About
the Plays:
Cover
has long been a favourite of acting teachers for male/male and
three-person scenes.
This
is volume 1 of the best-selling Ten-Minute Plays anthology series
from the prominent Actors Theatre of Louisville (ATL), which has
championed the short play with its National Ten Minute Play Contest
over the years; winning plays have often been included in ATL's annual Festival of New American Plays, an influential showplace for playwrights.
25
Ten-Minute Plays
contains contemporary plays by some of the world's most important
writers. The Actors Theatre of Louisville commissioned these 10
minute pieces for instructional and performance use by their
Apprentice Company. All are perfect for classes and showcases where
actors and directors show their stuff without expending the time or
money to mount a full-length play. In a forward to this collection,
Jon Jory comments on the ten-minute play form.
In
this first volume, there are 25 Ten-Minute Plays:
• American
Saint by Adam LeFevre. A quasi-mystical story of a Roman
Catholic priest searching for a reputedly saintly "Virgin of the
Valley" in the U.S. state of Vermont, in the early 1900s. (Cast:
1 female, 3 male)
• Apres
Opera by Michael Bigelow Dixon & Valerie Smith. This opera
bouffe shows what can happen when an ex-girlfriend meeting her
ex-boyfriend brings along her new fiance, who happens to be
narcoleptic. As an aria from Pagliacci fills the restaurant, violence
from the opera spills onto the stage. Can the flame of passion ever
be extinguished? (Cast: 2 female, 2 male)
• The
Asshole Murder Case by Stuart Hample. Three college
students must write and perform a dramatic scene for a theatre class
– but what in the world is there to write about that a modern
audience can connect with? Assholes. Follow along in this Dadaist
exploration of power and youthful rebellion against those who wield
it. (Cast: 1 female, 3 male)
• Attack
of the Moral Fuzzies by Nancy Beverly. Beth comes on the
fantasy game show "Morality Made Easy" in an attempt to
shed her anxieties one by one. Dominated by a sleazy host and his
assistant, the game posits that one can find inner peace with the
decisions one makes – if one chooses not to think about the
consequences or ponder the other possible decisions. When it becomes
clear that Beth is the type to seriously consider her actions and
every possible alternative, the game hammers her down and exposes her
anxieties even more. Beth attempts to take control of what she can
and walks off the show, cursing it as she leaves. (Cast: 5 female, 4
male)
• Bread
by Andy Backer. A drama that unfolds quickly between a man and
woman who suddenly awaken and discover they only have one loaf of
bread for their survival. (Cast: 2 female, 2 male)
• Cameras
by Jon Jory. As six photographers describe their art, their
photos come to life, and the repercussions of being the photographer
behind the camera are presented when one woman describes watching a
man die as a photographer took photos. (Cast: 6 female or male).
• Cold
Water by Lee Blessing. As he and his roommates prepare to
leave for the impending war, August, a University teaching assistant,
recalls a strange moment from a class. Rather than fulfilling his
duties as the teacher, August froze and the students had to take care
of the situation using cold water. (Cast: 1 female, 2 male)
• Cover
by Jeffrey Sweet, Stephen Johnson, and Sandra
Hastie. Marty wants Frank to lie and tell his lady friend, Diane,
that the two of them were together last night, but the truth is that
Marty had a date. Frank doesn't want to lie, but when Diane enters
and brings up the issue, he finds the false words coming out of his
mouth. Diane sees right through the lie but doesn't challenge the
men's story. The variety of exchanges make it interesting for
three-person scene study. (Cast: 1 female, 2 male).
• Downtown
by Jeffrey Hatcher. Three friends at a club discuss the
patrons they see and accusations start flying from every corner,
accusing everyone in the club (including each other) of emotional
death, emotional blandness, and emotionally bad fashion. Who stole
whose latest treatise on post-modernism? Is she really wearing that
with those shoes? (Cast: 1 female, 2 male)
• The
Drummer by Athol Fugard. In this short piece lacking
dialogue but packing power, a homeless man ransacks a pile of trash
cans looking for something he can use. He discovers a drumstick, then
another. Tentatively hitting them against various trash cans and
boxes, he discovers the artist in himself. (Cast: 1 male)
• The
Duck Pond by Ara Watson. Rachel, an overweight girl, is
hassled by two students claiming that she is not trying to lose
weight for "God." They threaten to report her to the school
committee if she doesn't ask for forgiveness. (Cast: 1 female, 2
male)
• Eating
Out by Marcia Dixcy. Three women struggle with various
kinds of eating disorders. They discuss their weight and how their
body issues have affected their lives. Chriss maintains a bare-bones
diet, Melanie purges, and Pat has a history with pills. They each
suffer in their own bodies. (Cast: 3 female)
• Electric
Roses by David Howard. Russ sits in jail recounting the
fateful events which led up to his imprisonment. After taking off
with his girlfriend Sara and his best friend Darrell on a whirlwind
trip to Las Vegas in the middle of the night, Russ punches out a man
ogling his new wife, we learn Russ has consistent anger and jealousy
issues. Perhaps that is why he finds his wife and best friend
skipping town while he sits in jail. (Cast: 1 female, 2 male)
• The
Field by Robert Spera. Two soldiers discuss their homes in
between telling jokes and singing as they make their way through a
mine field. (Cast: 2 male)
• 4
A.M. (Open All Night)
by Bob
Krakower.
This
examination of relationships and what the heart truly wants is
an ideal choice for high school drama contests and one-act festivals.
Late
night at the local diner, a man a man escapes from his wife and
enters looking for a burger with a side of sympathy. But suddenly an
attractive, compatible, single young woman walks in, sits next to
him, and his whole world has a chance to change. The question is...
will he take the chance? He must decide if he wants to return home to
a wife who may not understand him, or embark on a new relationship
with the woman by his side. (Cast: 1 female, 3 male)
• Intermission
by Daniel Meltzer. Intermission at a playwright's first show
on Broadway. He argues with the director about an uncomfortable line
coming up in Act II, and we hear the thoughts of some audience
members on the play and the man who wrote it. Meanwhile, a young
woman drinks at the bar by herself. The playwright surreptitiously
engages her in conversation before being accosted by an angry
actress. His identity revealed, the young woman agrees to let him buy
her a drink after the show. (Cast: 4 female, 2 male)
• Looking
Good by John W. Williams. Two astronauts try to un-do a
mistake in the cockpit without "Houston" discovering it,
but they only dig a deeper hole, eventually dumping their excess
fuel. (Cast: 2 male)
• Love
and Peace, Mary Jo by James Nicholson. The play follows a
correspondence of letters between a young teacher and a leukemia
patient as the disease takes over. (Cast: 1 female, 1 male)
• Loyalties
by Murphy Guyer. Two couples in Weimar Germany gather around a
table in celebration of the new good economic and spiritual times
they are enjoying. The conversation sours, however, when one of the
party members exposes his thoughts on what patriotism and military
honor really mean to him. Primal energies are unleashed, and the
party splits apart in this gripping charged play. (Cast: 2 female, 2
male)
• Marred
Bliss by Mark O'Donnell. Couples find out what happens to
pre-matrimonial bliss when the subconscious seeps up through the
cracks in this farcical play based on slips of the tongue. Jane and
Dink are soon to wed, but their exes arrive and bring out their
worst. The play uses the errors and mispronunciations within the
dialogue to reveal the pasts of the couples, what each character is
really thinking, and how the marriage between Jane and Dink will turn
out. (Cast: 2 female, 2 male)
• The
Perfect Guy by Mary Gallagher. Kitty is set up on a blind
date with the perfect guy... or is he? Two young ladies discuss their
impossibly perfect (and available!) coworker at their law firm, who
happens to be dining over with the boss tonight. Kitty is swooning
and her friend Tina is chomping at the bit for Kitty and Dan to get
together. Kitty wants to discover one flaw in his personality, and
she may have found it when she realizes that all signs point to him
being the one thing she cannot stomach – a conservative. When she
attempts to confront him on the issue, results are, as the boss would
say, inconclusive. (Cast: 2 female, 1 male)
• The
Road to Ruin by Richard Dresser. A couple traveling on the
freeway experiences a catastrophic breakdown of their car. They are
fortunate to be able to coast into the lot of a local body shop –
but unfortunate because the shop is staffed by a pair of unscrupulous
agents of the most dishonest sort. After a slew of wheeling and
dealing, the husband inadvertently signs a contract in triplicate to
work at the garage and live there until such time, possibly after
years, when he can pay off the various debts Jimbo and Fred push on
him. (Cast: 1 female, 3 male)
• Spades
by Jim Beaver. Two bored Marines pass the time in a Vietnam
morgue playing cards and crossword puzzles when they receive a dead
soldier to store in a refrigerator before his remains are sent back
home. War has taken its emotional toll on these young men and they
discuss the best way to permanently attach the dead man's ID tag to
him – by stomping his dogtag into his jaw. The man's corpse was
sent to the marines too early: he suddenly regains consciousness and
awakens, terrified out of his mind. Somehow the exhausted men find
humor in a grim close call. (Cast: 3 male)
• Subterranean
Homesick Blues, Again by Dennis Reardon. A spooky parable
as young tour guide from hell, literally, decides to mess with the
minds of two bickering couples that come to visit famous caverns.
(Cast: 2 female, 3 male)
• Watermelon
Boats by Wendy MacLaughlin. Follow along as two young
ladies meet at the shore of a lake at three different moments in
their lives and share the bittersweet journey of growing up and
learning life's lessons. In the process, the two close friends mature
from the age of eleven and explore their friendship, relationships,
and encounters with life over the span of 10 years in 10 minutes with
both young women's lives "put to the test." (Cast: 2
female)