The Quarantine Plays

When COVID-19 hit the United States, The Merry Beggars launched a contest for 10-minute radio plays responding to the theme of "quarantine." We've chosen twelve of the scripts to bring to you.

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How do you relax amidst civilizational collapse? Well, lucky for you, a future London has just the answer: Relaxabot 938! Kick up your feet, relax, and soak up the warm nostalgia of a caring governmental robot.

All our lives have been stopped in their tracks. Coronavirus has made us all confront silence. Perhaps we're being invited into something deeper. Something that awaits us in the depths of silence.

"You never make the journey home alone." Accompany a young family as they road trip to their parents' home, stuck in a different kind of quarantine - traffic.

James' ex-girlfriend Sonya calls him up, telling him to meet her in the park. "It'll only take a minute," she says. But neither of their lives will ever be the same...

In 1939, the United States heard Orson Welles' production of War of the Worlds. It was so convincing and so creatively produced that masses of people believe the world was truly under martian attack. Join our host, Norma, as she remembers how that radio show changed her life forever.

It’s been a while since Millie and Andy have had the chance to see each other.

It’s been a while since Andy has had the chance to see much of anyone.

While his wife, Millie, is on mission in space, Andy faces the trials of quarantine back on Earth. Now, he has to spend his brief face-to-face conversation with Millie breaking some unfortunate news.

Eli and Hazel, two young best friends, are navigating the first COVID-19 lockdown and all its uncertainty together through letter-writing.

While Eli is trying to remain relentlessly lighthearted, his best friend, Hazel, struggles to cope with some of the more brutal realities of the pandemic.

Doug, a stony banker, wishes to stop his neighbor, Kim, from feeding pigeons on her balcony. The conversation doesn't go as planned.

With zany, snappy banter exchanged through the increasingly familiar setting of a Zoom call, Doug might just learn that graces received should be graces shared, even to those as “undesirable” as pigeons.

Damien, a nurse at Beachside Nursing Home in Virginia, is knocking on stranger's door with some difficult news. The woman who opens the door is far from what he was expecting.

When Taylor wakes up from a deep sleep, he is surprised to find himself in a boarded up farmhouse. Confused and dazed, Taylor fights to convince Norman and his daughter, Sarah, to let him leave, but to no avail.

Is it possible to fall in love with someone you cannot see?

Nick finds himself enjoying his confinement in prison more and more as his neighbor’s blissful positivity begins to rub off on him. As the two prisoners share conversations, Nick begins to experience the kind of joy he hasn’t felt in a long time.

In a world where everything operates via a singular machine, people like Vashti have become conditioned to a bland and lethargic lifestyle. When Kuno notices a significant fault with The Machine, it is up to him to convince his mother to embrace a drastic change.