ONE ACT PLAYS & MONOLOGUES
by Bruce Kane

Available for immediate download

One act comedy plays
Male monologues
Female monologues
Justin Thyme Mysteries

All plays and monologues are available for immediate download. Click Here to purchase a play.
Royalties are required on ALL public performances of our plays and monologues.
ORDER PLAYS
Ten Minute Plays

COMING IN JULY
"Caear & Cleo" - Gingerwoods, Prospect KY
"The Prince Formerly Known As Hamlet" - Harlington, UK

COMING IN THE SPRING
A new audio production from the Wireless Theatre Co of London, England of "The Case Of The Tale Told By An Idiot"

COMING IN SEPTEMBER
"Ruby Of Elsinore" - Anglo Cypriot Theatre, Cyprus

COMING IN OCTOBER
"Opposites Attract" - Sleepy Theatre Company, Woking, Surrey, England
"In The Beginning" - Clinton County Civic Theatre, IN

Click on play title to read short excerpt
FULL LENGTH ONE ACT PLAYS
SHORT ONE ACT PLAYS
JUSTIN THYME MYSTERIES

Winner - Regional One Act Play Festival, Medicine Hat, AB - Canada

Two characters trapped in a one act play try to break free while working out their relationship in a scenario that keeps getting re-written.

(1 man, 1 woman)

"Thanks for your brilliant play – the audience loved it!"
Rebecca E. (Becky) Grewer
Medicine Hat Musical Theatre

Recent Productions
John Carroll University
U. of Central Missouri
U. of Wisconsin - La Crosse
Kyogle Theatre Society-Canada
Woking Drama Festival
Thompson Rivers U.
Tagora Theatre Group, France
Adelphia Theatre Club, UK
Terrace Little Theatre Co.- Canada
Rice University

Northern Michigan U.
Concord Academic Student Theater, NH
Sandgate, Theatre, Brisbane, Australia

Winner - East Division
All England Theatre Festival

In a land where "beauty is only skin deep - thank God" a "woman of a certain age" takes drastic action when she learns that she's been surpassed in the looks department by her sexy stepdaughter as the tale of "Sleeping Beauty" gets a 90210 facelift.

Recent Productions
Rennsalear Polytechnic Inst.
Southend Drama Festival, UK
Bishop Ready High School
Eastern High School, NJ
Canfield High School, OH

Hinsdale School, IL
Lebanese American University, Beirut

Daniel Hand High School, CT
The English Theatre Group, Strasbourg (France)
Belmont High, MA
Abbey Park High School, Canada

Winner - "2007 All-Ireland
One Act Play Competition"

Winner -2009 Adjudicator's Prize
Rosebowl Drama Festival - Cyprus

A slovenly and indecisive Hamlet, a marriage bent Ophelia, an oversexed Gertrude, a power hungry Claudius and a revenge seeking Ghost let their hair down to Elsinore's hippest hair dresser.

Winner - "Most Original Contribution" 2008 Cork, Ireland Youth Drama Festival

Winner - "2008 Macra Na Feirme National Drama Finals" - Ireland

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"'Recontrahamlet,' the comedy that Shakespeare did not write...reaches its highest point in the sequence 'Ruby of Elsinore' by Bruce Kane"

Sergio Velarde
Founding Member -Association of Peruvian Theatre Critics and Research

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"...we won the Adjudicator's prize for Artistic Originality and my actress playing 'Ophelia' won the Adjudicator's prize for acting achievement (equivalent to best supporting actor/actress prize). The Adjudicator even described the production as "a breath of fresh air". Most importantly everyone enjoyed our production - from the actors to the audience and we had some wonderful feedback.

Julie James
Woodlands Drama Group
Harrogate, England

Recent Productions
Malthouse Players, Ireland
Goderich Theatre - Canada
The Burnavon - Ireland

Theatre Prelude - Lima, Peru

Dewdney Players, Canada
Crestwood Preparatory College

Ballaly Players, Ireland
Abbey College, Ireland
The English Theatre Group, Strasbourg (France)
Harrogate Theatre, UK
Meeting House Players, CT
Rathfarnham Theatre Group, Ireland

Vignettes investigating the premise that the seeds of all disastrous relationships are sown at the very begining.

"10 quick takes on the dating game... the sketches move quickly and devastatingly".
Los Angeles Dramalogue

Reviews from the recent production in Spain

"The bed scene was wonderful. The script has been a fantastic discovery."
Christian Machio ( journalist and theatre reviewer)

"The dynamism and the acid humour caused the enthusiasm in the audience."
RTV Cardedeu (local TV Station)

View photos from Scla'ka Si Teatre, Spain

Recent Productions
Teatrul Metropolis - Romania
Attic Theatre
Fresno Fringe Festival
St. Bonaventure U.
Shaking Fist Productions
Betchworth Festival, UK
Network Theatre, London
The Living Room, Taipei
Aqualuna, Peru
West Coast Ensemble, L.A.
Scla'ka Si Teatre, Spain
Actors Nausea - Germany

Facing a mid-life crisis, a man calls on his reluctant conscience, in the form of his leather clad, whip cracking ex-wife, for help in choosing between his prudish fiancee and a nubile fantasy woman who only exists in his imagination.

One Act Play - 1 man, 3 women

"...a psychologically brilliant and funny piece of work!" - Marsha M. Morgan, Associate Professor of Theatre, Park University

Recent Productions:
Montgomery Playhouse
Park University
Latrobe Theatre Company
University Central Missouri

A man has to deal with the three warring areas of his brain that affect sex and love while trying to find the girl of his dreams.

4 Males - 6 Females
2 female roles can be double cast

Productions:
Pasadena City College

Shakespeare's famous balcony scene goes slightly askew when a fleeing Casanova shows up to turn Romeo from a lover to a seducer under Juliet's balcony.

(2 males, 1 female)

Read A Review  
Read Second Review

Recent Productions:
Friends University
Pasadena College
Arden Club Theatre
Harry Ainlay High School
Winter Springs Performing Arts
GRAPA, Australia
Theatre On A Shoestring
Lee University
Pass Area Players
Network Theatre, London
Rialto Theatre, TX
West Liberty State College
Baradene College, New Zealand.

"Sex And The City" meets Shakespeare when Juliet gets conflicting advice from “Othello’s” romantic Desdemona, “Taming of the Shrew’s” man-hating Katherine and Henry VIII’s man-loving but still beheaded wife Anne Boleyn.

(5 females)

Recent Productions:
Freeport Community Players
Pasadena College
The Ballaly Players
Illinois State Univ.

BOOKS, DVD's, EXTRAS


A recipe-filled memoir about loss, recovery and finding yourself through food.

An Amazon February 2008 Pick Of The Month Book Selection
.
Order here.

 

 

Cinderella and Juliet commiserate about romantic love, happily ever after and what went wrong with their marriages.

(3 women)

Read A Review  
Read Second Review

Recent Productions:

Oregon State U.
Sonoma State U.
The Repertory Co.
Milligan College
Reynolds H.S.
Stepping Out Theatre Co. (AUS)
Tagora Theatre Group, France
Lincoln Middle School, WA
Berea High School, OH
Lander University
Meeting House Players, CT
Siegel High School, TN
Eisenhower High School, IL

GRAPA, Australia
VSA Arts of Florida
Ballaly Players,Ireland
North Hennepin Coll.
Vilseck Bavarian Arts Guild
Pass Area Players
Oakland City University
Tagora Theatre Group, France
Hillsdale High School, CA
Rialto Theatre, TX  
U. of Wisconsin, River Falls
Sauk Theatre, MI
Eisenhower High, Yakima. WA

Winner - Audience Favorite
Actors Refuge Repertory Theatre

With a reptilian bartender acting as matchmaker, the future of the human race looks anything but promising when a sophisticated Eve meets the hunky but dim Adam over apple margaritas at the Garden of Eden Bar & Grill.

( 2 Males, 1 Female)


Recent Productions:

Gordon College
GRAPA, Australia
Firestone Theatre
Sonoma State U.
Tennesse State U.
Chesapeake Theatre
Pass Area Players
Network Theatre, London
West Liberty State College
Ripon College 
Sauk Theatre, MI
Stepping Out Theatre Co. (AUS)
Attic Theatre
Actors Refuge Repertory Theatre
Freeport Community Players
Theatre On A Shoestring
Jesuit College Prep
Lakewood Theatre Guild
U. of Indianapolis
Friends Univ. 
Great Neck South High School, NY
Parkway Central High, MO
 

"We staged a cabaret-style season of your plays and the whole concept was enthusiastically received…the audiences particularly enjoyed "In the Beginning" and "Cindy & Julie."

Bernie Maxwell
GRAPA
(Griffith NSW Australia)

A man uses his so-called ineptitude around women to successfully hit on them.

(1 Man - 2 Women)

Recent Productions:
Western Oregon U.

Rialto Theatre, TX

Pasadena City College

What happens between the moment a woman insists a complete stranger answer her cell phone to talk to her ex and the moment she invites him home.

Pass Area Players
Queen Anne's County High School, MD
Pasadena City College

(1 male - 1 female)

Two masochists form a romantic relationship based on mutual rejection.

(1 male, 1 female)

"...If I tell you that the text has been inspired by Bruce Kane’s Masochism Tango , it should give you some idea of the nature of the verbal exchanges. If Woody Allen or Mike Nichols and Elaine May had gone in for movement theater, they might have talked like this."

Allan Ulrich
© VoiceofDance.com 2007

Recent Productions:
West Wave Dance Festival
Coffee Creek Playhouse
Rice University

Four friends participate in a dance of shifting romances, friendships and betrayals.

..."I Can Explain," by Bruce Kane, is a short American play on the same theme, more implicit, but also more extravagant and just as funny!"
Claude Vedder
Strasbourg

(One act comedy -2 males, 2 females, 2 off-stage voices)

Recent Productions
FEATS Festival, Strasbourg, France
Pasadena City College

Comments from Europe's Tagora Theatre Group

An actress agrees to do an on-stage nude scene only after becoming jealous of of her non-existent replacement.

(1 female, 2 males, 1 male or female)

Running time approximately 6 minutes

Productions:
Oregon State U.

Northern Essex Community College, Haverhill, MA.

A wife and a mistress want what the other has... until they get it.

(one male, two females)

While bending the truth to an on-line dating service, a vain, recently divorced, self centered woman recalls her recent "monstrous dating" encounters with a - strong, very silent type (Frankenstein), the all gentlemanly one minute and all hands the next type (Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde) and the one night stand who's gone before the sun comes up (Dracula).

"MARJORIE:(breathlessly) Now I know why they call you Vlad... the impaler."

(One Act Comedy - 1 female - 3 male)

Productions:
Bancroft Theater Guild

(Read review)

A pompous and self important super hero's sense of inadequacy gets in the way of a liaison with the sexy and eager wife of his super hero rival.

(1 man, 1 woman)

Productions:
Indio Performing Arts Center
Southwestern Oregon College

A relationship between two people taken with their own sense of emotional honesty and openess quickly rises and falls from a lack of emotional honesty and openess when the subject of sex is introduced into the conversation.

Productions:
Actors Refuge Repertory Theatre

(1 male, 1 female)

An open marriage almost collapses when the husband admits he hasn't been sleeping with anyone.

(1 male, 1 female)

Recent Productions:
RAF Lyneham Theatre Club
GRAPA, Australia
Stepping Out Theatre Co. (AUS)
The Black Cow Theatre Company - Delhi, India

Plays that run less than 5 minutes
A baseball/softball catcher uses the rules of grammar to drive opposing batters crazy.

( 4 characters)

Recent Productions:

Eureka High School, MO
Belmont High School
Hebron Academy, ME

What looks like an intense confrontation between a couple facing a break-up over his infidelities turns out to be something quite different. Think cellphones in public places.

Recent Productions:
Pass Area Players

(1 male - 1 female)

FULL LENGTH PLAY

With a hip hop style Roman Chorus providing narration, Julius Caesar tries to prevent the luscious Cleopatra, the ambitious Brutus, the lean and hungry Cassius and the dim witted Marc Antony from knifing him in the back in this bawdy romp about the folks who ran the Roman Empire - right into the ground.

Listen to San Francisco's "One Act Players" original audio production. (mp3) (This is the abridged 35 minute version created just for this audio production.).

Both the full length script and the shortened version are available for production.

Listen to MP3

 
Comedy-mysteries written
for the stage

The adventures of Justin Thyme, Fictional Detective. Hard boiled with a side of irony, Thyme takes on the toughest, dirtiest cases in English literature. MYSTERIES

All Ireland One Act Play Festivals 2008
Crooked Wheel Productions

Ballymahon - Best play, Best Actress, Best Moment in Theatre-Overall
Cavan - Best Play, Best Actress

Carrigallen - Best play, Most entertaining Play-Overall
Maudebaum - Best Play
Manorhamilton - Best Play, Best Actress

Winner
Audience Appreciation Award
Cambridge, UK Drama Festival

Tough talking, hardboiled detective Justin Thyme travels to 11th century Denmark to find out who whacked Hamlet's old man and runs into a king named Claudius who wants him dead, a prince named Hamlet who doesn't know what he wants and a dame named Ophelia who wants everything including Thyme.

"The Maltese Falcon" meets "Hamlet."

Productions:
Pasadena City College
Cambridge Theatre Festival-UK
Crestwood Preparatory College


Listen to San Francisco's "One Act Players" original audio production

Justin Thyme, the hard boiled fictional detective, gets burned by an old flame by the name of Lady MacBeth, when he's hired to find out who zotzed the King of Scotland.

'The Case of The Tale Told by an Idiot - a Justin Thyme Mystery' went down a storm at the festival. The audience laughed from the first line and even stopped the play on several occasions by clapping!

Vivien Devereaux
Mold Drama Works


Recent Productions:
Mold Drama Works - UK
Insight Theatre Group, Ireland
Marion County High School, GA
Wednesday Players, Ireland
Theatre Colwyn, Wales
Kiltullagh Hall, Ireland
Sauk Theatre, MI
The Earl Inn. Galway, Ireland

Nobody is what they seem when Justin Thyme, fictional detective, heads to Sherlock Holmes country to find his client frightened to death by a four hundred year old hound the size of a Buick and a list of suspects that includes the slow witted heir to the murdered man's fortune, his butler, a butterfly collecting twit and a beautiful woman who immediately casts her spell over our detective..

"THYME: For a British dame she was alright. Hair the color of strawberries. Peaches and cream complexion. Eyes like blueberries and for lips... two red delicious apples. I couldn’t tell if I was fallin’ for her or just low on vitamin C."

Recent productions:
West Valley High School,Alaska

Meeeting House Players, CT

Thyme comes face to fangs with Count Dracula while investigating the loss of the entire virgin population of Transylvania.

AC Reynolds High School. NC
Monologues
Monologue-Male or Female

A snippy stage manager gets carried away in his/her instructions to the audience regarding proper behaviour during the performance of the play to follow. Can precede any production.

Recent Productions:
Regina Theatre, Canada
Central College
Indio Performing Arts Center

Bancroft Theatre Guild
GRAPA, Australia
Network Theatre, London
Rialto Theatre, TX
Sauk Theatre, MI

(Read review)
Male Monologues

Prince Charming gives the lowdown on his ex-wives Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Rapunzel, wicked stepmothers-in-law and the perils of trying to fulfill every woman's fantasy.

Read A Review  
Read Second Review

Recent Productions:
Freeport Community Players
Theatre On A Shoestring

An insecure and paranoid playwright talks about writing and women two things he seems to know little about.

Recent Productions:
Terrace Little Theatre Co. - Canada

1 minute monologue

The trouble with a woman who keeps changing.

(Read the companion monologue "Dolores On Jeff" further down this column)

Recent Productions:
Lemon Bay Playhouse, FLA

A manifesto for men saddled with dorky names.

Recent Productions:
Terrace Little Theatre Co.- Canada
Freeport Community Players

1 minute monologue

A formerly married man compares single life to a used car.

Female Monologues

Ophelia dishes on the royal family while explaining why she has to marry Hamlet or die

Recent Productions:
Terrace Little Theatre Co.- Canada
Mullen High School
North Hennepin College
Network Theatre, London

A sexy superhero rants about sexism among the caped crusader set, her fling with Superman and her non-negotiable demands for selling her life story to the movies.

Recent Productions:
Terrace Little Theatre Co.- Canada

1 minute monologue

The trouble with dating a man who's taste in women keeps changing.

Recent Productions:
Lemon Bay Playhouse, FLA

1 minute monologue

A woman fantasizes about the stranger of her dreams.

One Act Plays & Monologues
kaneprod.com