About a week or two after Tom and Mer asked me to consider writing a play for them, I had a driving trip up to Boston where I was screaming plot details and characters into my phone's voice recorder and my home answering machine. Eventually, I tried to piece everything together into one rambling treatment. A treatment is a document that a screenwriter creates as a synopsis to tell the story if he's pitching it to a studio or a producer. it is usually single-spaced and 4 pages long. What you're about to read is mostly rambling, but let's just lie for a bit and make it look like I'm actually a professional ok, good, thank you very much.
Look for a non-fleshed out plot, only a handful of characters (Beth, Alison, Will, Barron, Dean Anderson, Vicky, Jocelyn, Sarah, Becca, and Katy), but a lot of specific stuff that has lasted. Also, you can see where I need to take Alison back to, how simplistic Vicky once was, and the definitive answer on Barron and Dean Anderson. Enjoy...
Here's a very preliminary synopsis of what I'm thinking about for the play. There is little in the way of a full plot and I haven't named the college or the characters, so just try and follow along.
We find ourselves at a tiny All-Girls New England liberal college. It's a new year and there are a whole slew of new freshman girls at the first meeting on the second floor with their RA. The RA begins to tell them about college, what to expect, if they need anything to come to her room, it's one of the two singles on the floor. She also says that the Dean of Students wants to come in and talk to them.
dean of Students arrives and states that he was informed a personal meeting instead of a letter or large group gathering would be more benefiecial to explain the changes that are going on this year. For example, the meal plan has been slightly expanded, so the normal plan will now get you 15 meals a week, and that you can buy used college textbooks. Oh, yeah, one more thing: as a temporary plan, they've accepted 8 boys. Once will be living on this very floor. His name is [something, I'm thinking William/Will], he is a sweet, sharp boy who enjoys sports and movies hat most kids would like, so please befriend him. He's also somewhat handsome. To help ease everyone in, there will be a first-ever Homecoming Dance after the D-III Women's Field Hockey Game (it's their only sport).
he leaves to go on to the next dorm floor leaving the 25 or so girls in a tizzy for the RA. Then we meet the Hall Director, a '74 Graduate who takes her job far too seriously. Although she believes that this is a terrible idea and ruins the credibility of the school, she will still do her job the [whatever it's called] Way! The way that this works now is the boy gets the single on the other side of the hall as well as one of the giant bathrooms, since we can't have co-ed bathrooms now can we? All the girls admittedly lose their ____ and yell and scream.
We meet the new boy as he is moving in. he walks into his room, plops his stuff down, turns to go out the door and is met by 25 new faces, staring at him like he's a monkey in a zoo. He says hi, they all say "hello" back, and they have a conversation as two organisms. Some give him ____ for being there, some flirt, some are apathetic.
Another scene involves the boys sitting in the Dean's office, waiting for him to come in. They have a discussion about how weird it is for the boy, that he doesn't have any of his friends here, there are too many girls, no one gets him, etc. Then the Dean makes some comment about how maybe he isn't trying hard enough to meet new people. Then the boy calls him ?Dad, and we have a little plot explanation where the father only made the college co-ed so that his son can get a date for once. "My god, if you fail here, surrounded by women...I just don't know what to do with you, son." Then the Dad regales his son about how he was a real ladies man back in the day )he's going to be a fat, 50s, maybe balding individual...and it will turn out to be bull anyway - he just wants to live vicariously through his son/give his son a better time in college than him, etc.) The boy is sent out again to get some ladies.
Eventually it comes down that since there are so few boys and so many girls, men and women are not allowed to be in the same dorm room past 9 PM. Possibly a more for general (genital?) health. We will be focusing on a number of girls, including two or three stoners, a sort of disillusioned girl, a turbo slut from the get-go, a sheltered girl who gets a taste of college life and goes off the walls and is probably sent home for a bit.
My idea for the main set is three dorm room doors and the hall on stage and one or two rooms that the girls will end up in. Also, since there is only one bathroom for the girls, this could be a fun way to get all of them on stage, and all doing something totally different (one doing her nails, one brushing her teeth, one in the back taking a shower, and doing everything direct towards the audience like it's a Wes Anderson film).
Eventually everything leads up to the Homecoming Dance, but n one actually does the dance itself and everyone gets all self-affirmed to be who they are. Hurrah!
Characters:
RA - Junior girl there to help mentor and talk to everyone. Sort of like Lucy from Peanuts is the way I'd like to describe, a reluctant girl in charge of helping people through this weird situation during the extraordinarily weird situation that is college in general. Good hearted, maybe not the best one to get advice from.
Main Girl - College freshman, just came on in and is looking for something. A tad disillusioned by the idea of "college," came here to escape the usual trappings of frat parties and boys to focus on her work. Whoops. There goes that. Maybe transferring? Possibly named Mary [Ed. Note: it would be a play on the school William & Mary, which accepts both sexes, so I don't know why I thought I was so clever....]
Dean's Son - Maybe a tad dry or dull, eventually opens up to Main Girl. Is segregated, cannot relate to anyone on his floor. It's hard enough leaving your friends, let alone having no one of the same sex to deal with. Possibly named Will (lol William and Mary lol). [Ed. Note: See! Yuck.
Hall Director - Woman who is very strict and caught in her ways. Form and order are her Old and New Testament. She will be the main antagonist in the story, and eventually her pro-woman stance will alienate both the few boys (especially Dean's Son) and girls. Was toying with the idea that this is Dean's ex-wife and Dean's Son's Mom. That would add a lot of stress to the proceedings, methinks. [Ed. Note: Well Rachel, there ya go]
Dean - Complete idiot. Has no idea what his son wants or who he really is. Isn't very good at his job (look what he did, for chrissakes!). Will be sparingly seen, but might have the best lines.
TurboSlut - Will do all the guys in the school save for Dean's Son (7 of 8), including one of the gay guys. She is actively going after Dean's Son if only to stave off boredom. Will have another dimension, not sure what yet.
Sheltered Girl - One of those "oh, my Mom kept me locked up to do homework and I haven't seen the sun in 8 years. What is this 'rap music' you speak of?" girls who goes to one party and loses her mind, walking around asking to party every day. Eventually she gets shipped home and comes back towards the end in her normal sheltered self, until she has a drink from someone at the Homecoming dance....
Stoner girls - Can't be college without goofy stoners! Will throw them in the mix. Might want to go hang out with "mary" or take a walk with "mary" and at the end reveal that there is a girl named Mary that's in a different dorm. Ha HA! And you thought they were smoking weed. Tsk tsk. And the like.
Random girls - I'm thinking of 10 or 15 more named parts for the backgrounds of the bathroom scenes, or people who just pass by in the halls. A lot of scenes I want to set in big social settings, and they will have a lot of lines. my favorite things in plays are group scenes, and these girls will have specific characters and say specific things. None of this "All" stuff. Hate that. Lazy bastards.
Clearly I haven't fleshed anything out, but I think there's a starting point and an eventual end point where everyone just sort of gets over their own disorientations and figure out that being themselves (no matter sexual orientation, gender, or feeling) is the best way to go about life. We'll get there. Eventually.
Any questions and such, by all means, since I'm sure there are many.
Best,
Manton
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