Plays for All Year

38 pages

Cast: 3 m, 3 w with doubling or 4 m, 4 w, guest acts optional.

The year is 1960. “The Piety Variety Gospel Show” is a locally televised religious program that blesses folks between church services with music, religious news, and much more. But now the host, Brother Shelby Greene, faces a crisis. With new regulations that require him to start paying for his airtime, how will he raise the money and stay true to his calling? This is a comic tale about becoming a televangelist when selling religious items, having nice hair, and asking for money on air was something new. A singing quartet performs ten well-known hymns, and th...

48 pages

3 m, 3 w

In this play, six witnesses to the Sermon on the Mount recreate the experience for an early assembly of Christians. In the recreation, witnesses take turns acting as Jesus, audience members, and narrators of the story. Though much more entertaining and humorous than most translations of the Sermon, Jesus’s words in this version closely follow the original Greek in the order that He spoke them. This word order demonstrates the warmth and cleverness that Jesus used to draw people into His message. This allows audiences today to hear these words in an exciting n...

39 pages

3 m, 4 w

What does the Bible really teach about homosexuality? How can some Christians think it’s an awful sin and others welcome gays into church leadership? Sixteen-year-old Peter thinks he is gay, and he’s still hoping it’s not true, that no one will ever have to know he even suspected it. Peter’s father is the pastor of a church, his best buddy is the leader of the youth group. The world would end if they and Ashley, a girl who’s definitely attracted to Peter, found out. But bit by bit his secret leaks out, and then he isn’t the only one facing the dilemma of being gay and Christian. This pla...

36 pages

4 m, 3 w

Father O'Sullivan is desperate. But who wouldn't be? The bank is about to foreclose on his church buildings and orphanage. He's got young people struggling with questions of love, developers struggling to turn the house of God into the Condos of God, a gangster struggling with the English language, and a bookkeeper who's just a struggle for everyone. Plus, he's hosting a Bingo night as a last chance to raise enough money to get himself out of this mess. So, what happens when his bookkeeper is killed and the money is stolen? It's time for Father O'Sullivan to ...

14 pages

2m, 6w

Six alert and active senior ladies meet for lunch each week. Between their arranging chairs, sharing OTC medications, discussing mammograms and men, they give a waiter and his manager a really bad day. This is a hilarious play, full of opportunities for clever business. One Interior. About 25 minutes.

Also join the ladies in these other comedies: "Ladies at Poker" (#1816) "Ladies on Vacation" (#1649)

20 pages

1 m, 6 w

The ladies meet at Suzie's home for a game of poker which they know little if anything about. Suzie's husband, Willoughby, sticks his two-cents-worth in and the game disintegrates into a sharing of make-up and poker-bridge. As usual men are a part of the discussion!  Also join the ladies in these other comedies: "Ladies at Lunch" (#1648) "Ladies on Vacation" (#1649)

39 pages

3 m, 2 w, 2 flexible

The leaders of a small rural church are ecstatic when told the church may receive $6 million. Longtime church member Chance McDermott has passed away and left his fortune (unknown to anyone who knew him) to the congregation. But, there is one interesting caveat: they must care for his three prized hogs…immediately! So they arrange to bring the hogs to the church property and temporarily care for them in the fenced playground. That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask for $6 million, except that the church’s most influential -- and pretentious -- member, Pearl June ...

52 pages

17 roles (minimum 4 m, 3w)

Here's a contemporary and comedic interpretation of the allegorical story of a man who learns he must prepare to meet his Maker, and then does! As his doom approaches, Everyman discovers that family, friends and fortune cannot accompany him, and that even strength, beauty, intellect and emotion are no match for the Grim Reaper; yet faith, hope and charity prevail. This timeless tale is especially intended for groups ready to move beyond religious skits and homily dramas to do something more challenging, less preachy, and more theatrical. And did we say funny?...

23 pages

4 m, 3 w

Investigator Keith Schwartz has been sent to look into the alleged suicide of Mr. Nazareth, a patient at the Fallen Oaks Correctional Facility for the Criminally Insane. But there are complications: The body has disappeared from the morgue, staff and patients are hiding something, and even the head psychiatrist seems reluctant to talk. Schwartz interviews the patients to discover what really happened that night. This one-act, single set drama is both a whodunit mystery and a retelling of the gospel for a modern audience.

37 pages

4 m, 4 w.

Dramatized from real life events, this contemporary 1-act play focuses on religious believers in the former Soviet Union who were jailed for their convictions. Inside a jail cell, a small group of prisoners are trying to survive harsh interrogations and lack of food. When Katya is denied the privilege of visiting with her family who have traveled two thousand miles to see her, several in the group try to comfort her with a piece of saved bread. But the bread is missing. They suspect it was eatern by the newest prisoner, Nadya, a tough, streetwise woman. Later that night, an older woman, ...

65 pages

4 m, 5 w, 1 boy

Lillie Scones is a sweet retired nanny who runs a boarding house with one resident and "a cat the size of the Louisiana Purchase." Her two friends, Jocelyn and Carmella, help to pass the time by listening to music and gossiping. Then Stuart, an old charge of hers, rents a room. Lillie is tickled to have him around again, not knowing he is planning on robbing the bank on the corner. Stuart's mind may not be totally on the bank job, however, when he meets Betty. However, when Stuart finds out that Betty is about to graduate from an academy on the very night the...

68 pages

4 m, 5 w

This zany comedy, in the spirit of Kaufman and Hart, centers on Doc, an eccentric old man whose house caters to all sorts of characters. Now a retired judge, he spends his days “enjoying life.” When he’s not flying around the countryside in his balloon or fishing in a nearby dry riverbed, he works on his books of nonsense. This prompts his daughter, Charlotte, to decide he’s lost his marbles. So, conspiring with a sly lawyer, she plans to not only become his guardian but also sell his house and property. Throw in a psychologist on her first case, love sick te...

39 pages

Flexible cast of 8 to 15. Min: 1 m, 1 w, 6 flexible

Periwinkle, a curious caterpillar, feels compelled to find out what happens when caterpillars climb up the Great Tree –and never return! He decides to follow grumpy Thistle, who seems to be next to do the climb, but Periwinkle encounters some big obstacles he must overcome, including evading the clutches of a black widow spider. Meanwhile, on the ground, Periwinkle’s worried “family,” Sepia and two boisterous babies, escape their own predators, vicious wasps and a praying mantis, along with a comical pair of hungry flies. Finally, Thistle emerges from his coc...

47 pages

8 m, 4 w, optional children's roles, extras as desired.

Just before dawn, Jan. 18, 1981, Chet Bitterman was kidnapped at gunpoint in Bogota, Colombia, and held hostage for 48 days. Rebels demanded all Wycliffe Bible translators leave Colombia or Chet would be killed. Abducted from his wife and two toddlers, the 29-year-old man had recently come to Colombia to live with a remote tribe and to develop for them their own language in written form, then to translate the Scriptures into that language. Chet's is a valiant story of courage and witness under vicious pressure, a story of caring for his kidnappers, concern fo...

26 pages

5 m, 4 w, and optional 1 flexible

A small church is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new and as yet unseen pastor. But he’s arrived too early and instead of meeting the welcoming committee, Rev. Goode encounters a seemingly homeless man. The pastor immediately offers to help him, surprising the stranger who says he never before received that kind of consideration from the church members. Since the pastor is more interested in finding out what type of church he inherited than in making a good first impression, he switches place with the other man so he can observe firsthand how the church t...