Theatre

Behold The Coach, In Sorrow, Unemployed

by Will Eno

Dramatis Persona

The Coach

Setting

A press conference. A podium with microphones mounted on it. Periodic flashbulbs

THE COACH

(He enters. Cameras flash.) All right, everybody, let’s just get going. You people know what I’ve come here to probably say. This should all come as all as no surprise. The phrase, of course, you are familiar with. It was a “building year,” this last year was. We suffered some losses, sure, we suffered some, last season, and we’ve had to start out all over, in a fashion; we’ve had to come at this thing as if it were some kind of a– and you folks in the press will have to tell me if this is a pleonasm– a new beginning. We made some changes here and there and here and we made these, mainly, mostly, with the fans in mind, because we wanted the fans to be happy, in our minds we wanted the fans to love us. And I think they should be happy, I think they should love us. Listen, last year was not the easiest year. The plan was it would be for building, for rebuilding, for replacing what was lost, replenishing what was gone. Our strategy was, in theory, to betray that which had become merely habit, to betray our very very fear, that thing which has in theory kept us alive, that thing which says to us: Don’t cross the street without looking everywhere in the world first; Don’t speak your mind and certainly never your heart. That fear which keeps you from calling, from calling out into the game night, from dropping to your weakened knees and screaming from the bottom to the top of your burning smoking lungs: “Jesus please! Could somebody just–. Christ! I am going to die, to drop dead, some slow-news Saturday, an off-season Monday, so much not yet done, good-bye, forever, as I die an unremarked and ‘He-did-not-look-so-calm’ death. I don’t know what color pants go with what color shirt. I don’t know what I go with. I don’t know the meaning of my own bleeping heart. My personality is killing me. Would somebody please just please help me and everybody live!” (He pauses.) That is what this year was. We had to look hard at a few things and, surprise surprise, we found that they looked hard back. But I think we have to be happy. We broke a few attendance records. We sold a few hot dogs. We played some ball, and got some sun. It was the life, it really was, and, granted, this was not the greatest year, no, I guess it was really kind of a shambles.

I had no idea how hard hard was until this year came around. My God, Jesus, so hard. Nights, whole nights, weeks of nights, in a row. I bet I walked a thousand miles on my street alone. I came home and went out, walking. My eyes running, me thinking of the Dark Lady of my own incompetent sonnets, me saying hardly just above my breath, “I remember you. I almost completely remember you. In the year since you, there hasn’t been anything but ashes and paperwork. A year of cigarettes and minor car crashes. And I will never love any thing or body again. And I am not young and handsome. And I could not coach a gallon of water out of a paper bag.” (He pauses.)

So you see, I’ve had my doubts. I’ve had what you people call Personal Problems. But I tried. To run things different. With a little elegance, a new uniform, with some sense of calm amidst the– I don’t know, you tell me, you lived through it, too. What was this year, what happened? Who, or–. Christ Jesus Christ Christ Christ. (He directs the question halfway toward a person in the audience.) What was it? What did you feel this year? Of what would you be speaking, if were you standing here, this year, speaking of the last? And did any one of us have what he would call a winning season? And what would that look like? And could someone tell me, while we’re at it, when is High School over, when comes High School to its high schoolish end? Because I really don’t understand when the seriousness is supposed to start. And I am so filled with wanting, I so crave to know, to know a little, to be sure, just a little anything, a fact, a meaning, a song or jingle. A lullaby, to be put to bed by, to sleep, to sleep off my life. A gentle anthem– a bluenosed tribute to the old man at the helm. (He pauses.) It was a real hell of a hell of a time, this year. What’s that saying? About the penguin? And the fifty-yard dash? Well, that’s exactly what it was. A trying time. A building year. An endless gorgeous endless loss. Which now is now over. And we have how many more left left to us to lose? (A pause.)

Now, I know you guys in the press are going to have a field day with some of the things I’ve said up here today. And I know you’re probably thinking: “Something seems to have kind of crushed the fire this guy had when we hired him.” Or: “Could someone in this red-eyed poet-souled state ever win the division and go on to seize the brass ring, what with the distraction of his heart-broken relation to a fragile lass of a woman of a girl, who can not even say with any authority what her own last name is?” Well, I’ll tell you, because I came here to tell you a few things. I came here to feel the burn from your flash bulbs, and to speak a few things– my losing heart included. And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know if I can lead anyone to victory, or even lead anyone anywhere. I don’t know if my plan is a good one, or even if I have one.

You have to let me turn my season-worn face toward our record-breaking American heaven, to the stadium blue air overhead of the world, and let me say, you’ve got to please let me declaim, and I quote: (He pauses.) I don’t know. In general. And, in particular, in particular. But I do know that someone has to be everywhere. And I am the one who is standing here now, before all of you who are sitting there, there. I am the one in the position I am in. I see a man bowed like Atlas under the weight of his whistle. I see him smoking himself blind, poring over blank pieces of paper. I am that man. I lived as that man through this last year, past. And I think I should be happy. I think we should all be very terribly proud and happy, and happy and afraid, and afraid and thrilled, really, to death at the upcoming year and all of the life it will naturally contain.

This is my feeling.

We have time for one question.

Cameras flash. Blackout.

End

Mr. Theatre Comes Home Different

by Will Eno

Dramatis Personae
Mr. Theatre

Setting
The stage set of a living room. A table with a telephone and a vase of flowers on it.

(He enters with an open umbrella. He shakes the rain off of it and places it in a stand. He checks his watch, takes his coat off, looks around as if expecting someone. He ponders over the set and then, he sees the audience. He sits. He stares. He stands. He starts to leave and then turns around and comes back toward the audience. He flips the table out of his way, kicks the chairs over.)

MR. THEATRE

Strike the set! Strike the world! My former life, gone! Everything stricken, struck, gotten rid of. Now, set the stage again for something nothing less than me: some man, a wound; an animal, with English. Here I am. I am come! Born from the wings, or somewhere in the back of the theatre. Alone. (He sees the telephone.) But whom have we here? Someone? (He picks up the telephone.) Hello? No one? Prop! (He throws the telephone aside. He notices a flower on the floor.) Speaking of nature— which I was, and still am, and always will— here is some that someone planted here. (He picks it up.) Good evening, flower. Did you grow today? Get some sun? Look at you, you lovely fresh-cut dying thing. Have you come to upstage me? (He eats the flower.) That tasted the way you would think a flower should. (He chews.) This last, I find a terribly suggestive remark. But I meant for it to suggest or augur nothing; beyond that of my darker purpose, which is, in fact, dark. Is, in deed, darker. But, between you, me, and the lighting, I should tell you, in an aside: whisper, whisper, whisper.

Gentle’s all, my name is blank. And I have come and kicked things over. I have breathed badly. I will act quickly, entertain myself, and then leave. This is my character, as I would have you have it; and this, my interior life, as I would, for you, outwardly live it. (He kicks a chair offstage. Laughing.) But I— I would like you to know— I yearn.

Witness me yearn.

(On bended knee.) My love! my love! if you are out there: why don’t you love me, and why aren’t you out there? I should look up your old address. So as for us to enact the love scene that is coming. That is here. Now! Kiss my moving mouth. I am all afire, burning. (He purses his lips as if to kiss, closes his eyes, and rises to stand on the tips of his toes. He stands, so, and then opens his eyes and unpurses his lips.) By the way, the fire exits are located here and here, and in the event of a fire, or should you hear a fire alarm, or, should you see someone run screaming past you in flames, or, simply, should you panic, anxious, and seek to suffer alone, like an injured thing does, please use the doors, either there or there, and peaceably remove yourself. But not now, stay seated for now, for the climax— if I can make it come— is coming. Something climactic is nigh.

Here cometh the storm scene! Shaken by a teenage stagehand from a box up in the flies! Rise! Rain your fake rain and drown the fake world! Make the floorboards buckle! Come sideways, hail, sleet, serious weather! Ruin every wedding and parade! Mess up my hair, make my bones ache! Wrack, weather! Wrack!

But first, stop.

Not so fast.

Here comes the calm. The calm during the storm. Do you hear birds singing? I don’t. And it’s for me that they are not singing. No explanation is needed. But as for exposition: you should see certain parts of my anatomy. You should see the mess of bed I rise from in the afternoon, looking in a mirror to see the damage done in the night, checking myself for some rare infection and or new sore having come. Making sure— ensuring— that my hair and gums and face are all receding, leaving me left with only eyes leftover to stare from. And I stare. Hands in lap, I think of one Easter, one spring; me in a suit, clean; the world sparkling; hunting scenes on the dishes; the feet beneath the table. But enough talk of mirrors and of reflections of what once was but now isn’t.

Where were we? I believe, over here. And in love, wasn’t it? It was sweet, wasn’t it? But now it’s over, is it not? When I’m gone, I’ll be gone. I wish the little life I lived tonight were different. Were more lived. But I am glad I ate that flower. Would that the world entire were a flower for me to eat. And would that my faked feelings could make yours truly genuine. But the death scene! I almost forgot. Not surprising. But, here, now: the end, at last.

Pretend I am dying. (He begins to die. He drops to a knee.) Pretend my life was wasted. (He dies more.) That I spent my time in this body on this earth dumbly. (He stops.) Pretend you loved me. (He stands.) I smell bad, and I am in a hospital. I am your mother. (He carries the table off- stage. Throughout the remainder of this paragraph he is striking the set.) Pretend I am your mother. That you loved me when little. That then you then stopped for some time, but have started up again, in time for me to die. Pretend it’s hard to look. My eyes and breasts, nothing on my body looks the way it’s supposed to look. You mother me. You stand there, pretend, and you mother your mother, who is dying. Or I am your child who cannot get his breath, as you stand above me, breathing. Or, I am— imagine it— you. Whoever— I am dying. Pretend this, that this is not pretend. Pretend you are sitting there. And that this was good. Pretend I am crying. That you are crying. And that this is the end. I start to go. I don’t look at you. It seems familiar. It seems resolved. (He retrieves his umbrella and opens it. It is held over his head and behind him, gracefully.) Pretend that this is over. That it will not go on, interminably. The end. People coming and going. Entering and exiting. Forever. (He drops the umbrella and comes downstage.)

Give yourselves a big hand.

You were lovely.

I die.

Snow starts to fall. We are in rapture. A bloodhound crouches near, there, by a freezing river, in a darkening wood. And your hands are cold. And our happy world is ended. Pretend.

(He begins walking toward the audience. Lights fade.)

End

Jerry Hunt: Four Video Translations

At the age of twelve, Jerry Hunt founded his first church, using a friend’s lithograph machine to print tracts, which he then sent to followers who responded to notices he had posted around suburban Dallas, Texas. In the pamphlets, Hunt combined lectures on alchemy with devotional exercises, simplified yoga, voodoo and the rituals of the pentagram and hexagram. Each month he answered letters from devotees who would send money to a post office box address, asking for additional informa- tion, none aware that they were dealing with just a kid. Which in a sense wasn’t true anyway. From early on Jerry Hunt seems greater than his years. in this case he meant everything he wrote, and responded to each letter with complete earnestness. The church was no scam; it was some- thing he believed in. His interests were in persuasion, and he believed he could help these people. Money had little to do with it. Already a member of every Rosicrucian order that existed at the time, he eventually attained initiate status–again, though he was underage.

He’d also shown a prodigious talent for the piano by then. Years later he studied music formally at North Texas State, and then pursued a career as a pianist, eventually experimenting with extended playing techniques, feeding into them his developed knowledge of electrical engineering and computer programming. He began building the appa- ratus for his performances when none existed to achieve the result he wanted.

It seems evident, going back to the mail order church, that his interest in music was simply an extension of the genius and devotion he held for religion, magic, alchemy, secret orders, electro-magnetic prop-

erties, the discourse of computer code. . . the vibration of the piano’s harp tapped by a row of coordinated hammers, invoking a certain combina- tion of vibrations per second, entering the air, and then the ear, altering processes in the brain. Sound is just another transmutation, yet another persuasion.

With this oversimplification we might approach the mind and art of Jerry Hunt: A general fascination with interaction within and without a system, of a presence one can’t always see, but must know, or at least believe, to exist. An orchestration of impulse. And then a million impossible specifics.

The following video stills are taken from Jerry Hunt’s Four Video Translations*–the only video release by the composer, and a late docu- ment of a remarkable, if far too brief, creative life. The stills serve as weak proxy to the actual video, maybe even irrelevant, given the sonic, choreo- graphic, and kinetic qualities offered on the video itself. Hunt’s composi- tions mutate with electronic, motion triggered sound, his intended acci- dents merging with the orchestrated score. Unpredictability was part of the event. The human ‘element’ in each of these–Hunt in solo, paired up, or reduced to a head on an Elizabethan collar, are each set against a black backdrop. Objects fly in and out of frame as his body convulses, twitches, spins, and inspects. When Hunt speaks, his prayers, invocations, non- sense, duologue, and poetic fragments seem both entirely off a point, and completely on. In the manner of the best surrealists (and religious practi- tioners), the unconscious mind of the work responds with an undeniable logic, even as it denies our identification of its surfaces.

In the first piece, Birome [zone]: plane (fixture), Hunt plays homunculus, using various objects to help‘dance’ to the music while his convulsing, entranced body plays off the ‘plane,’ responding to stimula seen and unseen, as in tropism.

Talk (slice): duplex, the second piece, is a duologue between Hunt and Rod Stasick—in essence a string of interruptions, whose length is determined by the slapping of a clave; occasionally a continuum of thought is created.

Third, in Bitom [fixture]: topogram Hunt plays a kind of sci- entist/investigator/exorcist to the subject/prisoner/victim, Michael Galbreth. Galbreth holds a metal grounding plate while Hunt probes his body for electrical conductivity with a device that simultaneously con- trols the pitch of a dominating whine, throughout.

Fourth, Transform (stream): core, severs Hunt’s head onto an Elizabethan collar, as with all the other sets, against a black backdrop. The head inquires from its platter, cocks, its eyes scan up, down, as Hunt’s vocal manipulations are answered from something from out of view.

Too weird, too transcendent of the usual and obvious, too ambiguous and too powerful to be denied a rightful place in the ongoing flux of contem- porary art, I hope the snapshots that follow are better than nothing. I can’t decide whether it is sad or fortuitous that this lifelong Texan’s most visible moment in the public sphere was probably his induction into the 1990s’ Forbidden Four. It brought him attention, as it did Karen Finley and the others. But today the reality of where it has brought us–the encampment of the religious right into a devolving squatter’s rights government, and the attendant glower on honest thought and expression–seems to have overwhelmed the initial, unintended consequence of simply turning the public on to a group of controversial artists.

And yet, for this reason alone, it is refreshing to see such a mind and its high regard for the billion impulses of potential in a single

–David Ryan, December, 2004

*(Available from oodiscs.com—catalog listing: videoO #1)

Spring Break at the DMV

by Dalton Day

For Mathias

Author’s Notes

The transitions between each scene can be as smooth or as opposite-of-smooth as possible. Lighting can be used to indicate the end / beginning of a scene, or the actors can just start the next scene without any break at all.

“//” denotes a line that is interrupted by the one following it.

Italicized text is not verbalized.

Characters

A1, A2, A3: Three friends who are about to go on Spring Break. Though they are college-aged, they should be played by actors in their late 20s. They are going to be friends forever. This isn’t a nostalgic play, though. Because nostalgia is poisonous and honestly?? It’s like, an inch (at most) from being pure, unfiltered sadness. Nobody needs that. With that being said, I miss you, terribly.

DMV EMPLOYEE: They are just doing their job.

DOG: What dog?!

SOMEONE ELSE: You don’t know them. I wouldn’t worry about it.

SCENE 1 (Or, Prologue)

A dog’s bark is heard.

SCENE 2

A1, A2, & A3 walk onstage, wearing typical beach clothes. A spotlight follows them. They get used to this, but they don’t notice it. They resist it. Perhaps they try to go in separate directions, outside of the diameter of the spotlight. If this happens, three smaller spotlights should appear, one on each of them. But, eventually, they should reconvene at the end of this, in one spotlight, center-stage.

SCENE 3

A1: I can’t believe we have to come here.

A2: Come where?

A3: There’s nothing I can’t believe.

Someone should laugh who isn’t A1, A2, or A3. The play stops here unless someone laughs, ok?

SCENE 4

DMV EMPLOYEE appears onstage.

A1: Well we’re here now, so let’s make the best of it.

A2: Whatever you say, boss.

A3: Boss?

SCENE 5

A1, A2, & A3 approach DMV EMPLOYEE. They wait to be greeted, but they aren’t.

A1: Good morning.

A2: Good afternoon.

A3: [with fondness] I hope we stay friends forever.

SCENE 6

No lights. A smooth jazz track plays. It should be waiting room music. As the song continues, though, a little more…umph…is added to the mix. Then the sound of someone coming into the sound booth & saying Woah woah woah, that’s not right. Here, play this. Nothing plays.

SCENE 7

DMV EMPLOYEE

Take a number.

The number 24 is projected on a screen.

A1: 24 it is!

A2: That’s not that long of a wait.

A3: This conversation is horrible.

SCENE 8

A1, A2, & A3 are sitting on the floor downstage. DMV EMPLOYEE is still there. DMV EMPLOYEE can be walking around the stage, miming typical office tasks, or they can eat their lunch, or they can pull out a trumpet & play a sorrowful tune. Yeah, that one, eventually.

A1: I was reading the other day about memory.

How memories aren’t stored in a system in the brain,

that memories ARE the system in the brain.

A2: Oh, so it’s like, not a window in a room,

but like, the room itself?

A3: I’m going to remember this moment,

right here,

for as long as I can.

Lights fade as trumpet song comes to an end.

SCENE 9

A1, A2, & A3 are in a different room. There is a window, suspended in air.

A1: We should go to the beach for spring break.

A2: Hell yeah! Sand, sun, &…& uh….

A3: Salt!

All cheer.

SCENE 10

A dog’s bark is heard, again.

SCENE 11

Back at the DMV. The number 25 is projected on the wall.

A1: Wait a minute. Weren’t we 24? They never called it!

A2: Oh man, we’re never gonna get out of here.

A3: I think, when I look back at my life,

I’m going to be happy.

Pause.

Smiling. I hope.

SOMEONE ELSE walks onstage, & approaches DMV EMPLOYEE.

SOMEONE ELSE

Number 25! I’m number 25 right here!

DMV EMPLOYEE: Well, hello again! It’s a pleasure to see your face! Let’s get you what you need so you can be on your way! I hope the wait wasn’t too bad.

SOMEONE ELSE

Wait? What wait?

Both laugh, & exit.

SCENE 12

A3’s voice is heard but not seen.

A3: Isn’t it weird? The way people enter your life?

Seriously!

Like, you meet people,

& then, next thing you know,

you’ve known them for a year or two & it’s just…

impossible to track how they got here.

How close you are to them.

How you’ve shared such a small amount of your life with them,

& yet it’s…I dunno.

Don’t laugh!

It’s weird!

& like, how there’s no way you’re going to go back to a life without them.

You just…

You can’t even picture it.

Try it.

Try to picture it.

SCENE 13

Only A2 & A3 are onstage. A couple beats before the dialogue starts.

A2: Laughing. Oh my god!

A3: Laughing. I can’t believe you just said that!

SCENE 14

Is that—is that a dog?! There’s a dog walking around the audience. What kind is it? Oh it doesn’t matter, it’s a dog! The dog is probably gonna walk around & sniff a little bit. Probably no accidents. Maybe the dog will go on stage. If that happens, follow it with a spotlight. If it lies down, keep the spotlight on it, but maybe dim it? This will be the remaining length of the play. What a great ending! But probably the dog will wander off-stage, & then the next scene can start. Dang! What a great dog!

SCENE 15

A2: Yeah, we’ve been here AT LEAST that long, if not longer.

A3: If not longer.

SCENE 16

A2: Why don’t you go up there & see where we are in line.

A3: Couldn’t hurt.

A2 & A3 turn towards DMV employee, but neither get up. A beat.

DMV EMPLOYEE: You should be next.

Should.

A2 & A3 turn back to where they were. A beat.

A2: What did they say?

A3: Where are we?

SCENE 17

A2: (thinking) Hmm…lie down on the beach

& just listen to the waves crash.

I could do that for hours.

A3: You could do THAT for hours?

SCENE 18

A2: Y’all hungry?

A3: (clearly to audience) Y’all hungry?

A beat.

Me neither.

SCENE 19

A2 alone on stage. They are walking around, clearly bored. Eventually they go to the edge of the stage, dangling their legs off the side.

A2: I remember very well the first time I saw the ocean.

I was scared.

I couldn’t swim well.

& there I was, face to face with so much…muchness.

Whoever I was with told me not to be afraid.

But I was.

But it was beautiful.

& I knew that I would remember everything about that moment until (trails off)

However old I was.

However many people were there.

How long it would take me to finally work up the courage to walk towards—

A beat

To walk towards—

A beat

Uh—

A beat, A2 looks clearly stumped, before smiling.

A2: It was beautiful.

SCENE 20

The number 24 is projected on the wall for a moment, before malfunctioning. A technical error should show on the screen. Someone (not Someone else) walks onstage. They look up at the screen, reading the error, & then hit the wall (if they can’t hit the wall for some reason, a clap will do). The error screen disappears, & is replaced with a looped video of the sky. A few clouds, a bird or two. Nothing except sky should be seen in the video. Whoever walked onstage, exits.

SCENE 21

Sky still projected. A1, A2, & A3 walk onstage. They spread out, A1 stage left, A2 upstage center, & A3 stage right.

A1: Ok, so remember. Each person says one word at a time, making a story. & there’s no going back, no redos, & you only have three seconds to come up with your word. Ready?

A2: Yep.

A3: Alright.

A beat.

A1: There-

A2: Once-

A3: Was-

A1: A-

A2: Day-

A3: That-

A1: Seemed-

A2: To-

A3: Last-

A1 pauses.

A2: 1-

A3: 2-

SCENE 22

Has anybody seen that dog?

SCENE 23

A2: Yeah, me too. I’m sick of waiting around. It’s not worth it.

A3: We should be next.

SCENE 24

A3’s voice is heard.

A3: There’s got to be a simpler way to do this.

Like, an extra hand.

Every time you have to say goodbye,

like, a real goodbye,

like, you are leaving my life,

you grow an extra hand.

Simple, right?

A beat.

Though, I guess—

A beat.

Sometimes you’d just grow a hand out of nowhere,

& that’s how you’d find out you’ve said goodbye.

That’d suck.

Especially if it was the first time.

A beat.

& I guess eventually, you’d have more hands

than people to say goodbye to.

A beat.

How many hands does someone need?

To say goodbye?

This many?

A beat.

I’m waving.

A beat.

Can you see me?

A beat.

I’m standing right here.

Waving.

A beat.

Either a knocking sound or a clapping sound should happen, whichever one was used to fix the error screen earlier.

SCENE 25

A3 & DMV EMPLOYEE onstage.

A3: Oh, come on. It hasn’t been that bad.

SCENE 26

A3: & hey, at least none of us had to be here alone.

SCENE 27

A1 walks onstage. They do so hesitantly, looking around a lot, as if to make sure they are alone. When they reach center stage, their face dramatically goes from cautious to thoughtful. They sigh.

A1: Know who I miss?

SCENE 28

DMV EMPLOYEE alone onstage. They pull out their trumpet again & start to play. No sound is coming out though. They examine the instrument, & try again. Nothing. They are visibly straining to make sound come out of the instrument. They finally stop trying before looking past the audience, using their hand to see in the darkness. They gesture toward their trumpet, shaking it & shrugging their shoulders. A voice says from the sound booth: “Yeah, we’re working on it. Sorry about that.” DMV EMPLOYEE nods, puts their trumpet away.

DMV EMPLOYEE: I don’t mind waiting.

SCENE 29

A1, A2, A3 on stage with DMV EMPLOYEE: A1: I think I’m going to head out.

A2: Yeah, me too—//

A3: //–Wait.

SCENE 30

A1, A2, A3 onstage with DMV EMPLOYEE. A1 & A2 don’t move or interact. DMV EMPLOYEE moves as they please.

A3: I need a second.

I need to remember as much as I can.

A beat.

This is like those horses.

Looks to DMV EMPLOYEE for recognition, gets none.

Those horses. From World War II.

Nothing.

In World War II, a bunch of horses ran into a lake because they were scared & then–.

A beat.

Shwwwoooooop.

The lake froze solid.

With the horses inside.

A beat.

I mean.

It’s probably just a legend.

A beat.

But.

This is like that.

(looks to DMV EMPLOYEE) Don’t you think?

DMV EMPLOYEE: I think—

The projection quickly goes through a series of numbers. Is “24” in there? I think I saw it. Is this over? I don’t want it to be. It can’t be. Not yet. Not yet. It lands on the loop on the sky.

It’s time for my break.

SCENE 31

A3 sits perfectly still while a lot of people walk through the DMV. DMV EMPLOYEE is on their break, so will not be in this scene. This should appear fast, the people not spending much time onstage, a few seconds at most. Feel free to just use audio of a lot of steps & human voices, if a lot of people cannot be found.

SCENE 32

A3 sits onstage. DMV EMPLOYEE Returns.

A3: Ok.

I’m with y’all.

Let’s get out of here.

A3 starts to get up.

SCENE 33

Who is your best friend? Have they always been your best friend? How many best friends have there been before them? Who do you miss? Can you tell them? Will you?

SCENE 34

I miss you.

SCENE 35

A1, A2, A3 enter the DMV. DMV EMPLOYEE greets them.

A1: Hello! 

A2: Hi!

A3: Hey! 

DMV EMPLOYEE: My thoughts exactly! Right this way!

They all exit.

SCENE 36

A1, A2, A3 enter the DMV. DMV EMPLOYEE greets them.

A1: Hello!

A2: Hi!

A3: Hey! 

DMV EMPLOYEE: My thoughts exactly! Right this way!

They all exit.

SCENE 37

A1, A2, A3 enter the DMV. DMV EMPLOYEE greets them.

A1: Hello! 

A2: Hi!

A3: Hey! 

DMV EMPLOYEE: My thoughts exactly! Right this way!

They all exit.

SCENE 38

A3 enters the DMV. DMV EMPLOYEE isn’t there.

A3: Do you mind if we sit here for a little while?

A beat.

Thanks.

SCENE 39

The video of the loop of the sky plays. This time, though, there is sound. Seagulls, & the sound of ocean waves. Other sounds typical of a day at the beach. This continues through the end of the play.

SCENE 40

Video continues. Lights up. End of play.