Page-A-Day Project

In January with some members from the online Playmarketing "Binge" group, I began a "playwrighting purge." A promise to write a page a day. Permission to write badly as long as one writes. The end result was a large-cast youth play MEET ME AT THE FAIR (recently staged with Lakeshore Players Summer Youth Project which also tied for 2nd place with the Jackie White Memorial Play Writing Contest). Not a bad ending that began with a promise to just write "one page a day." Since then, I have often thought about pledging to write a one-page play daily - in the end some may stand alone, some may later be developed and if nothing else it helps me develop a strong writing muscle.

So, I begin today - with a small ditty of two actresses. Will I actually do this EVERY day for a year? Get real! On the days I substitute teach, run to the theatre to teach two classes and then run to another theatre to direct - I'll be glad if I know my name at the end of the day. But it's a worthy goal. And I have permission to write for children, for adults, for aliens and for myself. No parameters - except that it must occur on one page. So below, please find the first installment of:

THE PAGE-A-DAY PROJECT

ESSIE AND FENNIE

CHARACTERS: ESSIE (f) 20's artsy actress; FENNIE (d) 20's commercial actress

SETTING: Their apartment.

ESSIE: FENNIE! Are you really giving up your soul for fruit snacks? I thought you had standards.

FENNIE: My lofty standards include paying bills and being to able to afford over-priced ice cream once a week.

ESSIE: Philistine.

FENNIE: Artistic Poser.

ESSIE: We came here for exploration. To find the source of artistic nuance, to chop off all that is hollow and resonate art in its purest form!

FENNIE: And the electrical bill is due the 23rd of every month, Essie. Electricity powers your computer. Just plug away at our two-women show. That's the deal. I carry you for one season and if we do not get into the Fringe, you go back to wearing a Lotto Sandwich sign on Wall Street.

ESSIE: But selling fruit snacks! Putting sugar-laden chemicals from foreign countries in children's lunch boxes! It increases our dependence on food manufactured elsewhere, it teaches children to forego fruit and it contributes to the obesity problem in a country that is short on health-care!

FENNIE: I have a day's work ahead of me holding up a box precisely eight inches from the camera, using my method acting training to widen my eyes as thoughts of how fruit snacks saved my day flick through my brain and then emphasizing the name of the product just a wee bit but not enough for it to sound like a conscious effort. You will write for ten minutes and play solitaire for 7 hours and fifty minutes.

ESSIE: I am setting a new standard in the deconstruction of plays. This satirical parody of Reality Shows that are symbolic of the Decline of the American empire will bring theatre together in one global network.

FENNIE: So, what have you written this week?

ESSIE: Essie and Fennie enter. Essie is busy at work deconstructing a play that journeys between American angst and libertarian freedoms. Fennie has just lost the struggle for her soul.

FENNIE: That's it?

ESSIE: The word choices, the punctuation - the dramatic arc - it's agonizing.

FENNIE: Artistic Poser!

ESSIE: Philistine!
- END OF PLAY -