American Heartbeat: True Stories Told in Scenes and Monologues

In the Garden of Live Flowers By Attilio Favorini and Lynne Conner.

While writing her world-changing book, Rachel is diagnosed with breast cancer. As she struggles to complete the book, she fights both her own advancing cancer and American enterprise, including the chemical industry.

• Product Code: I82000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 5m., 4w. (All but one role are double/triple cast. No gender flexibility.)
• Approx. Run Time: 95 min.

Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available

Across the Plains: The Journey of the Palace Wagon Family By Sandra Fenichel Asher.

Young Virginia Reed and her family journey from Illinois to California with a wagon train that became known as the Donner Party. Folk songs and dramatic action show the courage of the pioneers trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains by the blizzard of 1846-7.

• Product Code: A70000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 2m., 3w. Expandable to 12 roles, plus extras as desired.
• Approx. Run Time: 60 min.

Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available

Amelia Lives By Laura Annawyn Shamas.

This one woman show begins with Earhart's last flight and traces highlights of her public achievements and private secrets as precious memories pass before her eyes.

• Product Code: A37000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 1w.
• Approx. Run Time: 75 min.

Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available

Black Elk Speaks Based on the book by John Neihardt. Adapted by Christopher Sergel.

Black Elk lived the experience of the Native American people from the moment before white people entered his world through the end of Indian independence at the massacre of Wounded Knee. His unique eloquence and that of his cousin Crazy Horse make this play a very special event. The play moves quickly and with mounting excitement through this history and through a vision of life as it once was for the American Indian, and as it could be for all people.

• Product Code: B80000
• Genre: Drama,Tragedy
• Cast Size: 16 with doubling. Many more as desired.
• Approx. Run Time: 120 min.

Freedom Is My Middle Name By Lee Hunkins.

Five urban students are taken on a journey into the past by Stagecoach Mary, an endearing, vibrant and powerful character from African American history. The students take on the roles of people from another time and place.

• Product Code: F54000
• Genre:
• Cast Size: 3m., 3w.
• Approx. Run Time: 60 min.

The Radiance of a Thousand Suns: The Hiroshima Project By Anne V. McGravie, Dwight Okita, Nicholas A. Patricca and David Zak. Music by Chuck Larkin.

Radiance presents the events, persons, and deeds involved in the making and first use of the atomic bomb. From the actual experiences of those involved, three separate stories are woven into a seamless fabric.

• Product Code: R62000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 4m., 4w.
• Approx. Run Time: 110 min.

The Rememberer By Steven Dietz. Based on the unpublished memoir As My Sun Now Sets by Joyce Simmons Cheeka, as told to Werdna Phillips Finley.

This is the true story of Joyce Cheeka, a young Squaxin Indian girl, who is forcibly taken from her home and placed in a government-run school in 1911. Joyce succeeds in forming a bridge between this new world and the world of her ancestors.

• Product Code: R68000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 13m., 12w. (may double to as few as 9m., 8w., plus possible dancers and musicians.)
• Approx. Run Time: 90 min.

Shame the Devil! An Audience with Fanny Kemble By Anne Ludlum.

This 90-minute play is based on writings of Fanny Kemble, especially her Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation 1838-1839, possibly the best eyewitness plantation account.

• Product Code: SC5000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 1w.
• Approx. Run Time: 90 min.

Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available

Sounds of Silents (The Essanay Years) By Paul Peditto.

• Product Code: SH4000
• Genre:
• Cast Size: with 2 actors doubling.
• Approx. Run Time: 135 min.

Stand and Deliver Based on the screenplay by Ramón Menéndez and Tom Musca. Adapted for the stage by Robert Bella.

This drama is the compelling true story of a dedicated East Los Angeles teacher who surmounts overwhelming odds in his quest to turn inner-city students into whiz kids. When Jaime Escalante leaves a career in engineering to teach high school math, he is assigned to a barrio school with a bad reputation and is in imminent danger of losing its accreditation. Still, his quirky sense of humor, antics and offbeat teaching methods mesmerize and motivate his students. The dramatic conclusion to this urban fairy tale is emotion-packed and inspirational.

• Product Code: SB3000
• Genre: Comedy,Drama
• Cast Size: 10m., 7w. (fewer with doubling), multiracial/gender flexible (half of the male roles can be played by females). Extras as desired.
• Approx. Run Time: 130 min.

Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available

Radium Girls By D.W. Gregory.

In 1926, radium was a miracle cure and luminous watches the latest rage—until the girls who painted them began to mysteriously fall ill. Inspired by a true story, this play traces the efforts of Grace Fryer, a dial painter, as she fights for her day in court. This story offers a wry, unflinching look at the peculiarly American obsessions with health, wealth and the commercialization of science.

• Product Code: R72000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 4 to 5m., 5w., with doubling. May be expanded to 30 or more.
• Approx. Run Time: 130 min.

Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available

Looking Over the President's Shoulder By James Still.

Looking Over the President's Shoulder is told from the unique perspective of the Chief Butler who served four U.S. presidents and their families: Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Famous guests through the years included Winston Churchhill, Marian Anderson, Errol Flynn and the king and queen of England. Set on the eve of his last day on the job, Fields reflects on his 21 years of service to his country with humor and pride. He was a man with a story to tell and this tour-de-force for one actor gives Fields the chance to tell it.

• Product Code: LC2000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 1m.
• Approx. Run Time: 120 min.

Limited Streaming Rights Available

Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit By David Barr III.

Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit celebrates the life and voice of African American contralto Marian Anderson. Taking place on the eve of the First Annual World Negro Arts Festival in Dakar, Senegal, 1966, Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit paints a sweeping portrait of Anderson as a complex artist and troubled woman moving slowly toward middle age and the evolving image of black people during the precarious Civil Rights Movement.

• Product Code: E42000
• Genre:
• Cast Size: 5m., 4w. (3 of the males are black-all doubles, the 4 women are black-3 doubling, 2 of the men are white-doubles.)
• Approx. Run Time: 120 min.

A Midnight Cry: The Underground Railroad to Freedom By James DeVita. Musical selections and arrangements by Josh Schmidt. Additional selections and arrangements by Sheri Williams Panell.

This moving historical drama is inspired by the true story of a young girl's journey to freedom through the Underground Railroad. Leaving behind the only life she knows, she embarks on a dangerous journey out of slavery.

• Product Code: ME2000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 8m., 6w. (plus 3 either gender. Extras as desired. May be doubled to 5m, 3w.)
• Approx. Run Time: 90 min.

Free Man of Color By Charles Smith.

The year is 1824. Ohio is a free state but slavery is still the law of the land. Rev. Robert Wilson, president of Ohio University, brings John Newton Templeton, a young ex-slave, to the University to be the first man of color to attend the college.

• Product Code: F89000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 2m., 1w. (One male character should be white, one African-American. Female character is white.)
• Approx. Run Time: 120 min.

Limited Streaming Rights Available

The Face of Emmett Till By Mamie Till-Mobley and David Barr III.

The Face of Emmett Till is a true-to-life dramatization of the death of 14-year-old Emmett Till, a Chicago teenager who, while visiting relatives in Money, Miss., in August 1955, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by two white men who claimed they wanted to teach him a lesson for "allegedly" whistling at a local white woman. The ramifications of this act are still being felt today. As retold for the first time within a creative, nonfictional genre by Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, the play chronicles this tragedy, its aftermath, and Mamie’s heroic crusade for justice.

• Product Code: F93000
• Genre: Drama,Tragedy
• Cast Size: 7m., 3w. (Male characters can be 7 to 9. Doubling possible.)
• Approx. Run Time: 135 min.

The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer By Carson Kreitzer.

J. Robert Oppenheimer's rise and fall erupt in this kaleidoscopic play exploring questions of faith, conscience, and the consequences of the never-ending pursuit of knowledge.

• Product Code: LD6000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 4m., 3w., with doubling. May be expanded to 7 or more m., 5w.
• Approx. Run Time: 110 min.

columbinus By the United States Theatre Project. Written by Stephen Karam and PJ Paparelli. Dramaturgy by Patricia Hersch. Conceived by PJ Paparelli.

This play, sparked by the April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., is a meeting of fact and fiction that illuminates the realities of adolescent culture by exploring the events surrounding the shootings. The play weaves together excerpts from discussions with parents, survivors and community leaders in Littleton as well as police evidence to bring to light the dark recesses of American adolescence.

• Product Code: CD7000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 5m., 3w.
• Approx. Run Time: 70 min.

Keeping Mr. Lincoln By Sandra Fenichel Asher.

This play celebrates Lincoln's life through his own words and those of people who knew him in scenes from his Kentucky childhood, Indiana youth, and Illinois and D.C. adulthood.

• Product Code: K36000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 1 to 9m., 1 to 4w., 2 to 14 either gender. Extras as desired.
• Approx. Run Time: 60 min.

Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available

On the Line By Carol Korty.

Set in 1912 in New England, during the wool mill strikes, this play shows us how to measure our own lives, when we are trying to figure out our own identities and values.

• Product Code: O72000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 3m., 3w.
• Approx. Run Time: 60 min.

Phillis: A Life of Phillis Wheatley By Martha Hill Newell.

Set in Boston, Africa, and London, this gripping drama takes a look at the life of one of the first black poets of Colonial America, Phillis Wheatley.

• Product Code: PD2000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 9m., 7w., extras.
• Approx. Run Time: 60 min.

The Indian Captive Developed from history by Charlotte B. Chorpenning.

• Product Code: IB4000
• Genre:
• Cast Size: 5m., 5w., with doubling, or up to 11 (3m., 3w., 2 boys, 3 girls).
• Approx. Run Time: 45 min.

Looking for Roberto Clemente Book and lyrics by Karen Zacarías. Music by Deborah Wicks La Puma.

Legendary baseball player Roberto Clemente is at the top of his game in 1972. Sam and the neighborhood kids are in an intense competition to win the chance to meet him in person. When their hero helps disaster victims in Nicaragua, his off-field actions teach the kids about what is more important than winning.

• Product Code: LK6000
• Genre: Comedy,Drama
• Cast Size: 6m., 1w.
• Approx. Run Time: 60 min.

Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available

Jackie & Me By Steven Dietz. Adapted from the book by Dan Gutman.

Joey Stoshack is a young boy with a special talent for time travel. When Joey is assigned to write a report on an African American who has made an important contribution to society, he goes back to Brooklyn, New York, in 1947 to meet Jackie Robinson. He plans on writing a prize-winning report, but he doesn't plan on a trip that will forever change his view of history and his definition of courage.

• Product Code: J66000
• Genre: Comedy,Drama
• Cast Size: 6 to 15m., 2 to 6w., doubling possible. Extras as desired.
• Approx. Run Time: 85 min.

Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available

Walking Toward America By Sandra Fenichel Asher. Adapted from the memoirs of Ilga Katais-Paeglis Vise.

Ilga and her parents leave Latvia in 1944 to escape Russian occupation, but are soon taken into a German labor camp. Eventually, they walk 500 miles across war-torn Germany to a refugee camp. Six years later, they sail through an Atlantic storm to safety and freedom in America. One actress plays Ilga from grandmother to carefree 4-year-old to frightened 10-year-old to resilient teenager, plus all the characters from her journey.

• Product Code: WG4000
• Genre: Drama
• Cast Size: 1w.
• Approx. Run Time: 75 min.

Livestream and Record & Stream Rights Available