Ruben Carbajal

Looking to drown his sorrows, a depressed straggler accidentally chooses the worst bar in the world for the job.
Based on a true story.

[30 MINUTE ONE-ACT]
A down-on-his-luck hawker and his ornery mule are more suited for giving than selling. The half-hour playscript exists in a world of need and magic, and boasts a generous cast of 12 (including two imaginative puppet roles) with opportunities for doubling and gender neutrality, if needed.

[10-MINUTE PLAY] - [STAGE or AUDIO]
MAUDE, a struggling elder millennial, finds herself trapped in a shipping container with legendary actor Nicholas Cage. As they try to come to terms with their predicament, things only get worse.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
A disagreement erupts when a new member arrives in the afterlife.

[ONE-MINUTE (ISH) PLAY]
In darkness, a group of fireflies alight their mating calls. As their brief, illuminated love notes try to dazzle, one lightning bug has had enough. FIREFLIES is a short play about loneliness and finding connection in a time when there are more signals and noise than ever before.

A chance encounter upends two very different lives: a man whose very existence is held together by routine, and a legendary cryptid at the top of his game.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
The CONDEMNED has a minute to live. The TIMEKEEPER stoically counts the seconds. What's left to do?

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
A family gathers in anticipation of their picnic.

[30-MINUTE ONE-ACT]
*2024 WATER WORKS FESTIVAL FINALIST
*Included in The Best Women's Stage Monologues of 2025

A long-married couple discovers a new door in their home.
When the door starts sexting one of them, things really get weird.

The play was presented in a staged reading in June of 2024 as part of the Live Arts Water Works Festival in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Directed by Leena Rose Miller
PERRY: Nick Hagy
EVER: Elizabeth Rose
DOOR: Sophie Clayton
And James Sanford

Bluebird Theatre presented the play in a staged reading in Brooklyn, New York, on August 3rd, 2024.
PERRY: Lachlan Quertermous
EVER: Megan Quick
DOOR: Gracie Rittenberg

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
Q bravely waits for the time to come.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
An unusual support group welcomes a new member.

Produced as a part of the Gi60 International Play Festival 2023 and reprised in 2024.

WALKER, an elderly person, tells us where everyone went.

WAYNE, a surly sixty-something, battles on the phone with customer service.

[TEN-MINUTE PLAY]
While attempting to assemble an Ikea dresser, a long-married couple inadvertently activates a plot to end the world.

If this play sounds like it's up your alley, you can read it for free in the Stage Partners short play anthology, (TEN)ISH: COMEDIES!

Visit: https://yourstagepartners.com/some-assembly-required

[TEN MINUTE PLAY]
The residents of a run-down flophouse are transients, haunted in more ways than one. But a deeper mystery unfolds: who are the ghosts, and who are the haunted?

This play is part of the Stage Partners short play collection Ten(ish): Horror.

If this sounds like something up your alley, you can read, purchase, and license A PLACE TO REST YOUR HEAD here: https://yourstagepartners.com/a-place-to-rest-your-head

[ONE-MINUTE MONOLOGUE]
A monologue derived from Google's top search queries.

You can watch an excellent short video of this monologue performed by Mark Oristano and directed by Jeremy Schwartz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK74hUkzfFo

Stage Premiere:
Stage Left Theatre's Playwright's Playground Festival
August 27, 2022
Directed by Lindsay Teter
Performed by Maeve Griffith

[FIVE-MINUTE PLAY]
In fragments of time, a couple tries to piece together their broken relationship.

World Premiere (Streaming) - Firecracker Productions, 2021
Directed by Sammy McManus
Starring Paige Thomas, Nivas AJ

[A VERY SHORT MONOLOGUE for a middle-aged man of undetermined race]
Why would a man install dozens of blaring train horns around his suburban property?
(Inspired by a true news item)

*Selected to be part of the Playground Experiment's Faces of America Monologue Festival #7
Performed by Richard E. Calvache

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
A married couple reflect on their lives in the frozen moment before a fatal car crash. This one-minute play had its premiere in the 2009 Gone in 60 Festival in Brooklyn, NY. In 2016, the #Gi60 Festival named it the best play in the festival's 10-year history.

Published in the anthology One Minute Plays: A Practical Guide to Tiny Theatre.
2009 & 2016 Gi60 Festival, Brooklyn NY
2022 Jakespeare VTC 1 Moment in Time Festival (Streaming)

[TWO-MINUTE PLAY]
Long-married ALEX and ALDEN meet for the first time.

Premiere:
2025 Gi60 NYC Festival
Director: Elizabeth Ostler
ALEX - Jonathan Nathaniel Dingle-El
AUDEN - Collin McConnell

[TEN-MINUTE PLAY]
This play was mined from the Missed Connections section of the North New Jersey Craigslist page. Mostly verbatim: only subtractions in text. My hope is that the piece is conducted, more than spoken, with a lot of room for actors & directors to experiment.

Inspired by David Shield's 'Reality Hunger,' this is part of a series of documentary theatre based on found sources of real-world dialogue.

(A play for a diverse cast of 3-8)

Sauk Theatre, Sauk Shorts, July 2020 (Live production/Streaming)
Downtown Urban Arts Festival, 2020 Selection (Streaming)
World Premiere: Freshwater Theatre, We Just Clicked, (Live & Publication)
Licensing rights are held with the author.

A PARASITE claims victory over the HOST.

[MONOLOGUE, FIVE-MINUTES]
Jennifer, a born-again pro-life teen finds herself pregnant.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
A FATHER and SON confront the distance that has grown between them.

Premiere: 2021 Gi60 Festival, Brooklyn NY
2022: Jakespeare VTC 1 Moment in Time Festival (Streaming)

DESIRE and HUNGER are restless together.

[TEN-MINUTE PLAY]
Three middle-aged, self-styled cryptozoologists finally bag the prize they've devoted their lives to. The moment isn't what they imagined. And perhaps they've made the biggest mistake of their lives.

[TEN MINUTE AUDIO/STAGE PLAY]
An emergency volunteer tries to communicate with a man in a high-flying lawn chair. Is he a hero or a lunatic?

The audio version of this play won the 2019 Marion Thauer Brown Audio Scriptwriting Award.

[MONOLOGUE]
A monologue comprised entirely of cover copy from back issues of Cosmopolitan Magazine.
A woman negotiates the expectations and dysfunctional life-framing suggestions of a popular lifestyle magazine.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
Outside of a hospital, people start to gather, each with a message.

Produced as a part of the 1-Minute Festival's - Coronavirus Plays: Day 2
Thursday April 9th, 2020 at 7:30pm Eastern
Hosted & Produced by Francisco Solorzano, Barefoot Theatre Company / Barefoot Studio Pictures, NYC

STONE, a retired government worker is brought in for questioning. He knows too well what happens next.

[ONE-ACT AUDIO PLAY]
*Included in The Best Men's Stage Monologues of 2024
Live world premiere on Maker Park Radio by Sundog Theatre as a winner of The Original's 2023 Project.
Podcast premiere by Bluebird Theatre Company in March 2023.
Finalist, The Donald J. McCann One-Act Festival

A commercial jet is stolen from SeaTac airport. As it makes erratic maneuvers over Tacoma, an air traffic controller reaches out to an unlikely culprit: a luggage handler looking for answers at 17,000 feet.
This hybrid fiction/found play is based on transcripts from the 2018 Horizon Air incident.

[TEN-MINUTE PLAY] A mysterious stranger visits an amiable suburban couple with an offer they just can't seem to fathom: push a button that will both kill a random person and earn them a million dollars.

[TEN-MINUTE PLAY]
As a commercial airliner faces imminent disaster, two strangers in row 17 decide to take risqué measures to alleviate their fears.

Finalist in the 2020 Snowdance Ten-Minute Comedy Festival.

[TEN-MINUTE PLAY]
An imagined documentary of a true story, an unusual New York City traffic accident makes an indelible mark on three very different lives.

Appears in the anthology 105 5 Minute Plays: https://amzn.to/3A4hy8Y

[5 MINUTE AUDIO MONOLOGUE]
A GUIDE takes you on a meditative journey. But to where?

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
A rocking chair hidden in an attic haunts a traumatized woman.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
Two thugs in a car. A hit doesn't go as planned.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
Late night/early morning in a suburban backyard, a woman awaits visitors that her partner can't comprehend.

[90 SECOND PLAY]
Four close associates of a wealthy capitalist recount his life.

[2 MINUTE MONOLOGUE]
A few drinks in, a man who may or may not be a priest, tells us about heaven and hell, and who is going there.

Premiere: 2021 DeFrente Productions (Streaming), Starring Isiah Alexander
2022: Jakespeare VTC's 1 Moment in Time Festival (Streaming), directed by Jake Lewis.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
[MONOLOGUE]
A destruction myth, to be told around a fire.

[ONE MINUTE PLAY]
A lone voice calls out in the night. What is it? What does it mean?

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
An actor insists they have in their possession Chekhov's gun. The fact that it's a squirt gun is only one of the problems.

A very silly one-minute play for two actors, with a bonus alternative (and more peaceful) version.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
A randomly-selected audience member is unhappy to find themselves introduced as a guest lecturer tasked with a tall order of a subject.

[2 MINUTE MONOLOGUE - AUDIO PLAY]
A lone voice tries to grasp the time before.

[FIVE-MINUTE MONOLOGUE]
A fast-rising, ubiquitous celebrity gives an exclusive interview.

This is the fourth in a series of short Pandemic Plays. Others available here on NPX are The Quarantine, Charity, and The Cherry Blossoms.

[TEN-MINUTE PLAY]
Based on a true story. Locals search for a tourist lost during a rest stop en-route to an Icelandic volcano. But the racial dynamics surrounding the missing woman creates a curious blind spot.

[MONOLOGUE]
*Semi-finalist for the Playground Experiment's Faces of America Monologue Festival

Brenda, an alienated and abused teen, ponders what lies behind her choices. How do we explain our simplest motives, let alone the unthinkable?

[TEN-MINUTE PLAY]
The year, 1964. In a motel room in an undisclosed location, two tense FBI agents attempt to uncover a possible communist plot. Inspired by true events.

A lifelong music-lover fighting a covid-19 infection reflects on choosing the one last song he'd want to hear.
This monologue is a part of an ongoing series of Pandemic Plays I'm working through, all of which are available here on NPX.
This is an early draft, and considered in-progress.

[MONOLOGUE]
A middle-aged Dad faces the hell of a Midwestern snowstorm on a quest to score low-priced Halloween decorations. When he finds another holiday has eclipsed his favorite day of the year, he's forced to question everything he believes in, which isn't much.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
A famous Instagram influencer finds herself alone. Where is everyone?

[FIVE-MINUTE PLAY]
A patient tries to help a doctor wrestle with the horror that surrounds them. But the losses are even greater than they have both imagined. This draft is in-progress.

This is part of an ongoing series of Pandemic Plays that are slowly growing into a collection. You can read the others here on NPX: Charity, The Quarantine, In Bloom, Death is a Star, and Preamble.

[ONE-ACT PLAY]
"In just 25 minutes, Ruben Carbajal's HOLD is able to make you laugh and think about your life."
—Review Fix

A desperate man seeking aid from a mental health hotline is instead sent into a surreal automated phone system purgatory.

[TEN-MINUTE PLAY] In the distant or perhaps not-so-distant future, the last man to have read a book visits a class for show & tell.

Casting: 2 to 10 (1 male, 1 female - w/ 2-10 offstage voices)

[FULL-LENGTH PLAY]
A single mother and her two young sons invent fantasies and fabricate lies to cope with the absence of their hard-drinking father. When he unexpectedly returns, dreams, deceptions, truth and reality collide with violence.
The story itself is a shattered narrative that moves from kitchen-sink naturalism, deeply interior monologs and dreamlike sequences.

[ONE-MINUTE PLAY]
A Judge questions a defendant who seems more interested in drawing on his legal pad. This might be because he's five years old. Based on transcripts and reporting from Buzzfeed and the Texas Tribune.

[ONE-MINUTE]
A day as a lifetime.

Premiered at the 2013 Gi60 International Play Festival.

[ONE-MINUTE MONOLOGUE]
An actor performs a monologue, but questions the words he is forced to speak.