Last weekend, I worked with The New Theatre Project to create 24 plays in 24 hours. We met at 8pm on Friday (incidentally, my birthday) and were soon asked to play a game where each of us described the previous day in as much detail as possible, in 60 seconds. Afterward, we were told that those details had to be the base of our plays, along with the theme "Getting Lucky" and, possibly, the 11/11/11 date. We were also told to use each actor only once.
The writers began working immediately - spending the first hour or so after the meeting together was crucial, as we needed to remind one another on what was said and also get a feel for the project (I actually wrote Infinite Bread as a warmup before I headed back to Ann Arbor). Scripts were due at 7am on the 12th. We met two hours later to begin rehearsal, and, tired and loopy as we were, performed the whole shebang at 8pm.
I ended up writing four plays that night, and got maybe two hours of sleep. I also directed two, including my own You Can't Really Kill Ben For Experience Points, and acted in six. Against my better judgment, I'm posting the results here.
The project, as well as my recent work for 826michigan's Five Bowls of Oatmeal, reminded me how necessary it is sometimes to throw off fears and plans and just make stuff. As a bonus, I got to write roles for a few of my friends, which is something I haven't had the chance to do for quite some time.
These are unedited from the versions I turned in on Saturday morning (though, sadly, I couldn't keep all the Final Draft formatting). I added comments before each one 'cause I wanted to.
Plays after the jump!
As I said, the first was essentially a warmup. Grace said she had toast for breakfast that morning because her roommate's mom had bought them five loaves...not because she wanted toast.
INFINITE BREAD (dir. Ben)
Grace, Keith
Keith is eating cereal. Grace enters, sees him, and is suddenly aghast.
GRACE
What the hell are you doing?
KEITH
I’m doing breakfast. Also: Whoa?
GRACE
The bread is here.
KEITH
So?
GRACE
There are too many loaves of bread
for you to eat cereal.
KEITH
I don’t want bread for breakfast. I
want organic raisin bran with
almond milk.
GRACE
What you want is not at issue. What
is at issue is several loaves of
bread that must be eaten. They will
spoil. There will be horrible bread
mold.
KEITH
I’d like to interject --
GRACE
You may not interject. Bread mold
is not always obvious. It is not
always green, mossy and on display.
Sometimes it is insidious.
Sometimes it fools you into
thinking it is seeds, or weird
grain stuff that comes on bread.
KEITH
Why have you stopped using
contractions?
GRACE
And there are five loaves. Do you
know how many slices are in a loaf?
KEITH
Yeeeeees?
GRACE
Neither do I, but I do not want to
waste any of it. Do you know how
lucky we are to have this bread?
There are starving people.
KEITH
So feed it to them.
GRACE
The bread was given by the mom of
my roommate to us because she LOVES
US.
KEITH
Your roommate?
GRACE
Yes.
KEITH
I’m in your house. Aren’t I your
roommate?
GRACE
I guess so. Perhaps that part was
not thought out well.
KEITH
Who the fuck is your roommate? And
why does her mom love us so much?
GRACE
The bread is practically infinite.
Make some toast or there will be
practically infinite mold and
waste. And that brings ill fortune.
KEITH
I’m still hung up on the roommate
thing.
GRACE
I AM HAVING TOAST FOR BREAKFAST.
KEITH
When you bake those Target premade
Christmas cookies tonight -- you
are still going to do that, right?
-- Those will not be made of those
loaves of bread. They will be made
of Target mix.
GRACE
I will deal with that later. This
morning we must deal with Infinite
Bread. In the now. It is our
privilege.
KEITH
Don’t you think --
GRACE
I AM HAVING TOAST FOR BREAKFAST.
KEITH
That’s --
GRACE
TOAST
KEITH
-- That’s beautiful. I, on the
other hand, have infinite produce
to clean and serve today. I wish
you well.
Keith leaves.
GRACE
(to the world)
TOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAASSSST
End.
This one is easily the longest and most involved, but played really nicely, thanks to Ben's choreography, Chelsea and Carolyn's delivery, and Sango's hilarious cries of pain (okay, that sounds awful). Allow me to issue an apology to Gamestop; when I actually did go back two days later, they were nothing but understanding.
YOU CAN’T REALLY KILL BEN FOR EXPERIENCE POINTS (dir. Russ)
Chelsea, Carolyn, Sango, Ben
Note: This should be placed anywhere before DON’T WAVE TO YOUR FRIENDS (THEY SHOULD NOT SEE YOU)
Other Note: EULA should be pronounced “Yoo-luh” rather than “Ee-you-ell-ay.”
CHELSEA
Foretold in the stars!
Such excellent fortune.
The much delay-ed launch date
Hath come to pass,
Coinciding exactly with my natal
day.
The office behind me, my boss a
distant whisper, I arrive
At the Gamestop on Washtenaw.
GAMESTOP EMPLOYEE - CAROLYN
Turn ye back, vagabond;
we’ve naught for the likes of you,
least of all the software thou
desirest most.
The stock be ta’en in preorders.
CHELSEA
(produces ID)
Aye? Pray, hast thou a preorder
unfilled?
One mark-ed down with this name,
Here, on my driver’s license?
GAMESTOP EMPLOYEE - CAROLYN
Pah! I knew ye not.
Ye waited not in line at midnight,
With the truest of geeks.
Take thee thy ill-gotten games and
go.
CHELSEA
Gramercies, humble time-suck
purveyor.
GAMESTOP EMPLOYEE - CAROLYN
One certes watches o’er thee,
geekling.
‘Tis well, to be sure;
Any later and I’d have purveyed it
To a truer Elder Scrolls fan.
She exits.
CHELSEA
No more of her; she knows not the
depth of my fandom.
‘Tis time.
Bitchin’ laptop, I make of thee
mine eyes;
Let fall the EULA, and onward,
onward!
She opens a laptop. A Windows sound. Sango emerges.
CHELSEA
(to the laptop)
How shall I shape thee,
Where will lie thy specialty?
Which perks do await thy skill
tree,
What shall thy optimal loadout be?
HERO - SANGO
(out)
Take it easy. There’s a loading
screen and a prologue first.
CHELSEA
Oh.
They wait. Chelsea watches the laptop. Sango peeks over her shoulder.
HERO - SANGO
Man, this is a long intro. I’m
getting restless.
CHELSEA
The devil take these cinematics!
I yearn to go forth and smite!
HERO - SANGO
Sooo are you going to do your halfassed
fighter build again? You
know, where you’re all like,
“Really, I’m going to give you all
these cool skills and magic and
stuff, I totally am” and then just
make me pick up an axe and chop
things for the next hundred hours?
And then you go, “Oh yeah, I meant
to build an interesting character
this time” and then start all over,
just to do it again? I mean, for
you, it’s like, okay, let’s trash a
few savegames; for me, it’s like
doing preschool through college
eight times over.
CHELSEA
Doubt me not! I’ll tailor thee for
a surpassing badass.
HERO - SANGO
Sure you will.
They stop waiting. Chelsea plays with the laptop. Sango stands neutral, perhaps incredulous.
CHELSEA
Aha! Control is yet mine.
I shall customize thee.
HERO - SANGO
Oh shit, this part takes forever.
CHELSEA
Thine eyes, further apart;
Thy chin, longer;
Ears, flat to the skull;
Thy hair --
HERO - SANGO
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
CHELSEA
Go, I’ll not look on thee oft
anyway.
Chelsea focuses on the laptop. Sango starts moving around slowly and jerkily. She has a sword.
HERO - SANGO
Damn straight. Now, where do you
th-i-i-i-nk I ought to
g-o-o-o fi-r-r-r-st?
CHELSEA
(panicked)
Why, did not I set the detail to
low?
HERO - SANGO
No, really, it’s okay. Don’t worry.
I just
n-e-e-ed a minute to
c-a-a-a-tch up with the
r-e-e-nnnderrrrrrrrrring.
CHELSEA
‘Tis well, only a scripted
sequence.
Truly, no cause for concern, aye.
Ben enters, menacing Sango with some kind of weapon.
HERO - SANGO
Look! An enemy so-o-oldier!
I’ll c-u-u-u-t your guts out!
CHELSEA
The fresh first battle!
Die, vile AI!
Sango awkwardly tries to hit Ben, moving like she’s in some messed-up claymation cartoon from the 70s. Ben smoothly dodges around Sango and hits or stabs her several times. She dies. Chelsea reacts.
CHELSEA
Oh, thou lying spec sheet!
Have not I four gigs of RAM?
Did not I turn off anti-aliasing?
Is not today my birthday?
ENEMY - BEN
(standing over Sango,
laughing)
I did kill you on your birthday,
didn’t I?
I’m not even worth much XP.
I represent about one billionth of
this game. It’s hopeless.
He exits.
CHELSEA
(stressed)
Call I forth the settings page.
Another go, another go;
‘Twas but a passing glitch.
HERO - SANGO
The hell you will. I just got
stabbed. Not looking to do it
again, see?
CHELSEA
Then wait you in the ether digital,
while I trade up for the console
version.
She faces Carolyn again. Carolyn laughs.
GAMESTOP EMPLOYEE - CAROLYN
Think’st thou to trade in a game
unwrapp’d? Play’d? Sullied by thy
grubby fingers?
‘Twill short thee a pretty penny.
Yet look thee to the good:
Thy limited edition pack-in map
needeth no processor;
Four tacks on a wall is room
enough.
She exits. Chelsea sobs.
Sango rises from the floor and approaches her. She gives Chelsea a hug.
HERO - SANGO
Do you know what the worst part is?
CHELSEA
Torment me no longer.
HERO - SANGO
(tenderly)
Later on tonight, somebody’s going
to ask you how you spent your
birthday.
CHELSEA
I do dread it with all my heart.
HERO - SANGO
What luck, then, that you’ll be
writing plays tonight. You suffered
by playing me; now you can make
someone suffer by playing you.
CHELSEA
Like...who?
End.
This is where I started to turn up the meta. Though it never refers to when Alysia heard Paul say what he said, the plot is based on an imperfect remembering (mine) of two separate, specific pieces of information. In a nice touch, Gray used his guitar to play a fright chord for the alarm sound, instead of saying RING RING RING RING; Alysia smacked his guitar to turn him off. Gray also used the guitar to create the "cacophony" at open, with Paul talking over it in a monotone. Possibly my favorite of the bunch.
THE WHITEFISH AND WHAT PAUL SAID (dir. Keith)
Alysia, Paul, Gray
A cacophony of voices. Somewhere in there, a TV report about the environment. The cacophony subsides.
ALYSIA
Dear Diary: Today my boss took me
out for lunch at the Real Seafood
Company. I had whitefish. It tasted
like apple, more like apple than an
apple does.
PAUL
I need to interrupt you.
ALYSIA
Hang on a sec, Paul. I’m writing in
my diary. I’m telling it about
whitefish.
PAUL
Alysia? Alysia K--?
ALYSIA
Yes, that’s me. I’m writing in --
PAUL
I know, you said that.
ALYSIA
Hang on a sec, Paul.
PAUL
No. Your whitefish couldn’t have
tasted more like apple than an
apple. For one thing, whitefish
doesn’t work like that. It tastes
like whitefish. For another, I said
that yesterday about some oatmeal I
was eating.
ALYSIA
Oh. Well, that’s what I was
writing, and it made sense at the
time.
PAUL
You must be having a dream, and
combining something memorable I
said with something that happened
to you.
ALYSIA
Why am I writing in my diary about
it instead of just reliving it?
Couldn’t I just be there, and have
the whitefish taste more like apple
than an apple?
PAUL
There’s obviously something about
that lunch you’re avoiding. You’re
already trying to change the
details in your memory.
ALYSIA
What am I avoiding?
PAUL
Just look at the last page in your
diary.
ALYSIA
(tries)
I can’t read it.
PAUL
There’s not much time - I’ll just
tell you. It was...
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
RING RING RING RING.
Alysia wakes up from her dream. She smacks the clock.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
Ow.
ALYSIA
Snooze.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
Snooze.
ALYSIA
Uh-huh.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
Were you dreaming about cats? Your
cats are awesome.
ALYSIA
No, I was dreaming about whitefish.
Whitefish whitefish whitefish.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
What were you dreaming about the
whitefish?
ALYSIA
I don’t remember. I think I had
some for lunch yesterday.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
Most people don’t concentrate quite
so heavily on yesterday’s lucnh.
ALYSIA
I do, I suppose. Perhaps it happens
when I’m snoozing. Or, when you’re
snoozing, and I’m...doing whatever
I’m doing now.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
Perhaps it does.
ALYSIA
How much time do I have before you
go off again?
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
Best you don’t know.
ALYSIA
This whole conversation could have
taken half a second.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
This is true.
ALYSIA
How shall we pass the time?
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
Tell me more about your whitefish
dream.
ALYSIA
I don’t think I was thinking of the
actual whitefish, just the concept
of the whitefish. It had something
to do with apples. And Paul was
there trying to tell me --
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
RING RING RING RING.
Alysia smacks the clock again.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
Ow.
ALYSIA
Snooze.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
(agreeing)
Snooze.
ALYSIA
That was not fair. You said that
conversation had taken half a
second.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
No, you said that. I’m just an
alarm clock.
ALYSIA
That was five whole minutes. How am
I supposed to adequately consider --
whatever I was considering -- when
you keep interrupting?
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
You do your job, and I’ll do mine.
ALYSIA
Fair enough. Now, I was thinking
about Paul, whose oatmeal was more
like an apple than an apple, and
for some reason I wanted...I think
I wanted my whitefish to taste like
that. And I was telling it to
myself, in a diary. I was recording
it. For all time. In my diary.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
In a dream.
ALYSIA
Writing it there to...to inscribe a
new memory onto my waking brain.
Paul appears.
PAUL
Yes! You want my description of
apple to alter your memory of lunch
with your boss.
ALYSIA
(following his lead)
Yes! How deceptive of me. I must
have been worried about the
whitefish--
PAUL
--not the whitefish, the--
ALYSIA
--the TV!
PAUL
The TV!
ALYSIA
The TV that was saying the western
black rhino went extinct, and as I
chewed the whitefish I suddenly
thought I was eating the last
western black rhino and I had made
it extinct, or the chef had, and it
was all my fault so I told myself
it tasted more like apple than an
apple--
PAUL
--even though everyone knows
whitefish tastes nothing like
extinct rhino in the first place--
ALYSIA
Everyone?
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
RING RING RING RING.
Alysia hits the alarm clock.
ALYSIA
Slam.
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
Click.
Alysia wakes up and takes out her diary.
ALYSIA
I’ve got to get this down --
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
RING RING RING RING.
ALYSIA
Slam!
ALARM CLOCK - GRAY
Sorry. Must not have got the
message last time. Oops. Heh.
Click.
Alysia stops for a moment, her concentration broken. Then, she remembers something, smiles and starts to write.
ALYSIA
Dear diary, I just dreamed that my
boss fed me the last western black
rhino. It tasted more like apple
than an apple. How wonderful.
End.
And the meta goes full blast. I'm surprised I was the only writer to mention the project itself; maybe it was a faux pas, but I wanted to address our writing process, especially the element of limited and very likely incorrect notions of other people's stories. By the time I got to this one, it was probably 4:30 or 5 AM. Grace had Elise start by doing yoga, which reminded me a bit of TNTP's own Everyman Project. During rehearsal I did ask Elise what actually happened, and found out that, as I suspected, I had the complete wrong idea.
DON’T WAVE TO YOUR FRIENDS (THEY SHOULD NOT SEE YOU) (dir. Grace)
Russ, Elise
NOTE: This should be placed anytime after YOU CAN’T REALLY KILL BEN FOR EXPERIENCE POINTS.
RUSS
Hey, Elise.
ELISE
What’s up?
RUSS
I kind of need your help.
ELISE
Yeah?
RUSS
I was already sleep-deprived before
this project started, so I can only
remember a few vague details about
what’s going on with everyone. And
worse, I wanted to write something
for you, but the only solid thing I
can remember from what you said is
that you saw a stranger waving...
ELISE
I saw a stranger waving at me on
the road, and I didn’t know who it
was, and it turned out to be Ben. I
only found out it was Ben much
later on.
RUSS
Right!...right?
ELISE
That’s the story, as far as you
know.
RUSS
Weirdest thing, when I think of
that I keep on trying to make it
into something about an almost-car
crash.
ELISE
No, it was nothing like that.
Nobody was in any danger.
RUSS
At all?
ELISE
Nope. No swerving, no alternate
reality where things went horribly
wrong, no narrowly-averted tragedy.
RUSS
Huh. I guess I’m just...
ELISE
...not doing a good job of turning
that into material for a play?
RUSS
You’re sure there was no danger?
ELISE
Why don’t you just abandon this
one? Didn’t you already write
yourself into one of these plays?
RUSS
Nah, see, in that one, Chelsea
plays me...trust me, it eventually
makes sense, kind of.
ELISE
Really?
RUSS
I thought so.
ELISE
Huh.
RUSS
Yeah...so, about the car crash
thing - can you describe it better?
I don’t want to give up on it.
ELISE
Okay...try this. So, I was driving,
and I had a lot on my mind. Stress,
work, art, deforestation...and I
had the radio on really loud. It
was, like, deafeningly loud. And
all of a sudden I saw a blur in the
corner of my vision.
It could have been anything - I
thought maybe it was someone
running into traffic, and oh g-d, a
few seconds more and I’d have a
body on the street, and my life
would be ruined...or a bike
swerving through lanes, cracking my
windshield, I jam the brakes and
get rear-ended by the guy behind
me, my day is ruined and someone is
seriously hurt...is this what
you’re looking for?
RUSS
Yeah, cool, good.
ELISE
And the moment goes by, and the
adrenaline is in my system, and I
see someone waving in my rearview
mirror, and I think, this could
have destroyed so much. Lives. And
then Ben comes by and is all like,
“Hey, did you see me, I waved at
you--”
RUSS
I just thought of something
horrible.
ELISE
Okay?
RUSS
My memory of this is so imperfect
that maybe it was him driving and
waving from a car while you’re
walking. Or you’re both in separate
cars.
ELISE
Well, those possibilities make the
situation even more potentially
dangerous. Either of us could have
been hurt, or killed someone.
RUSS
Man.
ELISE
Russ, either of us could have been
hurt or even killed someone.
A long moment.
RUSS
Wow. Lucky that nothing went wrong.
ELISE
Yeah. Yeah, it really was.
End.
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