Skip to content

One-Act Plays

Stage Partners is home to some of the best one-act play scripts for high schools, middle schools, and theatres. From large cast comedies to intimate dramas for competition, Stage Partners' exciting collection of short plays features some of the most popular playwrights in the world. 

Browse our selection below and READ EVERY PLAY SCRIPT FOR FREE!

Filter  
  1. Theme Backstage X
  2. Theme Social Satire X
Clear All
Collections  
Performance Group  
Length Type  
Genre  
Sub-genre  
Production/Casting Filters  
Theme  
Cast Size  
Approx. Run Time (min)  
Items 11 - 20 of 32
Go to filters
  • Too Many Daughters: A Jane Austen Parody - Stage Partners

    Too Many Daughters: A Jane Austen Parody

    Written By: Claire Epstein
    Length: 25-30 minutes
    Cast Size: 12-25 actors, gender flexible
    Genre: Comedy
    Synopsis:
    In this Jane Austen parody, the Ashworth daughters (of which there are twelve - or is it thirteen?) struggle to find suitors that will meet their mother's high standard. Her standard, of course, being that they must be filthy rich. Their task is made all the more difficult because their choices are so limited, due to the high number of potential suitors who have been killed when their horses fell...
  • Don't Wake the Dragon

    Don't Wake the Dragon

    Length: 30-40 minutes
    Cast Size: 12-35 actors
    Genre: Comedy
    Synopsis:
    A mundane school day is hilariously upended in this wild homage to Eugene Ionesco’s classic Rhinoceros. When a fierce and deadly dragon flies over a school, the teachers are rightly alarmed. However, thanks to social media and other influences, the dragon inspires a mass popular movement. Soon students and faculty alike are wearing tails, roaring, and inciting chaos! The only person who seems to...
  • Two of the Fairest Stars, Quadruple Casted - Stage Partners

    Two of the Fairest Stars, Quadruple Casted

    Written By: Maria McConville
    Length: 30-35 minutes
    Cast Size: 11 actors (suggested casting: 6F, 5M)
    Genre: Comedy
    Synopsis:
    When the theatre teacher has to fend off the wrestling team from taking the auditorium right before tech week of the Spring production of Romeo and Juliet, rehearsal is left to budding student assistant director, Wade. Can Sophomore Wade rally the quadrupled cast of Romeo's and Juliet's to block the famous balcony scene? He has been staying in on Saturday nights to watch recordings from the RSC fo...
  • Places in Five - Stage Partners

    Places in Five

    Length: 30-35 minutes
    Cast Size: 10-30 actors (suggested casting: 4F, 5M, 5 any)
    Genre: Comedy
    Synopsis:
    The one where an actress stumbles into the role of a lifetime...if only she can figure out what play she's doing. Meta-theatricality knows no bounds in this wacky comedy. (​If you like The Actor's Nightmare by Christopher Durang, consider Places in Five.)
  • Dress Rehearsal Disaster - Stage Partners

    Dress Rehearsal Disaster

    Written By: Emily Hageman
    Length: 40-45 minutes
    Cast Size: 16 actors (any gender)
    Genre: Comedy
    Synopsis:
    It’s the final dress rehearsal for The Olive Tree, an inaccessible 1800s Russian play. When overachieving student Derek learns that their director Mr. Norbert is sick (with fake-it-itis), he decides to lead the final rehearsal himself. But as Derek’s attempts to wrangle his fellow cast of misfits only leads to unmitigated chaos, he begins to wonder if the show really must go on.
  • Baby Yoga by Elissa C. Huang, a ten-minute play, part of the short play collection Ten(ish): Comedies - Stage Partners

    Baby Yoga

    Written By: Elissa C. Huang
    Length: 10 minutes
    Cast Size: 7 actors (7F)
    Genre: Comedy
    Synopsis:
    Some mothers always seem to have it all together, and others... not so much. When Chaos Mom and Chaos Baby arrive in a community yoga class for babies and mothers, all pretenses and expectations of what motherhood should be quickly fall apart. Baby Yoga is a hilarious ode to all those moms who are just trying to get through the day. This play is part of the short play collection Ten(ish...
  • Instructions for Hugs - Stage Partners

    Instructions for Hugs

    Written By: Patrick Greene
    Length: 30-35 minutes
    Cast Size: 7-25 actors (suggested casting: 1F, 20 any)
    Genre: Comedy
    Synopsis:
    After isolating at home for what feels like forever, Sunny is finally ready to go out into the world again to see a friend’s play. Except...maybe she’s not. Maybe she has forgotten how to do simple things like smile, and greet a friend, and hug someone. Maybe she should just stay inside on her comfy couch, and eat beef jerky with Brandon, the embodiment of her need to isolate. Fortunately for...
  • Wild Waves Whist - Stage Partners

    Wild Waves Whist

    Written By: Patty MacMullen
    Length: 35-40 minutes
    Cast Size: 10 actors (8F, 2M)
    Genre: Drama
    Synopsis:
    A young teacher hoping to be hired as a coach at a private boys' school is instead assigned as literature and theatre teacher at its sister school - a private school for girls. There he is charged with the task of directing Shakespeare's The Tempest with his motley crew of adolescent female scholars, a play that effectuates an inner storm for all involved with the production. Wild Waves Whist is a...
  • Justice for Pluto - Stage Partners

    Justice for Pluto

    Written By: Barry Weber
    Length: 40-45 minutes
    Cast Size: 21-45 actors (suggested casting: 4F, 1M, 16 any)
    Genre: Comedy
    Synopsis:
    It’s time for the “Save Our Solar System” celebration! Tonight, experts from the Globex Corporation will show you how to clean up the planet Saturn by recycling your napkins. You’ll also get to sign a petition to preserve Neptune’s Great Dark Spot, and even sing along to a new pop song demanding a stop to Venus’ acid rain! But nothing compares to the biggest quest of all: reinstating P...
  • A Talkback by Patrick Greene, a ten-minute play, part of the short play collection Ten(ish): Comedies - Stage Partners

    A Talkback

    Written By: Patrick Greene
    Length: 10 minutes
    Cast Size: 6 actors (6 any)
    Genre: Comedy
    Synopsis:
    Once in a while, after the actors have taken their final bows, the audience of a play is given the opportunity to interact with an actual, living playwright. But talkbacks don't always go as planned, and sometimes a writer can face difficult questions, and hungry theatregoers that demand more than the playwright is willing to give. A Talkback is a comedy about the absurdity of facing your aud...
Items 11 - 20 of 32