Bachelor of Arts History & Politics
Diploma of Professional Writing & Editing
Ken Purdham
ETU Vic historian
One Act Plays
The thrill of live theatre is not just in the viewing but in the performing.
Understanding and interpreting a script, bringing the story to life with a of uniqueness of story telling and individuality of character is the crafting that presents an audience with a theatrical experience that goes with them when they leave the theatre.
Dancing with Ginger
A futuristic young, man who knows it all, returns to earth, many years after its environmental destruction, to see if it’s once again inhabitable. He comes face to face with an old hag, an unknown survivor, who very quickly teaches him a thing or two about life.
Theme: You are never too advanced to learn from the past.
30 minute comic drama Cas: I male & 1 female
Bookends
Henry Tudor rings up the other woman to tell her that the coast is clear and that his wife Catherine is no longer a problem. But she has other ideas as she appears by his side complete with an axe buried in her head. Although Henry can’t see her he very soon feels the effect of her presence.
Theme: Your actions will always come back to haunt you Age: adults
30 minute comedy 2 male & 3 female
The Rose Of No-
This story is told simultaneously in two scenes with light switching from on to the other A soldier and a nurse lay in a trench on the Western Front while back in Australia their parents read their letters and contemplate their return. The story parallels the tragedy of those at war and those who await their return.
Theme: The agony of parents of those at war.
Age: Youth to adult
20 minute drama Cast 2 female 2 male
Water Torture
A political prisoner is brought together with a murderer where one has nothing to lose and the other has nothing to gain from sharing the same cell. But the authorities who put them together have much to gain if the subtle torture imposed proves to be successful.
Theme; Myths can become Realities.
Age: Youth to Adult
20 minute drama Cast: 2 males
The Female Factory
As a convict, Maggie Bramwell has no intention of going along with the system. Her strong will clashes with Mary Short, the prison psychopath and it takes all of Hannah Lockley’s experience to keep them apart. Stark, chilling consequences result as they struggle to survive.
Theme: A reflection of female convict life Age:
Youth to adult
45 minute drama Cast: 6 female
Between The Cop And The Street Kid
The whole story is told around a large cardboard box in a back lane. Teenager Joanne Negus has just spent her first night on the street and Constable Mary Fry intends making sure it’s her last. Joanne treats the policewoman with contempt telling her she’s done nothing wrong and intends to stay. When lovable old larrikin Henry Denver appears on the scene he finds himself caught in the middle of a war between authority and the defiance of it.
Theme: The wisdom of age without the responsibility of parenthood.
Age: adult
30 minute drama Cast: 1 male 2 female
Grandma’s Grandma
Sally, a grandmother reminisces about her grandmother and of those times when they experienced psychic or subconscious exchanges. She relives four major steps in their relationship from their first encounter as independent individuals to the final, inevitable wrenching apart of two confidants.
Theme: The connection of generations apart.
Age: Adult
30 minute drama Cast: 2 female
The Real Robbie Williams
Robbie is a street cleaner who has found his place in life in the environment of the alley he cleans and in the people who inhabit it. His simple outlook on life endears him to all and he has become so much an icon that the business residents of the alley have pressured the council to rename the alley after him. But something happens to move Robbie from being the safest inhabitant of the underworld to be the most vulberable. While Robbie has a simple innocence about him he also has a streetwise astuteness that few appreciate.
Theme: Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Adult
50 minute comic drama Cast: 1 male & 3 female.
Set in Gold
When gold was discovered in the Dandenongs in 1859 people flocked to dig up their fortunes. Big Pat created the ill feeling and the subsequent government enquiries. But out of it all the town of Emerald was born. Fortunes are won and lost.
Adult
1.5hr (2x45 minute parts) historical drama Cast: 7 males & 3 females.
Lucifer’s Last Dance
Note this drama can be played by any combinations of gender, female prisoner/male priest, male prisoner/ male priest etc. This is the story of the last few moments before a condemned prisoner is led out to the gallows. She wrestles with her conscience and with her religious beliefs as her interaction with the priest becomes a dance with the devil.
Theme:
Age: Adult
25 minute drama Cast: 1 male & 1 female
Monologues
Behind The Face
note: This play has no dialogue. The story is told completely by action as a would be Shakespearian actor makes himself up to be a clown Behind every face there’s a story to tell and sometimes the warm welcoming smile might hide a troubled existence. So it is in this story except that story behind the face is seen before it is hidden by the mask.
Theme: People are not always who they seem Age: adult
20 minute drama Cast: 1 male
Arthur’s Loose Arm
This is a play for one male actor although it can be played by four actors providing there is an understanding that the supporting cast represents the mind of the main character. The journey in this story is of a lifetime in a day. The character gets up in the morning and by the time the day ends his audience will know his life story and his future prospects. This recounting of his life throughout his day is his routine that deteriorates into a form of self flagellation; until this particular day when something happens to change the whole course of his life.
Theme: Life is what you make of it Adult
Challenging comic drama Cast: 1 male (can be played by 3 male & 1 female)
Born In A Cage
This story addresses the issue of youth suicide and is told in a series of six monologues plus a narrator. This story is not intended to give answers but to merely raise the issue for discussion This story follows the life of an ordinary family. Mike is in his last year of school and breeds budgies; the significance of the budgies lies in the parallel between their existence and Mike’s life.
Theme: Things are not always as they seem Age: youth
Six 3 minute monologues Cast: 3 female 3 male
Almost a Dynasty
Three stand alone monologues that when performed together tell the story of the make
and near break of a dynasty and poses the question of how the Australian character
was born. 1: A convict finds himself the lone survivor of a shipwreck. In fact he
is trapped within the wreck.
2: A bushranger lies dying in the bush. He talks to the
bloke who shot him.
3: A soldier searches for and finds the remains of his grandfather.
The experience saves the soldier’s sanity.
Theme: How the Australian character may have evolved. Age: youth to adult
Three 12 minute monologues Cast: 3 males
These next four monologues are the same story but from male and female point of view. They have been designed to be played individually or as one play in two parts; maybe at the beginning and end of a function. The visual challenge for the actors is to actually make the Anzac biscuits, that can then be eaten, as they perform.
Romantic Anzacs (Emm’s story)
This story takes place in a kitchen as the character makes Anzac biscuits. Emm begins to make biscuits. As she does she reveals just how it necessary it is that she sits with Pup in a ritual hour of Anzac romance every week. But today a letter comes to change it all.
Theme: True love never dies Adult
20 minute Comic drama. I male
Romantic Anzacs 20 years on (Emm’s story)
This story takes place in a kitchen as the character makes Anzac biscuits. Twenty years on Emm’s adult children have given her an ultimatum. She must sit down to one last hour of Anzac romance. Coming to terms with that releases her to a new life, and a new romance.
Theme: True love never dies Adult
20 minute comic drama 1 female
Romantic Anzacs (Pup’s story)
This story takes place in a kitchen as the character makes Anzac biscuits. Pup begins to make biscuits. As he does he reveals just how necessary it is that he sits with Emm in a ritual hour of Anzac romance every week. But today a letter comes to change it all.
Theme: True love never dies Adult
20 minute Comic drama. I male
Romantic Anzacs 20 years on (Pup’s story)
This story takes place in a kitchen as the character makes Anzac biscuits. Twenty years on Pup’s adult children have given him an ultimatum. He must sit down to one last hour of Anzac romance. Coming to terms with that will release him to a new life, and a new romance.
Theme: True love never dies Adult
20 minute comic drama I male
Scratchmarks
When a teenage girl locks herself in an old convict cell her mind begins to play tricks with her. She is suddenly confronted by an apparition, a teenage convict girl sentenced to death more than a hundred years earlier. The convict is in fact a metaphor for the teenager’s conscience. The struggle that follows becomes a struggle with the girl and her conscience
Theme: The struggle of the teenage years Age: youth
20 minute drama Cast: 2 females
The Rose Of No-
This story is told simultaneously in two scenes with light switching from on to the other A soldier and a nurse lay in a trench half a world away while back in Australia their parents read their letters and contemplate their return. The story parallels the tragedy of those at war and those who await their return.
Theme: The agony of parents of those at war Age: Youth to adult
20 minute drama Cast 2 female 2 male
Nightmare On Nowhere Street
There are no winners out on the street only those trying to find their own direction in life. When two other street kids pick up Amara and Jed from the gutter, they become part of the group in which their resolve is tested time and again. Amarah confronts her pregnancy while Jed is confronted by her own emotional turmoil.
Theme: peer support in tough times Age: youth
40 minute drama Cast: 6 female 6 male
The Female Factory
As a convict, Maggie Bramwell has no intention of going along with the system. Her strong will clashes with Mary Short, the prison psychopath and it takes all of Hannah Lockley’s experience to keep them apart. Stark, chilling consequences result as they struggle to survive.
Theme: A reflection of female convict life Age: Youth to adult
45 minute drama Cast: 6 female
Trust Me Jack
In a small town bank in the 1880s a gang of bushrangers menace the bank manager and
customers. It’s a tense situation between the haves and the have-
Theme: The working class struggle Age: youth
30 minute drama Cast: 5 male 5 female
There’s Someone Out There
When two schoolgirls find themselves left alone in a house, noises become strange sounds, people become sinister figures and events turn tragic. Was it a woman with a foreign voice that came to call... or was it a man?
Theme: Runaway imaginations Age: youth
25 minute drama Cast: 4 female 3 male
Mask of Fear
The leader of a tribe, somewhere in some other time, gathers its youth together and tells them the future is in their hands and then banishes them to the hills to protect them from the plague that is sweeping the district. Superstition almost destroys them and the result is of agonising compromise.
Theme: The evils of ruling by fear Age: youth
40 minute drama Cast: 5 male 11 female (Cast can be cut down by doubling up)
No Strings Attached
This story unfolds on two planes, that of the puppeteers and that of the puppets they control, or do they? The Globe Marionette Theatre is world renowned and its members vehemently protect their reputation of excellence. However, when a puppeteer joins the group, he creates fear and a sense of insecurity from what they see as an intrusion into their comfortable existence. It takes the death of a puppet to expose the real fear of change
Theme: The fear of change Age: 15+
25 minute comedy Cast: 5 male 7 female
Cool Ghouls
When a gang of cool kids spend the night in a graveyard as part of an initiation
they are confronted by a gang of black-
Theme: Enemies become allies in the face of greater evils Age: 13+
25 minute comedy Cast: 5 male 5 female
Radio Waves
When four members of a radio program turn up for their show Kingsley, the oldest member finds he is no longer wanted by the radio station. As the ON AIR hilarity begins the off air dramas take place. The eventual decision of “No Kingsley no show” has a hollow ring to it when contrasted with the fate of each of the individuals.
Theme: Outwardly happy inwardly enemies Age: youth to adult
30 minute comedy/drama Cast: 2 male 2 female
Soapsuds
As the lights go up on Samala Dane in the television newsroom so begins a look behind the scenes at the bitchiness of the performers in the programs that go to air. When the Director brings them all together in an effort to address the situation she finds it’s the worst thing she has ever done.
Theme: This is simply a good old fashioned have a go at the television media Age: 13+
30 minute comedy 5 male 6 female
A Would-
When $50,000 disappears from the nightclub safe, Squiggy Naylor the prissy Queen of the underworld calls in the smoothest private detective of all only to find it was an inside job and that the detective sure was smooth. Bet you can’t pick who dunnit!
Theme: Just a simple who dunnit Age: 13+
25 minute comedy Cast: 4 female 3 male
Emotional Moments Frozen
Two teenagers wake up after a long frozen sleep to find they are one thousand years into the future. Having been thawed out after a millennium of cryonic slumber, they find they are objects of an experiment by a class of futuristic school students. The teenagers are not pleased particularly when the students blame their generation for ignoring the environmental signs of destruction that has left the world in the state it’s in.
Theme: How future generations will pay for today’s environmental mistakes Age: youth
25 minute comedy Cast: 5 female 3 male
Just One Kiss
This is a fast moving comedy with pathos. Set in Melbourne in the 1920s, gangsters
and Keystone like cops mix it with Sweaty Betty and her side-
Friendship is more than skin deep Youth to adult
25 minute comedy Cast: 4 male & 1 female
Wicked Old Witch if You Don’t Mind.
This is a collection of 8 five minute plays for juniors
1: Wicked Old Witch if You Don’t Mind.
2: Do you need a friend.
3: Laugh Doggy Laugh.
4:
The Perfect Fishing Spot.
5: Off the Scrap Heap.
6: A Sheepish Revolt.
7: Checkmate.
8:
Santa and the Sad Swaggy.
Multiple themes Junior students 5-
5 minutes of fun From two people to many
Dirty Little Toe-
This fun musical has five songs and while written for junior students has parts that
can be played by youth and even adults. This story begins in the streets of Melbourne
during the gold rush days. Boris, the paperboy, just wants to sell his papers and
Boney, the street urchin just wants a friend. They don’t get on. Then Charlotte,
a new chum, ‘well-
Amid the chaos of sailors and urchins, workers and well-
Theme: Friendship comes from within Juniors/youth
2 x 45 minutes 13 main characters – 7 minor characters – any number of extras
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