FOURTEEN

by Amy Crider

WINNER of the 2021 Tennessee Williams One Act Play Contest

“It’s funny...it’s sweet...I laughed out loud...and it’s very moving.” —Peter Hagan, Tennessee Williams One Act Play Contest 

In the near future, a robot named Laura has joined a high school to see if it can learn as humans do. Two girls, Ruth and Teri, decide that the superiority of computers would make Laura the perfect class president. When Laura helps Madison, the school bully, with her math homework, she adopts Laura as her best (and perhaps only) friend, and joins the campaign. After a disastrous assembly ends their election dreams, Madison learns that loneliness can’t be answered by a machine.

Production Notes

Cast of Characters

(4W or 3W, 1NB)

MADISON — a high school freshman, 14, female, the school bully

TERI — a high school freshman, 14, female, serious and thoughtful

RUTH — a high school freshman, 14, female, a bit high strung

LAURA — a robot who presents as a high school freshman, 14, female or nonbinary

The girls wear school uniforms; Madison would wear the pants version.

Casting Note

All characters can be any race or ethnicity. Laura can be female or nonbinary.

Place: The yard outside of a private girls’ school.

Time: The near future.

Author’s Note: The Author grants permission to schools producing Fourteen to soften the adult language if necessary.

Author

Amy Crider

Amy Crider studied at Goddard College, Second City, and Chicago Dramatists. Her plays have won awards from Heartland New Plays, Word Wave, Frostburg University, and the Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival. Her mystery novel Disorder won the University of New Orleans Press Lab Prize and was published in 2021. Her new novel, Kells: a novel of the eighth century, will come out in...[FULL BIO]