From roughly 1997 to 2008 I was doing a little playwriting. I went so far as to get a Master’s degree in it. Here are a couple of samples of dialogue from my plays.

 

Excerpt from Greek to Me © 2006, Produced at The Fault Line Theatre (San Diego) and Mad Lab Theatre (Columbus).

Here’s the trailer, from Mad Lab.

A half-dark stage. Moaning from offstage. There is silence for a moment, then lights up and Nurse enters.

NURSE

Woefully my mistress cries within, for her heart hath been twice wrenched in twain. The fair Alicia has this day lost both her love and her station in this our kingdom, and her sorrow knows no bounds. For many hours now she has closed herself in her chamber where she weeps as though her cries would split the sky and make it rain down balm from above.

More moaning from off. A CHORUS of girls enters.

CHORUS

Good nurse, what sorrow brings forth this anguished wailing from within the chamber of mistress, Alicia? Is she not well?

LANA

From far across the mall where we shopped for new cell phone covers we heard this lamentation…

BECKI

…and came at once to offer our counsel…

ANABEL

…and ice cream.

NURSE

Alas, your intentions are most generous but Alicia refuses the company of any who seek her visage. She does not eat nor sleep nor watch “The OC.”

SHARA

But what misfortune brings this sorrow upon our dear friend?

NURSE

Know you not, fair one? Were you not there to witness her very downfall before those she believed to be her friends? (To all) Last night, as you may by now have heard, the mighty lord Jason cast Alicia from himself for the love of another woman.

The chorus gasps and whispers amongst themselves.

NURSE (Con’t)

‘Tis sooth. After nearly eight entire long months of holy dating, after swearing their love to one another by mighty rain and dashboard light, Jason has scorched his fair beloved with the fire of betrayal and left her heart in ashes. (Pause) Lo, and as if that were not enough, so puffed and red with crying was her fair face at today’s cheerleading tryouts; so weary her body with last night’s quarrelling and sleepless solitude, that she failed to reclaim her place among the squad, and shall spend her final year of high school cast out from that elite echelon.

Gasping and wailing from the chorus

CHORUS

This cannot be.

SHARA

I saw the redness of Alicia’s eyes and their distant longing toward the heavens, the scratchy strain when her voice uttered forth the cheers, but I never knew – oh, is the world so cruel?!

NORI

Nurse, call her forth that we may offer our comfort to her. Surely her life must continue despite these most unfortunate events.

The others all look shocked at NORI.

NORI (Con’t)

I’m just saying.

NURSE

We must not disturb her today, for as her Best Friend, I fear the state she is in. I have never seen my dear one thus. Though her sorrow is great, her anger is greater and I sense that she may unleash fury on any who come too near. Especially Jason.

 

Excerpt from The Day After Yesterday © 2005, produced at North Park Vaudeville Theatre (San Diego). Read a review here.

It is the day after “Nothing Day,” a day that the world government declared that everyone, everywhere would take a day off, a day that did not exist on any calendar and is not named or numbered, apart from its nickname. GINA spent the day home alone, while her boyfriend DIRK spent it in an elective state of suspended animation. Since then, GINA has been experiencing temporal confusion.

GINA and DIRK are in bed.

GINA

Really weird stuff has been happening ever since Nothing Day. Like…like I’m not sure about time.

DIRK

What about it?

GINA

Like how much of it is passing. Or at some points, even what day it is.

DIRK

Whoa! This is like what I was hearing about on the radio today.

GINA

What?

DIRK

There have been like a handful of people today, from all over the world who are all discombobulated. Like they didn’t go to work today because they thought that it was the weekend, or they thought it was a different year, in the past or in the future. Or some are so confused they’re just wandering around babbling. They found one lady right here in town.

GINA

Oh, my god, maybe I’m going crazy. Wait, was this that weird radio show you listen to where they talk about how cell phones are secretly being used to scan people’s brains?

DIRK

Exactly. The news the other media doesn’t want you to hear.

GINA

So all these people don’t know what day it is. Do they say that the same things are happening to them twice?

DIRK

Yeah, like hard core déjà vu. One guy said he relived a scenario from twenty years ago.

GINA

I don’t get it. Why would this happen?

DIRK

Here’s the deal. People think time is a straight line, but it’s not. We assume that one thing happens after another and after it’s done, it’s done, right?

GINA

Well, yeah, how else would anything get accomplished?

DIRK

That’s not the point. The point is that everything exists simultaneously. You don’t have to get anything accomplished because all that matters is what you’re experiencing right then. And you don’t have to regret the past because it never happened.

GINA

I’m not following you.

DIRK

Time is just made up. That’s why we can have Nothing Day or rename the days if we feel like it. Cuz it’s all made up. You know Atlantis?

GINA

The night club?

DIRK

No. The lost continent.

GINA

Oh. Yeah, I guess.

DIRK

Well, I read somewhere how there’s all these stories and songs and stuff that were passed down from the people from Atlantis to the Druids, right? But you know how nobody can find any evidence that it was there? That’s cuz it’s not there yet. Everyone assumes that if we know about it, it must have existed in the past, but really, it’s like there is no past.

GINA

Everything just happens all at once?

DIRK

Not really. It just happens whenever. It’s all about your perception.

GINA

This is too weird to be true.

DIRK

But all the stuff that happened to you today was weird, right?

GINA

Yeah. But maybe I’m dreaming or something.

DIRK

Then just get comfy here with me and go to sleep. Don’t worry about anything, and if it is a dream, you’ll wake up in the morning and everything will be like it is every day.

She starts to try and sleep.

GINA

Wait. I don’t like the way things are every day.