In the opening scene of this comedy, a writer meets the ghost of Franz Kafka, which sets off an existential chain of events forcing the cast to confront the meaning of life. Through a series of hilarious random encounters, the play questions whether we can understand our existence or is life just one long Zoom meeting interrupted by Amazon and DoorDash deliveries. Designed to be simply staged, ASKING STRANGERS THE MEANING OF LIFE can use a cast as small as five or as many as ten. The cast can be any race, ethnicity, physicality, and sexual orientation/identity.
Cast Size: 10+
A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes
A Thanksgiving play called by sports announcers. Every family holiday is full of tradition. Every family holiday is full of strife and joy. Where do our traditions come from? Why do we hold so tightly to them? Join the family at Wembley Stadium as they play the game called Thanksgiving Day: a day of gratitude in which we watch some people knock some other people down in order to get the ball over the line.
Barbecue
The O’Mallery’s have gathered in their local park to share some barbecue and straight talk with their sister Barbara, whose spiral of drugs and recklessness has forced her siblings to stage an open-air intervention. But the event becomes raucous and unpredictable as familial stereotypes collide with hard realities, and racial politics slam up against the stories we tell—and maybe even believe—about who we were and who we’ve become.
4:05
Multiple characters are all awake at 4:05 one morning for different reasons — insomnia, sex, crying baby, ominous phone call, at work, anxiety. Through the course of this comedy these stories intersect. Secrets are revealed, major decisions are made, and lives change all before the sun comes up.
Julio Ain’t Goin’ Down Like That
It is the morning after the brutal murder of Julio Rivera, a gay Puerto Rican man in Jackson Heights, Queens. The murder became the first gay hate crime tried in New York State during the 1990s. In Julio Ain’t Goin’ Down Like That, the community reacts and is taken on a journey of self-discovery by a fabulously unapologetic queen personifying the beauty and brutality of Jackson Heights.
Bruise & Thorn
Bruise and Thorn are Nuyorican, queer, and tired af of their jobs at a busted up laundromat in Jamaica, Queens. But not for long: Bruise is saving up to become a chef (like on Chopped!), and Thorn spits bars on street corners, one America’s Got Talent audition away from becoming the Boricua Nikki Minaj. When the laundromat’s basement turns out to be an illegal cockfighting ring, the cousins can’t tell if this is an opportunity to cash out and become their most fabulous selves—or a trap to keep them locked into what everyone expects them to be.
Law and Order: Rhymes and Misdemeanors
In the nursery rhyme criminal justice system, citizens are represented by two separate yet equally ridiculous groups: the nursery rhyme police who investigate nursery rhyme crime, and the nursery rhyme district attorneys who prosecute the nursery rhyme offenders. These are their stories.
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This inclusive 10-minute play can be cast with between 2 and 25 performers. Smaller Cast Versions are included in this script.
The Acts of Life
Jonathan Rand’s THE ACTS OF LIFE is a multi-generational story about love and life. Presented in a series of metaphors, we watch as members of a family are born and grow; each experiencing the familiar moments in life that seem to be universal.
Vampire Valedictorian
It’s vampires versus teenagers in this epic battle to stop graduation from turning into a bloodbath. Caitlin’s really, really smart and is class valedictorian. But she’s also been acting really, really weird lately—so weird that Carly thinks she’s a vampire. And not a friendly, high school vampire who just likes to sleep in, but the kind that wants to destroy all her classmates and turn them into an army of her undead minions. Can Carly and her friends stop Caitlin before graduation night? Or will they be doomed to live for eternity without a high school diploma?