Ideas for a short play?

Dreadnought · Dec 10, 2012

It's ten pages, man up and brainstorm by yourself for a couple hours till you get an idea.

Antilogic · Dec 10, 2012

Glassfan said:
That would be a "D" and an "X".

You mean "A+" and "A++" 4/5 stars, check it from Joe Bob, right?

warpus · Dec 10, 2012

Abdullah, a covert Al Qaeda operative, has moved to Chicago, IL in order to infiltrate the great satan and help mastermind the next great attack. He ends up falling in love with Jimbob, a tea party member & conservative talk radio host. They both realize their homosexuality at the same time and go on a wonderful love ride through America, learning about eachother and about love.

The play begins with the following monologue (to be recited by Abdullah):

Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became the prince of a neighborhood called Logan Square
In west Islamabad born and raised
In the mosque where I spent most of my days
Praying, praising Allah, relaxing all cool
And all shooting some Yankees outside of the school
When a couple of infidels, they were up to no good
Started making trouble in my neighbourhood
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared
And said "You're moving in with your Imam in east Logan Square"

I whistled for a cab and when it came near
the License plate said " اسلام آباد" and had a dice in the mirror
If anything I could say that this cab was rare
But I thought nah, forget it, yo homes, to the airport and into the air!

I pulled up to a house about seven or eight
And I yelled to the cabby "Yo, homes smell you later!"
Looked at my kingdom I was finally there
To sit on my throne as the prince of Logan Square

peter grimes · Dec 10, 2012

civver_764 said:
Some dude is in a space ship that blows up and he just has to drift around in empty space while his oxygen runs out and he thinks about the meaning of life.

This is a great idea. I don't like plays, and I'm a professional in the industry. But this seed has the potential of getting me to want to spend $20 to see how it unfolds. The key is that you know going into it how it's going to end, and we're paying to watch the minute-by-minute evolution.

But it MUST be done completely medically accurately. Which likely doesn't meet the minute criteria.

Kennigit said:
Is it supposed to written so that it can be acted out on a stage taking into accounts props/setting changes or is a hypothetical script entirely okay? I.e. a play about someone in space would lose a lot of oomph on the stage, but in short 3000-5000 words it can be good.

In the spirits of Mayans 'cuz huehuehue december 2012, I'd write a thing about some fictional city of the mayans on yucatan peninsula who never meet the spanish but hear word from it from a group of 6 people who comes to town then everybody dies from smallpox. The town kind of knew the 6 people and respected them all though.

First scene is two central characters overhearing those 6 people talking to a crowd of the mayans in the town plaza, and/or the crowd kinda half believing random stories about it, with like 4 lines that vary from rational "so people came to town so what?" to some mystic old hag to some people denying it happened.

The two characters a young male (19) with some chick of his (15) who are married or in love or whatever in attendance. It's pretty short, but the male leaves the crowd before the talk is over and kind of scoffs it off/doesn't believe it. Girl doesn't know what to think. But again, they just hear maybe a minute of dialogue and he had to go do X action. They talk about it a little bit, and maybe wonder what the world is.

Act 2 the town has begun to get infected with smallpox brought by those 6 men and there is various turmoil that happens with the two characters and their circle of close-age friends. 1 or 2 of their 10 friends are sick with smallpox, but people still kind of think the disease may be for "bad" people. Let's say ~3-4 of their friends are in agreement with the town to kill 1 particular man of the 6 men who came to town. 2 of the 6 men who came to town died of small pox already, 1 is currently sick, and the 3 healthy ones are all being accused of stuff by the mob mentality of the town. Naturally, 2 of the healthy ones shifted the blame entirely to the third healthy guy once the mobs started forming, 2:1 type of deal, so the town has a little red herring/scapegoat.

Over the course of 2-3 days in the play's setting that develops some. Again, the town kind of knew the 6 men beforehand and they respect those 3 healthy ones in particular, so they didn't kill them immediately. Now 3 of the 6 men are dead, and you have 2 of them saying "we didn't do this, it was all Joe bob here (#3 of the healthy)!". Eventually everyone is in agreement that Joe brought this plague and needs to get slaughtered.

The guy main character goes and kills the "death bringer" with his healthy male friends 'cuz they're the young healthy 19-21 year old guys. They kill that dude and are applauded. The girl wasn't there when they dragged out the death bringer to town square and killed him. The main character goes and finds her, and she is sick. End scene.

Act 3 now 6/10 of their friends are dead and girl is sick. Insert romance stuff. The girl main character with the small pox dies. 80% of the town is dead. The others of the town fled. The main character is all emotional and all, and the scene ends with him crying into his hands and then he starts freaking out because he sees the little small pox bumps in the palms of his hands that he cried into. End scene.

Play ends with some random white dudes 3 years later (spanish) who are in another town with a translator asking about information of the surrounding area. They hear that there "used to be a town" over by X, but it was destroyed by disease. Maybe the spanish scoff to each other about the primitiveness of the civilization, that they can't be internally stable like the great and glorious Spanish Empire.

the spanish literally did nothing but an entire town was wiped out, and all the characters died or are implied to have the disease.

I reserve rights though.

This is also a really interesting idea. What's the story of the last person to leave a small-pox village? But I think, again, you're not going to meet the 10 minute criterium.

warpus said:
Abdullah, a covert Al Qaeda operative, has moved to Chicago, IL in order to infiltrate the great satan and help mastermind the next great attack. He ends up falling in love with Jimbob, a tea party member & conservative talk radio host. They both realize their homosexuality at the same time and go on a wonderful love ride through America, learning about eachother and about love.

The play begins with the following monologue (to be recited by Abdullah):

Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became the prince of a neighborhood called Logan Square
In west Islamabad born and raised
In the mosque where I spent most of my days
Praying, praising Allah, relaxing all cool
And all shooting some Yankees outside of the school
When a couple of infidels, they were up to no good
Started making trouble in my neighbourhood
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared
And said "You're moving in with your Imam in east Logan Square"

I whistled for a cab and when it came near
the License plate said " اسلام آباد" and had a dice in the mirror
If anything I could say that this cab was rare
But I thought nah, forget it, yo homes, to the airport and into the air!

I pulled up to a house about seven or eight
And I yelled to the cabby "Yo, homes smell you later!"
Looked at my kingdom I was finally there
To sit on my throne as the prince of Logan Square

Yes! This is exactly where the great plays come from - humanizing the other, flipping the tables, and other such cliches.

Save_Ferris · Dec 15, 2012

Sorry it took so long to respond. I liked a few of the (serious) ideas here, but I decided to go for a comedy. The plot is kind of a cliche, but my class seemed to like it.

If you want to read the whole thing, it's in the spoiler below (blocking directions are in parentheses):

Spoiler :

Quackers · Dec 16, 2012

You get a F for not using my reverse mermaid idea :mad:

Borachio · Dec 16, 2012

I think it's good!

Trouble is, though, I know nothing.

Snorrius · Dec 16, 2012

Save_Ferris said:
Hey, I know I haven't posted here in a while, but I'm supposed to come up with a 10-page paper for my Directing and Playwriting class, and I've run short of ideas. Does anyone have an idea that they would want to write a play around, but don't know how to? I'll post the script afterwards. By the way, I don't want you to write the scene, just give me some ideas. Thanks!

The guy tries to create a pony tulpa but instead he invoke Abraxas which initiate the hero into the joys of gnosticism.

Save_Ferris · Dec 16, 2012

Snorrius said:
The guy tries to create a pony tulpa but instead he invoke Abraxas which initiate the hero into the joys of gnosticism.

Wait, what?

Spoiler :

Antilogic · Dec 16, 2012

Save_Ferris said:
Wait, what?

Spoiler :

Also I'm pretty sure the word 'pony' has been banned in this forum.

You and e'ery-pony should go all ghosty and rant about the tyranny of the evil liberal CFC state.

Also, I think I knew a "George and Louis" pair or two back in high school.

CivCube · Dec 16, 2012

That was pretty good, Save_Ferris. I like that you extended the history theme to the characters.

Snorrius · Dec 17, 2012

Save_Ferris said:
Wait, what?

The idea is to show a path of profane who delved into the world of hidden and occult by incident but found his true will. To show how one moves from The Fool to The Magus. Let him start from obvious step - trying to create a pony tulpa i.e. imaginary pony friend. We do not expect him (well or her for that matter) to know anything about hermetism or inner alchemy of course.

He starts from small. Visualizing, meditating etc. Not sure how better is to show this in the actual play, maybe dress some people as half-finished tulpae. But it turns out that his delving into the depth of his psyche leads to invoking Abraxas the Gnostic god who unite within itself both Feminine and Masculine, Right and Left, Past and Future, Time and Space, Macrocosm and Microcosm. Abraxas ignites the inner fire of the protagonist's soul and thus the former profane becomes an adept starting his life-long quest to the fulfilling of the Great Work.

Well, that's roughly the whole idea.

JohannaK · Dec 17, 2012

Awesome, very funny stuff. :lol:

Ideas for a short play?

Dreadnought

Deity

Antilogic

--

warpus

Sommerswerd asked me to change this

peter grimes

...

Save_Ferris

Admiring Myself

Quackers

The Frog

Borachio

Way past lunacy

Snorrius

Librivorator

Save_Ferris

Admiring Myself

Antilogic

--

CivCube

Spicy.

Snorrius

Librivorator

JohannaK

Heroically Clueless

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