RUBY AND MILLIE AND THE DYING CUCUMBERS
by Tara Meddaugh
A 10-minute comedy/drama
While her father is in a POW Camp during WWII, the young Ruby has been charged with leading her apartment building’s rooftop victory garden back in White Plains, NY. Her older sister, Millie, carrying weighty responsibilities of her own, has been searching for Ruby tonight and finally finds her on the rooftop. While Millie tries to convince Ruby to come inside to bed, Ruby discovers some of her vegetables are dying, and fears this is a harbinger of bad news for her father and the war.
DETAILS:
Genre: Comedy, drama, Period piece 1940s
Cast: 2 female (1 female around 7-12 years old, 1 female around 15-20 years old)
Setting: Rooftop Garden of an apartment building in White Plains, NY
Time period: 1943, during WW2
Running time: Around 10 minutes
Tags: 2 person play, all female cast, play for youth, young person play, child actor, teen actor, tween actor, great for competitions, duo interpt, period drama, period comedy, sister relationship, realistic, sisterly love, strong female roles, passes Bechdel Test
*This play is a stand-alone 10-minute play or is also found in the collection of short plays called The Victory Garden Plays.
Click here to read an excerpt of the 10-minute play, Ruby and Millie and The Dying Cucumbers.
Click below for the complete digital copy (immediate download) of Ruby and Millie and The Dying Cucumbers.
This ten-minute play is part of a selection of short plays which comprises The Victory Garden Plays. It may be performed within the Victory Garden Plays production, or it may stand alone, as a 10-minute play, as featured here. CLICK below for a complete digital copy of the production, The Victory Garden Plays (which includes this 10-minute play, as well as 4 other 10-minute plays, and 2 monologue plays)
While soldiers fight abroad in WW2, those remaining in Westchester County strive to make a difference on the Homefront by creating Victory Gardens, supplementing limited food supply. But the pressures on the homefront extend much further than simply growing produce. A child worries her failing rooftop garden is an omen of misfortune for her father’s return from a POW camp. An infertile woman throws her purpose into feeding neighborhood families. A wealthy man whose chemical plant is commissioned by the government for war purposes struggles with how to leave a meaningful legacy not tainted with warfare. These stories, and more, are given light in The Victory Garden Plays, a series of vignettes chronicling people’s journeys with their new realities of love, growth, life and death.