The Absolutely Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair

As you start sourcing scripts for the school year, why not dive into some of Theatrefolk's longest and most delightfully titled plays? These epically named scripts promise not only rich characters and fantastic stories but also a whole lot of fun just pronouncing their titles! These plays offer endless opportunities for creative exploration, and unforgettable performances. Add them to your collection and watch your students bring these wonderfully lengthy titles to life on stage or in the classroom!

As we start thinking about ideas for next year's season, why not dive headfirst into the entertaining world of plays featuring animals in their titles? So many creative opportunities and endless possibilities for your student performers to bring these captivating characters to life. These plays are designed to help you unleash the magic that celebrates the wild spirit of storytelling. Perfect options to grace your stage or classroom next year!

Welcome to our Featured Play Spotlight. The Absolutely Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair by Bradley Walton is hilarious, easy to stage, and suitable for an insanely large cast. Brenda! Put down that brush! Step away from the cat! Cat hair is infinite. No matter how much hair you brush off of a cat, there will always be more. Always. Cat hair has existed since the beginning of time, and it will be here long after cockroaches have become extinct. It is the secret driving force behind business and politics, and is plotting the downfall of humanity even as we speak. Why did we publish this play? The title totally stands out and our first question was, does the play match the awesomeness of the title? Boy does it ever! This play has the longest title, the largest cast, the strangest characters and an infinite amount of cat hair. And the great thing is that the cat hair is integral to the play, so the ensemble has an active role. The cat hair has personality. This is a play filled with unique characters: granola bar, lint roller, masking tape, vacuum cleaner. It’s fabulous if you’re looking to introduce non-human characters to your middle school students. Let the fun and the cat hair begin! Let’s hear from the author!1. Why did you write this play? My wife and I had an incredibly sweet cat named Nuala. She shed. A lot. To the point that it seemed infinite. One night I was staring at all the cat hair that had accumulated on a rug I was sure I had very recently vacuumed, and the ideas for this script started to germinate in my head. So I started typing, with no idea where the concept was going, and wrote the play in tiny increments of about 300 words a day over the space of a month. I remember at one point thinking it was a mess and I should give up on it. But I didn’t, and I pulled it together. It became my most popular play, and I have since come to regard it as a gift from Nuala. 2. Describe the theme in one or two sentences. Cat “owners” are actually helpless, powerless slaves to their pets. (And also, cat hair really is infinite and not to be trusted.) 3. What’s the most important visual for you in this play? The actors playing the cat hairs moving and functioning as a cohesive unit. The more strongly they pull this off, the better it sells the concept of the play. 4. If you could give one piece of advice for those producing the play, what would it be? Tying in to the previous question, treat the movement of the cat hairs more as choreography than blocking. They should be smooth, graceful, and vaguely sinister. 5. Why is this play great for student performers? Although the play can be performed with as few as 16 people, it is beyond perfect for large groups. The only limit to your cast size is the number of bodies you can fit on your stage. And ALL of the parts are gender flexible.

Are you looking for an easy-to-stage one-act play with parts for 8 or 80? The Absolutely Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair by Bradley Walton might be just what you’re looking for. Cat hair is infinite. No matter how much hair you brush off of a cat, there will always be more. Always. Cat hair has existed since the beginning of time, and it will be here long after cockroaches have become extinct. It is the secret driving force behind business and politics, and is plotting the downfall of humanity even as we speak. Unbelievable? Find out for yourself in this insidious and utterly terrifying tale, which is also totally hilarious, easy to stage, and suitable for an insanely large cast. Brenda! Put down that brush! Step away from the cat! Under the direction of PJ Muir , the students at Witherlea School in Blenheim, New Zealand had a great time taking this play to the stage and were able to allow their entire cast of 80 to shine: “Amazing script for our large Drama Club of 80. All cast members get to shine and make a huge impact, especially the cat hairs. Kids were buzzing and our parents were blown away. So many laugh out loud moments. Brilliant! We had 6 narrators, 3 each side which was great for balance. We also used two teachers work with the groups, cat hairs, and all other characters which produced excellent results for cat hairs; they were the stars of the show, each had to choose individual characters and movements.”

Time for a Tfolk Top Ten Plays To….Stretch your tech. ** We pride ourselves at Theatrefolk that you can produce most of our plays with two cubes. And you could take away one of the cubes if you had to. But what if you want to stretch your tech? What if you’ve got a production class with kids who must design for more than two cubes? Wonder no longer. **Here are 10 plays that will Stretch your Tech. Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. Hand this list over to your student directors and see what they think. All the best with your search!

Time for a Tfolk Top Ten Plays For….Gender Flexible Roles. Sometimes you have more girls than guys. Once in a while you have more guys than girls. And sometimes you have students who want to choose their own path. You want to give all your students an opportunity to take the stage but how do you account for your ever changing mix? Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. Every play gives you gender-fluid options. All the best with your search! Smarty Pants (8E) All the characters in this play can be played by the gender of your choice. Name options included. Dallas is a real smarty pants but there’s more Play-doh than Plato and more colouring than Van Gogh in this advanced placement class. Will Dallas figure out Kindergarten High or flunk? Apostrophe’s (13E) Playwright Bradley Hayward knows how important it is to offer casting options. (He also wrote the above Smarty Pants) All the characters can be played by the gender of your choice. Are you sometime’s amazed at how many apostrophe’s s’ome people manage to fi’t into s’entence’s? Then you’re not the only one. That’s just the problem that needs to be solved in this outrageous comedy. The Absolutely Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair (8E + ensemble) You can fit as many students as you need into this play. Cat Hair is infinite after all. No matter how much hair you brush off of a cat, there will always be more. Always. It is the secret driving force behind business and politics, and is plotting the downfall of humanity even as we speak. This play has a number of object personified roles as well which can be a great challenge for character development. They Eat Sunshine, Not Zebras (11E) Nothing stands in the way of the field’s orderly life. Until they wake up one morning to see a yellow dandelion in their midst. A dandelion will turn their orderly way of life upside-down. A dandelion must be destroyed. Isn’t that what you do when something is different? All characters can be played by either gender. Shuddersome: Tales of Poe (4M/5W/25E; Doubling possible, gender flexible) Specters, ghosts and ghouls come alive in this vivid theatrical adaptation of some of Edgar Allen Poe’s best-known works. The main characters in “The Tell Tale Heart” are specifically identified as “Young” and “Old” to make them as flexible as possible. And that’s just one story, feel free to change the genders in all the stories. Clowns With Guns (A Vaudeville) (16E) A theatrical and absurd look at the repeated and seemingly endless cycle of school violence. It happens, everyone is terribly upset, things continue on as normal, it happens again. All characters can be played by either gender. Inanimate (2W/16E) This play plays with personification and thus gives you a lot of gender flexibility. Life is a little different for Ani. She talks to her coffee pot and alarm clock. She even talks to her toaster. Is she living in a happy, carefree kids’ show or is it something more serious? What if you talk to inanimate objects and they talk back? What if they write hate texts to your friends? Try to control you? Make you stay inside with the blinds drawn and the lights turned down low? What if Ani’s life is not happy at all? Anonymous (1M/3W/15E) Anonymous is a story of every teenager: the new kid trying to fit in, the best friends, the love interests, the kid in the corner with their secret, the group of individuals each trying to belong. The teenagers of Anonymous have no names because they are “Me” and “You.” They are everyone. The Perils of Modern Education (3M/19E) The Perils of Modern Education are many! From standardized theatre tests that call for an exact number of steps in a scene, to trying to eat green in the cafeteria, to dealing with caffeine withdrawal, to giving Shakespeare advice on his college application essay. A comedic romp through the stresses and struggles of making it through the school day. Gender flexible casting, doubling possibilities, and easy to stage. The Baloney, the Pickle, the Zombies, and Other Things I Hide From My Mother (1M/7W; Doubling possible) Together with his living baloney-minon, Meyer, Trevor is about to embark on a night in which he will face an angry neighbor, be questioned by police, bring a pickle to life, and discover that his food may actually be smarter than he is… all while trying to keep everything secret from his mother and little sister. Planning on performing one of these or another Theatrefolk play? Let us know all about it with pictures and highlights – we might even feature you on our site! Click here to submit your story.

Time for a Tfolk Top Ten Plays For…Large Casts! Maybe your policy is to give a part to everyone who auditions. Or maybe your drama club is bursting with students. Either way, you need plays with a lot of characters. And not just characters who stand in the background holding up the scenery. Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. All the best with your search! The Pauper Princess Cast size: 10M+28W+34 Either A twist on The Price and the Pauper with two girls in the lead roles and Elizabethan England as the location. The Princess is Princess Elizabeth and the Pauper is a girl hiding as a boy in a location theatre production. A huge cast with roles for everyone who tries out. Rebootilization Cast size: 13M+15W+25 Either, Expandable to 85+ Stories all over the world are under attack. Pages are going blank in a pandemic so big, the government’s involved. SynCryn has the original narrative DNA for every story and it’s an easy reboot process, so long as…. nothing goes wrong. Parts for everyone. The Absolutely Insidious and Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair Cast size: 8 Either, Plus ensemble of 8-100 A hilarious piece with an insanely large cast. How will you theatricalize cat hair that is plotting the downfall of humanity even as we speak? Personification at its best. Circus Olympus Cast size: 6M+9W, expandable to 12 M+20W A gleeful celebration of greek myth with excellent large cast expansion and parts for all abilities. Circus elements are optional and are suggested for each myth. Being Bianca: The Semi Complete Guide Cast size: 2M+10W+38 Either When told she should engage in volunteer work, Bianca decides on a great service to mankind: She will teach us all how to “Be Bianca.” (the semi-complete guide). Every life step is Bianca-ized! It may not be the best idea, but it is the most entertaining. The Myths at the End of the World Cast size: 2M+3W+2 Either, Expandable to 30 Four campers are not only lost in the wood, they are lost at the edge of the world with no land, water, stars or sun. The only thing to do is to release stories from around the world and from the wind. Excellent opportunities for mask and movement. A unique cross- curricular storytelling adventure. The Art of Rejection Cast size: The Art of Rejection 1M +1W+14 Either, Chaired 13 Either Two plays that look at being alone – whether it’s the only letter in a sea of numbers, or alone in making the right decision to sit or stand. A combination of humanity and the avant-garde the two together make for a great competition piece. The Canterbury Tales Cast size: 4M+4W, Easily Expandable to 16+19W Chaucer’s classic collection of tales comes to life in a full-length adaptation. Great characters, lots of humour, and strong ensemble work. Text uses modern English. Cobweb Dreams Cast size: 2M+17W+7 Either Cobweb Dreams is a fun-filled fantasy that runs parallel to the events of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Cobweb is not having fun in Titania’s train. She dreams of a life where she plays pranks all day long and doesn’t have to be a stuffy, stuck-up fairy in waiting. Oh will this midsummer night never end? The Snow Queen Cast size: M+20W+31 Either A magical theatrical adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of a sister’s love, an ice cold heart, and a fantastical journey. It’s the original Snow Queen story brought to life.

For many drama teachers, a dwindling production budget is an ongoing struggle. How do you put up a full production with limited funds? Beth Goodwin portrays the double whammy she works in a small school with a small budget. And how she still ends up with consistently stunning visuals. Here are 3 tips from her successful productions. Tip #1: Don’t rely on a set.Even something as simple as changing your curtain colour and then using it as a backdrop can make a big difference, as seen in Beth’s production of Alice. Beth says: “With Alice, I was tired of the black curtains on the stage in our gym. I went through a prom book and found red polyvinyl for $50.00, hooked it up over the black curtains, and then we had red curtains. It was awesome. We do a lot of reduce, reuse, and recycle.” Tip #2: You can costume on a budget.Beth has a few tricks up her sleeve (pun intended!) that involve planning ahead and being on the lookout for deals: • Shop a fabric store like Jo-Ann’s and look for Red Tag Sale clearance fabric • Yard sale in the summertime and stockpile for the coming year • Look on eBay for fabric lots (with free shipping!) Here’s an example of how Beth used festival t-shirts and transformed them into costumes for a production of The Absolutely Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair: “We buy t-shirts for the festival competition that we participate in, so I got long-sleeved ones and the students turned them inside out. We made hoods to coordinate with the t-shirt colours, added makeup, and they all had black pants, leggings, and shoes. So, they were 24 cat hairs for the price of a t-shirt and some makeup.” Tip #3: Don’t rely on the bells and whistles.Often the best productions are those that don’t rely on the extras, the fancy sets, or lighting. It’s all about the actors and their characters. Beth says, “Without the bells and whistles, the actors have to be strong. The characters have to be strong. I drill it into their head, you know? If you don’t believe in what you’re doing, the audience isn’t going to believe it.” This is a practice (not dress) rehearsal of Oddball by Lindsay Price. You can see it required a lot of concentration on the beginning dance entrance. Want to hear more about Beth’s success staging productions on a budget? Click here to listen to the podcast.

Time for a Tfolk Top Ten Plays About…Characters you will only find in the theatre. You want unique characters for your students? We got them! Cat hair, archetypes, Shakespearean, and a severed head just to name a few. Read one, read them all! Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. All the best with your search! Inanimate Ani talks to the inanimate objects in her life and they talk back. It all seems friendly and fun at first. So why is Ani writing hate texts to her friends? Why does she let the objects control her? What if feels she can’t leave her room anymore? Characters: The inanimate objects in Ani’s life Floating On A Don’t Care Cloud Jamie Peel is a pothead. He lives in his own world, a bubble, a cloud that calls his name and reaches out to him. His sister TJ has watched him slowly drift away and doesn’t know what to do. An emotional tightrope. Characters: Marijuana is personified by a cloud of 7 characters. To Kill a Mocking Birdie Birdie would like you to meet her parents: a goldfish and a moldy piece of bread. You may also meet What, When, Alexa (who’s hiding in the bathroom) and Birdie’s sister Scoot, who thinks she’s a glazed Virginia Ham. It’s a perfectly crazy dinner party. Consider this your invitation. Characters: Everyone is Absolutely abnormal Lose Not Thy Head Joan pleads for life, Death waits for death, a severed Head says beheading isn’t so bad, a doctor tries to convince everyone that you can’t sew a head back on a body, and then things get weird. Shakespeare, Monty Python, a little love, a little death, a lot of laughs and a talking head. Characters: Death. A freudian Doctor. A severed head. Shakespeare’s sister who’s impersonating Shakespeare. Censorbleep The Bleep Bleep Girls are the greatest group in school. They know what’s best. And when students try to stand up for themselves, or don’t do the “right” thing, they get dealt with. Characters: Teenagers are turned into garbage and disappear. Postcards From Shakespeare Shakespeare has writer’s block. He pleads to the one person who can help him – Queen Elizabeth the First who sends Shakespeare around the world in 30 minutes. Denmark! Venice! Egypt! Join his whirlwind tour as he desperately searches for material. Characters: Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s Characters. Elizabeth the first. Myth-o-logues Cassandra is here to be your Greek mythology tour guide. She’ll lead you through stories of war, relationships and the origins of good and evil. Pick and choose from this must-have collection of monologues. Characters: Greek Mythology’s greatest The Dread Playwright Sadie Sadie wishes to leave her life on the high seas to pursue her true passion: theatre. But there’s a problem. She’s not just Sadie; she’s The Dread Pirate Sadie, the most feared pirate in all the land. And there’s another problem. She’s a horrible pirate. Characters: Pirates. And Playwrights. The Absolute Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair Cat hair is infinite. It is the secret driving force behind business and politics, and is plotting the downfall of humanity even as we speak. Unbelievable? Find out for yourself in this hilarious, insidious and utterly terrifying tale… Characters: Lint Roller, Granola Bar, Masking Tape, and of course, Cat Hair. Emotional Baggage Seven strangers meet in a train station. Instead of luggage, they all carry their “emotional baggage.” This unique play is based solely on action and has no dialogue. Characters: All the characters in this play are archetypes: Dead End Job, Living in the Past, etc.

Time for a Tfolk Top Ten For…Our Most Popular Plays! Sometimes you want a sure thing. So this week we offer our most popular plays. These are the works that get done time and time again whether it’s because of their subject matter, their humour, their ease of production or their unique theatrical take. Read one, read them all! Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. All the best with your search! Hoodie Hoodie examines image and appearance in the vignette style and poses what may be the most difficult question of all – Do I stay in the clump or do I stand alone? Sixteen in Ten Minutes Or Less The lives of seven teenagers become intertwined in this humorous and oftentimes bittersweet collection of ten minute plays. Alice Alice follows the white rabbit down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, where she meets a cornucopia of strange creatures. A one-act adaptation of the famous novel by Lewis Carroll. Shuddersome: Tales of Poe The thumping of a heartbeat. The creek of a door. The sound of beating wings getting closer and closer… Specters, ghosts and ghouls come alive in this vivid theatrical adaptation of some of Edgar Allen Poe’s best-known works. Ten/Two Ten short two-person plays (inspired by the numbers 10 and 2!) in a variety of themes and lengths. Excellent for classwork and for competition. Drop Dead, Juliet Juliet has had enough! Enough with the poison, enough with the stabbing, and especially enough with the dying. She wants a new story and she wants it now. _ Romeo and Juliet_ will never be the same – or will it? The Absolutely Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair Cat hair is infinite. It is the secret driving force behind business and politics, and is plotting the downfall of humanity even as we speak. Unbelievable? Find out for yourself in this hilarious, insidious and utterly terrifying tale… Emotional Baggage Seven strangers meet in a train station. Instead of luggage, they all carry their “emotional baggage.” This unique play is based solely on action and has no dialogue. The Bottom of the Lake An awesome combination of ghost stories, urban legends, teen issues, romance, absurd comedy, and film noir, all in a single play! Apostrophe’s Are you sometime’s amazed at how many apostrophe’s s’ome people manage to fi’t into s’entence’s? Then you’re not the only one. That’s just the problem that needs to be solved in this outrageous comedy. Planning on performing one of these or another Theatrefolk play? Let us know all about it with pictures and highlights – we might even feature you on our site! Click here to submit your story.

Are you playing Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? One of the seven deadly sins? A banana in an improv scene? A god in a Greek myth? The Lint Roller in The Absolutely Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair? One of the best aspects of theatre performance is that if the actors on stage believe what and who they are presenting, so will the audience. Audience members will suspend their disbelief when they see a talking cat or a piece of baloney come to life on stage. Theatre is the perfect playground for nonhuman characters. Student actors find it challenging to depict nonhuman characters because of the physical component. It’s hard for student actors to get out of their decidedly human bodies. As a result, nonhuman characters often end up looking human. Here are the top 5 tips for playing nonhuman characters:1. Find a different level 2. Find a different shape 3. Get a little uncomfortable 4. Change your natural rhythm of movement 5. Don’t neglect the character’s background 1. Find a different levelStudent actors often occupy space at a medium level. They stand and move on stage the way they do in their regular life. They don’t think about incorporating a variety of levels into their character building. A different level will help them to visually identify a nonhuman character. Ask students how their character occupies space and how it’s different from their own choices. Encourage students to explore levels outside the day to day. Have students kneel or crouch down for a medium low level, or get down flat on the floor and try to move without using arms and legs. Have them run on their tiptoes or stand on the furniture to explore a high space. Push them out of the norm and encourage them to make choices that are out of their comfort zone. 2. Find a different shapeStudents’ bodies follow pretty straight lines (albeit with a bit of a standard slouch). They keep their limbs close to their body and their legs and arms stay straight. They walk one foot after the other in a line. Get students thinking about the possibilities of different body shapes. Have them bend elbows and knees. Raise one shoulder up to their ears. What is the identifying shape for this nonhuman character? Can you you make your body a circle? A triangle? Once students have defined their character’s body shape, ask how they can incorporate shapes into their movement. Does this character roll? How can you roll with your gait? If this character’s defining shape is a triangle with the legs spread out wide, how does that affect your walk? 3. Get a little uncomfortableStanding and moving in a different shape at a different level by its nature is going to be uncomfortable for students. They’re going to want to revert back to their normal ways. Practice holding an uncomfortable stance. Have students discuss how it feels. The goal is not to shy away from new body shapes but to learn how to embrace discomfort. It could be a series of stretches afterward. It could be setting a 10 second limit for the hold and increasing the time over subsequent classes. It could be defining two poses for the character and creating a transition between the poses that releases any tension. 4. Change your natural rhythm of movementThere are so many options when creating a movement rhythm for a character. You can speed up or slow down. You can combine the two in a quick, quick, slow pattern. You can create imbalance in your rhythm by walking on the inside of the left foot and the outside of the right foot. You can drag the left leg behind in a limp. Before asking students to define a rhythm of movement for their nonhuman character, have them practice possible ways of moving. Start students moving at a 1 (where 1 is slower than a turtle and 10 is all out running) and play with speed. Have students walk on their toes, their heels, and all points in between. Get them to walk with their feet close together and far apart. Encourage students to move as differently than their natural rhythm as possible. 5. Don’t neglect character backgroundDefining the physicality for a nonhuman character doesn’t stop with the body. Character details can influence physicality. Sometimes students assume they don’t have to come up with the same details as they would with a human character. The answers certainly won’t be the same as they would be for a human character. Who would make up the family of one of the seven deadly sins? What would Greed’s pet peeve be? What would Sloth’s favourite food be? Identifying character details gives an actor more to work with and that’s essential for a nonhuman character. You don’t want to present a novelty piece. A nonhuman character needs to be as three dimensional as any other character. Once students come up with these details, ask “How can these details be incorporated into your character’s physicality?” The more they practice different physical choices, the easier it will be to create a nonhuman character.

Some drama teachers have their whole production year figured out before the first day of school. If you’re doing a big musical, you need to get that paperwork started way in advance. Or maybe you need to coordinate using the theatre space with other departments – you need to know what you’re doing and when. Or, if you’re lucky, you have an engaged drama club and they’re reading the plays and deciding what they want to do ahead of time. But sometimes all that planning goes out the window. You choose a play, hold auditions and the actors you think you’re going to have don’t show up. Or you choose a small cast play and are faced with a flood of wonderful auditions. And sometimes, just the act of choosing a play is the issue. It can be an overwhelming and frustrating experience. Auditions loom and you still haven’t chosen a script. If you’ve stared at a stack of play catalogues with panic in your eyes, we here at Theatrefolk are ready to come to the rescue! Ok. We’re not a superhero. But we can give you some guidance to what we have available and how you can swiftly navigate our catalogue. If you’re frustrated with your search, or if you have to make a last minute decision NOW, have a look at the following plays. With each play there’s a link to the website page where you can read free sample pages. Enjoy! Top SellersWant something popular? Try these! Hoodie by Lindsay Price Hands down, our most popular one act. Hoodie is a middle school play about self image and appearance. Great for classes, and the kind of play that lets you cast every kid who auditions.