This new take on an old classic tells the forgotten stories hidden in the fairy tale we all know so well. Hilarious, imaginative, and powerful, this play is specifically designed to be performed by young performers and may be adapted to a virtual or in-person performance venue.
Cast Size: 10+
The Christmas Carol Farce
Charles Dickens’s ghost arranges for a high school production of A Christmas Carol to be broadcast on TV. The cast is ecstatic, until they learn their performance must be cut to one hour. At the TV studio, they discover it must be cut to 40 minutes for commercials. Just before they go on-air, an overtime football game forces them to cut again. When all that’s left is 5 minutes, they perform a hilariously fast holiday classic.
Distance Learning
A group of high school seniors face their final year learning online with a beloved teacher as a pandemic rages outside. Together they will face social isolation, missed milestones, the potential loss of friends and family, their places in the world and what the birth of a new social justice movement means for them.
The Cherry Orchard
Liúbov Ranyévskaya returns to her Russian estate after five years in Paris, following her son’s death. But her family is ridden with debt, and their home and beautiful cherry orchard will be auctioned off at the end of the summer. Lopákhin grew up on the estate, the child of former serfs, and has become a wealthy merchant. He suggests they build vacation homes where the orchard sits. The income would save them, but Liúbov and her brother won’t even consider it. They—like the cherry orchard—are a relic from another time: beautiful, but now fruitless. Summer comes to a close, and the Ranyévskayas must leave—with the sound of axes coming from the orchard.
Buddy Bro Bubba Dude
Men in twisted shorts! This roller-coaster ride of hilarious short plays is all about, and starring only, men! In these absurdly funny tales, you’ll meet men who are confident, men who are brave, and men who are as useless as the “g” in “lasagna.” There’s Wade, who, after badgering his widowed father to start dating again, scrambles to stop his dad from a rendezvous with the last woman he should ever romance. Bubba is a radio show personality who spills a small town’s juiciest secrets during an on-air meltdown. And then, you’ll meet two good ol’ Texas boys struggling to achieve the impossible—an honest conversation about the meaning of life…and sports. And these are just a few of the colorful eccentrics in these rowdy and rollicking short plays.
Bina’s Six Apples
Bina’s family grows the finest apples in all of Korea. But when war forces her to flee her home, Bina is alone in the world with just six precious apples to her name. Can these meager possessions help her find her family? Join Bina on her spirited journey that ranges from the heartbreaking to the humorous. Encountering new challenges at every turn, Bina is forced to rely upon her apples and their important legacy as she begins to discover the power of her own resilience. Often mesmerizing, always heartwarming, Bina will discover that she’s not the only one on a difficult quest for a place to call home.
That Summer in Sumner
THAT SUMMER IN SUMNER is the middle drama in The Till Trilogy, a three-play cycle exploring the epic saga of Emmett Till. While the first play, The Ballad of Emmett Till, is the story of the boy, That Summer in Sumner explores the 1955 trial of his killers. While drawing upon trial transcripts, contemporaneous news accounts, and the abundant photographic and media imaging, the play is not a docudrama, but my imagined interpretation of behind the scenes events from the perspective of three African American journalists covering the trial and from Emmett, himself, his ghost, his cipher, his Kah, coming to grips with what has happened to him.
This is the second play in The Till Trilogy, a three-play cycle which includes BENEVOLENCE and THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL, exploring the epic saga of Emmett Till and the birth of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Asking Strangers the Meaning of Life
In the opening scene of this comedy, a writer meets the ghost of Franz Kafka, which sets off an existential chain of events forcing the cast to confront the meaning of life. Through a series of hilarious random encounters, the play questions whether we can understand our existence or is life just one long Zoom meeting interrupted by Amazon and DoorDash deliveries. Designed to be simply staged, ASKING STRANGERS THE MEANING OF LIFE can use a cast as small as five or as many as ten. The cast can be any race, ethnicity, physicality, and sexual orientation/identity.
A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes
A Thanksgiving play called by sports announcers. Every family holiday is full of tradition. Every family holiday is full of strife and joy. Where do our traditions come from? Why do we hold so tightly to them? Join the family at Wembley Stadium as they play the game called Thanksgiving Day: a day of gratitude in which we watch some people knock some other people down in order to get the ball over the line.
4:05
Multiple characters are all awake at 4:05 one morning for different reasons — insomnia, sex, crying baby, ominous phone call, at work, anxiety. Through the course of this comedy these stories intersect. Secrets are revealed, major decisions are made, and lives change all before the sun comes up.
Julio Ain’t Goin’ Down Like That
It is the morning after the brutal murder of Julio Rivera, a gay Puerto Rican man in Jackson Heights, Queens. The murder became the first gay hate crime tried in New York State during the 1990s. In Julio Ain’t Goin’ Down Like That, the community reacts and is taken on a journey of self-discovery by a fabulously unapologetic queen personifying the beauty and brutality of Jackson Heights. The play is an examination of the political and societal environment of Jackson Heights.
Bruise & Thorn
Bruise and Thorn are Nuyorican, queer, and tired af of their jobs at a busted up laundromat in Jamaica, Queens. But not for long: Bruise is saving up to become a chef (like on Chopped!), and Thorn spits bars on street corners, one America’s Got Talent audition away from becoming the Boricua Nikki Minaj. When the laundromat’s basement turns out to be an illegal cockfighting ring, the cousins can’t tell if this is an opportunity to cash out and become their most fabulous selves—or a trap to keep them locked into what everyone expects them to be.