ALL 9 One Acts in 1 Collection

This collection offers all 9 of John’s One-Act Plays.
written while an Artist-in-Residence at Dowling College from 1985-2001 (college sadly closed due to idiotic management). Most workshopped and had productions with College Students at Dowling, and Professionals in NYC. A perfect collection for College Level study and production and of course professionals.
You can also read each individual One-Act Play in that section of this site and download them individually or in this one PDF book.

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THE BOX

5 Characters
4 Men.  1 Woman (can be a stagehand, no lines)
Simple Set
47 pages

Four-character play exposing the demands of the business world transforming innocence into corruption.

 

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HOMESICK

4 Characters
2 Men. 2 Women
Simple Set
50 pages

Four characters explore the search for individuality amidst a family who embraces the social masks and unquestioned morality that validates their imprisonment, while systematically destroying them. 

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HE AND SHE

2 Characters
1 Man. 1 Woman
Simple Set
47 pages

This play explores the struggle for individuality while maintaining a relationship. The characters evolve through specific physicalizations revealing deeply emotional and psychological transitions of self and their relationship.

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BARRIERS

2 Men
Simple Set
52 pages

Two characters, a cop and a killer, deal with the loss of love and personal imprisonment on the eve of the killer’s execution. The play explores the male psyche and the machismo-mentality we’re taught to believe in that create walls of indifference. These barriers collide, until they are broken down revealing what was truly underneath.

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CHARADE

5 Characters
1 Woman. 4 men, although the stage manager could be a woman.
Simple Set
43 pages

The Director/Writer of this play is creating the play as the audience watches – but the characters often do not like how they’re being written and rebel, or think they’re rebelling, when that is actually what is being written.

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MANMADE

2 Characters
2 men or 2 women or 1 man and a woman
Simple Set

30 Pages

Two seemingly homeless men, hobos with PhD’s, exist on the Mojave desert. As they explore the “air”, and “ideas”, and the meaning of meaning, the meaning of existence,  to pass the time,  and as they grow bored, they find junk laying about in the sand, they create a sculpture – a man, so they don’t feel as alone. But as they build, it grows to be huge, and far bigger than they are…

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SNAPSHOT

3 Characters
1 Man. 1 Woman.  The child, or 3rd character, can be male or female
Simple Set
42 Pages

This play takes place in the mind of the child, now an adult, remembering the last days of his or her parents lives.

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TOMORROW

3 Characters
1 man.  2 Woman (1 of these women can be a man instead)
Simple Set
18 pages

This “Jack and Jill” couple seeking the idyllic life, regret the moments they share together as they live them, and age before our eyes until their last breath.

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DROWNING STALLION

3 Characters
2 Men.  1 Woman
Simple Set
18 pages

A study in loneliness and the slow deterioration of one’s passion. In the middle of a dark night, an old man confronts the ghosts of his dead wife and son, his sins against them, his own guilt, his fear of death, and his passion that is dying. We learn that the 2 characters involved in the play are really both dead, and the ghosts that torment him on the last days of his life.

Produced 2014 – Malaysia University.

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Legal Notice: These works are copyrighted multiple times, including several versions of each script, most dating back to the 1980's and 1990's as well as every one of them in 2020.  Downloading any of my work registers important digital identification information.  Scripts can be read, but if you want to use parts of them, or entire scripts for any reason, you will need a contract signed by me agreeing to it. Thanks for taking an interest.

To Obtain Rights to use my scripts please contact me and we will take it from there.  Thank you.

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