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Nothing energizes a high school theater department like an upcoming play! Get young actors, backstage crew members, and stage managers amped for this season in drama with a selection of classic and unique plays for high school. 

From small one-act plays to epic ensemble musicals, we’ve compiled an inspirational list of memorable plays for high schoolers. You’ll also find resources for managing the production process and teaching students the basics of theater (hello, improv games and blocking exercises!). 

Spectacular Shows for Small Casts

It can be challenging for smaller theater departments to find good plays for high school students. Showcase their skills with these small-but-mighty performances that call for 10 or fewer roles, plus the flexibility to build out a modest ensemble (or have actors double their parts in some cases). For abridged or modified versions of the plays, look for the teen versions.

• The 39 Steps (4 roles, 2 hours): A murder mystery takes main character Richard through an adventurous manhunt across the nation.
• A Doll’s House (6 roles, 110 minutes): A wife breaks away from her controlling husband in search of her identity.
• Almost, Maine (4 roles, 2 hours): Nine short plays explore love and loss in a small town.
• Animal Farm (7 roles, 105 minutes): Farm animals overthrow their human leader and create a corrupt society.
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (10 roles, 2 hours 20 minutes): A boy with autism attempts to solve the murder of his neighbor’s dog.
• The Glass Menagerie (4 roles, 2 hours): A dysfunctional family struggles with unfulfilled goals and disappointments.
• Launch Day (Love Stories From the Year 2108) (10 roles, 90 minutes): Two-actor scenes show complex relationships in a high-tech romantic comedy.
• The Odd Couple (8 roles, 1 hour 45 minutes): Mismatched roommates learn to get along despite their many differences.
• Peter and the Starcatcher (12 roles, 2.5 hours): A prequel to the story of Peter Pan, the play shows familiar characters in new situations.
• She Kills Monsters (9 roles, 105 minutes): Agnes discovers the magic of her late sister’s Dungeons and Dragons fantasy world.

Extend your high school play into a full theater unit

From the stage to the classroom, any play is a teaching opportunity. Use your upcoming high school play to teach the basics of theater and drama to new actors or ELA students.

The Odd Couple Play Study Unit — 3 Full Weeks of Activities & Performance!
By From Page to Stage
Grades: 9th-12th

Subjects: Drama, English Language Arts

If you’re planning a production of The Odd Couple, this resource is just what you need! Created for an introductory drama class, the play study unit equips beginning actors with tools to memorize lines, block their scenes, and participate in characterization practice and activities. 

Lavishly Large Plays for High School

For theater departments with lots of interest and even more talent, plays with larger casts are just the right fit. Choose a larger performance piece with 15 roles or more, and give others a chance by crafting ensembles of varying sizes.

• Arsenic and Old Lace (15 roles, 3 hours): Two elderly women poison old men in their community in this Black comedy.
• Clue (20 parts, 90 minutes): This classic murder mystery combines dark comedy with theater intrigue and drama.
• The Crucible (20 roles, 2.5 hours): Teens in 17th-century Salem accuse fellow townspeople of witchcraft.
• Front (18 roles, 2 hours): Families persevere during wartime in a dramatic exploration of World War II.
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (21 roles, 2 hours): In Shakespeare’s classic comedy, a fairy affects romantic entanglements before they reach a happy ending.
• The Outsiders (18 roles, 2 hours): Teenage gang members flee a killing and try to stay alive on the run.
• Stage Door (20 roles, 90 minutes): Young women come to New York in pursuit of their acting dreams in this entertaining comedy.
• Treasure Island (22 roles, 2 hours): A teen boy takes up a pirate life with the infamous Long John Silver in a swashbuckling adventure tale.
• Twelve Angry Jurors (15 roles, 75 minutes): A modern take on the classic Twelve Angry Men, this gender-inclusive play explores guilt, responsibility, and the modern legal system.
• You Can’t Take It With You (16 roles, 2 hours 20 minutes): Money and lifestyle threaten to separate Alice and her boss, Tony, in this well-known comedy.

Memorable Musicals with Smaller Casts

Does your smaller theater class love to sing? Make their stage dreams come true with musicals that are perfect for casts of under 15 players. Feel free to build out ensembles if you’ve got enough interest to make your show truly shine!

• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (9 roles, 100 minutes): Six students navigate the world of spelling bees in the pursuit of the big trophy.
• Be More Chill (10 roles, 2 hours): Jeremy discovers a supercomputer that can give him everything he wants in this modern musical.
• Dreamgirls (8 roles, 2 hours): Three Black female singers pursue their dreams of fame in a musical inspired by 1960s Motown.
• Hadestown (6 roles, 2 hours): A retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice takes audiences through a journey of love, hope, and loss.
• Little Women (10 roles, 2 hours): Four sisters grow up amidst social standards and life lessons in post-Civil War New England. 
• Little Shop of Horrors (8 roles, 2 hours): Seymour, a shy floral assistant, grapples with a troublesome plant in a theater-favorite comedy musical.
• Once on This Island (10 roles, 2 hours): A peasant girl faces prejudice and finds love after rescuing a rich boy on a Caribbean Island.
• Ride the Cyclone (7 roles, 90 minutes): Six teenagers have a chance to return to life after a fatal accident on a roller coaster.
• Tick, Tock…Boom! (3 roles, 90 minutes): A composer examines his life and friendships in a journey of artistic self-discovery.
• You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (6 roles, 2 hours): Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang come to life in a revue of the classic comic strip and its characters.

Breathtaking Musicals with Big Casts

When it’s time for the big school musical, it’s all about the ensemble. Put on a spellbinding show with large casts and extensive ensembles that get everyone in the audience singing along! Some musicals may be available as abridged or edited teen editions. 

• Beauty and the Beast (16 roles, 2.5 hours): A young woman falls in love with a prince cursed to life in the form of a beast.
• Chicago (19 roles, 90 minutes): A jazz singer and a starstruck ingénue are arrested for murder and become celebrity criminals behind bars.
• Into the Woods (17 roles, 2.5 hours): This whimsical musical connects many fairy tales and their characters in a complex journey toward togetherness.
• Mamma Mia! (12 roles, 2.5 hours): The daughter of a hotelier invites the three men who could be her father to her upcoming wedding.
• Matilda (21 roles, 2 hours): A brilliant young student gets revenge on her cruel parents and evil principal.
• Newsies (30 roles, 2 hours): Newsboys in 1899 form a union and strike against the greedy publishers who are raising their costs.
• School of Rock (28 roles, 2 hours): A struggling musician poses as a teacher and forms a band with his talented students.
• The SpongeBob Musical (16 roles, 2 hours): SpongeBob Squarepants must save his underwater home from a volcanic threat.
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (9 roles, 2 hours): A 19th-century barber takes revenge on those who wronged him.
• Urinetown (18 roles, 2.5 hours): This apocalyptic musical satirizes a government in which citizens must pay to use the restroom.

One-Act Plays for High School

One-act plays are perfect for theater showcases, end-of-the-year performances, or theater classes that want to get just one more show on the calendar. Try out these popular one-act plays for high school that can feel just as dramatic and breathtaking as their full-length counterparts.

• 10 Ways to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse (7-25 roles, 35 minutes): Four friends use a how-to list to survive a zombie apocalypse.
• 12 Angry Villains (14 roles, 30 minutes): In a comedic take on Twelve Angry Men, this fairy-tale themed play puts twelve villains in charge of Peter Pan’s fate.
• The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon (5-20 roles, 35 minutes): This one-act play is a quick and entertaining exploration of all 209 fairy tales written by the Brothers Grimm.
• The Day the Internet Died (25 roles, 30 minutes): On the day the internet goes out, friends and families learn how to get through life without their screens.
• The Diary of Anne Frank (13 roles, 75 minutes): A short play dramatizes parts of the famous diary of Anne Frank, including her adolescence hiding from Nazis in an annex.
• A Night Under the Stars (17 roles, 45 minutes): Characters looking to escape their normal lives bond and explore life under the stars.
• Queens (15 roles, 45 minutes): King Henry VII is haunted in death by his wives and mistresses for his misdeeds in life.
• The One-Act Play That Goes Wrong (8 roles, 75 minutes): A play-within-a-play features an ill-fated whodunnit and the actors trying to put it on.
• Tracks (10 roles, 40 minutes): Ten people arrive in a subway station after they’ve died to decide whether they should get on the train or not.
• A Wrinkle in Time (17 roles, 50 minutes): Meg challenges the boundaries of society and time to save her father and humanity.

Resources to Teach Play Production

The National Core Art Standards for theater detail the importance of student participation in the play production process. Whether you’re training new actors or helping drama students with their passion projects, these class resources can streamline and standardize the way you run a play.

Master monologues and speaking on stage

Do your high schoolers have a case of stage fright? Help them feel comfortable and confident on stage by practicing monologues and in-class performances before they ever enter the theater.

Acting Monologue Performance Unit for Junior High / High School Drama (Low Prep)
By Much Ado About Drama
Grades: 8th-11th
Subjects: Art, Drama, English Language Arts

A monologue performance unit turns apprehensive actors into practiced performers in just ten lessons. This low-prep resource includes warm-ups, discussions, and acting activities that target vocal exploration and character objectives to get students comfortable with being on stage. 

Manage the direction process from start to finish

The best plays for high school are the most organized ones! Keep everyone on track, including the teacher, by planning out your play budget, calendar, auditions, and rehearsal schedule. 

Bundle: Play & Musical Production – High School Drama Materials
By Scholars on Stage
Grade: 6th-12th
Subject: Drama

Take a play production from audition to closing curtain with a bundle of high school drama materials. With helpful templates, a production calendar, budget resources, rehearsal reports, and teacher/director guides for every step of the production, this resource is just what any high school class needs to keep the drama on the stage and out of the preparation process.

Educate and decorate with drama classroom posters

Theater is art, so shouldn’t you have some theater art in your classroom? Use educational drama posters in class or backstage to remind students of theater basics.

Roles in Theater, Theatre Hierarchy, Production Roles | Drama Classroom Posters
By Delightfully Dramatic
Subjects: Art, Drama

If you’ve got space on your walls between all the musical and play posters, use a theater role poster to establish the proper hierarchy of a typical play production. Available in bright colors or black and white, the poster lets everyone know who they report to, who reports to them, and who gets to make the final call on a creative decision.

More High School Theater Class Activities

Need more ways to bulk up theater students’ skills and understanding? Find ways to infuse theater fundamentals into your classroom instruction, including improv games, the history of Greek theater, and staging basics.

Host a reader’s theater for drama basics

A popular way to address CCSS for English language arts, reader’s theater activities are a combination of reading and theater basics. Use this teaching method to reinforce literary analysis skills and drama fundamentals in theater and ELA classes.

Reader’s Theater Script | Greek Roots | Drama by Teaching and Motivating Teens
By Teaching and Motivating Teens
Grade: 7th-10th
Subjects: Close Reading, Drama, English Language Arts
Standards: CCSS RL.8.1, 2, 3, 4, 6, RL.9-10.1, 2, 3, 4, 6; CCRA.R.1, SL.6, L.1, 2, 3, 4, 6 

Ideal for both theater and ELA classes, this resource introduces students to the fundamentals of Greek drama, including hubris, hamartia, Greek chorus, and poetic justice. They study common Greek root words before performing an original reader’s theater script, then analyze the experience and their part in it.

Teach characterization and blocking before a show

Tired of calling “Find a window!” to your theater students? Connect characterization and blocking so they understand more about their character’s motivation, and subsequently, their onstage placement.

9 Short Scenes for Characterization and Blocking
By ShowStopper Theatre Resources
Grades: 6th-12th

Characterization and blocking can be tricky to master for new and experienced actors alike! Make these skills more accessible for high schoolers with a series of short scenes that all begin with the line “You’ve got to be kidding!” Student groups create their own characters and work to block their scenes before performing in front of the class.

All the World’s a (High School) Stage

There’s nothing like high school theater season, whether you’re performing a two-student show or a huge all-department musical. Find more high school drama resources to make this theater season the best one yet. For more ways to get drama students thinking creatively, take a look at writing prompts for high school that work for young actors.