Plays
For perusal script samples, please send an inquiry email to ryan.stevens.creative@gmail.com
For more information on Stevens' scripts, try contacting him via email, and see his page at New Play Exchange.
Full-Length Plays
I Build Giants
Cast Size 6 F, at least 1 trans/ nonbinary
An Engineer and a Technician, an Executive and a Volunteer, an Astronaut and a Monitor, an Ace; I Build Giants follows the complications and fall out of a huge new invention navigating the pulls and corruptions of capitalism, mega-corporations, politics, and ego.
Radio Play version at: https://ibuildgiants.buzzsprout.com/
Art by Urvashi Lele
The Last Living Gun
Cast Size 7 - 10 (5 F, 2 M, 3 flexible)
In the far future, guns (and all metal) are a thing of the past...mostly. A courier rides across the country to hunt a rumor of the last gun in the world, and finds worlds of chaos, memory, and history along the way. A Wild Western/vaudeville/post-post-apocalypse about trauma, survival, storytelling, and the pain of change.
Poster by Ronnie Smith
Outlaw Song
Cast: 10 (6W, 3M, 1 Flexible)
A surreal shootout in a mock-up of the Wild West! Outlaw Billie Baxter and US Marshal Roberta Weiss hunt each other down in a world of cannibals, thieves and lucha libre wrestlers. But as they get closer to finding each other, it becomes unclear who wants to catch who and who wants to get caught.
Poster by Ryan Arambula
Player King
Cast Size: 12 (8 W, 4 M)
Egos clash when a struggling theater company puts on Hamlet and one actor, snubbed for the title role, vows revenge. Lazy set designers, bloodthirsty actors, egotistical directors, and assistants trying to do all the work, all done in Iambic Pentameter!
This play has published by Stagescripts Ltd
Image by Kevin Bush
Noise
Cast Size: 5 (3 W, 2 M)
Catherine and Ben, young lovers from the city, take a needed vacation to Catherine's family home deep in the Woods. They expect themselves alone, but these Woods contain things long thought gone and things never before heard. The longer they stay, the more Ben and Catherine have to reckon with the Unknown, both within and without.
Image by Gabe Crawford
The Bee-Man of Crighton County
Cast Size: 7 (5 W, 2 M)
Julie Guest has hit rock bottom and returned to her backwoods hometown. There she finds a mystery brewing around the neighborhood hermit, a man with a house full of bees and secrets that everyone wants their hands on.
*A part of the Horizon Theatre's 2015 Young Playwrights Conference
Image by Kevin Bush
Friends at Home
Image by Freddie Powers
Cast Size: 6 (3 W, 3 M)
Six childhood friends reconvene for the marriage of their designated leader, spending the night in her childhood home, reminiscing and realizing the length of the years. Tim went to the Middle East and someone looking like him came back. Jill's become a Minister and is trying to reconcile her religion with the rest of herself. Diane may not realize just how married she is. Adam and Hannah went to college together and are playing catch-up, and Sam, the high school quarterback, well Sam hasn't done much of anything. It's a long dark night of the soul for these kids grown tall.
Red Orchid & Luna Moth
Image by Gabe Crawford
Cast Size: 9 (5 W, 4 M)
Rachel Ringwald, the retired superhero Red Orchid, is plagued by visions of her deceased partner, Luna Moth. Her archnemesis, Dr. Niles, is released from prison. And she runs another old ally, The Anvil, who's also trying to put his costumed life behind him. A meditation on power, mental health, love, and putting things away.
Comedy Plus Time
Cast Size: 7 (4 W, 3 M)
Stand-up comedians, alcoholics, and failed musicians circle the drain in a small comedy bar in Chicago, trapped by a vicious storm to face their own failings and the ways they've failed each other, all while trying to look for laughs.
Image by Kat LeeHong
The Beast
Cast Size: 6 (3 W, 3M)
An awkward teenager struggles with his feelings for another boy at school. And then that boy turns out to be Satan. A possessed John Hughes movie about identity, self-expression, and kissing.
Poster by Jerry Ng
Grace & Thomas
Cast: 1 W, 1M
Thomas Gainsborough, English Landscape and Portrait painter.
Grace Dalrymple Elliott, Scottish-born French Socialite and survivor of the French Revolution.
When Gainsborough paints a portrait of Grace, they begin a torrid, decade-spanning connection that stretches through both their lives and beyond history.
The Gospel of Cactus Jenny
Cast Size: 5 W
Ten years ago, Jenny Coates went on a killing spree and was dubbed 'The Cactus Killer' before ending up on Death Row. Today, a weathered southern preacher has decided to save Jenny's soul by any means necessary. An investigation of disenfranchised rage, violence toward the oppressor, and the nature of evil.
One-Acts
Growing Up Wonderland
Cast Size: 5 - 10 W, 2 - 6M, flexible
A modern spin on Alice in Wonderland--Alice is graduating high school tomorrow, at stands at a crossroads in her life. When a chance encounter with a toy from her childhood sends her spiraling, she finds herself in a bold, scary, ridiculous new world, and it looks a lot like adulthood.
*Winner,
Best in the State,
South Carolina Theater Association,
2018
Blue Moon
Cast Size: 1 W
Rebecca Blue, daughter of world famous wrestler Beloved Blue, is poised to win the women's championship for the first time. But to get here, she's had to fight for her chance-- against her family, against her name, for her gender and for her generation. How did she make it this far? How long will she be at the top in a business where success is pre-determined?
High-Concept Humiliation
Cast Size: 3 (2 W, 1 M)
Edie Bowen's first day as a script supervisor for Hollywood big shot Emerson Sound gets off to a rocky start when she finds out her new job isn't 'script supervisor,' but 'fetish supervisor' for the eccentric Sound. Edie and Emerson engage in a battle of wills, politics, and sexual behavior as the balance of power blurs, distorts, and dissolves around them. Makes one wonder who's the boss.
The Rockefeller Special
Cast Size: 5 (2 W, 3 Flexible)
John D. Rockefeller, America's Patron Saint of Greed, gets the spotlight as five flexible players depict the corporate mogul's entire life in fifteen scandalous minutes.
Gershwin's Last Ride
Cast: 1 W, 2 M
Gershwin, a prize-winning bull, goes one-on-one with the hottest pro bull rider today, AJ Hawkins. Gershwin's renowned for his fury, and just might snap again. In ten minutes (and eight seconds), these two champions clash and leave forever changed.
A radio play version, via Whiskey Radio Hour, is available for download here.
Gershwin's Last Ride is also published in LineStorm Playwrights Presents: Go Play Outside: Twenty-Five Short Plays Written for the Great Outdoors