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| A Thirty-Minute Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 14. Minimum Female roles = 2. Minimum total with doubling = 16. Minimum total without doubling = 28. Chorus. The chorus is flexible - there is a crowd, and unnumbered soldiers and servants. |
| Run Time | Around 30 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar', with the original text of two hours and more cut down to 30 minutes.
(The abridgement is copyrighted, so we charge for scripts and copying rights, but performances are royalty-free.) |
| Synopsis | Fresh from military conquests, Caesar returns to Rome in triumph. His friend, Mark Antony, offers him a crown. The Roman senate takes offence at this - the senators want to maintain the republic, rather than have Rome submit to a single ruler. Thus is born a conspiracy against Caesar, leading to his murder on the Ides of March and setting up a confrontation between Caesar's supporters and the conspirators. |
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| A Thirty-Minute Macbeth by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 16. Minimum Female roles = 5. Minimum total with doubling = 21. Minimum total without doubling = 28. No chorus. The male characters include Macduff's son who should be aged around 7. No formal chorus, but a flexible number of soldiers and offstage voices. |
| Run Time | Around 30 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's 'Macbeth', with the original text of around three hours cut down to 30 minutes.
(The abridgement is copyrighted, so we charge for scripts and copying rights, but performances are royalty-free.) |
| Synopsis | Witches foretell that, against expectations and the laws of inheritance, Macbeth will become king of Scotland. Urged on by his wife, Macbeth tries to make the prophesy come true. All goes well (in a gruesome sort of way) until the shrubbery starts walking up the drive.
An introduction to Shakespeare for primary schools. |
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| A Thirty-Minute Measure for Measure by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 8. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 15. Minimum total without doubling = 21. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 30 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's 'Measure for Measure', with the original text of two hours and more cut down to 30 minutes.
(The abridgement is copyrighted, so we charge for scripts and copying rights, but performances are royalty-free.) |
| Synopsis | The Duke of Vienna is about to go abroad, leaving the governance of the city to Angelo, a stern judge. Angelo's rule turns out to be much stricter than the Duke's, and he sentences Claudio, a young nobleman, to death. Angelo has designs on Claudio's sister, but she rejects his advances, apparently sealing Claudio's fate. However, the Duke returns in disguise and, through a series of tricks, exposes Angelo's hypocracy. |
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| A Thirty-Minute Much Ado by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 14. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 18. Minimum total without doubling = 20. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 30 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing', with the original text of two hours and more cut down to 30 minutes.
(The abridgement is copyrighted, so we charge for scripts and copying rights, but performances are royalty-free.) |
| Synopsis | Don Pedro, prince of Arragon comes sweeping into town - along with his wayward brother, Don John, who is bent on making mischief. He finds his opportunity when he seeks to spoil the romance between Claudio (one of the Prince's knights) and Hero, the daughter of their host. Meanwhile, Claudio and Hero try to kindle a romance between Hero's cousin Beatrice and Claudio's friend Benedick, who everyone thinks made for each other - if they can ever get beyond their endless verbal sparring. |
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| A Thirty-Minute Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 10. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 14. Minimum total without doubling = 22. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 30 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet', with the original text of two hours and more cut down to 30 minutes.
(The abridgement is copyrighted, so we charge for scripts and copying rights, but performances are royalty-free.) |
| Synopsis | Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
So the Montagues and Capulets are at each other's throats, but the Montague's son and Capulet's daughter, meet, fall in love and pledge to be married in secret. Things begin to fall apart when Tybalt, a hot-headed Capulet, picks a fight. Romeo intervenes to calm things down, but this only results in Tybalt killing Romeo's kinsman and Romeo killing Tybalt. Further sorrow follows not far behind.
A tragic love story, with an awful lot of fighting. |
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| The Three Bells Inn by Richard Hills |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 7. Minimum total without doubling = 7. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 30 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | One-act slice of life from a London pub during the Second World War. (Could be used as an educational piece, but contains some mild swearing and, being set in a pub, drinking.) |
| Synopsis | Bombs are falling on London again, but some local residents have opted to spend the evening in the pub, rather than the shelters. A look at the practicalities of wartime life in Britain from a local perspective. |
| 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 |
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| Three Canterbury Tales by Richard James |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 5. Minimum Female roles = 2. Minimum total with doubling = 7. Minimum total without doubling = 7. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 25 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | One-act verse play. No set requirements, few (deliberately rough-and-ready) props. |
| Synopsis | Three of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, told in verse but adapted for the stage. The Miller, The Pardoner and the Wife of Bath are brought to life with the narration of Chaucer and the help of three other pilgrims (the Friar, the Summoner and the Nun). |
| 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 |
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| The Three Little Pigs... I Mean The Three Little Hogs by Larry Brumer |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 0. Minimum Female roles = 1. Minimum total with doubling = 5. Minimum total without doubling = 5. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 30 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Small-cast comedy play intended for performance by an adult or high school company to an elementary school audience. Simple sets, costumes and props. |
| Synopsis | The tale of the Three Little Pigs (building houses, wolves huffing and blowing - that sort of thing) retold for elementary pupils with audience interaction and a surprise ending. |
| 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 |
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Three Nil Down at Half Time by Jonathan Edgington
A production by Watlington Young Players won Best Youth Production at the 2013 Hunstanton Drama Festival and a production by Cathal Ferry School (in a translated version) won the all Ireland Gaelic language schools drama competition in 2007. |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 5. Minimum Female roles = 8. Minimum total with doubling = 16. Minimum total without doubling = 21. No chorus. The characters are a mixture of adults and children (could be played by that mix, or all played by kids). There is opportunity for up to 11 additional characters (non-speaking), all female - the other members of the girls' football team. |
| Run Time | Around 25 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Single set (the touchline of a soccer game) Minimal set and props. Chiefly British English, though the play has been successfully adapted for American performers. |
| Synopsis | The girls' soccer team is on a losing streak - until a half-time bet leads to a change of management! |
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The Tide is Coming In by Michael C. Appleby
Production by The Edinburgh Makars won First Prize (and the Edith Forbes Trophy) in the Scottish Community Drama Association's One Act Play Festival, Edinburgh, 2020 |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 0. Minimum Female roles = 0. Minimum total with doubling = 4. Minimum total without doubling = 4. No chorus. Characters written as 2m, 2F, but can be played by any combination with permissible tweaks to names and pronouns. |
| Run Time | Around 28 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A witty one-act comedy with funny characters and plenty of action. Set on a beach, furnished with rocks and (not necessarily visibly) sand! |
| Synopsis | Angela gets stuck in quicksand while walking along the beach. Her friend Brian helpfully explains the physics of thixotropy, but can’t think of a way to get her out. Deirdre and Colin pass by and are recruited into the rescue, but are more interested in a nearby black-throated diver. |
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| Awards | Click here to see the awards won by (productions of) this script. |
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