A New Color Every Day by Sean Dance Fannin

Sean Dance Fannin is a queer dramatist born and raised in Kentucky and writes plays aimed at dismantling cynicism and apathy as an antidote to fascism. Sean’s play Dead Wait received its premiere in Kentucky, followed by the development of The Airplane Game with Derby City Playwrights in Louisville. After moving to Chicago in 2021, he began producing and hosting the podcast Come and See, aimed at persuading book readers to read published plays as literature; at this time, he also started the blog Wasted on Worry and Willing to Wilt, comprised of short and unique theatrical concepts. In 2022…

A Blue Hydrangea

by Eric Braman

A 10-Minute Play

Cast of Characters

BLUE            A Blue Hydrangea
PINK             A Pink Hydrangea
CAROLE      The Great Gardener (optional voiceover)
GEORGE     The Great Gardener’s Husband (optional voiceover)

Scene
A backyard garden.

Time
Late spring/early summer.

Lights up on a garden. A hydrangea bush with multiple heads of blossoms is seen center stage, all of them pink except one, which is blue. The blossoms are asleep. The sun rises at start of play waking the blossoms from their slumber.

PINK
Good morning world.

BLUE
Good morning sun.

PINK
Good morning dirt.

BLUE
Good morning butterfly.

PINK
Good morning little ants.

BLUE
Good morning Lilies and Roses and Jasmine.

PINK
Good morning Cherry Tree, good morning Kale!

BLUE
Good morning family.

PINK
(turning toward BLUE) Good morning – OH MY GROVE!

BLUE
What is it?

PINK
What happened to you?!

Everybody To Their Own Thing

By Ellen Birkett Morris

CAST
Max Anderson, Age 43
Jack Hensley, Age 72
Jenny Anderson, Age 41

SETTING
The Andersons’ dining room table.
Four chairs surround the table; a place is set at each.

TIME
Present day

(Lights up on Jenny, Max enters and kisses her on her forehead).

MAX: You’re sure you don’t mind company.

JENNY: Not at all honey. It’s been a while since we had someone to dinner. It was…

(She stops herself and furrows her brow.).  

MAX: Dad. We can talk about it. I want to talk about it. It isn’t like someone just disappears when they die.

Ritual Cleansing

By Paul K. Smith

Roles:

  • THIEF: Any age, any gender, any heritage. Projects menace.
  • CLERK: Any age, any gender, any heritage. Registers threat.
     Plaintive and Conciliatory for the first five minutes.

Place:  A convenience store in an American city.

Time:   Just before midnight

Night.  A convenience store.  Empty.  Except for the CLERK.
A big clock with a clock face – the hands show it is ten minutes to 12.   

At Rise: The CLERK is behind the counter, ritualistically wiping cans in a display, using a long feather duster.  Wiping clean  and counting familiar places in his circuit.

(Outside, a THIEF walks back & forth, fighting a temptation to go in, rob the store. Finally he goes to the unlocked door – but sees a CLOSED sign.

(The THIEF enters the store. Lots of pockets in what he wears.)

(CLERK continues to dust cans.  Watches for the big clock to release him.)

(CLERK counts out each can he dusts.) 

(THIEF watches him until the menace of his presence registers. . .)

CLERK: Forty-nine. . .

THIEF: (Menacingly:) Would be no problem to blow the back of your head off, would it?

CLERK: (Matter-of-factly:) Did you find what you need?

Reina: A One-Act Play

By Joe Bulvid

Cast
(In Order of Appearance)
Jeff:   A young male, dressed in business casual
Quinn:   A young male, dressed in business casual
Reina:    A mysterious young female dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and a leather jacket

SETTING
A bar in New York City. There are numerous barstools. It is 7:30 pm in July.

AT RISE
QUINN and JEFF sit at barstools
C. REINA sits at a barstool
RC. BARTENDER works behind the bar.

JEFF: Stay for one more? Come on, Quinn!

QUINN: Jeff, you’re killing me. Pamela’s gonna think I got mugged in the subway. And I don’t want to text her because then it becomes a thing.
(mimics his wife)
“You really should have told me about going out with Jeff. I could have gone to the 7pm cycle class or had some me time with my new vibrator.” If I just go home, she may be pissed, but it’s like she doesn’t think about what she could have done.

Egg In Spoon

By Rachael Carnes

CAST OF CHARACTERS
Leah – A mother, in her 40s
Sophie – A girl of 15
Janet – A grandma, in her 60s
Eleanor – A great-grandmother

SETTING
In a public park, on a pleasant spring day.

TIME
Late afternoon

At rise, SOPHIE is sitting behind                                                                         the picnic table, on her phone.

 LEAH: Will you please put your phone down?

SOPHIE: In a minute.

LEAH: There are people here who want to talk to you.

SOPHIE: I’m in the middle of making plans for later!

LEAH: Put it away or I’ll take it away.

SOPHIE: You’re not taking my phone away.

LEAH: I’m counting down.

SOPHIE: I’m 15 years old! You can’t “count down” on me. (snorts)

Times Change

By Bruce Shearer

CAST OF CHARACTERS
Bob Dylan, musical legend and survivor
Fan, A music lover who may or may not be a journalist

SETTING
The play is set in a backstage corridor.

SYNOPSIS
A fan or journalist meets Bob Dylan in a backstage corridor and asks him a few questions.

BOB DYLAN IS WALKING DOWN A BACKSTAGE CORRIDOR WHEN A FIGURE STEPS OUT OF THE SHADOWS AND SPEAKS TO HIM.

 Fan: What was it about Donovan that so upset you, Bob?

(BOB STOPS AND ALMOST STEPS BACK.)

Bob: Who are you?

Fan: I’m a fan.

Bob: Not from Rolling Stone?

Fan: We’re all rolling stones, Bob.

The White Card by Claudia Rankine – A Conversational Review

By: AM Larks & AE Santana

Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, two plays, numerous video collaborations, and is the editor of several anthologies. Rankine has won the PEN Open Book Award and the PEN Literary Award, the NAACP Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for her book Citizen. Rankine is the recipient of the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts, in addition to other honors and awards.

The White Card by Claudia Rankine is two-scene play that features one black character, Charlotte Cummings, a Yale MFA graduate and a highly successful contemporary artist; and four white characters: Charles Hamilton Spencer, a “well-respected philanthropist” and “lover of contemporary art,” his wife Virginia Compton Spencer, the Spencers’ son Alex Compton-Spencer, an activist who is “deeply involved in current American politics,” and Eric Schmidt, the Spencers’ trusted art dealer. The Spencers invite Charlotte over to dinner in an attempt to convince her to sell her art to them.

The Coachella Review contributors A.E. Santana and A.M. Larks reviewed this play in an interview style with questions, responses, and replies in order to capture the conversation that theater, and specifically The White Card, is meant to evoke.

Schrödinger’s Gun

By Greg A. Smith

CAST OF CHARACTERS
Roland – Male, Caucasian, Twenties
Freeman – Male, African-American, 50+
Griggs – Female, African-American, 25-40

SETTING
A small, bare room. Modern day.

Production History:
Staged Reading – Itinerant Theatre, LA; 2017
Staged Reading – City Theatre, FL; 2018

Awards:
City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting – 2018 Finalist

 

A small, bare room. A metal table in the center, a beaten-up briefcase laid flat on it. Two men sit either side – ROLAND (Caucasian) and FREEMAN (African-American). Both wear civilian clothes, FREEMAN open-carries a gun in a holster. ROLAND appears a little nervous, antsy.

A moment’s uneasy silence.

See Rock City

By Kelli Lynn Woodend

CAST OF CHARACTERS
Gayle, Female, 50s-60s
Gator, Male, 65+

PLACE
All-you-can-eat buffet

TIME
Present

SYNOPSIS
At the KFC buffet, Gator is pleasantly surprised by a complete stranger’s generosity. What he doesn’t realize is that her gift isn’t at all what it seems.

GAYLE, a rugged, biker chic type stands at a KFC buffet table with a paper plate and plastic knife and spork.