Playwrights Directory

This directory contains unpublished scripts from Mississippi playwights. These scripts were submitted to the Mississippi Theatre Association's Playwriting Competition in 2008. Scripts will be added to this directory each year as a means of sharing the works of these Mississippi playwrights. Contact the author if you are interested in reading or producing one of these scripts. If you are a Mississippi playwright, consider submitting your script to our annual competition. For more information visit the competition site.

Altered, one-act
Written by Adele Elliott
2W, 1M (non speaking)

This play is a conversation between an elderly mother and her adult daughter. It takes place one year after Katrina. The daughter, who lost everything in her New Orleans home, tries to adjust to her mother’s life in a small Mississippi town. The dialogue is funny and poignant, featuring two very different points of view. Altered  addresses individuality, adjustment and religious dogma. The play is about acceptance and adaptation under stressful circumstances…with just a touch of fantasy. It is one act, requires one set, and runs about thirty minutes.

For more information about this play, or others by this author, please contact Adele Elliott at adeleelliott@bellsouth.net.

Heart of the Matter, one-act
Written by Marianne Hill
2M, 4W

The setting is Oklahoma City, April 1995. Katy, a junior in high school, has been killed in the Murrah Federal Building bombing. The play opens with a soliloquy by her grief-stricken mother Marlene, and then flashes back to Katy’s last day at school, the day before the bombing. At school, Katy and friends talk about their lives and loves, and what they will do after they graduate. Katy brings up Ruby Ridge and Waco. Katy, it seems, could have been the daughter Tim McVeigh never had, but she is his polar opposite in her love for people. A scene at Marlene’s office brings in an adult perspective on the future facing the young. As events of the day unfold, the audience is acutely aware that the lives of these ordinary, yet extraordinary, teens are about to take a terrible turn. The next day, as Marlene drops Katy at the Federal Building, they argue. In the aftermath of the bombing, Marlene and Katy’s friends struggle with their thoughts and feelings. Their conversations reflect their anguish, and a love of justice that is at heart an embrace of people, in stark contrast to the delusional self-righteousness of McVeigh.

For further information about this play, or others by this author, please contact Marianne Hill at mhill@mississippi.edu.

Terminal, one-act
Written by Beth Kander
1M, 3W

Sara and Melanie are two strangers waiting in an airport terminal. Their plane is delayed, and chatty Melanie keeps attempting to strike up a conversation with shy Sara. Just before they board their flight, Sara confesses she is going to visit her estranged, terminally ill father - and is surprised when Melanie offers back that she is going to visit her own terminally ill mother. In a series of airport trips, Sara and Melanie continue to cross paths - and as they laugh at other passengers (played by one male actor and one female actor, portraying multiple characters), share their stories, and surface their fears, the resulting conversations and friendship pushes shy Sara to open herself to connection. Without ever directly asking or answering it, Terminal dances around the question: would we notice if an angel sat beside us at the airport?

For further information  about this play, or others by this author, please contact Beth Kander at beth_kander@yahoo.com.

Letting It Ride, one-act
Written by James Pfrehm
3W, 2M

(Winner of the 2008 MTA Playwriting Competition.)

Letting It Ride tells the story of a young married couple, financially strapped yet expecting their first child, and the standoff between them and the grandmother-to-be when the unexpected happens: their unborn child is diagnosed with Down Syndrome.  Inevitably, the couple faces the hardest decision of their lives: have the baby and incur seemingly insurmountable hardship, or abort the pregnancy. Naturally, the grandmother-to-be has a very strong opinion on the matter; whether or not her daughter and son-in-law will listen, is another story...

For more information about this play, or others by this author, please contact James Phrehm at pfrehmj2001@yahoo.com.

The Watch They Keep, two-act
Written by Judy H. Tucker
2M, 3W

The elderly mother is sinking into senility. The young-middle-age children--one man, alcoholic Jack, two sisters, flighty Sis and deadly serious Sandy, are trying to hold the family and the homestead together. Mama has bestowed all of her gratitude and love and attention on Mary (never on stage) who was the wife of her deceased son Mitch. The family is visited by the preacher Brother Pistol who falls for flirtatious Sis, a married woman. The family tries to make peace with their mother, and understand their family history, as the former sinks further into dementia.

For more information about this play, or others by this author, please contact Judy Tucker at dtucker6@comcast.net