Plays
For rights inquiries*, adjustments to gendered/mature language for production**, or any additional questions, please reach me at roniragone@gmail.com or through the contact page.
*Information/rights for Night Night, Roger Roger can be found here.
**Subject to availability
Night Night, Roger Roger
Comedy (family-friendly). Full-length. 2 to 5m., 2 to 5w., 1+ enby; 2 to 15, any gender.
Open staging. Flexible design. Vignette style. Character and community-driven.
Whimsical. Dreamy. Nostalgic.
It’s midnight, but that doesn’t mean the world slows down. Night Night, Roger Roger is a fanciful comedy about the world after the sun goes down. Roller-skating Nanas, kids with tin cans, literary-obsessed vampires, clumsy security guards, kids without tin cans, quirky game show hosts and more. This play is a plea for every person to stop growing up so fast—take your moment with the universe and enjoy it.
Published by Dramatic Publishing Company - 2023
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Seattle Public Theatre - 2026
Rock Canyon Theatre Company - 2026
Cyril B. Busbee Creative Arts Academy - 2026
Avon Middle School - 2026
Greenwich High School - 2025
Lake Placid High School - 2025
Archere Academy - 2025
Time to Shine - 2025
Boone Community Theatre - 2025
Willow Glen Middle School - 2025
Topeka Civic Theatre & Academy - 2025
Armuchee High School - 2024
Buffalo Seminary - 2024
Abundant Grace Community Church - 2024
Arts & Communication Magnet Academy - 2024
Atlanta Jewish Academy - 2023
Grant Union High School - 2023
University of California, Santa Barbara - 2023
Pascack Valley High School - 2021
College of Siskiyous - 2021
Young Artists Ensemble - 2020
Commissioned by and workshopped with Hillcrest Center for the Arts for YAE
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CHARACTERS
ROBIN (w or enby): 11, Freddie’s neighbor and friend, can’t sleep, a kid.
FREDDIE (w or enby): 12, Robin’s neighbor and friend, likes to find things, a kid.
THE MOONY (a): Ageless, Freddie’s monster in the closet, looking over her, a protector of dreams and thoughts, a protective figure with a big personality and a New York accent.
AUGUSTUS GUSTAV (a): Adult, host of the hit game show Midnight Snack, has an Australian accent, has a weird distinct act, eccentric, Gus Gus and Auggie’s father.
ANDY (a): 20s or older, a contestant on Midnight Snack.
VEE (a): 18 or older, a contestant on Midnight Snack, Nolan’s cousin, Nana’s granddaughter, overly dramatic in a fun way.
WREN (m): 17, a teenager just trying to impress his girlfriend, Alice.
MADISON (w): 14, young, bubbly, awkward in a cute way, really likes Benny.
NOLAN (a): 25 or older, works as a security guard at the history museum with Zach, Vee’s cousin, does the bare minimum for night shifts.ZACH (m): 20, works as a security guard at the history museum with Nolan, a mess but a nice one.
BENNY (m): 14 going on ageless, a new vampire, young, shy, sweet, loves flowers and peaches and sunlight, VERY rosy cheeks, wears a dinosaur-head mask.
MERCY (a): Ageless, a nice vampire, has a Transylvanian accent.
IVY (a): Ageless, a mean vampire, has a Transylvanian meets valley-girl accent.
DAWN (a): Ageless, a mean vampire, has a Transylvanian meets valley-girl accent.
WILLIAM (a): Ageless, a nice vampire, has a Transylvanian meets valley-girl accent.
VLADIMIR (a): Ageless (but the oldest of the clan), a mean vampire, has a strong Transylvanian accent.
GUS GUS (m): 9, Augustus Gustav’s son, a light sleeper. AUGGIE (m): 19, Gus Gus’ brother, sings a little, in college. JOYCE (a): 20s or older, a light sleeper, lives in an apartment building.
KAYDEN (a): 20s or older, a night person, gets very emotional over fictional characters.MICHAEL (a): 20s or older, has a deviated septum.
IAN THE LANDLORD (a): Adult, the building’s landlord, the amount he puts up with on a daily basis is truly amazing.MABEL (enby): 18 going on ageless, a vampire, has a love for academia, specifically literature, Benny’s older sibling.
ALICE (w): 17, Mabel’s human best friend, Wren’s girlfriend, a little self-centered but not a bad person.
NANA (w): 87 and three quarters, lives for adventure.
TIME: Midnight.
PLACE: A small suburban town. -
“Ragone's beautiful ode to night time, dreamers, and youth has it all. Interconnected scenes, dinosaurs, sparkly vampires, grandmas on roller skates, and a surplus of peaches. While reading this play, I swear I smelled onions in the air. A beautiful play for any younger actors looking to cut their teeth on meaningful, restorative theatre”. - Kyle S.
“I have been reading a satchel-load of plays recently, some of them reflecting the anxiousness of the pandemic, and some pushing against it. This delightful, starry, night of jesters type of play is the medicine we need to heal us. It reminds me of Maurice Sendak's 'In the Night Kitchen.' It made my heavy heart smile and dance.” Vita P. M.
Left Overs »»»»»» Hot Plastic To-Go Boxes
Left Overs: Dramedy; 10-minute; 2m
Hot Plastic To-Go Boxes: Dramedy; Full-length; 2w, 1+enby, 2m
“Left Overs” - 10-Minute Play
It’s 2008, and each night, Ernest has dinner at his son’s resting place for company and conversation. This isn’t much of a problem until the plot next to his son’s is taken. A new visitor, Max, comes to the gravesite of his recently deceased father and quickly takes issue with Ernest’s loud and hungry personality. “Left Overs” examines what it means to die and to live beyond our expiration date – how is our legacy passed on? How do we survive outside of our bodies? What does it mean to lose a father, and what does it mean to lose a son?
Hot Plastic To-Go Boxes - Full-Length Play; In Development
Hot Plastic To-Go Boxes is a comedically heartfelt story about two strangers finding humanity and a renewed perspective as they navigate their separate griefs.
Caretaker and son, Max, is preparing for his father's inevitable passing when his partner, Joni, shows him an empty plot behind his church. Here, Max meets Ernest: a grieving father with an iron gut. As Max’s father gets closer to his final days, Max begins to question whether he could ever truly be a good son and person, or if he is destined to become the same bitter soul he watched his father become. Likewise, Ernest is struggling to reconcile a relationship left rotten with a son who now communicates quietly beyond the grave. Through witness of their respective journeys, they ultimately inspire each other to adopt newly awakened perspectives in unexpected ways.
Hot Plastic To-Go Boxes is a product of confusion, grief, family, queerness, and many shared meals. It explores the dark spaces we find ourselves wandering through in life’s tougher moments and asks: What happens when we decide to stay in these places longer than we need to? When do we shift from having a bad moment to a bad day, to a bad week, to a month, to a year? What or who brings us back to the light? This play examines the power of our own mentalities and how it's molded by the aggregate of our experiences with others. By connecting through media, food, humor, scripture, and more, Ernest, Joni, and Max each face that they’re a collection of the people and things they’ve shared love for. These things become home.
Quirky relationships. Prop comedy. Closed stage. Movie lovers.
A look into grief through a queer lens: the need for found family.
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“Left Overs”
Finalist in the 50th Annual Concord Theatricals Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival - 2025
Precarious Theatre’s Precarious Nights - 2025
Boston Theatre Company’s Queer Voices Festival - 2025
Cry Havoc - 2024
Summerhome
Currently in development with support from director, Martavius Parrish, producing multiple read-through workshops (2025 - Current)
Developed with 46 Minute Collective in fall cohort; selection performed in 46MC presentation
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“Left Overs”:
Max: m, 30s, any race/ethnicity, queer; grieving son
Ernest: m, 55+, any race/ethnicity; a loving father to Ryan with an iron gut
Summerhome
Max: m, 30s, any race/ethnicity, queer; grieving son, Joni’s partner,
Ernest: m, 55+, any race/ethnicity; a loving father to Ryan with an iron gut
Hazel: w, 40s+, any race/ethnicity; a strong lead pastor of the church near the graveyard
Joni: written male, but intended to be performed by a non-binary actor, 30s; Church Administrator and Community Outreach, Max’s partner, emotional caretaker
Juliet: 30s+, w, Joni’s older sister, runs a bakery and supports her family, including her 2 daughters and husband.
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“Left Overs, written by Roni Ragone, is a true standout.” -Helen G. (The New England Theatre Geek - An Umbrella of Representation: “Queer Voices Festival)
“This play is incredible in its intimacy, honesty, humor, and compassion...I laughed. I cried. I thought deeply about my own relationships with my child and father. And what more could you hope for from a play?” -Kyle S.
“A deeply honest, witty, and bittersweet script that struck me to my core. Ernest and Max's multilayered dynamic is captivating, and brought me to tears! The way that information unwinds throughout the script, with small details and reveals appearing at just the right time, is absolutely superb, and done with a wonderful deftness and nuance by the author. A play about carrying weight and living with death in the most heartbreaking yet hopeful human ways.” -Emma S.
“Had the pleasure of seeing this piece in the semi-finals and finals of the OOB Festival! Witty, heartfelt, and vulnerable, Roni did an incredible job at helping the audience get to know and deeply empathize with Ernest and Max in just a few pages. It's a beautiful exploration of grief, family, and our capacity to evolve as people.” -Katie P.
“This play is so tender! A perfectly balanced exploration of loss... I loved the characters, the setting, the humor...” -Leah R.
“Ragone is a master of turning a belly-laughing joke on page 2 into a pure gut punch on page 10. With lovable, flawed characters at the center, we beautifully dive into topics of the "right" way to grieve, parent/child relationships, and the forms acceptance takes all in 10 minutes... Absolutely brilliant.” -Brennan J.G.
Monologue Publications
“Heading North” - (1, non-binary) - Purple Light Production’s Type Cast
A typical coming-of-age experience sparks Thomas’s first moment of gender euphoria.
“my barricade” - (1, any gender, written male) - Smith & Kraus’s Best Men’s Stage Monologues 2025
Cam’s self-centered worldview causes friction in his relationship, but he doesn’t know how to change.
Both monologues are available for performance; please reach me directly at roniragone@gmail.com for pricing. Free for classroom/educational use or auditions.
Please reach out for any adjustments to the language, gender, etc.
10 Minute-Plays
We’re All Girls Here
Told through an absurd and wacky world, this is the story of a teenage girl, Tubby, and their struggles with self-presentation as they’re given advice by some well meaning and not so well meaning friends.
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West Texas A&M University - Full Production - May 2024
Glenfield Middle School (Young Performer’s Edition - available on request) - Full Production - May 2023
University of Evansville - Full Production - December 2022
47th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival (Top 30) - Staged Reading - August 2022
Moorpark College - Full Production - November 2020
Moorpark College - Workshop - March 2020
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Flopsy - 16, w, knows she is beautiful
Tubby - 16, enby, wants to be beautiful
Bam Bam - 17, w, Jingles' friend
Jingles - 17, w, that bitch
SETTING A public high school girl's bathroom
TIME During first period
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“This is such a fun ten minute play where the stage directions for the characters actions are very funny on their own right!
But the is a lot more to this play than four girls clowning about, there's an important message to accept who you are and be comfortable in your own skin.
This would be great to perform, go forth and produce it!”“Funny, uplifting, unexpected.”
“Really funny (yet at times unnerving) play about girlhood and the overwhelming nature of adolescence. I especially enjoyed the subversion of clown imagery and how it takes on a greater symbolism. That's all I'll say; just read/produce it!”
“I've been a big fan of this piece for a while. This high-concept (yet easy to produce) 10-minute explores gender identity and presentation through beautiful nuance whilst bombastic characters take full advantage of the social hierarchy and their surroundings. A brilliant piece that shows so much promise for what the future holds from playwright Roni Ragone. Now, what are you still doing here? Go read!!!”
I love this absurd little show. Ragone makes you examine the "world of girls" and all the strange social contracts we are so afraid to break. Lots of painful laughter while reading this one.”
“Not what you expect. In any way. Who sets these standards...no, more apropos...who adheres to these standards? High school is Hell--no doubt--and competition for teenage self-esteem is a minefield. Roni Ragone pulls off a raging piece about what it takes to even start believing in oneself. (And the best stage direx EVAH.) A great acting piece that will stop the evening in its tracks.”
“Well and truly had my jaw dropped by the second page and thought it best to leave it there throughout the play. Ragone turns a somewhat standard setting on its head and within the 10 minute form creates a full arc that carries strong messaging on both perception and beauty, as well as crafting an engrossing narrative that draws you into every second. Conceptually stunning on the page, I can only imagine how striking it would be fully staged.”
“This play says so much in comparatively so little time, keenly observing just how arbitrary gender performance is, how restrictive societal expectations of such can be, and how ludicrous the collective overreaction to self-discovery can be when it does not meet those expectations. All this is done with the archetypical high school girls prepping in the bathroom scene as a springboard into broad physical humor, incisive wit, and, ultimately, profound beauty.”
“Just when you think you've seen the scene before - two girls obsessing over their appearances in a high school bathroom - everything gets turned on its head, and we're treated to a weird and wonderful meditation on the basis of our contemporary beauty standards. Somehow, this play sits firmly in the uncanny valley, where everything is foreign and familiar at once. It's full of action and hilarious visual gags that will stay with the audience after the applause. Quirky, memorable, and thought-provoking!”
my barricade
Cam and Charlie deal with some of their issues as a couple after Cam slips and gets a light injury - Charlie is covered in blood from the man he loves, and Cam can't help but focus on himself.
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House of Rooted Festival - Full Production - June 2025
The 48th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival - Top 30 - Staged Reading - August 2023
Doubles Festival - Staged Reading - January 2022
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Cam - 20s, m, queer, self-centered
Charlie - 20s, trans man, thoughtful to a fault
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“A gorgeous, beautifully intimate ten minute play, about connection, bloody noses, and the parts of us we wish didn't exist, and the people who appreciate those parts. Roni writes monologues and stage directions that sing like no other writer I've read. This play needs to be staged. Now.”
“Ragone's writing floats in poetry and lands in deep, connective resonance to our perceived ugliness and our true beauty. In this intimate two-hander, My Barricade asks us to examine the ways in which we deny our own beauty and asks us to step closer to each other in care as a result. Imperfect just as we are imperfect, these two individuals navigate their relationship and broader beauty standards in a raw and honest exchange. I'd love to see this again soon!”
Marina the (almost) Magic
Marina, quirky 38-year-old lesbian realizes she needs something to live for again, so she begins to pursue her childhood dream career: a wizard. Her long-term medium distance highly committed down to earth partner, Eucalyptus, medium-distance, highly committed, down-to-earth partner, Eucalyptus, struggles to both support her dreams and keep Marina to a strict witchcraft budget.
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Commissioned by Theatre East: 5×5 Festival 2026
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Marina - 38, w (she/her), lesbian, dreams of being a wizard
Eucalyptus - 42, w/enby (they/she), queer, dreams of stability
Heading North
An intimate moment between two siblings in the afternoon on their way home. A typical coming-of-age experience sparks Thomas’s first moment of gender euphoria, and Pete fails to connect.
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321 Plays for Trans Future - 2025
OUT/PLAY Summer Shorts - 2025
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Thomas - enby (amab), teenager, Pete’s younger sibling
Pete - m, teenager, Thomas’s older brother
Bisque in Glory (Or Red, Red, Red Lobster)
Bisque in Glory is the comedic take about what happens when a diner runs out of lobster bisque. That's right: pure terror. Who will get the last bowl? Will the waitress ever start caring about this tragedy? Will the world ever be the same? Who knows! Romance. Horror. Lobsters. It's in their hands now...or...claws...
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Glenfield Middle School - 2023
Kent School - 2023
Doubles Festival - 2023
Moorpark College - 2020
Company Drain - One Act
Everybody hates their job. And sometimes their job hates them. When Josephina starts her new position, she realizes there may be a bit left unsaid in the office. Company Drain explores what we owe to the person in the cubicle next door.
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“Left Overs”
Finalist in the 50th Annual Concord Theatricals Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival - 2025
Precarious Theatre’s Precarious Nights - 2025
Boston Theatre Company’s Queer Voices Festival - 2025
Cry Havoc - 2024
Summerhome
Currently in development with support from director, Martavius Parrish, producing multiple read-through workshops (2025 - Current)
Developed with 46 Minute Collective in fall cohort; selection performed in 46MC presentation
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Maggie - Mid 20s, F or Enby, Has worked at "Sinks, Showers, and Flowers" for 6 years
Josephina - Mid 30s, has worked at "Sinks, Showers, and Flowers", loves ducks and order
Levi - Late 20s, a new face
Up Strung Down - Full Length
A touching dramedy told through watercolors, bagels, and string. This fanciful story explores the push vs pull, ups vs downs, and the mystical vs the real aspects of life through a few relationships and worlds. This multiverse strips down magic to bare humanity and tests how people act and who they are beyond the place they're stuck in. Does where we come from define ourselves? Can we escape the lives we've always known and find peace through freedom? Or will we eventually find ourselves back to square one? "Up Strung Down" tests the lengths people go to to find their identity within themselves.
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New Works Festival - Finalist - February 2025
SheNYC+ Summer Festival - Semifinalist - February 2025
The Tank, Co-produced by Fresh Binder Productions - Staged Reading - January 2024
Amplify - Staged Reading - October 2022
Amplify - Workshop - October 2022
UCSB - Workshop - July 2022
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JESS - Agender, Mid 20s, any race/ethnicity, Shiny shoulder length dull gray hair, adjusting to new things, likes to paint but isn't very good at it,
PETE - Male, Late 20s, brown hair, any race/ethnicity, works at Hallmark, hates capitalism, likes to be safe in his box, dislikes butterMARC - Male, Mid 20s, any race/ethnicity, artist, knowing, short/shortish black hair, close with oaks
ALY - Female, Mid 20s, any race/ethnicity, explorer, long pink and purple hair, bright complexion, bad singer, close with aspen, good sewer, has a sweet toothHOLLY - Female, any race/ethnicity, Late 20s, loving to a limit The only scene she should be physically present in is "Holly." Every other appearance should be strictly vocal
KENNY - Any gender, late 30s, aspiring magician, "grass" connoisseur
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Beckett Flynn: - “"I wouldn't do that to a friend! And you are Pete the Friend". "They slurp and drink and survive.""Birthed Day" "Every of the things" "She is world." "And thinness returns"
This play's full of Roni's singular poetry. There's a sadness... an almost subliminal sadness... What brand of lonely is this?
Won't forget the image of two people watching TV on a phone placed on top of a glass coffee table they have scooted under... I have my stories of laptops on snack tables... shitty metal folding chairs... faded loves...
A play about transformation — everything is in motion... thank God...”
Kyle Smith: - “At time haunting, at times hilarious, and always gorgeously realized, up strung down asks questions of identity and selfhood that demand to be considered. How do we arrive at a fully integrated self, when all we know about ourselves is what we've been told. Deeply existential, lyrical, with stage directions that dig into your brain. Well done.”