New Plays VI

New Plays VI

Plan-B Theatre Company

Published by Plan-B Theatre Company at Smashwords.

Copyright 2015 Plan-B Theatre Company, Matthew Ivan Bennett, Carleton Bluford, Elaine Jarvik, Julie Jensen and Melissa Leilani Larson.

No part of this eBook may be reproduced for any reason without express permission from the respective playwright. Performance of any kind requires a contract with the respective playwright. Contact Jerry Rapier, Producing Director, Plan-B Theatre Company at jerry@planbtheatre.org for playwright contact information for reproduction and production rights."

Production photos copyright Rick Pollock.

Show art copyright Grant Fuhst.

Plan-B Theatre Company website:

http://planbtheatre.org

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors of the plays anthologized in New Plays VI.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Radio Hour Episode 9: Grimm

Christmas with Misfits

Marry Christmas

Mama

A/Version of Events

Pilot Program

INTRODUCTION

Plan-B Theatre Company, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, has developed and produced unique and socially conscious theatre since 1991 with a focus on new plays by Utah playwrights.

We at Plan-B believe in sharing stories with a local point-of-view, as well as global stories from a local perspective. Thus we strive to create and nourish a pool of local playwrights to rival that found in any other city in the country, to assist local theatergoers in valuing the work by local playwrights alongside that of nationally prominent playwrights.

We at Plan-B believe that the best way to serve our community is to reflect it onstage. That's why the goal of each Plan-B production is to create conversation, to provide an opportunity for patrons to think a little differently, to consider a point-of-view that may have been previously foreign, to listen in a way they may not have before. Time spent with us should truly be the beginning of a much larger experience.

At the conclusion of the 2014/15 season, 83 of the 111 productions in our 24-year history will have been world premieres, 81 of those by Utah playwrights, including the six included here.

Matthew Ivan Bennett’s RADIO HOUR EPISODE 9: GRIMM and A/VERSION OF EVENTS are included here. His previous work with Plan-B includes BLOCK 8 (2009), DI ESPERIENZA (2009), MESA VERDE (2011), ERIC(A) (2013), DIFFERENT=AMAZING (2014) and RADIO HOUR EPISODE 3: LAVENDER & EXILE (2007), RADIO HOUR EPISODE 4: FRANKENSTEIN (2008), RADIO HOUR EPISODE 5: ALICE (2009) and RADIO HOUR EPISODE 7: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE BLUE CARBUNCLE (2012). Plan-B’s 2008/09 season was fully dedicated to his work.

Julie Jensen’s CHRISTMAS WITH MISFITS is her first premiere with Plan-B but her second production: her SHE WAS MY BROTHER was given its second production by Plan-B in 2010.

Elaine Jarvik’s MARRY CHRISTMAS is her Plan-B debut and the first work of art created in Utah to commemorate Utah’s unique place in the fight for marriage equality (Kitchen v. Herbert). Her BASED ON A TRUE STORY will premiere at Plan-B in 2016.

Carleton Bluford’s MAMA, included here, is his first professional production. It is also the inaugural production in partnership with The David Ross Fetzer Foundation for Emerging Artists and the first world premiere in Utah history by an African American playwright.

Melissa Leilani Larson’s PILOT PROGRAM is her Plan-B debut. Her THE EDIBLE COMPLEX will premiere at Plan-B in 2016.

Please enjoy New Plays VI.

Jerry Rapier

Producing Director

Plan-B Theatre Company

RADIO HOUR EPISODE 9: GRIMM

based on the fairy tales collected and published by the Brothers Grimm

By Matthew Ivan Bennett

RADIO HOUR EPISODE 9: GRIMM received its world premiere on October 15, 2014 at Plan-B Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was designed by Cheryl Cluff (sound) and Jesse Portillo (lighting). It was stage managed by Jennifer Freed and directed by Cheryl Cluff with Bill Allred as Actor 4, Colleen Baum as Actor 5, Jay Perry as Actor 2, Teresa Sanderson as Actor 5 and Jason Tatom as Actor 1. Featuring original music composed and played live by David Evanoff. RADIO HOUR EPISODE 9: GRIMM was simulcast on KUER FM90’s RadioWest.

CAST OF CHARACTERS (in order of ahearance)

Rapunzel

OMA [Actor 3]

(Children) [Actors 1, 2, 3, 5]

ISLA, MEINHARDETTE, CHILD [Actor 5]

KARL, PRINCE MEINHARD, CHILD [Actor 1]

FAIRY, MEINHARD JR., CHILD [Actor 4]

RAPUNZEL, BABE, CHILD [Actor 2]

The Juniper Tree

ENSEMBLE [Actors 1-5]

Little Snow-White

STORYTELLER, WESLEY [Actor 4]

SNOW-WHITE, LESLIE, TREVOR, PRINCE ADAM, FRIEDHELM THE MANSEVANT [Actor 3]

FRIEDRICH THE HUNTSMAN, RUPERT [Actor 2]

BABY BOAR, ANGUS, MIRROR [Actor 1]

WITCH-QUEEN, RUSSELL, FERGUS [Actor 5]

SETTING

The airwaves of a radio or podcast.

PART ONE: RAPUNZEL

OMA: (Ancient grandmother.) Gazzer roundt, childtren, make room for eferyvun, settle down; zat’s it; not too near ze grate, Hänsel—ze Devil can grab you if ze flames go green! (Spits.)

CHILDREN: (Startling.)

OMA: (Cackles.) So. You vant Oma to tell story she tell story: Rapunzel! Not your mommy and datty’s version, but mein version, ze right version. So listen vell, no fidgetingk, ant maybe I give you schnapps, eh?

OMA: (Glugging.) I begin. (Phlegm.) Vunce, upon time, zere vas stupid girl.

OMA: She ant husbandt hadt special hug ant she vas payingk ze price.

ILSA: (Vomits.)

OMA: She retains vater, she’s backed up, she vomits like Yellowstone geyser, until!, she gazes out vindow into a garden belonging to...A FAIRY! Not sunny California fairy, meine Lieben, but real fairy: pupils like smoke in sunset!; lips like leeches!; gangly! But I come to zat later. First she sees little rosebuds, daises ant poppies. Catsfoot, run-avay-robin. But most of all? Bright, green, vatery rapunzel.

ILSA: (Lip-smacking.)

OMA: She tell her husbandt:

ILSA & OMA: Oh, if I do not get some rapunzel from [ze] fairy’s garden, I shall surely die.

OMA: Ant vhat do you sink he says?

KARL: Are you nuts?! That’s supernatural private property, Ilsa.

ILSA: I have a craving, Karl. My body needs green leafy vegetables from exactly over there. Do you even love our unborn baby?

KARL: Of course, I’m just saying, let’s not trespass in the backyard of Evil.

ILSA: Omigod, evil? You’re assuming ’cause she’s a fairy she’s evil. You’re about to be a dad, Karl, and you’re a racist.

KARL: We gave her a live chicken on Christmas she returned it inside-out!

ILSA: Karl, I need rapunzel. On my fork. You want the special hug, do as I say.

OMA: Zat night, he bumbles ofer ze vall ant digs.

KARL: I need it, Karl, the baby needs calcium, my ugly feet hurt, rub them.

(startles at a noise.) Hello? Anyone there?...OK, just fill the bag ’n run, Karl, nothin’ to it; a snip here a snip there; no one’s gonna find—AHH!

(MUSICAL STING.)

OMA: Out of black ze fairy slices, its cape ze color of midtnight, sewn from ze faces of human babies. Man’s testicles tighten like raisins. Fairy looms ofer him, its arms bony as branches; is voman, but has a vortex of vhite oily hair clingkingk to her chest, two hells instead of eyes, ant only imagination can conjure her bizarre preternatural voice as she says—

FAIRY: (Completely normal; also, psychotic.) Hey Karl. Whatcha you doin’ here?

KARL: Me? Oh, I was just...getting rid of snails. You’ve got quite a pest problem.

FAIRY: Maybe I like pests.

KARL: Do you? Huh. I can see that. Also, I’m sorry I smashed one of them.

FAIRY: Sven.

KARL: Sorry?

FAIRY: His name was Sven—that snail. We used to winter together in San Remo.

Though he had been getting on my nerves. Always blaspheming. You reap what you sow. I notice you’ve got a good grip on those scissors.

KARL: Do I? Huh. Sure do. Can’t help it with these forearms, you know? I’m a baker by trade. Lotta dough in these hands.

FAIRY: I bet. (Mind control.) But it’s so dark out here ’n those things are so pointy, Karl, I’d hate you to trip on my property, puncture your spleen. Why don’t you put ‘em down.

KARL: OK.

FAIRY: Thanks, ’preciate it. By the by, what’s in your bag there, neighbor?

KARL: Bag? Oh. This bag. Odds ’n ends. Got a red onion; couple carrots—

FAIRY: (Sniffing.) I may be wrong, Karl, but it smells like fresh-cut rapunzel.

KARL: (Sniffing.) Gee, so it does. Weird. Anyway, I should split; the Old Lady—

FAIRY: Did you know that scent, Karl—that green, fresh-cut scent—is secreted by plants to attract predators?

KARL: Really.

FAIRY: Yeah. They give off that odor so a beast can come to feast.

KARL: I did not know that. I was bad at science.

FAIRY: (Buzzing with power.) I wouldn’t call it science, Karl, I’d call it common sense: I think every living thing wants to go on, don’t you? To put off the Final Judgment? Or maybe you long for this. O Deus, aeturnus pater—

KARL: Okay, okay! We can solve this without Latin. I stole from you, it was wrong, I’ll make it up. It’s my wife, alright, she threatened me—specifically my penis. And the rapunzel was so close to our yard, I just thought—

FAIRY: Karl, chill. I’m not a grump. Love thy neighbor. You can help yourself.

KARL: I can?

FAIRY: Absitively. Any time. As much as you want. As long as you compensate me in, say, the ballpark of your first-born child. That seem fair to you?

KARL: Very fair, Mrs. Fairy. It seems fairy—I mean, very, fairly, caring of you. Considering what I’ve already been through in the last eight months.

FAIRY: (Laughs.)

KARL: (Laughs.)

FAIRY: (Stops laughing.) Get off my lawn.

(MUSICAL STING.)

OMA: A munce later?

BABE: (Crying.)

OMA: Anuzzer baby sqvirts into poverty; ze fairy comes in spiral of green mist.

(MAGIC.)

FAIRY: I’ll be taking that, nice doin’ business with you, Karl, go with God.

(MAGIC.)

ILSA: What? Business? Karl. What did you do? Did you sell our baby?!

KARL: A little bit, yeah.

ILSA: Karl Werner Von Schlitz. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t throw this afterbirth at you.

KARL: I got a receipt?

(MUSICAL STING.)

OMA: Fairy flies deep into forest, to a tower vis no doors, no stairvay, but only high vindow. Baby suckles ant grabs at hairy breasts, as if twin bottles of schnapps—(She glugs.)

FAIRY: Oh yeah mmm; suck ’em good, my precious, my...Rapunzel.

OMA: Seasons pass. Snow blows in, it melts; stars vhiz by; little girl grows to be tvelf years oldt—radiant as sunrise. Ant yet, she hasn’t even a book up in her tower, no puzzles, no kittens; no scissors to have her hair cut, ant so it grows long, barbarous, angelic. Day in, day out, she sits, brushes her brass hair in ze vindow, ant singks...

RAPUNZEL: THEY ALL RAN AFTER THE FARMER’S WIFE

WHO CUT OFF THEIR FEET WITH A CARVING KNIFE

DID YOU EVER SEE SUCH A THING IN YOUR LIFE,

AS THREE BLIND CATS?

OMA: Ze fairy vanted to see her, she calledt up:

FAIRY & OMA: (Below.) Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair to me!

RAPUNZEL: (Inhale of surprise.) Fräu Gothel! Yay. Just a minute.

OMA: Up ze fairy climbs; girl bounces up ant down.

FAIRY: Hello, darling. What mischief have you been up to? Have you said your prayers?

RAPUNZEL: Oh yes, Fräu Gothel, I always say them: when I wake, when I eat, and when I tinkle in the corner.

FAIRY: Good girl. (A sniff.) Would you like me to shampoo your hair? It’s Hair Day.

RAPUNZEL: Is it?! I must’ve lost track! I’d been stacking up mouse droppings as a way of...well, I don’t know what to call it—knowing what day it is, I guess?; but when I get a big pile, I get overwhelmed. But yay, Hair Day. Sometimes I dream of your long, long brittle fingers on my scalp.

FAIRY: (Incantation.) Varetah!

RAPUNZEL: (Claps.) Woo! Water that’s hot! I tried that, the other night, for an hour, and I swear the water got slightly colder.

FAIRY: Only your Gothel can do magic, Rapunzel, I’ve told you.

RAPUNZEL: I know, but I was thinking if I could learn magic then maybe I could breathe outside the tower, and—

FAIRY: But you can’t, my dear. There’s only enough air outside the tower for me.

RAPUNZEL: I know you say that, but sometimes the wind shhs in the window and I think Whoa that’s a lot of air.

FAIRY: Pumpkin, I’ve explained: the air thins as you go farther from home; it’s a brutal, heathen, lonely world. Now sit down, lean back, let me groom you, you must be groomed.

RAPUNZEL: Yes, ma’am.

FAIRY: There now. Isn’t that a dream? We’re going to get you spick and span. Clean as Mother Mary’s knickers.

(MUSICAL STING.)

OMA: But vun day, a young prince rustles by in forest, hot rabbit guts in his handts, vhen suddenly…he sees Rapunzel in her tower, forlorn, singkingk:

RAPUNZEL: LIMB FROM LIMB AT ONCE HE’LL TEAR YOU

JUST AS PUSSY TEARS A MOUSE

AND HE’LL BEAT YOU, BEAT YOU, BEAT YOU

AND HE’LL BEAT YOU ALL TO PAP

OMA: He fell in love, straight off.

PRINCE MEINHARD: (he claps; pubescent cracking.) Yeah! You had me at limb from limb! What’s your name? I know I don’t know you, but, we should go out!

OMA: Rapunzel hadt never seen a boy, ant so she sought Oh my, he might be Devil.

RAPUNZEL: (Whisper.) Please don’t drink my blood please don’t drink my blood please.

PRINCE MEINHARD: (Muffled; below.) Hey! Where’d you go? Hello?! I’m a prince!…Dangit.

OMA: Boy prince searches for door; none vas to be foundt. So he vaits, at edge of clearingk.

FAIRY: (At a distance.) Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.

OMA: Ze prince hears passvord. So at dusk, ze next day, vhen fairy has gone:

PRINCE MEINHARD: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, uh...Let down, your hair.

OMA: Hair falls down. Prince ties a braidt aroundt his mittle.

PRINCE MEINHARD: (Calling up.) OK, uh, pull me up?

OMA: Ant Rapunzel, distracted in her dreams ant longingk, drug him up, expectingk to see fairy.

RAPUNZEL: (Hoisting...hoisting...then:)

PRINCE MEINHARD: Hi!

RAPUNZEL: Ahh!

PRINCE MEINHARD: Oh no, oh no, sorry, I should’ve sent my manservant ahead, I know, but I brought you some uh mulberries—

RAPUNZEL: Ugh.

PRINCE MEINHARD: Dangit, never mind, I crushed ’em. I’m not so hot with the chivalry, but hey: based on what I’ve heard and seen of you I think you’re terrific; your hair is…prodigious, and I’d really love if you’d NOT SMITE ME WITH FRYING PAN OH GOD! OKAY: I get your gut reaction, we’re sorta strangers, but my name is—Gah!—Prince Meinhard, of a medium-sized kingdom, mostly swamp.

RAPUNZEL: Are you the Dark One?!

PRINCE MEINHARD: No, never, I’m all for Jesus! Yay Jesus, what a gentleman.

RAPUNZEL: How can you breathe out there? You breathe. I can see that.

PRINCE MEINHARD: Uhh, yeah, I do breathe. Right now a lot. As to how, I don’t know; it just happens.

RAPUNZEL: Are you like me?

PRINCE MEINHARD: Like you? In what way?

RAPUNZEL: You don’t look like my mother.

PRINCE MEINHARD: Okay. I’ll take that as a compliment. You also do not look like my mother.

RAPUNZEL: You have a mother too?

PRINCE MEINHARD: I do, kinda how I got here.

RAPUNZEL: She brought you?

PRINCE MEINHARD: No, I mean…Sorry. I missed your name, with the pummeling. You are?

RAPUNZEL: Rapunzel.

PRINCE MEINHARD: (Laughs.) You’re named after an herb? What, were your parents a couple serfs? Diggin’ the fields, wooden hoes?

RAPUNZEL: I don’t know why Mother named me as she did. Is it not a good name?

PRINCE MEINHARD: Oh no, it’s pretty, like Meadow, or Lilypad, or, Parsley. Rapunzel. Makes you think of a beautiful…salad—which I eat ’cause I like and you should blink when you’re looking at a person. Are you crying?

RAPUNZEL: (Still frightened, but amazed.) I am, yes, because, first: you’re very strange.

PRINCE MEINHARD: I am, I’m sorry; I try too hard; I have eight brothers—big and dashing—

RAPUNZEL: I wasn’t finished. You’re strange, but, you make my lungs feel…shriveled. You’re having this confusing effect on my humors. You’re like a revelation!

PRINCE MEINHARD: I am? Well, Amen. May I sit?

RAPUNZEL: Yes. I want you to. Let’s talk, in the way two strangers would, until dawn. How old are you?

PRINCE MEINHARD: Twelve.

RAPUNZEL: I’m twelve!

PRINCE MEINHARD: You are? Awesome! ’N you have really big boobs for a twelve-year-old.

RAPUNZEL: Boobs? What are boobs?

OMA: So Rapunzel ant boy prince hit it off.

(’70s MUSIC.)

PRINCE MEINHARD & RAPUNZEL: (Awkward sexual exploration.)

OMA: But zen, vun day…

FAIRY: (Out of breath.) Hey. Sweetums. I’ve been shouting up.

RAPUNZEL: (Nauseous.) What? Fräu Gothel? Is that you?

FAIRY: Of course it’s me. Are you still in your straw? It’s noon.

RAPUNZEL: (Grunts at the light.)

FAIRY: What’s wrong, my darling? Are you under the weather? Do you want a blessing? Hoc est, cum canora—

RAPUNZEL: No, you don’t have to chant, Mother, I don’t think it’s a spiritual problem.

FAIRY: Did you eat something?

RAPUNZEL: I don’t know, it’s weird. All I wanted yesterday was pickles. So I ate forty. They seemed OK, but I’m cranky ’n everything smells—’n something’s wrong with my butt, Mom. I try to lace up my dress and the Hand of God comes down, squeezes me like a grape!

FAIRY: I gave you that dress two weeks ago. For your thirteenth baptism.

Have you been binging? I told you, pet: a moment like a pig—

RAPUNZEL: I haven’t binged, except the pickles, which are very low-calorie. Have I been cursed? Could someone…outside the safety zone, have cursed me?

FAIRY: That depends, dumpling. Have you been outside the safety zone?

RAPAUNZEL: No.

FAIRY: (Sniffing.) Has someone been inside? (Sniffing.) A strapping young man, perhaps? (Sniffing.) With a neck pimple?

RAPAUNZEL: Not sure what strapping means, but yes to the pimple—and I was going to tell you. I met a boy.

FAIRY: A boy has been in our sanctuary?

RAPAUNZEL: A prince.

FAIRY: A prince. Even worse, my dearest, the Lord abhors those who set themselves over us. Oh Rapunzel. (Buzzing.) I brought you up well, didn’t I? Didn’t I explain the sin outside these walls?

RAPAUNZEL: Wait, Mom, he’s not a demon prince, he’s human, like me. I’m human, he said.

FAIRY: Temporarily, perhaps, until the Judgment. (Lunging.)

RAPAUNZEL: Wait! No, Mother, he’s worthy. He brings me berries. He’s nice.

FAIRY: Nice?! Yes, I’m sure he was nice when he groped those garbage bags of yours.

RAPAUNZEL: They’re called boobs, Mother!—and sometimes tits! They aren’t garbage!

FAIRY: You godless child whore! (Rushes her.)

RAPUNZEL: (Screams.)

OMA: In a blur of speedt, ze fairy hacks off zat trophy hair; cuts ant saws. Girl’s blut speckles on stone valls; her laceratedt pale headt is slapped: vun, two, sree. (Full-on cracking slaps.) Fairy draws upon eldritch power as Rapunzel bleedts ant vhines ant shivers