About the Book:

Editor Craig Pospisil compiled this collection Outstanding Short Plays: Vol. 1. Inside these pages you will find authors from widely varied backgrounds, some well known, others less so, but all immensely talented. This collection of one-act plays represents some of the best writing in the American theatre today. They have been performed as "pop-up" fringe plays to spotlight local performers.

The collection Outstanding Short Plays: Vol. 1 includes the following plays:

Amateurs is a short play by David Auburn. Politics and ethics collide in this charged encounter between an angry young woman and a charming yet lethal retired political campaign strategist who dragged her family name through the dirt. She confronts him about a smear campaign he ran 26 years earlier destroying her senator father's career. She threatens to expose an episode of his sexual harassment; he counters with painful revelations. (Premiered in Ensemble Studio Theatre's 2010 Marathon of One-Act Plays; Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

Bolero is a short play by David Ives. It depicts a young couple in bed at night, with the girl struggling to sleep. She is sure she can hear noises of distress, through the wall, from the apartment next door and pesters her husband about them. He is dismissive of her concerns. It's a scene that captures the anxiety that pervades modern living. (Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

Breakfast And Bed is a a ten-minute play by Amy Fox. Lex wakes up hungover on the couch in a strange apartment to find that Chris, her pickup from the previous night, has gone. Chris' roommate, Eloise, is chatty and offers coffee but also asks a lot of probing questions. Is Eloise jealous? Protective? Or is there something else going on? (Premiered in Ensemble Studio Theatre's 2006 Marathon of One-Act Plays; Cast: 2 female)

Cell by Cassandra Medley. The only jobs left in Flint, Michigan are at a detention center for illegal immigrants waiting to be deported. Rene has taken in her sister Cerise and niece Gwen, who were homeless, and gotten them jobs with her at the facility. But Gwen's soft heart puts her at odds with the detention center's rules against fraternization, and Rene will not let Gwen threaten her job. (Premiered in Ensemble Studio Theatre's 2012 Marathon of One-Act Plays; Cast: 3 female)

Diversions (which he wrote at the age of eighteen) by Christopher Durang. A man is about to jump off a building when a nun tries to stop him. Aloysius thinks the nun is trying to push the man off and tries to stop the nun. A policeman tries to stop all of them, but he falls off the roof. The whole thing winds up in court, where a game of bridge breaks out and more bodies start to pile up. (Premiered in 1967 at the Loeb Experimental Theater in Harvard College; Cast: 3 female, 7 male)

The Green Hill by David Ives. Jake has a vision of a lovely green hill, where he feels free and at peace. He knows the hill is real, and he has to go there. He sees a poster of the hill in a travel agent's window, but the hill's real location proves to be elusive. But Jake is relentless in his search. (Cast: 1 female, 1 male, extras.)

Happy by Alan Zweibel. Donald travels to Boca Raton to find "Happy" Haliday, a favourite baseball player from his youth, and to get his signature on a baseball. The ball has been signed by every member of the 1962 Mets except for Happy, whose career was cut short. But when Happy learns the ball will be worth $28,000 after he signs, and that it's already been sold, will he still sign? (Premiered in Theatre 59E59's 2010 Summer Shorts Festival; Cast: 2 male)

A Second Of Pleasure by Neil LaBute. Kurt and Jess are in a train station about to depart for a romantic getaway. Just before boarding the train, Jess says she doesn't really want to go away for the weekend. Kurt is annoyed. Jess agreed to the trip weeks ago. Why did she wait until now to say something? Finally, Jess admits that it has something to do with her husband. (Premiered in Theatre 59E59's 2009 Summer Shorts Festival; Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

An Upset by David Auburn. Two pro tennis players, a younger, polite Romanian on his way up and an older, argumentative American on his way out, lock into an unlikely battle for dominance on and off the court. But they may be more alike than they know, and, like a tennis match, the balance of power keeps shifting. (Premiered in Ensemble Studio Theatre's 2008 Marathon of One-Act Plays; Cast: 2 male)

Weird Water by Robert Lewis Vaughan. Sinking further into depression after the death of his son Tommy in Iraq, Hal resists his wife Libby's attempts to help him heal. When Tommy's lifelong best friend Jeff pays a surprise visit he brings a sense of hope with him, and the family finds a way to move forward. (Premiered in 2006 at Acoma Center in Denver as part of The War Anthology: Cast: 1 female, 2 male)

About the Editor:

Craig Pospisil is a multiple award-winning American playwright and filmmaker. His work has been seen around the US, and in two dozen countries on six continents, and translated into seven languages.