Jim, King, Duke and Huck

from HKFN: The Abbreviated Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (one-act version)by Jeff Goode
Genre: Comedy
Cast Breakdown: 2 females, 2 males

The actors playing Jim, King, Duke and Huck in a school production of Huck Finn have rebelled and are starting their own play.
JIM: We don't have to go back. We can run off and start our own play!
(Enter the Girls who played Miss Watson and Widow Douglas as themselves.
But we shall call them KING and DUKE. They've got a box of props, or maybe
a steamer trunk.)
KING: Hey, are you guys really quitting?
DUKE: We wanna quit, too.
HUCK: Why are YOU quitting?
KING: She's being all bossy and won't let us do anything fun.
DUKE: Yeah, there's too many rules. Who put her in charge?
JIM: We're gonna start our own show so we can do whatever we want.
KING: That's awesome!
DUKE: Look, we stole a bunch of props.
(She opens the trunk.)
HUCK: Guys, you have to put those back.
KING: We've got wigs and costumes.
DUKE: And there's pillows. We could make a fat suit!
KING: I've always wanted to do Romeo and Juliet. (Shakespeareanly:) O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
DUKE: (As Romeo, groping in darkness:) Juliet, is that you? I can hear you, but I can't see you. It's too dark in this jungle.
JIM: I think it's a garden.
KING: (As Juliet:) Set a pillow on fire and use it to light the way!
HUCK: No! No fire!
KING: (As Juliet:) Over here, Romeo! By yonder breaking window. It is the east and I'm the setting sun.
JIM: East is the rising sun, I think.
(Duke stuffs pillows under her shirt to make a fat suit)
DUKE: I've always wanted to play Hamlet, the Duke of Denmark. (As Hamlet:) To be or not to be! That is the bare bodkin! Ho ho ho!
KING: Ha! If you're the Duke of Denmark, I'm Martin Luther King.
DUKE: If you say so. (Bowing to King:) Your Majesty.
KING: (Bowing to Duke:) Your Majesty.
JIM: Can I be something?
DUKE: (Regally:) Of course, you can, my good fellow! Anything you want. It's a free country, after all.
JIM: I wanna be a robot!
(Jim robots around.)
KING: Ooh! I've always wanted a robot servant!
DUKE: (Regally:) You there! Android! Fetch His Majesty's luggage from the carriage.
JIM: (Offended:) Fetch your what?
DUKE: (Regally:) And mine, too! A duke should not have to carry his own stolen goods. Ho ho ho!
JIM: I'm not fetchin' nothin'. This is worse than when we were in a real play.
KING: We should plan a heist!
DUKE: We'll need disguises.
(Hands Huck a wig.)
Here, put this on.
HUCK: Why?
DUKE: You're a female spy sent to infiltrate the Antebellum South before the Civil War.
HUCK: No, thank you.
KING: (To Duke:) What are you talking about? He can't be a female spy.
DUKE: How come?
KING: Because there's no such thing. They're called spies. "Female spy" is like calling someone a...male fireman.
JIM: Fireperson.
KING: It's offensive.
DUKE: Right. Sorry. I forgot.
HUCK: I don't want to be a female spy anyway.
DUKE: (Covering her ears, offended:) You're not! Stop saying that word!
KING: I know! You could be a poor little orphan girl.
DUKE: Whose parents have died suddenly and tragically!
KING: Leaving all of their riches to you!!
JIM: So more of a rich little poor little orphan girl.
HUCK: What riches?
DUKE: I dunno. How much have you got on you?
HUCK: (Looking in his pockets:) Six dollars and a cell phone.
DUKE: (Snatching the money:) Six dollars!?!
KING: (Snatching the phone:) And a magic snuff box!?!
DUKE: Do you know what we could buy with this?!
KING: In the 1800s? You could buy a horse.
DUKE: We could buy SIX horses!
KING: And I could call the future and find out which horse to bet on! (On the phone:) Hello? Kentucky Derby? This is the King of France. I need to
know who wins the Triple Crown next year.
HUCK: (Snatching back his phone:) All right, give me that! It's my money. You're not spending it on time-traveling horses.
KING: Ah, but what if I told you that secretly, I am your long lost uncle William from England. Pip pip! Cheerio! And in his will, your father left us
all six of his dollars to split between us. (Melodramatically:) Oh my poor dead brother! How could this tragically have happened? (Splitting the
money:) Three for you and three for me.
DUKE: And I'm your other uncle. Harvey. From Harvard. And I want a cut, too!
(She grabs a dollar from each of them.)
(Melodramatically:) Oh my poor dead sister! Curse the day that she ever set foot on that ill-fated riverboat!
HUCK: Give me back my money!
Food Fight
from Me, My Selfie & I by Jonathan Dorf
Genre: Dramedy
Cast Breakdown: 4 any gender

Four Teens are trying to have a companionable meal together but their selfie habit gets in the way.
(Four TEENS at a table at a restaurant, a plate of chicken nuggets sitting in
the center.)
FIRST TEEN: This looks so amazing.
SECOND TEEN: I am so freakin' hungry.
THIRD TEEN: One sec.
FOURTH TEEN: (Knows what's coming:) Should we get in it, or do you just want the food?
THIRD TEEN: It's not a selfie if we're not in it.
(Beat.)
One of us with the food, one of the food.
FIRST TEEN: I don't know—you might just want one of us and forget the food for once.
THIRD TEEN: Hello—food blogger here.
SECOND TEEN: Can we do this? I missed lunch.
THIRD TEEN: I should get the food first, then us with the food.
FIRST TEEN: Because how could you live without a photo of chicken nuggets.
THIRD TEEN: (Trying to take a picture of the food:) The light is kind of sketch.
FOURTH TEEN: Do you want me to do that napkin thing again?
THIRD TEEN: That would rock.
(The Fourth Teen turns on the flashlight of her phone and illuminates the food
through her napkin.)
THIRD TEEN: Try doubling up the napkin.
(The Fourth Teen does.)
THIRD TEEN: That's better, but now it's kind of brighter on one side.
SECOND TEEN: Seriously?
FOURTH TEEN: What if Terry does it from the other side?
FIRST TEEN: Anything to get this over with.
(The First Teen [Terry] does, so that both teens are now illuminating the food
through their napkins.)
SECOND TEEN: Seriously. These are nuggets.
THIRD TEEN: These nuggets represent our friendship.
FOURTH TEEN: Do you want to be a shadowy, out-of-focus nugget?
THIRD TEEN: Exactly. (To the Fourth Teen:) You know me so well!
(The Third Teen takes a photo and then checks the image.)
THIRD TEEN: Got it.
(The phone flashlights go out.)
THIRD TEEN: OK—what if we all bite into a nugget.
(Everybody grabs a nugget and poses in mid-bite. The Third Teen takes a
photo.)
SECOND TEEN: We good?
THIRD TEEN: (Checking the photo, to the Fourth Teen:) Alex, you're faking the bite.
SECOND TEEN: (To the Third Teen:) Seriously?! (To the Fourth Teen:) Seriously?!
FOURTH TEEN: I told you I went vegetarian.
THIRD TEEN: When?
FOURTH TEEN: That's why I ordered the onion rings. I didn't want to make a thing out of it.
SECOND TEEN: Can we eat the nuggets already?
FIRST TEEN: Yeah. I'm hungry.
THIRD TEEN: Can you just bite into it a little?
FOURTH TEEN: It's chicken.
FIRST TEEN: That's questionable.
FOURTH TEEN: If I'm a vegetarian, I can't bite into chicken.
THIRD TEEN: You don't have to swallow.
FOURTH TEEN: Vegetarians don't bite into meat.
SECOND TEEN: I'm biting before it gets totally cold.
THIRD TEEN: Wait! (To the Fourth Teen:) If these nuggets are like our friendship—
FOURTH TEEN: Your words.
THIRD TEEN: —if the bite looks fake, what does that say about all the rest?
SECOND TEEN: (Biting into a nugget:) Nothin' fake about this bite.
FIRST TEEN: (Biting:) Yup. I'm all in.
(Beat.)
THIRD TEEN: Never mind.
SECOND TEEN: What? We were hungry.
FIRST TEEN: We gave a hundred-ten percent on those bites.
THIRD TEEN: Did you see me taking a picture? And what about Alex? I can hear the whispers starting already.
FOURTH TEEN: What are you talking about?
THIRD TEEN: Do you remember Tyrone Williams?
FIRST TEEN: Who's Tyrone Williams?
THIRD TEEN: Exactly. He fails on a burger selfie with Alice Williams, Murray Williams and Tina Williams—no relation—last spring. It starts with
a few whispers. "What's up with Tyrone in that burger pic?" "Was Tyrone sick or something?" "He's not looking into it." "Is Tyrone having an allergic
reaction?" And in under 24 hours, it's turned into this giant snowball of bad juju or mojo or karma—something. Tyrone blames the rest of them for
starting it, they blame him, and there's so much shade going back and forth that he deletes all his social media accounts and some random kid is passing
him in the hall and says something about a cheeseburger in a totally different conversation and Tyrone blows giant chunks all over him. By the end of
the week, not one person in that photo—or any of their friends—is speaking to him, and a week after that, he leaves school and he's never been heard
from since. And what's worse, nobody else in that picture talks to each other anymore either. It's like that one little poisonous seed killed the tree.
FOURTH TEEN: It's not like that.
THIRD TEEN: I'll bet Tyrone thought that too.
SECOND TEEN: Can we keep eating the nuggets?
FIRST TEEN: Yeah—we're true friends.
(The Third Teen gestures to go ahead. Beat.)
FOURTH TEEN: The onion rings are coming.
THIRD TEEN: You're just saying that.
FOURTH TEEN: No—I really ordered onion rings.
(Beat.)
SECOND TEEN: I'll still be hungry.
FIRST TEEN: Me too.
FOURTH TEEN: I could go all-in on those onion rings.
THIRD TEEN: Those rings could be our last chance.
FOURTH TEEN: I won't let you down.
Marne, Miranda and Melissa
from The Locker Next 2 Mine (full-length version) by Jonathan Dorf
Genre: Dramedy
Cast Breakdown: 3 females

Teens Marne, Miranda and Melissa are selling T-shirts honoring a classmate who recent committed suicide.
(A school conference room. Marne, Melissa and Miranda count money. A few
all-blacks are scattered about the room.)
MELISSA: Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six—
MIRANDA: Do you seriously need to count out loud?
MELISSA: Do you want me to remember the count?
MARNE: Let's just get one of those Square [or payment processing tool of the moment] thingies.
MIRANDA: Good call.
MELISSA: Yeah—we all have smart phones.
MIRANDA: (Under her breath:) Smart phone, dumb user.
MELISSA: What?
MIRANDA: Nada.
MARNE: (Finishing her count:) It's official. The all-blacks are our biggest seller.
MELISSA: We should go out to dinner and celebrate.
MARNE: It's not about us.
MELISSA: Doesn't mean we can't celebrate our success. And not some ick fast food place.
MARNE: You know I don't eat fast food. Or chains.
MELISSA: So let the fund take us for Italian.
MARNE: The fund?
MIRANDA: (Sotto to Marne:) Somebody's been reading.
MELISSA: (Ignoring Miranda:) Well, we're like a charity—right?
MARNE: Yeah...?
MELISSA: Just 'cause it's a charity doesn't mean all the charity goes to charity.
MIRANDA: 'Cause that made sense.
MELISSA: Charities have overhead.
MIRANDA: Again with the big words.
MELISSA: Jealous much?
MIRANDA: Not much.
MELISSA: How much have we raised?
MIRANDA: Thousands.
MELISSA: And we can't get one lousy meatball dinner?
MIRANDA: I don't eat meatballs.
MELISSA: It was an example.
MIRANDA: I don't eat meat.
MELISSA: So have fish.
MIRANDA: I'm a vegan.
MELISSA: So have cheese ravioli. Who cares? The point is we've rocked Washington for a year. All-black sales are record-setting— (To Marne:) you
said so yourself. (To both:) It's vigil eve. Nobody's gonna hate us for celebrating.
MIRANDA: Before we get all hallelujah, I got three no's on the all-black.
MARNE: No, as in—
MIRANDA: As in not buying—wait—four. The new girl.
MARNE: And the other three?
MIRANDA: You know which three.
MARNE: Cut them some slack.
MIRANDA: You've cut them plenty of slack.
MARNE: Maybe they deserve it.
MELISSA: (Picking up Miranda's theme:) Yeah, you've given them lots of chances.
MIRANDA: But people could say you've given them too many. (Beat.) If they don't buy, how long before it's 20 people, or 100, or until Beth is just a
plaque on the wall that nobody sees in a hallway nobody even walks through? (To Marne:) And 'til you're just another ex-lacrosse player who used to
matter...
MARNE: Don't forget why we do this.
MIRANDA: Why do we do this? Melissa, do you know?
MELISSA: I didn't even know her that well.
MIRANDA: Did you, Marne? You tore your whatever before the season even started. You didn't play a game with—
MARNE: Do you know how much I've done—
MIRANDA: I do. But people could start to forget that. I'm over my outfit five minutes after I put it on.
MELISSA: You too?
MARNE: Shut up, Melissa.
MIRANDA: (To herself:) Finally.
MELISSA: Uh, don't tell me to shut up.
MARNE: Then don't talk.
MIRANDA: That's what I'm talking about.
MELISSA: Why are you ganging up on me?
MARNE: Deal with it.
MELISSA: Hey! I'm just as in this as you.
MIRANDA: (Ignoring Melissa:) You are a world-class bitch, which is totally what I love about you.
MELISSA: So you can't tell me to shut up.
MARNE & MIRANDA: Shut up!
MIRANDA: I just don't get why you suddenly turn all soft for these three losers.
(Long pause.)
MARNE: Because we weren't the only ones who lost something.
MIRANDA: But who's got something to lose now? (Beat.) People want this. Look at what it's done for our school, for the whole community.
MARNE: Yeah, but isn't this why it happened in the first place?
MIRANDA: Beth got into an accident.
MARNE: I'm not talking about Beth.
MIRANDA: (Beat.) If you don't step up, somebody will.
(Long pause.)
MARNE: I'm not there when it happens, and I don't know anything about it.
MELISSA: (Beat.) So...this celebration dinner...are we on?
Watermelon Face-Plant
from Me, My Selfie & I by Jonathan Dorf
Genre: Dramedy
Cast Breakdown: 2 females, 1 male

Teens Emily, Tasha and Jason remember a bully who may not be so bad anymore.

(EMILY, TASHA and JASON. Emily has her phone out.)

EMILY: He went full ninja.
TASHA: On the watermelon.
EMILY: He tried to go full ninja.
JASON: I have no clue what you're talking about.
TASHA: He screamed loud enough.
EMILY: I'd call it half ninja.
TASHA: Ninja in training. Real ninja doesn't slip on watermelon guts and face-plant.
JASON: When did this happen?
EMILY: (Finishing Tasha's thought:) At least not into the watermelon.
(Beat.)
TASHA: You really don't remember this?
JASON: I really don't.
EMILY: Seriously?
JASON: Seriously.
EMILY: Tasha?
TASHA: (Looking through her phone:) One sec...
(Finding the picture:)
This.
JASON: Ohhhh...
EMILY: Remember now?
JASON: How did I forget that?
EMILY: Seventh grade.
JASON: That explains it.
TASHA: Yeah. My seventh grade was a picnic compared to yours, and I still had to block out all of October.
EMILY: Only October?
JASON: Yeah. He made my life craptacular on a daily basis. Highlights: smearing dog poop on my copy of Romeo and Juliet, taking my lunch money
ten days in a row—not counting weekends, of course—
EMILY: Of course.
JASON: —and dumping my clothes in the toilet while I was in the shower at gym. The unflushed toilet. Twice.
TASHA: But that face-plant.
EMILY: The watermelon did what all the kids who hadn't hit puberty wanted to do all year.
TASHA: Not a lot of heroes in the seventh grade.
EMILY: Except for that melon.
TASHA: It gave its guts to save us all.
JASON: Didn't make up for the toilet. Or the lunch money. Or Romeo and Juliet or feeding my math homework to his dog or pantsing me in the
middle of the fire drill or—
TASHA: Better than nothing.
JASON: Maybe if it happened in May instead of September. Maybe the year wouldn't have been such a horror story.
EMILY: True.
(Beat.)
JASON: So why are we having Throwback Thursday on a Tuesday?
EMILY: Tasha saw him. He works at the library over in [name of a nearby town].
TASHA: Not works. Volunteers.
JASON: Why were you at the [name of nearby town above] library?
TASHA: 'Cause I like it. 'Cause I can study there without running into people I know and then not getting anything done.
EMILY: It's nicer than ours anyway. I should go there.
TASHA: Then we'd talk the whole time. Find your own weird library.
EMILY: Fine.
JASON: He didn't seem like the library type.
TASHA: He lives with his grandma since his parents split up. She gets really bad arthritis sometimes, so he does most of the cooking and the laundry
and takes care of her garden.
JASON: He told you all this?
TASHA: He seems really…
JASON: What?
TASHA: Sweet. He was telling me about this story hour he does for the kindergarten every Friday afternoon.
JASON: So he's like a saint now. Who cooks and cleans.
TASHA: Didn't say he did the cleaning.
EMILY: He probably has to if his grandma's arthritis acts up.
TASHA: Probably. (Beat.) He says he blew up a copy of the watermelon picture and hung it over his bed.
JASON: That's a little weird.
TASHA: Anytime he gets angry about something, he just looks up at that pic of him facedown in a watermelon with half the seventh grade in the
background crying they're laughing so hard…
EMILY: It's kind of cool he owned it.
JASON: I guess.
TASHA: Come on, Jason.
JASON: What?
TASHA: Let it go.
JASON: Do you want me to remember or let it go?
TASHA: Why can't you do both? (Beat.) You should meet him sometime.
JASON: And what—hug it out?
TASHA: Maybe.
EMILY: Or maybe you should bring him a big juicy watermelon.
JASON: I don't think there are enough watermelons in the world to make up for seventh grade.
EMILY: Gotta start somewhere.
JASON: (Beat. To Tasha, caving in:) Because you like him. Guess I'd be down for the watermelon.
TASHA: I think he'd be good with that.
After the Nightmare
from Rumors of Polar Bears (full-length version) by Jonathan Dorf
Genre: Drama
Cast Breakdown: 2 females, 1 male

Three teens have camped in a deserted cabin for the night. ROMULUS, mid-teens, is in the middle of a nightmare. DEME, his older sister, and
SCRUBS, younger and the Anybodys of their little group, look on as he tosses and turns.
ROMULUS: (In his sleep:) Sorry. I'm sorry. Cassie, please... [etc.]
SCRUBS: You gonna shake him before the whole world hears?
DEME: Quiet as quiet can be out there.
SCRUBS: I can be quiet. Don't mean I ain't there.
(Beat. Deme nudges Romulus awake.)
DEME: You were dreamin' again.
SCRUBS: Screamin' more like it. Cassie, I'm sorry. Cassie, please.
DEME: You got anything like a heart in there?
SCRUBS: Ripped it out. Better that way.
ROMULUS: (Beat.) I always want to have one. If I don't, just as soon be dead.
SCRUBS: If ya do, gonna get you dead.
ROMULUS: (Beat.) You think they're out there?
DEME: Who?
ROMULUS: The people that live here.
SCRUBS: Well they ain't in here.
DEME: You mean are they still...
ROMULUS: Yeah.
DEME: Dunno. But when's the last time you saw somebody past 20?
ROMULUS: They gotta be out there. (Beat.) That man. The man from New San Francisco.
SCRUBS: Ghost man.
DEME: Over twelve had to fight.
SCRUBS: Twelve to fight to dead.
ROMULUS: I'm makin' it past twenty. (Beat.) To infinity and beyond! What's that from? I think it's something I heard when I was little. But I don't
remember what it was.
(Romulus picks up a coloring book that's been partly colored in.)
They had kids. (Beat.) Didn't finish.
(Romulus puts down the book. Scrubs grabs it and looks. Beat.)
SCRUBS: Let's finish it!
ROMULUS: With what?
(Scrubs rummages and finds a trio of crayons.)
SCRUBS: Crayons! I love crayons!
DEME: When you seen a crayon?
SCRUBS: Back in the day. 64 colors Crayola. Built-in sharpener. (Beat.) We ain't all fancy pants like you with a TV and books.(Beat as she starts to
color:) They only got yellow, blue and red.
ROMULUS: Stop.
SCRUBS: I'm just finishing it.
ROMULUS: Don't. (Beat.) Someday if they come back, maybe the first thing they'll wanna do is finish coloring, only they'll see it's colored in. And
maybe that's all they been thinkin' about the whole time, and we took that away from them.
SCRUBS: Finders keepers.
ROMULUS: I know. But this is different.
(Beat. Scrubs puts down the coloring book. Beat.)
I miss my watch.
DEME: It didn't even work.
ROMULUS: I can still miss it.
SCRUBS: I miss the party pool...and getting in before you!
ROMULUS: Did not!
SCRUBS: Did always! (Sort of singing:) Friday night is party night.
(She waits for someone to join in, but nobody does.)
Make the work week come out right. (Beat.) Reckon they got the spa? When they got New San Francisco, you think they killed the spa too?
DEME: Scrubs!
SCRUBS: Sorry. Adam said I was trouble with legs. (Beat.) Maybe if we don't think so much... (Beat.) Ain't nothin' tryin' to dead us this very
sec. (Encouraging:) Friday night is... Friday night is...
DEME: (Sort of singing:) Party night. Make the work week come out right. (Not singing:) I can't sing.
SCRUBS: He can't neither.
ROMULUS: I can too. (Singing:) Friday night—
ROMULUS, SCRUBS & DEME: is party night.
Make the work week come out right.
(The conversation stalls.)
SCRUBS: I thought I heard a bird. Day before yesterday.
ROMULUS: Me too.
SCRUBS: Hoot hoot hoot.
ROMULUS: It was caw caw caw.
SCRUBS: Hoot.
ROMULUS: Caw.
(They dance around each other, making rival "hoot" and "caw" sounds.)
DEME: Quiet down.
SCRUBS: Road is still.
ROMULUS: Still still.
DEME: Stop! (Beat.) Get some sleep. Gotta make the daylight count.
ROMULUS: You sleep. I had enough dreams tonight.
DEME: You see that dawn start to wake, you shake me.
(Scrubs and Deme settle in to sleep while Romulus watches. Long beat.)
SCRUBS: Maybe I got a little piece, a little piece of heart that I'm savin', hopin' I gotta use for it someday.
ROMULUS: Figured.
SCRUBS: Why ya say that?
ROMULUS: 'Cause you're smart like that.
SCRUBS: Whatever. (Beat.) 'Night.
ROMULUS: 'Night.