Claudia Haas

75 minutes. Lina and Izzy are best friends - as in "Lina-and-Izzy-one-word" best friends. Izzy is Catholic which has little meaning to her. Lina is Jewish which is of upmost importance to her. But their major disagreements have centered around the debate of “who is the cuter Beatle: Paul or George?” They are always there for each other - during teen angst and for every important day in their lives - until one day - they aren't. Lina and Izzy must figure out what to take from the friendship and what to leave behind. With thanks (and apologies) to A.R. Gurney for inspiration and structure and shamelessly loving Gurney's ease of production in "Love Letters," the play does not need to be memorized, basically no set, no costumes, few props and flexible casting. (2-12 females).

70 minutes in Iowa. SYNOPSIS: Nestled in a covered bridge in Madison County is a Dream Journal. It’s well used and some of those dreams can take you on a magical mystery tour. The play is inspired by those postings.

In The Diary of Anne Frank, Margot is a quiet background figure. New evidence shows that while she was the good girl, she was also an accomplished athlete, had a boyfriend and was not immune to a good time with friends. Not widely known, but at Auschwitz, she had a chance to save her life and was given a choice that factors heavily into her character and the play. A reimagining of Margot's brief life given new information is the crux of the play.

One hour. Designed for middle school actors. Fumble becomes the dancing partner of a charming butterfly and is loving the break from his work-a-bee life. Unfortunately, if he doesn’t make honey when the sun shines, he won’t last the winter. What’s a bee to do?
East set and production values. A chorus of bees and/or fairies can be added. You could have some fun sequences where the chorus of bees work to something like “The Volga Boatman” or to percussion or anything. The same goes with the fairy dances – you can waltz, you can also do hip-hop, tap, the jitterbug, etc. Anything goes. Want to jump rope and hopscotch? Go for it.

35 minutes. In The Diary of Anne Frank, Margot is a quiet background figure. New evidence shows that while she was the good girl, she was also an accomplished athlete, had a boyfriend and was not immune to a good time with friends. Not widely known, but at Auschwitz, she had a chance to save her life and was given a choice that factors heavily into her character and the play. A reimagining of Margot's brief life given new information is the crux of the play.

25-30 minutes. Juliana, Emma and Nell see Nazis and terrorists around every corner. This is noted as the three sisters gather yet again for the anniversary of their mother’s death on 9/11. What is the make-up of a life? Is it reduced to belongings and haphazard memories? They have been sitting shiva every September 11th since the 2001 terror attacks. Things are turned upside down when Nell returns home and no longer wishes to continue the grieving tradition.

Kristi is desperately trying to saw off the "love lock" she and Stanley put on the Covered Bridge in Madison County when they were in love. Now, Stanley says he doesn't want her in his life but she still loves him. The problem is she may have tried to poison him. A vignette from THE DREAMERS OF MADISON COUNTY.

5 minutes. Eloise writes her mother a letter on her seventeenth birthday hoping the mailbox transcends time, space, and dimensions. Two interspersed monologues.

Who's really buried in Bill Cody's Grave? Inquiring minds want to know.

Does apple pie, turban lady, rattlesnakes and ice-cream sundaes constitute a life? Maybe if you're lucky, it does.

2-3 minutes. The more Angela cooks, the more Italian she becomes.

1 minute. Liz and Maura have been best friends forever but things happen.

A brick is thrown through a bedroom window of a five-yearold boy. Someone was offended by a decal of a menorah in the window. The boy's parents are told to take down the decal and keep their menorah out of the window to stay safe. This does not sit well with the family or as it turns out with the townspeople of Billings, Montana. A true story of what happens when a town comes together to fight hate. The story of the transformation of the Skinhead is also true. The play offers the early days of the "Not in Our Town" movement which continues today. Play has been worked to comply with the rules of the High School One Act Play Contest: minimal set; 35 minutes; to be published by Pioneer Drama in February 2024.

(7 minutes) Inspired by the young Oversteegen sisters in the Netherlands and their friend Hannie Schaft who were active in the Resistance in World War Two, the play examines the one assignment they unanimously turned down.

Three friends set out very early to see the sunrise. It's very important. Very.

An episodic sneak peek into some of the heroic deeds of young women (teens and early twenties) that would be long forgotten if not for oral history. It's a breezy romp through the American Revolution from the eyes of four heroines. The play will be here briefly as it is slated to be published by Your Stage Partners soon.

5-7 minutes. A scene after the infamous "Balcony Scene" in Romeo and Juliet that Shakespeare inexplicably deleted.

Iris has synesthesia. She has no idea. She thought everyone saw colors and shapes when they listened to music. As she enters the tween years, she learns that it is not true and that others find her weird or wildly imaginative. As Iris tries to downplay this trait, she finds herself at war with herself over what is natural to her. Developed by NYU New Plays for Young Audiences. Published by Your Stage Partners. Written with Sarah Grace Kraning. Play available to be read for free at publisher's website (link provided).

4 minutes. Just two awkward kids sitting alone in the cafeteria.

70 minutes in Iowa.
SYNOPSIS: Nestled in a covered bridge in Madison County is a Dream Journal. It’s well used and some of those dreams can take you on a magical mystery tour. The play is inspired by those postings.

Jackie and Kirby are siblings who ALWAYS play I am the Walrus. Until younger and smaller Kirby is tired of being the Oyster and wants to be the Walrus.

5 minutes. We are backstage in the middle of "Romeo and Juliet." ANYA is getting ready for her potion scene. But she is being harassed by her understudy who "was born to play Juliet." As MAISIE gets all in place and cues ANYA to take the stage, ANYA faints and MAISIE has her chance. NEW GENRE: theatrical, back-stabbing play.

4 minutes. Casey wants to hold Melanie's hand. But the Holy Ghost is in the way.

5 minutes. They say, "Life goes on." But not everyone is ready to hear that. These four teens are grieving and not ready for life to go on. Let them grieve. Part of anthology for teens inspired by titles of The Beatles songs.

5 minutes. Suzie loves Mackenzie. Maybe. Mackenzie loves Suzie. Maybe. Reese loves everyone. Definitely. A play for teens from a new anthology, for teens based on song titles by The Beatles.

5 minutes. Code Red Playwrights: the play celebrates the life of a police office killed in the Boulder supermarket shooting of 2021.

A duet about hiking, self-harm and friendship. Winner of the Playwrights for Change Competition administered by the American Alliance for Theatre Education in the adult writer category.

60 minutes. There is a story that Kafka found a young girl weeping in a park. He tried to console her, but she was bereft. She had lost her doll and would never get over it. Kafka announces that he has a letter that he found and he wonders if it could be from her doll. It was! And so began a three-week correspondence where Kafka wrote daily letters for the girl from her traveling doll. Her doll was not lost. She was merely traveling to see the world. The story might have gone something like this…

An anthology of 51 short plays for high school classes and beginning drama students in college. Plays subject matter varies: blue crabs on a blind date, loss, historical view of the Little Bighorn National Monument, oysters, and Monet's Water Lilies (and anything else that could only be set in that state). To date, the plays have been used in 15 festivals and 25 classrooms world-wide. Don't have time to read 51 plays? Go to the Table of Contents and pick your favorite states.

What makes the Kentucky dish "Burgoo" authentic? Maybe it's the eye of Newt.

Grief comes in all forms. Otto Schmidt grieves for the lost of his "glory years," Elsie grieves for her past independence, and 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.

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.

Juliana, Emma and Nell see Nazis and terrorists around every corner. This is noted as the three sisters gather yet again for the anniversary of their mother’s tragic death on 9/11. What is the make-up of a life? Is it reduced to belongings and haphazard memories? They have basically been sitting Shiva every September 11th terror attacks. Juliana’s grieving tradition has taken a toll on her marriage. Emma who is always quick to please anyone is ready for a change. Things are turned upside down when Nell returns home and no longer wishes to continue the grieving tradition. The full length version was an Eugene O'Neill Semi-Finalist. 20 minutes.

Newly edited version to expand the cast to twelve or more. 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 twelve: 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 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. To be published by YouthPLAYS.

This is a "treatment" and an 8 page read. Looking for development. The pantomime/dance would run about an hour. Created by award-winning playwright Sandra Fenichel Asher and me, we sought to find new ways to tell a classic story that is for all populations. After rereading E.T.A. Hiofman's story, we think Hoffman would approve.
PLAYWRIGHTS' NOTE: In his original story, "Nutcracker and Mouse King," E.T.A. Hoffman speaks of "a land where you can still see . . . the most splendid and most wondrous things, if you only have the right eyes to see them with." It was his intention to inspire all children to develop and maintain those "right eyes" by using their imaginations as fully as possible. HIs emphasis was on "all children." All adults, too. Indeed, the fabulous utopia he creates includes "Greeks and Armenians, Jews and Tyroleans, officers and soldiers and preachers and shepherds and buffoons -- in short: every kind of person to be found in the entire world." (His world at the time.) He was a man way ahead of his time. (Written in 1816.)

This is not your grandmother's "The Nutcracker Ballet," generally performed by slender, classically-trained, young, white ballerinas and danseurs. The intention of this dance/theatre piece is to bring Hoffman's noble ideals into our own time by setting it in the twenty-first century (and imagined places) and offering opportunities for productions to be as all-inclusive as possible, leaving open to each company decisions about dance styles; music choices; performers of various abilities, ages, shapes, sizes, genders, and cultures; and the possible inclusion of audience members.

We see Hoffman's "thousands . . . raising the merry uproar" as diverse performers contributing to the beauty and joy of the dances while riding on shoulders, twirling in wheelchairs and in any other way they can, be it in the Party Scene, the Battle Scene, the Snowflake Ballet, the international scenes, and/or the Waltz of the Flowers. As a non-verbal piece, we also offer inclusion to audience members with hearing impairment and those for whom English is not a first language. There are also optional possibilities for full immersion of the audience. Inclusive pre-and-post show activities are encouraged.

They say if you eat 1,000 oysters, you'll find a pearl. Virginia's on a mission to see if that's true.

The magic of moose lips... yep… part of the United Plays of America anthology.

Casey lives in a state where there are 200 chickens for every person. That worries her. A brief, silly play - because - chickens. Another of the 51 plays in the United Plays of America anthology.

One could commit the perfect murder here. Only, of course, if one is a murderer. One of 51 plays in the United Plays of America anthology.

Tulips and marriage, tulips and marriage go together like a horse and carriage... maybe. One of 51 plays in the United Plays of America anthology.

It's a twister. Time to take shelter. But Gayle has other ideas. She wants to go to Oz. One play out of 51 short plays from the United Plays of America anthology.

BARRY tries to hook up his best friend STUFFY with CALLIE. CALLIE tries to hook up her best friend CAKE with BARRY. Oh. And they are all crabs.
With a huge thank-you to WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.

Xan is a corn farmer. Dan is a corn farmer. But something strange is happening to Dan. Can he be turning into an ear of corn? Part of a collection of very short plays set in every state in the USA. Easy to do outside, via zoom and with social distancing.

Beth and Letia are on Highway 50, dubbed "The Loneliest Road in America" on a mission to scatter their mother's ashes. And that's when the fun begins.

SYLVIA makes her regular visit to Monet’s Water Lilies at the Met. She puts herself in the garden. MILLER is painting a replica of Monet’s masterpiece. He only sees the garden from afar.

A town near Lubbock, Texas found themselves surrounded by huge tumbleweeds - some so big that they couldn't leave their homes. Was it an invasion?

A poet and a duck meet on a bridge in Milwaukee. Appropriate for Zoom.

Emma visits her friend after 7 weeks and 3 days apart. It's awkward. She's awkward. Everything is awkward. Easy to do via zoom or social distancing.

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.

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.

Two ornaments on a Christmas tree are terrorized by a kitten. A short holiday play for teen actors. Easy to do via zoom and with social distancing.

On their 300th anniversary, Adam has a surprise for Eve.

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 spite of discovering some of the more extraordinary fossil finds of her time, Mary Anning finds herself dismissed by scholars and in such dire straits that she is selling all her worldly goods.

A short play about a catcalling snowman and the woman who tames him.

Ellie shares her texts with her best friend. Things are not always as they seem. A very, very short play.

10 minutes. Luigi is using the twelve days of Christmas to woo Luisa. Things do not go according to plan. It's pure Italian food silliness - partly from having an Italian food blog for a decade and partly because I have 100+ Italian cookbooks and have memorized all the recipes. Read it when you're hungry.

The memorial service for CLARA and LAUREL’s mother is done. The last guest has left and LAUREL and CLARA are now picking up the last pieces of comfort they can muster in their newly-orphaned world.

A frigid walk around White Bear Lake, MN reveals a hidden mission.

I had a silly attack and wrote a one-minute play about a cat. It's always all about the cat. Super easy to do with zoom or social distancing.

It's Ashley's last evening in Paris. It's Jean-Louis's first evening back in Paris. Anything can happen when the street lights come on. It was published in an anthology Of "Bests" where I kept the rights. It has been updated. It takes place outside and easy to do with social distancing. It's also easy to do via zoom.

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

Guns. Only in the USA.

Karma on the street. Another very, very short play.