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| The Taming of the Shrew [60-minute abridgement] by Shakespeare, abridged Jack Shaw |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 9. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 12. Minimum total without doubling = 15. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 60 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Shakespeare's play efficiently cut down without damaging the flow of the story. A comedy in the renaissance sense of ordinary people, witty dialogue and a happy ending.
Contains Shakespearean insults. |
| Synopsis | Bianca has many suitors, but her father won't let her marry until he has also given away the hand of her hot-tempered and uncontrollable elder sister Katharina. While Lucentio concocts a plan to win Bianca as his wife, Petruchio decides to wed Katharina and subdue her shrewish nature. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| A Tangled Web by Donna Brightwell |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 5. Minimum total with doubling = 8. Minimum total without doubling = 8. No chorus. One male considerably older than other characters. |
| Run Time | Around 75 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A full length play with a single set (living-dining room). |
| Synopsis | Wanting to 'bring back proper society', Grace is throwing a traditional Dinner Party for the cream of local society. But a thunderstorm of biblical proportions, a lack of caterers and the death of a guest may bring... success? |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| The Tempest [60-minute abridgement] by Shakespeare, abridged Jack Shaw |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 7. Minimum Female roles = 1. Minimum total with doubling = 11. Minimum total without doubling = 13. No chorus. The character list, like all of Shakespeare's work, is male-heavy. That has not prevented excellent productions by majority female casts! |
| Run Time | Around 61 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of Shakespeare on the boundary between a one-act and a full-lengh play. All words remain Shakespeare's, with one short speech added by the abridger to facilitate a character exit. |
| Synopsis | Since being usurped as Duke of Milan by his brother, Prospero and his daughter Miranda have lived on a deserted island. With the help of the spirit Ariel, he causes a tempest that shipwrecks his passing enemies. He aims to regain his dukedom and marry Miranda to Ferdinand, son of the King of Naples. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| They Do And They Don't by George Freek |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 6. Minimum total without doubling = 6. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 65 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A full length comedy with a single (living room) set. |
| Synopsis | Old friends Ward and Lefty support each other in a loyal male bonding way, despite Lefty's affair with Ward's wife June, but their friendship is strained when demands from June and wayward daughter Julia, intrude. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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Three Little Words by Jamesine Cundell Walker
New |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 7. Minimum total without doubling = 13. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 75 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A collection of eight short plays, loosely on the theme of love. Multiple settings, but simple sets requiring just furniture (and not much of that). |
| Synopsis | Malcolm and Karen find themselves trapped in the office storeroom.
Ken and disillusioned Brian reminisce about life, comedy duos, and lost loves.
Elderly Marjorie has lost interest and decided to spend her life in bed.
Overbearing Rosie drops off daughter Florence at the start of her first Oxford term.
Graham's ex-wife appears at his mother's funeral.
Teenager Alex gets talking to elderly Gladys in a hospital waiting room.
Despite Danni's encouragement, Jo is reluctant to look at the results of her pregnancy test.
Malcolm hopes to appear at the wedding of his ex-girlfriend, but her sister has something to say about it. (Featuring returning characters from three previous scenes.) |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Traitors, Cads & Cowards by Martin McNamara |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 0. Minimum total with doubling = 3. Minimum total without doubling = 3. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 66 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A one act drama, though performing groups may wish to add an interval. Single prison cell setting, and some strong language. |
| Synopsis | During the Great War, an army deserter, a conscientious objector and an IRA soldier share a cell. They play out their respective journeys to prison and relate the horrors of the period. Liam, an Irish rebel arrested after the Easter Rising in Dublin, has been transported to the military wing of London's Wandsworth Prison for questioning. He is bunked in with Alfred, a shell-shocked veteran of the trenches up on desertion charges. Their other cell mate is Henry, conscientious objector, court martialed for refusing his call up papers. Can three very different 'Traitors to the King' find common ground? |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Two Weddings and a Conference by Karen Doling |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 5. Minimum Female roles = 6. Minimum total with doubling = 12. Minimum total without doubling = 12. No chorus. Eleven speaking roles and an unspeakable photographer. |
| Run Time | Around 65 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Comedy play. Single (hotel reception) set. Structurally in two acts, but in length it's on the boundary between a one-act and a two-act (it could occupy a whole evening's theatre or be accompanied by a shorter piece.) Contains mild swearing. |
| Synopsis | A double-booked wedding reception at a hotel causes havoc for the brides, grooms, manager, receptionist, and the attendees of a conference that is supposed to be happening at the same time! However, it soon transpires that the double-booking is not the only coincidence they will have to deal with. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Under the Hood by Damian Trasler |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 1. Minimum total with doubling = 4. Minimum total without doubling = 5. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 65 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | One-act drama (on the lower boundary of two-act length). Simple sets. |
| Synopsis | Rose, an actor, is rehearsing the title role in a new psychological interpretation of Red Riding Hood under a hot-shot director. Meanwhile, her husband, Mark, is torn between the frustrations of his well-paid dead-end job and the uncertainties of his dream of creating his own business. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| An Unexpected Duty by Robin Wilson |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 6. Minimum total without doubling = 6. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 75 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A one act play which could be used as a full length play. |
| Synopsis | Charlie's rushing off to Home Guard duty, but takes time to warn his wife about their daughter's scandalous dress sense and his worries about her new man. Little does he know that before the night is out he'll be facing down an armed spy! |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Unrelated Women by Daniel M. Wolpe |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 0. Minimum Female roles = 2. Minimum total with doubling = 2. Minimum total without doubling = 2. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 65 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | The production notes contain suggestions for six classical pieces of music that feature in the script. Lazy Bee Scripts does not supply any sheet music with this script. |
| Style | A two act drama (though could be performed in one). Set in the US, though the play explores universal themes. |
| Synopsis | At her husband’s funeral, hard-bitten widow Fiona meets Laura, her husband’s young pregnant mistress, having been previously unaware of her existence. Their relationship, at first bitter, evolves into a profound and loving affiliation. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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