buy, read or perform plays by madelaine nunn.
Cactus
‘Everyone knows that friendships made in bathrooms are ones that last for life.’
Cactus is a brutally funny, heartbreakingly honest new play for anyone who is or ever has been a teenager.
Winner of the ATYP Rebel Wilson Theatre Maker Scholarship
Shortlisted for the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award
Nominated for an Australian Writer’s Guild Award
Shortlisted for the Natural Born Writer’s Award
Cast size: 2 (2 Females)
Potential to double.
Run time: 60 minutes
Want to perform this play? Request production rights by emailing me directly
sitting, screaming
“I could crack open the footpath. Shake the houses until bookcases topple over. And all the porcelain in the world is just dust on the floor. And everything fragile is broken.”
sitting, screaming is a gripping new work about family, adolescence and slipping through the cracks.
Shortlisted for the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award
Longlisted for the Griffin Award
Cast size: 1 (1 Female)
Potential to double.
Run time: 60 minutes
Want to perform this play? Request production rights by emailing me directly
The Chapel, the Fire and the Dead Cat
An act of terror? Work of the divine? Or merely an accident?
The Chapel, the Fire and the Dead Cat explores the challenges young people face in a thrilling mystery haunted with comedy.
Winner ATYP Foundation Commission
Nominated for an Australian Writer’s Guild Award,
Cast Size: 11
Suitable for: Senior Years
Themes: Supernatural, Friendship, Coming of Age
Run time: 120 Minutes
Want to perform this play? Request production rights by emailing me directly
SAAM
SAAM is a comedy misadventure following 14-year-old Claire as she navigates the wild world of friendship, identity and the dark web.
Winner of the Martin Lysicrates Award
Winner of the Australian Writer’s Guild Award
Cast Size: 15
Characters Ages: 10-16
Themes: Friendship, Social Media, AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Run time: 60 Minutes
Want to perform this play? Request production rights by emailing me directly
Summer at Suspended Stone Camp
“This is definitely not how these misfits pictured their summer.”
Summer at Suspended Stone Camp is a dark ensemble comedy following a group of misfits on a discipline camp. Equal parts thrilling, horrifying and heartfelt.
Winner of the Eldersee Commission
Nominated for an Australian Writer’s Guild Award
Cast Size: Large
Character Ages: 13-16 & 50+
Suitable for: Middle Years
Themes Discipline, Self-Acceptance, Leadership & Teamwork
Genre: Magical Realism, Contemporary Puppetry
Run time: 100 minutes
Want to perform this play? Request production rights by emailing me directly
Unicorn Girl
Unicorn Girl is a fast, funny and painfully relatable coming-of-age comedy about identity, friendship and the weird, wonderful mess of growing up.
Sam Reid is 13, awkward, and mostly invisible - until an accidental schoolyard fight and one very pointy unicorn pen turn her into a schoolyard legend. Overnight, she goes from writing fanfiction with her best friends to hanging out with the cool kids. From sitting in the worst spot at lunch to being the centre of every group chat. From nobody… to “Unicorn Girl.”
Form/Style: adventure, children’s theatre, chorus, comedy, contemporary, ensemble, fantasy, large cast, linear, monologue and/or audition pieces, naturalism/realism, theatre for, by or about young people
Length in minutes: 60
Cast: 23 total
Roles: 23 gender unspecified
Themes: young people, self-acceptance, resilience, power, inclusion, identity, hope, growing up, courage, coming of age, change, belonging, adolescence
Cast age groups: 8 to 12, 12 to 16
Audience age: children, teen, young adult
Want to perform this play? Request production rights by emailing me directly
Garage Girls
Meet Alice Anderson: Mechanic. Trailblazer. Entrepreneur. Founder of Australia’s first all-girl garage!
Cast Size: Large
Run time: 90 minutes
Themes: Australian History, Females in industry, Cars
Want to perform this play? Request production rights by emailing me directly
Bin Chicken
On top of the town tip, two friends stand guard as some home truths emerge.
The tip’s closing down and Katy doesn’t know how to feel about that. Bin chicken is a choice between fitting in and belonging. A quirky and comedic small town story of two friends on the brink of change.
Selected for ATYP National Studio
Cast size: 2 Characters (1M, 1F)
Genders can be changed to suit your performers.
Run time: 10 min
Bin Chicken is a short 10 minute playlet from Intersection 2018: Chrysalis. An anthology of monologues and duologues written by emerging playwrights, published by ATYP and Currency Press.