Page 37 - K12 Catalog 2020-2021

More One Acts 35

The Telltale Heart

Drama | Cast: 6m. (or 4m., 2w., variable.) | One int. set | Run time: 30 min. | Code: T16000
In comfortless surroundings, a young man plans and commits the “perfect crime.” When
a detective stops by on a quite different matter, it becomes apparent that the young man
has little to fear. The only trouble is, he can’t stop the pounding of the dead man’s heart.
Why can’t the detective hear it? As the pounding grows louder and the tension increases,
the audience realizes that they are watching the very madness of a murderer. By Luella
McMahon. Based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe.

The Terezin Promise

CHALLENGES AND EDUCATES YOUNG ACTORS Drama | Cast: 4m., 4w. Extras can include children,
soldiers, guards. | Area staging | Run time: 40 min. | Code: TF1000
The liberation of Terezin concentration camp is at hand, and the Nazis are in retreat,
desperate to destroy evidence of their crimes. While some prisoners escape in the confusion
of the retreat, Raja remains to keep a promise she made to her teacher. By Celeste Raspanti.

This Is a Text

Comedy | Cast: 11 to 17 either gender. | Flexible staging | Run time: 30 min. | Code: T59000
Sophia needs to get a 61! If she gets a 61 on her Romeo and Juliet exam, she’ll get into
Coldwater State. But she was up all night, distracted by a mysterious text, and now she can’t
focus. Sophia’s only hope: Flowcus, the concentration pill that sits tantalizingly close on the
teacher’s desk. This Is a Text is This Is a Test’s rowdier little sister, a battle against an exam,
waged during the age of distraction. Sophia’s quest to get into Coldwater State ends in a
way that neither she nor the teacher could have anticipated and leads to a conclusion that’s
both surprising and unexpectedly moving. By Stephen Gregg.

A Thousand Cranes
Drama | Cast: 1 to 2m., 2 to 3w., up to 2 either gender. | Area staging | Run time: 45 min.
Code: T80000
This is the true story of 12-year-old Sadako, who learns that she has “radiation sickness,” or
leukemia—an effect of the Hiroshima bombing that happened 10 years ago. Her wish is to
be healed by the gods by folding 1,000 paper cranes, but she dies before she can finish. Her
friends and classmates finish folding the cranes and build a monument to honor her and all
the children who were killed by the atom bomb. By Kathryn Schultz Miller.

To Burn a Witch

Drama | Cast: 4w. | Bare stage with props | Run time: 20 min. | Code: T32000
Two girls wait in the bare cell room for the questioning to resume. Accused of witchcraft, they
are terrified. Mary refuses to lie—even to save herself—but Ruth, desperately frightened,
“confesses.” The questioners then turn to Mary, but she cannot bring herself to swear to this
lie. Since the two girls have always been so close, the questioners are dissatisfied with the
conflicting stories. To save herself, Ruth feigns a seizure in which she deeply implicates her
friend Mary. Only one hope remains for Mary now, and in a scene of dramatic power she
makes her final choice. By James L. Bray.