11 of the Best Scenes for Three or More Actors

Written by Tiffany Wilkie

November 12, 2018

Explore our list of ensemble scenes. Stay tuned for more lists, coming soon!

1. A scene from Fugue by Laura Elizabeth Miller  


Drama / 1 m, 3f

ABOUT THE PLAY: Fugue gives voice to the tragic recollections of three murdered children who relive their eerily similar nightmares of being kidnapped. Written as a staged poem, Fugue has been produced across the US and in multiple countries.


FIND THE PLAY HERE

2. A scene from The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe


Dramatic Comedy/ 6f

ABOUT THE PLAY: Left quad. Right quad. Lunge. A girls indoor soccer team warms up. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigates big questions and wages tiny battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of adolescent warriors. A portrait of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for nine American girls who just want to score some goals.


FIND THE PLAY HERE

3. A scene from Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes


Drama/ 2m, 2f

ABOUT THE PLAY: Somewhere in Philadelphia, Elliot has returned from Iraq and is struggling to find his place in the world. Somewhere in a chat room, recovering addicts keep each other alive, hour by hour, day by day. The boundaries of family and community are stretched across continents and cyberspace as birth families splinter and online families collide. WATER BY THE SPOONFUL is a heartfelt meditation on lives on the brink of redemption.


FIND THE PLAY HERE

4. A scene from Lord of the Flies by William Golding 


Drama/ 8m

ABOUT THE PLAY: The classic tale of a group of English school boys who are left stranded on an unpopulated island, and who must confront not only the defects of their society but the defects of their own natures.


FIND THE PLAY HERE

5. A scene from The Mystery at Twicknam Vicarage by David Ives


Comedy/ 3m, 2f

ABOUT THE PLAY: There’s a body on the carpet. Three ridiculous Masterpiece Theatre-style suspects and a bumbling Scotland Yard detective solve philosophical quandaries as they investigate: Who killed Jeremy Thumpington-Fffienes?


FIND THE PLAY HERE

6. A scene from For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls by Christopher Durang


Comedy/ 2m, 2f

ABOUT THE PLAY: In this parody of THE GLASS MENAGERIE, the fading Southern belle, Amanda, tries to prepare her hyper-sensitive, hypochondriacal son, Lawrence, for “the feminine caller.” Terrified of people, Lawrence plays with his collection of glass cocktail stirrers. Ginny, the feminine caller, is hard of hearing and overbearingly friendly. Brother Tom wants to go the movies, where he keeps meeting sailors who need to be put up in his room. Amanda tries to face everything with “charm and vivacity,” but sometimes she just wants to hit somebody.


FIND THE PLAY HERE

7. A scene from Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris


Comedy/ 2m, 2f

ABOUT THE PLAY: CLYBOURNE PARK explodes in two outrageous acts set fifty years apart. Act One takes place in 1959, as white community leaders anxiously try to stop the sale of a home to a black family. Act Two is set in the same house in the present day, as the now predominantly African-American neighborhood battles to hold its ground in the face of gentrification.


FIND THE PLAY HERE

8. A scene from Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz


Comedy/ 1m, 4f

ABOUT THE PLAY: Brooke Wyeth returns home to Palm Springs after a six-year absence to celebrate Christmas with her parents, her brother, and her aunt. Brooke announces that she is about to publish a memoir dredging up a pivotal and tragic event in the family’s history—a wound they don’t want reopened. In effect, she draws a line in the sand and dares them all to cross it.


FIND THE PLAY HERE

9. A scene from Sweat by Lynn Nottage*


Drama/ 4m

ABOUT THE PLAY: Filled with warm humor and tremendous heart, SWEAT tells the story of a group of friends who have spent their lives sharing drinks, secrets, and laughs while working together on the factory floor. But when layoffs and picket lines begin to chip away at their trust, the friends find themselves pitted against each other in a heart-wrenching fight to stay afloat.


FIND THE PLAY HERE

10. A scene from  The Humans by Stephen Karam*


Drama/ 2m, 4f

ABOUT THE PLAY: Breaking with tradition, Erik Blake has brought his Pennsylvania family to celebrate Thanksgiving at his daughter’s apartment in lower Manhattan. As darkness falls outside the ramshackle pre-war duplex, eerie things start to go bump in the night and the heart and horrors of the Blake clan are exposed.


FIND THE PLAY HERE

11. A scene from God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza


Comedy/ 2m, 2f

ABOUT THE PLAY: Breaking with tradition, Erik Blake has brought his Pennsylvania family to celebrate Thanksgiving at his daughter’s apartment in lower Manhattan. As darkness falls outside the ramshackle pre-war duplex, eerie things start to go bump in the night and the heart and horrors of the Blake clan are exposed.


FIND THE PLAY HERE


Looking for more material? Check out our other stories below!


*Full scene not available. Reference script for the full scene. 

Tiffany Weagly-Wilkie is the Director of Theatricals for PerformerStuff.com. She also serves as the Casting Director for The Imagination House.