A ten-minute play is a streak of theatrical lightning. It doesn't last long, but its power can stand your hair on end. This splendid anthology contains enough wattage to light up a small city. For in its pages, thirty-two of our finest playwrights hone their skills on a form that has been called the haiku of the American stage. The plays that Nina Shengold and Eric Lane have collected in this volume range from monologues to an eight-character farce. Eminently producible, ideally suited for the classroom and audition, Take Ten is a marvelous resource for teachers and students of drama, as well as a stimulating read for lovers of the theatre. Contributors include: John Augustine, Cathy Celesia, Laura Cunningham, Joe Pintauro, Mary Sue Price, Megan Terry, Jose Rivera, Romulus Linney, David Mamet, Jane Martin, David Ives, and many others.

Collected from theaters across America, this new ten-minute collection of 23 plays reveals the power and pleasures of this tightly knit form. Plays for 3 Actors:Shot Americans (3W) by Kayla CaganLarry Gets the Call (2W, 1M) by Matt CasarinoShades (1W, 2M) by Mark Harvey LevineEvery Man (2W, 1M) by Michael NiedermanMolly Whuppie (2W, 1M) by Don NigroIt's Called Development (3W) by Anne PhelanAn Ongoing Examination of the True Meaning of Life (2W, 1M or 1W, 2M) by S. W. SenekPistachio Stories (2W, 1M) by Laura ShamasThe Searcher (1W, 2M) by Frederick StroppelMore (1W, 2M) by Jeff TabnickWeird Water (1W, 2M) by Robert Lewis VaughanDead Boy (2W, 1M) by Craig WrightPlays for 4 Actors:Vinny's Vision (4M) by Jim GordonBetting the Karmic House (1W, 3M or 2W, 2M) by Bill JohnsonInfant Morality (3W, 1M) by Craig PospisilHow to Speak Man (4M) by Sharyn RothsteinRemind Me Again (3W, 1M) by Sharyn RothsteinHell Hath Three Furies (3W, 1M) by Aoise StratfordA Moment of Your Undivided Attention (3W, 1M) by Alina TrowbridgePlays for 5 Actors:Tina at the Times or Below the Fold (2W, 3M) by Wendy MacLeodPlays for 6 or More ActorsToys in Babeland (1W, 8M) by Delilah GomezAt the time (5W, 3M) by Winter MillerSmall World (3W, 3M) by Tracey Scott WilsonD. L. LEPIDUS is a freelance critic and editor who has covered the New York theater scene for more than twenty-five years. Since 1993, his work has appeared in theater columns for Chelsea Clinton News and the Westsider.

In this volume you'll find fifty terrific new 10-minute plays Plays for Two Actors: Absent Grace (Claudia Barnett) Animal/Animal (Libby Emmons) Anniversary Season (Jenny Lyn Bader) Aposiopesis (John McEneny) Black Coffee (Deanna Alisa Ableser) Customer Service (Philip Hall) Draw a Lion (Dan O'Neill) Fair Shake (Jeffrey Gold) Give and Take (Bara Swain) Green Sound (John Patrick Bray) In Memory of Calvinball (Erin Moughon) Intentional Deception (Greg Freier) Lack of Moisture (Debbie Lamedman) Magic 8 Ball (Kimberly Pau) The Memory Box (Chris Shaw Swanson) Minutiae (Barry Eitel) Missed Connections (Marj O'Neill Butler) The Ninth Circus of Hell (C.J. Ehrlich) Numbers (Gregg Kreutz) Perspective (James McLindon) Reinventing the Wheel (Megan Lohne) She's Bound to Know (Michael Weems) This Flight Tonight (Wendy MacLeod) Unintelligent Life (John McKinney) Your Kiss is on My List (Christopher Lockheardt Plays for Three or More Actors: All My Problems (Laurie Graff) Battle Tactics (Andy Haynes) Black and White (Donna Hoke) The Date (Scene) (Mike Salomon) Captain Rockets Versus the Intergalactic Brain-Eaters (Don Nigro) The Corporate Ladder (Lisa Soland) Erosion (Scott McCrea) He's Really a Good Guy (Rory Leahy) Hurt (Saviana Stanescu) Mendacity of The Hear of Elephants in the Room (Carlos Murillo) Museum Place @2 (William Fowkes) Organic Seed (Patrick Gabridge) Pass Go: A Monopoly Play (Brian James Polak) Pocket Universe (Duncan Pflaster) The Promise (Jeffrey Strausser) Rat-Tat-Tat (David Guaspari) The Slasher's Lament (Michael Puzzo) A Small Fishing Nation Wedged Between Estonia and Latvia (Andrew Black) Standing Room Only (Aren Haun) Switzerland (Mayank Keshaviah) True Enough (Sonya Sobieski) Twenty-Three Hundred (Mark Rigney) What are You Going to Be? (Steven Korbar) Where were You When I Was Coming? (C.S. Hanson) Zombie Love (Earl T. Roske)

A dazzlingly diverse anthology of thirty-five short plays spanning the theatrical spectrum. A ten-minute play is a blaze of theatrical energy. In this follow-up to their groundbreaking collection Take Ten, editors Eric Lane and Nina Shengold have put together a veritable bonfire of talent. Take Ten II: More 10-Minute Plays provides a fast-track tour of the current theatrical landscape, from the slapstick ingenuity of David Ives’ Arabian Nights to the searing tension of Diana Son’s 9/11 drama The Moon, Please, to Susan Miller’s luminous fable The Grand Design. This remarkably diverse anthology includes thirty-five short plays by such major American playwrights as Christopher Durang, Warren Leight, Romulus Linney and Donald Margulies, alongside a host of exciting new voices. Actors, directors, producers and teachers will find Take Ten II an invaluable source of meaty roles for people of every age, ethnicity and gender; lovers of theatre will find it a richly satisfying read. These deceptively short plays throb with life in all its variety: harrowing, hilarious, and breathtakingly vital. Playwrights included: Taylor Mac Bowyer Laura Shaine Cunningham Anthony David Steven Dietz Christopher Durang Linda Eisenstein Simon Fill Craig Fols Sigrid Heath David Ives Caleen Sinnette Jennings Honour Kane Eric Lane Edward Bok Lee Warren Leight Romulus Linney Donald Margulies Susan Miller Chiori Miyagawa Itamar Moses Sean O'Connor Mark O'Donnell Dael Orlandersmith Rich Orloff Joe Pintauro Craig Pospisil Toni Press-Coffman Claire Reeve Elaine Romero Susan Sandler Nina Shengold Diana Son Alison Weiss Mary Louise Wilson Garth Wingfield Alexander Woo From the Trade Paperback edition.

This book is written for the beginning or seasoned playwright, as well as for actors (or anyone) wishing to attempt their first ten-minute play. Every aspect of writing a ten-minute play is covered, from perking with an idea, to starting the play, to developing it, to effective rewriting, to completing it, even to how to get the most out of readings of your play once you've finished it. Writing the 10-Minute Play also reveals the best ways to market your play and includes an extensive listing of ten-minute play contests. The guide contains many in-depth interviews with international playwrights who have had substantial success with their ten-minute plays, as well as publishers of ten-minute plays and producers of ten-minute play festivals. Included as well are several award-winning ten-minute plays, followed by a discussion by the respective playwrights on how they went about creating their play, from start to finish. The final chapter offers tips and suggestions from artistic directors of ten-minute play festivals and from well-known playwrights whose ten-minute plays have received awards and publishing deals.

A More Perfect Ten is a revision of Gary Garrison's pioneering book on writing and producing the 10-minute play, and it is now the most authoritative book on this emerging play form. The 10-minute play has become a regular feature of theatre companies and festivals from coast to coast, and Garrison has distilled the advice of many of those people who had been instrumental in promoting the ten minute play for the last few years. Replete with advice and tips on creating the successful 10-minute play, and cautions for avoiding the pitfalls, this new edition also includes addresses for the biggest and most important 10-minute festival opportunities, new sample 10-minute plays and questions for thought and discussion, and sample layout templates for laying out the play for submission. The savvy playwright at any level of skill can use this little book to great advantage. Plus Gary Garrison is warm, funny, irreverent, and essential.

In this volume you will find fifty terrific new ten-minute plays all successfully produced during the 2014-2015 theatrical season. They are written in a variety of styles. Some realistic plays, some are not, some comic, some are dramatic. -- Amazon.com.

The Best New Ten-Minute Plays, 2020 presents thirty new ten-minute plays, selected by renowned editor Lawrence Harbison. This volume is ideal for theater enthusiasts looking for new and compelling short pieces from some of the finest playwrights of our time. Selections include: Beta Testing by Jenny Lyn Bader The Fourteenth Annual Foot Puppet Festival by Holly Hepp-Galvan Glasstown by Don Nigro Incident on the Golden Gate Bridge by David MacGregor Oxycontin Follies by Steve Gold Two Artists Trying to Pay Their Bill by Lucy Wang The Scottish Loo by J. Thalia Cunningham

THE STORIES: CAMBERWELL HOUSE by Amelia Roper. Elderly neighbors Annie and Olive have been friends since they were children. At twenty, they agreed to "knock each other off" if they were still alive at seventy-five. Now they are seventy-five and one of them has changed her mind. A tale of old age, murder, and ginger nut biscuits. (1 woman.) THE CLOSET by Aoise Stratford. Kevin's dad has thrown his favorite toy, Bart Sponge, into the back of a closet. There, Bart meets a toy dinosaur and another toy he can't even begin to identify. Does a supposedly gay toy have a chance of making it out of the closet? (2 men, 1 woman or man.) CLOSING COSTS by Arlene Hutton. After viewing four hundred apartments, has Harris finally found the right co-op, or simply the right real estate agent—Alice? Harris must decide if it's time to trade in his artificial fish—and finally grow up. (1 man, 1 woman.) FREEFALLING by Aurin Squire. Two passengers and a stewardess on a falling plane give their moment-by-moment account of what happens when tomorrow is no longer certain. (2 men, 1 woman.) POISON by John Patrick Shanley. Kenny has seen the depths of Kelly's self-hatred, and he'll never date her again—unless he drinks a fortune-teller's mysterious potion, which will kill his soul as dead as Kelly's. Can Kelly convince him to drink the potion? Can she convince herself? (1 man, 2 women.) SELF-TORTURE AND STRENUOUS EXERCISE by Harry Kondoleon. Carl tells Alvin that he's in love with another woman. "Good for you," says Alvin, who refuses to accept that Carl's, Adel, wife only attempted suicide—she's still alive. The woman Carl loves is Alvin's wife, Beth. But right now, Beth is so drunk she can't get up off the floor, much less run off with Carl, and Adel comes in with bandaged wrists saying Carl has been trying to kill her. These four have some issues to work out. (2 men, 2 women.) A SINGULAR KINDA GUY by David Ives. Mitch is a young guy talking to a girl in a bar. She's nice, but he's got this sort of confession, see. There's something she ought to know—on the inside, he isn't really a guy at all. He's an Olivetti electric self-correcting typewriter. (1 man.) SOMETHING FROM NOTHING by David Riedy. A stranger's intimate gesture on a New York subway causes a couple to reexamine their relationship, and it causes one person to get punched in the face. Told from all three characters' wildly different perspectives. (2 men, 1 woman.) THERE'S NO HERE HERE by Craig Pospisil. Lance moves to Paris to follow his dream of becoming a writer, but his work goes badly. As does his relationship with Juliette, a beautiful Parisian. But a strangely familiar woman at their local bistro forces Lance to dig deeper into himself. (2 men, 2 women.) YOU HAVE ARRIVED by Rob Ackerman. Dan and Kristin are navigating their first date, and fortunately, the other woman with them knows the way through the confusion into Brooklyn. That would be Cyndi, the GPS system in Dan's car. (1 man, 2 women.)