4 f Int. Julia Dowling has an unexpected visitor who intends to escort her off to the afterlife. Infusing comedy into the classic Death Takes a Holiday,The Christmas Spirit is set in contemporary Long Island. Julia persuades Death to give her one more day to enjoy Christmas and invites him to be her guest at a festive party. The next day the house fills with bickering relatives, friends, the local priest - and Death, masquerading as a human, singing carols and drinkin...

Christmas Pudding, A

(11/30/-0001)

Edited and adapted by David Birney / 3m., 3f., plus chorus 8 to 12 singers / Holiday Play with music /Simple Unit Set A Christmas celebration told in songs, stories, poems and tales by Dickens, Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Shaw, Longfellow, St. Luke and many others collected with a host of traditional carols and holiday songs. This piece provides a perfect evening to warm hearts, stir memories and give laughter during the holiday season.

Christmas Pudding II, A

(11/30/-0001)

Holiday Play with Music/3m, 3f, plus chorus 8 to 12 singers/Simple Set/A Christmas celebration told in songs, stories, poems and tales by Dickens, Mark Twain, Frank McCourt, Emily Dickinson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, A.J. Carothers, and many others collected with a host of traditional carols and holiday songs. This piece provides a perfect evening to warm hearts, stir memories and give laughter during the holiday season. Also available from Samuel French: David Birney

Christmas Carol

(11/30/-0001)

Play/Adapted by John Mortimer from the story by Charles Dickens Large cast. Simple sets. Dramatized with flair and wit in a version first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, this adaptation of the ageless story captures Dickens' ironic point of view while it creates a panoramic view of Victorian London. All of the much loved characters are in place. Cast and staging requirements are extremely flexible; there is ample opportunity for creative doubling.

Christmas Cactus, A

(11/30/-0001)

Holiday Comedy/Mystery/4m, 2f/Multiple Sets/Christmas Eve is tough for private investigator Cactus O'Riley, a white hot redhead with the holiday blues. She is trying to lure her secretary Fred away from his protective mother, dodging the affections of Deputy D.A. Windsor, and considering closing her business. She doesn't need the added aggravation of two fugitives who burst into her office looking for justice and a dead detective named Jake Marley. Cactus also doesn't need Fred's mother, who arr...

Christmas At Home

(11/30/-0001)

Short Christmas Comedy / 3m, 4f / Interior / The day before Christmas finds the Burgess family busy with preparations and poignantly aware that this is the first year the members of the family will not be together; son Johnny is in Chicago, and Grandpa had died last summer. But the Burgesses do not feel sorry for themselves; they realize how happy and well off they are. In humorous and touching scenes, we see sixteen year-old Julie falling in love for the first time; eighteen year-old Emily rece...

China: The Whole Enchilada

(11/30/-0001)

3m / Musical Comedy / A hilarious new musical, China - The Whole Enchilada is three men singing, dancing, and irreverently marching their way through four thousand years of Chinese history- in less than two hours with an intermission. The show dares to tackle racism, human rights, genocide, and the birth of the fortune cookie. / Selected participant of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival. / "Sublimely silly! I found myself grinning, if not outright laughing through most of the goofy ...

Cherry Soda Water

(11/30/-0001)

One Act Dramas / 3m, 3 f / On the same night in a northern California coastal town, two families are challenged as reality crashes into fantasy in three related one act plays. In tone, Cherry and Little Banjo, Red Roses for My Lady and The Gulf of Crimson vary from lost innocence to shattered dreams to revived love. The trilogy enjoyed a long run in Los Angeles and was awarded Distinguished Achievement from Wichita State University.

Cheatin'

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy / 4 m., 3 f. / Int. Before Daddy's Dyin' Who's Got the Will? there was this award winning comedy set in the west Texas watering hole of Lowake. Gossip, the town's major pastime, ignites a blaze of infidelity that engulfs three couples with the zany precision of a Feydeau farce. The clan includes Bo Bob, the dimwitted mailman, and Clarence, local stud and mechanic who's been messin' with Ovella since high school. His faithful girl is Sara Lee Turnover, the beautician. Teddy Joe, Ovella's w...

Chaps! A Jingle Jangle Christmas

(11/30/-0001)

Holiday Musical comedy / 5m, 2f / Whoa, Brittania! Panic at the BBC! It

Chaps!

(11/30/-0001)

Musical Comedy / 5m, 1f / Whoa, Brittania! Panic at the BBC! The year is 1944, America's favorite singing cowboy Tex Riley and his troupe are late for a special broadcast at the BBC in London. Out of desperation, Mabel, their tour manager, and Miles, the frantic young producer, grab whomever they can

Changes Of Heart

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy /4m, 3f / Marivaux's fabulous Harlequin pursues his country love Silvia to the palace, where the lovelorn Prince holds her against her will. Flaminia, an intriguer at court, attempts to reroute the affections of both Silvia and Harlequin, whose take no prisoners belligerence is softened and transformed. None expect such huge and costly changes of heart and, at the end of a hilarious day full of wonderment, they and others at court are wounded and ennobled by love.

Cementville

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy / 5m, 9f / The comic sensation of the 1991 Humana Festival at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, this play by the author of Talking With and numerous hits is a brilliant portrayal of America's fascination with fantasy entertainment. In a locker room in a seedy arena in Tennessee, the scurvy bunch of professional lady wrestlers includes Tiger who has a drinking problem and a small dog; Dani who displays a chip on her shoulder against the promoter who owes the girls several weeks' pay; Lessa...

Cell

(11/30/-0001)

Mystery Thriller / 4m, 2f. Cell is a murder mystery - to about the same extent that Sophocles' Oedipus Rex is a murder mystery. Lieutenant Rodriguez questions Dennis Kadman about his older brother Michael, who has OD'd on heroin in Dennis' apartment. Dennis wants to know: who gave Michael the drugs? Michael was a cunning, manipulative addict. But he was a diabetic double amputee, placed in his brother's care by the courts - and Dennis tried to keep him alive and drug-free. Through flashbacks, we...

Cat's Meow, The

(11/30/-0001)

Dramatic Comedy / 6m, 8f / Based on the true story of a mysterious Hollywood death, The Cat's Meow offers a fascinating cross section of Jazz Era characters who intersect for one notorious weekend on board William Randolph Hearst

Cat's Away

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy / 3 m, 2f / Another play woven around another set of daft characters from San Francisco's Union Street. Crusty but confused Estelle Bentwood insists her cat, Miss Pearl, has been writing naughty sea faring novels on her Underwood. Her niece, Mary, and Horace, the long suffering waiter, almost talk her out of the notion-- when an excitable publisher shows up with a manuscript, a contract, certified check and a passion for Miss Pearl! There's laughable confusion to comic chaos as everyone t...

Cash on Delivery

(11/30/-0001)

Farce / 6m, 4f / This fast paced British farce concerns a con artist who has duped the welfare authorities for years by claiming every type of benefit for the innumerable people he claims live at his address. This scam nets him tens of thousands tax free. Just when he decides to kill off many of the imaginary dole recipients because matters are getting a bit too risky, welfare investigators show up. Some make inquiries about what is going on while others offer additional benefits for which he ha...

Callback

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy / 1m, 1f / Simple Set / Callback is a two character contemporary comedy, drama about the forty-year mostly professional relationship between an actress and a director. They both go through struggles, heartbreaks, triumphs, and unexpected discoveries along the way. They are bound together on and off by many things, but what keeps them both going is their overwhelming love of the theater.

California Schemin'

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy / 3m, 3f / Single Set Roger Gallais, a small time hustler, is in a desperate fight to save his office/home from demolition. He needs $1500 in 24 hours or his estranged wife Lola Montezuma, an illegal alien, and her new boyfriend Nobby Carlyle, a fugitive from British justice, will take procession of the property, turn it into a mini mall and make a million bucks. Roger and his sole employee, Jules, are at the end of their rope, when Wanda Harrington, a naive middle-aged woman from Texas ...

Caddie Woodlawn

(11/30/-0001)

Musical / 8m, 7f, plus 18 children / Carol Ryrie Brink

Cabin Fever

(11/30/-0001)

Black comedy / 2m, 1f / Unit Set / This comedy of menace features three malevolent New England oldsters on a country porch reciting horrifying and hysterically funny stories about local customs. "Cabin Fever" has been produced around the globe.

By the Name of Kensington

(11/30/-0001)

Comic drama / 2 m., 2 f. / Simple set. / From the author of A Little Something for the Ducks, White Room of My Remembering and Looking for a Better Berry Bush, among others, comes the story of a well bred cricket from London who is dismayed to find himself playing doppelganger to a woman in Appalachia. In this humorous and touching tale of the relationship between an arrogant black cricket with a Bond Street address and a poorly educated young woman who aspires to better herself, this award winn...

Butterscotch

(11/30/-0001)

Comedic drama / 3m, 2f / Interior / Butterscotch is a candy yellow 1947 Ford at the center of an unlikely friendship between a New York restaurant critic and a man who loves roadside diners. The critic has come to a small Pennsylvania town to persuade his fiancee's father to attend their wedding in New York. The bride, a news correspondents off on assignment, has not even told her cantankerous, ailing father she is getting married. Adding to the bucolic fray are an elderly neighbor who has her ...

But Why Bump Off Barnaby

(11/30/-0001)

Mystery Farce / 4m, 6f / This lunatic show poses a fascinating mystery. When Barnaby Folcey is murdered at a family gathering at Marlgate Manor, it transpires that he had a motive to murder everybody else but no one had a reason to want him dead. While dying, he scrawled the letters "b- a-r," which can implicate everyone. While the bizarre group frantically tries to unmask the murderer, people vanish, poison is found in the sherry and the police take forever to arrive. Meanwhile, there's a secre...

Burlesque Humor Revisited

(11/30/-0001)

Review / 2m, 1f / Bare stage / Three burlesque type performers (a straight man, a comic and a talking lady) "demonstrate" newly adapted versions of 12 classic burlesque standards. Compiled from authentic skits, the sketches have been edited and updated by Joey Faye's former straight man to retain the flavor of burlesque while catering to today's tastes and values. Individual sketches can be incorporated into vaudeville or musical variety shows or the entire collection can provide an evening's hi...

Bullshot Crummond

(11/30/-0001)

Farce / 3m, 2f / This parody of low budget 30s detective movies typifies British heroism. Teutonic villain Otto von Brunno and his evil mistress crash their plane in the English countryside and kidnap Professor Fenton who has discovered a formula for making synthetic diamonds. Bullshot Crummond is called to the rescue. Otto paralyzes Crummond with a fiendish ray. He rams a stick of dynamite in Crummond's mouth which will explode when the next person enters the room. Rosemary enters, but the stat...

Buddy Cop 2

(11/30/-0001)

Dark Comedy Characters: 2 male, 2 female. Interior. Two cops...in the kind of quiet little town where a kid dreams of growing up to be a fireman. Or a racecar driver. Where the only question you ask yourself at the end of the day is if you're gonna knock back your cold one at Swanky's, Spanky's, or Zingers. A town where neighbors pitch in to help neighbors in need, and where if you wake up in the middle of the night...you should keep your eyes closed. Because the man in red is there in the cor...

Broken Up

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy / 3m, 1f / Interior Meg Owens is in the middle of moving into her new apartment and out of her old marriage. All she has to do is have Tom, her husband, sign the final papers and then she can start her new life. However, signing the final papers becomes increasingly difficult, and her new life, represented by an amorous landlord and a fast talking divorce expert, is already under way.

Bridegroom Of Blowing Rock

(11/30/-0001)

Comedic drama / 3m, 4f / Unit set Set at the end of the Civil War in a town with split loyalties, this play weaves humor and mythology into a story about women who must find ways to keep hearth and home together in the absence of "full bodied" men. Focus is on the fracture that occurs in one family when a blind daughter is seduced by a Union raider with extraordinary storytelling abilities, much to the dismay of her staunchly Confederate mother. Winner of the L. Arnold Weissberger Award.

Bridal Terrorism

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy / 3m, 3f / Simple exterior Lionel anticipates a quiet afternoon in the park. Just as he settles on a bench with a book, an armed woman in a wedding gown approaches with her bridal retinue. May has booked the church and the reception hall. All she needs is a groom and Lionel looks like a good prospect. He is not keen on the idea but May and her wedding party are persistent. Lionel eventually gives in, but May has second thoughts when he discloses that he lives in an institution and has on...

Boy Who Killed Pancho Villa, The

(11/30/-0001)

Loosely based on THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD . It's rodeo time in Tombstone, 1912. The girls admire local cowboys like Red Roberts, while feisty Peggy Fletcher longs for past romantic heroes. A rumor spreads that Pancho Villa, the notorious Mexican bandit, is in town. But Danny Jones, a shy young man, arrives to claim he killed Pancho Villa by hitting him over the head with his ukelele. Just as the townspeople accept Danny as a hero, Pancho Villa arrives with head bandaged and furiously loo...

Both Sides Of The Story

(11/30/-0001)

Monologues. One hundred monologues (50 for men and 50 for women) are arranged in pairs for contrasting characters who express differing views on wide-ranging topics, a scheme that helps performers of all ages gain valuable insights that enhance their ability to showcase acting skills. There is something for everyone in this sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic, always compelling book of audition materials.

Borderline Crazies

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy / 3m, 3f / Interior Ellen hopes to ski and put some spark into her dull marriage to Stu, an efficiency author, while at Lake Tahoe in a rustic cabin owned by Stu's publisher. They are startled when a horror author and his sexy wife also arrive at the apparently double-booked cabin. The women immediately bond but the men squabble like spoiled two-year-olds and devise several wagers to determine who stays and who goes. Before anyone can leave, a police officer reports that a snowstorm has ...

Bone Chiller!

(11/30/-0001)

Comedy thriller / 5m, 8f or 4m, 9f or 6m, 7f Thirteen people gather on Friday the 13th at the Travers mansion in New York for the reading of Josiah's will which is a wall chart rendered in the form of a rebus (a part word, part drawing puzzle) that almost defies solution. Instead of designating an heir, it offers the estate to anyone who can solve the will! The lights keep going out and people keep getting murdered. The audience will have a ball trying to untangle the puzzle faster than the ha...

Boar'S Head

(11/30/-0001)

This big, colorful, uproariously funny and ultimately moving play tells the story of the Shakespearean characters who meet at the Boar's Head Tavern in East Cheap. We see the scenes Shakespeare tells us about but leaves out of HENRY IV, PARTS ONE AND TWO, HENRY V, and THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, , centering on Doll Tearsheet, her unrequited love for Ned Poins, Ned's sister Nell, impregnated by Prince Hal, and Robin, a girl masquerading as a tavern boy, also in love with Ned. Bardolph, Mistress Q...

Blue Yonder

(11/30/-0001)

12 f (can be performed by 4f, or any number in between) / Monologues & Scenes / Dramatic Comedy / A familiar adage states, "Men may work from sun to sun, but women's work is never done." In BIue Yonder, the audience meets twelve mesmerizing and eccentric women including a flight instructor, a firefighter, a stuntwoman, a woman who donates body parts, an employment counselor, a professional softball player, a surgical nurse professional baseball player, and a daredevil who plays with dynamite amo...

Bloodline or Hanged in Their Own Family Tree

(11/30/-0001)

Sing along musical mellerdrammer with 17 or more old time musical favorites / 2 m., 2 f., claque, 1 or 2 pianos. / Simple exteriors / An entertainment gem suitable for all groups. Includes production notes, ideas and interpretive hints. It is thoroughly modern but with a traditional plot: orphaned, innocent damsel prefers honest young fellow but is pursued by wealthy physician. Everything's settled by a surprisingly liberated "Granny." It's a satirical delight with a preposterous story requiring...

Blonde And Other Slight Distractions

(11/30/-0001)

A great collection of shorts by Paterson, these award winning one-acts are perfect for scene studies, two person auditions, secen nights and showcases, providing a wide variety of characters bith humorous and thought provoking. A kid-napping gone awry, two distant brothers try to reconnect, a pair of lovers face a daunting family holiday, a smarmy stockholder tries to charm his way into heaven, a friend is forced to bury a friend, and siblings seeking an amicable divorce completes this theatrica...

Bleeding Kansas

(11/30/-0001)

Historical Drama Characters: 3 male, 2 femaleIt's 1855, Kansas Territory. The country is divided. People are turning against their neighbors because of their beliefs. War is on the horizon. Good people will do bad things and love will grow in places it shouldn't. A provocative, funny and insightful play revisits a crucial moment in American history. Homesteading farmers George and Kitty fight the elements to start a new life as a politically divided country takes a dangerous step towards civil...

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