Competition
Competition Plays for High School
There are over 20 plays suitable for Competition Pieces. Written by award-winning authors. Winning one-act plays that fit the competition rules. Take them to your next competition with confidence. Clever comedies, winning adaptations, comic takes on Cinderella, a pact with the devil, romantic couples, monologues, duologues, award-winning comedies – and more.
AMERICAN COLLEGE THEATRE FESTIVAL — IRENE RYAN COMPETITION
Students do not need to apply for permission to present monologues/scenes as audition pieces in the American College Theatre Festival’s Irene Ryan Competition. You may perform monologues/scenes from any of our plays without written permission or paying a royalty fee.
Performance rights only need to be applied for and secured if a student progresses to the final round, where the monologues/scenes are presented at the Kennedy Center.
Do not send us an application for the earlier rounds of the competition. If you have further questions go to The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival site and contact the representative in your district.
Showing 1–16 of 57 results
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$11.97 – $125.00
Ophelia Chooses
- 70 minutes
- 5M, 3F, Max/Min 8
Simple Set
“Ophelia Chooses” begins at Ophelia’s funeral. After perfunctory mourning by the cast of Hamlet, she is resurrected by a feminist from our time, who offers her the chance to live. Feminist Fay instructs Ophelia in the art of standing up for what she wants (and ultimately believes). This is done by revisiting all the scenes from Hamlet in which Ophelia appears.
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$7.25 – $35.00
Daddy’s Silhouette
- 10 minutes
- 2F1M
From her earliest memory, Quiana, an African American woman in her twenties, is desperate for the love of an absentee father, which carries into her adulthood. Her fear of abandonment bleeds into her marriage to Tommy, an easy-going seaman, who demonstrates saint-like patience with his wife’s chronic daddy issues.
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$7.25 – $35.00
Papito
- 10 minutes
- 2F1M
Simple Set
Papito is a ten-page short play addressing parentification, specifically how a young man who grows up without a father assumes the partnership role with his mother and has difficulty establishing a healthy partnership with a significant other. The narrator, Zoe, is that significant other who is frustrated with her domineering mother-in-law and her husband who refuses to establish needed boundaries for his mom.
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$7.25 – $35.00
Candy and Toys
- 10 minutes
- 1 M/1F /Max/Min 2
Simple Set
A ten-page short play from a series of plays within a collection – Legacy of a Father – by playwright, Monique Franz. The script addresses the emotional toll on women raised without the love and affection of a father. Based on a real-life interview, the story highlights the negative impact of a culture that values sons over daughters, men over women.
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$7.25 – $35.00
Far from the Tree
- 10 minutes
- 1F2M
Simple Set
A father should be proud to witness his ambitious son strive to fulfill his career goals, except if the father is a narcissistic dad whose failures come to light by his son’s successes. In “Far from the Tree”, a comedy short play within “Legacy of a Father” series by playwright Monique Franz, the main character has to overcome his father’s tactics of sabotage to stay focused on his future.
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$7.25 – $35.00
The Legacy of an Invisible Father
- 10 minutes
- 2F2M
flexible cast, Simple Set
“The Legacy of an Invisible Father” is a 10-min drama within Monique Franz’s play series “Legacy of a Father.” The short play highlights one woman’s futile attempt to locate a father through a private investigator. Angela’s lifelong loss of a father figure is further complicated by her biracial identity and her struggles with an unloving mother. Within the script, Angela must come to the terms that fate hadn’t been cruel to her at all, that maybe the absence of her father was the heavens working in her favor.
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$7.25 – $35.00
Unlocked Doors
- 10 minutes
- 0M2F
Simple Set
“Unlocked Doors” is a 10-min drama within Monique Franz’s play series, “Legacy of a Father” , and touches on the impact of incest for one woman. Christine, a wife and mother in her thirties, is losing her faith and has hit an emotional wall due to the past sexual abuse of her father. Decades after the abuse, Christine is challenged to aggressively take back the control robbed from her as a child.
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$7.25 – $35.00
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
- 10 minutes
- 4-5M, 01-F, Max/Min 5
flexible cast, Simple Set
“Wrong Place, Wrong Time” is another 10-minute short in Monique Franz play series, “Legacy of a Father.” The script touches on the soil on which many troubled inner-city youth grow, especially those without the presence of a quality father figure. The script highlights the lack of choices that men of urban contexts are presented with, from birth until adulthood.
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$8.99 – $80.00
Legacy of a Father
- 80 Minutes
- 2-9 VARIABLE
Collection, Doubling Possible, flexible cast, Simple Set
“Legacy of a Father” is a collection of seven dramatic and comedy one-act plays inspired by real one-on-one, personal interviews conducted by the playwright, Monique Franz. The series addresses a fatherless theme and deals with absentee fathers and the absence of what a father traditionally provides.
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$9.97 – $75.00
Accident
- 30 minutes
- 2F
Community, Competitions, Diverse Cast, Prejudice, Simple Set, Small Cast, Tolerance, Touring, Trust
Two women, one white and one black, meet as a result of an accident involving one of their sons. In this pre-trial. they each make unexpected discoveries that reveal the role that race and gender play in our society.
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$8.00 – $35.00
Talk the Night
- 20 Minutes
- 1F3M
Simple Set
Together, Drake and his grandfather, the dynamic vocal duo, broadcast call-in segments about aliens, werewolves, and all things crypto-zoological, but this particular show is about “time”: lost time, time outs, moments that feel like years,
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$8.00 – $35.00
Out Out
- 20 Minutes
- 1 Male 1 Female Max/Min 2
Simple Set
“Out, Out” is the fourth installment in the Playroom series, and it may be set in the master bedroom. It seems like an ordinary end to an ordinary day when Rich and Carol retire for the night–until
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$8.00 – $35.00
Oil Pandango
- 20 Minutes
- 0-4M, 2-5F
Simple Set
“Oil Pandango” is the fifth installment in the Playroom series, and it’s set in the garage. A lot of teens take over the garage with dreams of starting a band, but Marla isn’t a lot of teens.
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$8.00 – $35.00
Drake Disappears
- 20 Minutes
- 2 Males, 1 Female Max/Min 3
Simple Set
“Drake Disappears” set in the kitchen, is the first installment in the Playroom series. When Drake goes missing during an everyday game of hide-and-seek, his older sister Marla discovers that he has slipped from our timeline and probably discovering the bay of San Francisco. Is he inadvertently today’s answer to Sir Francis Drake?
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$8.00 – $35.00
Dinner With Osmina
- 20 Minutes
- 2-3F, 2-4M
Simple Set
“Dinner with Osmina” is the seventh installment in the Playroom series, and it finally features the whole family in one place! The anticipation of a nice family dinner bringing everyone together explodes because of an unexpected guest.
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$8.00 – $35.00
The Straight Dope
- 10 minutes
- 2F2M
Simple Set
Jeff, a college student who, in his words, “has honorable intentions, a good future, and works out 3 times a week” asks his friend Bob for advice on women after he learns that Veronica can’t stomach him. He wonders if he’s asked the right person when he discovers that Bob doesn’t even know how Marvin Gaye died. Alicia puts it all into perspective.
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