Tag Archives: play for 8 actors people

Prelude to Macbeth – modern Shakespeare plays

August 14, 2014 Demmer Dewan Leave a comment

PRELUDE TO MACBETH – MODERN SHAKESPEARE PLAYS

This award winning one act play is a prequel to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The story of how Macbeth becomes Thane of Glamis and how he meets Lorna Stewart who becomes his wife – Lady Macbeth. The play is written in blank verse – the style fashionable with playwrights of Shakespeare’s era.

Macbeth’s first wife has just died. Battle weary and devastated by his loss he decides to give up being a soldier. Duncan doesn’t want to lose Macbeth. He offers him the title of Thane of Glamis if he will agree to continue as his general. Macbeth knows he will either have to accept the offer – or flee into exile. Duncan won’t take no for an answer.

Prelude to Macbeth won the 2010 Seahorse Award for best stage play at the Moondance Film Festival in America. At the Wilmslow Guild Drama Festival 2010 it received the Adjudicators Award for the most original piece of theatre.

It was also awarded the trophies for highest directing mark and overall winner at the SCDA Caithness District festival of one act plays in Scotland in 2016.

FURTHER PRODUCTION HISTORY

Artist’s Playground – Quezon, Philippines – 2016
Second round performances Artist’s Playground – Quezon, Philippines
Wauwatosa East High School – Tosa East Players, WI, USA – 2022
Smoky Hill High School, CO, USA – 2022

Read about playwright James Chalmers.

Author: James Chalmers

Genre: Shakespearean tragedy, modern Shakespeare plays

Type: One act play

Length: Forty minutes

Number of actors: Eight, 4M 4F

Ages of the actors: Teenage to elderly

Suitable for: All ages

Set: A simple stage set is suggested – for example free standing flats (1m wide x 2m high) in an arc across the playing area – painted a neutral colour such as grey. Entrances and exits can be between the flats or in front of them. The flats suggest rocks like Stonehenge or castle battlements.

Level of Difficulty: 7/10 – this play is written in the same style as Shakespeare wrote, achieving the right flow of the words is paramount.

Read a Sample of the Script

Cost is $10 for this award winning script

Contact Off The Wall Plays with any queries about Prelude to Macbeth

© August 2014 James Chalmers and Off The Wall Play Publishers

Like this play? Other classic type plays:

Theseus and Ariadne – modern Classic Greek Plays
The Scepter has departed – play about how modern day Israel was made
Lies You can’t make up – play about JFK

Dramas, One act plays

Waiting for Nelson – South African plays

March 30, 2014 Demmer Dewan Leave a comment

WAITING FOR NELSON – SOUTH AFRICAN PLAYS

“Sometimes, life isn’t simply black and white.”

It has been 40 years since the 1976 Soweto Uprisings. Set in post apartheid South Africa, 21 years after the first ever democratic elections, the production centres on a couple who are faced with issues directly associated with issues that have historically, that currently and will probably affect future South Africans: RACE.

This play places a magnifying glass on a topic that still dominates societal discourse in this day & age – the colour of the next person’s skin. The aura and significance of the year 1994 came with many promises – many of which haven’t been fulfilled. The ‘race issue’, however, is one that every human being is capable of contributing towards solving, through simply undergoing a change in ways of thought – we just haven’t realized this yet. Waiting for Nelson is an important production that delivers a fresh avenue to be explored in the quest of achieving the sacred idea of a ‘rainbow nation’, through planting a seed of confrontation, change and redefinition.
When the theatre confronts us with brutal situations where ‘the life mask cracks and falls away’ it can expose an ‘intimate layer’ which returns us to common human truths.

After having its debut at the Roodepoort Theatre as part of the 2014 Youth Arts Festival (where the show won best drama of the festival), it went on to be performed at The South African State Theatre as part of the annual Youth Arts Festival, on the Fringe Programme. The show then went on to be performed to a sold out audience at The Market Laboratory later that same year. It was also read at the 2015 ASSITEJ/IATA annual Youth Theatre and Dance Festival at Artscape. After being performed at the first ever East London Arts Festival and being invited to the DUT’s Courtyard Theatre in 2016 as well as being selected to be a part of the SA Shorts II: #2MINUTE NOODLES, an initiative by UJ Arts and Culture, supported by Wordfest and the National Arts Festival where a 2 minute version of the show was read at the 2017 National Arts Festival, this provocative in your face production is ready to entertain you beyond your wildest imagination! This show is not a mirror of society, but rather a hammer with which to shape it.

FURTHER PRODUCTION HISTORY

Brescia House School, Johannesburg, South Africa – 2019

Read more about playwright Mbasa Tsetsana

Author: Mbsasa Tsetsana

Genre: Political drama script, South African plays

Type: Full length one act play

Number of actors: Eight, 8

Ages of the actors: Young adults 20’s-30’s

Suitable for: PG 14 – language

Set: Simple – Stage with a table and chairs

Level of Difficulty: 7/10 – the energy involved in this type of play is always very high.

Read a Sample of the Script

Cost is $8 for this award winning script.

Contact Off The Wall Plays with any queries about Waiting for Nelson

Buy a Performance License for Waiting for Nelson

Copyright March 2014 Mbasa Tsetsana and Off The Wall Play Publishers

Like this play? Other topical South African and African American Plays

Faith – an abused woman’s story in one act
The Pen – South African play script about love, reality and fantasy
The Pump Room – a post apartheid play

Dramas

Early Liberty – two act drama plays

January 29, 2014 Demmer Dewan Leave a comment

EARLY LIBERTY – TWO ACT DRAMA PLAYS

“Life is about paying attention to the right things,” but what happens when the people and places you consider safe aren’t? What is “safe” and who spells “Home”?

When Mark Haywood follows the beacon into Lighthouse Cove nothing is what it seems. But if Mark’s world is falling apart—despite increasingly-frantic efforts to keep it together, then the hotel proprietor and his family need a special kind of rescue from each other. Just what will it take for Selma to grow up and for Mark to wake up? Can these dueling opposites save the hotel and find a way to be together? Set in 1985 on the Atlantic shore, Early Liberty explores the limits and boundlessness of love and hope, and the darker side of what it means to dream.

Early Liberty is a play about false fronts and true love, about crossed wires and yardsticks we never measure up to. This dramatic love story is especially relevant now, especially as regards women’s status, and the parallels between the idealized Reagan Era and the “world as it is today” to reveal that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Early Liberty was produced at Texas State University (Lab Theatre) January 31-February 3, 2013.The play has already been workshopped but the author is open to minor changes, authorized in writing. Read more about playwright Rita Anderson

Rita and Early Liberty have both been recently featured as the cover story in Baring Her Soul for a living – Hill Country View.

Author: Rita Anderson

Genre: Drama, two-act drama

Type: Full length drama plays

Number of Actors: 4M, 4F

Ages of the actors: All adult, 20s-60s.

Set: An out-of-date hotel in Norfolk with a nautical theme. First day of Spring.

Suitable for: All ages

Level of Difficulty: 7/10 – much of the play is carried by a conversation between two people.

Read a Sample of the Script

Cost is $10 for this previously produced and best selling play in digital format.

Cost is $15 for this play in printed format.

(Delivery time is approximately seven to ten working days. If you require the script faster we can get it to you, please let us know.)

Contact Off The Wall Plays with any queries about Early Liberty

Copyright January 2012 Rita Anderson and licensed by Off The Wall Play Publishers

Like this play? Have a look at some of our other two act dramas:

Great Land – drama romance journey of discovery. And the King
Boise USA – follows homosexuality scandal in 1950’s Boise
Lies you can’t make up – a drama centred round JFK
Twenty first century stomp – a drama about the recession and how it affected the lives of ordinary people

Dramas, One act plays

Blasphemous Rumours – a hellish tongue in cheek drama in one act

June 12, 2013 Demmer Dewan Leave a comment

BLASPHEMOUS RUMOURS – A hellish tongue in cheek drama in one act

Meet Shelby – he’s the general manager for hell. It’s his job to welcome the new recruits, and assign them. Unfortunately hell is running out of space and so….the new recruits are given one last chance. If they can prove why they don’t belong in hell, they will be free to go. Each new recruit is given a T-8 form to fill out, submit and then the wait begins in this drama in one act.

Blasphemous rumours follows three sets of recruits, from the stoner teen killed at the Greenday concert to the God Fearing Southern minister’s wife – they’re all there and ready to prove they’re worthy. Or not….

PRODUCTION HISTORY

Azle High School, TX, USA – 2021
Hobart High Theatre, IN, USA – 2022

Author: Agustin D. Martinez

Genre: Drama, full length one act drama play

Type: Full length one act play

Length: Just over an hour

Suitable for: PG 10.

Ages of actors: 16 to 50 or middle aged

Number of actors: Eight 8 actors, 4M 4F

Set: Simple. There are no visible walls. Two hanging window frames on USL and USR. A black backdrop is all that is seen through and around the frames. the audience sees a comfortably furnished room with a writing desk, chairs but no bed. Silk plants decorate the room, giving the room dimension, and a tropical, relaxed atmosphere, as that of a cozy hotel room, cheaply furnished.

Level of Difficulty: 7/10 – the characters themselves have good stage directions Playing them realistically and not over the top is the challenge.

The play must be produced as it is written. Read more about author Agustin D. Martinez

Read a sample of the script

Cost is $10.00 for this previously performed digital script! Just Click Shakespeare!

Contact Off The Wall Plays with any queries relating to Blasphemous Rumours

Like this script? Want something different? See these other off beat dramas and comedies.

Death of a Gerbil – a one act dark comedy about waking up to find you’re dead
You do love me, don’t you? A funny but scary one act thriller about bringing that new boy home to meet the folks…
The Appointment with God – drama in one act about a mysterious life and death phone call
War Stories – a three act cop drama where some cops go bad

Dramas, Play in four acts

Taylor – four act play about loss of a spouse

April 28, 2013 Demmer Dewan Leave a comment

TAYLOR – A FOUR ACT PLAY ABOUT LOSS OF A SPOUSE

The journey of a writer after he has lost his wife and is dealing with raising his young daughter as a single parent. In this four act play about loss, he also has to learn to allow himself to love again. This is a beautiful story about letting go of the past in order to move towards the future.

Author: Raymond Hobson

Genre: Drama

Type: Four act Play about loss

Suitable for: PG 10 – language at one point

Length: Full length play up to two hours with scene changes

Number of Actors: Eight, 8, 3M, 4F

Ages of actors: 1 F child, 2 middle aged F, 2 middle aged M, 1 older F, 1 older M, 1M any age

Set: Various – an office, a restaurant, a church

Level of Difficulty: 7/10 – getting the audience to identify with the actors

The author will allow workshopping of the play.