My 10-Minute Plays

Aunt Felicity's Letters by: Kinast 3W Approximate Playing Time: Blood On The Highway by: Cake Top Follies by: Call Me Comrade by: Death is a Many Splendored Thing by: Enid and Bella by: Good Cop, Sad Cop by: If We Must Die by: Isaac and the Lamb by: Love and Happiness by: My Daughter and Me by: Painting Over the Poop by: Rage Against Nothing by: Return of the Frogs by: Shooting Pool with a Rope by: So Much For Seatbelts by: Read your script aloud to yourself.

Have others read it and comment. Push that script to new frontiers. You are an artist. Toss and turn over that script for months. Always Be Rewriting will be on my tombstone.

I once had a Minute play, already produced and performed, become accepted to another festival, and the director assigned to my piece at that next festival told me that my script needed work and a rewrite. To which I explained the script had already been the recipient of much laughter and rave response. To which the director explained to me: To which I explained: And then I went ahead with that rewrite. Oh wow, I just realized another dandy way to screw up your Minute play. Have that sucker go over 10 minutes.

I just know that ten minutes means ten minutes. News flash — you can have plays be less than ten minutes. All that stuff about characters with wants and forces blocking the want? That is the basic stuff. Discern between which of your astounding ideas is right for a Minute play and which is better for a full-length. Hard to argue with that. But I still offer since the Minute play is a living, breathing part of American festival theater, that there are certain ideas suited better for the short form. Theater is such a wide and wonderful canvass of opportunity that there really are no rules for penning a sensational new work of imagination.

I do find the Minute play a challenging but rewarding framework.

• minute Plays & Shorts under 20 | Heartland Plays - Playscripts, Theatre Scripts, Stage Plays;
• Do It Again.
• Stevie Wonders Songs in the Key of Life (33 1/3);
• minute Plays & Shorts under 20 | Heartland Plays - Playscripts, Theatre Scripts, Stage Plays?

Those which have turned out to be good I feel have been worth the labor and thought. People who lament the Minute play as an outcrop of a withered or distracted attention of the American audience can certainly argue their point, but I have been in the audience when all of us, as a unit, have been blown away and taken to great places.

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Latest News eNewsletter Sign-up. Become a member Exclusive access to our playwriting opportunities database, advice from experts, and chances to connect with other writers. How to write a minute play Writing tips. So you can stop reading now. Anyway, the seminar teaser copy used to entice… The Minute Play.

I am so not hip. But please trust implicitly in the actors and director. And then put obstacles in her way. This will create tension. Your character needs to propel—be propelled—into the heart of the play. Nothing moves a character more than a shiny carrot dangling just outside of their reach. Keeping it simple is required. You only have ten minutes to tell a full story, to bring a character from one place in their life to another. This is not a movie.

Leave the glitz of the movie world on the silver screen. You want to make it theatrical, larger than life. You can do this without explosions and special effects. You need to find a perfect balance between simple and exciting. Think of simple as budget-related. Think of exciting as character-related.

Make the walk to the climax a dazzling crescendo.

ten minute play

The best advice I could give someone who aspires to get into the minute play business? Surround yourself with people in the know. Take in minute festivals in your area. Nothing teaches one more about writing than reading. Nothing teaches one more about minute playwriting, than watching minute plays. There are minute festivals all over the world, now.

Go forth and find your way in. The Summing Up by W.