HOPE
(to us) It was the third year of my sentence.
JEAN
We didn’t board her until tenth grade. We were best friends. I wanted her at home as long as possible.
HOPE
At least it was the last year.
JEAN
Great sports program. I played hockey and lacrosse. Hope...she tried, she did. And I drove up for all the games. Three hours to
see her play the last ninety seconds.
HOPE
I dropped hockey. I dropped lacrosse. Well, they dropped me. Who cares. And I started teaching myself throat singing. (HOPE
sings a somewhat nasal tone on one pitch.) HONNNNNNGGGGG. Did you hear two tones or one? Listen this time. (She
repeats the tone.) HOONNNNNNNGGGGGG. I know you can hear the main tone but if you listen you can hear an overtone, a
fifth higher, (She speaks this on pitch) up here. Listen.
(She sings the tone one more time. CAITELYNNE is there. She is sixteen, blonde, thin athletic looking.)
CAITELYNNE
What are you doing?
HOPE
Nothing.
CAITLELYNNE
Are you sick or something?
HOPE
No.
CAITELYNNE
Like the whole dorm can hear you.
HOPE
Sorry. It’s called throat singing. There’s these people in Asia and they do this thing called throat singing where you can like
sing two notes at the same time. Have you ever heard of it?
CAITELYNNE
No.
HOPE
Do you want to...do you want to try?
CAITELYNNE
Uh, not really.
HOPE
You’re Caitelynne, aren’t you?
CAITELYNNE
C-A-I-T-E-L-Y-N-N-E. Don’t forget the E’s!!
HOPE
OK. I...I won’t. Your Mom and my Mom are like friends.
CAITELYNNE
Cool.
HOPE
You’re in tenth?
CAITELYNNE
Uh huh.
HOPE
I came in tenth. It’s kind of hard because everybody’s already been here a year and -
CAITELYNNE
I like know everyone from lacrosse camp and stuff, so-
HOPE
Oh, sure. I’m Hope.
CAITELYNNE
Oh hey.
HOPE
Do you have Mr. Wagner for Bio?
CAITELYNNE
You mean Fagner? Yeah.
HOPE
So I actually think I might know you from Squibnocket.
CAITELYNNE
Really? Cool. OK, yeah, so I need to go, so could you like...?
HOPE
Sure.
CAITELYNNE
It was really great meeting you...
HOPE
Hope.
CAITELYNNE
Right. Bye! Feel better!
HOPE
Bye. (to us) They have these ribbons. The jocks? They give them to each other at the start of the season – hockey, lacrosse,
whatever. And they have their names on them in paint pen. Emily, Brittany, Caitelynne...And they pull back their hair in a pony
tail...and the ribbons...they dangle, very lightly, on the backs of their necks...
They’re bitches. That’s why I meet people online. People whose profiles are actually interesting. Like Chris.
(CHRIS is there.)
CHRIS
What the world sees of me is what I choose to show to the world.
Name: Christian Andre Reed
Age: 20
Status: Single
Hometown: Philadelphia
Body Type: 6’2” Athletic
Ethnicity: Black, African Descent
Sign: Virgo
Smoke: No
Drink: Yes
Children: Someday
Occupation: Student
Interests: Skateboarding,
Sneakers, Truth Seekers,
Nepal, Tibet, Geography, Photography, Pornography,
Barcelona, Arizona, Desdemona,
Brand New T-Shirts, Sea Squirts,
Hendrix, Scrabble, Boggle, Juggling, Mah-Jongg, Games of Chance,
Eastern Meditation, Western Civilization, Computer Generated Animation,
Erlenmeyer Flasks.
Quotation: What the world sees of me is what I choose to show to the world.
HOPE
He is so not like the bitches at Thwaite. Yo homes, what up?
CHRIS
Hey wassup biatch.
HOPE
(to us) Relax, it’s not a big deal; everybody posts stuff like hey biatch and fuck yo, man.
CHRIS
I am da shitt!
HOPE
I’m in da shitt! School totally SUX!!
(CAITELYNNE is there.)
CAITELYNNE
Name: Laxqueen.
Age: um, 22, yeah
Status: Looking!
Hometown: Baltimore, but the really nice part!
Body Type: you wish!
Ethnicity: Blonde
Sign: Parking for LAX players only!!
Smoke: ew, gross!
Drink: um....
Children: children are the future!!
Occupation: Professional Biatch and Boy-buster! PSYCH!! No, seriously - Student at THWAITE! Thwaite ROX!!
Interests: LAX! Hockey, Animals, Boys (same thing??)
Quotation: JOX ROCK!!!!
(CAITELYNNE is gone.)
HOPE
See?
CHRIS
Minerva is the goddess of wisdom. But are you yet wise to the ways of the world?
HOPE
Um....yeah.
CHRIS
Then you can figure your way out.
HOPE
Two hundred and fifty one days, nineteen hours to graduation.
CHRIS
Graduation is not your emancipation proclamation. Peace out, Minerva. Hit me up if ur evah up my way at Huntington, yo.
(CHRIS is gone. SAIKO is there.)
SAIKO
Hello Minerva.
HOPE
Hey, how’s life at Wardsley?
SAIKO
School is very hard. English is not good for me. Can not speak words in heart.
HOPE
That must suck.
SAIKO
They think I am dumb because I can not say much. But I can write more.
HOPE
You know your school and my school aren’t really all that far away from each other.
SAIKO
Do you have a picture?
HOPE
Would you like to read a haiku I wrote? Here:
Disapproving glares
Unconditional love? NO!
Don’t eat so much, Hope!
(SAIKO is gone.)
Saiko? Are you there? Whatever.
(JEAN and PETER are there.)
JEAN
And then? Then we get the first set of grades. (Looking at her Razorclam) Straight...Oh my God...Straight B’s!!!!! She can not go
where she wants to go with –
PETER
(on his Razorclam) She’s probably got a lot going on.
JEAN
(on her Razorclam) She has nothing going on!
HOPE
Name: Minerva.
School: Thwaite State Women’s Penitentiary.
JEAN
She’s got no activities, she doesn’t play sports –
HOPE
Interests: Throat singing. Goth Boys. 420. Cheese.
PETER
She’s probably spending a lot of time on applications. (His Razorclam beeps. He clicks and is gone.)
JEAN
And she still doesn’t have an essay!
HOPE
Quotation: I am da shitt!
JEAN
She’s online constantly – that’s all she does! I want you to call her advisor and find out what’s going on. Because I don’t see
her killing herself, Peter. I’d like to see her killing herself. At least a little. Peter? Peter!!
(JEAN is gone. SAIKO is there.)
SAIKO
Mist from a whisper
My lips part succulently
And there is wedding.
HOPE
Your English is getting better.
I do have a picture. Here.
(HOPE sends her picture.)
SAIKO
You are beautiful.
HOPE
No one has ever…
SAIKO
I would like to meet you, Minerva.
HOPE
I would like to meet you, too. But how?
SAIKO
Under the water
Scallops swim to each other
Shells open, they kiss.
HOPE
Your English is definitely getting better.
SAIKO
Tell me more about you.
HOPE
Like what?
SAIKO
How was growing up?
HOPE
Well, when I was little I was raised by a wonderful Jamaican woman, Olivia, who used to take me to this playground full of white
babies and brown women, but then she quit because she didn’t want to raise white women’s babies anymore and my mother
said,
JEAN
“There are worse things, Olivia.”
HOPE
But that didn’t scare Olivia into staying, and right after that there was the nanny scare and the day care scare and the
playground abduction scare and the overfeeding scare and the underfeeding scare and my mother quit her practice and
decided that it was OK to be a professional Mom. And that was where the rot set in. Tell me about your parents.
SAIKO
When I was very little my father was a horse
With a warm broad back, so broad
That to stay on I would have to kneel
And flair my feet
So that my toes would curl on his ribs
And glue me to his moist skin
And I would ride and he would carry me
And we would soar through clouds to stars
And when I had grown, a bit
When my legs were long enough to wrap around his back
So I no longer had to kneel
I no longer wished to ride
“Let us go for a ride,” he said
I did not want to go for a ride
I am too big for rides
“Let us go for a ride,” he said
“She is ill,” my father said
As my mother wept
“The child is ill”
And my mother, forced
To choose, chose him.
“You have shamed us” he said
You must not speak of this
We will send you to a place where
You will not speak of this
Where you can not speak
Where you do not know how
Minerva? Can I ask you a personal question?
HOPE
OK.
SAIKO
Have you ever kissed a girl?
HOPE
No.
SAIKO
Would you like to?
Minerva? Are you still there?
(SAIKO is gone. CAITELYNNE is there.)
CAITELYNNE
How’s your throat singing?
HOPE
It’s...I don’t know.
CAITELYNNE
Well let me hear.
HOPE
I thought –
CAITELYNNE
No, I really want to hear.
HOPE
You do?
CAITELYNNE
Yes!
HOPE
Why?
CAITELYNNE
‘Cause it’s, like, cool.
HOPE
It is? No, it’s not.
CAITELYNNE
Whatever.
HOPE
I just...your profile...it’s all, like, lacrosse, and boys and...
CAITELYNNE
You looked me up?
HOPE
Well, I mean I just looked up people at Thwaite.
CAITELYNNE
It’s just something to have up there. You have to post something, right?
HOPE
So you don’t like lacrosse and boys?
CAITELYNNE
I just mean there’s things you post and things you don’t post, you know? Yours has some interesting stuff on it, too.
HOPE
You looked me up?
CAITELYNNE
Your name is Minerva? And you’re twenty-one, and your school is the Thwaite State Women’s Penitentiary, and your occupation
is, what was it?
HOPE
Oh, that... “Lunch Lady at the Hospital for Ruptured Children.”
CAITELYNNE
So funny! And your interests are music, throat singing, Goth boys, 420, and cheese.
HOPE
You like memorized it.
CAITELYNNE
Oh, and your haikus are really great.
HOPE
Thanks.
CAITELYNNE
I love writing haikus too.
HOPE
You do?
CAITELYNNE
Uh huh. So how come you don’t have your picture on yours?
HOPE
I don’t know.
CAITELYNNE
You should post it. So...can I hear your throat singing again?
HOPE
You’re sure?
CAITELYNNE
Of course I am!
HOPE
OK... See the thing is, you have to get your sinus cavity to resonate, to make the second tone?
CAITELYNNE
Uh huh.
HOPE
That’s why it sounds kind of weird, kind of nasal. It’s supposed to produce an overtone, but you can’t drown it out with your
normal voice. That’s why they say you’ve got to close off your throat with your tongue...
CAITELYNNE
Just do it!
HOPE
OK. (She sings the tone.)
CAITELYNNE
Cool!
HOPE
Did you hear an overtone?
CAITELYNNE
Oh my God! I don’t know what that is exactly.
HOPE
A note a fifth higher. (She speaks on pitch.) Up here? Did you hear something up here?
CAITELYNNE
Um, I’m not really sure...
HOPE
Do you want to try?
CAITELYNNE
Try?
HOPE
I could show you how.
CAITELYNNE
Oh my God!
HOPE
Forget it then.
CAITELYNNE
No, wait. Come on. I want to.
HOPE
Really?
CAITELYNNE
Really.
HOPE
OK, just sing this pitch.
(She sings a note, CAITELYNNE sings it, too, and continues)
And now move your tongue back in your throat as far as you can until it just covers up your throat.
(Some girls’ giggles are heard in the background)
What was that?
CAITELYNNE
What was what?
HOPE
I thought I heard something.
CAITELYNNE
Maybe it’s the undertone!
HOPE
Overtone.
CAITELYNNE
Whatever. You try it again.
HOPE
Um...no, it’s probably bothering other people. I don’t...
CAITELYNNE
Come on! Oh, please! Let’s do it together! Maybe if we both do it together we’ll hear the overtone.
HOPE
Well, maybe. OK.
(They both sing the tone. More suppressed giggles.)
What’s going on?
CAITELYNNE
What do you mean?
(CAITELYNNE touches HOPE.)
HOPE
Nothing. I should probably get back to studying.
CAITELYNNE
Hope, there’s something I really really really want to tell you.
HOPE
Yeah.
CAITELYNNE
Oh my God, this is like...
HOPE
What?
CAITELYNNE
Hope, you are such a sweet girl...Hope, oh God, I can’t believe...
HOPE
What?
CAITELYNNE
Hope, I really like you.
HOPE
Thanks.
CAITELYNNE
No, I mean, I like you.
HOPE
Really?
CAITELYNNE
Uh huh.
HOPE
I like you, too.
(They look at each other for a moment. CAITELYNNE leans in slightly. HOPE leans in as well, then leans in more to kiss
CAITELYNNE. As she does, CAITELYNNE quickly backs off and screams.)
CAITELYNNE
Oh my God, oh my God!
(She exits. As she runs off, squeals and screams are heard. “PSYCH!! PSYCH!! Jocks rock! Jocks rock!!” A door slams. JEAN is
there.)
JEAN
(to us) Thwaite is, in many respects, the perfect school.
HOPE
Oh my God.
JEAN
The academics, the sports -
HOPE
Oh my God.
JEAN
The traditions –
HOPE
It was a “psych”...her initiation into their fucking bitch club.
JEAN
Everyone thinks Thwaite, that just going to Thwaite, is a ticket to a great college –
The following fifteen page sample occurs early in Act One.
To receive a copy of the entire script, please email me at richespey "at" gmail.com