CONTEMPORARY ONE-ACT PLAYS

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 increasinglylarge demand for such a volume. The plays have been selected and theIntroduction prepared to meet the need of the student or teacher whodesires to acquaint himself with the one-act play as a specific dramaticform.

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

The Dramatic Analysis and Construction of the One-Act Play, whichappears in the Introduction, also has been prepared for the student orteacher. This outline-analysis and the plays in this volume aresufficient material, if carefully studied, for an understanding andappreciation of the one-act play.

B. ROLAND LEWIS.