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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. |
| 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 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. |
| 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 Thirty-Minute Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 8. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 16. Minimum total without doubling = 16. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 35 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's 'The Taming of the Shrew', 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 | A lord wishes his daughters to be married. Bianca is young and beautiful and already has many suitors, but Katherina is strong-willed, hot-tempered and uncontrollable. Their father decrees that Bianca may only take a husband once Katherina is married. Lucentio and his friend Petruchio arrive, and Petruchio is convinced to marry Katherina for her money to allow Lucentio to wed Bianca. However, Lucentio finds his marriage to Bianca is not as idyllic as he would like, whilst Petruchio bends the shrew-like Katherina to his will. |
| 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 Thirty-Minute Tempest by Shakespeare, abridged Bill Tordoff |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 9. Minimum Female roles = 2. Minimum total with doubling = 11. Minimum total without doubling = 15. No chorus. Like much of Shakespeare, the cast is male-heavy. Don't let that put you off! |
| Run Time | Around 35 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Abridgement of William Shakespeare's 'The Tempest', 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 | Prospero, the exiled duke of Milan, has raised his daughter Miranda alone on an island with nobody else around but Caliban, a deformed creature Prospero treats as a slave. Using his magic to wreck a ship carrying the usurping Duke of Milan and his entourage, Prospero aims to awe the noblemen, reassert his right to the throne of Milan, and find a match for his daughter. |
| 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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| Time To Move by Iris Winston |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 2. Minimum Female roles = 2. Minimum total with doubling = 4. Minimum total without doubling = 4. No chorus. The characters are written as ninth graders (14- to 15-year-olds), but could be played at other ages. There is an option for an on-stage band, and possibly other extras. |
| Run Time | Around 35 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | One-act play for school kids. |
| Synopsis | It's the night of the big school dance, but Kim has something besides getting the gym ready on her mind. She's just found out she might be moving, and is scared to leave all her friends behind. A one act that examines the pros and cons of moving while young. |
| 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 Train Ride Away by Frank Gibbons
Performance by Aiken High won The Garcia Theater Project, North Augusta 2010. |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 6. Minimum total without doubling = 10. Chorus. Characters are mainly adults with one young child. Could all be played by children. The chorus is optional, but there are several scenes where crowds would create atmosphere. |
| Run Time | Around 35 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | One-act play. Intended to have figurative sets (possibly just lighting transitions), rather than realistic depictions of the locations. Props could be real or indicated by mime. Includes mild swearing. |
| Synopsis | The story of a family of Hungarian Jews being transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the holocaust of 1944. |
| 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 Trip by Jonathan Caldicot |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 12. Minimum Female roles = 8. Minimum total with doubling = 20. Minimum total without doubling = 20. No chorus. The characters are all members of a high school class, and intended to be played by teenagers. |
| Run Time | Around 45 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | One-act play for a large cast of teenagers. Simple props, essentially a bare stage, except for a stone cairn! Contains swearing. |
| Synopsis | Twenty teenagers are on an outward bound-style field trip as a team-building exercise, but when they all reach the rendezvous point, the teacher is not there to meet them with the bus. Have the brain-boxes been reading the maps wrong? With the one cell phone lost, can they work out a solution before night falls? |
| 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 Twelve Months by Tony Best, adapted from Antonia Barber |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 2. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 19. Minimum total without doubling = 19. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 25 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | One-act play for junior/secondary school children, based on an Eastern European folk tale (translated by Antonia Barber). The author suggests a single set divided into three areas. |
| Synopsis | Marushka, the young stepdaughter of a widow, is always being ordered around and berated when she questions her stepmother's unreasonable requests. As punishment, her stepmother asks her to leave the house in January and only return when she has found a bunch of Violets - flowers which only grow in April. She dutifully acccepts, only to stumble upon the meeting-place of the twelve months of the year. They agree to help her, but when she returns with violets, her stepmother has more tasks for her... |
| 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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Underground by Jon Boustead
Production by Tykes won Best Youth Production (Teignmouth Drama Festival, 2017) |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 11. Minimum total with doubling = 14. Minimum total without doubling = 14. No chorus. All cast should be of same or similar age. |
| Run Time | Around 22 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A one act thriller for youth theatre, with a single - crashed Tube train carriage - setting. |
| Synopsis | A group of youth-age children on a school outing are left to fend for themselves, as they find themselves trapped in a crashed tube train and their teachers are nowhere to be found. They all have to deal with the horror in their own way and they take the plot along through intermittent narration and action. |
| 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 |
| Awards | Click here to see the awards won by (productions of) this script. |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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Urban Hymns by Keith Badham
Performance by Up-Stage Theatre Company won Best Youth Actress award in the Bedfordshire One Act Play Festival, 2011 |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 6. Minimum total without doubling = 65. No chorus. The nine scripts have casts ranging from two to twenty, however the author expects that some groups will reorganise the twenty-character script for a smaller group - his estimated minimum cast is six. |
| Run Time | Around 30 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A series of short scripts for teenagers. Simple to set, but with plenty of performance challenges. Contains swearing. |
| Synopsis | Nine short scripts:
Introduction (Nominally twenty roles)
Bittersweet Symphony (Seven roles)
The Drugs Don't Work (Four roles)
Sonnet (Four roles)
Juliet (Two roles)
Romeo (Two roles)
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (Five roles)
24 Minutes From Tulse Hill (Six roles)
Lucky (Nominally 15 roles) |
| 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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