One Act Plays

[joshwriting]

(cross posted, partially, from Sheroes)

I'm teaching a Play Directing class to 6 high school students this Spring. We're considering doing a night of one act plays as an adjunct to the course.

Do you have favorites, new or old?

Did you do/see it/them straight up or done with a twist? (inverted genders, serious play done for laughs, etc.)

A side question is if you've ever a) taken a play to a Drama Festival, or even b) gone to watch a Drama Festival?

Thanks!

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One Act Plays that have caught my eye, so far:
The Fifteen Minute Hamlet, by Tom Stoppard
http://www.samuelfrench.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/3934

Your Swash Is Unbuckled (Baker's Plays has a typo in their version of the typo) by Jeff Goode
http://www.bakersplays.com/store/product_info.php/cPath/7/products_id/1769?osCsid=b464e20596ce9bcf705b240fde3afa9d

Wurzel-Flummery, by A.A. Milne
http://books.google.com/books?id=AZUOAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=wurzel-flummery&lr=&as_brr=1&ei=NIZrSc8GnMAy9qallQQ

Chamber Music, by Arthur Kopit
http://books.google.com/books?id=eGTDI9j3BKcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=kopit&ei=wI1rSZXcHImsNtystZ4I#PPA6,M1
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Full length plays that came up and looked entertaining, while I was looking:
Iliad, Odyssey and all of Greek Mythology in 99 Minutes or Less by Jay Hopkins and John Hunter
http://www.samuelfrench.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/7268

Ham/thello, The Moor of Denmark by Jeff Goode
http://www.bakersplays.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/1845?osCsid=b464e20596ce9bcf705b240fde3afa9d

Romeo and Julius [Caesar] by Jeff Goode
http://www.bakersplays.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/1770?osCsid=b464e20596ce9bcf705b240fde3afa9d

Comments

[dpolicar]

Oh, and to answer the questions... we basically cast straight up, though sometimes we gender-swap or otherwise mess around with the play as written because of the realities of auditions. (I also directed a deliberately mixed-gender version of "twelve angry men", but that's not a one-act.) If you're teaching a class on directing, it's probably worth at least explaining the laws around directors "modifying" plays before you ignore them. (Most licensing agreements explicitly prohibit any modifications to cast of characters or to any of the dialog, even removing lines for time. That said, I have NEVER been in a production that followed those rules, and in my case I rewrote the script wholesale.)

[siderea]

BTW, you aware of 12?

[dpolicar]

I wasn't. Interesting... thanks!