Playscripts, Inc. - New Plays Now
view
cart
get
help
 

Click here for details
 
home search browse channels order deals about us contact us
Jonathan Rand
Bio and play details
Jump to play details

Plays by this author
  • Actor's Choice: Monologues for Teens
  • Check Please
  • Check Please: Take 2
  • Check Please: Take 3
  • Drugs Are Bad
  • Hard Candy
  • How To Succeed in High School Without Really Trying
  • Law & Order: Fairy Tale Unit
  • The Least Offensive Play in the Whole Darn World
  • Murder in the Knife Room (full-length version)
  • Murder in the Knife Room (one-act version)
  • The People vs. Spam
  • Romeo To Go
  • Jonathan Rand has written five of the top ten most-produced plays in North American high schools, according to the annual survey conducted by the Educational Theatre Association. In the 2008-2009 season, The Least Offensive Play in the Whole Darn World was the 10th most produced; Check Please: Take 3 and Hard Candy tied for 6th; Check Please: Take 2 ranked 3rd; and Check Please topped the list as the #1 most-produced short play for the fifth consecutive season. Since writing his first play in 1997, Mr. Rand's work has been produced by over 4,200 theaters in 35 countries.

    Mr. Rand's writing is featured in The Best Stage Scenes 2004, The Best Men's Stage Monologues 2005, The Best Women's Stage Monologues 2006, The Best Stage Scenes 2007, The Best Stage Scenes 2009 (Smith & Kraus), Dramatics magazine, and Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays (Random House). His comedy Drugs Are Bad was selected by the Actors Theatre of Louisville as a Heideman Award finalist in the 2003 National Ten-Minute Play Contest.

    Mr. Rand is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and lives in New York City.

    Official website: www.jonathanrand.com

    Play details
    Sorted alphabetically (Sort by popularity)
    Actor's Choice: Monologues for Teens
    by Lucy Alibar, Janet Allard, John Augustine, et al.
    Edited by Erin Detrick
    Foreword by Broadway casting director Kate Schwabe
      

    $14.95 per book

    Looking for the perfect monologue? Actor's Choice: Monologues for Teens is here to help. From hilarious comedy to cutting-edge drama and everything in between, an exciting selection of monologues is at your fingertips. Unlike other monologue books, the source of every monologue is easily accessible -- each play is available through one website (www.playscripts.com), where you can read nearly the entire published script online for free. From classwork to competitions to auditions, this book has you covered!

    Also in this series:
    Actor's Choice: Monologues for Women
    Actor's Choice: Monologues for Men
    "This is an excellent monologue book for middle and high school students with applications for competition as well as use in drama, speech, or English classes."
    --Terrilyn Fleming, The Midwest Book Review


    Check Please by Jonathan Rand   
    Comedy
    Short, 25-35 minutes
    7 females, 7 males (4-26 actors possible: 2-13 females, 2-13 males)
    $45.00 per performance; $8.99 per book

    Dating can be hard. Especially when your date happens to be a raging kleptomaniac, or your grandmother's bridge partner, or a mime. Check Please follows a series of blind dinner dates that couldn't get any worse -- until they do. Could there possibly be a light at the end of the tunnel?

    (See also Check Please: Take 2 and Check Please: Take 3.)
    "Simply wonderful! One of the best one acts I've judged in several years."
    --Iowa High School Speech Association


    Check Please: Take 2 by Jonathan Rand   
    Comedy
    Short, 25-35 minutes
    6 females, 6 males (4-12 actors possible: 2-6 females, 2-6 males)
    $45.00 per performance; $8.99 per book

    Soon after their relationship ends, Guy and Girl are forced by their well-intentioned best friends to plunge back into the dating pool. Unfortunately that pool is filled with foot-reading psychics, frustrated polygamists, and extreme accountants. And pirates. But are the blind dates really that unbearable? Yes. Yes they are.

    (See also Check Please and Check Please: Take 3. This play can be read or performed without any knowledge of the other two versions.)


    Check Please: Take 3 by Jonathan Rand   
    Comedy
    Short, 25-35 minutes
    8 females, 8 males (4-16 actors possible: 2-8 females, 2-8 males)
    $45.00 per performance; $8.99 per book

    Best friends Guy and Girl used to be a couple. Desperate to buck singlehood, they decide that even considering their atrocious blind dating track record, it's worth another shot. But after struggling through dates with a wannabe rock star, a vote-starved politician, and the guy who does those intense movie trailer voice-overs, there's the inevitable question: Which is better -- staying single the rest of your life, or suffering through a series of the worst dates in history?

    (See also Check Please and Check Please: Take 2. This play can be read or performed without any knowledge of the other two versions.)


    Drugs Are Bad by Jonathan Rand   
    Comedy
    Short, 10-15 minutes
    1 female, 2 males
    $40.00 per performance; $7.99 per book

    Brad comes home from school one day to find his parents waiting for him, deeply concerned. They have found a secret that Brad stashed away in his underwear drawer: an algebra book. That's right -- Brad has been studying behind their backs, instead of following his parents' strict insistence on sex, drugs, and rock & roll. What unfolds is a parody of all those insufferable after-school specials that made us who we are today.
    "Sparkles with humor and wit... Rand's genius play create[s] an engaging scene that reveals unexpected twists among an amusing family squabble."
    --Silver Chips Online


    Hard Candy by Jonathan Rand   
    Comedy
    Short, 30-40 minutes
    5 females, 6 males (4-11 actors possible: 2-7 females, 2-7 males)
    $45.00 per performance; $8.99 per book

    Job applicants at Banff Enterprises will do anything to claw their way up the corporate ladder. In a fast-paced series of hilarious interviews, the new recruits try every trick in the book -- from bribery, nepotism, and the Old Boy Network to blackmail, seduction, and mind control.
    "An almost perfect high school one-act... It's got a large, flexible cast, it allows actors to go a little wild and it's hilarious."
    --Stephen Gregg, author of This is a Test


    How To Succeed in High School Without Really Trying
    by Jonathan Rand
      
    Comedy
    Short, 20-30 minutes
    30 either (7-230 actors possible: 1-225 females, 5-229 males)
    $45.00 per performance; $8.99 per book

    Want to know the easiest way to make it through the grueling abyss known as high school? A group of student agents infiltrate an assembly to demonstrate their secret tips and tricks, ranging from legally changing your name to get around roll call, to using Tom Cruise to help memorize science terms. High school will never be the same.


    Law & Order: Fairy Tale Unit by Jonathan Rand   
    Comedy
    Short, 35-45 minutes
    13 females, 8 males, 27 either
    (12-60 actors possible: 0-60 females, 0-60 males)
    $45.00 per performance; $8.99 per book

    In the fairy tale criminal justice system, the characters from fairy tales and nursery rhymes are represented by two separate yet equally ridiculous groups: the fairy tale police who investigate fairy tale crime, and the fairy tale district attorneys who prosecute the fairy tale offenders. These are their stories.


    The Least Offensive Play in the Whole Darn World
    by Jonathan Rand
      
    Comedy
    Short, 15-25 minutes
    5 females, 12 males, 7 either
    (8-35 actors possible: 4-27 females, 7-30 males)
    $45.00 per performance; $7.99 per book

    Want to perform a classic play too offensive for your high school? Then the ScriptCleaner5000 is the product for you! Sit back and relax as Cynocorp representatives Shelly and Tom present sample scenes from plays that have been treated with this exciting new technology. Wipe away that dirty David Mamet profanity! Violence in Shakespeare? Gone. And what about those pesky sex scenes? The ScriptCleaner5000 has got you covered!
    "A brilliant comedy."
    --Kings County Record


    Murder in the Knife Room (full-length version)
    by Jonathan Rand
      
    Murder mystery parody
    Full-length, 80-90 minutes
    58 either (22-58 actors possible: 0-58 females, 0-58 males)
    $75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book

    One murder, twenty suspects. Who killed Mysterious Host? Could it be Respected General? What about Wealthy Dowager? Or maybe it was Santa Claus. The mystery unfolds as Inexplicably Omniscient Inspector takes on the most thrilling and baffling murder case in the history of thrilling and baffling murder cases. (A one-act version of this play is also available.)


    Murder in the Knife Room (one-act version)
    by Jonathan Rand
      
    Murder mystery parody
    Short, 40-50 minutes
    7 females, 5 males, 36 either
    (12-48 actors possible: 0-48 females, 0-48 males)
    $45.00 per performance; $7.99 per book

    One murder, ten suspects. Who killed Mysterious Host? Could it be Respected General? What about Wealthy Dowager? Or maybe it was Santa Claus. The mystery unfolds as Inexplicably Omniscient Inspector takes on the most thrilling and baffling murder case in the history of thrilling and baffling murder cases. (A full-length version of this play is also available.)


    The People vs. Spam by Jonathan Rand   
    Comedy
    Short, 15-20 minutes
    17 either (8-17 actors possible: 0-17 females, 0-17 males)
    $35.00 per performance; $7.99 per book

    Today you will be one of many star witnesses in the most controversial trial the world has ever seen: America sues the entire concept of unsolicited junk email. Tension mounts as we hear testimonies from a Nigerian prince, a debt reducer, and a purveyor of life-changing, body-enhancing pills. The fate of America's inboxes lies in the hands of a single jury...


    Romeo To Go by Jonathan Rand   
    Comedy
    Short, 35-45 minutes
    18 females, 15 males, 17 either
    (15-50 actors possible: 0-50 females, 0-50 males)
    $40.00 per performance; $8.99 per book

    Due to budget cuts there will only be a single session of Drama One for the entire school year -- and the class will only last 20 minutes. To make matters worse, the students are required to perform an entire Shakespeare play for a schoolwide assembly during a time slot of only 10 minutes. Under the direction of the egomaniacal Mrs. Gunnysack, the beginner students must pull together for the fastest, cleanest, lowest-budget rendition of Romeo and Juliet the world has ever seen, complete with a makeshift balcony, interpretive dance fight sequences, and an Elizabethan hip-hop dance party that would even make P. Diddy shake his tailfeather with Shakespearean pride.
    Home | Search | Order | Help | About Us | Contact Us | Jobs | Privacy and Terms of Use
    Copyright ©1998-2010 Playscripts, Incorporated. All Rights Reserved