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Comedy
Full-length, 110-120 minutes
3 females, 4 males
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
Illinois schoolteacher Harmony Green has told her fourth grade class that Menard County's most beloved homegrown hero, Abraham Lincoln, was gay. When Honest Abe is "outed" in a reimagined Christmas pageant, controversy and chaos engulf the town. As the trial of the century begins, big-city reporters and Congressional candidates descend, and family skeletons are forced out of the closet. Top hats and beards abound in this hilarious, poignant, and timely look at prejudice past and present.
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| "An...ambitious mashup of burlesque anarchy, elaborate narrative intrigue, serious sociopolitical themes, and campy dance interludes. [...] It shouldn't hold together. Yet somehow this frequently ingenious, hilarious contraption does." |
| --Variety |
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Drama
Short, 10-18 minutes
2 females, 3 males (5-12 actors possible: exactly 2 females, 3-10 males)
$30.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called Great Short Plays: Volume 9.
Trapped in the memory of her greatest failure, a female Commanding Officer tries to save Private Margaret Jensen when something goes horribly wrong during airborne training. Margaret, struggling with her own failure to be the kind of soldier she wanted to be, tries to save herself in the face of her own imminent death.
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| "A provocative work about Jensen, a paratrooper falling to her untimely death... The playwright accentuates the grimness of the situation with terse dialogue... A strikingly beautiful piece of theater." |
| --CurtainUp |
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Drama
Full-length, 70-90 minutes
7 females, 5 males (11-30 actors possible: 6-17 females, 5-19 males)
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
Past and present collide in Ellen McLaughlin's mash-up of Sophocles' classic tragedy Ajax with the modern-day war in Iraq. The play follows the parallel narratives of Ajax, an ancient Greek military hero, and A.J., a modern female American soldier, both undone by the betrayal of a commanding officer. Athena, goddess of war, coolly presides over the whole. Inspired by material collected from interviews with Iraq war veterans and their families, Ajax in Iraq explores the timeless struggle soldiers face in trying to make sense of war.
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| "Ms. McLaughlin has carved out a career as a playwright of fierce moral conviction." |
| --Anita Gates, The New York Times |
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Comedy
Short, 10-15 minutes
1 female, 2 males
$30.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called Great Short Plays: Volume 9.
After decades of dominating the Milwaukee Bowling League, monsters may have finally met their match in some recent interplanetary visitors. It's up to monster Hubbard Grabowski to defend his title against the slimy alien Nelson. Can he do it? Or has he lost his monster nerve?
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Comedy
Short, 5-10 minutes
1 female, 1 male (2 actors possible: 0-2 females, 0-2 males)
$30.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called Great Short Plays: Volume 9.
A therapist interviews a patient afflicted by a strange delusion: he believes a living, breathing audience is watching his every move. The weirdest part is, the patient doesn't seem to mind.
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| "This exquisite gem is an acrobatic debate between the patient and his psychiatrist about the nature of theatre and personality." |
| --The LA Times |
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Drama
Short, 10 minutes
1 female, 2 males (3 actors possible: 0-3 females, 0-3 males)
$30.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called Great Short Plays: Volume 9.
A woman arrives at an airport baggage claim at 3 A.M., intending to meet her lover at the spot they first met. There's just one problem: someone has taken her spot, and refuses to leave.
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Comedy
Full-length, 80-90 minutes
3 females, 2 males
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
Food writer Francesca's dinner party features famous recipes from the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, along with a guest list that's an almost certain recipe for disaster. It includes Pilar, a multilingual art detective with visa problems; Bricka, a lesbian widow with a child and custody-seeking Republican in-laws; Joe, an OB/GYN whose lover is a disoriented drug addict; and Kev, a playwright who has written a soon-to-open play about...all of them. A hilarious, irreverent look at gay and lesbian life in the new millennium.
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| "Hilarious! I had a ball at Bass for Picasso! An authentically witty and intelligent comedy...the same kind of exotic and nurturing treat Toklas intended to cook up for Picasso." |
| --NYtheatre.com |
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Comedy
Full-length, 90-100 minutes
2 females, 3 males (5-15 actors possible: 2-7 females, 3-12 males)
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
A young Catholic schoolgirl named Lucy launches an unholy crusade to undo the biggest mistake ever made: human existence. Bolstered by a mighty battle axe and her brilliant but nerdy sister Mary, Lucy conducts a merciless murder spree backwards through time, lopping off the heads of great religious thinkers from Darwin to Dante in her mission to find God and destroy him -- before he can create the torment of life as we know it.
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| "...few playwrights could dream up a heretical, post-modern stew of a show like this one. Nguyen and Parker have the fearless, take-no-prisoners bravura of early Monty Python." |
| --Martin Denton, nytheatre.com |
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Serio-comedy for young audiences
Short, 10-15 minutes
1 female, 2 males, 1 either (4-6 actors possible: 1-4 females, 2-5 males)
$30.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called Great Short Plays: Volume 9.
Chester sets out to paint the world purple when he realizes it's the only color his blind grandfather can see.
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Comedy
Full-length, 75-80 minutes
5 females, 4 males, 4 either (10-20 actors possible: 5-10 females, 5-10 males)
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
Carol is a selfless but lonely veterinarian who can easily reset a dog's broken leg, yet can't mend the broken ties with the people in her life. To compensate, she is cripplingly generous -- allowing her employees to drain her wallet and her sister to run off with the love of her life. Alone in her office on Christmas Eve, Carol is visited by the ghosts of three animals who whisk her on a journey into her past, present, and future to convince her to stand up for herself before it's too late. A Christmas Carol is turned inside-out in this dark comedy with a light heart.
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Drama
Full-length, 90-100 minutes
3 females, 2 males (5-9 actors possible: 3-5 females, 2-4 males)
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
Expulsion, a drunken mother, drug abuse, and an affair with her mom's boyfriend: these are the elements that make up fifteen-year-old Minnie's life as she grows up in the chaos of the 70s. But Minnie is incredibly bright and self-reflective, and narrates her story in her diary with brutally honest words and drawings. This acclaimed adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner's graphic novel sparkles with wit, curiosity, and optimism despite the loneliness and abuse that Minnie encounters. A poignant look into an ugly adolescence.
Please note that the script of this play contains selected illustrations by Phoebe Gloeckner. Some of these illustrations depict adult imagery and content.
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| "The great achievement of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, adapted from Phoebe Gloeckner's graphic novel, is to take the girl's point of view seriously. Neither sentimental nor judgmental, Diary presents Minnie Goetze as a smart, creative, passionate young woman, and the production's only agenda is to be true to her experience." |
| --Backstage (Critic's Pick) |
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Comedy
Short, 10-15 minutes
2 females, 2 males
$30.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called Great Short Plays: Volume 9.
Two same-sex couples want to get married, but the confusing laws keep changing. As they comically struggle to find an arrangement that will be acceptable to The People, they might just end up right back where they started.
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Drama
Short, 35-45 minutes
1 female, 6 either (7-15 actors possible: 1-15 females, 6-15 males)
$35.00 per performance; $7.99 per book
Three of Edgar Allen Poe's most terrifying tales are given fresh life in this adaptation, designed as a customizable contest perfect for any production group. Which is scariest -- the poisonous resentment of The Cask of Amontillado, the paranoid hallucinations of The Tell-Tale Heart, or the entombed madness of The Fall of the House of Usher? The audience plays judge in this chilling and atmospheric trio.
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Drama/Comedy
Various durations
Various cast requirements
$9.99 per book
NOTE: This book contains 10 plays. To perform any of the plays, each must be licensed separately.
With a diverse blend of themes, styles, and cast requirements, Great Short Plays: Volume 9 contains ten extraordinary comedies and dramas. From a woman who realizes her hair is receding from her nape to creep across her forehead (The Last Hat), to a bowling rivalry of intergalactic proportions (Alien Monster Bowling League), to a parachute drop gone horribly wrong (Airborne), these collections deliver a little bit of everything in half the time.
To purchase this book of 10 plays, click "Add to Shopping Cart" above. To perform an individual play, click on its title below:
Airborne by Laura Jacqmin
Alien Monster Bowling League by Matthew Lopez
Backflip by Catherine Butterfield
Baggage Claim by Julia Jordan
Chester, Who Painted The World Purple by Marco Ramirez
A Few More Dumb Propositions by Michael Elyanow
The Last Hat by Kyle John Schmidt
A Moment Defined by Cusi Cram
The Mulligan by Scott Organ
The Perfect Guy by Mary Gallagher
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Comedy
Full-length, 75-85 minutes
4 females, 6 males, 15 either
(10-47 actors possible: 4-30 females, 6-39 males)
$75.00 per performance; $8.99 per book
To sell out or not to sell out? Not really much of a question. After their budget is slashed, the drama club turns to Shakespeare's greatest tragedy to raise cash, but it's not tickets that are going to fund this year's show: It's sweet, sweet corporate sponsorship and mid-play commercial advertising. The sponsors demand changes in the stodgy old script, but who cares if Shakespeare never wrote musical numbers with back-up dancers or post-apocalyptic zombie battles? He's dead and he can't complain. Or sue. A lightning-quick, hilarious perversion of the greatest play in the English language. (A one-act version of this play is also available.)
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Comedy
Short, 35-45 minutes
7 females, 7 males, 15 either (14-47 actors possible: 7-21 females, 7-26 males)
$40.00 per performance; $7.99 per book
To sell out or not to sell out? Not really much of a question. After their budget is slashed, the drama club turns to Shakespeare's greatest tragedy to raise cash, but it's not tickets that are going to fund this year's show: It's sweet, sweet corporate sponsorship and mid-play commercial advertising. The sponsors demand changes in the stodgy old script, but who cares if Shakespeare never wrote musical numbers with back-up dancers or post-apocalyptic zombie battles? He's dead and he can't complain. Or sue. A lightning-quick, hilarious perversion of the greatest play in the English language.
(A full-length version of this play is also available.)
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Comedy
Short, 25-35 minutes
2 females, 2 males, 1 either (5-20 actors possible: 2-12 females, 2-12 males)
$35.00 per performance; $7.99 per book
After spending a fateful night together at their senior prom, five "frenemies" reunite at their 10th, 25th, and 65th high school reunions. The prom king and queen, the party guy, the shy girl, and the weirdo find themselves linked through the decades, each one always hoping to prove to the others that they've made it to the proverbial "top." This comedy proves that while high school may only last four years, for some, the desire to outdo their high school buddies never fades away.
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Comedy
Short, 35-40 minutes
10 females, 3 males, 1 either (9-14 actors possible: 6-11 females, 3-4 males)
$35.00 per performance; $7.99 per book
After being home-schooled all his life, Ariel Carvell (who is not, he insists, named after the mermaid) is excited for his first day of "normal" high school. Unfortunately, his confusing name betrays him again, as Ariel finds himself mistakenly enrolled as the only boy in an all-girls school. To make matters worse, his eccentric, 37-year-old Aunt Lydia decides to enroll as well! Things look bad until Ariel sees the girl of his dreams across the hall and realizes that, with a little luck, life for the only boy in an all-girls school might not be that bad...
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Comedy
Short, 12-15 minutes
2 females, 2 males
$30.00 per performance; $9.99 per book
NOTE: This play is part of an anthology called Great Short Plays: Volume 9.
Molly Parsons, the proprietor of a quality ladies' dress shop, discovers to her horror that her hair is rapidly receding from the nape of her neck and proceeding down the front of her face. As disaster creeps down her forehead, Molly decides she must tell a certain man she loves him before it's too late.
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Comedy
Short, 30-40 minutes
3 females, 5 males, 7 either (11-15 actors possible: 2-12 females, 3-13 males)
$35.00 per performance; $7.99 per book
Pirate Captain Jack "Shortfuse" Composure thinks he's gotten the best of a sassy mermaid when she offers him a fortune in exchange for his soul and he gives her an empty canteen instead. But the joke may be on the Captain when his soul turns up in the hands of the dastardly Le Mew and his easily offended group of French sailors. Composure must decide whether to save his treasure and his own motley crew, or risk his life to keep his soul. Loosely based on Thornton Wilder's playlet Leviathan, this short play brings hilarity to the high seas!
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