The Best Plays from the Strawberry One-Act Festival: Volume Six

By Van Dirk Fisher

MEATLOAF IN THE MOONLIGHT by David Gallic. Every family has skeletons in their closet. These skeletons are coming out to play.

CLAP ON, CLAP OFF by Aiden Levy. A sexually frustrated adolescent tries to lose his virginity to his wholesome girlfriend when his grandmother leaves for a Mensa trip and entrusts him to water her plants.

ANYONE, ANYWHERE by Amanda Fleming. Love can happen to anyone, anywhere.

BABE, INC. by Rosemary Zibart. In the year 2108, men can order robotic women as mates, but due to a snafu in the system, a real woman gets substituted for a robotic Babe to accompany a man to his mothers funeral. The results are a little haywire.

PEAR by Carol Paik. Husband and wife grapple with the incessant problem of what to do about dinner.

Other plays include: THE PARKING LOT by Holly Hunt, BLUE STREAK by Carston Turner, STEEL OR PRETZELS by Mara Gilbert, JUMP by Josh Sohn, DAILY SOUNDS by Jay Prasad, FREE COUNTRY by Steve Monarque, THE SEED by David Pumo, and THIS BASEMENT by Bethann Snow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462017522

Van Dirk Fisher

Van Dirk Fisher is the Artistic Director of the Riant Theatre and a graduate of the High School of Performing Arts in New York City and S.U.N.Y. at Purchase. He has produced The Strawberry One-Act Festival since 1995 and directed and written several musicals including: DREAM BABIES and ROCK-A MY SOUL and the novel LOVING YOU. This anthology contains 10 exciting plays that were performed in NYC’s Strawberry One-Act Festival by playwrights from across the country and captures the heartbeat of great American theatre.

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Copyright © 2011 Van Dirk Fisher

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-1751-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1752-2 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 5/12/2011

SKU-000442443_TEXT.pdf

Welcome to the 6th Volume of the Best Plays From The Strawberry One-Act Festival. The Strawberry One-Act Festival, which began in 1995 in New York City, is the brainchild of The Riant Theatre’s Artistic Director, Van Dirk Fisher. The festival is a play competition in which the audience and the theatre’s judges cast their votes to select the best play of the season.

Twice a year, hundreds of plays from across the country are submitted for the competition, of which 50 are chosen to compete. Plays move from the 1st round to the semi-finals and then the finals. The playwright of the winning play receives a grant and the opportunity to have a full-length play developed by the Riant. In addition, awards are given out for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress.

This anthology includes plays from the Summer of 2008 and the Winter of 2009. The Strawberry One-Act Festival is a wonderful opportunity for the audience and the industry alike to see some of the best talent in the nation. Every performance features three to four dynamic one-act plays. There’s always a lot of buzz surrounding each performance as artists converge and network on future projects. Several of the playwrights whose plays are featured in the festival have written for the literary world, as well as for television and film. We are very fortunate to be able to fulfill our mission, which is to discover and develop talent and playwrights for the stage, says Mr. Fisher. We are very proud of this accomplishment, but the work doesn’t stop there. Competition aside, everyone’s a winner in the festival, because several actors, directors and playwrights are chosen to work on future projects at the Riant.

During the Summer 2008 Festival, the audience’s votes – as well as those of the playwrights in attendance – selected THE SEED by David Pumo as the Best Play of the Season. The winner of the Winter 2009 Festival was FREE COUNTRY by Steve Monarque.

The first play in this anthology is Meatloaf in the Moonlight by David Gallic and it made its New York City debut at The Riant Theatre’s Summer 2008 Strawberry One-Act Festival at The Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre, where it was one of the top four finalist for Best Play of the Season and won the awards for Best Actress (Zoee Garza) and Best Director (David Gallic). MEATLOAF IN THE MOONLIGHT is a delightful, highly charged farce with all the elements of surprise. We’ve all been in relationships for better or worse and there comes a point in a relationship when things change. Well that moment has come in the relationship between Zach and Lisa and Zach has decided it’s time to introduce her to his family. Well fasten your seat belts it’s going to be a bumpy ride. You’ll die laughing.

Isn’t love grand? Well, young love, your first love especially or saying goodbye to your love before the two of you head off to colleges in different states. Distance can really define a relationship. Some people don’t believe in long distance relationships, but when you’re in love and you think you’ve found your soul mate anything is possible. The second play in this anthology is CLAP ON, CLAP OFF by Aiden Levy. Avi and Shelly find themselves alone house sitting for Avi’s grandmother and they are looking forward to consummating their relationship before they go to college. But can they go through with it? CLAP ON, CLAP OFF is a delightful comedy with all the quirkiness and innocence of young love.

Do you believe in love at first sight? Or have you ever fallen in love with someone and then found out afterwards that they were already in a relationship with someone else? Well the next play ANYONE, ANYWHERE by Amanda Fleming deals with both subjects. It’s a heart warming bitter sweet romantic play that’s sure to be a crowd pleaser. Jordan longs to spend some time with his brother’s fiancé Hilary the night before her wedding. The prospect of it all gives the term the Best Man a whole new meaning.

Some of us are lucky at finding love and some of us need a little help. Our next play BABE, INC. by Rosemary Zibart, takes the idea of looking for love to a whole new level. Harry, a single male, visits Babe, Inc., a dating service that provides men with a robotic woman of their dreams, to find the perfect mate. Comedy pursues and with a little soul searching he finds just what he’s looking for.

If you’re married how do you make the relationship last? How do you keep it fresh? Can you always get what you want or do you have to learn to compromise? In PEAR by Carol Paik, a husband and wife over time deal with the challenges of keeping each other happy while tackling the every day tasks of deciding what to eat for dinner every night. Sometimes it’s the simplest things in life that can give us the most pleasure. PEAR also received the Best Director Award for Alyse Rothman.

Some people say it is better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all and I agree. THE PARKING LOT by Holly Hunt was a finalist in the Strawberry One-Act Festival in 2009. It is a wonderful, yet heartbreaking play about a relationship gone awry, the unanswered questions that led to its demise and the love that both Hannah and Corey feel for each other. The ending is shocking, but the closure that each person finds is life affirming and comforting within itself.

Have you ever loved someone so much that you wanted to kill them or kill for them? Well BLUE STREAK by Carston Turner deals with such a theme. In it we have a husband and wife, one a journalist and the other a former journalist, whose marriage has come to the end of the road. BLUE STREAK is a powerful and haunting psychological drama with unnerving revelations that will make you question the reasoning of human relations and the desire to connect and disconnect from the things we love.

STEEL OR PRETZELS by Mara Gilbert is a taunting drama that will take you on an emotional rollercoaster as a couple of drunk, but affluent twenty-something confront a homeless man out of boredom on a dreary autumn night in New York City. Trick or treat! I’ll kiss your feet if you give me something good to eat! If you don’t, I will die! says the homeless man. How hauntingly true those words ring when their brief encounter tests the metal of their bare existence. Who’s laughing now? And how will you look God in the eye?

In a world where we sometimes live in alienation, four strangers converge and connect on a street and take the time out of their busy schedules to try to talk a man down from jumping to his death. We all would like to believe that miracles can happen. Well, in the play JUMP by Josh Sohn, faith in a high power, God, is put to the test. JUMP was a finalist in the Riant’s Summer 2008 Strawberry One-Act Festival.

Mental health is a serious subject. Some of us may even know of people in our families or communities who need the attention and care that only a professional analyst can provide. In DAILY SOUNDS by Jay Prasad, an analyst treats a veteran who has returned home from the war with brain injuries and psychological issues that are triggered by daily sounds in his environment. Shawn, a 24 year old war veteran, is living with May, a woman in her forties. He claims that she is an out of work actress, a habitual liar, who has taken him in and cares for him in exchange for sex. It’s an arrangement which he would like to end. But is it? Who’s zooming who in this tale of manipulation? This play will keep you at the edge of your seat as you try to figure out the truth. The ending will shock you and leave you speechless.

Patience is a virtue when dealing with life’s challenges, but intolerance is something that our society is in desperate need to address. In FREE COUNTRY by Steve Monarque, tempers rise as a confrontation builds in a café, when one customer’s obnoxious behavior is observed and overheard when he’s talking loudly on a cell phone. The waitress is at wit’s end trying to deal with a difficult patron, but one customer Steven, isn’t afraid to address Todd, an outspoken wardrobe stylist. The subject of sexual preference and spiritual beliefs are confronted face to face. When is giving advice on someone’s behavior welcomed and when is it over stepping the line? Is it fair to pass judgment on someone because they’re gay or should we agree to disagree? FREE COUNTRY was the winner of the Winter Strawberry Festival in 2009. It’s a drama with humor that created a lot of buzz on this topical subject.

Another play dealing with tolerance or better yet inclusion is THE SEED by David Pumo, the winner of the Summer 2008 Strawberry One-Act Festival. The setting is a public High School and takes place in the Guidance Counselor’s office. We have Liz, a successful business woman and her daughter Whitney, a male-to-female transgender, who has been called to the office to discuss the problems she’s having in class. It seems the school has a problem acknowledging or even discussing homosexuals in their curriculum. Every attempt that Whitney makes to write about it in her assigned papers or discuss it, especially when the subject is Tennessee Williams, is shot down or brushed aside. Well Liz is there to stand up for her daughter, who wants to be a lawyer. Well the first lesson is to learn how to defend yourself. Another parent called to the office is John, a successful business man and his son Sal. It seems that Sal, his adopted son, has lashed out against some football players who were picking on a little fem queen. The guidance counselor, Mr. Dillman, wants to discipline Sal rather than the students who initiated the confrontation. He also thinks Sal’s anger management problems stems from the fact that Sal’s being raised by two gay dads. The third session is for two sixteen-year old girls, Danielle and Mika, who are feminine, trendy and fabulous best friends and have been called to the office for fighting over a boy. Is the root of their problem jealousy or unrequited love? In all, THE SEED is an important play with comedy that deals with gay teenagers. This play is a good way to open the discussion within the education system to look at innovative ways to address homosexuality and transgender lifestyles that will teach tolerance and understanding, instead of breeding ignorance and fear.

The last play in this anthology is THIS BASEMENT by Bethann Snow, about three childhood friends who have a going away party for their best friend Patrick, on the night before he’s to deploy for Iraq. Emotions flare as the group engages in a game of Truth or Dare! Tomorrow isn’t promised to any of us, but at the end of the day it’s good to be surrounded by friends and loved ones. Life teaches us little lessons every day, and what I’ve learned the most from life is to cherish the ones we love, make every day count, and true happiness stems for serving a greater purpose other than ourselves.

I hope that you enjoy these plays as much as I have with the hundreds of people who have seen them in the Strawberry One-Act Festival. Share them with your friends and family. If they make you laugh or cry, entertain you or even enlighten you in any way, then I guess they have served their purpose: to touch people’s souls.

Enjoy them and if you’re ever in New York City during the months of February or August, be sure to check out the Strawberry One-Act Festival. Throughout the year you can check out our website at www.therianttheatre.com to see the other plays and workshop we produce. You may also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RiantTheatre and on facebook by searching for [e-mail]. And know that at the Riant Theatre you are always welcome, welcome, WELCOME!

Van Dirk Fisher

Founder & Artistic Director

The Riant Theatre

P.O. Box 1902

New York, NY 10013

[e-mail]

Join our fan club on MySpace at www.myspace.com/the1toknownow or www.myspace.com/strawberryoneactfestival. To hear some great music go to www.cdbaby.com/cd/toejambeats or www.myspace.com/toejambeats419 or www.myspace.com/lovingyouthemusical

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that Meatloaf in the Moonlight, Clap On, Clap Off, Anyone, Anywhere, Babe, Inc., Pear, The Parking Lot, Blue Streak, Steel or Pretzels, Jump, Daily Sounds, Free Country, The Seed and This Basement are subject to a royalty. They are fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Commonwealth, including Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion pictures, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are strictly reserved. In its present form the play is dedicated to the reading public only.

The amateur live stage performance rights to Meatloaf in the Moonlight, Clap On, Clap Off, Anyone, Anywhere, Babe, Inc., Pear, The Parking Lot, Blue Streak, Steel or Pretzels, Jump, Daily Sounds, Free Country, The Seed and This Basement are controlled exclusively by The Riant Theatre and The Black Experimental Theatre, Inc., and royalty arrangements and licenses must be secured well in advance of presentation. PLEASE NOTE that amateur royalty fees are set upon application in accordance with your producing circumstances. When applying for a royalty quotation and license please give us the number of performances intended, dates of production, your seating capacity and admission fee. Royalties are payable one week before the opening performance of the play to The Riant Theatre, P.O. Box 1902, New York, NY 10013.

Royalty of the required amount must be paid whether the play is presented for charity or gain and whether or not admission is charged.

Stock royalty quoted on application to The Riant Theatre.

For all other rights than those stipulated above, apply to The Riant Theatre, P.O. Box 1902, New York, NY 10013 or [e-mail].

Particular emphasis is laid on the question of amateur or professional readings, permission and terms for which must be secured in writing from The Riant Theatre.

Copying from this book in whole or in part is strictly forbidden by law, and the right of performance is not transferable.

Whenever the play is produced the following notice must appear on all programs, printing and advertising for the play: Produced by special arrangement with The Riant Theatre.

Due authorship credit must be given on all programs, printing and advertising for the play.

No one shall commit or authorize any act or omission by which the copyright of, or the right to copyright, this play may be impaired.

No one shall make any changes in this play for the purpose of production.

Publication of this play does not imply availability for performance. Both amateurs and professionals considering a production are strongly advised in their own interests to apply to The Riant Theatre for written permission before starting rehearsals, advertising, or booking a theatre.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, now known or yet to be invented, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, videotaping, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of The Riant Theatre.

This anthology as well as Volume 1 through Volume 5 may be purchased online at www.therianttheatre.com, and wherever books are sold.

Contents

Meatloaf in the Moonlight

Written by David Gallic

Clap On, Clap Off

By Aidan Levy

Anyone, Anywhere

By Amanda Fleming

Babe, Inc.

By Rosemary Zibart

Pear

By Carol Paik

The Parking Lot

By Holly Hunt

Blue Streak

By Carston Turner

Steel Or Pretzels

By Mara Gilbert

Jump

By Josh Sohn

Daily Sounds

By Jay Prasad

Free Country

By Steve Monarque

The Seed

By David Pumo

This Basement

By Bethann Snow

About The Author

Meatloaf in the Moonlight

Written by David Gallic

David Gallic attended Portland Community College in Portland, OR, where he studied Acting, Improv, and Script Writing. It was at PCC that David wrote his first draft of Meatloaf in the Moonlight, a draft that, surprisingly, contained no singing. His play Off Book was produced through Portland’s semi-professional company Twilight Repertory Theatre, of which David is a member. Other plays include: Bottled Youth, With A Free Cherry Popsicle, The Thwappening, In the Heat of the Rain, and A Scrapbook Holiday.

Meatloaf in the Moonlight made its New York City debut at The Riant Theatre’s Summer 2008 Strawberry One-Act Festival at The Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre, where it was a top four finalist and won awards for Best Actress (Zoee Garza) and Best Director (David Gallic). The original cast, in order of appearance:

LISA BRIGHT                 Amanda Vaughan

ZACH PURSER              Nathan Crosby

BRENDAN PURSER      Peter Ash

SEAN PURSER               Kristopher Mahoney-Watson

JASMINE                        Zoee Garza

HENRY PURSER           J.J. Hawkins

Director                           David Gallic

Assistant Director            Sarah O’Shaughnessy

Light Designer                 Heather Petzold

Cast of characters:

Lisa Bright – Zach’s fiancée, mid-twenties, A Christian girl with a good sense of values and patience as long as the Mississippi River

Zach Purser – Mid-twenties. The only sanity in a family of crazy.

Brendan Purser – The younger brother, sixteen, an introvert trying to lead his life through a computer.

Sean Purser – The older brother, late twenties. If puppies were people, they would probably act like Sean.

Jasmine – Zach’s cousin, mid-twenties, a beautiful nympho in the best sense of the term.

Henry Purser – The head of the Purser family, late forties. A frustrated man brought down by the disappointments of life. His music is his source of joy.

Time: The present.

Locations:            Zach’s Studio Apartment.

                            Purser Family Living Room.

SCENE 1

(ZACH’S studio apartment. The studio apartment is represented by a small love seat being placed either downstage right or left. Sitting on the couch, reading a magazine, is LISA BRIGHT.