Are you looking for a play in one act for your class or performance group? We have hundreds of one act plays to choose from. Drama, comedy, classic, historical or contemporary. Here is a selection of popular one act plays from Dramatic Publishing - available now to buy the script or apply for rights.

Kathryn Schultz Miller

One Act, Drama, 1950s

2M, 3F, 2M or F

A Thousand Cranes presents the true and poignant story of Sadako Saski, who was 2 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on the small city of Hiroshima, where she lived. Sadako, now 12 years old, is an excellent athlete who races daily with her friend Kenji to prepare for an important competition.

David Rogers Daniel Keyes

One Act, Drama

4M, 1F

This is the compelling story of Charlie, a mentally retarded man, and the strange interweaving of his life with that of Algernon, a mouse. Experimental surgery has been performed on Algernon increasing his intelligence fourfold. The operation is tried on Charlie, who rapidly changes from moron to a genius, far more intelligent that his teacher, Alice Kinnian, or the doctors who created the operating technique. 

This is a different kind of play: poignant, romantic, funny and tragic, but with hope of man's indomitable spirit.

Terry Gabbard

One Act, Comedy, Drama, Contemporary

7M, 7F

The unassuming location of a dock extending out onto a small lake serves as the backdrop for five different stories.

The entire ensemble gathers on the dock together for the final scene. In a poetic epilogue, they all discover the true meaning of Our Place -- both comedic and tragic.

Stephen Gregg

One Act, Comedy, Contemporary

15M or F

As the ticking clock reminds you, only 60 minutes remain to complete this oh-so-important predictor of your future. But you didn't get the review sheets, the teacher doesn't like you and your classmates are blatantly cheating.

Time passes and the voices in your head remind you that though you are having trouble with the test, your personal life is far, far worse. Then you reach the essay question. The good news -- it's an opinion essay. The bad news -- it's in Chinese. And things aren't going to get better! 

Matt Thompson

One Act, Comedy

2M, 1F, 10M or F

It's opening night, and master playwright William Shakespeare, theatrical diva Sarah Bernhardt and the indelible intellectual Constantine Stanislavsky lead you on a wild and wacky journey through the history of theatre from Aristophanes to Emile Zola.

This crazy cast of characters will transport you back in time as we relive the various elements of theatre from all parts of the globe. Explore the beginnings of Greek Theatre, Aristotle's Poetics, the fine art of Kabuki, the history of mime, the gladiators of Rome and speculation on the real author of Shakespeare's plays. Along the way, the bumbling Shakespeare misquotes himself, Sarah Bernhardt can't get over the sound of thunderous applause and Stanislavsky gets blown out of a cannon when someone says the name of "the Scottish play" in the theatre!

Eric Coble

One Act, Drama, Present Day, Contemporary

3M or F

A momentary act of violence caught on camera destroys the lives of three people. Now they need to tell us their version of how it really went down. 

Jordan is a quiet, nerdy, almost eighth-grade graduate. Leela, bubbling and following her passion, has just opened her own clothing boutique near Jordan's school. And Daniel is an awkwardly sweet police office on foot patrol in the neighbourhood. The three of them lead us through their lives, dreams and the snap decisions that led them to that fateful moment. 

Jon Jory

One Act, Comedy, Contemporary

7M, 17F

In this high-school version of Lysistrata, the girls of Watahootchie High School in Texas strike back against their macho boyfriends, whose constant fighting with the boy from tony Grim Prep threatens to disrupt their prom.

Hilarity ensues as the girls proceed to subdue their femininity and withdraw any displays of affection until their boyfriends temper their testosterone.

Michael Ragozzino

One Act, Comedy, Contemporary

2M, 2F

As the marketing directors of PharmaHope Inc., Grace and Ralph have had months to come up with an advertising strategy for the company's new drug. Now, mere hours from the start of a massive production run of pills, pill bottles, blister packs and physician info sheets, they're still scrambling to come up with a name!

Fast-paced and funny, All Rights Reserved holds up a mirror to one of the most absurd practices of modern society, the marketing of prescription drugs. This timely play will not only make audiences laugh but also inspire them to think about a world in which any problem can be solved by a pill.

Werner Trieschmann

One Act, Mystery/Thriller, Comedy, Contemporary

16M or F

Follow along -- if you dare -- as out misguided performers attempt to nail down those devilish British accents, understand what a red herring is, and figure out how to die onstage without looking all gross and stuff. Meanwhile, the director and stage manager, who really love dealing with the egomaniacs and lunatics in the cast, wouldn't really try to murder someone during the murder mystery. Would they?! 

Chaos rules the day as time is running out for cast and crew to sort out this mess. Safe to say, you will never look at a whodunit the same way again.

Werner Trieschmann

One Act, Comedy, Present Day

3M, 3F, 11M or F

Based on several disastrous theatrical experiences, Bad Play peels back a tattered curtain to examine the process of putting on a show that is less than good.

A stuffy narrator (what bad play is complete without a stuffy narrator) guides the audience through the whole sorry process. We go from the audition -- where the director is more worried about roast beef than paying attention to the warm-up exercise, and the neurotic cast pretends to be bacon -- to rehearsals -- where a passive-aggressive stage manager gives everyone grief.