January Reading List: Colourful Play Titles

As January unveils its wintry palette, our attention shifts to a vibrant selection of plays designed to add some theatrical warmth to your stage or classroom. From dazzling tales to vivid narratives, these scripts are a kaleidoscope of colour, ready to light up the winter scene.

So, cozy up and explore our January reading list. Let these plays paint a beautiful picture that transforms your season into an unforgettable experience. Embrace the drama, and let the colours of January come alive on your stage!❄️🎭

Colours can be symbolic. Red is fiery. Purple is royal. Blue is calming. Sometimes, colours can take on too much meaning. I can’t date you - you wear wenge! He sent yellow flowers! Orange gives my brother anxiety!

Join the characters in the vignette play, Anxiety is Orange, as they navigate the world, each other, and the greens, greys, blues, reds, pinks, yellows, and oranges around them. Does orange make you anxious?

Trent Trowel is your typical gumshoe. Searching the mean streets for crimes to solve and dames to fall for. He joins some of the world’s most famous detectives at the International PD gala. There’s Shirley Holmes, Jean Louie Phillip Eustache… and Aunt Beatrice. But is this just an innocent gala? Will the world’s most dastardly villains foil them with a fiendish master plan? Will Aunt Beatrice ever get an English muffin? Everything is not what it seems.

A Lighter Shade of Noir is a fabulously funny and high styling take on film noir - it’s a lighter shade of noir after all!

New student Gertie Greene is a bully. Gossip spreads like wildfire that she attacks kids in the bathroom, knocks down football players, and gets suspended all the time. Even teachers are afraid of her. Everyone’s talking about it so it must be true. But is she really a terrifying monster?

In The Redemption of Gertie Greene the truth comes out in the most unexpected ways. Is Gertie really what everyone calls her: a freak, strange, stupid, clumsy, and mean? Or can Mrs. Fillmore’s quirky drama students see past the scuttlebutt to discover the real person behind the rumors? As they separate fact from fiction, Gertie and her fellow drama students bring to light the transforming power of kindness, and the importance of standing up for people who can’t defend themselves.

In The Blue and the Grey, Charlie is surrounded by ghosts. The ghost of an estranged father who leaves her an antique musket. The ghost of a classmate’s sister who cautions Charlie, The Grey will hear you.

Who are the Grey? Ghosts of Lost Confederate soldiers ambushed following the first battle of Fredericksburg, 1862.

As the Aurora Borealis light up the Virginia night sky Charlie must confront the living and the dead. She’s trying to find peace but will she make the right choice? What brings her to the centre of a barely frozen lake with the musket and her ghosts? Beat! Beat! Drums! Blow! Bugles! Blow!

Jake finds a suicide note in his mailbox. He doesn't know who it's from, or to whom it is addressed. His friends speculate, joke, and lose interest while Jake becomes obsessed. He goes on a crusade to find the author of the note. Instead, he stumbles upon a secret he never wanted to know.

The Bright Blue Mailbox Suicide Note explores how a group of teenagers publicly and privately deal with the issue of suicide. It is honest, straightforward, and also humorous. There is a great balance between ensemble, character, and monologue work.

The Scarlet Heart is a gem! Literally. A big fat juicy apple of a ruby that everyone really, really wants and will do anything to get. Too bad there's not one competent thief in the bunch. Stupino! That's a soup ladle! Stop making goo goo eyes at the soup ladle!

Welcome to Theatrefolk's first commedia dell'arte comedy. This is an excellent introduction to commedia for any student performer. The script can be performed as written or by following an improv-based scenario.

Join Arlecchino, Brighella, Columbina, and more in their hungry, thirsty, bungling, cross-dressing quest for the Scarlet Heart.

In an online community, Hester90 is publicly shamed and shunned for a racial slur against another student, but refuses to name her cohort in the hateful conversation. RoChi wants the conspirator found out and humiliated. Climate_Dale wants everyone to come to his annual Earth Day address.

How do we strike a balance between holding individuals accountable while still having compassion for those who apologize for their mistakes?

The Burgundy Letter is a comedic retelling of the classic novel The Scarlet Letter set in a high school and reframed for a digital age.

Gender, family patterns, traditions, labels… It’s time for role call. Who are you?

If you’ve been wearing red for generations, what happens when it doesn’t feel right? And what happens when everyone says you’re the one who’s wrong?

This vignette play examines questions of identity and what happens when someone doesn’t fit in the way everyone expects them to. Are you ready to have these conversations?

Red Tee: Flexible gender casting, flexible cast size, easy to stage.

On today’s episode of The Dee Dee Show, legendary TV talk show host Dee Dee Dane welcomes women who just can’t seem to get it right when it comes to men. But, Dee Dee’s guests aren’t just any women. These relationship-challenged women are none other than some of literature’s most memorable characters: Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter, Ophelia from Hamlet, Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, Penelope from The Odyssey and Medea from, well, Medea.

Scarlet Expectations of a Drowned Maiden and Two Greek Queens is a farcical and funny meeting of minds that makes today’s episode very special indeed.