Research

I thought this was an interesting link, a documentary about the importance of playing.

http://www.wfum.org/childrenplay/index.html

In which we observe, consume, and observe again

Narrator: Please fill out a name tag and affix it to your shirt. Let me introduce you to our subjects. This is John and this is Laverne. They've worked in the same company for a year and have never met. We join them now at an office holiday party. Help yourself to some saltines. Try to count the number of times John seems unable to speak.

(John fills his cup with punch. Laverne closes in and immediately knocks over his punch, mostly on his pants)

Laverne: Oh my God, I'm so sorry!

John: Ahh-

Laverne: I am such a klutz! I knock stuff over all the time! I'm so sorry, I'll pay for your dry cleaning! Let me get you a towel-

John: Actually-

(Laverne knocks over punch bowl)

Laverne: I told you! Shit-zu! Oh no! I'm so sorry!

Narrator: Time. Alright, pens down. Has everyone finished their tabulation? Now fold your tab sheet and slide it not into the blue envelope, but into the gray envelope and hand your envelope to the nearest proctor. Ok, now everyone try and count the number of times Lawrence has blinked in the same period of elapsed time.

(TV picture comes up. Lawrence Welk and his orchestra are playing)

Stagehand #1: Did you read the contract before you set up the chairs?

Stagehand #2: Of course. I made sure that Lawrence's mom is in the front row. Now look how nervous he is up there. He can't play worth shit now!

Narrator: If correctly comparing those numbers on the sorrow index, you will be able to tell the level of despondency between those two men. Now for the Jello-shots.

In which opposites and supposed crimes are perpetrated

(Hey, it's paul,  waddaya think of this?)

(Audience is introduced to room or area strewn with a range of articles and a notepad of paper.)

Narrator:  Look at this mess... can't stand a mess.  You know what they say... nature abhors a vacuum.  We'd better do something about this.  Take all these objects and arrange them into two piles, but not randomly.  This mess needs order.  Choose a reason... such as... all the things with wheels go in one pile , while all things without wheels go in another.  When you are done, write the reason on that blank paper over there and then tear your sheet of paper off the pad and turn your piece of paper upside down.

(dialogue) 

Kim: When I grow up I'm never cleaning my room again!

Mom:  Well, then everyone is going to think you're a pig.  They'll call you "pig pig pig girl" and ask me how I ever could've raised you.

Kim:  I'd rather be a pig girl than a repressed WASP like you!  

Mom:  At least I HAVE something TO repress missy!  Not like you.

Narrator:  MY, my, my.  You are very creative and also fast.  Is there another way these could've been grouped?  Maybe, but your way is clearly the best.  Very nice job.  Now take the piece of paper you used before and draw your favorite animal on the unused side of the paper.  

Dad:  What the hell is going on here!  What are these piles for?  What'n the hell is wrong with you!

Mike:  I dunno.

Dad:  Thats your answer for everything, isn't it!

Mike:  Whatever.

Dad:  I'll give you "whatever" you little son of a bitch!

Narrator: Ok now.  Is you're animal complete?  Put those finishing touches on it now.  Ooooh, very good.  Hey, that's my favorite animal too.  So now I want you to choose which pile you would put your animal in using those same parameters you used before.  Even if your animal does not fit, you must choose a pile.  All done?  Very good.  Now I want you to mess up your piles!  Go ahead, it's alright.  Excellent!  Now create a mess of the  piles as if this were the scene of a terrible crime.  YES!  OH MY GOD!  MORE MESS  YESSSSS!  Quick, here come the cops!  Grab the animal that you drew and quickly post it near the door by the others!  Animal side up!  QUICK!  YOU"D BETTER HURRY!  Good!  Now you'd better leave.  Let's pretend like this never happened.               

In Which A Joust Will Take Place

Set Up: Two members of the audience will be ushered into a room (or designated area) and positioned at opposite ends. **Alternatively, the entire audience will be split evenly and positioned at opposite ends in the same fashion.** Actors on the sidelines will applaud and make a low ruckus upon their entry with other specific instructions as needed.

Context: Audio fades in from headphones and actors, as in fanfare, noise of live audience/rustling/outdoors

Narrator1: Well-well-well, look who finally decided to join us, eh? "Joust" in time, you might say, am I right? Yeah yeah, I know, I used that one last week, but it's still a killer line, so don't judge me okay, knocks 'em dead every time--almost as much as "match over"! You know what I mean? Dead on the ground? Did you follow that one? No? I'll scratch it. Gone. Don't have to tell me twice. <> Seem a bit distracted, don't you? No helmet today, eh? And lacking a shield too. Fair enough. Shows confidence, I'd say. Assuredness. I might suggest finding your lance, though. There's confidence and then there's delirium, and in this case--ah, there's the Kensington Killer! Look at that! What a...runt! Much shorter than imagined. More girly, too. Got crooked eyes, I think. Probably rides sideways, mumbles when eating pig. Loud mumbles, not normal. Not like, "Ah, now that's good pig!" More like, "Having trouble with the pig--got crooked eyes."

Audio: louder fanfare, screaming for Kensington Killer

Narrator1 (continued): Time to go! See you after the match, eh? Unless you die--unlikely, though!

Narrator2: Well good God, why not just go naked? You could cup your extras, show your teeth, and hope he lays down. Jesus. Jousters and jesters aren't that far off, are they? Alright, well, enough patting your back, time to face up! Not with ME, with the challenger! Square up now! Look'em in the face, mate! You're acting like this is your first joust! Two blokes made the trip all the way from Coventry to see you beat up on the Kensington Killer and you're ambling around like a drunk midget. Square up, back up, give yourself some sodding room. Look, see, watch the Kensington Killer, do what he does. Now up you go, on your horse. <>

Audio: loud boos, hisses, etc.

Narrator2: Were you just at the pub? Where's your sodding horse? You drunk, mate? Christ, I should've been a blacksmith. Well, go on with it anyway! At least preTEND like you're on a horse carrying a deadly weapon with murderous intent and sprint down the way toward the Kensington Killer!

Audio: chanting "We want a joust! We want a joust!"

Narrator2 (continued): Oh, you need convincing now? Want to suck on mommy's teet? Well don't look at me. I wouldn't do it either. That bloke's killed more men then a knee-high skirt.

Action: Actors hand each audience member an unsharpened pencil, urges them into prejoust formation

Narrator2: Time's up! Can't help you know! You're...on...your...owwwwwwwwn...!

Action: All the actors now chant and move in slow motion, as the audience members (hopefully!) realize they must slowly joust each other, with the natural end (i.e., "winner" and "loser") being decided by them alone. At the joust's conclusion, the crowd erupts in (real time) applause and cheers.

in which we confirm our outsider status

Set up: the audience is seated in a ball pit and told to arrange the balls in to piles according to color.


When I was in 1st grade, I became fascinated with dinosaurs. I had all the books, knew all the names. The idea that something that huge used to walk around, right where I lived, was amazing to me. And also the fact that they had lived for millions of years and now there were none. How could that be? What could have killed them all? I had to know.

I became obsessed with the idea of time travel. I rode the bus to school everyday, and my seatmate was named Chris Walker. We were both in the same class and quickly became best buddies. Every morning on the way to school, we would speak in robotic voices and consult the imaginary computers attached to the back of the seat in front of us. "What do you want me to do, Computer?", we would ask. We would get our time traveling assignments from the computer, to use at recess. The assignments would vary, but were always pretty much the same: travel back in time and save the dinosaurs.

After receiving our assignment, it would be time to go to school and learn real things. Yeah yeah blah blah adding and subtracting ABC... Time for recess! Chris and I would race to our time machines, which were cleverly disguised. Mine looked a giant blue whale with a spring sticking conspicuously out of its solar plexus. Chris's looked like a yellow tawny lion, also perched on a spring. Of course, this is only how they appeared to the casual onlooker. We knew the real truth, these were our time traveling mounts, destined to take us back in time, if only we could get them going fast enough. I can still feel the wind on my face and hear the squeak of the springs as we went faster, faster, faster... The landscape would start to blur and we could hear a roaring in our ears... was that just the blood pounding or was it the prehistoric cry of a pterodactyl?

Finally, we would arrive in the land before time. There was swamp and vines everywhere, the humidity was oppressive. The landscape was amazing and begged to be explored, but we had to be very careful. Dinosaurs are very unpredictable and could attack at any time. We couldn't stray very far from our time machines, or we could risk being discovered and eaten. However, we still had our assignments to complete. Some times the computer would have told us to find important rubies or samples of tar, but usually we had to try and find a dinosaur egg. This was the most dangerous mission of all. Dinosaur mothers are very protective. My very favorite dinosaur was the brontosaurus, so obviously their eggs were the most coveted. Years later I heard that there actually was never a brontosaurus, that it had simply never existed. Well, I am here to tell you folks, that is false. I've seen one, I know.

Chris's missions were usually even more daring and involved trying to get the tooth of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. We had some very close shaves, sometimes being able to feel the breath of the giant beast on our backs before we leapt to our time machines, throwing our bodies back and forth to gain enough momentum to travel forward to our present time. Faster, faster, faster we went, the wind again in our ears, the bugs in our teeth. We raced against time and impending doom to arrive safely back to the playground. Everyone else around us was so clueless, they had no idea about the adventure we'd just had.

The afternoons were spent on learning social studies and feeding the class fish and the bus ride home was devoted to perfecting our rendition of Billy Idol's "Mony Mony." But I knew that the next morning would bring another fresh adventure.

In which we fill our mouth

Horan

In which we fill our mouth

_______________________________________________________________

Setup:

A bowl filled with Hershey Kisses. Narrator says: “Do you see that bowl of Hershey's Kisses? Go stand in front of it and unwrap one…Put it in your mouth but don’t bite down. Take as many as you like. Unwrap them. Put them in your mouth. But don’t bite down or swallow until the story is over.”

Content:

My kid sister would put game pieces in her mouth. She preferred the ones from the Board game “Sorry.” I believe she liked how it felt. Obviously now I find it funny, but as a child it was frustrating, like someone taking bites of your sandwich when you aren’t looking. When we would take our eyes off the board for a moment half the pieces would disappear. We would just take one look at my sister and see part of a little metal boot sticking out of her mouth. I don’t think she ever ate them, but I’m not sure where they all went. Some of the games we had to give up completely. We didn’t have enough pies to make Trivia Pursuit worth keeping. Perhaps she spat them all out in a little box she kept under the bed.

In which we play ghost tag

Collaborative

In which we play ghost tag

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Setup: A room full of TVs with the lights off. They are white static, but occaionally flash images. The narrator instructs the listeners to change the chanels with a remote. We see clips of “Knight Ridder” and “Mission Impossible.” The audience is asked to put on disguises. And actor taps the shoulder of the audience member, but upon seeing the disguise shakes his head sadly and moves on.

Contents:

I guess lots of kids play with imaginary friends. I don’t remember ever doing it. I’m sure it wasn’t from lack of imagination. I just spent my time with ghosts. I still do. There are some here now.

Ghosts make excellent playmates. Sometimes they are tempted to cheat at hide and seak. Tag is really the best game to play with ghosts. We liked freeze tag the best, but the ghosts would always name shows that had been off the air for years. And they hadn’t heard of the shows I watched – because they had died. We got in an argument so bad one day, that we could never play again. Bill- that’s what he claimed to be his name, although I found it vauge and suspicious- Bill insisted that Knight Ridder was a ridiculous premise, and nothing even remotely similar to that could ever occur in any imagined future of this world.

I called him narrow-minded.

He said that ghosts like shows where people wear disguises. Bill said he was a huge fan of mission impossible. I asked him if he was talking about the Tom Cruise movies, but he hadn’t seen them – because he died. He had meant the TV show. When I told him I didn’t realize it was a TV show first, he got really offended and didn’t talk to me for a whole month.

One day for his birthday I decided to surprise him for his birthday and I wore fake mustache and glasses. He didn’t recognize me. He never did again.

In which the chains rattle

Collaborative

In which the chains rattle

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Setup:

The audience member is asked to sit in a ball pit or bean bag chairs. Then they are asked to look at stars projected onto a ceiling. Sound: wind.

Content:

They cut down the goal posts with a chain saw.

They took out the walls on the sandbox but left the dirt behind.

They unscrewed the swing seats but left the chains.

For weeks after sand blew across the field, rattling chains with no good use.

They detatched the iron ducks, zebras and purple hippos from their stout spring bases,

Leaving coiled silos gaping their mouths to the heavens.

This used to be a place where children could play

and lovers could remember what it was like to be a child.

Now it’s like the badlands.

There is no life, no movement.

I still return though.

Sometimes I imagine that this old playground is like the la-brea-ya tar pits,

And all the slides and swings and see-saws sank into the earth.

Just like my childhood has sunk within me.

Over there they opened a mini-mart.

Not even a national chain.

That’s how you know a nieghborhood is rotten.

This wasteland of a park is surrounded by second rate crummy retail.

The kind with bars on the windows.

In which we learn that extinction is possible

Collaborative

In which we learn that extinction is possible

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Setup: The narrator says “Greeting children of all ages. See what looks like a card board box. It’s a time machine. Let’s take it for a spin why don’t we. Climb inside and get comfy. (When a person gets inside the box. Actors act like donosaurs outside.)

Contents:

Dinosaurs are my favorite animal.

Green is my favorite color.

Whenever I play dinosaurs I am always a stegasaurus.

Always.

You can go ahead and be the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

You roar better than me anyway. It’s really scary, especially when you make your hands all claw-y. When you do that I just know you’re going to rip the flesh from my bones. T-Rex is a preditor.

Now I’ll stand over here and pretend to eat ferns. I love ferns! They’re green!

You do the small arms T-Rex thing and try to sneak up on me.

Ooh! And you! Be a pterodactyl and swoop in and scare us off!

And Ricky, you be the meteor who plummets to earth and kills us.

Yes, you have to.

Well, somebody has to be the meteor. You can’t play Dinosaurs without a meteor. Then it would just go on forever. Don’t make me be the meteor. I’ll be so big and green that I will kill you for real. I will kill you!