About the Plays:

Some great pieces for scene work or performance.

The acclaimed Samuel French Off Off Broadway Original Short Play Festival in Manhattan (commonly referred to as OOB) is America's leading short play festival. The annual OOB Festival originated in 1975 and has since attracted US and international short plays that may be up to 15 pages in length from countries like Canada, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.

Off Off Broadway Festival Plays, 40th Series is a collection of short plays selected by a panel of judges that included New York playwrights, artistic directors, and industry leaders as the most important plays of the 40th OOB Festival. Winning authors include: Greg Edwards, Andy Roninson, Simon Henriques, Audrey Cefaly, Amy Staats, James Gordon King, and Gloria Calderon Kellett.

Evelyn Shaffer and the Chance of a Lifetime by Greg Edwards and Andy Roninson
Evelyn Shaffer, an indie game designer, has landed an interview for her dream job at Moonbeam Studios. Even better, that interview is with her childhood hero, veteran designer Tim Beck. But as the interview progresses, Evelyn realizes just how quickly dream can turn to delusion. A ten-minute musical infused with a 32-bit score, Evelyn Shaffer and the Chance of a Lifetime shows that, sometimes, the greatest quests aren't in video games, but our own lives. (Cast: 1 woman, 2 men).

Narrators by Simon Henriques
Bill is a narrator. Walter is a narrator, too. Stephen is a stagehand for narrators, but he wishes he were a narrator. Being a narrator is the best job in the world. But as these narrators' myopic world begins to fold in on itself, and all they talk about is talking (and talking about talking), it becomes increasingly unclear which stories are worth telling – or worth living. (Cast: 4 men).

The Gulf by Audrey Cefaly
The divide between Kendra and Betty mimics the very world that devours them: a vast and polarizing abyss. On a quiet summer evening, somewhere down in the Alabama Delta, Kendra and Betty troll the flats looking for red fish. After Betty begins diagnosing Kendra's dead-end life with career picks from What Color is Your Parachute, their routine fishing excursion takes a violent turn. (Cast: 2 women).

Throws of Love by Amy Staats
Three thirteen year old girls on a late night adventure have an unexpected meeting with their former Girl Scout leader. (Cast: 1 woman, 3 girls).

Seabird is in a Happy Place by James Gordon King
A fast-paced, energetic testimony of Seabird, a young woman who purports to have died and come back to life under the condition that she die once again as soon as the rain stops. Seabird explains how her resurrection coincided with an accidental encounter – a sudden romance that complicated her inevitable return to the state of being dead – and how, as the rain continued, she found herself with more to lose than she would have thought possible. (Cast: 1 woman).

Blind by Gloria Calderon Kellett
While a man waits for his blind date to show, a female stranger catches his eye and ends up being exactly who he was looking for. (Cast: 1 woman, 1 man).