Plays

Full Length Dramas 

Hunger     Cast: 6 or 7 women

           An exploration of women, food, body image, and eating disorders. This play focuses on the            experiences of four college women and a professor, utilizing a highly theatrical style of                staging to illustrate the women's struggles toward overcoming the issues that limit their                lives. [more...]

If Sin There Be in Love     Cast:  5 men, 5 women (some roles can be doubled)

            A witty drama about the romantic entanglements and unconventional sexual practices of English writers             Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Lord Byron.    [more...]

Out of Ignorance     Cast:  3 men, 1 woman

            This script, inspired by true stories, follows the relationship that develops between a young man on the                 fringe of a neo-Nazi group and an elderly Holocaust survivor.    [more...]     

Captain Jack: Chief of the Modocs     Cast:  13 men, 5 women (many roles can be doubled)

          This historically-based script tells the tragic story of a Native American chief who tried to maintain peace           between the incoming white men and his tribe of fiery warriors.    [more...]

Love and the Crushing Hand     Cast:  9 men, 3 women (some roles can be doubled)

            This play, adapted from 19th century Scottish tales, is a dark story of lust, murder, and superstition,                     illuminated by glimpses of a higher beauty.    [more...]

Musicals 

Tilbury Town     Cast:  7 men, 4 women (chorus roles can be added)

            A full-length contemporary show about the quiet desperation of the denizens of an old-fashioned                         coffee-house.    [more...]

Starkids     Cast: alter to taste (4 main roles, with flexible number of secondary roles)

            A light-hearted 30-minute show for kids about what happens when an alien spaceship lands in a quiet                 own. A lonely "earthkid" becomes friends with a lonely "starkid," and together they work to get their peers             to overcome their prejudices abot those who are different. The two groups unite against the comical "                official-looking people" who seek to capture and exploit the "starkids."   

One Act Plays 

Morag of the Glen    Cast: 3 men, 3 women      Length: 40 minutes

This script is adapted from a Scottish folk-tale recorded by William Sharp (the story is in the public domain). Morag is an indomitable young woman with a fierce father. When Morag’s sister becomes pregnant by the son of the English lord who is about to displace the family from its ancestral land, the father erupts in fury. When the sister dies by her own hand, Morag sees that the lord’s son does not escape justice. Morag’s mother and father struggle with guilt about their daughter’s death and the darkness that has shadowed their love for each other.

Wordsworth and Coleridge: In the Footsteps of Genesis     Cast: 3 men      Length: 30 minutes

Wordsworth and Coleridge, two of England's great poets, were close friends for fifteen years. Their friendship was eroded by many factors, particularly Coleridge's drinking and opium addiction. In this play we see Wordsworth and Coleridge relive their past glory, as they engage in a futile struggle to overcome the forces that have driven them apart.

Coleridge was a major poet, philosopher, and theologian in 19^th century England. This play depicts him and his friend Charles Lamb at a time when Coleridge’s life was falling apart due to his opium addiction. Coleridge emerges from his drug-induced misery to deliver an impassioned lecture, ostensibly about “Romeo and Juliet,” but really about his own struggle with suicidal thoughts and his will to live and overcome his suffering. 

The Sin-Eater     Cast: 2 men, 3 women      Length: 25 minutes      

This script is adapted from a Scottish folk-tale recorded by William Sharp (the story is in the public domain). The ritual of sin-eating was a combination of Christian and pagan traditions that was supposed to free a dead person’s soul of its sins. In this tale, the ritual is violated and the sin-eater goes mad and commits a gruesome suicide.

Percy Bysshe Shelley: A Rebel Attitude     Cast: 2 men    Length: 20 minutes  

Percy Shelley, later to become one of England’s most famous poets, is nineteen years old in this scene where he and his father argue about politics, religion, money, marriage, and their inability to understand and love each other.

The Strange Dreams of Rabbi Wechsler     Cast: 2 men, 2 women      Length: 15 minutes  

This script is based on the true story of a 19^th century rabbi who had prophetic dreams of events in his daily life. Then he had dreams that told of an inexpressible hatred of Jews that would take root in Germany and spread through Europe in an effort to exterminate the Jews. In this scene, a friend listens to reports of the rabbi’s dreams, but cannot believe that they are messages from God as the rabbi claims.

Short Plays  

Haydon's Rage     Cast: 1 man, 1 woman      Length: 10 minutes  

Benjamin Haydon was a historical figure who was a friend of Keats, Wordsworth, and other prominent figures of the early 1800s. He was a painter who dedicated his life to following in the footsteps of the great masters of the past and fought against the trivialization of art in his own day. In this scene, he is painting the portrait of a shallow society patron, Lady Weatherly. He exchanges a few cold remarks to her, speaking mainly to the audience of his life and strivings. Driven to rage by Lady Weatherly and all she stands for, he dismisses her, destroys the portrait of her he has been working on, and in a fit of despair, kills himself.

Secret Joy     Cast: 1 man, 1 woman      Length: 10 minutes  

This script is based on a Scottish folk-tale involving “silkies,” or “seal-people.” The mother of a girl believes her daughter has been bewitched by a silkie; her father does not. The man and woman argue, with the woman winning and the man shooting the seal that his daughter loved, only to immediately regret this.

The Destruction of Wilhelm Reich     Cast: 3 men     Length: 10 minutes   

Renegade psychoanalyst and scientist, Wilhelm Reich was the victim of a smear campaign by the Food and Drug Administration in the 1950s. His books were burned and his equipment destroyed. In this play, Reich watches the destruction of his work and confronts the man from the FDA when the destruction is done, railing against the small-minded men who crush the man of genius because they fear to live fully and freely.