Scene 1: Family room
Sophie and Gemma-Rose are sitting together at a computer, reading
Sue enters the room
Sophie: (looking excited) Mum, look at this! Can I do this… please?
Sue looks over Sophie’s shoulder
Sue: Script Frenzy?
Sophie: Yes, it’s another writing month like NaNoWriMo. This time we have one month to write a script.
Sue: (reading from the computer screen) “Script Frenzy is an international writing event in which participants attempt the creatively daring feat of writing an entire script in the month of April. For 30 days, you get to let your imagination take over and create the film, TV show, play, or graphic novel of your dreams!”
Sophie: Can I register please?
Gemma-Rose: Me too!
Sue: What will you write?
Sophie: I want to write a play… like Shakespeare.
Gemma-Rose: Me too!
Sophie: Mine will be a romance.
Gemma-Rose: I’m going to write a tragedy. Everyone will die just like in Hamlet… I’ll have to think of some good ways of dying.
Sophie: Perhaps you’d better let one person live. You’ll need someone to read the epilogue.
Gemma-Rose: If you write a romance like Romeo and Juliet, you can have some of your characters die too.
Sophie: I’m going to write my play the Shakespeare way without stage directions.
Sue: Then you’ll have to make sure the directions are obvious from the words.
Imogen and Charlotte enter the room
Sue: Are you going to do Script Frenzy too?
Imogen: Oh yes! Charlotte and I are going to write a musical.
Charlotte: We’re going to write a Gilbert and Sullivan.
Sue: Will your musical have a magic lozenge in it?
Imogen: (looking delighted with this suggestion) It might do. It hasn’t been done yet even though Gilbert kept trying to put a magic lozenge into each of his operettas. Sullivan always protested. He didn’t like the idea.
Sue: Will you compose music to go with your play?
Imogen: I might. I’ll write the words first and then see about the music.
Charlotte: We can be writing buddies and work together. I’m going to work on the play and Imogen is going to write the songs.
Sue: So you’ll be Gilbert and Immy will be Sullivan.
Imogen and Charlotte smile
Scene 2: Lounge room, later the same day.
Andy: Where are the girls?
Sue: They’re all doing Script Frenzy research.
Andy: Script Frenzy?
Sue: They’re all going to write a script for a play or a musical during April, more NaNoWriMo…
Gemma-Rose appears
Gemma-Rose: I’m making a script writing workbook. I’m writing notes for my play and I need some good names for my characters. I want them to be unusual.
Sue: Athanasius?
Gemma-Rose: (looking very pleased) Perfect! How do you spell it?
Andy opens his computer
Sue: What are you doing?
Andy: Preparing tomorrow’s lessons for my school students. I need some ideas for English.
Sue: Don’t you wish you could do Script Frenzy with your class?
Andy smiles at the idea
Sue: (trying not to look smug and not succeeding) I don’t need to prepare any lessons. My students have sorted out everything for themselves. They will be doing heaps of English next month and I didn’t need to organise a thing.
Andy: All right! All right! Don’t rub it in. You’ve got it easy. If you were teaching my students…
Imogen appears
Imogen: Mum, do you want to do Script Frenzy with us? You only have to write 100 pages of script in 30 days.
Sue: I don’t know if I’m interested in script writing.
Sue looks thoughtful for a few seconds
Sue: I know what I’ll do. I’ll write my next blog post as a script. I can then say I tried scriptwriting.
Sue turns on her computer and starts writing
Later… reading what she’s written
Sue: I’m hopeless at script writing. This is such a boring script (and post). Would a bottle of poison, a few rapiers, some unusually named characters and a song liven it up? A few deaths and an epilogue? A romance?…
… Perhaps I should do Script Frenzy after all. I might learn something.
Sue follows the link to the Script Frenzy website
Sue: (thinking) This could be fun!
