Don’t have a ton of actors for your production? No worries! You can still put on a memorable show with these small-cast musicals that have six or fewer parts! Looking for something even smaller? Check out our top one- and two-person musicals.
Glory Days Music & Lyrics by Nick Blaemire, Book by James Gardiner
A year after graduating high school, four best friends reconnect on their old school’s football field. Will has called the boys together with a mission: to hack into the sprinkler system so that it goes off when the jocks who bullied them in high school take the field for a charity game. But as the guys wait for instructions on how to break into the system, they quickly realize how dramatically their lives have grown apart. With a soaring pop-rock score, Glory Days is a poignant and witty coming-of-age story about friends searching for understanding and validation as they face the consequences of growing up. Contains adult language.
Cast: 4M
Bed and Sofa Music by Polly Pen, Libretto by Laurence Klavan, Based on the Film by Abram Room
In Moscow, in 1926, a housing crisis raged. In a cramped apartment, Ludmilla, a put-upon housewife, lives in dreamy complacency with her cheerful despot of a husband, Kolya. When one day, Kolya’s handsome comrade, Volodya, arrives from the country but can find no lodgings, Kolya offers him their sofa. When Kolya returns early from a business trip, he is shocked to discover that Ludmilla and Volodya have become lovers. Kolya moves out, but there is still nowhere to live, so he reluctantly returns, taking the sofa, and leaving Ludmilla and Volodya the bed. Kolya stalls the new couple’s lovemaking with endless games of checkers, so that slowly, to Ludmilla’s frustration, Volodya becomes more interested in the manly sport of checkers than in sex. Finally, Volodya reveals himself to be just as much a domestic despot as Kolya. So Ludmilla banishes Volodya to the sofa and takes the bed for herself. Ludmilla’s “marriage” to the two men has already had its consequences as she is pregnant. The two men bicker over who is the father and finally decree: Ludmilla must have an abortion. Acquiescing, Ludmilla waits her turn in a frighteningly efficient clinic. But seeing a living, breathing baby out the window convinces her to leave, without the procedure. She packs up and abandons her two “husbands,” declaring them unworthy to be fathers, and Kolya and Volodya find themselves alone in the close Moscow flat. They have no choice: As Ludmilla rides alone into the exciting unknown, Kolya takes the bed and Volodya the sofa.
Cast: 1F / 2M
Five Course Love Book, Music & Lyrics by Gregg Coffin
Three actors play fifteen different characters in five different restaurants on the hunt for one true love. The evening begins at Dean’s Old-Fashioned All-American Down-Home Bar-B-Que Texas Eats, where a blind date goes charbroiled wrong. Next, at the Trattoria Pericolo, a mob wife has a secret rendezvous behind her husband’s back. At Der Schlupfwinkel Speiseplatz, a waiter, a dominatrix and her kept man discover at the same hilarious moment that they are all dating each other. In Ernesto’s Cantina, a hill bandit and his rival battle for the hand of the beautiful Rosalinda. And at the Star-Lite Diner, a waitress pines for her true love and gets a little help from Cupid in making her dreams come true.
Cast: 1F / 2M
Honky Tonk Angels by Ted Swindley
When three gutsy gals from different backgrounds take charge of their lives, they decide to follow their honky tonk dreams all the way to the city of Nashville. Combining 30 classic country tunes (including “Stand By Your Man,” “9 to 5,” “Harper Valley PTA” and more!) Honky Tonk Angels is a hilarious, foot-stomping good time.
Cast: 3F
Hundred Days Book by The Bengsons & Sarah Gancher, Music & Lyrics by The Bengsons
Hundred Days is an uncensored, exhilarating and heartrending true story about embracing uncertainty, taking a leap, and loving as if you only had 100 days to live. With magnetic chemistry and anthemic folk-punk music, creators Abigail and Shaun Bengson explore a fundamental question: how do we make the most of the time that we have?
Cast: 6 Any
The Pin-Up Girls by James Hindman & Jeffrey Lodin
From The Andrew Sisters to hip-hop! From World War I to Afghanistan. The Pin-Up Girls sing a cavalcade of hits inspired by letters home from our troops overseas! While singing at their local VFW hall, Leanne and her friends stumble upon a huge stash of letters that go back a hundred years. Inspired by what they find— funny, romantic, heartbreaking, and… sexy— the ladies put on a show that celebrates the guys and gals who fight to defend our country.
Cast: 3F / 1M
Route 66 Written & Created by Roger Bean, Musical Arrangements by Brian Baker
Take a dollop of Grease, mix in some Pump Boys and Dinettes, and add a generous dose of Forever Plaid and you’ve got the high-octane fun of Route 66! Beginning with the sounds of 1950s Chicago and traveling along the ‘Main Street of America’ to the California coast with the surf music of the 1960s, this exciting musical revue features 34 of the greatest ‘Rock ‘n’ Road’ hits of the 20th century. Songs include “Dead Man’s Curve,” “King of the Road,” “Little Old Lady from Pasadena,” “Beep Beep,” “Six Days on the Road,” “Little GTO,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” and many more. Get your kicks with this smash coast-to-coast hit musical revue!
Cast: 4M
