10-minute play

  • Trending 10-Minute Plays for Small Theatre Productions

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    Small theatre thrives on short plays. They are cheap to stage, easy to rehearse, and audiences genuinely love them. A tight 10-minute script puts enormous pressure on every line, and when it works, it really works.

    Whether you are a director building an evening of short plays, a teacher looking for a class exercise, or a group planning a festival, this list gives you genuine options. These are plays that have actually been performed, not just written. They have survived real rehearsals, real casts, and real audiences.

    Here are ten plays worth your time.

    10 Trending 10-Minute Plays for Small Productions

    1. 10,000 Cigarettes by Alex Broun

    This is one of the most performed short plays in the world. It has had well over 300 productions across more than 30 countries. That is not a marketing claim. That is real production history.

    Four female characters take the audience through a dreamy, stylized world built around cigarettes and desire. The writing is theatrical, inventive, and specific. It works for student performers and professional companies alike.

    Preview and download the script

    2. The Kill by Alex Broun

    Two characters. Minimal staging. A dark twist you do not see coming.

    The Kill follows two people watching sport together, and it builds with the kind of quiet menace that holds a room without shouting. It works for a cast of two male actors or one male and one female. The compressed format makes every exchange matter.

    Grab it from the ten minute plays collection.

    3. Rupert and the Seven Russian Email Brides by Alex Broun

    This one is exactly what it sounds like, and it earns every laugh.

    A cast of one male and up to eight female actors explore fantasy, loneliness, and online delusion through a play that is both funny and surprisingly honest. It has been performed across the Short+Sweet festival circuit globally and holds up well on a bare stage with minimal props.

    Find the script at alexbroun.online.

    4. The First Fireworks by Alex Broun

    This two-hander for female actors is one of the quieter plays on this list. Quieter, but not soft.

    A mother and daughter watch New Year’s Eve fireworks together, and everything between them sits just under the surface of that ordinary moment. It is emotionally precise and leaves an audience genuinely moved. Great for student performances and festivals that want something with real dramatic weight.

    Preview The First Fireworks

    5. Tape by José Rivera

    This play gets taught, performed, and discussed in theatre programs constantly. A person is led into a dark room and made to sit and listen to every lie they told during their lifetime. All of it, recorded on tape.

    Two actors. One table. No easy exits. Rivera strips the staging down to almost nothing and lets the concept do the work. It is compact, haunting, and effective across a wide range of production styles. The script is published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc.

    6. Trying to Find Chinatown by David Henry Hwang

    A Caucasian man raised by Chinese-American parents stops a street musician in New York to ask for directions to Chinatown. The musician is Asian, identifies as American, and takes immediate offense.

    What follows is a sharp, fast conversation about identity, heritage, and who gets to claim what. It is a two-actor play that runs the full range of tension within a single scene. Hwang is a Tony Award-winning playwright, and this short play demonstrates exactly why. The script is available through Dramatists Play Service.

    7. Sure Thing by David Ives

    This one appears on more short play festival programs than almost any other. An interrupted first conversation between two strangers at a café resets every time either person says the wrong thing. A bell rings. They try again.

    It sounds like a gimmick. In practice, it is brilliantly structured and gives actors real craft to work with. Directors trust it because audiences respond to it every single time. The script is published through Dramatists Play Service.

    8. Naomi in the Living Room by Christopher Durang

    Durang writes absurdist comedy that cuts. This one places a highly disturbed mother, Naomi, in a living room with her son and daughter-in-law, and lets the chaos escalate beyond all reasonable limits.

    It reads as satire. On stage, it hits hard and fast. Three characters, one location, and a playwright who knows exactly when to push. Durang received the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and his shorter work holds the same sharp edge. Published through Dramatists Play Service.

    9. Words, Words, Words by David Ives

    Three monkeys named Milton, Swift, and Kafka are locked in a room with typewriters. The experiment is whether they will eventually produce Hamlet by chance.

    That premise alone makes directors want to produce it. Two or three actors in a contained space, strong comic dialogue, and a premise that gives an audience something to think about after the curtain. It works reliably at festivals and in student contexts. Also published through Dramatists Play Service.

    10. Talking With by Jane Martin

    Technically a collection of monologues, Talking With is frequently staged as a short play evening. Each monologue runs around 10 minutes and features a woman in an unexpected or extreme circumstance.

    The writing is Southern Gothic in character, specific in voice, and difficult to shake. It has been performed across the United States since its premiere at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 1982 and remains a consistent choice for drama programs and festivals.

    What Makes These Plays Work on a Small Stage

    The plays on this list share a few things. Small casts. Clear dramatic stakes. Minimal staging requirements. These are not accidents.

    A 10-minute play that demands a complex set or a large ensemble puts enormous pressure on a small theatre budget and a short rehearsal window. The scripts above work because they trust the writing and the actors over the production design.

    A few things that hold across the list:

    • Every play establishes conflict within the first minute.
    • Every character wants something specific and is blocked from getting it.
    • Staging stays simple so performance does not depend on production resources.
    • The ending lands because the play earns it, not because it surprises for its own sake.

    If you want more guidance on why structure matters so much in the short form, this breakdown of how to structure a 10-minute play covers the set-up, escalation, and payoff framework in useful detail.

    Where to Find Scripts for Small Theatre Productions

    For Alex Broun’s plays, the full collection is available at alexbroun.online. Scripts are downloadable in PDF format for a one-off fee, with no royalties and worldwide performance rights included for 12 months. You can read a preview before you buy, which matters when you are selecting material for a festival or class.

    For other plays on this list, check Dramatists Play Service and Concord Theatricals, which handle licensing for a large portion of the American short play catalogue.

    The Dramatists Guild of America also maintains resources for directors and teachers working with licensed scripts, including guidance on performance rights. Browse Alex Broun’s 10-Minute Plays for Small Theatre Productions

  • HOW TO STRUCTURE A 10-MINUTE PLAY: SET-UP, ESCALATIONS AND THE PAY-OFF.

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    It’s important to check and refine your play’s structure. Although there are of course exceptions to the rule most ten-minute plays fall within the framework of a traditional “three act” structure often known as Beginning, Middle and End, which I like to call Set-Up, Escalation and Pay-Off.

    WHAT IS THE SET-UP ?

    The beginning of your play, when the lights come up – there may have been incidents before the lights come up but the Set-Up is where the audience joins the story. A play may begin with any number of events, incidents, entrances or exits.

    Possible Set-Ups:

    • A character enters
    • A stranger arrives
    • Two strangers meet
    • A character reveals something about themselves (i.e: “Dad, I’m gay !”)
    • A character wakes up – literally or metaphysically
    • A bus crashes
    • A character finds something
    • The lights come up

    WHAT IS AN ESCALATION?

    A twist, turn or progression that propels your story in another direction, to another level, raises stakes or intensity as you build towards the climax/end. A play may have any number of escalations or one main escalation around the middle of the play.

    Possible escalations:

    • A character makes a decision on a course of action
    • Another character enters
    • A character reveals a secret
    • The bus the characters are on crashes
    • A character makes a discovery about themselves, their situation or another character
    • A character reveals what they really want (i.e. I want you to marry me !)

    WHAT IS THE PAY-OFF ?

    The end of your play, which satisfactorily resolves the situation you are exploring or ends the story you began telling at the beginning. It may be open ended, neatly tied up, sudden, gentle, dramatic, subtle. A good Pay-Off often leaves the audience wanting more.

    Possible Pay-Offs:

    • A character exits
    • A decision is made
    • A character accedes to another character’s desires (e.g: Yes, I’ll marry you !)
    • The bus arrives at its destination
    • The lights go down
    • A character dies
    • A character accepts a decision or an event

    I hope you find this helpful and happy writing. Why not take a look how I use this structure in some of my 10-minute plays, downloadable on this website!

  • Top 12 Tips for writing a great 10-minute play

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    Alex Broun, one of the world’s leading experts in 10-minute plays, gives his top 12 tip s on what makes a great 10-minute play. You can read Alex’s plays at his new website – alexbroun.online.

    1. Dialogue and character are inextricably linked. If you know your characters you know how they speak. Good characters are the link to good dialogue, good dialogue is the link to good characters.
    2. There are no secrets – the secret to writing a good ten minute play is the same as writing a good play of any length. Strong characters, interesting story and good dialogue.
    3. You are writing for theatre, not film or TV – You need to ask yourself what makes your play theatrical. What makes it need to be performed on stage. Theatre is not just talking heads on stage. That is television. What makes the DOING interesting for the people WATCHING. Our whole challenge as a playwright is to make the DOING as interestring as possible for the people WATCHING.
    4. To write a good character you need two things – The character needs to WANT something AND the character needs to DO something to get what they want. Dramatic Tensionis caused by bringing characters into conflict. This happens when they both want opposing things.
    5. Why should I care ? – Ask yourself why the audience should CARE about your story, your characters and pay. What makes it special ? What makes it different ? What makes it stand out from the hundreds of plays, movies and TV shows the audience will see every year.
    6. Don’t submit your first draft – Like any good play, a ten minute play takes time to get right. Don’t think just cause it’s a ten minute play you can whip it up quickly and it will be perfect. Write a first draft – put it away for a week or two, get some feedback (from a number of sources), have a reading. Then write a second draft, then a third draft. Keep going until the play is as good as you can possibly make it – and every word is important – then you can submit it to Short+Sweet. Be flexible, listen to feedback. It might make your play better.
    7. Don’t give up – It’s very rare that you’ll write a play perfect the first time. An example of this is my play 10,000 cigarettes. Just because your first draft isn’t as good as you want it to be – the idea for the play may still be good. So keep working on the play. Don’t throw it away just because someone says – “I didn’t like it.” And remember – playwriting, like any skill, takes a while to develop – and the more you do it. The better you’ll get.
    8. You never know until you try – Many of us think of writing a play without ever picking up a pen to try. The first step to writing a good play is actually writing something.
    9. Remember : What is the story you are trying to tell – and just tell that story. It’s a ten-minute play. You don’t have time for anything that is unnecessary to the story you are telling.
    10. People like characters, story, dialogue – they are not interested in the message UNLESS you have all those three. If you want to write a thesis or dissertation then go and do that. Audiences don’t respond well to didactic theatre.
    11. Write what you want – don’t question yourself. If you have a play in your head just write it. If you love the story/situation – others might as well. Let your plays be your passion.
    12. The key to a really great ten minute play is a good middle – Once you have set up the situation and characters something needs to happen that does three things – takes the play in a different direction, raises the stakes and speeds up the tempo. It’s like the car has been crusing along a straight road at 60kmh then it suddenly speeds up to 100kmh and starts going around corners. Examples of this on alexbroun.online are Saturday Night Newtown Sunday Morning Enmore has a good middle, The First Fireworks doesn’t. Makes Saturday Night Newtown Sunday Morning Enmore a much better play.