Jack And Jill Plays - Part 32 - It's Me

About Jack and Jill Plays:

This is a new thing I'm doing.  Posting a short play every day as long as I can.  

The normal things about plays apply-- don't produce or reproduce this play without my permission.  I wrote it so I own it.  Etc.

It's Me
by Adam Szymkowicz

(JILL at a bar with a drink.  Enter JACK.)

JACK
Hey!  Hi, you.

JILL
Hi.

JACK
How's it all going?

JILL
I'm supposed to know you, huh?

JACK
What?

JILL
We know each other?

JACK
Ha!

JILL
Sorry.  It's-  I should tell you.  I was in an accident.

JACK
You look good.

JILL
I have brain damage.  My long term memory is fucked.  And I know who I am but I don't know who a lot of people are.  Like people I knew before the accident.

JACK
It's me.  You should remember me.  I mean look at me.  Really look at me.

(She looks.  She really looks.)

JILL
Sorry.

JACK
It's Jack.

JILL
Jack!

JACK
You remember?

JILL
No, but people talked about you.

JACK
What did they say?

JILL
We're divorced.

JACK
Oh, yeah.  That's-- That's true.

JILL
Why are we... why did we get divorced?

JACK
Oh, um.  It was you.  You were afraid of how much I loved you.  And how much you loved me.  Yeah, mostly that.  Terrified of love.  So you broke it off.

JILL
Really?

JACK
Yup.

JILL
Buy you a drink?

JACK
Sure.  Sure.  What are you drinking?

JILL
Sprite and vodka.

JACK
Sprite?

JILL
Yeah.

JACK
Sprite?

JILL
Yeah.

JACK
Huh.

JILL
So tell me about me.

JACK
I got stories.  Wait till you hear all the stories I got.

JILL
I can't wait.

JACK
One time.  You killed this snake.

JILL
I did?

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Jack and Jill Plays - Part 31 - A Proposal

About Jack and Jill Plays:

This is a new thing I'm doing.  Posting a short play every day as long as I can.  

The normal things about plays apply-- don't produce or reproduce this play without my permission.  I wrote it so I own it.  Etc.

A Proposal
by Adam Szymkowicz

(JACK and JILL seated somewhere.  JACK is doing something nervously like whittling or something completely different than that.)

JILL
I think because it's hard.

JACK
Yeah.

JILL
Like I want everything to be hard for myself.

JACK
Okay.

JILL
So I'm like why don't I just throw myself into this new world where I don't know how to do anything.

JACK
Right.

JILL
And like I don't know the future, none of us does.

JACK
I know.

JILL
But I could stay with what's safe or just go try something completely new and I'm like forget everything I know.  I'm going to make my life hard.

JACK
Right so-- What are we talking about now?

JILL
What do you mean?

JACK
I mean are you going to marry me or not?

JILL
Oh.  Right.

JACK
I asked.

JILL
Yeah.

JACK
And I got that ring.

JILL
Right.  Let me think about it.

JACK
Okay.

JILL
I'm going to think about it some more.


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Jack And Jill Plays - Part 30 - Sick

About Jack and Jill Plays:

This is a new thing I'm doing.  Posting a short play every day as long as I can.  

The normal things about plays apply-- don't produce or reproduce this play without my permission.  I wrote it so I own it.  Etc.


SICK
by Adam Szymkowicz

(JACK lies on a couch or bed.  JILL sits nearby.)

JACK
I'm sick!  I'm sick!

JILL
I heard you.

JACK
I'm so sick.  I've never felt so sick.

JILL
Yes you have.

JACK
Okay, maybe I have been this sick before.  But I am very sick.

JILL
I know.

JACK
Ow.

JILL
I know.

JACK
Will I ever get better?

JILL
Of course.  It's just the flu.  It's just a cold.  It's just a virus.  It's just pink eye.  It's just strep throat.  It's just Hand Foot and Mouth disease.  It's just a fever.  It's just life.

JACK
Am I dying?

JILL
You're not dying.

JACK
Okay.  Okay then.  I wish I felt better.

JILL
Me too.

JACK
I'm sick!  I'm sick!


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I Interview Playwrights Part 993: Bert V. Royal

Bert V. Royal

Hometown: Green Cove Springs, FL

Current Town: Los Angeles, CA

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Mostly floating around the TV space with a few pilots. One is with Legendary Television and the other is with the Mark Gordon Company and they’re both in development. Still trying to get the ‘Dog Sees God’ movie up and running. Theatre-wise, I just started writing a play that I’m really into. I recently watched an old season of ‘Big Brother’ and I became fascinated with Dan Gheesling. The play imagines a fictitious version of him on a fictitious reality show and a very disturbing (fictitious) event happens…

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  When I was in fourth grade, I decided to write a novel. This is really embarrassing. It was called ‘Slipping Into the Subconscious’ and I think it was about a guy who couldn’t tell if he was dreaming or not and someone got murdered and it was really bad and made absolutely no sense and clocked in at a whopping fourteen pages (handwritten). Typed, probably would’ve been six and a half. I was convinced it was going to be published. AS A NOVEL. Truly convinced. I was a very unique type of child. I still to this day and am delusional about certain projects.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  I think audiences can be insufferably rude. If someone talks in a theater during a live performance, I want them to be decapitated in public. So, to answer your question, I’d be the only person in the audience.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Stephen Sondheim is my everything. I love him more than anyone will ever comprehend. Also, Doug Wright is an absolute genius. The scope of that man’s talents are unfathomable.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  I really love musicals - but I tend to gravitate to more intimate ones, i.e. First Lady Suite and First Daughter Suite (perfection!), Floyd Collins, Caroline or Change (does it get any better?). I love plays that tend to border on the absurd. And I’m really getting into the immersive theater thing.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  It’s so important to hear your stuff out loud. Even unfinished - maybe ESPECIALLY unfinished. Get a group of great friends and read it around your coffee table with wine. It helps you find your rhythm and it’s always good to listen to feedback from people you trust. You shouldn’t always just take everyone’s notes. But it’s a good thing to listen.

Q:  When not writing on a computer, what's your go-to paper and writing utensil? When on computer, what's your font?

A:  I really don’t write on paper anymore, because I’m a loser. I can never find a pen. It’s a comedy when it happens. TRAJAN PRO is the greatest font ever created.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Yeah. I say that all the time. Balding sucks.

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Jack and Jill Plays - Part 29 - Persistence

About Jack and Jill Plays:

This is a new thing I'm doing.  Posting a short play every day as long as I can.  This does not mean that I wrote this play today but I might have.  (My life is not always my own what with work and a 4 year old running around so maybe I wrote it today or maybe it was stockpiled in preparation for the days I can't get in writing.)  My goal is to do at least 100 of these or maybe more but probably 45 or 50 is the length of a full length play so even that would be good.  100 would be better.  300?  amazing.  500?  Does anyone want 500 of these plays?  Anyway, the goal is consecutive days.

The normal things about plays apply-- don't produce or reproduce this play without my permission.  I wrote it so I own it.  Etc.

Persistence
by Adam Szymkowicz

(JACK pushes a lawnmower onstage. He pulls the cord to try and start it. It won't start. He pulls again and again and again and again. It doesn't start. He pulls again and again and again and again. This goes on for a long time. Much more time than is reasonable. JANE enters and watches. She exits. She returns with a lawn chair and popcorn. She eats popcorn, watches. Opens a cooler, drinks a beer. He keeps trying. She exits again, carrying a tiny plastic kiddie pool. She exits again. Enters with a hose. She exits again. We hear the water turn on. She sits again, puts her feet in the pool. Sits back. Eats and drinks. All this time, he has been trying to start the lawnmower. After a while he looks up.)

JANE
Beer?

(JACK gets a beer out of the cooler, takes a long drink.)

JANE
What do you think?

JACK
I'm going to keep trying.

JANE
Mmm.

(JACK goes back to trying to start it. JANE watches.)

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I Interview Playwrights Part 992: Carson Kreitzer

Carson Kreitzer

Hometown:  Hmmm… I guess Highland Falls, New York? That’s mostly were I grew up, though we moved around quite a bit. My parents still live there.

Current Town:  Minneapolis. And New York as much as I can.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  TIMEBOMB, a climate change play, for A.R.T. LEMPICKA, a big epic historical musical with composer Matt Gould and director Rachel Chavkin, inspired by the life of art deco artist Tamara de Lempicka. CAPITAL CRIME!, a Brechtian play with songs about income inequality and the devouring of young girls. And a piece about Marathon Dancing, which is a collaboration with a choreographer for the History Theater in St. Paul.

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  Once, on a cross-country car trip (possibly one of those moves…), we stopped at a rest area with lots of broken up gray landscape rock. I spotted a fossil, a tiny shell, a slightly darker imprint in the sea of gray rock. My mother was delighted. She said, “Good eyes!” That really stuck with me. And even in the moment, it felt like, Yes, that is who I am. That is a useful skill I can bring to the world. I pick up on little details. I see things other people might walk by without noticing. And I think a lot of my work does involve that drive to find the overlooked, often from a feminist perspective. To re-tell history from a different viewpoint, maybe a viewpoint that’s a little closer to the ground. My parents still have that rock somewhere.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  One thing? Ooof. Can I say Money? That involves the gatekeeping at the production level, and also at the audience level. And of course what artists get paid. I would love more opportunities to see work produced, and learn from that. And I would love to be in a profession where I can afford to keep up with the important work in my chosen profession, i.e., buy tickets to the shows I want to see. The whole thing is so crazy.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  This could get so long… a short list for today: Stephen Sondheim. Caryl Churchill. Suzan-Lori Parks. Paula Vogel. Taylor Mac. In roughly chronological order of influence.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theater that takes my breath away, at least once in the evening. Something that cracks open what it means to be human. I would rather see a flawed but exciting piece than a well-crafted, ‘safe’ work, that wraps everything up neatly. I like being asked to think, rather than told what to think.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  See a lot of theater. Find what you love. Try to figure out how they did it. And make sure you’re seeking out the boldly theatrical, which is in shorter and shorter supply these days.

For playwrights starting out now, I’d also say… try TV. There is so much interesting work happening there, and I hear you actually get paid. To work in theater, you really have to be in love with it. There are so many reasons to leave. I’m hooked. It’s too late for me.

Q:  When not writing on a computer, what's your go-to paper and writing utensil? When on computer, what's your font?

A:  I’m pretty obsessed with Muji notebooks. And a nice, flow-y uni-ball pen, medium line. And I’m unnaturally attached to my Helvetica.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Well, if you’re in the Twin Cities, come see DANCE TILL YOU DROP, about the Dance Marathon craze, with choreography by Regina Peluso… that’s at the History Theater in St. Paul in March. And stay tuned for more about LEMPICKA soon...

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