Okay, let me explain. In my high school College English class, one of the assignments was to write a play. Sound easy? Well, it's not. Especially when you have your own limited set of characters and plots to choose from. For some reason, my bipolar character FM Zynda was really on my mind so I decided...to write a play about him being shipped off to a mental institution. I would revisit FM and his manic-depression again in a short story for college called "Black & White." But unlike the serious tone of that, my play, The Pro, was meant to be all in good goofy fun. I was thinking along the lines of Crazy People (which is even mentioned at the end of this piece). I know, this item is entirely politically incorrect. But I'm mentally ill too so phhhbbttt.
Some little things to know. The title really has nothing to do with the play. I just wanted a cute "The ___" two-syllable title (inspired by The Ref, a movie I've never seen), and The Pro was the only thing that came to mind. I shoehorned a meaning for the title into the plot, but I just thought you should know, no, it really has no meaning. Most of the characters were created solely for this play and have never entered into any of my other writing, though I did rather enjoy some of them, particularly Hector, the paranoid schizophrenic, and Leonard, who seems to have no real disorder other than the fact that he can only ever say, "Pez." I did have thoughts of either using the characters in another story, or rewriting The Pro as a novel, but I never did. FM was my only "real" character who I used in my other fiction. In addition, although FM is a really weird, zany character, please don't view this play as being representative of his personality--I meant this entire thing to be way goofy and not at all like real life. My "real-life" FM would not likely be all goofy-fun in a mental institution. (He's a "rapid cycler," BTW, but I think that all throughout this play he's in a kind of hypomanic phase. What fun is a depressed person, right?)
The name of the character "Dr. Leviticus" has NO meaning whatsoever. I just chose the word because it sounds evil and creepy--"Dr. Leviticus"! Doesn't it? It's in no way a comment on the Bible or Judaism or anything...I say this because the teacher, Mr. Cady, kind of ribbed me about the name being symbolic, when it wasn't. Dr. Conroy's name I took from...somewhere, I can't remember. I think I saw it written somewhere in school in a way that was funny so I used it as his surname. The character "Billy Lowman" was just a name I THOUGHT I had pulled out of thin air...until Mr. Cady laughed at THAT, too...and I later on realized why. Not long before I wrote my play we had read part of Death Of A Salesman in which the main character is named...WILLY LOMAN! *gaak* Somehow I guess I'd subconsciously taken that name, modified it, and applied it to MY depressed character...and Mr. Cady thought I did so on purpose! Eegh. Well...if he wants to think I was paying homage to that play...
As I remember it, the class enjoyed this when it was read aloud (different students playing different parts--the authors of the plays couldn't take part in them). *whew* It was graded an A+...good times. I had many copies of this play printed out, as some were distributed to the students for reading, and one was loaned to my aunt to read as well; there were likely also various drafts of it, but I don't know if I kept those. The copy this is taken from is the "final draft" which was actually handed in to the teacher, so it has his writing on it, including the grade, final comments, and notations on the character page, listing who was to play which character. Corrections are minimal but I'll point out teacher's comments when they're present (and if I can even read them). This is printed out on continuous-feed paper from our old computer, clamped together at the top with a clip. It's dated May 1995, which places it in my senior year of high school--the very month I graduated, in fact, so this must have been our final project. Aw. Typed out by hand, so typos may be present.
Front, Characters, Settings, Synopsis, Costume, Stage Properties, Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9
[Note--the title and subtitles are all in a crazy font I no longer possess. In fact, fittingly, I think the font's name was "Crazy."]
by Rachel Lea H. [last name omitted]
4th Hour College English
May, 1995
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