About the Play:

Plays on Principle contains a collection of ten 10-minute plays by Pat Montley. These 10-minute plays focus on themes of meaning, forgiveness, and justice, featuring dramatic, character-driven scenes. Parents and children, friends and lovers, colleagues and classmates, constant comrades and scary strangers – grapple with injustice, love, political passion, fear of dying and the curse of conscience.

Enough!: What do the rich owe the poor? Using various methods of persuasion and intimidation, a homeless person insists a comfortable capitalist share their wealth and power. (Cast: 2 any gender)

Life/Choice: How do you disagree without being disagreeable? An older pro-life supporter and a young pro-choice supporter confront each other at a rally. (Cast: 2 female)

Just Deserts: What is more important – justice or mercy? A teen actor plays devil's advocate in rehearsal for The Merchant of Venice to arouse "the quality of mercy" – and maybe more – in his leading lady. (Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

Suckled by Wolves: Who deserves forgiveness? Two men – with varying motivations and degrees of resolve – prepare to confront their former abuser, now a bishop, with an ultimatum. (Cast: 2 male)

March!: Is it ever OK to compromise our values? What happens if you do? Black journalist and activist Ida B. Wells challenges suffragist Alice Paul on her plans for the Women's March of 1913. (Cast: 2 female)

Voting Your Conscience: Does the end ever justify the means? One chief poll judge tries to persuade the other to change election results. (Cast: 2 any gender)

Foxholes: What gives meaning to life? Two soldiers facing death try to find meaning in life. (Cast: 2 any gender)

Madrigal in Black and White: How can we move beyond racial stereotypes? A chance encounter between two young women – one Black, one white – escalates into the beginning of a relationship, despite the warnings of their uncensored alter-egos bearing the burden of social history. (Cast: 4 female)

The Cutting: Whose life is worth living and who gets to decide that? An interminably ill man tries to persuade his daughter-caretaker to help him die – a request complicated by the ambivalent nature of their past and present relationship. (Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

Rachel Carson Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: What would you sacrifice to save the earth? Environmentalist Rachel Carson, tempted by a mysterious visitor from the sea, must choose between her own health/happiness and her work to save the earth. (Cast: 1 female, 2 male)

Plays on Principle premiered in 2019 at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore as part of a bicentennial celebration.

About the Playwright:

Pat Montley is an American playwright and award-winning theatre director. She has a master's degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in theatre from the University of Minnesota. She has taught playwriting in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins University, Goucher College and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and in Pittsburgh at Chatham University, where for seventeen years she chaired the theatre department and directed some 40 productions.