This Halloween weekend indulge in some of Playscripts' spookiest stories. Playscripts offers free reads for all these plays. Click on the 'Read for Free' link under each title then sign in with your email address to be truly terrified.

10 Ways to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse
Don Zolidis
Short Play, Comedy, Contemporary
Cast: 3M, 5F, 2M or F
It's the end of the world and hordes of rampaging zombies are about to kill you. What do you do? Try your hand at kung fu against the undead? Attempt to reason with creatures that would rather eat brains than use them? Turn to this handy and hilarious guide to survive the apocalypse! (Hint: sacrifice the weak is step number one.)
Free Read 

Alice in Slasherland
Qui Nguyen
Full Length Play, Horror, Comedy
Cast: 3M, 3F
When young Lewis Diaz accidentally resurrects the soul of a brutally slain girl named Alice, he unwittingly unleashes a literal hell on Earth. Now, with every imaginable kind of demon, monster, and killer ravaging his small town, it's up to Lewis and his newly undead companion to protect his classmates -- including longtime crush Margaret -- from becoming freshly slaughtered carcasses.
With the help of Alice's trash-talking demonic teddy bear, Lewis races to find a way to close the rift before the devil himself shows up and totally ruins their senior prom.
Free Read 

All I Really Need to Know I Learned From Being a Zombie
Jason Pizzarello
Short Play, Comedy, Present Day
Cast: 2M, 2F, 14M or F
In today's chaotic, challenging world, we often don't know where to turn for help. Little did we know that life's most valuable lessons lie within the undead. Finally, zombies engage us with musings on life, death, and everything in between. They show us that brains aren't everything...you are what you eat...and what doesn't kill you makes you...more alive.
Free Read 

A Christmas Scarol
Don Zolidis
Short Play, Comedy, Christmas/Holiday, Contemporary
Cast: 9M, 8F, 4M or F
When Tim can't think of a Christmas gift to get his high-maintenance girlfriend, he's visited by four terrifying spirits (actually five -- they've been hiring) who whisk him away on a harrowing and hilarious journey into the past, present, future, and an alternate timeline.
This wild and free-spirited adaptation of the holiday classic is a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas (getting awesome presents).
Free Read
 
Double Double
Kathryn Funkhouser
Short Play, Comedy, Contemporary
Cast: 6F, 8M or F
It's no wonder Emily can't sleep. She obsesses about awkward interactions in the past, she tries to predict the disasters of the future -- and them, of course, there's three immortal witches sabotaging her drama club production of Macbeth so they can escape the mortal realm. You know, life stuff.
But when the witches send strange visions to turn Emily and her new classmates against each other, no one can predict what happens next. Before the charm's wound up, all will face their fears in this tale of loyalty, anxiety, Skittles, and doom.
Free Read  

Dracula
Adapted by William McNulty
Full Length Play, Horror
Cast: 7M, 7F
Professor Van Helsing and his brave comrades must hunt down and destroy the profoundly evil Count Dracula. But the Count is exceedingly resourceful, employing superhuman strength, psychic powers, and shape-changing to confound and frustrate his antagonists.
Culminating in a wild and shocking confrontation between the King of Vampires and those who would rid the world of him, this adaptation is an action-packed, blood-soaked retelling of Bram Stoker's classic tale of horror.
Free Read 
 
Nightfall With Edgar Allan Poe
Eric Coble
Full Length Play, Drama
Cast: 3M, 2F
Edgar Allan Poe stands alone in the flickering darkness of his mind, trying desperately to convince himself -- and us -- that he's not mad.
The spell he weaves brings us a highly theatrical adaptation of four tales Poe himself considered his best: "The Raven," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and "The Tell-Tale Heart."
Enter the world of Poe and check your heartbeat at the door.
Free Read  

Scared Silly
Peter Bloedel, Christa Crewdson, Hillary DePiano, Jonathan Dorf, Patrick Greene, Alan Haehnel, Ian McWethy, Ed Monk, Rebecca Schlossberg, Don Zolidis
Full Length Play, Comedy, Contemporary
Cast: 8M, 8F, 14M or F
We challenged ten playwrights to bring us their funniest takes on the fearsome in this collection of ten-minute plays. Designed to be flexible for your evil plans, these plays can be performed in any combination.
Every spooky tale in this collection has a twist, whether it's what detention looks like in a school for the supernatural (The Midnight Club), what happens when a slasher-movie junkie tries to track down a killer (It's You!), the incredible secret of the trick-or-treater dressed normally who wants candy anyway (The True Meaning of Halloween), or the only thing that scares ghosts (In the Waiting Room at the Ghost Placement Agency).
NOTE: The plays in this collection can also be licensed and performed individually.
Free Read  

The Spoon River Project
Adapted by Tom Andolora
Full Length Play, Drama
Cast: 6M, 5F
The former residents of Spoon River examine life and the longing for what might have been.
In this beautifully haunting play based on Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, the former residents of Spoon River examine life and the longing for what might have been. As the citizens reflect on the dreams, secrets, and regrets of their lives, they paint a gritty and honest portrait of the town as all of their pasts are illuminated.
Free Read 
 
Sweeney Todd: On the Razor's Edge
Adapted by Jon Jory Adapted by Michael Bigelow Dixon
Full Length Play, Melodrama, Drama
Cast: 5M, 4F
"They will remember Sweeney Todd when all of you have been forgotten!" cries the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. His name provokes delicious shudders till -- now, if you dare, return to the penny dreadful where his legend was born.  
An apprentice finds himself in peril when he learns why people keep going missing in his master's shop; a young woman dons a disguise to find out the fate of her lover at sea; and in the cellar of a cheerful piemaker's shop, a prisoner discovers the terrible truth of what goes inside the flaky crust.
Based on The Strong of Pearls, the story that was Sweeney's debut, Sweeney Todd: On the Razor's Edge is a melodrama that takes you into the cobblestone streets of London for a thrilling adventure.
Free Read  

A Voice in the Dark: A Salem Story 
Elizabeth Downing Stageworks Media
Full Length Play, Drama, 17th Century
Cast: 3M, 7F, 5M or F
Told through the eyes of a teenager, A Voice in the Dark: A Salem Story is a thrilling and poignant tale from one of the darkest eras in American history.
Abigail Hobbs, a shy, yet kind 15-year-old, lives a modest, happy life. But things are changing in Salem, Mass. Healthy girls are becoming ill and whisperings of the devil are in the air. Two women have been hung as witches, and a third accused is missing still.
When the Nurse Family, with whom Abigail is close, becomes the center of new suspicions, Abigail accidentally uncovers information that could save them. She is faced with a difficult choice: Will she remain silent and let the witch hunt continue? Or will she risk her own safety and speak out for what is right?
Free Read  

Trap
Stephen Gregg
Full Length Play, Mystery/Thriller
Cast: 10M, 12F, 5M or F
MENACHAP, CALIFORNIA. An incomprehensible event: every person in the audience of a high school play falls unconscious -- every person but one.
Using interviews with witnesses, loved ones, first responders, and the investigators pursuing the case, a theatre ensemble brings the story of the strange event to life, documentary-style. But as the strands weave together into an increasingly dangerous web, it becomes web, it becomes clear that this phenomenon might not be entirely in the past.
Unnerving, exhilarating, and wildly inventive, you've never walked into anything quite like Trap.
Free Read