These plays are available for purchase in book form from Playing After Dark’s online and on-demand publication service here
Email all production and/or rights inquiries to: Contact Us
COMEDIES and FARCES (full length plays)
IN-SECURITY: An Alarmingly Romantic Comedy by Todd McGinnis & T. Gregory Argall
2 Acts – Cast: 2 Female / 4 Male (possible gender flip 1 male to female)
Nothing seems to go as planned for Linda, a small-town girl who has moved to the city. She arrives for her first day of work at a Security Response Company only to learn that her job position might have been cut thanks to a corporate takeover by a policy-obsessed conglomerate!
Fortunately, Linda finds an unlikely knight in shining armour in Ted, a charmingly wise-cracking and mischievous co-worker. But when life with her dreamy musician-boyfriend turns out to be not quite so dreamy after all, and Ted offers Linda a place to stay… both of their lives become suddenly more complicated.
SELF-HELP BY DUMMIEZ by Todd McGinnis & T. Gregory Argall
2 Acts – Cast: 3 Female / 4 Male
When a self-absorbed psychologist is late for work, the growing collection of “mixed nuts” in his waiting room are left to fend for themselves…
with hilariously unexpected results.
POINT OF VIEWING by Todd McGinnis
2 Acts – Cast 3 Female / 2 Male
When a technical mishap destroys their pre-taped prime-time, 10th Anniversary special, the three female hosts of TV’s most popular daytime talk show are forced to go live-to-air to replace it.
But behind-the-scenes politics, tell-all tabloid stories and rumours about the show’s fate have lit the fuse on an emotional powder-keg.
Now, with no chance for edits or retakes, 10 years of off-camera differences are about to explode…on the air!
GONE FISHIN’ by Todd McGinnis
2 Acts – Cast: 3 Male
Three Brothers, One Boat, TOO Close for Comfort!
When three estranged brothers are forced to spend the day fishing together as a condition of their late father’s will, they start to learn more about each other than any of them ever wanted to know.
STAGE FRIGHT, Or… “LAUGH?” I Thought I’d DIE! *by Todd McGinnis
GENRE: COMEDY-SUSPENSE/HORROR
2 Acts – Cast: (minimum) 2 Female / 5 Male*
*NOTE: For this play please direct all production and/or rights inquiries to: Samuel French
A tale told in four vignettes, Stage Fright is an alternately terrifying, hilarious and always intriguing journey across the decades. The theatre-venue itself becomes a character in this tale that allows the audience to experience the history of a haunted playhouse… from the inside.
Written with two endings—one scary, one comedic—giving producers complete control over the kind of experience they want to give their audience.
*cast is expandable up to 25 total performers. Many options for doubling / tripling and gender flipping roles. A great piece for community / amateur theatre groups & companies looking to provide as many onstage opportunities as possible.
THUNDERBOLTS AND DUNDERHEADS by Todd McGinnis
2 Acts – Cast: 3 Female / 4 Male
Iris, the Goddess of Rainbows goes to Mount Olympus looking for a promotion and ends up getting “downsized”.
If she wants to survive, she’s going to have to help Zeus make a “love connection” with a visiting Nordic Goddess. Unfortunately for Iris, Zeus’s wife, Hera, Queen of the Gods has other ideas.
Can Iris find a way survive by somehow keeping everyone happy? Find out in this hilarious comedy that breathes new life into the old gods.
KNAVE OF HEARTS by Todd McGinnis
2 Acts – Cast: 4 Female / 4 Male
Swashbuckling rogue Jack Hawkins gets more than he bargains for when he tries to swindle Lord Henry Bannigan… a frustrated father who is trying to marry off two daughters without paying any dowry. When the girls decide they want to marry Jack instead, Hawkins realizes his carefree bachelor ways are in serious danger of coming to an end.
If he’s going to get out of this one he’s going to have to think fast and talk even faster. Fortunately, in an age of Chivalry, Honour and Romance… this guy was full of it!
ONE ACT PLAYS (Various Genres)
TRAMMEL THE CULL (a Suspense/Thriller) by Todd McGinnis
1 Act – Cast: 2 Female / 2 Male
A deadly game of cat and mouse is about to begin.
But in this dance of sexual predator and prey… Who is the cat? And who is the mouse?
Find out in this one act play full of wicked twists and shocking turns, where nothing is what it seems and the ending… is a killer.
EVERYBODY DIES (a Comedy) by Todd McGinnis
1 Act – Cast: 2 Female / 3 Male
A sitcom writer pulling an all-nighter with his co-workers wakes from a bad dream, a dream in which every one of them dies.
At first the others just laugh and mock his mounting sense of dread.
But when his déjà vu turns deadly, hilarity and horror rise together.
THAT’S WHAT And Other Hilarious Exercises In Subtext For Actors, Directors, Teachers, & Students by Todd McGinnis & T. Gregory Argall
THAT’S WHAT by Todd McGinnis
3 Actors. 12 HILARIOUS minutes. 2 words of dialogue . McGinnis’s now-legendary, hilarious and brain-busting exercise in subtext is finally available to the wider acting public… along with two more hilarious companion pieces that constrain vocabulary to fully challenge actors and directors alike.
Volume includes: That’s What by Todd McGinnis, Yes No Maybe by T. Gregory Argall, & Hey! by Todd McGinnis & T. Gregory Argall