one hour comedy play Archives - Off The Wall Plays

comedy about trying to get a play staged

REPERTORY THEATRE – COMEDY ABOUT TRYING TO GET A PLAY STAGED

Meet our young hopeful playwright. He has, of course, written a play and has approached a colleague of his late father’s (an artistic director (specifically of repertory theatre)) in the hopes of getting it produced. He hopes that the relationship between the artistic director and his late father will be in his favour and that his play will be staged at his theatre in this comedy about trying to get a play staged.

Meet our artistic director. It’s true that he is a colleague of the young playwright’s late father who unfortunately died during a production of Hamlet. It’s also true that he is a typical director – self inflated ego, bombastic and possibly slightly mentally unstable. He also has no intention of staging the play. He, however lacks the ability to say so directly and thus leads the young man on a merry dance through the play to break the news to him. He may or may not have had sex with the playwright’s mother. Okay, he did.

Meet the ghost of the young playwright’s father, also known as Richardson. He’s dead, extremely pissed off, haunts the theatre and he has a good suspicion that the artistic director slept with his wife.

This play is both uniquely comical (It had me in stitches) and challenging to play for the actors. In act one, the interview between the playwright and the artistic director takes place. In act two, the same actor who plays the playwright plays his late father’s ghost and the dialogue in act one repeats itself from the ghost’s perspective and reveals a secret surrounding his death during the final performance of Hamlet.

PRODUCTION HISTORY

New Wright’s theatre, Vancouver, Canada – 2020
Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, Soppteatern/Kaf Klara, Sweden 2024

Read about playwright Eldad Cohen. Other plays by Eldad – Family exercise – a drama about a family falling apart in free verse.

Author: Eldad Cohen

Type: Two-act play

Genre: Comedy about trying to get a play staged

Cast: 2M – two characters are played by one actor so the play has three parts played by two actors.

Ages of the actors: 50’s and 20’s

Suitable for: Adults

Length: One hour

Set: Artistic director and young playwright are sitting in the director’s office. The room was once a stage theatre. Down side left, a chair. Downside right, a desk and a chair. A manikin wearing blond wig on its head and a sword is positioned upstage left. Upstage center, two empty frameworks are hanging side by side. One is substantially bigger than the other. A pile of plums lies on the desk.

Level of difficulty: 8/10 – this play is very funny. Delivery of lines is important as many of them need to be delivered deadpan on the director’s side with emotional reactions on the part of the son and his late father. A skilled actor needs to play two different roles in act one and two.

Read a Sample of the Script

Cost is $9.00 for this editor’s choice play script. Just Click Shakespeare!!

Contact Off The Wall Plays with any queries about Repertory Theatre

Copyright © April 2018 Eldad Cohen and Off The Wall Play Publishers

Like this play? Other funny plays of a similar vein for you to enjoy:

The Ten Minute Hamlet – full length large cast comedy play
Matter Matters – comedy set in a a biplane
One act play – British comedy-drama set in bed

I SHOULD TELL YOU – A COMEDY IN TWO ACTS

In this hilarious comedy in two acts, Trent Steele, a millionaire, is looking to buy the Grand Palace Massage Parlor with the intention of leveling the whole historic block that its on so he can put up one of his state-of-the-art skyscrapers. Well, Trent likes to deal only in cash which opens up an opportunity for Cory, a petty con artist, and Kaelan, his scheming bookie, to make some money. Cory poses as Trent when arriving at the Grand Palace to get Penny, the manager, and Lupe, the head masseuse, out of the way. Once this is accomplished Cory poses as the owner of the parlor when the real Trent arrives in order to get his hands on the cash. Things go awry when a nosey reporter obsessed with Trent shows up and figures out the scam when Cory tries to pass himself off as the man that she is determined to get her big story on. Trent’s dumb body guard and wife also tag along on this business further complicating matters. The one thing no one counted on was Trent pulling out a gun and going slightly crazy once his briefcase full of cash disappears. Hijinks and slap stick comedy ensue as everyone tries to get their hands on the money.

This show was produced and performed at the Fontana Community Players Theater in Fontana, California in 2007.

Mike Maxwell has been writing plays for the past 10 years. He has written 13 plays and had 11 of them produced both domestically on the community theater level and internationally at schools for English language programs. He has also written close to 60 “Saturday Night Live” style skits for a live sketch comedy show that performs in the Inland Empire. His show “Like Clockwork” won the Desert Theater League of Palm Springs’ Best Original Writing Award in 2001 and his show “Jack Masterson & The Case of Absurdity” was nominated for the same category the following year. Missing the Mark is our best selling play written by Mike

Author: Mike Maxwell

Type: 2 two act play comedy

Genre: Comedy, farce, slapstick

Length: Approximately 60 sixty minutes

Cast: The cast size is 8 (3F/4M/1M/F)

Ages of actors: Adult young to middle aged

Suitable for: PG 13 – the play is set in a massage parlour. There are innuendos but nothing graphic said or done in the play

Set: The front room of the Grand Palace Massage Parlor. The entrance is a door located stage left with a window next to it. On the stage right wall is an open doorway leading to the back rooms of the massage parlor. There is a window on the stage right side of the upstage wall. There is a couch center stage with a small end table on either side. Other room furnishings are up to the director.