Science Fiction Double Feature: Two Short Plays

By John Pivovarnick

Two short plays by actor, writer, director John Pivovarnick [Tales from the Back of a Bus, Herringbone Press, 2019; Theatrical FX Makeup, Heinemann Pub., 2001] that can be produced as simply, or as elaborately as your time and budget allow. High school production-friendly.
Entangled, (3m 1int) Science Fiction/Comedy. Kevin Hanna thinks he’s meeting a venture capitalist about funding one of his business ideas, but when the capitalist turns out to be the husband of Kevin’s recently deceased girlfriend, things suddenly get weird. Then spooky. Then super spooky. Then deadly.
H.P. Lovecraft's From Beyond, (2m 1f 2 locations) Science Fiction/Horror. When Richard McMichaels is invited back to Professor Tillinghast’s house on Benevolent Street, he thinks his mentor has finally forgiven him for not believing in Tillinghast’s strange and esoteric work. Little does Richard know, but Tillinghast has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, and now he plans to exact his revenge with the help of the eldritch creatures and elder gods from beyond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Pivovarnick
• Release date: Nov 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463591994

John Pivovarnick

John Pivovarnick is a writer, actor, and computer geek who you may have seen in the films Paper Heart or Outpost Earth. He is the author of Tales from the Back of a Bus a novel [Herringbone Press, 2018], and co-author, with Dave Sartor, of Theatrical FX Makeup—get the latest news from him about his writing projects at johnpivovarnick.com or his acting projects at masoncarver.com. Or not. You know, whatever. No stress.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Contents

Preface

Entangled: a play

Entangled Original Production

Dyonisia ‘11

Entangled a Comedy in One Act

H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond

Lovecraft Stagecraft

Source Material

H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond: a Play

Afterward

Postscript

About the Author

PREFACE

I’M A FAN OF PUBLIC EDUCATION (which is probably strange coming from someone who went through 16 years of Catholic grade school, high school, and college). I’m not big on homeschooling, charter schools, or cyber schooling.

Of course, this is all personal opinion based on personal life experience, and I am just a person, not a scientist. Your mileage, like your opinion, may vary.

Public school is the great melting pot; you meet everybody, every kind of person that lives in your town. Your schools are as diverse as where you live. It gives kids like myself (awkward, shy, probably somewhere on the autism spectrum, if there had been such a thing when I was a kid) the chance to find people of their own, to socialize with, and help them grow into well-rounded individuals.

A religious school is as diverse as the religion at its core. (Remind me someday to tell you the story of my Russian Orthodox cousin introducing himself for his first day in a Roman Catholic school, trying to explain to the good sisters that his father was a priest and, oh, the hijinks that ensued.) Part of the diversity is gone, and kids are told, these are your people, and then have to find little niches within that reduced sample. You can still find your people, but their choices are a little slimmer and a little more vanilla. (Pun intended—also, shout out to Irvin and Linda, the two black kids in my high school class at Bishop Hannan High School.)

In educational settings with more limited interactions (homeschooling, some charter schools, cyber schools), you get little to no interaction with other students. Which says to the kids, you have no people. Nothing is done to alleviate isolation or any feelings of otherness. There are no other kids with whom to have a parental bitchfest. Stuff stays pent up, festers.

There are no extracurricular activities, either.

There’s no venting. Of anything. That’s the long and the short of it.

I’m a big supporter of the arts in our schools—all our schools. Also, all the arts, not just theater, but speech and debate (forensics as us old-timers called it), chorus or choir, writing, painting and drawing, sculpting, ceramics, and so on. You know, all the stuff that gets cut when the budget gets tight. The not sports stuff.

The theater is one of the few co-creative arts where it doesn’t happen without a team of people working together. You can write a play alone but isn’t theater until it hits a stage with actors and a director, a stage manager and designers and crew (however small and ersatz it might be).

Theater holds a special place in my heart because, of all the extracurricular activities, it was the only one that put me (a freakishly tall, fat, smart kid) in proximity to popular kids, jocks, student council members, who got to know me a little, so the bullies backed off a little. The popular kids talked me into going to the Halloween dance, my prom (I had the paperback of Carrie with me, of course, in case it got boring). They learned from me, I learned from them.

I know that’s not everyone’s experience, but it was mine, and despite the other awfulness that existed in both grade school and high school, I still remember those parts fondly. Maybe not the classic Trek Klingon costume I put together for the Halloween dance so much, or the powder blue Beetlejuice tuxedo I wore to the prom (and a shout out to my date, Judy Gallagher, and our double dates Michael Logan and Mary Kay Kilcullen), but everything else. Mostly.

I’m preaching to the choir here, I know. Who else would be looking at short science fiction plays except a dyed in the wool theater geek?

Well, if you’re a speech and debate kid looking for a monologue for the next tournament’s Dramatic Interp competition, I see you. I feel you. I was you (and there are