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Eldridge Publishing, a leading play publisher since 1906, offers hundreds of full-length plays, one-acts, melodramas, holiday and religious plays, children's theatre plays and musicals of all kinds.
Featured Fall Releases
Here are a few of our newest community theatre plays, school plays, one-act plays, melodramas, and Christmas plays. Click on the artwork to read more, browse our catalog by selecting a tab in the menu bar above, or use our search option.
We look forward to being a part of your next theatrical production!
School Theatre Plays and One Acts:
An audience of 1500. Costumes by a Tony-award winning costumer. A set five times the size of any I’d ever worked on. A role from the history books. The longest running play of its kind with the largest hand prop in North America. A summer on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This is what I excitedly accepted in March of this year. That plus performing in ninety degree weather. With mosquitoes. Welcome to life performing in The Lost Colony, the longest running outdoor drama in America.
From an actor’s point of view, outdoor drama can be broken into four parts. The first I’ll call Movin’ In. For the first week or so, our lives were about moving ourselves into our cabins-cum-dorms and preparing the huge stage and backstage areas for performance. I was lucky to get one of the four solo cabins to myself, but most were shacked up three or four to a space. Clearing out old props, pieces of dead wood, sweeping, hauling – for an actor, my arms and muscles were awfully sore!
Next was The Rehearsal, of course. We were divided up into Principals, Dancers, Choir, and Actor/Techs (ATs) – all in all, over 120 paid positions. Rehearsing in the increasingly hot sun was an experience; I usually don’t wear sunglasses to rehearsals for other plays! We’d spend days rehearsing our scenes, and nights (often until 11 pm or later) rehearsing bigger chunks of the play. Adding a seven-minute choreographed fight scene was fascinating to watch, as was the pyrotechnics involved with live musket shots and actual fireworks.
Third came The Opening, and the couple of weeks afterward. What a thrill! The entire community, as a tourist area, is very supportive of The Lost Colony. Walk into any establishment – restaurant, bank, bookstore – and you’ll find someone who either was in the show, or has a friend or relation that has been in it. This year’s show featured a fine cast and production crew. The show went off without a hitch, on a perfect, clear and cool night, to a full house.
And finally, The Run is upon me/us even as I write this. All told we’ll perform this show 73 times this summer. As the hot months begin to unfold, there is a saying around here that goes, “We have each been costumed in five layers of Tony-award winning wool,” and brother, I think that’s true! If you’re an Indian, you get the benefit of much less costuming but the disadvantage of getting ravaged by mosquitoes each night. But more than compensating for all of this is intermission and down-time during the show when I get to relax backstage – and stare out at the ocean unfolding less than ten yards from my feet. The sunsets are spectacular, the view unbelievable. And for a Minnesotan-by-way-of-Chicago, this is all foreign and beautiful territory to me.
I’m having the experience of my life right now. I think outdoor dramas in general are just that – incredible, sweat-drenched, fun-filled experiences. And so I’ll end this article with a paraphrase from Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone – signing off from Manteo, North Carolina where the technical crew is strong, the production staff is good-looking, and all the actors are above average.
Theatre Terms
From our right and left, to not being allowed to mention the Scottish play Macbeth, it sometimes seems like we thespians are speaking a different language. If you are new to theatre or are trying to introduce theatre to students, administrators and volunteers, below please find some common terms defined.
Backstage
Any part of the stage not in the acting area during a performance.Blackout
Rapid extinguishing of all light on stage.Blocking
The movement of an actor onstage.Break A Leg
Traditional good luck greeting between cast and crew before a performance.Cross
In blocking, to move from one area of the stage to another.Dress Rehearsal
The final rehearsal before the performance. The actors are in costume and all technical problems should have been sorted out.Entrance
Place on a set through which the actor may appear. Point in the script at which an actor appears on stage.Epilogue
A speech to the audience by an actor after the formal action of the play is concluded.Exit
The process of leaving the stage. Point in the script at which an actor leaves the stage.Exposition
Background knowledge required by an audience to understand the play. The information is sometimes not in the script, but more often is conveyed in early speeches by subordinate characters.Flat
A basic unit of scenery, a wooden frame covered with either canvas or plywood, and painted with the required picture.Fourth Wall
The imaginary wall which separates the audience from the stage in a proscenium theatre.Gobo
A metal plate with a pattern punched out of it and placed in the gate of a profile spot to produce an image or outline on stage.House
The audience or the auditorium.Macbeth
The play that it is unlucky to speak the name of, or to quote from, in a theatre. Referred to as The Scottish Play or The Unmentionable. This tradition dates from the first opening night of the play in 1606 when the boy actor playing Lady Macbeth died backstage during the show.Matinee
Afternoon performance of a show.Offstage
Backstage area outside the performance area.Prologue
Speech given to the audience by an actor before the start of the play.Properties
Props are any items or articles used by the actors other than scenery and costumes.Preset
Anything in position before the beginning of a scene or act.Scrim
Finely woven fabric which can be translucent or opaque using lighting from different angles. Small pieces of a scrim material is often used in front of lanterns to soften the light beam.Segue
Originally a musical term for an immediate follow-on, now used more generally for any immediate follow-on.SFX
Abbreviation for Sound Effects, or Special Effects.Stage right and stage left:
Stage directions in the script and the director use stage right and stage left to help clarify who’s right and left. Keep in mind that these directions are always from the point of view of an actor facing the audience.Wings
The out of view areas to the sides of the acting area.Eldridge terms you may see when ordering:
Performance
Even if you do not charge admission, it is considered a performance if individual parts are assigned or memorized, or if anyone is watching the actors, including students and parents, classes, assemblies, showcases or competitions. A dress rehearsal being viewed is also considered a performance.Royalties or Performance License
Royalty fees are noted in each description and must be paid before your first performance, even if no admission is charged. Payment of royalties provides limited rights granted under license. Payment is not a transfer of title. Unsecured royalties (unreported performances) may result in substantially higher fees. Please remember to report all performances to us before opening night. If you wish to use any of our materials in radio, television, cable or video broadcasts, please contact us for licensing information and reasonable royalty rates.Copyright
Please remember that all Eldridge plays, musicals, art and any other materials offered for sale are copyrighted. To copy any work in any way is an infringement of federal copyright laws.Freeviews
Freeviews allow you to read the cast list, props, costumes, setting, and several pages of dialogue to better assist you in making your selection. You may also listen to musical freeviews. This service is absolutely free and available online at www.histage.com.Previews or perusal scripts
These are single copies of plays or musicals which you can purchase to read in their entirety. Please remember: to perform any play or musical, you must order either a complete cast set of scripts.Community theatre play
Eldridge titles that call for a cast of mostly adults and has themes that are too mature for a high school stage. Our community theatre plays are divided into two categories, full-length plays for community theatre and one-act plays for community theatre. We have all genres including comedies for community theatre, comedic plays for community theatre, comedy plays for community theatre, dramatic plays for community theatre, full-length plays for community theatre, plays for adult audiences, community theatre one-act plays, and short plays for community theatre.Full-length plays
Eldridge full-length plays for schools have a running time of approximately 45 minutes or more. Our full-length plays are divided by cast size.One-act plays
Each of our one acts have a running time of approximately 45 minutes or less. The titles range from serious, social issue, to laugh-out-loud comedies. Whether you are looking for an evening of one acts, a competition play, or just a shorter play Eldridge’s listing of one acts will have what you need.Readers theatre
Similar to a workshop piece, but without the analysis, where the cast reads or presents the play aloud with the script in hand and without stage movement.