All these scripts are suitable for adults. (Look at our kids pages if you are after scripts for youngsters.)
Here we are using "One-Act" to talk about length, not structure. We mean a play might occupy a third to a half of an evening's entertainment. We think that means a run time of between 20 minutes and 75 minutes. (However, one-act play festivals have a slightly different interpretation - see below!)
Currently, we have
1109 One-Act plays, all of which can be read in full on this site.
Click on the underlined text to see descriptions of the plays. (From there, clicking on a title will take you to the script.)
Click this link to
browse through the whole collection.
You can jump straight to our
best sellers (note that the best selling list looks for scripts with a
run time of up to an hour) or
newly-published plays. Follow the links below
to narrow-down the search or,
at the foot of the page, you'll find two links to our search engines...
One-Act plays by Run-time
20 to 35 Minutes
36 to 50 Minutes
51 to 75 Minutes
General festival limits:
20 to 50 Minutes
(Caution:
Run-times are estimates from word-count.)
One-Act Drama by Numbers
Female monologues
Male monologues
Plays with all-female casts
Plays with all-male casts
Plays that can be performed by companies of...
1M +
1F,
2F,
3F,
4F,
5F,
6F
2M +
1F,
2F,
3F,
4F,
5F,
6F
3M +
1F,
2F,
3F,
4F,
5F,
6F
4M +
1F,
2F,
3F,
4F,
5F,
6F
5M +
1F,
2F,
3F,
4F,
5F,
6F
6M +
1F,
2F,
3F,
4F,
5F,
6F
Plays for more than 6 Males (and any number of females)
Plays for more than 6 Females (and any number of males)
Large cast plays (with a chorus)
One-Act plays by theme
Other themes are available! These are just a few we've noticed.
Biography
Dickens
Ghosts
History
Illness
Science Fiction
Shakespeare
Sherlock Holmes
Theatre
One-Act Plays by Genre
Comedy
Farce
Mystery
Thriller
Whodunnit
Melodrama
Drama
A few miscellaneous categories...
Play Script Collections (these are collections of shorter scripts which might be performed together)
Musical Plays
Oddly, these are mainly scripts for which we don't provide full sets of sheet music! They are generally plays where the author has specified the use of songs (frequently "popular songs")
as a counterpoint to the drama, as distinct from a Musical, where a composer has written specific music for the show. (For shows for which we provide music, see the
Musicals pages.)
The above category is separate from the
Family Shows.
This category covers shows (other than pantomimes) that are aimed at family audiences. (Generally humorous, many also have musical elements.)
If you have very specific requirements, then there's our
One-Act Script search engine
or to narrow down to a manageable number of One-Act plays, use the
Find A Few search engine