Full-Length Plays

A Death in the City*

* 65 min.

* 1F

* Bare stage, with only a table and screen for a Power Point presentation.

*In the 1960s, Cleveland had the dubious distinction of being one of America’s most segregated cities. None felt the inequity more than the inner city children who were thrust into inferior learning settings, including neighborhood schools that were erected in a matter of months. At one Civil Rights protest on a construction site, a young Protestant minister was bulldozed to death. Now, more than half a century later, one African American woman who remembers that sacrifice – and all ten elementary schools she attended – shares stories from a decade that she was invisible.

*RIGHTS FOR STAGE PLAY NO LONGER AVAILABLE.  Captured scenes from the play appear in the documentary film “A DEATH IN THE CITY:  In the Wake of Segregation,” Directed by Marquette Williams. (2023)

A Form of Hope

  • 75 min
  • 8 M; 4F
  • Flexible set, with multiple suggested locales; includes still and video projections
  • A memory play that revisits the life of David Mark Berger, the only American among the victims of the 1972 Munich massacre of the Israeli Olympic team. Thirty years after his death, family and friends gather to experience the lasting legacy of one victim of terrorism.

All Things Being Equal

  • 130 min, two acts
  • 5 M; 2F
  • Flexible set that suggests various locales: classroom; school office; interiors of two homes; a graveyard. Some video recommended.
  • Drama. Two longtime social studies teachers find their friendship tested after one of them is laid off. When it is revealed that the school board made its decision based entirely on skin color, it puts two friends on opposite sides of the racial divide. Inspired by an actual lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In His Own Words: Aubrey’s World

  • 65 min
  • 5M; 4F
  • No set requirement; can be performed on an empty stage
  • A tribute to playwright, actor, and gay rights activist Aubrey Wertheim (1953-2003). His own words – culled from scripts, journals and letters – reveal the breadth and depth of one abbreviated, but fully-realized life.

Last Call

  • 70 min
  • 1M; 5F
  • Multiple locales suggested by props, lights and movable set pieces
  • Drama. A British visitor has come to Cleveland for a new heart. While he waits, he finds his old one.

Telling Lives

  • 110 min. Two acts, with intermission
  • 3F
  • Flexible set that includes an office cubicle and two living rooms; some video recommended.
    Comedy with drama. When an amateur writer pens her memoirs for two professional writers (her daughter and granddaughter), she unwittingly sparks the family drama she had hoped to avoid..

The Good Times

  • 120 min. Two acts, with intermission
  • 2M; 5F
  • Flexible set, with multiple suggested locales
  • Newsroom comedy. Set in the fictional Good, Ohio, where bad things happen to Good people. A sleepy newsroom run by four women comes alive with the arrival of a newly minted journalism school graduate. Before long, they are at odds with the First Amendment, a special prosecutor and each other.

The Guide’s Guide to Lawnfield

*65 min.

*2M

*Unit set – front porch

*Drama – a young history geek is guiding a tour at the Mentor, Ohio home of President James A. Garfield, only to be interrupted by an old man who  wants to set the record straight.  Commissioned by Lakeland Community College.

The Interview

  • 110 min. Two acts, with intermission (optional)
  • 1M; 3F
  • Unit set – living room
  • Drama. A Holocaust survivor meets her interviewer – the child of other survivors – in preparation for her eyewitness testimony for an archival video project. Revisiting old memories, a mother and a daughter who are unrelated find new ways to forgive and be forgiven.

Panama

  •  110 min. Two acts, with intermission
  • 2M; 2F
  • Flexible set, with multiple suggested locales
  • Drama. A geologist comes to Panama ostensibly to lecture on human history, but her immediate mission is to convince her brother, a Catholic missionary, to sign a DNR order for their dying mother. Set against the backdrop of Gatun Lake, where incompatible eco-cultures must coexist side by side, faith and reason must find their own balance.

Playing Dirty

* 65 minutes

*4M; 2F

*Flexible set suggesting various high school locales (football field, locker room, hallway, office) and other spots kids might go

*Drama: Following a racist incident at a high school football game, a community is forced to look at why its kids behaved as they did. When the adults can’t lead them back to their better selves, the kids will have to find their own way.

U.S. v. Howard Mechanic

  • 2 hours,  with intermission
  • 6M; 2F
  • Flexible set suggesting offices, prison interiors, campus; video
  • Drama. Shaker Heights native Howard Mechanic never dreamed his presence at a campus anti-Vietnam War rally would prompt his false arrest on federal charges and subsequently turn him into a fugitive for nearly 30 years. At age 52, his past catches up and he begins an indeterminate sentence in an Arizona prison. Now behind bars, this aging idealist struggles to stay whole while trying to reclaim his freedom and his good name.

V-E Day

  • 2 hours, with intermission
  • 2M; 4F, plus one little girl
  • Unit set (living/dining room); other locales suggested by lights and movable set pieces.
  • Memory play. It’s May 8, 2003 and an elderly widow opens her door to a visitor from the past. He brings a box of newsletters that she once edited and circulated to local servicemen and women. The visit stirs a pot of old memories, including the one love of her life that she let slip away. As the couple revisits the heady days of World War II, the caretaking daughter is able to see her mother young again, for one day.

Contact Faye Sholiton for licensing rights: fsholiton@gmail.com