One-Acts by Stephen Bittrich
Duty Honor Country(published in Plays and Playwrights 2005, edited by Martin Denton, The New York Theatre Experience, 2005, AND excerpt published in The Best Men's Stage Monologues 2005, edited by D. L. Lepidus, Smith and Kraus, 2005.)
Brain Sucking (finalist Actor's Theatre of Louisville Ten-Minute Play Contest, performed at ATL in December, 1994, AND published in Dramatics Magazine, April, 1995.)
La Mouche(Stephen's favorite of his one-acts)
Two Eggs(finalist Actor's Theatre of Louisville Ten-Minute Play Contest)
The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
Cowboy South of Houston
On the Shelf for the HolidaysDuty Honor Country, © 2004 by Stephen Bittrich
3 men (1 African American, 1 Middle Eastern, 1 White), 10 pages long (though it plays close to 15 minutes), simple set.
Here's what Mark Denton from NYTheatre.com had to say about Duty Honor Country:
"Duty Honor Country...examines men in combat in general and American soldiers in Iraq in particular. Bobeck is a good ole boy from the American South who joined the army, he says, to avoid jail; he has no illusions about the war's meaning or value and cares little how he treats his newly acquired Iraqi 'prisoner' so long as he keeps himself alive. His comrade LaBonne is an African American who says he believes what this war is supposed to be about and holds firm to obeying orders and honoring his Commander-in-Chief. Who's right?-or perhaps the question is: Is anybody right? Their prisoner longs only for peace.
This is a stirring and obviously very timely drama that helps focus some of our thinking about the current Iraqi conflict."
Brain Sucking, © 1992 by Stephen Bittrich
2 men, 7 pages long (though it plays close to 13-14 minutes), simple set.
Brain Sucking takes place on a back porch in South Texas. One man recounts his tale of alien abduction, while also relating some rather tasteless recent behavior toward his fiancée.
Brain Sucking was a finalist in the Actor's Theatre of Louisville's "10 Minute Play Contest" in 1994. It was one of the few ten minute plays (out of about 1800 submissions) to be chosen that year to be produced at their Victor Jory Theatre, December, 1994. It was directed by William McNulty with the following cast:
Greeley........Dustin Longstreth
Ed.............Eric Shephard
Brain Sucking was published in the April, 1995 issue of "Dramatics" magazine, a magazine geared toward theatre educators. It was expanded into a full-length play, called Home of the Great Pecan.
La Mouche, © 2002 by Stephen Bittrich
3 men (2 with outrageous French accents), 11 pages long, simple restaurant set--perhaps only a table and chair.
La Mouche takes place in a French restaurant in New York. The jumping point is the old cliché of a man finding a fly in his soup...with some new twists.
On a personal note, I think this may be my strongest one-act.
La Mouche is appropriate for a high school audience.
Two Eggs, © 2000 by Stephen Bittrich
4 men, 1 woman, 10 pages long, simple living room set.
Two Eggs takes place in an apartment building in New York City. While getting ready for a date, a woman has to contend with a pesky neighbor with a major personality disorder.
Two Eggs was a finalist in the Actor's Theatre of Louisville's 2002 Ten Minute Play Contest.
Bee © 2005 by Stephen Bittrich. (Revised Draft/June 2006)
1 man, 2 women, 11 pages long, simple set--a chair and special lighting.
In the future, a man is called in for questioning when his companion disapears.
There is a version of Bee edited for a high school audience.
Corybungus © 1991 by Stephen Bittrich (Revised Draft/Feb 1994)
2 men, 7 pages, simple set.
"Corybungus" is, according to a loony bookstore customer, a word mistakenly excluded from the voluminous Oxford English Dictionary. Chaos ensues when the customer tries to return a supposedly defective "OED." This fast moving skit is a nod to the "Bookshop" sketch done by Monty Python.
There is another version of Corybungus edited for a high school audience.
Baby Factory © 1999 by Stephen Bittrich (Revised Draft/Oct 2000)
3 men, 2 women, 11 pages, simple set.
Welcome to DNA ALCHEMY, where your little bundle of joy can be scientifically engineered to exact specifications. Just working out a few kinks.
Some Words of Advice © 1993 by Stephen Bittrich. (Revised Draft/Feb 1994)
2 men, 1 woman (the woman's part is silent), 10 pages long (plays really fast), simple set.
Some Words of Advice takes place on a subway platform in New York City. Joey tries to give some advice to his friend, Freddy, about a manipulative woman at work.
Some Words of Advice is the hardest thing you'll ever have to memorize as an actor. I did a workshop of it a few years back. It's very funny if you get the lines down cold and find the rhythm of the scene. One of the most "musical" things I've ever written.
The Queue © 1995 by Stephen Bittrich. (Revised Draft/Feb 1999)
2 men, 1 woman (the woman's part is only 2 lines at the end), 10 pages long, simple set.
The Queue takes place in the waiting room of a New York casting director. One obnoxious actor does his best to ruffle his fellow actor before the audition.
There is a version of The Queue edited for a high school audience.
The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, © 2002 by Stephen Bittrich
4 men, 1 woman, 10 pages long, simple Roman set.
The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire takes place on a movie set in New York (although my Artie and Joey did it with Chicago accents to great effect). What starts off looking like a bad version of Quo Vadis turns into something surprising.
When we performed a workshop of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire I'd never had an audience laugh so hard at my stuff. I think we may have shocked a few people too. It's pretty bawdy.
The Way, The Truth, The Life © 2003 by Stephen Bittrich. (Revised Draft/January, 2003)
2 men, 1 woman, 9 pages long (plays really fast), simple set.
The Way, The Truth, The Life takes place in an unorthodox acting class in New York City. Comedy.
Bringing Up Lester © 2001 by Stephen Bittrich. (Revised Draft/May 2001)
2 men, 1 woman, 11 pages long, simple living room set.
A woman returns to her husband after three months abroad with her lover and discovers that miraculously her husband has raised a grown son she never knew she had!
The Audit © 2003 by Stephen Bittrich. (Revised Draft/April 2003)
3 men, 1 woman, 13 pages long, simple office set.
A married man and woman turn the tables on their auditor.
The Sign © 2004 by Stephen Bittrich. (Revised Draft/April, 2004)
2 men, 8 pages long, simple set.
Drama. Two old friends meet on the day of the funeral of the beloved sister of one of them.
Mime in a Box, © 2007 by Stephen Bittrich
3 men, 14 pages long, simple set.
Mime in a Box takes place on the streets of the Village in New York City. Two friends test the bounds of what is real and what is imaginary with their friendly neighborhood street mime.
Tofu, © 1992 by Stephen Bittrich and Jeff P. Weiss
2 men, 14 pages long, simple set--need a raised girder or platform.
Tofu takes place on the fiftieth story of a building under construction. The archetypical construction guy," Charlie, befriends a mild mannered worker because of a debt of honor.
Tofu was a departure from my regular method of writing plays because it came from a series of improvs I did with my actor friend, Jeff P. Weiss. We kind of decided on a couple of "what ifs" about the characters and the story beforehand, and then we rolled the video tape while we improvised a "play." Some really great stuff came out of that spontaneous work. We wrote it all down and began rehearsing the play, cutting, adding, and rearranging as we worked.
I'm sure there are many, many construction workers working in New York City who don't make catcalls, but my wife has on many occasions had to put up with salacious outbursts from construction workers, and it just seemed like the perfect starting off point to poke a little fun at those guys.
Cowboy South of Houston © 1995 by Stephen Bittrich. (Revised Draft/January 2003)
1 man, 1 woman, 9 pages long, simple set.
Cowboy South of Houston takes place in an avant garde art gallery in Soho (New York City). A cowboy tourist wonders into the gallery and gets more than he bargained for when he meets up with a Soho native.
There is a version of Cowboy South of Houston edited for a high school audience.
On the Shelf for the Holidays © 2000 by Stephen Bittrich. (Revised Draft/February 2004)
1 man, 1 woman, 8 pages long, set is two life-sized doll packaging boxes.
Silly comedy about two dolls passed over for Christmas--Activist Bambi and Cabbie Bob.
