The following is a selection of some short plays which range in playing time from 1 to about 10 minutes. These short plays can often be experimental in form and/or content, though unless noted, assume a default style of heightened realism. Click on the highlighted titles for very short dialogue samples:
EMPTY SLOT:
a very short play about the things we miss and why they went missing in the first place. A lost love story. This play was part of the “Fate Delayed” play reading at The Brewery Arts Complex in 2007 and in the Atlantic Stage New Play Festival in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in April, 2012. Additionally, it was a finalist in 2004 for Heideman Award given by The Actors Theatre of Louisville. (1 male, 1 female; both 20 something to 30 something; about 2 minutes long)
is a neurotic comedy which finds Thomas and Sarah in bed after having had sex for the first time – with less than stellar results. Nonetheless, they fumble in and out of post-coital communication – to a positive enough degree that they willing to find out that the second time is always better… well, at least a little bit. This play was produced at the Yale Cabaret in New Haven, was part of the “Fate Delayed” play reading at The Brewery Arts Complex in 2007 and was adapted into a short film in 2010 – see under short films in this website. (1 male, 1 female, both 20 something or older; about 7 minutes long)
is a somewhat stylized comedy-drama about how the oppressed have internalized their own oppression – both by participating in their own subjugation and also, by clamping down on others even weaker than themselves. The play is set within the context of the making of a documentary film, and therefore also posits a “performance” persona and a “real” persona for the characters. The action revolves around a mother who is making a dress for the girlfriend of her son, at the expense of her daughter. The play has been produced by Love Creek Productions on Theatre Row in NYC as part of one their one-act play festivals as well as the Lone Star Theatre Ensemble at the Hothouse in Los Angeles in 2005. (1 middle-aged woman, the voice of one 30 something woman, 2 late teenaged women, 1 late to early 20 something aged man; about 8 to 10 minutes)
is a wistful monologue play in which a storyteller re-calls his formative experiences working as Death at an amusement pier haunted house. While the monologue is in the realm of realism, the actor would be wearing the skull make-up of his job. Note: it is also my only truly autobiographical (about 99.5% true) play rather than some amalgam of imagination and real experience. This play received a staged reading at the New Jersey Repertory Company and was part of the “Fate Delayed” play reading at The Brewery Arts Complex in 2007 and at the Atlantic Stage New Play Festival in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in April 2012, in it’s original 20 minute version. A revised version 10 minute was performed in the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival. (1 male, 20 something or older; about 10 – 12 minutes)
A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE:
a period piece homage to wit and Wilde in which a man is the excuse for two women to “duel” while drinking tea. This play was part of the “Fate Delayed” play reading at The Brewery Arts Complex in 2007. (2 women and 1 somewhat older man – 30 something or older; about 4 to 6 minutes)
is poetic monologue of imagined obituaries wherein two destinies seesaw in ascendance, between hope and despair, dramatic resistance and quietly going into the night. It is a sideways examination of how mortality is a motivation for art. This play had its first public reading in the Atlantic Stage New Play Festival in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in April, 2012. (1 male, 20 something or older; about 2 to 3 minutes)
A PLAY FOR THREE CLOWNS:
a husband and wife comedy as two clowns juggle both balls and the illusions that separate them – including a femme fatale clown. Besides the use of clowning schtick, the dialogue is equally playful as it makes use of rhymes and repetitions. This play was part of the “Fate Delayed” play reading at The Brewery Arts Complex in 2007. (1 male, 2 women – 20 something and over…as they are all wearing clown make-up, age is not an issue, but the femme fatale clown should have a femme fatale body – about 5 – 7 minutes long)
SABINE GOES TO THE DENTIST:
(the book and lyrics for a 9 minute musical meant to played by an adult and 10 year old) a middle aged pet dentist who always wanted to be an opera singer, though he can’t sing, has his life changed by a saber tooth tiger with a broken tooth. This play was performed as part of the community outreach Dwight-Edgewood Project (modeled after Willie Reale’s 52nd Street Project) at Yale University. (1 adult male, 1 ten year old child; about 10 minutes long)
SATELLITE OF LOVE
is a highly telescoped black comedy about how we continue to revolve around former love objects: the light (and radio waves) we see in the sky at night may be from stars that don’t even exist anymore: a 16th century painter talks – via headset – to his 21st century ex-girlfriend while she interacts with her current Romantic era English poet boyfriend. This play was part of the “Fate Delayed” play reading at The Brewery Arts Complex in 2007. (2 men, 1 woman – all approx. the same age, late 20’s to late 30’s, about 3 minutes long.)
A WALK INTO THE WOODS:
A scientist, a faerie a transformation and a lot of goofy rhymes. Kind of a love story where one has just a few minutes to connect before one is transformed forever into a tree. This play was part of the “Fate Delayed” play reading at The Brewery Arts Complex in 2007. (1 thirty to forty male and 1 twenty to thirty something female; about 7 minutes long)