Family Relationships
Play Scripts About Family Relationships
Find Dramas and Comedies about family issues. See below, plays that explore the emotional connections between parents and children, between brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren, husbands and wives. There is love, hate, jealousy, betrayal and forgiveness.
In different societies and cultures, expectations of the shape of family relationships differ greatly: fathers and sons, fathers and daughters. mothers and sons, mothers and daughters. Relationships between step-mothers and their step-children have traditionally been unfairly portrayed as fraught with difficulty and used as a dramatic device for comic or dramatic effect.
Showing 1–16 of 18 results
- $13.95 – $125.00
River Country
- 70 minutes
- 4M/5F; Max 9/Min9; 3 musicians
Classroom Use, Poetic Drama, Bare Stage, Minimal Set, Music Lead Sheets
A lilting poem for the stage, follows the passionate meeting of a man and woman who share neither language nor culture, yet fall in love. Through the rhythmic blending of language and song, the play combines poetry and both traditional and original melodies to illuminate this romantic union that ultimately overcomes geography and tradition. Instant Printable PDF
Read More - $11.00 – $125.00
The Crying Tree
- 110 Minutes
- 4 Males/3Females/Max/Min 7
Dramedy, African American Theme, Colleges, Community, Diverse Cast, Drama
A stunning, dramatic reminder that the politics of money and the politics of slavery in America are joined at the hip. In his latest full length drama with great comic scenes, Peter Gunter reminds audiences that the roots of racial division ran as deep as kudzu and that our recently discovered “enlightenment” is planted in shallow ground.
Read More - $9.95 – $125.00
Tom and Huck–Breakin’ The Law
- 110 Minutes
- M 5-6/ F 2-3/Max 9/Min 7
Colleges, Comedy, Competitions, Doubling Possible, Edgy Play, Friendship, High School, Teens
An award-winning romantic comedy that imagines Tom and Huck as gay sixteen-year-olds, trapped in the 1850’s in St. Petersburg, Missouri. The adventures will be familiar, yet comically twisted, full of teenage angst, and discovery of one’s sexuality and uniqueness. The beloved characters in this send-up remain innocent, and true to the loving spirit of Twain’s original novels.
Read More - $6.97 – $48.00
The Trunk
- 15 minutes
- 2 Male, 1 Female, Min/Max 2
Competitions, Fantasy, Simple Set, Small Cast
A man is about to board a mysterious train when he is stopped because of the size of his luggage. What is in his trunk that he is so reluctant to part with? And where is the train going? In this 15-minute play, L. Elizabeth Powers bears witness to the fact that it’s never too late to take a different path.
Read More - $11.00 – $125.00
N
- 100 minutes
- 2 Males, 1 Female
Colleges, Community, Diverse Cast, Drama
Adrienne Earle Pender’s “N” dramatizes the struggle between playwright Eugene O’Neill and actor Charles Sidney Gilpin over the inclusion of the “N” word in the script for O’Neill’s first box office hit, The Emperor Jones. in 1920. They fight from rehearsal to Broadway run and, eventually, to the London tour. To Eugene O’Neill, a word is just a word. For Charles Gilpin, those six letters have the power to unravel everything that he has ever worked for. At stake for O’Neill? His artistic vision. For Gilpin? His entire career and family.
Read More - $9.00 – $60.00
Refraction of Light
- 100 minutes
- 2 Males, 2 Females, Min/Max 4
Drama, Professional, Simple Set
On the day World War II ends, another war begins. Joe Taylor, an African-American veteran decides he wants to marry Nettie French, a childhood sweetheart, and buy the house belonging to Rose Beauchamp. Rose is a white teacher who has befriended both Nettie and Joe and encouraged their friendship and academic aspirations. Rose’s prejudice rears its head and her reluctance to sell her house to Joe sets in motion a chain of events that threatens to destroy all their futures. Harry Rosen, a Jewish immigrant from Nazi Germany, enters their lives and helps them find their way home.
Read More - $5.00 – $20.00
Inside and Out
- 10 minutes
- 1 Male, 1 Female. 1 M or F. Max 3, Min 3
Competitions, Fantasy, Simple Set
This 10-minute poetic play dramatizes a mother’s attempt to reach inside the autistic mind of her young son. Characters include Jonah, the boy, his mother, Jonah’s mind. The play is a great change of pace in an evening of short plays and as an introduction to discussion groups and classes in social work and mental health settings.
Read More - $6.95 – $30.00
A Slippery Slope
- 10 minutes
- 1 Male, 2 Females, Max/Min cast 3
Simple Set
In this 10-minute comedy play by P.A. Wray, a student at a Christian academy discovers some truths about the culture wars and his own family when he is forced to defend his oral report which contained facts at odds with the school’s ideology. Ideal for community theater or as part of an evening of short plays.
Read More - $9.95 – $90.00
Sniper
- 90 Minutes
- 8 Males; 2 Females; Doubling Possible
Colleges, Community, Doubling Possible, Drama, Edgy Play
Award-winning full-length drama for 8-10 actors, SNIPER is very loosely based upon the nation’s first school shooting in 1975. The drama explores the mind and life of seventeen year old Anthony Vaccaro, who fatally shoots 9 citizens of a small town in upstate New York. Moving back and forth in time, Vaccaro searches his own past and remembers….
Great for high school, college, and community theater and discussion groups.
Read More - $9.95 – $90.00
An Evening With Joyce’s Women
- 100 minutes
- 3 Males 4 Females Max 12 Min 4
Community, Flexible Casting, Fundraiser, High School, Middle School
A trilogy of one-act plays, The Boarding House, Eveline, and The Dead
Based on Dubliners by James Joyce; adapted for the stage to allow us to enter the lives of three Dublin women. Dublin society of the first decade of the 20th Century comes to life through the frustrations, fantasies, and follies of Irish women who are also victims and victimizers of their mates.
Read More - $5.75 – $45.00
Campers
- 20 Minutes
- 1 Male 1 Female Max/Min 2
Colleges, Comedy, Competitions, High School
An “outdoorsy” couple on their honeymoon discover what it means to be caught, or bound together in love. This award-winning one-act comedy by B. A. Hite was a First Place winner, Actor’s Theatre; produced by Theatre Wagon of Virginia and Tidewater Community College. Simple set. Easy to stage.
Read More - $11.00 – $70.00
The Unmasking of Yetta Breen
- 120 Minutes
- 5 Male, 5 Female, Min/Max 10
A full-length touching and funny ‘dramedy’ by Mickey Coburn, about a newly widowed woman and her changing relationships with her grown children. Yetta’s family expect her to remain ‘mama’: dependent and indecisive but Yetta has ideas of her own. After years of marriage, she wants to live for herself. But when the suitors begin to appear!!!! Will Yetta be able to emancipate herself from the role of “Jewish Mother”? Even if her new beau is the “likker” salesman?
Great for community and regional theaters. Downloadable PDF available.
Read More - $11.00 – $75.00
She’ll Find Her Way Home
- 100 minutes
- 2 Males, 3 Females, Min/Max 5
Community, High School, Reader's Theater
A full-length, African-American, post-Civil War drama by Valetta Anderson. The only child of a deceased well-heeled Mississippi slaveholder. Martha Robb views her coming of age full of the adolescent longings and unending horizons promised by the victorious Union Army. and her quadroon complexion. She and her companion, Thomas, could forge different lives, lives absent of the old barriers … if they could only get past her mother.
Read More - $11.00 – $75.00
Romeo and Juliet in Fewer Words, Words, Words
- 50 Minutes
- 5+ Females 5+ Males Minimum 10 Maximum 20+
Classroom Use
This adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” by Robyn Hilt reduces the original but retains the major plot points and beauty of the poetry. A great choice for classroom presentation. All of the major scenes and plot points are intact, as well as the humor of the Nurse and Mercutio. Students take one role and develop that character through analyzing motives and decisions.
Read More - $7.95 – $75.00
The Dead
- 40 Minutes
- 1 Male. 4 Females
Simple Set
A one-act play adapted from “The Dead” in James Joyce’s “Dubliners”
During an annual Christmas celebration, Gabriel Conroy has to cope with his doddering aunts, discover the true nature of his relationship with his wife, Gretta, and confront his own academic pedantry. He condescends to the provincialism of his friends, family, and his wife. But a big surprise about Gretta awaits him after he retires for the night.
Read More - $7.95 – $50.00
The Boarding House
- 40 Minutes
- 1 Male, 3 Females
Colleges, Community, Fundraiser, High School
A one-act play, The Boarding House is a dramatic satire, by David.H. Klein, of the story by James Joyce. Mrs. Mooney, the owner of a boarding house of questionable reputation, exploits the wiles of her daughter Polly and the power of the Church to snare one of her more respectable boarders as her potential son-in-law.
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