SAMPLE SCENES from SHORTY'S GHOST Note - it is possible to gender-switch the roles. In the initial staging, "Tim" and "Rich" became "Tena" and "Maggie" while "Pastor Bart" became "Pastor Barb." --------- SCENE 2. Moi and Finnegan brief Tim and Patience about the spectre they think they saw after their car broke down while joy-riding in the country. TIM: And you left the car? PAYSH: Did you at least take the keys? Finnegan and Moi scowl at her. TIM: Come on, you two. There's no such thing as a ghost! MOI: We SAW it, Tim. We saw it! PAYSH: What did your folks say? FINNEGAN: They understand how scary it could have been but they're sure there's nothing to worry about. PAYSH: I meant about the drag-racing. FINNEGAN: There I have something to worry about. TIM: My dad was madder about the ghost talk! It took my folks hours to convince Julie there are no ghosts. MOI: Then how do you explain what we saw, Tim? TIM: Maybe it was something exterterrestial. An alien or something. MOI: Oh, that helps. I'm nowhere near as afraid of abduction as I am of ghosts. Julie enters. JULIE: There are no ghosts. MOI: Julie, that's just something your parents say to get you to go to sleep so they can... TIM clamps his hand over Moi's mouth. TIM (to Moi): Do you MIND? JULIE: Be together? Shocked reaction. TIM switches to covering Julie's mouth. JULIE: (brushing hand away): There IS "togetherness." But there are no ghosts. She struts off. MOI: What else does she know about... "togetherness?" JULIE (yelling from off-stage): It's for married people. MOI: I knew that! Rich enters. RICH: You will NOT believe what I found out about your burned out property and its swamp ghost. Before the fire, there was a cabin on that property. It belonged to a Charlotte Lysedale. Shorty, they called her. PAYSH: So where is she? RICH: Gone MOI: Gone where? RICH: Missing. Presumed murdered. FINNEGAN: Whoa! RICH: She spent Friday, June 14, 1985 visiting her friends here in Pope County. Then she returned to her home in Pine River to close a business deal and was never seen again. She became the first person in Minnesota for whom there was a murder trial without a body. This is from the Grand Rapids Herald-Review, Sunday, February 14, 1988. "A local man is charged with the murder of Charlotte Irene Lysdale, following her disappearance from her residence in Pine River in June 1985. He also faces a number of charges dealing with theft and swindle." TIM: What kind of theft and swindle? RICH: Shorty was in the process of selling some property on Lower Hay Lake to him. The remaining payments were $68,000. He claims Shorty agreed to accept $10,000 cash for the deed. FINNEGAN: Why would she do that? RICH: In his closing arguments the prosecuting attorney said that the month before Shorty disappeared, the accused signed a purchase agreement to buy a commercial property that would require a $65,000 payment on August 1st. And he listed Shorty's property for sale. FINNEGAN: How could he do that if he didn't own it yet? PAYSH: All he'd need would be the deed. LOOOOONNNNNGGGG pause while they realize the unintended double-meaning of Paysh's statement. FINNEGAN: If that was a pun, it wasn't funny. TIM: Okay, so, he bumped off an old lady and he's rotting in Stillwater. Why would her ghost haunt her old swamp? RICH: He got off. MOI (with an Elayne shove): GET OUT!!!!! RICH: The observers seem to think he had a sharp lawyer while the state's attorneys were young and nervous. FINNEGAN: Young and nervous. That's us, the other night. SCENE 4 After unsuccessfully staking out the swamp for another peek at the ghost, the kids decide to consult their pastor on the matter. MOI: Pastor Bart, are there ghosts? BART: Are you afraid of ghosts? The question surprises them and they look at each other. FINNEGAN: Shouldn't we be? BART: Let me tell you a story. (the kids get comfortable, and maybe so does he) It's the plot of a popular movie. When I'm done, I'm going to ask you to name the movie. But don't say a word until I finish. Once upon a time there was a youth. This youth did not live with its parents. This youth lived with an aunt and uncle on their farm. The youth was not happy on the farm but longed for far away places and adventures. One day the youth left the farm. But while the youth was away, word came of trouble at home. The youth returned only to find that it was too late to help. And the forces of destruction that had visited the farm whisked the youth away to another world of danger and adventure. In this other world, the youth met a being aligned with the forces of good. This being gave the youth an object of power aligned with that force and sent the youth on a quest. Along the way, the youth made friends personifying the noble traits of courage, wisdom and devotion. In the end, the youth discovered that the force of power needed to accomplish the mission was within the entire time. Okay, go. All five kids speak at the same time. TIM, MOI, FINNEGAN: Star Wars! RICH, PAYSH: The Wizard of Oz! They stare at each other, bewildered by the others' guess. Then they begin to think, making "figuring" and "counting" gestures. BART: Well? Which is it? PAYSH: Three friends. Courage, brains, heart. The scarecrow, the tin man, the lion. FINNEGAN: Leia is smart, Han is brave, Chewbacca and R2D2 are devoted. TIM: And the force? And the light sabre? RICH: That's the ruby slippers and "There's no place like home." PAYSH (imitating Dorothy) : Auntie Em! Uncle Henry! MOI: Well, Luke lived with an aunt and uncle on their farm, too. BART: I spoke for several minutes and listed dozens of plot points. Frank Baum supposedly wrote THE WIZARD OF OZ to protest the conversion from the gold standard and George Lucas claims he got the idea for Star Wars from a Japanese fable. How could two movies made 40 years apart drawn from the cultures of two different hemispheres be that similar? (Pause) Because they're both true stories and they happen to every single person on the planet. (The kids react, stunned, and shift to more attentive positions) Youth is the time that we discover that there truly are forces of good and evil at war in the universe. And we have to choose a side. That's why Dorothy and Luke don't live with their parents. Their estrangement shows that eventually every person must make a choice for him- or herself. Your parents can't make the choice for you, or force you to be on a certain side. And you can't avoid making the choice. There's a default side you get automatically assigned to if you don't choose the other one. That's why kids your age are so interested in ESP and extra-terrestials and top secret government conspiracies. You're searching for tools or alliances of empowerment to strengthen you for the battle. But it's such a scary thought, good and evil fighting for supremacy in the universe and having to choose a side, that people push the thought aside and insist that it's kid stuff. They insist that it's not reality...reality is made up of jobs and mortgages and making ends meet. They say the other stuff is all fantasy. Well, it's not fantasy, and it's a lot scarier than jobs and mortgages and making ends meet. The kids think for a moment. BART: You know where I learned that exercise? TIM: Confirmation class? BART: Developmental psychology.