Grosse Pointe Theatre announces their 12th Annual Ten Minute Play Festival June 12 & 13, 2025.
The ten selected Short Plays from our 2025 submissions are as follows:
Mom Bomb by F.J. Hartland
Director Mary Lou Britton
Life doesn’t come with a manual. It comes with a Mother. Now she’s going to be a Grandma and isn’t quite ready for reality.
The Truth Will Set You Free by Arlene Pollock
Director Joanna Delpaz Panagos
A woman and her ex are stranded while attempting to clean out her grandmother’s cottage. In the process, they argue over a legend surrounding her family’s precious rocking chair. Each of them takes the opportunity to speak their own truths by the time they get to leave.
Try Not to Cry by Brad White
Director Maria Fernandez-Ahola
Zoey’s mother’s old rocking chair seems harmless enough, until it stirs up emotions neither Zoey nor Ryan is ready for. As they argue over whether to keep it, the chair reveals it might hold more than just memories.
A Man Called Joe by Patricia Ellis
Director Arlene Schoenherr
Based on a true story, a homeless man who has been living in a bus stop sometimes shares the space with others waiting for the bus. A young woman who takes the bus befriends the man and they learn about each other in their short time together.
Go Back, Go Back by Matthew Moore
Director Charlie McQuillen
Ruth is sitting in the rocking chair in her living room as her daughter, Lila, packs Ruth’s belongings. She begins to notice that she can manipulate time, based on how she’s rocking. A play about buying time and then giving it back.
Not Exactly by Dan Woitulewicz
Director Arlene Pollock
After fearing a heart attack on a Cracker Barrel porch, a man discusses his life with an attractive female stranger.
She’s Off Her Rocker by Jeffrey Shuster
Director Emily Lange
Melvin’s first online date goes terribly wrong when he has an altercation with Susie’s recently paroled brother, Frank, after he mistakenly sits in her brother’s rocking chair.
Rock it Out by Mike Poblete
Director Dan Woitulewicz
Jarred and Grace, married for two years, purchased a new rocking chair which is carved from a tree by a local craftsman. Their separate reactions reveal an even bigger surprise – a giant tortoise with a huge sombrero.
Caroline Remembered by Pete DiSante
Director Rick Hawley
Harry meets a customer at his house sale that inhabits two personas … his granddaughter and his deceased wife. Memories are revealed and time passes on.
Leftover Love by Risa Lewak
Director Janie Burkey
When Roger calls 911 late at night, he unexpectedly finds comfort in the cop who answers the phone. Although much younger, Jennie is as lonely as Roger. He keeps mentioning the rocking chair his late wife gave him.
Price:
$15 General Admission
Location:
Christ Church Grosse Pointe in the Undercroft
61 Grosse Pointe Blvd, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236
What is a Short Play?
- The short play is five to seven pages, maximum. It serves us well because the shortness enables you to keep the whole play in mind as you write and allows you to examine your technique each time you write a line. Many times, the craft of playwriting gets lost in the momentum, problems and length of a full-length play. Remember that once you’ve mastered the short-play technique, you can easily expand your ideas and characters into a longer piece…either one-act or full length.
- The short play must have a beginning, a middle, and an end – and all the other pieces: a protagonist, an antagonist, a dramatic question, a climax.
Keep your play ‘realistic’ or ‘naturalistic.’ Because it is a form that you know well, you can master the basic craft in your attempt to explore style. A ‘realistic’ play is about contemporary people who you might know and who are executing their contemporary activities. Realism also involves contemporary, ordinary speech. Avoid dialects. Of course, realism does not mean boring or even serious. - Limit your play to two or three characters. Each character must have a complete character arc. Therefore, you may not have utilitarian characters. I encourage you to work with two characters.
- Keep all of your characters on stage as long as possible. Entrances and exits create activity, but many times deflate the dramatic action. You do not need blizzards or other phenomena to keep characters on stage. If characters have dynamic goals, they will stay on stage to pursue those goals. If you have written a character that keeps leaving, let him/her leave the play entirely because the goal is not strong enough for dramatic impact.
- Keep the setting in one locale. There are to be no breaks, no scene shifts, no blackouts and no time lapses. A short play cannot support the loss of momentum that each stage machination requires. For our purposes, you are to stay in one locale for a real-time conversation or dialog.
Create an early point of attack. The short form has no patience for introduction and exposition. Let this information find its way into the rising action. - Avoid speeches. If your characters’ needs are strong enough, they will not allow each other to talk too much. Make sure your crisis and your climax are ‘onstage events’ rather than ‘now I realize’ speeches.
- Keep the action onstage. Don’t talk about something that happened elsewhere or at another time; make all the action happen on your stage in your play.
- Get rid of greetings. When a new person enters a scene, drop the hello’s and the how-are-you’s. Although we say it all the time in real life, it’s just plain boring on stage. There are other ways to reveal relationships.
- Stage directions. In most cases, the fewer directions you have, the more concentrated and focused the actual action of the play will be.
- Things to include in stage directions:
- Basic description of the setting.
- Entrances and exits.
- Physical action that must be performed or the dialog makes no sense.
- Pertinent pauses in the dialog not filled by previously described actions.
- Things NOT to include in stage directions:
- Tone of voice or delivery hints for lines.
- Costume descriptions of what characters are wearing, unless pertinent to the action.
- Background on the sets or characters, other than the most basic information.
- Characters’ thoughts or intentions.
- Never delve into the interior lives of the characters or why objects are on stage.
- Don’t worry about upstage, stage right, etc. Make all references in relation to objects you’ve placed in their world. (EX: BETH moves behind the sofa or FRED enters from the bedroom.)
- Things to include in stage directions: