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| The Turing Test by Stuart Ardern |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 0. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 4. Minimum total without doubling = 6. No chorus. Three principal females. The cafe manager, carer and social services manager could be male or female and could be played by one actor. Equally, the carer could be played by two actors, each taking a scene. |
| Run Time | Around 49 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | An emotional one-act drama in which a family confronts dementia.. (Could be staged with just furniture, making it a good festival piece.) |
| Synopsis | Alison Grove, an artificial Inteligence researcher, is struggling to cope with her mother's Alzheimer's disease when she should be focused on the question of whether machines are capable of rational thought. |
| 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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| Ugly Duckling by Ann Taylor |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 0. Minimum Female roles = 0. Minimum total with doubling = 6. Minimum total without doubling = 6. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 15 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A short one act play for schools with a single (playground) setting. |
| Synopsis | This anti-bullying play tells the story of a child who is bullied because he looks different. A resolution is reached when classmates step in to help. |
| 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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| Up, Up and Away by John Peel |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 2. Minimum Female roles = 2. Minimum total with doubling = 4. Minimum total without doubling = 9. No chorus. In addition to the four on-stage characters, there are five off-stage voices. Three male, two female. (These might be recorded but some sections would probably be better live.) |
| Run Time | Around 84 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Full-length play with drama, emotion and humour. Contains mild swearing. Multiple locations, but achieved by lighting and a few props. Originally published 2015, revised 2019. |
| Synopsis | It all starts with the funeral - although to the grieving widows, Elsie and Mary, this seems a bit final. But, from their new vantage point, James and Clifford find that they are able to look down, as well as look back. However, it's looking forward that gives them the most concern... |
| 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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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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Voices by Peter Harrison
2012. Hale One-Act play festival. Winner Best Original play. Production by Altrincham Garrick. |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 2. Minimum total with doubling = 5. Minimum total without doubling = 16. No chorus. Designed for one principal character and four on-stage voices, though the voices could be allocated amongst a larger number of actors.
The principal character is an old man, nevertheless, this could be played by a youth theatre company. |
| Run Time | Around 33 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | The producer's copy of the script makes suggestions for accompanying music/songs. (For atmosphere, rather than live performance). Lazy Bee Scripts does not supply any sheet music with this script. |
| Style | One-act play, set in the mind of the principal character, with other roles voiced but not interacting directly with him. |
| Synopsis | A veteran soldier finds himself trapped in his own flat, facing an imagined enemy. |
| 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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| Way Off Course by Barry Lambert |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 6. Minimum total without doubling = 6. No chorus. Dr Dorris Boffin talks a strange, clipped form of English. This is deliberate. |
| Run Time | Around 29 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | One-act comedy/drama. Single set - a police operations room with a single entrance (which need not be a practical door). |
| Synopsis | Inspector Whalley and colleagues investigate the iniquities of a team-building course - and win the gratitude of the boss into the bargain.
'Way Off Course' is available with two other episodes in Inspector Whalley's Casebook - Volume 2. |
| 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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Wedding Day by John F. Glen
Performance by Thurso Players won two trophies and came second overall in the SCDA Caithness Adult Festival of One Act Plays, Feb 2008 |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 6. Minimum total without doubling = 9. No chorus. Range of ages - three adult generations of one family. |
| Run Time | Around 35 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | One-act play. Simple set (two pieces of furniture - so easy to stage as a competition piece). Contains mild swearing. |
| Synopsis | Annie, elderly matriarch of a family, looks back on a long life on the day her granddaughter gets married. She recalls the wedding of her daughter and her own wedding day, as well as some sadder memories. |
| 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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| Wish You Were Here? by John Garforth |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 6. Minimum total without doubling = 6. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 35 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | Single original song (supposedly made up by one of the characters) presented as a lead sheet and guitar chords. |
| Style | A one act drama with a single park playground setting. |
| Synopsis | In a park frequented by the homeless, a disparate group of eccentrics encounter each other and an unlikely partnership blossoms. |
| 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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| Writes And Wrongs by Andy Taylor |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 6. Minimum total without doubling = 6. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 40 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | One-act drama in a single (living room) set. |
| Synopsis | David is attending a local writers' group for the first time, and he's nervous. He's joined to meet Pauline, a published poet, but it's not really her literary abilities that are making him stammer. |
| 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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