Books published by Baker's Plays

Dramatic ComedyEnsemble of 8-16 actors no set requirements This exciting collection of stories from around the world deals with generosity and greed and offers a unique challenge to student actors and director. Each tale is simply and beautifully dramatized using different theatrical techniques. The hilarious Bantu tale, Anasi Finds a Fool, uses story-theatre, while Peter and the Hat, a traditional tale from Puerto Rico, is presented in mime, and Japan's hauntingly

"Comedy, TYA/10 main roles, doubling and extras possible/simple set"--P. [4] of cover.

ComedyCharacters: 7 females Simple SetThe Red Feather Ladies Get Their Man....or do they?! The Red Feather Ladies Investment Club is meeting again at their favorite tea room, The Fancy Frills Tea Room. At their last meeting, they all discovered that they were engaged to the same man, a conniving gigolo. He had been seeing each lady on a different day of the week. Each one planned to get even and came up with a unique way to teach the cad a lesson. They are meeting today to learn the

ComedyCharacters: 2 male, 3 femaleMultiple SettingsUnfortunately, Eric, the lone shoemaker of Grimmsville, makes shoes that are miserably uncomfortable and impossible to walk in...leaving a lot of barefoot villagers and Eric without a means to provide for his family. While his wife tries to be supportive, his daughter Shannon just can't take it anymore! Sitting alone in the woods pondering her family's fate, Shannon is confronted by a stranger who offers her the deal of a lifetime...

4m, 6f / ComedyA one-act about a young artist on a journey to create her one great masterpiece. On the way she learns lessons about life, art, flamingos, playing the tuba, Georgia O'Keefe, really fat ducks, monkeys wearing roller skates, and the joy of coloring outside the lines. A strong ensemble, poetic language, and expressionistic visual elements make Masterpiece perfect for students or adults.Winner of the 2005 Wells Fargo Spotlight on the Arts Award for Excellence."Just a lovely piec

High School/Community TheaterWinners of the Baker's Plays High School Playwriting CompetitionBaker's Plays has been an advocate for theater in schools for over one hundred years. In the spirit of that commitment, we offer this playwriting competition for High School students. Plays may be about any subject and of any length. It is our hope that this competition will encourage aspiring high school authors to explore the creative possibilities of writing for the stage.This collection includes the winners of the 2010 competition: Hesperides by Gabrielle Hoyt-DisickKeeping Company by Michael BontatibusSo by Zoë WilsonAlso included is winner of prestigious Fidelity Future Stages' 2010 Billy Elliot Award Winner. This play was selected out of over 1000 applicants in the Northeast Tri-state Region: Navy Blue Tiles by Katarzyna Roszczeda.

Farce Characters: 4 male, 6 female. Interior Set One of the funniest one-acts ever written. Hilarious farce dealing with what happened when Jones and Miss Brown, practical jokers, told each of the guests at their boarding house that Mr. Long, a wealthy visitor, was especially interested in their individual hobbies. Long is told the house is an insane asylum. The results are a riot.

TYA, Children's MusicalCharacters: 6 male, 2 female, possible doublingFollow Jack up the beanstalk once more in this zany, 45-minute musical romp! Times have changed though, and Jack faces new obstacles on his journey - like how to make his truck go without gasoline and how to stop his mother from selling off his precious video games! Jack learns sometimes you have to take a leap of faith, but that when you do, you have to be prepared for anything - like maybe, oh...a giant! But in this modern-day fable the giant isn't just some tall guy in the clouds. He's the C.E.O. of a "giant" farming corporation: Big Aggie Reaping Farms (B.A.R.F.). Through his battle with the Giant, Jack discovers that greed consumes itself, and that only through the help of our neighbors will we all prosper. Filled with comedy, puppetry, and lots of heart, Jack and the Soy Beanstalk plants the seeds of self-reliance, conservationism, and good ol' American ingenuity. "Does not disappoint on any level..fast-paced and energetic!" -NYTheatre.com"A rip-roaring good time musical with a light-hearted green message. This is a must see masterpiece for all ages." -TheaterOnline.com"Wonderfully entertaining for both the kids and the adults." - StageBuzz.com

Drama / Characters: 3 male, 2 femaleScenery: interiorUnusually powerful and effective, and gives fine roles for two good actresses. The wife of a strangled farmer is arrested on suspicion. While officers and neighbors are searching the old farmhouse for evidence, two women friends discover a slain canary and a broken cage. This evidence can prove the wife guilty, but by keeping her secret, they free her. An American classic by one of the original members of the Provincetown Playhouse where

Mystery Comedy / Characters: 7 male, 9 femaleWhen powerful millionaire Victor Winslow, producer of a popular T.V. soap opera, invites members of the cast and crew to his mansion for a party, none dares refuse. Winslow informs his guests that he has assembled them to help him develop a new murder mystery game he's invented called "13 Past Midnight." But before the game begins, the host gives the players ample motives to want to kill him - for real! But the game becomes deadly when Victor is di

Comedy, High School / Characters: 12m, 16f, 20+ non-gender / The story of Voltaire's Candide, as adapted in 2 hilarious hours by a quirky amateur theatre group. Candide, the unlucky innocent, is lead through a series of outlandish, side-splitting misadventures that span nine countries, in order to be reunited with his childhood love. Along his journey he encounters shipwrecks and pirates, war, passion, riches beyond the comprehension of mortal man, death by fire, hanging and impalement, Inquisit

TYA/Children's Theatre, ComedyCharacters: 1 male, 10 female, and 2 male or femaleSimple SetThe girls of Fireside Scouts Troop #182 are lost. Their day trip to Yellowstone National Park went terribly wrong, and they don't have a scout leader or a map. To make matters worse, they're at the mercy of a careless narrator who didn't go to the bathroom before the play started. How will they survive the rain and the dark? Can they find something to eat before something finds them to eat? Will their story unravel at the hands of a stalling stage manager and two talking trees? After letting off a few ear-splitting screams, these spunky girls gather their wits and their Fireside Scout Handbooks, and prepare themselves to earn the most difficult merit badge of all: The Red Merit Badge of Courage.

Characters: 5 males, 5 females, optional chorus This is a delightful, audience pleasing, one-set, musical spoof based on Mr. Kelly's enormously popular hit The Butler Did It. Miss Maple, a flaky society dowager, invites a pack of zany detective writers to a spooky house on an isolated island and forces them to impersonate their fictional sleuths. For entertainment, she arranges some "classic" touches - a hairy face at the window, the threat of an escaped lunatic, no communications with the ou

5f, 5m / Dark Comedy, High School/ Community Theatre / Simple setSet in the early 19th century, Murder with Grace tells the story of Grace, who is horrified when her brother is betrothed to Naomi, a shallow, silly girl whom Grace cannot stand to be around. She is loath to think that Naomi will soon be her sister-in-law, and so she and her good friend Beth devise a plan to manipulate Naomi by convincing her that another, much more affluent, young man named Henry is interested in marrying her. T

High School/ Community TheatreThe plays contained in this collection are chosen from the award-winning Boston Theater Marathon. This ten-hour marathon of fifty new ten-minute plays by local authors, each one produced by a different New England professional theatre company, were all performed in one place in one amazing day. In 2000, the BTM received a special Elliot Norton Award for "Enlivening Local Theatre." This fifth edition of this popular play festival is a collection of plays performed

Mystery Characters: 5 female, 3 maleSimple setThis is a mysterious comedy (or a comical mystery) that will have everyone howling with laughter.The eccentric owner of Grey's Hound Mansion has been murdered. The cast gathers at the gloomy mansion for the reading of the will. Lightning lights up the stage as thunder and barking dogs greet the wacky characters that arrive. Each one is a suspect, and each one suspects another. Mixed metaphors and alliterations will have the audien

2f, 2m / Musical, TYA/Jr. High/High School / Simple set Greedy humans exploit the kindness of a magical gnome in this fractured fairy tale based on the Brother's Grimm. An ambitious peasant will say anything to convince the cash-strapped king to marry her lowly daughter, even if it means pretending the girl knows how to spin ordinary straw into priceless gold. Forced to spin or die, the hapless girl begs a lovelorn gnome to save her with his magic. And when her newfound "talent" leads to a royal marriage proposal, the aspiring princess will promise the gnome anything to keep up the deception. Even her firstborn child! Too late, she realizes the only way to break her promise is to guess the identity of the mysterious gnome before her time runs out and her subterfuge catches up with her. "Suffice it to say that author Jeff Goode and composer Jonathan Price...are an astonishingly talented team." -The Bar Harbor Times

7m, 3w, + ExtrasMountains In My Stride is an indelibly American folk play, woven of mythic material, of people caught in the timeless trials of becoming their truest selves - whether in 1830 Missouri or now - facing head-on the need for courage, insight and inspiration to conquer their challenges. Jason Hunt, a veteran frontiersman, slated for Congress, finds his true destiny blocked by his love for Ruth, a young, wavering Bostonian, who demands security outside herself; while Hannah, her cous

Comedy/ 6m, 6f, 2 teen girls, 1 teen boy, and a good-natured minister/ A church sanctuary The mother of the bride has every reason to panic. Three generations of Bower family weddings-three inexplicable disasters. Now, with the church building falling down, half the wedding party AWOL, and the bride's sisters still fighting over what happened at the last family wedding, daughter Jenna's nuptials seem hopelessly doomed. But peacemaking brother Brian is determined to end the sisters' feud-and the family curse. All he needs is to stage a rip-roaring intervention...and pray it turns divine!

Romantic Comedy3-4m, 4fSylvia Goldberg, a respectable retired New Jersey school teacher, brings home more than just souvenirs upon returning from her grandson's wedding in Israel. Sylvie's troubles begin when she realizes that the old teapot she purchased at an outdoor market is actually a priceless relic containing a geriatric genie "Eugene" with a bad back and a penchant for vodka and V8. Keeping Eugene a secret from her three best friends, Mabel, Thelma and Fannie, proves to be nearly as

More Readers' Theatre Scripts for Christmas! See Gargoyles, Plastic Balls, and Soup for previous plays about Timmy, Grandma, and the Gargoyle. All the plays are light hearted and amusing as they each present a nugget of the Christian message to all ages. They are easily staged in a church chancel or on a bare stage with only one or two rehearsals. The plays in this collection are: Sara Elizabeth and the Everything-Just-Right Christmas, 2m. 2f. Bare stage with four stools. Sara learns that Jesus doesn't expect people to be perfect when her elaborate plans for Christmas are spoiled because her family doesn't do everything "just right;" Timmy and the Christmas Strangers, 8 readers - 1m, 1f, 1 child (m) required. The other characters allow for flexible casting. Bare stage with eight stools. Some props and minor set pieces required. During a long flight delay on Christmas Eve, Timmy and the other passengers learn that strangers can be friends you just haven't met yet; Christmas and the Gargoyle and the Big, Big Present, 2m. 1f. 1 child (m). Bare stage with four stools. In this sequel to Christmas and the Gargoyle Who Wouldn't Say Thank You Timmy learns not to count his chickens before they are hatched when his BIG present from the Gargoyle turns out to be not at all what he expected. An "ASYOUWILLREMEMBER" prologue delightfully presents the characters from the previous play for those unfamiliar with it; Timmy and the Alien, 5 readers - 1m. 1f. 1 child (m). 2 flexible. Bare stage except for a low "wall" behind five stools. Santa hat and distinctive make-up for the "alien" required. An encounter with an alien from another planet gives Timmy a fresh appreciation of what Christmas is really about

Jason & the Quest for the Golden Fleece, A Comedy of Tragic Proportions / 10-15m, 13-17f / Simple set / Running time: 105 minutesArgonuts recounts the ancient Greek myth of Jason and his crew of heroes who sail the seas on a daring quest for the Golden Fleece. But here the classic old tale takes the form of a wild new comedy, with a cast of nearly 40 characters ranging from a half-man/half-horse centaur to a hot-tempered yet insecure bronze giant. Add a little music, a slideshow and your stand

Three Christmas Plays Many thoughts come to mind when the word Christmas is mentioned. Snowmen, Elves, and Nutcrackers are not only three images fondly connected to Christmas, but a collection of three Christmas plays that illustrate how those three words have become synonymous with Christmas around the world. A DIFFERENT KIND OF NUTCRACKER - Children's show / 8m, 9f, extras / Simple sets It's Christmas Eve, Godfather Hoffmann has some special gifts for Fritz and Marie, including a Nutcracker. As Marie tucks in the handsome prince for the night, the room fills with mice, led by the Mouse King, who seems to be at war with the Nutcracker. Is it all a dream or is the story real as Godfather Hoffmann explains to Marie how the Nutcracker became the way he is. The ballet only tells half the story of Godfather Hoffmann's wonderful toys and the strange adventures of Marie on Christmas Eve, when the toys come to life and she finds herself in another world, where she must save her Nutcracker Prince from a terrible curse. ELSON, THE FIRST CHRISTMAS ELF - Children's show / 9m, 7f / Simple sets Is Christmas about to end? Santa Claus is considering no longer building and delivering toys to the good children around the world. The job has just become too big for him and Mrs. Claus. A call for help is sent out by Mrs. Claus via the reindeer to all dwarfs and elves. Elson wants to be the first to the North Pole to help Santa, but he must first get permission to leave his elf colony. When the Elder Elf refuses permission Elson's Elf Grande goes against the Elder Elf's decision and helps Elson put together an expedition team to the North Pole. Getting there isn't going to be easy as the Elder Elf has also put together a team to beat Elson there. And the evil elfin Spirit, Excy, will have a say in who becomes the first Christmas Elf and whether Christmas will even survive. CRYSTAL AND THE CHRISTMAS SNOWMAN - Children's show / 4m, 3f / Simple sets Lauren is stuck spending Christmas with her father, stepmother, and her half brother and sister. She learns the importance of family from a snow angel, a Christmas snowman, a TV weather man, and Santa Claus.

5m, 9f, + extras, flexible casting / Comedy, High School/ Community Theatre / Unit setPanic Broadcast of 1938 is the story of some bold teenagers and one crazy, confusing night! It is 8 p.m., Sunday, October 30, 1938 -- the night before Halloween in Misty Valley, Pennsylvania. Two optimistic and wide-eyed young women, Margie and June, are waiting in the park for June¿s boyfriend, Andy, to get off work. Both teens have dilemmas: Margie wants to leave town and June doesn¿t know if she should

Two One-Acts / Realistic Fantasy / 4-5m, 6w, 1mw, Extras / Two minimal sets per play In the world of Anytown Academy where every high school guy is a prince and every girl a princess, familiar fairy tale legends are turned on their heads. In Don't Kiss That Prince, Prince Alan seeks to turn a princess into a frog with a kiss in order to save his biology grade while in Twice upon a Time a single kiss from the cursed Princess Aiden sends princes into one-hundred-year comas. In these realistic fantasies where Mean Girls meets Grimm's Fairy Tales, one fairy tale truth, however, remains the same-they all live happily ever after! LENGTH: 30-35 minutes each

All groups / Areas / Drama / 5m, 3f / Running time: 2 hours Shakespeare's greatest villain, Iago, stoops to new heights of evil to convince King Othello that his stepson Hamlet loves his own mother. Jealousy, handkerchiefs, poison and ghosts ensue. But can anyone survive the raging vengeance of.Ophelia? A tale of racism, incest, and revenge, from the authors of Romeo & Julius [Caesar]. Award-winning playwright Jeff Goode intertwines two of Shakespeare's best-known plays in an original work of classic theatre. Part of the Shakespeare Fusion series: the Bard's first new plays in 400 years.

From stories collected by Allan Hayton and Daniel Elihu Kramer Young Audiences / 0-16m, 0-16w (Flexible cast of 3 to 16) / Bare stage A lively journey through Native American stories of Coyote, the trickster. Coyote is always trying to trick someone, but things rarely turn out quite as he plans. Coyote tries to get a new name from the Spirit Chief. Coyote makes human beings, and poses as a baby to steal light for them. Coyote tries to stop his friends Lizard and Cottontail from making fingers for the humans. Coyote steals salmon from five arguing sisters. Coyote disguises himself as a handsome young man, and tries to marry the most beautiful woman in the world. Coyote learns the trick of throwing his eyes, but has a little trouble getting them back. Traditional stories come to life in this engaging play for young audiences. LENGTH: 45 minutes

10 Students - 6f, 4m / Flexible Cast / Simple SetMIDDLE CLASS is a continuation of the popular "class" play cycle written especially for young actors by Brad Slaight. Like the earlier CLASS ACTION and SECOND CLASS, MIDDLE CLASS explores the tribulations of young people while in school. Where the other two plays dealt with high school aged characters, Middle Class concerns a group of young people in a modern middle school (junior high). Incorporating an ensemble of players, taking on numerous ro

Drama / 18+ m, 9+ f, ensemble (some gender flexibility and doubling possible) A woman as Chief Executive? The 2008 presidential campaign proved it possible, yet it just might have happened more than half a century earlier. Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady from 1933 to 1945, might have run for president after the death of her husband, Franklin. Many thought about it, some talked about it, a few actually suggested it. That Eleanor Roosevelt did not seek public office was of her own choosing, and chiefly her own priorities as well as a sense that the time was not yet right. Act I of Eleanor for President briefly scans her career to a point where she might have run. Act II fictionalizes the fork in the road not takes. The net result is a unique, sometimes witty, and always insightful look at Eleanor Roosevelt and the political process.