That Darn Cell Phone

(Child walks in; eyes glued to her cell phone)

Mother: You and that phone of yours drive me crazy!

(Child sits on the couch)

Child: Your constant watching of the news drives me crazy and you never hear me complain.

(Child rolls her eyes)

Mother: Well, the news is quite informational, but that phone of yours… Well, it simply is not.

Child: It kind of is, you see, with this phone of mine, I am constantly informed of the latest

break-ups, make-ups, styles, and trends of Honey Hill High. The news tells you where the latest

robbery, fire or natural disaster has occurred. Oh! And how freezing cold or scorching hot it is

outside.

(Mother stares at child for a moment)

Mother: True, but clearly you haven’t picked up on any new clothing trends. Now what do you

have to say to that?

Child: You buy them. So you are the one who hasn’t picked up on any new clothing trends.

(Child gets up from the couch and leaves the room)

The End

Do It

Do It

Teacher: Okay guys I’m going to let you choose your own groups for this project…

Katie: (whisper to friend sitting next to her) I want to work with Ben. He’s so smart. Will
you pass it on?

Girl sitting next to her: (turns to boy on her other side) Hey, Katie wants to do the project
with Ben will you tell him?

Boy: (turns to Ben) Hey, Katie wants to do it with you.

Ben: Do it?

Boy: (confused) Uh yeah.

Ben: (very uncomfortable) Wow okay.

Katie: (approaches Ben) So I’m sure you’ve heard.

Ben: (still very uncomfortable) Yeah.

Katie: So what do you think?

Ben: That sounds good.

Katie: Oh thank God. So do you want to do it at school?

Ben: At school?!

Katie: Yeah I mean that’s probably the best place.

Ben: Won’t the teachers mind?

Katie: No. they can help us.

Ben: Help us?!

Katie: Yeah they do that for students a lot.

Ben: Wow okay. So should I bring anything?

Katie: Probably just some pens or something.

Ben: Pens?!

Katie: Umm I guess we could use pencils if you prefer…

Ben: No! no, pens are fine.

Katie: I’m really good at stuff like this I promise. I mean probably not as good as you.
Everybody knows you’re the best.

Ben: They do?!

Katie: Yeah. I think the school is gonna give you some sort of award or something.

Ben: Wouldn’t that be kinda weird?

Katie: No of course not! You deserve it.

Ben: Umm thanks I guess.

Katie: Kay so does tomorrow sound good?

Ben: Sure.

Katie: Oh lemme just call my mom and tell her.

Ben: You’re telling your mom?!

Katie: Yeah she likes to know when I do stuff like this.

Ben: Uhh I gotta go bye. (runs off)

Katie: Bye?

Bright Futures

Bright Futures

[Spokesperson bounds on stage]

Spokesperson [enters with great enthusiasm befitting an infomercial salesperson] Are you concerned
about where your child will go to college? Do you know that more and more applications are filed by
more and more students every year? The field is crowded, the schools are selective, what can you do
save your child’s future?

Sad Student 1: I was a valedictorian, captain of three sports, and raised money to save the baby seals
from global warming; I had to go to my safety school and am now working the night shift at McDonalds
and living in my parents’ basement.

Sad Student 2: I had perfect test scores, perfect grades, was a state championship debater and built a
robot in my garage. My only option was going to a state university and I am now living under a bridge
and selling pencils to get by.

Distraught Parent: My daughter took every AP course, slept three hours a night and lived on energy
drinks and pop tarts. She led the diversity club, the dance club, and the meditation and relaxation club,
all while editing three student publications. After being rejected by her first choice school she made a
bier of old student newspapers, doused them with kerosene and immolated herself.

Spokesperson: What can you do so your children will avoid similar fates! How can you save them from
being chewed up and spit out by the cold, cruel college admissions process? Swift College Counseling
has the answers!

[Happy students should wear appropriate college sweatshirts and/or other college gear]

Happy Student 1: Swift college counseling got me into Harvard. I was just an average student and vice
president of a club or two, but the Swift people did some research into my family tree and found that
I had an Indian relative way back who shot an arrow a Custer. So, they arranged for my family and me
to move to a reservation in Montana. I played up the whole Indian thing on my application—and I was
Crimson.

Happy Student 2: I knew I needed to do something special to get into Princeton, but had no idea what.
Swift looked at my portfolio and realized I had room for growth in community service. They found me
a cause—some obscure disease no one had heard of—, ran the fundraisers for me and shot this great
video of it all. The kids they bussed in to play the victims I helped were so cute! And I got in early.

Happy Student 3: I got into Yale with a C average all because of Swift. My parents loved me so much
they followed Swift’s advice and contracted terminal diseases so I would be an orphan. My application
was all out of Dickens and the grief explained the low grades. It was brilliant.

Spokesperson: You too can take steps to protect your child’s future. The college admissions process is
a cutthroat, winner take all, dog eat dog jungle, and we will make sure your son or daughter comes out

on top. Contact Swift College Counseling today for a free assessment of your child’s admission potential.
See our website www.swiftadmit.com or call our hotline 1-800-ADMITME

Take Swift action and be the best parent you can be!

[Spokesperson steps back, lawyer steps forward]

Lawyer: Swift College Counseling is not responsible for any karmic or spiritual harm suffered as a result
of using its services. Eternal damnation, reincarnation as a dung beetle, or other negative outcomes are
the responsibility of the consumer.

What is Nothing

Actor 1: Hey babe, what do you think the man next store believes in?

Actor 2 (“Babe”): Well… nothing.

Actor 1: How could one not believe in anything?

Actor 2: No no dear. Not nothing… but nothing.

Actor 1: Babe… you’ve lost me…

How in the world could he not believe in anything?!?

Actor 2: You still are interpreting nothing in a literal since. Think of it as… a feeling more than emptiness
or well it actually meaning that he doesn’t believe in anything.

You must see it in a more… psychological, more, deep into emotion kind of way… like you think
of yourself as...

Actor 1: …wait-wait-whoo. I believe in many things. I believe in our love, I believe in a God, I believe I’m
happy with my life. What do you believe in?

Actor 2: well… I believe in all of that too, but I see his perspective on believing in nothing.

Actor 1: baby!! I don’t understand how you can understand his not believing in anything!!

Actor 2: Dear, you must understand this first. Believing in nothing doesn’t mean that you literally don’t
have any beliefs but that you believe in the nothingness itself.

Actor 1: What?

Actor 2: Sweetypie!! Come downstairs.

Actor 3: yes mom?

Actor 2: do you know what it means when someone believes in nothing?

Actor 3: Yeah, you mean like the man next store?

Actor 2: Precisely! How would you explain this belief?

Actor 3: dad doesn’t understand does he?

Actor 2: no…

Actor 3: Father, you can’t look at everything like it means exactly what it sounds like.

The belief in nothing doesn’t mean that you don’t believe in anything at all but that you believe
in the concept of nothing.

The concept of nothing being an emptiness, almost as if when your in the dark and unable to
see anything… but yet you have to look at it in a way that you see space where there literally is nothing,
or to see nothing… in darkness.

Actor 1: you and your mother confuse me, how can you see space where there is for a fact nothing. Or
even to be able to see nothing! It just can’t happen…

Actor 2: continue!

Actor 3: The belief in nothing is not related to any physical thing but yet the absence of all physical
things. Kind of like a belief that you don’t have anything to live for but not because, you are living in a
shadow of a brightened world. You believe that in the world, people live for things they hope for but
when you believe in nothing, all of that is gone but the nothingness left behind is what you live for or…
you choose to not live for…

(Women’s yell)

Actor 1: That sounded like the man next store’s daughter!

(Sirens coming)

Actor 3: It’s the man, something happened!

(Curtain)

Play Pause Cheer

Play, Pause, Cheer

[Three people sit on a chair watching a sports game. Fourth
person finds a remote on the ground.]

123: all are cheering very loudly being obnoxious
4: enters and finds mysterious remote. She looks at the
remote and wonders. She holds it and presses pause
123: all pause with arms in air, open mouths, in process of
standing up
4: presses play
123: resume cheering and sit back down. Focus on game, not
realizing any change
4: presses pause again
123: stop again, 1 has hands close to the mouth as if
eating, 2 and three are high fiving
4: presses play
123: resume watching the game
4: (now realizing how amusing this can be begins to press
pause/play very quickly)
123: stop and go very fast. Random freezing after cheering
and then going back to watching the game
4: finds the slow motion button
123: breathing heavily for a few moments, then when she
presses the button all their actions go into slow motion.
They sit slowly turning their heads from side to side to
each other. Slowly inching closer to the tv. High five on
occasion. Stand up, cheering, mouths open, clapping.
4: pulls up a chair, and watches for a while. Then realizes
she will put them back to normal, when remote breaks. She
tries hitting the remote and still doesn’t work. She
shrugs, and leaves.

End

Twas

Twas

[Man “I” on phone center stage]

911 [offstage] Hello, 911, how can I help you?

I: Help, help , I heard a clatter, and sprang to the window, tore open the shutters, threw up the sash

911: sir, calm down, what is the problem

I: There on the breast of the new fallen snow…

911: yes

I: The luster of midday, and what to my wandering eyes should appear

911: What appeared?

I: A miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer

911: Where are they now?

I: I…I don’t know…wait…I heard a sound on the roof…prancing, pawing, little hoofs

911: We’ll send help right away. Stay calm. You have nothing to dread.

I: My family, my children, nestled, snug in bed, ma in her kerchief, the stockings hung with care, please
hurry [hangs up].

[Santa enters]

Santa: Ho, ho, ho

I: Go away; dash back to where you came from; get your rapid coursers off my property; let me settle
my brain and go back to my long winter’s nap.

[Santa winks]

I: What are you up to, with your twinkling eyes, your merry dimples? [Santa chuckles] You think this is
some kind of jolly prank? I am not laughing.

[Santa takes out his pipe and makes as if to light it]

I: Don’t light that, just what I need, wreaths of smoke setting off the smoke alarm

[Santa takes out gifts from sack]

I: What are you unpacking from that peddler’s bundle on your back? Watch out, you’re getting ashes

[Santa finishes, puts finger to nose]

I: What kind of signal is that—laying your finger aside of your nose?

[Santa nods, but just as he does so a group of police officers blitz in through an imaginary door, grab
Santa, roughly throw him to the ground and handcuff him]

Cop 1: Don’t’ let him go up the chimney; that’s how the last one got away.

[Santa tries to say “Happy Christmas” but is cut off by a cop covering his mouth]

Cop 2: What? You think this is some kind of holiday?

[Head cop enters]

Head cop: Keep a tight grip on the old elf. He may be chubby and plump but he’s lively and quick too.
Somebody radio for the chopper; we need to get the reindeer down from the top of the porch and the
top of the wall.

I: Thank you so much, you are saints, you got here in the nick of time, would you like some cookies to
take with you, some sugarplums…perhaps this bowlful of jelly?

Test

Blah!