Seven Award Winning One Act plays from Eve Old, the Award Winning Author, and more from the pens of John Mawson & Rob Smith, and Mark Clark:
Five Candles for Danny
Winner of the 1997 National one act play competition and the Nancy Cato prize. Successful entrant in one act play festivals and winner of several best actress awards. A tender and sometimes funny drama with a powerful role for a mature woman. Requires four female and one male actor.
The action takes place on the evening of Danny Slatter's 50th birthday, the day of five candles. Danny is the Down Syndrome son of Vera Slatter, an elderly widow with cancer of the uterus and requiring an impending operation. Vera's only support, her sister Jessie is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, but we see her as she was, a vibrant, energetic twenty five year old. Vera's daughters are selfish socialites, pushing to have Danny institutionalised. Danny's day starts with a candle at breakfast, and ends with a fifth candle on a slice of birthday cake, a glass of chocky milk and a promise he'll see his beloved dog in the morning.
Sherry Before Six
Lucinda Whytcross is a nice ordinary Australian girl living in a nice ordinary Australian town. She is in the throes of having her nice ordinary house painted by the nice ordinary painter Tom Bennett. Lucinda's tentative romance is sabotaged by her best friend Francine, via a variety of innovative ploys. Lucinda is surprised by her mother's visit — surprised because she has been dead for three months! Mummy is not happy and is insisting that her ashes be interred within daddy's grave. Lucinda decides to circumnavigate an uncooperative cemetery trust by mixing mummy's ashes with paint intending to paint the angel on Daddy's grave. Tom however paints the bottom of a boat! The play requires three female and one male actor.
Lament For the Living
A short monodrama set in colonial times when childbirth was a major cause of female death and there was no degree of certainty that children would survive to adulthood. Mary Macdonald's husband has left her and their six children to chase a will-o-the wisp on the goldfields. After tending a drover's boy, Mary carries diphtheria home to her family and then has to cope with the devastating disease alone. Mary's disturbed mind moves her between various episodes in the past, an uncertain grip on the present, and a hesitant view of the future. The climax is powerful and moving.
This prize winning play is very easy to mount and requires a strong dramatic female actor.
Squatters, Strumpets and Sly-Grog
A romp from the time when Australia was just a collection of roaring colonies. The play is based, loosely, on real court cases and can be performed either in an historic court house, on stage, or any venue set up as a court room. The audience are observers from the body of the court and can be involved in the action. Loads of fun for cast and audience alike and can accommodate any number of players with some doubling if necessary. There are parts for wild colonial lads and lasses from trollops to traps, farmers to felons, publicans to pink-bonnet girls.
The Casemoth
Middle-aged Thelma's life is at the crossroads — her son wants her to move into a retirement village, her daughter's become hyphenated, her grandchildren are an advertisement for compulsory contraception. Thel's friends, Dottie and Peg decide that something must be done. Peg inveigles Thelma into applying for a live-in job as a housekeeper-secretary with a one-armed Vietnam vet. Is Thelma going to be a Kate and drive a car and a computer and sing “Wild Thing” standing on a chair in a Greek café Or is she going to sink quietly into a comfortable Bingo-haunted twilight? This play, winner of a 1998 one-act play competition, has character roles for three mature women, a mature man and a young woman.
The Parable of the Potters
Things are crook in Didjabringyagrogalong. Darren, the prodigal younger son of Kev and Shirl Potter, racked off to attend TAFE and hasn't been seen since. Neither has Cheryl, Dazza's brother's fiancé. Craig, Dazza's brother, is so cheesed off when the prodigal son returns to an open-armed welcome that he freezes the action and rewinds. The play answers many serious questions. Is Arnold Scwarzenegger about to be murdered? Where's Cheryls' engagement ring? What's the current market for second-hand virgins? When's it going to bloody rain? A very funny, very Australian one-act play. Two female and three male actors.
Blood Brothers
The play opens at the wake for a small girl who has died after an accident in the home. Three generations of women are present with two of their partners and the twin sister of the dead child's mother. The child's mother lashes out at her partner and other family members in her grief and the guilt she feels about the child's death. This reawakens her grandmother's memories of losing her baby and the bitterness towards her husband at the time.
In a moving climax, the twin sisters, who have never been close, are reconciled and the audience is left with a sense of optimism for a new life.
(Four female and two male actors)
Plays by John Mawson & Rob Smith
A violent blizzard has snowed in the residents of an apartment building. A removalist has just arrived with the furniture of a new tenant and the confusion which follows concerning room numbers is a portent of the inter-woven mystery which is to follow.
The shadowy figure of Cleave sets the tone of darkness, forever appearing to startle frightened tenants who have just been warned of the likely presence in the building of a serial killer. The discovery of a body further heightens the sense of fear, which later reaches fever pitch with another murder. The presence of a police inspector only complicates this tapestry of suspense, especially when all contact with the outside world is lost. And are there others in the building who we don't know about? In true Agatha Christie style, everyone has reason to be suspected. Who can be trusted? Who is telling the truth? Is anyone really who they profess to be? The mystery will not be unravelled until the last line of the play. Even when it seems over and everything is revealed, there is still more to come.
In Sheep's Clothing will have audiences on the edge of their seats from start to finish. If you want a play to keep everyone guessing, then stage it now.
Collision
(Best Comedy at Victorian State Championships, Best new work Ballarat One Act Play festival)
Bryan McManus is a loser in every way. He has a bad heart, his wife has left him, his children are out of control, he is in enormous financial difficulties. Graham Sackville is a Sydney accountant spending a few months working in the Melbourne office of his firm. Graham is having a good time down south, away from his wife, and is enjoying a full-on affair with a woman from work. Bryan’s and Graham’s worlds come into collision, literally, when Bryan demolishes Graham’s new BMW with his 1977 Datsun. Bryan’s situation has gone into from bad to worse. Or has it? Discussions ensue and we find the two men have a lot more in common than we see at first sight. We also see that accidents are not always accidents. A very funny show.
Cast: 2 males.
The Gift
Jason has recently married Anna in the celebrity wedding of the decade. Anna is golf’s “new big thing” and has captured the imagination of the young fans. Jason is still a popular member of the Sunset Beach cast, but his star is starting to wane after a whirlwind rise to popularity culminating in the winning of the Gold Logie three years before. Lee Peterson is Jason’s no-nonsense, hard-nosed agent who sees an opportunity in every situation. His female equivalent is Anna’s manager, Rowena Wilson, who is even more brutal in her approach. Goldie Le Page is a ruthless magazine type to whom sales figures are the only measure of importance. These five personalities all have their own agenda when Anna announces that she is pregnant. Money, publicity and personal feelings come crashing together in an out-of-control combination of greed and other human emotions.
Cast: 2 Males & 3 Females
Perceptions
Craig is a young teacher in his first school. Craig’s world is jolted when he is informed by the principal of an accusation by a parent that links him a romantically with a year 12 student. Perceptions are reinforced from the comments of another parent and the principal is now worried about the way the school itself will be perceived, and thus its ability to continue to attract students. After a series of discussions that include the student in question, all seems to be resolved in the positive. But is it? Perceptions is a play where your sympathies are continually pushed from one character to another. This is no better illustrated than by ending which will take your audiences by complete surprise.
Cast: 3 Females, 1 Male, plus the principal can be a male or female
The Bridal Train
At the end of World War II wives and fiancées of US servicemen were collected on special bridal trains from all over Australia to be shipped to America to be reunited with their partners. This play deals with two of these girls at a regional railway station where they meet two injured soldiers travelling on the same train. The story is told through the eyes of two teenage US backpackers who are grand daughters of the women at the station.
Cast: 5 Males, 5 Females.
Bad Blood
Tracey Jones and Victoria Langford-Jones are from the extremes of the socio-economic ladder but they have one thing in common. Both have arrived at the hospital to find out the results of leukaemia tests conducted on their teenage daughters. One will be elated, the other devastated and each is faced with major decisions that are entwined with the very values each brings with them. Doctor Alison Griffin and her fiancée, Nurse Simon Kearney are facing a crisis in their relationship which mirrors the questions faced by Tracey and Victoria. A powerful play with a great ending.
Cast: 3 Females, 1 Male
Shock Jock
Ian “Jacko” Jackson is a top rating radio presenter who gains his audience through bigotry, racism and attacking minorities. In addition to his on air success, Jacko is heartened by an upcoming marriage and the return of his twenty year old son from Queensland where he has lived with his mother since a child. However it is his choice of subject for his radio diatribe that rips his world asunder.
Cast: 3 Males, 1 Female and a variety of voice-overs
Mr Allegory's Puppy School
The innocent title hides a more sinister story. Mr Allegory runs a dog obedience school taking all comers regardless of pedigree. However when Mr Allegory disappears in the night and his new trainer takes control, the school is now open only to purebreds. Mongrels are “shipped out”. Uniforms become mandatory and a new symbol flies atop the flagpole. A new era has dawned.
The Queen Vs Dudley and Stevens
Three commercial fishermen are adrift in a lifeboat with little chance of rescue. Their supplies are running out and all possibilities are being canvassed. Sid is a hard-nosed skipper while his only surviving crewmen are the university student Jim and the intellectually backward Barry. Each has his own ideas of morality and self worth.
Cast: 3 Males
Good Counsel
Stan Brain has been forced by his wife Vicki to undertake marriage counselling in an attempt to save a marriage which Stan sees has no problems. When the counsellor falls ill and can’t meet the appointment, Stan cajoles a visiting academic with a counselling background to do the session and save him another trip down from the country. When the session does not go to Stan’s liking he makes an offer to run the show himself with the counsellor playing the part of Vicki’s former partner. Things then go awry.
Cast: 2 middle-aged Males and 1 Female
Plays by Mark Clark
Stooge. The Anti-Scrooge
Mr Stooge is everyone’s great guy. He is generous, understanding and compassionate. But the workers at his business take advantage of his good nature to support their lazy, over-paid lifestyles. Mr Stooge’s family is just as bad, taking advantage of him at every turn. Mr Stooge receives visits from a progression of ghosts who, via a series of mini-scenes, alert him to the way he is being treated behind his back. Mr Stooge gradually sees the errors of his ways and learns to be selfish with his money and his goodwill. A very funny, different play.
Cast: 23 actors. Both genders, varying ages. (some parts can be doubled)
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Play on Words charges $50 per public performance for one act plays. This allows small companies and groups to put on one of our shows without a large up-front commitment.