CONTEMPORARY
ONE-ACT PLAYS

WITH OUTLINE STUDY OF THE
ONE-ACT PLAY AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES

BY
B. ROLAND LEWIS
Professor and Head of the Department of English in the University of Utah;
Author of "The Technique of the One-Act Play"






CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON

TO
THE MEN AND WOMEN
WHO SO KINDLY HAVE PERMITTED ME TO
REPRINT THESE ONE-ACT PLAYS

PREFACE

This collection of one-act plays appears because of an increasingly large demand for such a volume. The plays have been selected and the Introduction prepared to meet the need of the student or teacher who desires to acquaint himself with the one-act play as a specific dramatic form.

The plays included have been selected with this need in mind. Accordingly, emphasis has been placed upon the wholesome and uplifting rather than upon the sordid and the ultra-realistic. The unduly sentimental, the strikingly melodramatic, and the play of questionable moral problems, has been consciously avoided. Comedies, tragedies, farces, and melodramas have been included; but the chief concern has been that each play should be good, dramatic art.

The Dramatic Analysis and Construction of the One-Act Play, which appears in the Introduction, also has been prepared for the student or teacher. This outline-analysis and the plays in this volume are sufficient material, if carefully studied, for an understanding and appreciation of the one-act play.

B. ROLAND LEWIS.