Culled from the full length version for schools. SYNOPSIS: Anne Frank’s family and Heinz Geiringer’s family were neighbors in Amsterdam. After both Heinz and Margot were “called up” to work in a Nazi Labor camp, they went into hiding at roughly the same time. Anne Frank left a diary showing the difficulties of growing up in hiding. Heinz Geiringer left over twenty paintings and a book of poetry which show us both his hope for the future and the terror of the time. Heinz loved the arts. A trained musician, Heinz turned to painting and poetry to utilize his time. He painted on tea towels, pillowcases and any surface that he could find. During the play, we witness his artistic growth through his paintings, poetry and his sister’s remembrances. The paintings vary from a nostalgic love of the life he once led to the fears that were now part of his everyday existence. . From the tender age of fifteen to seventeen, Heinz created a body of work that exists to this day. After liberation, Otto Frank formed a close friendship with Fritzi Geiringer and Eva. As the survivors of their respective families, they understood each other. When Otto was given Anne’s diary, Fritiz (Mutti) and Eva set out to recover Heinz’s (and Pappy’s) paintings. The paintings are housed in the Dutch Resistance Museum. Fritzi married Otto Frank and they dedicated their lives to bringing Anne Frank’s diary to the world. Today, Eva Schloss travels the world as a speaker of peace and tolerance. She works to bring her brother’s artistry to the world and to celebrate her brother’s art. The play covers the power of art under unconscionable circumstances and how art is part of our collective humanity to cope, to heal and to hope. The play uses projections of Heinz's paintings for the set.

In 1940, a young Iowa farm girl picked the name of a pen pal out of a hat: Anne Frank. Their correspondence was brief but heartfelt. The play highlights the lives of four young girls as they come of age during the same time period but in vastly different circumstances. While Nina and Jeannie dream of escaping their Iowa farm home, Anne and Margot long for a world where they could live without restrictions and hate.

Mary Anning is considered the first female paleontologist. She lived in Lyme Regis which is still a hotbed of fossils. She learned to find fossils at her father’s knee. After her father died, she continued to find fossils and sell them to help her family earn a meager living. This play chronicles her first big discovery at the age of thirteen: an ichthyosaur (fish lizard). Mary had little schooling but was a learner. She read incessantly, carefully chronicled and drew all of her findings. Her thirst for knowledge began at an early age (and was attributed to being hit struck by lightening although that is more lore than fact).

Mary’s brother Joseph (at age 9!) found a large (4 feet) fossil head. Mary believes that the entire fossil could be found and the play is about her efforts – against all odds – to do so.

Fourteen year-old Miranda dwells in the past. Any past – as long as the world is prior to her father’s death 2 years ago. Reeling from her mother’s remarriage, Miranda spends a week with her great aunt and acquaints herself with an ancestor from her father’s past – the Russian Polar explorer Otto Schmidt.

In the confines of Elsie’s apartment, Miranda travels back and forth to the North Pole gleaning information about the nature of the universe, loss and ever-lasting presence. As Miranda visits Otto in the past, Elsie is struggling to maintain the equilibrium she is barely holding to since her sister’s death. Trying to keep her crushing anxiety at bay, Elsie tries to give Miranda remembrance and closure.

But Miranda will have none of it. She turns to the stars and devises a physics theory that she thinks will bring her face-to-face with her father one more time. But it's problematic - in order for it to work you need to travel faster than the speed of light. During her debates with Otto about the origins of the universe, Miranda carves a way to bring her back into the world.

A mother proudly shows her daughter all the "back-to-school" stuff she bought her. Very, very, very short play.

Giancarlo has died. Anna and Emilia run to Tess’s side to help her through this difficult time. But Tess is amazingly calm. Is the make-up of a family blood? Bones? Pasta and opera? If you’re Italian – it probably is.

The play was written to address the waste of “fine wine” actresses (over 40) that are too often absent on the stage these days.

Gary is sent to help Lucy plant a forest. But the forest is planted and Lucy needs art – fast-food art – to keep the deer from eating her fledgling-forest. This could be the last forest planted in Minnesota because the forest really wants to move into Canada. A tale of climate change and clinging to hope. Ten-minutes.

EVA blurts out that she would like JAKE to kiss her and all goes topsy-turvy with recollections of childhood and a possible love found – and lost.

Beth and Letia are on a road trip to scatter their late mother’s ashes. But a fork in the road changes their plans. They end up on a road to nowhere with no idea how to back to somewhere.

Alice has worked at keeping her anxiety at bay. But the more she hides it, the bigger BEAR gets. ALICE finally has to face BEAR.

In the aftermath of a school shooting, three teenagers are brought to the Forgetting Room so they can rest in peace. Part of the #Gun Control Now Protest Plays Project.

Sophie Scholl was a member of the White Rose Society in Nazi Germany
which encouraged passive resistance against the totalitarian government. The play chronicles her coming of age and development from bystander to witness to activist.
NOTES ON CASTING: The play is based on real people and real events but this is not a documentary. It is an imagining of how Sophie Scholl became an activist in treacherous times. The people this story is based on were certainly Caucasian; the casting doesn’t need to be. It’s a story for everyone to be told by everyone. The entire play (and it's one-act version can be read for free at: https://www.yourstagepartners.com/products/antigone-in-munich