NOW PUBLISHED by YouthPLAYS.com. In a moment of irony, this one-act about eight students attempting to stage a banned play in spite of the opposition of the school administration and their own parents, was recently nixed by a school principal. It ended up premiering in the 2023 Kansas Thespians Festival by Fort Scott High School.
It covers some heavy topics but has no adult language or profane references to a deity/obscenity/etc.
What the play truly needs is 8 students who are eager to work as a team to nail some tricky timing/movement work, and either double up the other roles or use up to seven additional actors in the easier parts.

FULL LENGTH. Now available from Next Stage Press!
When a young maiden who has never touched a sword learns she must defend her inheritance in a duel, she struggles with a milksop suitor, a servant girl posing as a Prussian fencing master, a Prussian fencing master who thinks he is there to marry her, a stodgy lawyer and her domineering aunt – the finest blade anywhere - to save her house and lands. Like all classic farces, everyone gets the ending they deserve in unexpected ways... but will they be satisfied?

36 minutes.
This is a one act version of my published full length play, edited to be UIL performance length! I'd love to get some feedback, and I will probably tweak it after the first performance before I submit it to my publisher as the official one act version.
The Ithaca Ladies Read Medea is about 1950's faculty wives who get together for a play reading, while suspecting that one of them has betrayed the others to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.
The full length version includes the role of Senator Mundt, who interrogates each of the four faculty wives about their husband's activities.

Brand new, unproduced - and I'd love to get any feedback!
Four survivors of a shared traumatic childhood experience - a visit to a chocolate factory that went disastrously wrong - confront the terrifying news that a man they thought was dead is plotting to give away five new golden tickets.

10 minute play. Gabrielle is haunted by nightmares after the drowning death of her young daughter. Her husband Raoul is equally distraught - but he's also ripped apart by the fact that Gabrielle dreams their daughter is a monster coming to get her. It's a fight between two broken, hurting people lashing out to try and handle their pain. There is a brief appearance by the ghost of their daughter at the end - a non-speaking part, playable by almost any age actor, but useful for a child's first role.
The play premieres in May 2018 in Australia.
Content Warning - please read the description for themes.

10 minute play, and a radio-play version is available!
Two siblings are stuck with the weird, creepy - and ultimately maybe not even human - kid from next door, on July Fourth, when there are firecrackers to be stolen and played with. Let freedom ring!
Suitable for high school, possibly Middle although it might be too edgy.
Content Warning: implied offstage horror; blood.

10 Minute - Janet, a nineteen year old college drop out, is heading home to her parents after failing every single course, unsure of how to break the news to them. To make it through the all-night drive, she's hired professional road trip copilot Randy, a 50 year old guy, divorced, missing his daughter. The play starts after her car has driven into a ditch, and they find themselves stranded on the side of the road near Yosemite, right by a sign saying "Do Not Feed the Bears". Yes, they do end up on the sign, listening to an angry bear and gradually forming an unlikely friendship.

One Act - A frail hypochondriac tries to ask his neighbor's headstrong daughter to marry him in spite of a long history of rivalry between their families.
This play is an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Marriage Proposal, but set in Wheeler County, Georgia in 1881.

Ten Minute Play - A man with no feelings falls for a woman with no taste at a support group for the sensory deprived.
Published in Smith & Kraus' Best Ten Minute Plays of 2012
"Unique, lip-smacking, gourmet surprises.... The Four Senses of Love written by Arthur M. Jolly is a hilarious coupling of two members of a sensory-deprived support group." - Chicago Theater Beat
Content warning: Onstage kiss, discussion of disabilities and "passing".

Ten minute play. Four men meet at the urinals of a restaurant bathroom - and clash over politics, physical attributes, the meaning of masculinity... and of life.

Ten Minute Play - (Excerpt only - published work) Four teenagers, lost in the remains of a forest after a devastating fire, search for the former camp site of their friend who started the blaze - but find that ghosts, secrets, and guilt endure long after the flames have died.

Full length play (excerpt only - published work) In 1953, after interrogation by the House Unamerican Activities Committee, four university wives meet for their monthly play reading, knowing one of them betrayed the others.
Tonight, their secrets and their deceptions will burst through the veneer of decency they struggle to maintain.
This is the night they have chosen to read Medea.

There are roles for six women - 2 in their 20's, three in their 40's or 50's and one a generation older than the others (60's up.) One of the women uses a wheelchair. There is one additional role for a man, for a total cast of 6F, 1M.

Note: This play is been published by Next Stage Press. Having polished it literally until the final version sent to print, I know that any version previously downloaded here is out of date. If you want a perusal copy for a theatre proposal, please contact me directly, or, if you have the $, purchase the play at nextstagepress.com!
"Mr. Jolly’s play is in turns drawing room comedy, serious social satire, and bitter political drama. It is also utterly fascinating and perfectly absorbing. I suspect this play will have legs and I expect it will be picked up by many theatre companies looking to make the best use of their female actors." - Theatre Notes Review
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Full length (excerpt only - published work) A spoiled princess is tasked by a witch with finding three magical gifts if she wants to escape an arranged marriage to a stupid prince - but discovers that the true magic is within herself all along. Published by YouthPLAYS, Inc.

10 Minute Play. What's worse, a dead rat in the toilet or a dead husband in the kitchen? Is there a difference?
In the play, Babs has to make some tough decisions when her old flame Abby turns up on the run from her abusive husband - who she's stabbed in the back of the neck with a kitchen knife.
It's a dark comedy with a heart of murder. (This play was formerly titled "Of Rats and men")
Content warning: discussion of past spousal abuse, mostly implied.

One Act for Middle School Students. I wrote this play while trapped in my Houston home by the rising waters of Hurricane Harvey - and all author proceeds, whether from sales or productions will go directly to charities working for hurricane relief.
In Rising, seven combative Middle School students, trapped in their classroom by rising floodwaters, struggle to survive against the storm outside and the rising conflicts between them. As they clash over their minimal supplies and desperate situation, differences are magnified, and friendships are both forged and tested, until they are faced with the ultimate decision: Flee into the storm now, or stay while the water around them gets ever higher.
Content warning: children in jeopardy from natural disaster; discussion of race as a factor in hurricane response efforts.

10 Minute Play. Reynold, frustrated by his situation and trying to prove something to his partner Jennifer, attempts to make the world's most perfect fondue... without counting the cost.

One act musical. This is the story of Straw, Sticks and Bricks who longed to be houses... the life of characters in a fairy tale we never even think of as characters! What happens when their dreams come true (yes, there is an appearance by pigs and a wolf) and, more importantly, what happened after the wolf left, and how they rebuild their lives in the aftermath of all that huffing and puffing.
MUSIC BY CHRISTIAN REGUL.

One act play. Joe and Sal - a feisty young couple, smart, sarcastic, and deeply in love - are challenged on the night Joe comes home with unexplained blood on his shoes. Sal tries to cope as best she can - in spite of her phobia about blood, anxiety over the pregnancy test she's been waiting for, fear of AIDS and an inexplicable rain of blood falling from the sky... Nothing is quite as it seems in this exploration of anxiety and hidden secrets in a seemingly perfect relationship. Published in the collection "Thin Lines" from Next Stage Press.

One Act (excerpt only - published work) A bitter waitress tries to get money from a crusty drunk and the bar's naive new owner - to fund a trip to kill her father. Merry Christmas! Published in the collection "Thin Lines" from Next Stage Press.
Content warning: Discussion of an abusive history including implied sexual abuse, alcoholism.

TEN MINUTE PLAY (excerpt only - published work) A rubber duck, a toy submarine, a washcloth and a sponge face an existential crisis when they discover they are afraid of water - more than that, they are completely perplexed by it, and by their individual reactions to it. Rubber Duckie's ability to float above the others ("Well, I have natural duckness - it's a gift"), leads to argument and accusations, ultimately threatening to tear the group apart - but Rubber Duckie also conceals a dark secret - one that must squeak out in the end. Published by YouthPLAYS.
"Arthur M. Jolly's piece began as a seemingly one-dimensional skit about a Rubber Ducky, Sponge, Submarine and Washcloth traumatized by a small child, but quickly transformed into existential comedy and comic religious allegory." - Pittsburgh City paper